rt (if he had a heart) a Jacobite; and yet, on his trial, he
insisted strongly upon his affection for the reigning family.

Such were the characteristics of Simon Fraser, when, by the death of
Hugh Lord Lovat, his father and himself were raised from the
subservience of clansmen to the dignity of chieftains. To these traits
may be added a virtue rare in those days, and, until a long time
afterwards, rare in Highland districts;--he was temperate: when others
lost themselves by excesses, he preserved the superiority of sobriety;
and perhaps his crafty character, his never-ending designs, his
remorseless selfishness, were rendered more fatal and potent by this
singular feature in his deportment. There was another circumstance, less
rare in his country, the advantage of an admirable constitution. It was
this, coupled with his original want of feeling, which sustained him in
the imprisonment in the Tower, and enabled him to display, at eighty,
the elasticity of youth. Lord Lovat was never known to have had the
headache, and to the hour of his death he read without spectacles. A
very short time after the death of Hugh Lord Lovat elapsed, before those
relatives to whom he had bequeathed his estates were involved in the
deadliest quarrel with the family of Lord Tullibardine.

The family of Lord Tullibardine, at that time called Lord Murray,
furnish one of those numerous instances which occur in the reign of
William the Third, of an open avowal of Whig principles, joined to a
secret inclination to favour the Jacobite party. The Marquis of Athole,
the father of Lord Tullibardine, had been a powerful Royalist in the
time of Charles the First; but had, nevertheless, promoted the
Revolution, and had hastened, in 1689, to court the favour of the Prince
of Orange, with whom his lady claimed kindred.

Disappointed in his hopes of distinction, the Marquis returned to his
former views upon the subject of legitimacy; and finally retired into
private life, leaving the pursuit of fortune to his son, Lord John,
afterwards Earl Tullibardine, and Marquis of Athole. The disgust of the
old Marquis towards the government of William the Third, and the evident
determination which his son soon manifested to ingratiate himself with
that monarch, had, at the time when the death of Hugh Lord Lovat took
place, completely alienated the Marquis from his son, and produced an
entire separation of their interests.[127]

In his zeal for the King's service,