Series 1 > Loyall dissuasive

52
THE LOYALL DISSUASIVE
theirs, I shall at least give some presumptions and such as in
the eye of the Law are equivalent to a proof; and to begin, first,
It was much about this time (some few years before it), that
the McPhersons made a totall Rupture with the Laird of
MTntoshe for bestowing of the Vanne or Right hand on the
Davidsons at the battle of Invernahavon1 which till then was
religiouslie kept for your ancestor, in honour of his being the
heir male of the familie; or (as they said and was the same
upon the matter) the first and chiefest Cadet.2 Nay, and so
nicely was this punctilio and compliment observed in behalfe
of Cluny, (on purpose to engage him) tho’ none of your
ancestors ever accepted of the Condition, that at all times in
his absence, there was a blank or void space left for Cluny at
MTntoshe’s right hand, to which no other had liberty to
approach. From this account, which is more their own than
ours, I observe by the by, that in those days there was no ex¬
ception of the young Laird, or of ane Invercauld, or any other
Cadet; But I go on to tell you that your predecessor 3 taking
notice that the whole familie hade abandoned MTntoshe for
the publick injury he had done them, very dexterously took
occasion from thence, to convince such of his friends as had
till that time adhered to MTntoshe, how unjust they were to
^ See previous note. Invernahaven was fought in 1370, though some say 1380.
and 1386. Kenneth M‘Ewan seems to have been the chief of Clan Vurich at
the time, but all is uncertain.—Glimpses of Life in Highlands, pp. 289-314.
2 I suppose that Sir ./Eneas means that in the great confederacy of Clan
Chattan under Mackintosh as captain, Cluny’s was the first family. He does not
admit that it was a family cadent of Mackintosh.
s Which predecessor? If Kenneth is intended, he must have been past
diplomacy. His father, Ewan Mac-in-Phairson (said to have been so designated
from the original vocation of his father), lived, according to the genealogy of
Sir /Eneas, in the reign of Alexander 11. (12-14-1249). The battle of Inverna¬
haven at its earliest date was fought under Kenneth in 1370. If Ewan did not
live well into Alexander HI.'s reign (1249-1285-6), and had not his children late
in life, Kenneth could hardly have commanded on the second day of Inverna¬
haven, and carried out a prolonged diplomacy afterwards. The truth is, names and
dates are not to be trusted in these accounts. Some chief of Clan Murich did
affect at this time a drawing together of the old Clan Chattan, of the male line,
and separated them from acquiescence in the captaincy of the heir of line, the
Mackintosh. If we make the marriage of Angus Mackintosh with Eva, daughter
and only child of Dougall Daul, in 1291, Kenneth, the cousin of her father,
may nqt have been born before that date, and might thus help us somewhat
nearer a solution of the point.