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MACKENZIE, Kenneth (1717-61), of Seaforth.
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Family and Education
b. Nov. 1717, 1st s. of William, 5th Earl of Seaforth [S] (attainted 1716), by Mary, da. and h. of Nicholas Kennett of Coxhoe, co. Dur. educ. partly in France under Jesuits. m. 11 Sept. 1741, Lady Mary Stewart (d.1751), da. of Alexander, 6th Earl of Galloway [S], niece of George, 9th Earl Marischal [S], 1s. 6da. suc. fa. 8 Jan. 1740.
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Biography
Mackenzie, commonly known as Lord Fortrose, was the son of a Roman Catholic Jacobite, who had forfeited his estates and title for taking part in the Fifteen rebellion, was pardoned in 1726, and died in 1740. In 1741 a kinswoman wrote:
Lord Fortrose has given up his religion, his king, and country at once and is a great courtier, as no doubt you’ll know by his election affairs; what Ross folks may think of this I know not.1
Placing his considerable influence in Ross-shire, Inverness-shire and Inverness Burghs at the disposal of the Government, he was brought into Parliament with the support of Lord Ilay, Walpole’s electoral manager in Scotland,2 and allowed to buy back the forfeited Seaforth estates for £25,000.3
Put down as ‘Pelham’ in the Cockpit list of October 1742, he voted with the Government on the Hanoverians in December of that year and in 1744, but was absent from the division on them in 1746, when he was classed as Old Whig. During the Forty-five he took an active part against the rebels, raising two independent companies from his clan, though his cousin, George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, joined the rising.4 From 1747 he was returned for his county, attaching himself to the Pelhams rather than Ilay, now Duke of Argyll, as more likely to secure the restoration of the title. He died without having achieved this, 18 Oct. 1761.
