reckon with such a restless element as the
clans, and hanging and heading were very ineffectual measures among
people with whom "another for Hector" was the simplest suggestion of
natural law.

It was after this stern Parliament of Inverness that there occurred at
Edinburgh one of the most curious and picturesque scenes that it is
possible to imagine. One of the chiefs tried at that assize was the
greatest and most important of all, the Lord of the Isles, sometimes
called Donald and sometimes Alexander by the chroniclers, who on his
promise to amend his ways, and no longer harbour caterans or head
forays, was, no doubt out of respect for his almost princely position,
set at liberty. But no sooner was the fierce chieftain set free, "within
a few days after," says the chronicler, than he took and burnt the town
of Inverness, in which the Parliament had been held, and showed his
impenitence by an utter abuse of the mercy accorded to him. When,
however, he heard that the King himself with all the forces of the
kingdom was coming against him, Donald hastily disbanded his men and
took refuge in the watery fastnesses of his islands: and it would seem
that he must have felt the tide of national sentiment to be against him,
and his power not equal to make any stand against all the force of
peaceful and law-abiding Scotland under the energetic new King. The wily
Highlander made his submission in the way which, no doubt, he thought
most likely to disarm authority and gain exemption. He choose Easter
day, the greatest of religious festivals, for his appearance as a
penitent, and in the middle of the service in the Chapel of Holyrood
appeared suddenly, almost without clothing, and knelt down before the
King "where he was sittand at his orison," praying for grace in the name
of Him who rose from the dead that day. So strange an interruption in
the midst of all the glories of the Easter mass throws a strange and
wild light upon the varieties of national life in Scotland. That
half-savage figure, with plaid and weapons cast aside, defenceless, at
the King's mercy, in all the primitive abandonment yet calculation of
early patriarchal times; while all that the art and culture of a
splendid age could do to give magnificence to the most imposing
ceremonial of the Church surrounded this strange apparition, the incense
rising, the music pealing, the Court in all its glory of flashing jewels
and splendid stuffs filling the lofty area. Like so