[For
a full copy of this instrument, see 'Invernessiana,' pp. 69-70.]
Fordun says that in order to crush the Highlanders, and the more
easily, as the King thought, to secure obedience to the laws, he
used artifice by dividing the chiefs and promising high rewards
to those who would capture or kill their brother lords; and, that
writer continues "this diabolical plan, by implanting the seeds
of disunion amongst the chiefs, succeeded, and they gradually
destroyed one another."
Before his marriage Murdoch had three illegitimate sons. One of
them was called Hector or Eachainn Biorach. He acquired the lands
of Drumnamarg by marrying Helen, daughter of Loban or Logan of
Drum-namarg, who, according to the Earl of Cromarty, "was one of the
Earl of Ross's feuars. This superior having an innate enmity with
Kenneth's race, was the cause that this Hector had no peaceable
possession of Drumnamarg, but turning outlaw, retired to Eddirachillis,
where he left a son called Henry, of whom are descended a race yet
possessing there, called Sliochd Ionraic, or Henry's race." The
second bastard was named Dugald Deargshuileach, "from his red
eyes." From him descended John Mackenzie, Commissary-Depute of
Ross, afterwards in Cromarty, Rev.
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