Keppoch song

158 ADDENDA.
that family, prior to its extinction; so they,
and its other vassals, would now consider
themselves as holding of the crown, and
therefore, legally justified in repelling the
pretensions of any other to superiority. As
the injustice of the crown towards that fa-
mily, had excited the greedy desires of
their more powerful neighbours, who con-
sidered them as out of favour, and proper
objects of prey ; so the crown seems to have
tacitly acquiesced in their pretensions to
superiority, as if to make them more obe-
dient subjects from fear. Thus Sir J. Dal-
rymple, in his memoirs, designs them as
holding their lands of subjects superior.*
and as they, for about three years, refused
to acknowledge the revolution, he states,
that these superiors urged King William to
grant them letters of fire and sword against
them; but as the last division of the pro-
perty of the family of the Isles remained
still annexed to the crown, they considered
themselves as holding of the sovereign, dis-
owning the claims of these superiors, and
had taken the oath of allegiance to James
the Seventh. Hence Keppocirs reason for