236 OCTOBER 



which 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 Highland Samson, a state- 

 ment 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 en- 

 couraged 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-produc- 

 ing 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 Kil- 



