Bain Clan
Bain Crest: A dexter arm armed grasping a dirk proper.
Bain Clan Motto: Et Marte Et Arte (By strength and art).
Bain Clan History: The Bain or Bayne family were a minor noble family in Scotland. The name comes from the Gaelic "Ban" which means fair. They are descended from the Clan Mackay. Iye Mackay was 1st Chief of the Clan Mackay. He was born in about 1210 and was a descendant of the 1st Earl of Ross. Clan Mackay supported King Robert the Bruce and fought at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314.
Angus Mackay, 6th Chief of Clan Mackay (d .1403), married a daughter of Torquil MacLeod of Lewis. They had two sons Angus Dow Mackay who married Elizabeth, sister of the Lord of the Isles and became 7th Chief of the Mackay's and Neil. Neil's son John was founder of Clan Bain, (also spelt Bane, Bene, Bain or Bayne). He was born John Bain Mackay in 1408 in Strathnaver but he stopped using his surname Mackay and became John Bain. This may have been due to enmity within the Clan Mackay involving his father Neil Neilson Mackay that had resulted in the Battle of Drumnacoub.
The battle involved two factions of the Clan and was fought in the far northwest of Scotland, some time between 1427 and 1433. It took place on a hill called Carn Fada at the southern end of the Kyle of Tongue, between Ben Loyal and the village of Tongue. On the one side was the old chief, Angus Dow Mackay, and his second son John Aberach Mackay, and on the other side were Angus's kinsmen Morgan Neilson Mackay and Niel Neilson Mackay, John Bain's father. They were assisted by clansmen from the Clan Sutherland, led by Angus Murray. Niel Nielson Mackay and Morgan Nielson Mackay were attempting to take the Mackay lands from their kinsmen, Chief Angus Du Mackay.
Due to this conflict John Bain not only dropped the surname of Mackay but moved from his homeland in the west of the county of Sutherland to the neighbouring county of Caithness. John Bain married in 1436 and died in 1452,
leaving four sons; John Bain born 1437, founder of the Bain families in Caithness and Haddingtonshire; William Bain:
born 1438, founder of the Bain families of Clyth; Alexander Bain, born 1440, founder of the Baynes of Tulloch and Dingwall; Donald Bain, born 1443, settled in Galloway.
Bain of Tulloch recorded Arms in the Register of All Arms and Bearings in the Court of the Lord Lyon circ. 1673. His Crest is depicted in the Crest Badge at the top of this page. The Bain family held their seat at Tulloch Castle for over 200 years until Kenneth, the ninth Bayne, sold the castle and estate to his cousin Henry Davidson in 1762.
Surname distribution: The Bain name is most commonly found in The Orkney Islands, The Shetland Isles (Zetland), Highland (incorporates the historic counties of Caithness, Inverness-shire, Nairnshire, Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland and small areas of Argyllshire and Morayshire), Aberdeenshire (including Kincardineshire and part of Banffshire) and Moray (also includes parts of Banffshire).