Frasers of Philorth > Volume 1

THE FKASEES OF PHILOETH, LORDS SALTOUN. 195
which strongly exemplifies the very slight authority of the law in the
Highlands at that period.
Hugh Fraser, Lord Lovat, in 1685 married the Lady Amelia Murray,
daughter of John, first Marquis of Athole, and, dying in 1696, left no sur-
viving male issue, but four daughters.
By his marriage-contract, in default of male heirs by that or any other
marriage, he had settled his lordship and barony of Lovat, and his other
estates, upon his eldest heir-female, without division, contingently upon her
marrying a gentleman of the name of Fraser ; but he appears, in March 1696,
not six months before his decease, to have altered this destination, and to
have disponed his property to his grand-uncle, Thomas Fraser of Beaufort,
and his heirs-male, though it is questionable whether he had the power of
legally doing so in the face of the settlement under his marriage-contract.
The eldest of these four daughters bore the same name as her mother,
Amelia ; and the Marquis of Athole, in 1697, when she was not above eleven
years of age, arranged a contract of marriage between her and Lord Saltoun's
eldest son, the Master of Saltoun, then a boy of about thirteen.
This gave great umbrage to some of the other branches of the Fraser
name, and Thomas Fraser of Beaufort, with his eldest surviving son, Simon
(afterwards the notorious Lord Lovat, executed in 1747), who were the nearest
male heirs to the late Lord Lovat, determined to prevent the match taking
place, and for that purpose entered into a confederation with Charles, Lord
Fraser.
It is difficult to understand what induced Lord Fraser, whose interests
were not affected, and whose estates were situated in Aberdeenshire, to
interfere in the affair, and it is not improbable that his motives in doing so
were political. He was an ardent Jacobite, and very possibly apprehended
that Lord Saltoun, who was not disposed to rebel against the reigning
monarch, would use the power which the contemplated alliance would have
given him in a manner unfavourable to the designs of that party for the
restoration of the Stewart family to the throne.
Beaufort and his son Simon having assembled a good many of the leading
men of the clan at a place called Essick, about four miles from Inverness, on
the road to Stratherrick, Lord Fraser there met them, and made a speech,