June, 23rd, 1650, and at Scoon, January 1st, 1651.”[1]
From an early period the Grants have occupied a place of prominence and power in the North of Scotland. In the thirteenth century, in the reign of Alexander II., Gregory de Grant was Sheriff-principal of Inverness, Ross, Sutherland and Caithness. And the splendid gracefully-winged quadrangular pile of Castle Grant, on its comely eminence, once begirt with ancient forests and still adorned with many a stately tree, dates from the 14th Century. In the same century, and in the same ancient parish of Cromdale, Lochindorb Castle — in proud security then on its loch-lapped isle — sheltered the Countess of Athol after the death of the Earl in an engagement with the Earl of March; and soon after, the old stronghold successfully resisted a siege by a powerful
- ↑ Garmouth ought not to forget Milne. He not only safely landed the king, but, boat-hook in hand, led the attack against the Hibernian angels of Montrose, when they set to burning and pillaging the town. Sir Walter Scott says that elsewhere these “Angelic messengers requested the good citizens to step out of their clothes before putting them to death, lest the garments should be injured by the wounds or the blood!” Thomas had faced these “lambs,”and when sorely pressed by five or six of them, had escaped as by a miracle. He wrenched a door from its hinges, pitched it into the river, and skilfully poising himself upon it, steered with his sett, or boat-hook, to the other side of the Spey. The pursuers followed in a cart, but, like Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea, they were drowned. — See “Great Floods,” pp, 300-1.
