OCTOBER 191 



Archibald Douglas had fortified against the king. 

 The iron door now hanging on the keep of Cawdor 

 came from Lochindorb, borne thither, as you will be 

 gravely told, across the moors on the back of a High- 

 land Samson, a statement fully as credible as many 

 others in Celtic history. 



The presence of the essentially Saxon title of ' thane ' 

 in a district so thoroughly Highland in character is 

 explained by the policy of Malcolm Canmore, an ardent 

 reformer, who greatly encouraged the settlement of 

 southern lords within his dominions. The prelude to 

 the civilisation of this district was the abolition by 

 royal edict of the Gaelic toiseach, and the substitution 

 of thanes, charged with the collection of Crown rents 

 and the administration of justice in the great grain- 

 producing region of Angus and Moray. 



By far the greater part of the massive pile now 

 known as Cawdor Castle dates from the seventeenth 

 century. Long before that, the Thanage had passed 

 by marriage into the Campbell family, where it still 

 remains. William, eldest son of the seventh Thane, 

 was lame, so they made a priest of him. His younger 

 brother, John, married Isabel Ross of Kilravock, and 

 died, leaving as his sole heiress a daughter, Muriel. 

 The old Thane and John's four brothers ill might 

 brook their vast inheritance passing to a girl, and so, 

 by marriage, into another family. They did what in 

 them lay ; they nobly tried to disprove Muriel's 

 legitimacy, but in vain; and about the year 1510, she, 

 being then twelve years old, married Sir John Camp- 



