Lord Salton dispatched an answer, saying, that he would meet the Master of Lovat at the appointed time, as his "good friend and servant." But the bearer of that message distrusted the reply, and informed the Master that he believed it was Fraser of Salton's intention to set out and to pass through Inverness early in the morning, in order to escape the interview. Measures were taken accordingly, by the Master of Lovat. At a very early hour he was seen passing over the bridge of Inverness, attended by six gentlemen, as he himself relates, and two servants, completely armed. This is the Master's statement; but on his subsequent trial, it appeared that the fiery cross and the coronach had been sent throughout all the country; that a body of four or five hundred men in arms were in attendance, and that they had met in the house of one of the clansmen, Fraser of Strichen, where the Master took their oaths of fidelity, and where they swore on their dirks to be faithful to him in his enterprise.[142] "The inhabitants of Inverness," says Lord Lovat, "observing their alert and spirited appearance, lifted up their hands to heaven, and prayed God to prosper their enterprise." These simple and deluded people, doubtless, but partially understood the nature of that undertaking which they thus called on Heaven to bless.
The Master of Lovat and his party had not proceeded more than four or five miles from Inverness, than they observed a large party of "runners issuing out of the wood of Bonshrive, which is crossed by the high road." "It is a custom," adds Lord Lovat, "in the north of Scotland, for almost every gentleman to have a servant in livery, who runs before his horse, and who is always at his stirrup when he wishes to mount or to alight; and however swift any horse may be, a good runner is always able to match him."
The gentlemen who attended the Master of Lovat, were soon able to perceive that Lord Salton was one of the leaders of the party who was quitting the Wood of Bonshrive, and emerging into the high road; and that his Lordship was accompanied by Lord Mungo Murray, a younger son of the Marquis of Athole, and, as the Master of Lovat intimates, an early friend of his own. The account which Lord Lovat's narrative henceforth presents, of that which ensued, is so totally at variance with the evidence on his trial, that it must be disregarded and rejected as unworthy of credit, as well as the boast with which he concludes it, of having generously saved the lives of Lord Salton, and of his own kinsman, Lord Mungo. It appeared afterwards, that his followers had orders to seize them, dead or alive.
These two young noblemen were, it seems, almost instantly overpowered by numbers, notwithstanding the attendance of the "runners," on whom Lord Lovat so much insists. Lord Mungo was taken prisoner by the Master himself. They were then deprived of their horses, and being mounted on poneys, were conducted to Fanellan, guards surrounding them, with their muskets loaded, and dirks drawn, to a house belonging to Lord Lovat, where they were kept in close confinement, guarded by a hundred clansmen. Gibbets were erected under the windows of the house, to intimidate the prisoners; and at the end of a week they were marched off to Castle Downie,—the Master of Lovat going there in warlike array, with a pair of colours and a body of five hundred men. From Castle Downie, Lord Salton and Lord Mungo were led away into the islands and mountains, and were treated with great indignity.
These adversaries being thus disposed of, the Master of Lovat invested the castle of Downie with an armed force, and soon took possession of a fortress, tenanted only by a defenceless woman, the Dowager Lady Lovat. But that lady was a Murray; one of a resolute family, and descended on her mother's side from a Stanley. She was the grand-daughter of Charlotte de la Tremouille, who defended Latham House against the Parliamentary forces in 1644. Notwithstanding that armed men were placed in the different apartments of the castle, she was undaunted. Attempts were made by the Master of Lovat to compel her to sign certain deeds, securing to him that certainty of the right to the estates, for which he was ready to plunge in the deepest of crimes. She was firm—she refused to subscribe her name. Her refusal was the signal, or the incentive, for the completion of another plot, of a last resource,—a compulsory marriage between the Master of Lovat and herself.
The awful and almost incredible details of that last act of infuriated villany, prove Lady Lovat to have been a woman of strong resolution, and of a deep sensibility. The ceremony of marriage was pronounced by Robert Monro, Minister of Abertaaffe. The unhappy Lady Lovat's resistance and prayers were heard in the very court-yard below, although the sound of bagpipes were intended to drown her screams. Morning found the poor wretched being, to make use of one of the expressions used by an eye-witness, "out of her judgment; she spoke none, but gave the deponent a broad stare." For several days reason was not restored to her, until, greeted by one of her friends with the epithet "Madam," she answered, "Call me not Madam, but the most miserable wretch alive." The scene of this act of diabolical wickedness[143] is razed to the ground: Castle Downie was burned by the royal troops, in the presence of him who had committed such crimes within its walls, and of three hundred of his clansmen, shortly after the battle of Culloden.
It appears from a letter written by Thomas Lovat, the father of the Master, to the Duke of Argyle, that he and his son were shortly "impeached for a convocation," and for making prisoners of Lord Salton and Lord Mungo Murray, for which they were charged before him, were fined, discharged their fines, and "gave security to keep the peace."[144] So lightly was that gross invasion of the liberty that threatened the lives of others at first treated! "We have many advertisements," adds Thomas Lovat, "that Athole is coming here in person, with all the armed men he is able to make, to compel us to duty, and that without delay. If he come, so we are resolved to defend ourselves; the laws of God, of nature, and the laws of all nations, not only allowing, but obliging all men, vim vi repellere. And I should wish from my heart, if it were consistent with divine and human laws, that the estates of Athole and Lovat were laid as a prize, depending on the result of a fair day betwixt him and me."[145] It was, perhaps, an endeavour to avert the impending ruin and devastation that followed, that the Master of Lovat gave their liberty to Lord Saltoun and Lord Mungo Murray, although not until he had threatened them both with hanging for interfering with his inheritance, and compelling Lord Saltoun to promise that he would, on arriving at Inverness, send a formal obligation for eight thousand pounds, never more to concern himself with the affairs of the Lovat estate, and that neither he nor the Marquis of Athole would ever prosecute either Lord Lovat or his son, or their clan in general, for the disgrace they had received in having been made prisoners, for any of the transactions of this affair.[146]
But it was evident that, in spite of this concession, the vengeance of the Marquis of Athole never slept; and that he was resolved to wreak it upon the head of the wretch who had for ever blasted the happiness of his sister.
The Master of Lovat was shortly aware that it would no longer be prudent to remain with his victim in the castle of Downie. His wife, as it was then his pleasure to call her, remained in a condition of the deepest despair. She would neither eat nor drink whilst she was in his power; and her health appears to have suffered greatly from distress and fear. In the dead of night she was summoned to leave Castle Downie, to be removed to a more remote and a wilder region, where the unhappy creature might naturally expect, from the desperate character of her pretended husband, no mitigation of her sorrows. Since rumours were daily increasing of the approach of Lord Athole's troops, the clan of Fraser was again, when Lady Lovat was conveyed from the scene of her anguish, called forth to assist their leader, and the wail of the coronach was again heard in that dismal and portentous night: for portentous it was. This crime, the first signal offence of Simon Fraser, stamped his destiny. Its effects followed him through life: it entailed others: it was the commencement of a catalogue of iniquities almost unprecedented in the career of one man's existence.
Crushed, broken-spirited, afraid of returning to her kindred, whose high fame she seems to have thought would be sullied by her misfortunes, Lady Lovat was conducted by Fraser to the Island of Aigas. They stole thither on horseback, attended by a single servant, and arriving at the sea-shore, they there took a boat, and were carried to the obscure island which Fraser had chosen for his retreat. Thomas Fraser of Beaufort, the father of Simon, thus writes to the Duke of Argyle respecting this singular and revolting union.