CHAPTER XIV.

Insurrection of the Clan-Chattan against the Earl of Moray-Ineffectual attempts of the Earl to suppress them-Submission of the Clan-Proceedings of the Earl-Dispute between the Laird of Duffus and Gordon, younger of Embo-Conflict between Gordon and John Sutherland of Clyne-Commitment of Gordon-Attempts of Sir Donald Mackay to embroil the houses of Sutherland and Duffus-Capture of Angus Roy Gun-Encounter at the bridge of Broray-Feud among the Grants-Depredations of James Grant-Grant of Carron killed by Grant of Balindalloch-Apprehension and imprisonment of James Grant-Dispute between the Lairds of Frendraught and Rothiemay-Conflict-Rothiemay killed-Quarrel between Frendraught and the Laird of Pitcaple-Calamitous Fire at Frendraught house-Death of John, Viscount Aboyne, Rothiemay, and others-Inquiry as to the cause of the Fire-Escape of James Grant-Attacked by Patrick Macgregor, who is killed-Apprehension of Grant of Balindalloch, by James Grant-Apprehension and execution of Thomas GrantJames Grant murders two of his surname-Attacked in Strathbogie, and escapesDepredations of the Clan-Lauchlan-Skirmish between them and the Farquharsons -Dispute between the Earl of Sutherland and Lord Lorn-Execution of John Meldrum-Depredations committed upon Frendraught-The Marquis of Huntly accused therewith-The Marquis and Letterfourie committed-Liberated-Death and charac ter of the Marquis.

THE troubles in Sutherland and Caithness had been scarcely allayed, when a formidable insurrection broke out on the part of the Clan-Chattan against the earl of Moray, which occasioned considerable uproar and confusion in the Highlands. The Clan-Chattan had for a very long period been the faithful friends and followers of the earls of Moray, who, in consequence, had allotted them many valuable lands and possessions in recompense for their services in Pettie and Strathern. The clan, in particular, had been very active in revenging the death of James, Earl of Moray, who was killed at Dunibristle, upon the marquis of Huntly; but his son and successor being reconciled to the family of Huntly, and needing no longer, as he thought, the aid of the Clan, he dispossessed them of the lands which his predecessors had bestowed upon them. This harsh proceeding occasioned great irritation, and, upon the death of Sir Lauchlan, their chief, who died a short time before Whitsunday sixteen hundred and twenty-four, they resolved either to recover the possessions of which they had been deprived, or to lay them waste. While Sir Lauchlan lived the Clan were awed by his authority and prevented from such an attempt, but no such impediment now standing in their way, and as their chief, who was a mere child, could run no risk by the

enterprise, they considered the present a favourable opportunity for carrying their plan into execution.

Accordingly, a gathering of the Clan to the number of about two hundred gentlemen and three hundred servants took place about Whitsunday sixteen hundred and twenty-four. This party was commanded by three uncles of the late chief.* They keeped the feilds (says Spalding), in their Highland weid upon foot with swords, howes, arrowes, targets, hagbuttis, pistollis, and other Highland armour; and first began to rob and spoulzie the earle's tennents, who laboured their possessions, of their haill goods, geir, insight, plenishing, horse, nolt, sheep, corns, and cattell, and left them nothing that they could gett within their bounds; syne fell in sorning throw out Murray, Strathawick, Urquhart, Ross, Sutherland, Brae of Marr, and diverse other parts, takeing their meat and food per force wher they could not gett it willingly, frae freinds alseweill as frae their faes; yet still keeped themselves from shedeing of innocent blood. Thus they lived as outlawes, oppressing the countrie, (besydes the casting of the earle's lands waist) and openly avowed they had tane this course to gett thir own possessions again, or then hold the country walking."

When this rising took place, the earl of Moray obtained from Monteith and Balquhidder about three hundred armed men, and placing himself at their head he marched through Moray to Inverness. The earl took up his residence in the castle with the earl of Enzie, his brotherin-law, and after the party had passed one night at Inverness, he dispatched them in quest of the Clan-Chattan, but whether from fear of meeting them, or because they could not find them, certain it is that the Monteith and Balquhidder men returned without effecting any thing after putting the earl to great expenses. The earl, therefore, sent them back to their respective countries, and went himself to Elgin, where he raised another body of men to suppress the Clan-Chattan, but who were equally unsuccessful in finding them out, although they pretended that they had searched for them through the country.

