He assigned this decree to his nephew,
Captain Donald Macleod of Geanies, and it remained as the basis of
the process which was raised by Norman Macleod, XIX. of Macleod, in
1738, already referred to "for what thereof is unpaid." But Neil,
"being unable by unparalleled bad usage, trouble, and poverty, and at
length by old age, it does not appear that lie went any further
towards obtaining of justice for himself than what is above narrated
in relation to the process of reduction and Spulzie"; and that his
friends failed in their subsequent efforts to punish Mackenzie
or re-possess themselves of the Assynt estates is sufficiently
well-known. [For Neil's connection with the Betrayal of Montrose
see Mackenzie's "History of the Macleods," pp. 410-419.]
In 1648 Seaforth again raised a body of 4000 men in the Western
Islands and Ross-shire, whom he led south, to aid the King's cause,
but after joining in a few skirmishes under Lanark, they returned
home to "cut their corn which was now ready for their sickles."
During the whole of this period Seaforth's fidelity to the Royal
cause was open to considerable suspicion, and when Charles I.
threw himself into the hands of the Scots at Newark, and ordered
Montrose to disband his forces, Earl George, always trying to be
on the winning side, came in to Middleton, and made terms with the
Committee of Estates; but the Church, by whom he had previously
been excommunicated, continued implacable, and would only agree to
be satisfied by a public penance in sackcloth within the High Church
of Edinburgh.
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