Note 21 — 196 THE FIRE OF FRENDRAUGHT

See Spalding, Memorialls of the Trubles in Scotland and in England, 1624–1645, Spalding Club, I, 45–51, 420–23, 430–35, and the continuator of Sir Robert Gordon, p. 474 f. Frendraught is generally represented to have been utterly ruined in his estate, but that is probably an exaggeration. His sufferings are thus depicted in the Charges against the Marquis of Huntly and others anent the disorders in the North (Spalding, I, 420): “Forasmuch as the Lords of Secret Council are informed that great numbers of sorners and broken men of the clan Gregor, clan Lachlan (etc.), as also divers of the name of Gordon ... have this long time, and now lately very grievously, infested his Majesty’s loyal subjects in the north parts, especially the laird of Frendraught and his tenants, by frequent slaughters, herships, and barbarous cruelties committed upon them, and by a late treasonable fireraising within the said laird of Frendraught his bounds, whereby not only is all the gentleman’s lands laid waste, his whole goods and bestial spoiled, slain and maigled, some of his servants killed and cruelly demeaned, but also the whole tenants of his lands and domestics of his house have left his service, and himself, with the hazard of his life, has been forced to steal away under night and have his refuge to his Majesty’s Council, etc.” It was reported that Frendraught obtained a decree against the marquis for 200,000 merks (Scots) for scathe, and another for 100,000 pounds (or merks) for spoliation of tithes, but that he recovered the money does not appear. (Spalding, I, 71, 115.) In 1636, through the exertions of Sir Robert Gordon, Huntly and Frendraught were brought to submit all differences on either side, “and particularly a great action of law prosecuted by Frendraught against the marquis,” to the arbitrament of friends. Huntly died before a decision was reached, but “the Laird of Frendraught retired himself home to his own lands, and there lived peaceably.” (Genealogical History of Sutherland, p. 479.)