Yet the difficulties of William were still most severe. The bigoted Covenanters held aloof from a tolerant King who had not taken the Covenant; and a number of extreme Whigs, who were attached to a monarchy so limited as to be really a republic, put themselves at the head of a factious opposition, forming among themselves an organization known by the name of the Club. While this powerful opposition was being formed in the Lowlands, war in behalf of the fugitive King actually broke out in the Highlands. Dundee, on his flight from Edinburgh, had remained for some time peaceably in his own house. But letters passing between him and Melfort, James's minister in Ireland, were intercepted. An order was issued to arrest him, with his colleague Balcarras. Balcarras was secured, but Dundee fled towards Inverness, where he found a state of affairs which he was able to turn to the advantage of James. [Sidenote: Highland politics.] The politics of the Highland clans bore little relation to the general politics of the nation. The Highlanders were as yet a half savage race, devoted to their patriarchal form of society, and with political attachments which seldom went beyond the head of their tribe. It mattered but little to them whether James or William were upon the Scottish throne. They were equally ready to oppose by violence any Government which interfered with their wild freedom. But among themselves they had bitter tribal jealousies and feuds, and the partial introduction of the feudal system had complicated their relations one with the other. Great chiefs, combining the character of feudal lords and clan patriarchs, had contrived to extend their power, and render other clans besides their own dependent or tributary. The Earl or Marquis of Argyle, Mac Callum More, as the Highlanders called him, head of the great clan of Campbell in Argyleshire, had thus extended his pre-eminence at the expense of his neighbours. The power of this chief was great. He could bring 5000 men into the field, and his jurisdiction was so independent as to be hardly second to that of the Crown; consequently all his neighbours looked upon him with jealousy and hatred. That the politics of the head of the Campbell clan were consistently Whig was enough to make all his rivals and enemies Jacobites. But of late years the power of the Campbells had decayed; during the triumph of the Stuart Kings the Marquis of Argyle had been beheaded, and the Earl, his son, had been driven into exile. As the Campbells sunk, the Macdonalds, the chief rivals of their clan, on whose property they had encroached, had risen. But the Macdonalds had a constant feud with the Mackintoshes in the neighbourhood of Inverness, in pursuance of which Macdonald of Keppoch was at this moment engaged in the siege of Inverness, which had made common cause with the Mackintoshes. [Sidenote: Dundee in the Highlands.]