was known as
Fraser's Highlanders because recruited chiefly from that ancient and
powerful Scottish clan. In the rising of 1745 the Frasers had supported
the Stuart cause and they suffered when that cause was lost. In 1747
the head of the clan, Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, an old man of 80,
perished on the scaffold for his treason. The details of Lovat's career
are amazing. In one aspect he was a wild, half barbarous Highland
chieftain, in another one of the polished gentlemen and courtiers of his
time. He was devoured by the ambition to be the most powerful man in
Scotland. In that age others, more reputable than Fraser, found it wise
to stand well with both royal houses, but he surpassed them all in
tortuous treachery. In the rising of 1715 he was on the Whig side; in
1745 he was forced at last to come out openly for the Stuarts. For
neither side did he really care: he was merely serving his own ends.
Considering his deeds it is a wonder that he so long escaped the
scaffold. When he was a young man a certain Baroness Lovat stood in the
way of his own claims to be the heir to the title of Lovat; so he
offered to marry this lady's daughter and thus end the dispute. When his
advances were refused he determined to use force and seized Lady Lovat's
residence, Castle Dounie, only to find that the young lady had been
spirited away. He resolved on the spot to marry her mother who was in
the castle. She was a widow of thirty-four, he a man of thirty, so the
disparity of age was not great. Stories of what happened vary, but it is
said that in the dead of night a clergyman was brought to Lady Lovat's
chamber and she was forced to go through the form of marriage, the
bag-pipes playing in the next room to drown her cries. The lady was
connected with the great house of Atholl who warred on Fraser with fire
and sword. Outlawed, he escaped to the Continent to survive for half a
century of intrigue and treason.

Though profligate, cruel, treacherous and avaricious, so smooth was
Lovat's address, so profound his knowledge of Scotland, and so strong
his hold upon his own clansmen, that he always remained a man to be
reckoned with. Since he served on the Hanoverian side in 1715 George I
granted a pardon for his many offences; for his treason in 1745 George
II let him go to the block. His last days in London were like those of a
dying saint. He wrote to his son Simon Fraser, who led Fraser's
Highlanders at Quebec in 1759, a beautiful spiritu