Historical account of the family of Frisel or Fraser, particularly Fraser of Lovat

18 HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE
throwing of stones by catapultce, * from trenches still to be seen at 700
yards distance, it was dismantled and taken. The remains of the Dune,
or fortification, are stiU visible, t The country people have a romantic
tradition of it, handed down from father to son, and tlie names of some
places round about preserve the memory of its surrendei- ; as, for in-
stance, the hollow to the east of Beaufort, where the army halted, is called
in the language of the country LagnaloiKart, t. e. the hollow of the bag-
" Annals of the gagc. " Bcaufort, as well as its subsidiary fortalice, Lovat, were at this
- " time forts belonging to the Crown, of which the Fentons and Grahames
were Governors, even after the Byset's lands, on whicli tliey were built,
had been gifted to the Frasers. They appear to have been held by Royal
Constables from the attainder of the Bysets in 1242 to the year 1367,
°. ^''"'«- *'oray, Vol. -wlien Hugh Fraser does homage as lau'd of Lovat. ° The first mention
!• \Va)dia\v Mss. of of the fort of Lovat '' occurs in the reign of Alexander L when that mo-
thc Fiascrs. ii. i /-.i ^■ ■ i-
narch, having made a successful expedition to the north in 1120, and
quelled the insui-rection of the people of Moray, who had revolted un-
der Angus, their Maormor, settled different constables in the Castle of
kii, i.'28.3"wm'dia\v Elgin, the King's house of Inverness, and the Castle of Dingwall. '' One
Gilchrist M'KiUweralicke was appointed Constable of the fort of Lo-
vat, and is said to have surrounded it with a broad ditch, and built the
front tower. His descendants, Gilchrists or Graemes, as they are called,
contmued in Lovat tdl the year 1170, when John Byset, a man of emi-
nence at the court of WUliam the Lion, married the King's own daugh-
ter, and settled there inider royal authority. His second son, John,
succeeded him, and married Jean Haliburton, daughter of the laird of
Culbrynnie, anno 1206. Several petty vassals, from holding lands of
MSS.
* It was a very ancient practice to throw leaden bullets from catapultce. Edward I.
stript the lead off the monastery of St Andrew's, for constructing the machines employed
in the siege of Stirling. {Hailes's Annals, Vol. I. p. 380. Sd. Ed. 1819.)
f Beaufort Castle — taken a second time by Oliver Cromwell, and its inner citadel
blown up. Taken a third time by the English troops, after the battle of Culloden, and en-
tirely razed to the ground.