Ewen MacPherson of Cluny

He was the uncle of poet James Macpherson, who collected, translated, and adapted the epic poem Ossian, based upon the Fenian Cycle of Celtic mythology.

At the request of the Duke of Gordon (the clan's feudal superior), he undertook to protect a wide area of land from cattle thieving.

In August 1745, with rumours of a Jacobite uprising circulating, the government offered Cluny command of an independent company in Lord Loudon's regiment.

Then, whilst home in Cluny Castle on the night of 28 August, he was taken prisoner by a Jacobite raiding party composed of Camerons (his mother's family).

By February, with the Jacobite army retreating northwards, Cluny was sent ahead to raise more men, "burning the houses and killing the cattle of any reluctant to serve".

On the last day of June, his elderly father Lachlan died "of a broken heart among the ruins of his son's estate".

[10] His father-in-law Lovat was captured by government forces in this same month, whilst his cousin Cameron of Lochiel escaped to France in October with the Prince.

[14] The Cage was no larger than to contain six or seven persons, four of which number were frequently employed in playing at cards, one idle looking on, one becking (baking), and another firing bread and cookingIt is here he spent a week with Charles Edward Stuart in September.

In September 1754, Charles Edward Stuart (then living incognito in Paris) asked Cluny to come, and to bring any effects or money he had left over from the rebellion, "for I hapen to be in great strets".

[15] So, still with a price on his head, Cluny travelled through Edinburgh and arrived in London, where he spent several days among Jacobite sympathisers (possibly at the home of his wife's half-brother, Archibald Fraser).

The often intoxicated Prince expected Cluny to account for the large sum of money given to him in 1746 to distribute among the disaffected and "to keep up the spirit of Jacobitism".

On 28 January 2024, for the 260th anniversary of his death, the Clan Macpherson with the help of Dunkirk town hall, inaugurated a memorial in his honor.

[18] His son Duncan (1748–1817) continued his education on the continent, and had become a captain in the British army by the time he was 23, eventually serving with the 63rd Regiment of Foot in the American War of Independence.

Whilst in North America he joined the 71st Fraser Highlanders as a major in 1776, rising to Lieutenant-Colonel and participating in several battles.