Clan Mackenzie in the 13th and 14th centuries, terminated in the heiress Margaret del Ard, the Lady of Erchless, who married Alexander Chisolm of Cromer c.1350. In the 14th century during the Wars of Scottish Independence the Clan Mackenzie is said to have been among the clans who fought on the side of Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Inverurie (1308) against the forces of the Clan Comyn who were rivals to the throne. Chief Iain Mac Coinnich is said to have led a force of five hundred Mackenzies at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 where the English were defeated.
Robert the Bruce at Ramsey in the Isle of Man, laid siege to Castle Rushen in Castletown, capturing it on 21 June 1313 and denying the English the island's strategic importance. The eight years of exhausting but deliberate refusal to meet the English on even ground have caused many to consider Bruce one of the great guerrilla leaders of any age. This represented a transformation for one raised as a feudal knight. By 1314, Bruce had recaptured most of the castles in Scotland held by the English and was sending raiding parties into northern England as far as Carlisle. In response, Edward II