Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

74 HISTORY OF THE WKSTERN ISLANDS.
here than in England. Birt gives an amusing example
of it when repeating what a Highland Chief had told him
of the impression which the Emmanuel in the Puritan
flag had left on his memory. Loch Cateran too pre-
serves the remembrance of his soldiers to this day, as
does the neighbourhood of Inverlochy; nor had the
Lowlanders ever enjoyed such security and repose, as
they did at this period, from the first rise of the Clans
till the final subjugation of the whole of this turbulent
country.
As a reward for the exertions of the Highlanders,
the forts established by Cromwell were abandoned
at the Restoration : while the Marquis of Argyll, who
had acquired a great ascendancy, being persecuted by
Charles and James in succession, the Clans which had
nearly sunk under his power recovered a formida-
ble independence. Being attached to prelacy, if not
Roman Catholics, they were thence employed against
the Presbyterian influence ; and hence contrived to
strengthen themselves, and to establish their independ-
ence, both of the civil and the criminal law of Scotland.
As if it had not been sufficient to relax those laws by
which they had formerly been restrained, they were
encouraged in their habits of violence by being in-
vited to overrun the Low country where the Presby-
terian interest was strongest. The same system of plun-
der was pursued by them after the battle of Killicrankie ;
so that the tract which lay on the Highland border, be-
came subject to worse than the miseries of a frontier
country in time of war.
It was the mistaken policy, alike, of William to court
them as valuable allies, and to bribe those whom he ought
to have restrained ; thus adding to that self-importance
Avhich was at last destined to lead them to their own