Early Military Career
Mackay was born in Sutherland around 1640, the son of Hugh Mackay of Scourie. He entered Douglas's (Dumbarton's) regiment of the English army (now the Royal Scots) in 1660 and accompanied it to France when it was lent by Charles II to Louis XIV. Although Mackay succeeded, through the death of his two elder brothers, to his father's estates, he continued to serve abroad.
In 1669 he was in the Venetian service at Crete, and in 1672 he was back with his old regiment, Dumbartons, in the French army, taking part under Turenne in the invasion of Holland. In 1673 he married Clara de Bie of Bommel in Gelderland. Through her influence he became, as historian Gilbert Burnet wrote, "the most pious man that I ever knew in a military way." Convinced that he was fighting in an unjust cause, Mackay resigned his commission to take a captaincy in a Scottish regiment in the Dutch service.
He had risen to the rank of major-general in 1685, when the Scots brigade was called to England to assist in the suppression of the Monmouth rebellion. Returning to Holland, Mackay was one of those officers who elected to stay with their men when James II, having again demanded the services of the Scots brigade, and having been met with a refusal, was permitted to invite the officers individually into his service. As major-general commanding the brigade, and also as a privy councillor of Scotland, Mackay was an important and influential person, and James chose to attribute the decision of most of the officers to Mackay's instigation.
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