t last, the company was only given upon the payment of
a sum of money to the captain, who made room for the Laird of Beaufort.
Nor was this all; for upon the Lord Murray being made one of the
Secretaries of State, he insisted upon the regiment taking oath of
abjuration, which had never before been tendered to the Scottish
army.[128]

Such had been the state of affairs when Hugh Lord Lovat was taken ill,
and died at Perth. The manner in which Simon Fraser represents this
event, is far more characteristic of his own malignant temper, than
derogating to the family upon whom he wreaks all the luxury of vengeance
that words could give. Simon, it appears, had persuaded Lord Lovat to
go to Dunkeld, to meet his wife, the daughter of the Marquis of Athole,
in order to conduct her to Lovat. Lord Lovat, disgusted by the treachery
of the Earl of Tullibardine in respect to the regiment, had refused to
have anything more to do with "this savage family of Athole," as he
called them, "who would certainly kill him."[129] According to an
account more to be relied on than that of the scheming and perfidious
Simon, the aversion which Lord Lovat imbibed during his latter days to
his wife's kindred, was implanted in his mind by Simon Fraser, in order
to gain his weak-minded relative over to that plot which he had formed
in order to secure the estates of Lovat to his own branch of the
house.[130] This, however, is the account given by Fraser of his
kinsman's last illness:--

"In reality he had been only two days at Dunkeld, when he fell sick, and
the Atholes, not willing to be troubled with the care of an invalid, or
for some other reasons, sent him to an inn in the city of Perth, hard by
the house of Dr. James Murray, a physician, the relation or creature of
the Marquis of Athole, upon whom the care of Lord Lovat's person was
devolved.

"The moment the Laird of Beaufort heard the news that Lord Lovat had
been conducted, very ill, to the town of Perth, he set out to his
assistance. But before his arrival, in consequence of the violent
remedies that had been administered to him, he lost the use of his
reason, and lay in his bed in a manner incapable of motion,--abandoned
by his wife and the whole family of Athole, who waited for his
dissolution in great tranquillity, at the house of Dr. Murray, their
relation."

Lord Lovat, however, recollected his cousin, and embracing him said,
"Did not I tell you, my dear Simon, that these devils would