Home › The Armada Galleon of Tobermory Bay › The Armada Galleon of Tobermory Bay

The Armada Galleon of Tobermory Bay

BETWEEN the western Highlands of Scotland and the remote, cloudy Hebrides lies the large island of Mull on a sound of that name. Its bold headlands are crowned with the ruins of gray castles that were once the strongholds of the clans of the MacLeans and the MacDonalds. Along these shores and waters one generation after another of kilted fighting men, savage as red Indians, raided and burned and slew in feuds whose memories are crowded with tragedy and romance. Near where Mull is washed by the Atlantic and the Sound opens toward the thorough-fares of the deep-sea shipping is the pleasant town of Tobermory, which in the Gaelic means Mary's Well. The bay that it faces is singularly beautiful, almost landlocked, and of a depth sufficient to shelter a fleet. Into this Bay of Tobermory there sailed one day a great galleon of Spain, belonging to that mighty Armada which had been shattered and driven in frantic flight by English seamen with hearts of oak under Drake, Hawkins, Howard, Seymour, and Mar-tin Frobisher, names to make the blood beat faster even now. The year was 1588, in the reign of Elizabeth, long, long, ago. This fugitive galleon, afore-time so tall and stately and ornate, was racked and leaking, her painted sails in tatters, her Spanish sail-ors sick, weary, starved, after escaping from the 183 184 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE English Channel and faring far northward around the stormy Orkneys. Many of her sister ships had crashed ashore on the Irish coast while the surviving remnant of this magnificent flotilla wallowed forlornly home. Seeking provisions, repairs, respite from the terrors of the implacable ocean the galleon Florencia dropped anchor in Tobermory Bay, and there she laid her bones. With her, it is said, was lost a great store of treasure in gold and plate, and ever since 1641, for more than two and a half centuries, the search for these riches has been carried on at intervals. More than likely, if you should go in one of Donald Mac-Brayne's steamers through the Sound of Mull next summer, and a delightful excursion it is, you would find an up-to-date suction dredge and a corps of divers, employed by the latest syndicate to finance the treasure hunt, ransacking the mud of Tobermory Bay in the hope of finding the Spanish gold of the Florencia. Many thousands have been vainly spent in the quest, but the lure of lost treasure has a fascination of its own, and after all the failure of Scotch and English seekers, American enterprise and capital have now taken hold of this romantic task. With the history of the Florencia galleon and her treasure is intimately interwoven the stirring chronicle of the deeds of the MacLeans of Mull and the MacDonalds of Islay and Skye. Out of the echoing past, the fanfare of Spanish trumpets is mingled with the skirl of the pipes, and the rapier of Toledo flashes beside the clay-more of the Highlanders. The story really begins long before the doomed galleon sought refuge in Tobermory Bay. There were island chieftains of the Clan MacLean, busy at cutting the throats of their enemies, as far remote THE ARMADA GALLEON 185 in time as the thirteenth century, but their turbulent pedigrees need not concern our narrative until the warlike figure of Lachlan Mo'r MacLean, "Big Lachlan," steps into its pages in the year of 1576. It was then that he came of age and set out from the Court of James VI at Edinburgh, where he had been brought up, to claim his inherited estates of Mull. His wicked step-father, Hector, met him in the castle of Duart whose stout walls and battlements still loom not far from Tobermory and tried to set him aside with false and foolish words. The astute youth perceived that if he were to come into his own, he must be up and doing, wherefore he speedily mustered friends and led them into Castle Duart by night. They carried this scheming step-father to the island of Coll and there beheaded him, which made Lachlan's title clear to the lands of his ancestors. The next to mistake the mettle of young Lachlan Mo'r was no less than Colin Campbell, sixth Earl of Argyll, head of a family very powerful in the Highlands even to this day. He was for seizing the estate by force after plotting to no purpose, and Angus MacDonald of Dunyweg was persuaded to help him with several hundred fighting men. Thus began the feud between the MacLeans and MacDonaids which a few years later was to involve that great galleon Florencia of the Armada. Argyll and his force wasted the lands of Lachlan with fire and sword, and besieged one of his strongholds with twelve hundred followers. War thus begun was waged without mercy, and one bloody episode followed on the heels of another. At the head of his clansmen, Lachlan swept into Argyle's country and made him cry quits. This was 186 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE a large achievement, and the spirited young Lord of Duart was hailed as a Highland chief worthy of the king's favor. He went to court, was flattered by the great men there, and became the hero of as pretty and gallant a romance as heart could wish. The king arranged that he should marry the daughter of the powerful Earl of Athol, and Lachlan could not say his sovereign nay. The contract arranged, he started for Mull to make ready for the wedding, but chanced to visit on the way William Cunningham, Earl of Glencairn, at his castle overlooking the Clyde. Cards were played to while away the evening, and Lachlan's partner was one of the daughters of the host. It so happened that the game was changed and the players again cut for partners. At this an-other daughter, the fair Margaret Cunningham, whispered to her sister that if the handsome High-land chief had been her partner, "she would not have hazarded the loss of him by cutting anew." Lachlan overheard the compliment, as perhaps he was meant to do, and so far as he was concerned hearts were trumps from that moment. He wooed and won Margaret Cunningham and married her forthwith. The king was greatly offended but what cared this happy man? He carried his bride to Duart and laughed at his foes. The quiet life at home was not for him, however. Soon he was playing the game of the sword with the MacDonalds of Islay until a truce was patched by means of a marriage between the clans. There was peace for a time, but the trouble blazed anew over the matter of some lifted cattle, and they were at it again hammer-and-tongs. The royal policy seems to have been to permit these Highland game-cocks to fight each other so long as they were fairly 188 THE BOOK OF BURIED TREASURE MacDonald fell from his horse and was badly hurt before he could finish his program. It would be tiresome to relate much more of this ensanguined, interminable game of give and take which was the chief business of the Highland clans in that century. The clan of the MacIans whose seat was at Ardnamurchan Castle on Mull later sided actively with the MacDonalds and the feud became three-cornered. Lachlan Mo'r MacLean was no petty warrior, and his men were numbered by the thousand when he was in the prime of his power. Once he fell upon the island of Islay and put to the sword as many as five hundred of his foes, "all the men capable of bearing arms belonging to the Clandonald," says an old account. Angus himself was chased into his castle and forced to give over half of Islay to Lachlan to save his skin. Now, indeed, was there a mustering of the Mac-Donalds from near and far to invade Mull. They gathered under the chiefs of Kintyre, Skye and Islay, with the lesser clans under MacNeil of Gigha, the MacAllisters of Loupe, and the MacPhees of Colon-say. Bold Lachlan Mo'r MacLean was outnumbered, but a singular stroke of luck enabled him to win a decisive battle. That MacDonald who was called the Red Knight of Sleat, was much disturbed and shaken by a dream in which a voice chanted a very doleful prophecy of which this is a sample : "Dire are the deeds the fates have doomed on thee ! Defeated by the sons of Gillean the invading host shall be. On thee, Gearna-Dubh,1 streams of blood shall flow; And the bold Red Knight shall die ere a sword is sheathed." 1 A cliff which was the key to the position held by the MacLeans.