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 CROMARTY, GEORGE MACKENZIE, (1630–1714), Scottish statesman, was the eldest son of Sir John Mackenzie, Bart., of Tarbat (d. 1654), and belonged to the same family as the earls of Seaforth. In 1654 he joined the rising in Scotland on behalf of Charles II. and after an exile of six years he returned to his own country and took some part in public affairs after the Restoration. In 1661 he became a lord of session as Lord Tarbat, but having been concerned in a vain attempt to overthrow Charles II.’s secretary, the earl of Lauderdale, he was dismissed from office in 1664. A period of retirement followed until 1678 when Mackenzie was appointed lord justice general of Scotland; in 1681 he became lord clerk register and a lord of session for the second time, and from 1682 to 1688 he was the chief minister of Charles II. and James II. in Scotland, being created viscount of Tarbat in 1685. In 1688, however, he deserted James and soon afterwards made his peace with William III., his experience being very serviceable to the new government in settling the affairs of Scotland. From 1692 to 1695 Tarbat was again lord clerk register, and having served for a short time as a secretary of state under Queen Anne he was created earl of Cromarty in 1703. He was again lord justice general from 1704 to 1710. He warmly supported the union between England and Scotland, writing some pamphlets in favour of this step, and he died on the 17th of August 1714. Cromarty was a man of much learning, and among his numerous writings may be mentioned his Account of the conspiracies by the earls of Gowry and R. Logan (Edinburgh, 1713).

The earl’s grandson George, 3rd earl of Cromarty (c. 1703–1766), succeeded his father John, the 2nd earl, in February 1731. In 1745 he joined Charles Edward, the young pretender, and he served with the Jacobites until April 1746 when he was taken prisoner in Sutherlandshire. He was tried and sentenced to death, but he obtained a conditional pardon although his peerage was forfeited. He died on the 28th of September 1766.

This earl’s eldest son was John Mackenzie, Lord Macleod (1727–1789), who shared his father’s fortunes in 1745 and his fate in 1746. Having pleaded guilty at his trial Macleod was pardoned on condition that he gave up all his rights in the estates of the earldom, and he left England and entered the Swedish army. In this service he rose to high rank and was made Count Cromarty. The count returned to England in 1777 and was successful in raising, mainly among the Mackenzies, two splendid battalions of Highlanders, the first of which, now the Highland Light Infantry, served under him in India. In 1784 he regained the family estates and he died on the 2nd of April 1789. Macleod wrote an account of the Jacobite rising of 1745, and also one of a campaign in Bohemia in which he took part in 1757; both are printed in Sir W. Fraser’s Earls of Cromartie (Edinburgh, 1876).

Macleod left no children, and his heir was his cousin, Kenneth Mackenzie (d. 1796), a grandson of the 2nd earl, who also died childless. The estates then passed to Macleod’s sister, Isabel (1725–1801), wife of George Murray, 6th Lord Elibank. In 1861 Isabel’s descendant, Anne (1829–1888), wife of George, 3rd duke of Sutherland, was created countess of Cromartie with remainder to her second son Francis (1852–1893), who became earl of Cromartie in 1888. In 1895, two years after the death of Francis, his daughter Sibell Lilian (b. 1878) was granted by letters patent the title of countess of Cromartie.

 CROMARTY, a police burgh and seaport of the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 1242. It is situated on the southern shore of the mouth of Cromarty Firth, 5 m. E. by S. of Invergordon on the opposite coast, with which there is daily communication by steamer, and 9 m. N.E. of Fortrose, the most convenient railway station. Before the union of the shires of Ross and Cromarty, it was the county town of Cromartyshire, and is one of the Wick district group of parliamentary burghs. Its name is variously derived from the Gaelic crom, crooked, and bath, bay, or ard, height, meaning either the “crooked bay,” or the “bend between the heights” (the high rocks, or Sutors, which guard the entrance to the Firth), and gave the title to the earldom of Cromarty. The principal buildings are the town hall and the Hugh Miller Institute. The harbour, enclosed by two piers, accommodates the herring fleet, but the fisheries, the staple industry, have declined. The town, however, is in growing repute as a midsummer resort. The thatched house with crow-stepped gables in Church Street, in which Hugh Miller the geologist was born, still stands, and a statue has been erected to his memory. To the east of the burgh is Cromarty House, occupying the site of the old castle of the earls of Ross. It was the birthplace of Sir Thomas Urquhart, the translator of Rabelais.

Cromarty, formerly a county in the north of Scotland, was incorporated with Ross-shire in 1889 under the designation of the county of Ross and Cromarty. The nucleus of the county consisted of the lands of Cromarty in the north of the peninsula of the Black Isle. To this were added from time to time the various estates scattered throughout Ross-shire—the most considerable of which were the districts around Ullapool and Little Loch Broom on the Atlantic coast, the area in which Ben Wyvis is situated, and a tract to the north of Loch Fannich—which had been acquired by the ancestors of Sir George Mackenzie (1630–1714), afterwards Viscount Tarbat (1685) and 1st earl of Cromarty (1703). Desirous of combining these sporadic properties into one shire, Viscount Tarbat was enabled to procure their annexation to his sheriffdom of Cromarty in 1685 and 1698, the area of the enlarged county amounting to nearly 370 sq. m. (See .)

 CROMARTY FIRTH, an arm of the North Sea, belonging to the county of Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. From the Moray Firth it extends inland in a westerly and then south-westerly direction for a distance of 19 m. Excepting at the Bay of Nigg, on the northern shore, and Cromarty Bay, on the southern, where it is about 5 m. wide (due N. and S.), and at Alness Bay, where it is 2 m. wide, it has an average width of 1 m. and a depth varying from 5 to 10 fathoms, forming one of the safest and most commodious anchorages in the north of Scotland. Besides other streams it receives the Conon, Peffery, Skiack and Alness, and the principal places on its shores are Dingwall near the head, Cromarty near the mouth, Kiltearn, Invergordon and Kilmuir on the north. The entrance is guarded by two precipitous rocks—the one on the north 400 ft., that on the south 463 ft. high—called the Sutors from a fancied resemblance to a couple of shoemakers (Scotice, souter), bending over their lasts. There are ferries at Cromarty, Invergordon and Dingwall.

 CROME, JOHN (1769–1821), English landscape painter, founder and chief representative of the “Norwich School,” often called Old Crome, to distinguish him from his son, was born at Norwich, on the 21st of December 1769. His father was a weaver, and could give him only the scantiest education. His early years were spent in work of the humblest kind; and at a fit age he became apprentice to a house-painter. To this step he appears to have been led by an inborn love of art and the desire to acquaint himself by any means with its materials and processes. During his apprenticeship he sometimes painted signboards, and devoted what leisure time he had to sketching from nature. Through the influence of a rich art-loving friend he was enabled to exchange his occupation of house-painter for that of drawing-master; and in this he was engaged throughout his life. He took great delight in a collection of Dutch pictures to which he had access, and these he carefully studied. About 1790 he was introduced to Sir William Beechey, whose house in London he frequently visited, and from whom he gathered additional knowledge and help in his art. In 1805 the Norwich Society of Artists took definite shape, its origin being traceable a year or two further back. Crome was its president and the largest contributor to its annual exhibitions. Among his pupils were James Stark, Vincent, Thirtle and John Bernay (Barney) Crome (1794–1842), his son. J. S. Cotman, too, a greater artist than any of these, was associated with him. Crome continued to reside at Norwich, and with the exception of his short visits to London had little or no communication with the great artists of his own time. He first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1806; but in this and the following twelve years he exhibited there only fourteen of his works. With very