DUNROBIN 



quaffed, fell ill, and died after two days of agony. 

 The wretched mother was taken by Sutherland's 

 people, sent to Edinburgh for trial, was condemned 

 to death, and only escaped execution by taking her 

 own life in prison, after denouncing the Earl of 

 Caithness as having commanded her to commit the 

 crime. 



The said Earl was by no means diverted from 

 his purpose by the miscarriage of his plot. The 

 new Earl of Sutherland being under age, John 

 Earl of Atholl was appointed his guardian, who 

 most nefariously sold the wardship to Caithness 

 himself, Sutherland's deadliest enemy, who carried 

 the young earl off to the grim fortress of Girnigo, 

 scene of innumerable and unspeakable cruelties. 

 Even in that secret retreat, however, he did not 

 dare immediately to attempt the life of his ward. 

 As a preliminary, perhaps, he compelled him to 

 marry his daughter, Lady Barbara Sinclair, a woman 

 of open profligacy, the paramour of Mackay of Far. 

 The bride was two-and-thirty ; the bridegroom only 

 fifteen. Caithness then took up his abode at 

 Dunrobin, where he destroyed all the Sutherland 

 papers, and proceeded to administer his son-in-law's 

 estates, inaugurating a reign of terror, the memory 

 whereof still haunts the hills and shores of this fair 

 land. Many he drove from their homes by violence, 

 slaying those who resisted and forcing others by 

 inhuman tortures to surrender their property. He 

 did not spare even his own son, the Master of 



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