Anna Mackenzie (2) (1621–1707)

Lady Anna Mackenzie was born at Brahan Castle, east of Ross in the Scottish Highlands. It was the family seat of her father Colin Mackenzie, 1st Earl of Seaforth, chief of Clan Mackenzie, and his wife Lady Margaret Seton. As a young woman, she was famed for her beauty. In 1640, she married a cousin, Alexander Lindsay, later 1st Earl of Balcarres, with whom she had five children. During the English Civil War, the couple remained staunch Royalists, and she sold her jewels and other valuables for the cause. Their support for the king resulted in their estates in Fifeshire being seized by Parliament. In 1654, they were both summoned to France to assist Charles II, the king in exile. Over the next four years, they followed his roaming court from Paris to The Hague. In 1657, Anna was chosen to be the governess of William, Prince of Orange, the future King William III. After her husband's death in 1659, she returned to Scotland, but went back to France again to help Charles win the support of the French Protestants. After the Restoration in 1660, King Charles granted her an annual pension of £1000, though it was not paid for several years. She was left struggling to rescue the Balcarres estates from bankruptcy for her son. In 1670, she married Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll. He raised troops in Scotland to support Monmouth's Rebellion against King James II in 1685, and was captured and executed after it failed. Anna was imprisoned at Edinburgh Castle for a time but survived to remain the mainstay of her family for many more years. A Memoir of Lady Anna Mackenzie was edited and published in 1868 by her descendant Alexander Crawford Lindsay, 25th Earl of Crawford and 8th Earl of Balcarres.