These ineffectual attempts against the Clan, served to make them more bold and daring in their outrages; and as the earl now saw that no force which he could himself bring into the field was sufficient to overawe these marauders, he went to London and laid a statement of the case before King James, who, at his earnest solicitation, granted him a commission, appointing him his lieutenant in the Highlands, and giving him authority to proceed capitally against the offenders. On his return, the earl proclaimed the commission he had obtained from his Majesty, and issued letters of intercommuning against the Clan-Chattan, at the

Spalding says, that the party were commanded by Lauchlan Mackintosh alias Lauchlan Og, uncle of the young chief, and Lauchlan Mackintosh or Lauchlan Angus-son, eldest son of Angus Mackintosh, alias Angus William, son of Auld Tirlie. Hist. of the Troubles and memorable Transactions in England and Scotland. Edin. 1829.

HARSH PROCEEDINGS OF THE EARL OF MORAY.

289

head burghs of several shires, prohibiting all persons from harbouring supplying, or entertaining them, in any manner of way, under certain severe pains and penalties. Although the Marquis of Huntly was the earl's father-in-law, he felt somewhat indignant at the appointment, as he conceived that he or his son had the best title to be appointed to the lieutenancy of the north; but he concealed his displeasure.

After the earl of Moray had issued the notices, prohibiting all persons from communicating with, or assisting, the Clan-Chattan, their kindred and friends, who had privately promised them aid, before they broke out, began to grow cold, and declined to assist them, as they were apprehensive for their estates, many of them being wealthy. The earl perceiving this, opened a communication with some of the principal persons of the clan, to induce them to submit to his authority, who, seeing no hopes of making any longer an effectual resistance, readily acquiesced, and, by the intercession of friends, made their peace with the earl, on condition that they should inform him of the names of such persons as had given them protection, after the publication of his letters of interdiction. Having thus quelled this formidable insurrection, without bloodshed, the earl, by virtue of his commission, held justice courts at Elgin, where "some slight louns, followers of the ClanChattan," were tried and executed, but all the principals concerned were pardoned. The court was formed in the earl's own name, and in the names of the laird of Innes, the laird of Brodie, Samuel Falconer of Knockorth, and John Hay, commissary of Moray, his depute, and before whom were summoned all such persons as had held any communication with the clan, or harboured or supplied them, every one of whom, it would appear, attended, to avoid the penalty of contumacy, or being put to the horn, a proceeding by which the person refusing to attend was declared a rebel to the king, and his property forfeited for his Majesty's use.

As the account which Spalding gives of the appearance of the ac cused, and of the base conduct of the principal men of the Clan-Chattan, in informing against their friends and benefactors, is both curious and graphic, it is here inserted: "Then presently was brought in befor the barr; and in the honest men's faces, the Clan-Chattan who had gotten supply, verified what they had gotten, and the honest men confounded and dasht, knew not what to answer, was forced to come in the earle's will, whilk was not for their weill: others compeared and willingly confessed, trusting to gett more favour at the earle's hands, but they came little speid and lastly, some stood out and denyed all, who was reserved to the tryall of an assyse. The principall malefactors stood up in judgment, and declared what they had gotten, whether meat, money, cloathing, gun, ball, powder, lead, sword, dirk, and the like commodities, and alse instructed the assyse in ilk particular, what they had gotten frae the persons pannalled; an uncouth form of probation, wher the principall malefactor proves against the receiptor for his own pardon,

and honest men, perhaps neither of the Clan-Chattan's kyne nor blood, punished for their good will, ignorant of the laws, and rather receipting them more for their evil nor their good. Nevertheless thir innocent men, under collour of justice, part and part as they came in, were soundly fyned in great soumes as their estates might bear, and some above their estate was fyned, and every one warded within the tolbuith of Elgine, while the least myte was payed of such as was persued in anno 1624."*

Some idea of the iniquity of the administration of the laws at this time may be formed, when it is considered that the enormous fines imposed in the present instance, went into the pockets of the chief judge, the earl of Moray himself, as similar mulcts had previously gone into those of the earl of Argyle, in his crusade against the unfortunate ClanGregor! This legal robbery, however, does not appear to have enriched the houses of Argyle and Moray, for Sir Robert Gordon observes, that "these fynes did not much advantage either of these two earles." The earl of Moray, no doubt, thinking such a mode of raising money an easy and profitable speculation, afterwards obtained an enlargement of his commission from Charles the First, not only against the Clan-Chattan, but also against all other offenders within several adjacent shires; but the commission was afterwards annulled by his Majesty, not so much on account of the abuses and injustice which might have been perpetrated under it, but because, as Sir Robert Gordon observes, “it grieved divers of his Majesty's best affected subjects, and chieflie the Marquis of Huntlie, unto whose predicessors onlie the office of livetennendrie in the north of Scotland had bein granted by former kings, for these many ages."

