Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1896 edition. Excerpt: ... xviii. simon, thirteenth lord fraser. He was still, and for many years afterwards, under the sentence of death passed upon him for high treason by the Court of Justiciary during the life of his father in the preceding year. His claims to the peerage, according to Burton, were then not very widely acknowledged nor had he much occasion to bring them under the notice of society. "Among his clan, this dignity was a trifle--something like a foreign order of knighthood held by a monarch--few of whom would know what it was, and none of them would think that either its existence or its absence could much affect the importance of Mac Shimi, their chief." This is only to a certain extent true, for the Highlanders were by no means so ignorant regarding the question of honours and dignities even then as not to be fully aware of the importance to their chief of possessing the ancient title of the Lordship of Lovat. Simon is said to have been born at Beaufort in 1668, although in his Memoirs, p. 221, he makes certain statements which if, but cannot be, correct would make the date of his birth 1676. As he is generally acknowledged to have been in his eightieth year when executed in 1747 the firstnamed date is no doubt correct. His career during the life of his father, who died in 1699, has been already sketched. This year, Simon, in clever and characteristic manner, succeeded in convincing the Duke of Argyll of the danger which his family might incur if he permitted the house of Atholl to crush the Frasers and bring them under the subjugation of the Murrays, and that the balance of power in the Highlands would be seriously disturbed, much to the disadvantage of the Campbells. This reasoning was so far successful with the Duke that he set to work to...
