A to Z Index:

Clan Keith

Clan KeithClan Motto

Veritas vincit
Truth conquers

Chief

THE RT. HON. THE EARL OF KINTORE
The Stables
Keith Hall, Inveruie
Aberdeenshire
AB5 0LD

Clan KeithAssociated Names

Austin, Dickison, Dickson, Dixon, Dixson, Falconer, Harvey, Haxton, Hervey, Hurrie, Hurry, Lumgair, Marshall, Urie, Urry

The History of the clan

A warrior of the Chatti slew the Danish General Camus at the Battle of Barrie in 1010, for which valour Malcolm II dipped three fingers into the blood of the slain and drew them down the shield of the warrior. Ever since then, the chief of the Keiths has borne on his arms the same three red lines. This is depicted as early as 1316 on the seal of Sir Robert de Keth, marischal. Malcolm’s victory at the Battle of Chathem in 1018 brought him into possession of Lothian, and Camus Slayer subsequently held the Lothian lands of Keth from which his progeny took their names.

Clan KeithRobert the Bruce granted Halforest, the Aberdeenshire royal forest, to his friend, Sir Robert de Keth, in 1308, and it was there that the Marischal built his castle. The third Lord Keith was elevated to the peerage as Earl Marischal in 1458, the only peer to be styled by his great office of state. The third Earl Marischal, with the Earl of Glencairn, invited the reformer John Knox to return to Scotland in 1559, while the fourth Earl founded Marischal College in Aberdeen, endowing it with the Greyfriars lands and introducing radical teaching protocols which were later to be adopted universally.

George, the fifth Earl Marischal and the wealthiest nobleman in the land, undertook the embassy to Denmark which culminated in the marriage of James VI to Princess Anne of Denmark. After the coronation of Charles II in 1651 at Scone, William, the seventh Earl, was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London.

Clan KeithThe flamboyant ninth Earl of Kintore, who was Governor General of South Australia from 1889 to 1895, decimated the Kintore estates. The twelfth Earl of Kintore promoted the clan internationally and was instrumental in appointing a hereditary sennachie to preserve the family’s history and traditions. The thirteenth and present Earl continues to reside on the Keith Hall estate in Aberdeenshire.