There seems reason, however, for supposing that the recall of the commission was hastened by complaints to the king, on the part of the oppressed; for the earl had no sooner obtained its renewal, than he held a court against the burgh of Inverness, John Grant of Glenmoriston, and others who had refused to acknowledge their connexion with the ClanChattan, or to pay him the heavy fines which he had imposed upon them. The town of Inverness endeavoured to get quit of the earl's extortions, on the ground that the inhabitants were innocent of the crimes laid to their charge; but the earl frustrated their application to the privy council. The provost, Duncan Forbes, was then sent to the king, and Grant of Glenmoriston took a journey to London, at the same time, on his own account; but their endeavours with the king proved ineffectual, and they had no alternative but to submit to the earl's exactions.t

The quarrel between the laird of Duffus and John Gordon younger of Embo, which had lain dormant for some time, burst forth again, in the year sixteen hundred and twenty-five, and proved nearly fatal to

Hist. pp. 3, and 4.

Vide the petition of Provost Forbes to the king, "in the name of the inhabitants" of Inverness; printed among the Culloden Papers, No. 5, p. 4.

QUARREL BETWEEN DUFFUS AND EMBO THE YOUNGER. 291

both parties. Gordon had long watched an opportunity for revenging the wrong which he conceived had been done to him by the laird of Duffus and his brother, James, but he could never fall in with either of them, as they remained in Moray, and, when they appeared in Sutherland, they were always accompanied by some friends, so that Gordon was prevented from attacking them. Frequent disappointments in this way only whetted his appetite for revenge; and meeting, when on horseback, one day, between Sidderay and Skibo, with John Sutherland of Clyne, third brother of the laird of Duffus, who was also on horseback, he determined to make the laird of Clyne suffer for the delinquencies of his elder brother. Raising, therefore, a cudgel which he held in his hand, he inflicted several blows upon John Sutherland, who, as soon as he recovered himself from the surprise and confusion into which such an unexpected attack had thrown him, drew his sword. Gordon, in his turn, unsheathed his, and a warm combat ensued, between the parties and two friends who accompanied them. After they had fought a while, Gordon wounded Sutherland in the head and in one of his hands, and otherwise injured him, but he spared his life, although completely in his power.

The laird of Duffus, and all his friends and retainers, looked upon this attack as highly contemptuous, not so much on account of the personal injury which John Sutherland had sustained, but of the cudgelling which he had received. Duffus immediately cited John Gordon to appear before the privy council, to answer for this breach of the peace, and, at the same time, summoned before the council some of the earl of Sutherland's friends and dependants, for an alleged conspiracy against himself and his friends. Duffus, with his two brothers and Gordon, came to Edinburgh on the day appointed, and, the parties being heard before the council, Gordon was declared guilty of a riot, and was thereupon committed to prison. This result gave great satisfaction to Duffus and his brothers, who now calculated on nothing less than the utter ruin of Gordon; as they had, by means of Sir Donald Mackay, obtained a Strathnaver man, named William Mack-Allen (one of the Siol Thomais), who had been a servant of Gordon's, to become a witness against him, and to prove every thing that Duffus was pleased to allege against Gordon.

In this situation of matters, Sir Robert Gordon returned from London to Edinburgh, where he found Duffus in high spirits, exulting at his success, and young Embo in prison. Sir Robert applied to Duffus, hoping to bring about a reconciliation by the intervention of friends, which he thought would be readily acceded to by Duffus, who was the original cause of the discord; and he trusted, at all events, that Duffus would stop his proceedings against the earl of Sutherland's friends and followers. But Duffus refused to hear of any arrangement; and the more reasonable the conditions were, which Sir Robert proposed, the more unreasonable and obstinate did he become; his object being to