Page:Notes and Queries - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/336

 328

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[2nd s. No 17., APRIL 26. '56.

and to require no stent taxations. [Drakies is an estate about two imjes from the town, which would have been exceedingly convenient for the Macdonalds. ]

" 4fo. The Council to swear upon oath what persons did draw the Macdonalds' blood, to be delivered up to their mercy.

"5to. What arms, money, clothes, goods, cattle, &c. were lost should be repaid to the Macdonalds, as they should depone upon the worth.

" Gto. When any Inverness man shall meet Lord Mac- donald's friends and followers, or any one of them, that the Inverness men shall immediately lay down their arms on the ground, in token of obedience.

" lino. The town to pay what sums the Macdonalds and their people shall have spent from the time they became a body until they be disbanded."

The consternation of the burghers, on receiving these demands, may be readily conceived. They replied cautiously to the sweeping " articles of peace :"

" That upon the clan Donalds disbanding, they were willing to give hearing to indifferent [neutral] friends, being conscientious and indifferent men, to speak of such overtures as they found necessary and expedient to be made use of, for removing hostilities and making a right understanding betwixt them.

The affair was submitted to the Scottish Privy Council, and the Macdonalds seem to have had the stronger influence with that body, for the Council decerned that the town should pay the clan 4,800/, Scots of damages, together with the fees due to the surgeon who attended the wounded Macdonalds. The commissioners sent by the town to plead their cause before the Privy Council com- plained that they were

"greatly prejudiced, hindered, and crossed by some ill- affected and malicious neighbours, whereby they pretended and protested to be free of all personal and pecuniary fines to be imposed upon the burgh for that unhappy tumult raised in August last with the Macdonalds."

Some of these " malicious neighbours " who would not pay were declared ineligible, in all time coming, to serve as councillors. The affair was patched up ; but a feud of this kind lasted long, and twenty-four years afterwards the Mac- donalds had their day of reckoning. The Jaco- bite standard was raised. Dundee was in the field. On May 1, 1689, Dundee arrived with a body of horse at Inverness. He found the town invested by Macdonald of Keppoch, at the head of 800 or 900 men. Here again we take up Ma- caulay :

" The savages went round and round the small colony of Saxons like a troop of famished wolves round a sheep- fold. Keppoch threatened and blustered. He would come in with all his men. He would sack the place. The burghers meanwhile mustered in arms round the market cross, to listen to the oratory of their ministers."

The whole passage is exceedingly graphic and picturesque. The historian's authority was the following entry, extracted for him from the In- verness Kirk Session Records for 1689 :

" 28th April. That day sermon was preached be Mr.

Gilbert Marshall, in the forenoone, at the Cross, and that by reason Coll Macdonald was about the town, boasting to come in with his whole force, consisting of 8 or 900 men, to plunder the town. Afternoone, Mr. Mackenzie preached as aforesaid, all the citizens being necessitated to stand in a posture of defence. No collection." [The usual collection of pence for the poor.]

Dundee remonstrated with Keppocb, who stated in his defence that he was only demanding what was due to the Macdonalds by the town, and that he could only recover it by force of arms. The military leader agreed to act as mediator between " Coll of the Cows " (Keppoch's nickname) and the municipal authorities, and the matter was finally compromised by Keppoch receiving a thousand crowns, collected for him among the inhabitants. Keppoch then withdrew his High- land host, that had caused such alarm and loss to the town ; and there would, no doubt, be a pecu- liar unction in the sermon thus noticed in the Kirk register :

" 19 May. Ane thanksgiving sermon preached be Mr. Gilbert Marshall, and that be virtue of ane Act ishewed furth be the Convention of Estates for our safe delyverie from the power and tirranie of the Papists. Text, 124th Psalm, 14th verse."

The Town Council no less rejoiced ; but they petitioned the Privy Council to relieve their suf- ferings, having, they said, besides "the thousand dollars of ransom that it stood them to redeem the town of Inverness from being burnt by the Macdonalds and barbarous Highlanders," spent large sums in fortifying the town by order of General Mackay. Mackay soon followed Dundee into the central Highlands, and the rival forces joined battle, July 27, in the magnificent Pass of Killiecrankie, where Dundee met his death while waving on his men to victory. K. CABRUTHEKS.

Inverness.

NOTES ON THE FLEUR-DE-LIS.

(Continued from p. 310.)

We commence, then, with the record which Heylin has supplied. It is not, indeed, clear upon what authority these charges are assigned to some of their earliest possessors, but, taking them as represented, we find in the crown of Uffa, first King of the East Angles (A.D. 575), true Fs.-d.-L. Allusion has already been made to the double tress. F. C., which was adopted in Scotland so early as 792. In relation to this general subject, Montfaucon (Disc. Prelim., i. xxx. xxxiv.) says,

" Dans 1'Histoire d'Angleterre de M. Toiras, on voit quelques Kois des plus anciens qui ont a leur couronne, ou quelque fois au bout de leur sceptre, des Fs.-d.-L. bien forme'es, et le Roi Eclouard est represente avec ces memes flcurs a sa couronne tres bien formees." He here alludes to the Confessor (10421066), whose crown, according to Clarke (Intr, to He-