(A second background of the name was received from Stanton Candlish.)
At the dawn of the Christian era, the esteemed ancestors of the Candlish family were living at a time when Scotland was organized along tribal lines and over the following three centuries the Scots managed to resist Roman attempts to subdue and colonize their country. Towards the middle of the ninth century a unified Celtic monarchy, under Macbeth, emerged in Scotland. The contemporaries of King Macbeth, including the forebears of the Candlish lineage, were witnesses to a year, 1057, which saw the death of this great monarch. With Malcolm III and the other kings who followed Macbeth, the precursors of the Candlish family, lived at a time when Scotland fell increasingly under English influence and, in 1296, came the first attempt to bring Scotland under direct rule from London. This provoked a Scots rebellion which ended in 1328 and those of the distinguished Candlish family, living during the first half of the fourteenth century, could bear testimony to these momentous times for in that year the rebel leader Robert Bruce was recognized as King Robert I of Scotland. During the reign of the Stuart kings, the antecedents of the Candlish family lived when the foreign policy of Scotland was one of close ties with England1s traditional enemy, France, until the time of the Scottish reformation in the sixteenth century. Indeed, the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, who was compelled to abdicate in favour of her son, James VI, was be-headed by her cousin Elizabeth in 1567 because of her religious convictions.
Not only for the Candlish family, but for all throughout the United Kingdom and Ireland, March 24, 1603 was to prove to be a day which would go down in the annals of history for on that day Queen Elizabeth I of England died and her kinsman James VI, son of Mary Queen of Scots, became king of both England and Scotland. The countries remained separate kingdoms, united only in the person of the monarch and it was to that monarch families such as the Candlish family owed its allegiance. This situation persisted until 1707, when the ancestral bearers of the family name Candlish saw the parliaments of both nations approve an Act of Union which united England, Scotland and Wales under the title of the Kingdom of Great Britain. With its colorful history it is indeed not surprising that Scotland offers a wide variety of family names including the name Candlish. There are the patronymic surnames found among the native Gaelic speaking population and which are distinguished by the gaelic word mac, the norman names introduced first to England and then to Scotland, English names brought over from across the border and Flemish names brought in by tradespeople particularly those in the clothing trade.
The Scottish surname Candlish, Mac Candlish and Chandlish are anglicized forms of the Gaelic Mac Cuindlis or MacCuindilis. It is of patronymic origin, derived from the first name of the father of the initial bearer. In this instance, the name indicates son of Cuindlis, an ancient personal name of obscure Irish origin. In Ireland, the name is predominantly found in Ulster, where it is particularly numerous in the three north-eastern counties. The original homeland of MacCuindlis appears to have been county Down, but Mac Cuindlis was also the name of a literary family in Connacht who had a share in compiling the Book of Lecan, which dates back to the eight and ninth centuries. The name was also recorded by the Annalists of Loch Te and by the Four Masters, and can be found in Annals dating back to 1342. When found in Scotland, MacCuindlis can be traced back to the ancient Dal Riada Kingdom, which extended from the north-eastern coast of Ireland to the west coast of Scotland. In these days, there was constant cultural exchange and intermarriage between both countries, with the result that many old Irish surnames were established in Scotland at an early date. Later, at the time of the Ulster Plantation in the mid-seventeenth century, Scottish settlers may have re-established the name in northern parts of Ireland. In Scotland the name is recorded as Maccandlish in Wigtownshire in the eighteenth century and William MCandlish is recorded in Balmalgan in 1794. Robert Smith Candlish (1806-73), a great ecclesiastic, was one of the leaders of the non-intrusion party and one of the principal organizers of the Free Church of Scotland.
Those ancestors of the Candlish family living in the Highlands or on the Hebrides Islands, spoke a language which is an offshoot of the Irish tongue, which was introduced from Ireland to Scotland circa 500 AD, developing into a distinct Gaelic dialect by the thirteenth century. However, any forebears of the Candlish family who were members of the bardic class and who travelled between Ireland and Scotland would have had no difficulty in communicating with their Irish cousins as even up until 1400 a literary language common to both Ireland and Scotland persisted. While the Scottish heraldic tradition has been mainly influenced by the Norman French those Candlish family members living in ninth century Scotland resided in a country which already had an established heraldic tradition. The arms of the Dalzell family, for example, were granted during the reign of Kenneth II circa 840 when the progenitor of this family rescued a near relative of the said monarch. It is traditions such as this which, along with the distinguished and ancient family name Candlish, are proudly passed on to the following generation as a family heirloom more priceless than any jewel.
Blazon of Arms: Or, a galley her oars in action, and sails furled sable, flags gules; on a chief of the last three mullets argent.
Crest: A demi lion vert.
Motto: Cavenda tutus (Safe by being cautious)
Origin: Scotland
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