The following remarkable anecdote, communicated by a respectable
correspondent, with his name and address, may be relied on as genuine.
_For the Table Book._
An old man, claiming to be “the _right_ lord Lovat,” i. e. heir to him
who was beheaded in 1745, came to the Mansion-house in 1818 for advice
and assistance. He was in person and face as much like the rebel lord,
if one may judge from his pictures, as a person could be, and the more
especially as he was of an advanced age. He said he had been to the
present lord Lovat, who had given him food and a little money, and
turned him away. He stated his pedigree and claim thus:--The rebel lord
had an only brother, known by the family name of Simon Fraser. Before
lord Lovat engaged in the rebellion, Simon Fraser went to a wedding in
his highland costume; when he entered the room where the party was
assembled, an unfortunate wight of a bagpiper struck up the favourite
march of a clan in mortal enmity with that of Fraser, which so enraged
him, that he drew his dirk and killed the piper upon the spot. Fraser
immediately fled, and found refuge in a mine in Wales. No law
proceedings took place against him as he was absent, and supposed to
have perished at sea. He married in Wales, and had one son, the old man
abovenamed, who said he was about sixty. When lord Lovat was executed
his lands became forfeited; but in course of time, lord L. not having
left a son, the estates were granted by the crown to a collateral
branch, (one remove beyond Simon Fraser,) the present lord, it not being
known that Simon Fraser was alive or had left issue. It is further
remarkable that the applicant further stated, that both he and his
father, Simon Fraser, were called lord Lovat by the miners and other
inhabitants of that spot where he was known.
The old man was very ignorant, not knowing how to read or write, having
been born in the mine and brought up a miner; but he said he had
preserved Simon Fraser’s highland dress, and that he had it in Wales.
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