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Updated: June 26, 2025
By the assistance of the chieftains whom we have commemorated, and more especially by the junction of the Murrays, Stewarts, and other clans of Athole, which were peculiarly zealous in the royal cause, he soon assembled an army of two or three thousand Highlanders, to whom he successfully united the Irish under Colkitto.
Carstairs was now secretary to King William, and he little knew, when he counselled that monarch to pardon Lovat, what a partisan of the Jacobite cause he was thus restoring to society. His mediation was effectual, perhaps owing to a dislike which had arisen in the mind of William against the Athole family; and a pardon was procured for Lord Lovat.
Winter had already set in with severity; and his Lowland associates shrunk from the dreary prospect before them; but Montrose himself, accompanied by his more faithful adherents, gained without opposition the braes of Athole. To Argyle the disappearance of the royalists was a subject of joy.
The disagreement between the Dukes of Athole and Argyle seems to have animated the former against Rob Roy, as one of Argyle's partisans. "Rev. and dear Brother, Yrs of the 28th Jun I had by the bearer. Im pleased yo have got back again yr Delinquent which may probably safe you of the trouble of her child.
Such was the state of family discord when Lord Lovat died; and it was discovered, to the consternation of the Marquis of Athole and his sons, that he had made a will in favour of his relation Thomas of Beaufort, and to the exclusion of his own daughter. The right of Thomas of Beaufort was deemed incontestable; and not a man, it was presumed, dreamed of disputing it.
With his army scattered and only about five hundred followers remaining faithful to him, Bruce fled into the mountain forests of Athole. His troubles had only begun, for many fierce Scottish noblemen themselves were his bitter enemies on account of wars between the different Scottish clans, and particularly because of the foul murder of Lord Comyn.
It nevertheless soon appeared that the young heir of the house of Athole had imbibed very different sentiments to those with which it was naturally supposed a nobleman, actually in office at that time, would suffer in his eldest son.
Upon this, Lord Lovat cited the Marquis of Athole before the Lords Justiciary in Edinburgh to answer before them for a false accusation: but on the very day of supporting his charge, as the biographer of his family relates, his patron the Duke of Argyle was informed that the judges had been corrupted, and that "certain death would be the result if he appeared."
All hope of reviving the Jacobite party being then extinct for a time, the Marquis escaped to France, where he remained in tranquillity for a few years; but his persevering endeavours to aid the Stuart cause were only laid aside, and not abandoned. During his absence, the fortunes of the house of Athole sustained no important change.
As for me, I wad na change places wi' the Duke o' Athole," and Domsie shook the table to its foundation. Then he awoke, as from a dream, and the shame of boasting that shuts the mouths of self-respecting Scots descended upon him. "But this is fair nonsense. Ye'll no mind the havers o' an auld dominie."
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