Lord Reay, of Reay in the County of Caithness, is a
title in the Peerage of Scotland. Lord Reay (pronounced
"ray") is the hereditary Clan Chief of Clan Mackay,
whose lands in Strathnaver and northwest Sutherland were
known as the Reay Country. The land was sold to the
Earls of Sutherland in the 18th century.
The title was created in 1628 for the soldier Sir Donald
Mackay, 1st Baronet. He had already the year before been
created a baronet, of Far, in the Baronetage of Nova
Scotia. He was succeeded by his son, the second Lord,
who fought as a Royalist in the Civil War. On the death
of his great-grandson, the ninth Lord, the line of the
eldest son of the second Lord failed. The late Lord was
succeeded by his kinsman, the tenth Lord. He was the son
of Barthold John Christian Mackay (who had been created
Baron Mackay of Ophemert and Zennewijnen in the
Netherlands in 1822), great-grandson of Hon. Aeneas
Mackay, a Brigadier-General in the Dutch army and the
second son of the second Lord. Lord Reay was a Dutch
citizen and served as a government minister in the
Netherlands. His son, the eleventh Lord, became a
British citizen in 1877 and four years later he was
created Baron Reay, of Durness in the County of
Sutherland, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Lord
Reay was later Governor of Bombay, Under-Secretary of
State for India in the Liberal administration of Lord
Rosebery and Lord Lieutenant of Roxburghshire.
On
his death the UK Barony became extinct while he was
succeeded in the other titles by his cousin, the twelfth
Lord. He was the son of Baron Aeneas Mackay (1838–1909)
(a Dutch politician who had been created Baron Mackay
in the Netherlands in 1858), son of Johan Francois
Hendrik Jakob Ernestus Mackay, brother of the tenth Lord
Reay. He was also a Dutch citizen. However, his son, the
thirteenth Lord, became a British citizen in 1938 and
later sat in the House of Lords as a Scottish
Representative Peer. His only son, the fourteenth Lord,
was a Member of the European Parliament and also served
in junior positions in the Conservative administrations
of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. He was one of the
ninety-two elected hereditary peers allowed to remain
after the passing of the House of Lords Act of 1999. As
of 2017 the titles are held by his son, the fifteenth
Lord - Aeneas Simon Mackay.
In
the folklore of Caithness, in the Highland area of
Scotland, Lord Reay is a magician who believed he
had come off best in an encounter with a witch in Smoo
Cave. His prize was a gang of fairies who liked nothing
better than to work. The construction of various
earthworks in the parish of Reay are attributed to these
fairies, working under direction from Lord Reay.
However, the fairies' appetite for work was insatiable
and, eventually, their demands became intolerable. So
Lord Reay put them to work building a causeway of sand
across the Pentland Firth where, of course, the fierce
currents wash away the sand just as fast as the fairies
can build.
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