Letitia MacKenzie

Letitia MacKenzie is the wife of Colum MacKenzie, Laird of Leoch, and mother of Hamish MacKenzie.

Personal History[]

As part of an alliance between the Chisholm and MacKenzie clans, Letitia was married to the heir apparent of Jacob MacKenzie, Colum MacKenzie. Around age eighteen, however, Colum took two bad falls; the broken bones of his legs never healed properly, and it became clear that it was permanent damage.

Events of the Novels[]

Outlander[]

Personality[]

Letitia is gracious and polite, as befits the laird's wife, but not averse to chastising her nephew, as Jamie found out after he led a game of shinty through her rose garden when he was sixteen.^[1]

Physical Appearance[]

Described as plump, pretty and red-haired.^[2]

Relationships[]

As the daughter of the Chisholm chieftain Andrew Chisholm of Erchless, Letitia was married to the heir apparent of Jacob MacKenize, Colum MacKenzie. Due to a series of falls Colum sustained - and what Claire privately diagnoses as Toulouse-Lautrec syndrome, a degenerative disease of bone and connective tissue.

Despite his physical disability the clan still named him chief after the death of his father and Leitita stood beside him as Lady of Leoch. She eventually bore an heir, Hamish MacKenzie.

Due to her husband Colum MacKenzie's affliction that prevented him from being able to produce an heir, Letitia was sent to his younger brother Dougal MacKenzie. It is unclear if this was something she wanted to do or just did for duty to her husband and the clan to give an heir. From this she bore Hamish MacKenzie who became the heir apparent to the clan. His paternity has been kept secret from all, though Hamish's physical similarities to Dougal did raise some questions but those could be dismissed given that Dougal and Colum are brothers.

Name[]

Letitia is from the Late Latin name Laetitia which meant "joy, happiness".^[3]
Chisholm is derived from a habitational name from Chisholme, near Hawick, in the south of Scotland. The name itself is derived from the Old English elements cese, meaning "cheese"; and holm, meaning "piece of dry land in a fen".^[4]
MacKenzie is the anglicized form of MacCoinnich, a Gaelic patronymic name meaning "son of Coinneach". The personal name Coinneach means "handsome" or "comely".^[5]^[6]