The family of Maclean in all its numerous and complicated branches, had been distinguished for loyalty and independence during the intervening centuries between the career of Gillean and the birth of that chieftain whose devotion to the Jacobite cause proved eventually the ruin of the house of Duart. Throughout the period of the Great Rebellion, and of the Protectorate, the chief of the Macleans had made immense sacrifices to support the interests of the King, and to bring his clan into the field. In the disgraceful transactions, by which it was agreed that Scotland should withdraw her troops from England upon the payment of four hundred thousand pounds, in full of all demands, the faithful Highland clans of the north and west, the Grahams, Macleans, Camerons, and many others, had no participation. One main actor in that bargain, by which a monarch was bought and sold, was the Marquis of Argyle, the enemy and terror of his Highland neighbours, the Macleans of Duart. Upon the suppression of the royal authority, domestic feuds were ripened into hostilities during the general anarchy; and few of the oppressed and harassed clans suffered more severely, or more permanently than the Macleans of Duart. Archibald, the first Marquis of Argyle, fixed an indelible stain upon his memory by acts of unbridled licence and aggression, in relation to his Highland neighbours; the unfortunate Macleans of Duart especially experienced the effects of his wrath, and suffered from his manoeuvres.[74] In the time of Cromwell, Argyle having procured from the Lords of the Treasury, a grant of the tithes of Argyleshire, with a commission to collect several arrears of the feu-duty, cesses, taxation, and supply, and some new contributions laid on the subject by Parliament, under the names of ammunition and contribution money, the power which such an authority bestowed, in days when the standard of right was measured by the amount of force, may readily be conceived. On the part of Argyle, long-cherished views on the territories of his neighbour, Maclean of Duart, were now brought into co-operation with the most remorseless abuse of authority.