upon the heirs of the marriage between
Amelia Fraser and Mackenzie of Fraserdale, was then executed, and the
former assumed the title of Lady Lovat, whilst her son was designated
the Master of Lovat.[190]

Lord Prestonhall seems to have acted with the same unscrupulous spirit
which characterizes most of the business transactions of those who
intermeddled with the forfeited or disputed estates. It was his aim, as
the Memorial for the Lovat case, subsequently tried, sets forth, to
extirpate the clan of the Frasers, and to raise that of the Mackenzies
upon its ruins. "Accordingly," says Mr. Anderson, in his curious and
elaborate account of the house of Fraser, "he framed a deed, with the
sly contrivance of sinking the Frasers into the Mackenzies, by
encouraging the former to change their names, and providing, as a
condition of the estate, that should they return to, and reassume their
ancient name of Fraser, they should forfeit their right."[191]

The arms of Mackenzie, Macleod of Lewis, and Bisset, were to be
quartered with those of Fraser, in this deed, which bore the signature
of Robert Mackenzie, and was dated the twenty-third of February, 1706.

This decision, and the deed which followed it, appeared to complete the
misfortunes of the disgraced and banished Lord Lovat. But, in fact, the
act of injustice and rapacity, so repugnant to the spirit of the
Highlanders,--this attempt to force upon the heirs of Fraser a foreign
name, and thus to lower the dignity of the clan, was the most
auspicious event that could happen to the wretched outlaw. What was his
exact condition, or what were his circumstances, during the seven years
of his imprisonment, three of which were passed under strict, though not
harsh control, in the Castle of Angouleme, and four, apparently on his
parole, in the Fortress of Saumur, it is not easy to describe. The cause
of the obscurity of his fate at this time, is not that too little, but
that too much, has been stated relative to his movements.

It is always an inconvenience when one cannot take a man's own story in
evidence. According to Lord Lovat's own account, these weary years were
spent in visits to different members of the nobility. The charming
Countess de la Roche succeeded the Marquis de la Frezeliere as his
friend and patroness, after the death of the Marquis in 1711, an event
which, according to Lord Lovat's statement, brought him nearly to the
grave from grief. The Countess was a woma