Series 1 > Loyall dissuasive

xxxii THE LOYALL DISSUASIVE
is recognised as ‘ principal captain of the hail kin of Clan
Chattan,1 and captain and chief till Lachlan Mackintosh of
Dunacton should come of age to take up a chiefship, said to
be granted of old by the King of Scotland. Andrew Mac-
pherson of Cluny, and five other Macphersons, sign this Band.
iEneas Macpherson says the signatures are forgeries, proved
in court as such. I am not prepared to accept that position,
but I think too much is made of this Band by the Mackintosh
advocates. Such bands were very numerous, and especially
so at this time. Great nobles, where inferiority is not sug¬
gested, bind themselves for existing emergencies to serve other
nobles and chiefs in their just necessities and occasions. The
Act of 1597 had greatly agitated the Highlands. It called
on all proprietors to produce charter evidence of ownership.
There were very few charters of old in the Highlands, hold¬
ing being by descent in right of blood, and the evidence,
tradition.1 It is clear that this Act exposed the chiefs of
clans and septs to great danger. A man’s powerful neigh¬
bour or his own feudal superior, if hostile, might easily
deprive him of his estate. In anticipation of this dangerous
Act, and in consequence of it, the bands for mutual service
and defence are very numerous at this time. The Clan Chattan
was in possession of its numerous properties without much
charter evidence. Most of the property, after the Celtic
Maormoreship lapsed, had been held under the Lords of the
Isles or under Comyns and Stewarts. The reasonableness of
the Termitt Band is shown in the preliminary clause: ‘ Foras-
meikle as anent the controversies, questions, debates, and hosts
that has fallen furth betwixt the said hail kin of Clan Chattan
these times byegone, thereupon there followed great incon¬
veniences committed by them one against other without re¬
spect to their own weals coming thereof . . . therefore and for
1 Skene gives the Lamonds a precedency among Highland clans as to the
possession of charter evidence of descent.—Highlanders of Scotland, vol. ii. p.125.