But even that road was so steep and so strait that a handful of resolute men might have defended it against an army; [355] nor did any Saxon consider a visit to Killiecrankie as a pleasure, till experience had taught the English Government that the weapons by which the Highlanders could be most effectually subdued were the pickaxe and the spade.
The country which lay just above this pass was now the theatre of a war such as the Highlands had not often witnessed.

Men wearing the same tartan, and attached to the same lord, were arrayed against each other.
The name of the absent chief was used, with some show of reason, on both sides.

Ballenach, at the head of a body of vassals who considered him as the representative of the Marquess, occupied Blair Castle.

Murray, with twelve hundred followers, appeared before the walls and demanded to be admitted into the mansion of his family, the mansion which would one day be his own.

The garrison refused to open the gates.