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
threate