on a reduced scale, of the great commonwealth of
European nations. In the smaller of these two commonwealths, as in the
larger, there were wars, treaties, alliances, disputes about territory
and precedence, a system of public law, a balance of power. There was
one inexhaustible source of discontents and disputes. The feudal system
had, some centuries before, been introduced into the hill country, but
had neither destroyed the patriarchal system nor amalgamated completely
with it. In general he who was lord in the Norman polity was also
chief in the Celtic polity; and, when this was the case, there was no
conflict. But, when the two characters were separated, all the willing
and loyal obedience was reserved for the chief. The lord had only what
he could get and hold by force. If he was able, by the help of his own
tribe, to keep in subjection tenants who were not of his own tribe,
there was a tyranny of clan over clan, the most galling, perhaps, of
all forms of tyranny. At different times different races had risen to an
authority which had produced general fear and envy. The Macdonalds had
once possessed, in the Hebrides and throughout the mountain country of
Argyleshire and Invernessshire, an ascendancy similar to that which the
House of Austria had once possessed in Christendom. But the ascendancy
of the Macdonalds had, like the ascendancy of the House of Austria,
passed away; and the Campbells, the children of Diarmid, had become in
the Highlands what the Bourbons had become in Europe. The parallel might
be carried far. Imputations similar to those which it was the fashion to
throw on the French government were thrown on the Campbells. A peculiar
dexterity, a peculiar plausibility of address, a peculiar contempt
for all the obligations of good faith, were ascribed, with or without
reason, to the dreaded race. "Fair and false like a Campbell" became
a proverb. It was said that Mac Callum More after Mac Callum More had,
with unwearied, unscrupulous, and unrelenting ambition, annexed mountain
after mountain and island after island to the original domains of
his House. Some tribes had been expelled from their territory, some
compelled to pay tribute, some incorporated with the conquerors. At
length the number of fighting men who bore the name of Campbell was
sufficient to meet in the field of battle the combined forces of all
the other western clans, [324] It was during those civil troubles which
commenced in 1638 that the