Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

28 HISTORY OF THE WESTERN ISLANDS.
dons, Murrays, and Stewarts ; barons or chiefs, who re-
mained feudatory, if that term may be used, to the go-
vernment which had conferred on them these rewards
of services, and who often extended by conquest or mar-
riage or additional grants, or diminished or lost by for-
feiture, the estates which they had thus acquired.
While it is an interesting and not a tedious fragment
of history, it is therefore not difficult to give a sketch of
the ancient political condition of the maritime and western
portion of the Highlanus, without much interference with
Scottish history at large. Nor is it possible to avoid
giving such a sketch. Besides that it is necessary for
elucidating many points in the character and conduct of
the ancient Highlanders, it exhibits them in a prouder
attitude than in those parts where whole districts were sub-
ject to be transferred to strangers; since we here find them
living, for a long series of ages, under their hereditary sove-
reigns, or under the branches which sprung from that
stock, whose descendants, multiplied and divided as they
now are, hold the very estates as subjects which they
once governed as petty kings. There are also many
things relating to the antiquities of this country, which
cannot be understood without reference to that portion of
history; and indeed, not to dwell on the various points
which it assists in illustrating, you will have occasion to
see hereafter on different occasions, that, without some
sketch of this nature, many circumstances which I shall
have occasion to mention, would scarcely be intelligible.
As far as is possible, I intend to avoid such portions of the
history of the continental Highlands as are peculiarly im-
plicated with that of the Scottish crown; noticing only
such few points as seem to be required for the same
purposes that render the present brief view of the early
Western Highland empire indispensable.