Caithness Hendersons

The Henderson Caithness Branch (Highlanders)

Caithness is the northern-most county of Scotland, and was for many centuries a Norse colony under the rule of the Norwegian crown. The Norse royalty established an Earldom in the island of Orkney, just north of Caithness, as the seat of their power in northern Scotland. The Orkney Jarls created a peaceful, stable territory that fostered many great sea-faring Norse families’ dominion in northern Scotland.

One such family was the Gunns, who were descendants of Sweyn Asleifsson, the “ultimate viking.” The Gunn family takes their name from Gunni, his grandson who established himself as the power broker for the Norwegian Earl (Jarl) in northern Scotland. Through marriage, conquest and loyal service, the Gunn family gained power, influence and lands across Caithness and what would become Sutherland.

The Scottish crown eventually consolidated the lands of the north when King James III married Margaret, the daughter of Christian I of Denmark in 1468. Her dowry was the lands of Caithness, Orkney and Shetland. To implement the new Scottish king’s will in the north, James chose his Norman cousins, the Sinclairs, to take up the role of “Earl of Caithness and Orkney.” The Sinclairs relied on the Gunns to implement their rule. The Gunns became the Crowners of the Earl of Caithness (Crowner was the title for the enforcer and sheriff).

The Gunn-Keith Feud

By the mid 1400s, the Keiths began to openly challenge the Gunns for supremacy in Caithness and Sutherland. The wound that opened a 500 year feud was the kidnapping of the beautiful Helen, daughter of Lachlan Gunn of Braemore. Helen was to be married to a local noble but on the eve of her wedding, Dugald Keith surrounded the great hall at Braemore and killed most of the wedding party. Helen was taken captive to Ackergill Castle. Despondent and unwilling to surrender herself, Helen threw herself from the summit of the tower.

Over the decades, the bloodshed continued. The battles of Tannach Moor (1426), Mammistanes, and Dirlot (1464) saw heavy losses on both sides. In 1478, George Gunn, who held the title of “Crowner,” offered a peace summit at the chapel of St. Tears on the coast north of Wick. Both clans agreed to come with “twelve horse.” George Gunn arrived first with twelve men and entered the chapel to pray.

The Keith party arrived with two men astride each horse and proceeded to slaughter every Gunn inside the chapel. Several of the Crowner’s sons escaped, leaving their father and kinsmen butchered at the altar. The Keiths took the chief’s armour, weapons and the enormous brooch that he wore as a badge of office.

Henry Gunn’s Vengeance and the Birth of Clan Henderson

Beaten and bloodied but thirsty for vengeance, the chief’s 3rd son, Henry, roused a few men still fit to fight and approached Dirlot that very night. The Gunns found the Keiths in full celebration. Henry drew back on his bow and let fly an arrow which found its mark in the throat of the chief of Clan Keith. As he did so, he shouted in Gaelic: “Iomcharagnn Guinach gu Cadhaich” — “A Gunn’s compliments to a Keith.”

Henry attempted to assume the chieftain’s role, but George Gunn’s oldest surviving son, Hamish (James), claimed ownership over the titles as his birthright. Henry relented and decided to remove himself and his kin from the Gunns, never again to take that name. When he departed, he took with him his children, their families, and his closest friends and kinsmen. They dispersed across Caithness and Sutherland. This “broken” branch of the Gunns became the Hendersons (Henry’s Sons) of Caithness.

The Henderson tartan is nearly identical to the Gunn tartan but without the red line — a testament to this shared ancestry. In the early 1700s, many Caithness Hendersons emigrated to Pictou, Nova Scotia, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the English colonies in Virginia, Georgia and the Carolinas. The Highland Clearances drove further waves of emigration as landowners replaced tenant farmers with sheep.