The Privy Council, on the 13th May 1690, expressed anxiety about the prisoners; but it was not regarding their health or comfort. They sent a committee to consider how best the Tolbooth might be made secure—for there had been an escape from the Canongate jail—and for this purpose it was decreed that close prisoners should be confined within the inner rooms; that the shutters towards the north should be nightly locked, to prevent communications with the houses in that direction; and that ‘there should be a centinel all the daytime at the head of the iron ravell stair at the Chancellary Chamber, lest letters and other things may be tolled up.’[14] [Sidenote: JUNE.] The chief of the clan Mackintosh, usually called the Laird of Mackintosh, claimed rights of property over the lands of Keppoch, Glenroy, and Glenspean, in Inverness-shire, ‘worth five thousand merks of yearly rent’—a district interesting to modern men of science, on account of the singular impress left upon it by the hand of nature in the form of water-laid terraces, commonly called the Parallel Roads of Glenroy, but then known only as the haunt of a wild race of Macdonalds, against whom common processes of law were of no avail. Mackintosh—whose descendant is now the peaceable landlord of a peaceable tenantry in this [Sidenote: 1689.] country—had in 1681 obtained letters of fire and sword as a last desperate remedy against Macdonald of Keppoch and others; but no good had come of it. In the year of the Revolution, these letters had been renewed, and about the time when Seymour and Russell were inviting over the Prince of Orange for the rescue of Protestantism and liberty, Mackintosh was leading a thousand of his people from Badenoch into Glenspean, in order to wreak the vengeance of the law upon his refractory tenants. He was joined by a detachment of government troops under Captain Mackenzie of Suddy; but Keppoch, who is described by a contemporary as ‘a gentleman of good understanding, and of great cunning,’ was not dismayed. With five hundred men, he attacked the Mackintosh on the brae above Inverroy, less than half a mile from his own house, and gained a sanguinary victory. The captain of the regular troops and some other persons were killed; the Laird of Mackintosh was taken prisoner, and not liberated till he had made a formal renunciation of his claims; two hundred horses and a great quantity of other spoil fell into the hands of the victors.[15] The Revolution, happening soon after, caused little notice to be taken of this affair, which is spoken of as the last clan-battle in the Highlands.