Edinburgh to complete his education at Court. He thus, in early
life, acquired a knowledge of legal principles and practice of great
service and value to him in after life, not only in the management
of his own affairs, but in aiding his friends and countrymen in
their peculiar difficulties by his counsel and guidance, and thus
he secured such universal esteem and confidence as seldom fell
to the lot of a Highland chief in that rude and unruly age. The
standard of education necessary at Court in those days must have
been very different from that required in ours, for we find that,
with all his opportunities, John of Killin could not write his own
name. To a bond in favour of the Earl of Huntly he subscribes,
"Jhone M'Kenzie of Kyntaill, with my hand on the pen led by Master
William Gordone, Notar."

Referring to the power of the House of Kintail at this period, and
to the rapid advance made by the family under Alexander and his
successors, we quote the following from a modern MS. history of the
family by the late Captain John Matheson of Bennetsfield: "We must
observe here the rapid advance which the family of Kintail made on
every side. The turbulent Macdonalds, crushed by the affair of Park,
Munro, sustained by his own clan, and the neighbouring vassals of
Ross humbled at their own door, when a century had not yet passed
since the name of Mackenzie had become familiar to their ears; and it
is gratifying to trace all this to the wise policy of the first James
and his successors. The judicious education of Alastair Ionraic, and
consequent cultivation of those habits which, by identifying the
people with the monarch through the laws, render a nation securely
great, is equally discernible in John of Killin and his posterity.
The successors of the Earls of Ross were turbulent and tenacious of
their rights, but they were irreclaimable. The youthful Lord of the