Between the later 14th and mid-15th centuries, they were strong allies of the earls of Douglas, who had now acquired the Galloway lordship, witnessing their charters, supplying soldiers and ships of war for their forces, and maintaining places on their council.

According to Michael Brown's history of The Black Douglases, McCullochs were part of the Douglas muster-roll that fought against the English armies at the Battle of Homildon Hill in 1402.

[20] Though the power of the Black Douglases fell away in the later fifteenth century, the McCullochs outlasted their erstwhile patrons, and with castles built at Myretoun, Cardoness and Barholm on the Galloway shoreline, the strength of the family became a central part of Scotland's maritime defence.

Their influence rose to its height in the career of Sir Alexander McCulloch (d. 1523), a favourite of King James IV of Scotland whom he served as chief falconer, sheriff of Wigtown and captain of the Royal Palace of Linlithgow.

Under his authority, the McCulloch family and their following supplied the bodyguard for the newly-born Prince James in 1512, and were exempted from local legal and military duties in Wigtownshire while they resided at Linlithgow.

At the Battle of Flodden, the younger MacCulloch was one of ten men clad in armour identical to the king, in an attempt to confuse the English adversaries.

The McCulloch lairds of Ardwell and Killasser were among the leading Galloway supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots, summoned with the threat of a charge of treason to submit to the regency ruling after her deposition in 1569 and 1571.

A second David McCulloch of Nether Ardwall served in the armies of William of Orange before the 1688 Revolution, and then in the British forces in the Nine Years' War (1688–97).

John McCulloch had worked previously as physician to the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, who shared his enthusiasm for alchemy and astrology.

[24] The chief's son Captain John McCulloch left a flourishing career in the Grenadier Guards in 1691: probably returning from the continent to support a family cast into penury after flight from justice of the laird.

The estate gave its name to the territorial designation of the chiefly MacCulloch family of the North, who are recorded as land owners by documentary evidence from 1436 to 1552.

He first appears ordering the production of the charter for his neighbour, William McTeyr, for him to receive the lands of Achnaplad which was produced on February 27, 1483, at the head of the court near Scarde.

The Earl of Ross was forfeited in 1475 and in the disturbances that followed, the MacCullochs are said to have been with the Mackenzie force which defeated Alexander MacDonald of Lochalsh at the Battle of Blar Na Pairce.

It is related that the MacCullochs and Dingwalls, who were haid bound ther dependence on William Munro, 12th Baron of Foulis as the King's representative, lost all their men in an ambush by the Mackenzies in another Battle of Drumchatt in 1501.

Angus MacCulloch was accused on July 30, 1498, by the Lords of Council for taking part in spoiliation of 30 cattle and two horses from the lands of Tordarroch.

James IV of Scotland granted to him a charter for the lands of Scardy, Pladdis, Petnely, Pettogarty, Balmoduthy and Ballecarew, with the office of baillie of the immunity of Tain, on August 12, 1512.

William MacCulloch of Plaids brought an action against the Abbot of Fearn and others in 1534 as to whether the lands in Easter Catboll belonged to him in heritage, and he obtained a decree in his favour.

[31] On November 1, 1541, he was retoured as the son and heir of William MacCulloch of Plaids, in the lands of Pladdis, Skardy, Bellycarnich, and with office of bailliary of the immunity of Tain.

It was probably with his chief, Robert Munro, that Thomas MacCulloch joined the Scottish army that had mustered to meet the English invasion of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, as both were killed at the subsequent Battle of Pinkie near Musselburgh on September 10, 1547.

On February 10, 1547/8 he received a retour as son and heir of his father Thomas in the lands of Pladdis, as well as the office of bailliary of the town and immunity of Tain.

Roderick's sister, Mary, had a son, Hugh Rose who married Catherine Ross Munro of Culcairn and succeeded to the Cromarty estates including Glastullich.

[32] Andrew MacCulloch of Tain, a merchant and sea captain who traded between Scotland and Sweden, was also involved in the Jacobite rebellion, as the leader of a French-backed expedition that attempted the rescue of Prince Charles Edward in July 1746, after the Battle of Culloden.

MacCulloch's vessel sailed between Mull and Skye, liaising with local Jacobites, but failed to locate the Prince, and returned to Gothenburg in April 1747.

His son, another Angus MacCulloch, whose ward of lands and marriage were given by Queen Mary to David Chalmer on his forfeiture to Andrew Munro of Newmore in 1568.

Around 1609, James McCulloch, the elder, of Drummorrell was enlisted as an undertaker in the Ulster Plantation and granted 1,000 acres of land at Mullaveagh Manor in Donegal.

[43] This origin story is hard to square with the fact that the seal of Thomas McCulloch, Sheriff of Wigtown included an image of a squirrel and the earliest known family coats of arms featured wolves.

[48] Another origin myth speculates that the family descended from Ulgric, one of the leaders of the Gallovidian spearmen who fought and fell in the van of King David I's army at the Battle of the Standard in 1138.

Alternatively, it has also been suggested that the McCullochs descend from the Gall-Goídil or Norse-Gaelic kindreds who took root in western Galloway in the 11th century, moving in from Ireland and the Hebrides, and gradually extending their imprint eastwards to become the dominant cultural influence on the province.

McCulloch of Barholm: Fret being engrailed, and the escutcheon azure, three wolves' heads erased argent; supporters, as heir-male of the families of Muile, Myretown, and Cardoness —two men in armour, each holding a spear in his hand proper.

Because few people could write centuries ago, and the written records that exist are sometimes in Latin, the spelling of the name varied greatly in medieval and early modern times.