Their vassals had no shelter from outrages and
oppressions; but were condemned to endure, without resistance, the
caprices of wantonness, and the rage of cruelty.
In the Highlands, some great lords had an hereditary jurisdiction
over counties; and some chieftains over their own lands; till the
final conquest of the Highlands afforded an opportunity of crushing
all the local courts, and of extending the general benefits of
equal law to the low and the high, in the deepest recesses and
obscurest corners.
While the chiefs had this resemblance of royalty, they had little
inclination to appeal, on any question, to superior judicatures. A
claim of lands between two powerful lairds was decided like a
contest for dominion between sovereign powers. They drew their
forces into the field, and right attended on the strongest. This
was, in ruder times, the common practice, which the kings of
Scotland could seldom control.
Even so lately as in the last years of King William, a battle was
fought at Mull Roy, on a plain a few miles to the south of
Inverness, between the clans of Mackintosh and Macdonald of
Keppoch. Col. Macdonald, the head of a small clan, refused to pay
the dues demanded from him by Mackintosh, as his superior lord.
They disdained the interposition of judges and laws, and calling
each his followers to maintain the dignity of the clan, fought a
formal battle, in which several considerable men fell on the side
of Mackintosh, without a complete victory to either.
