communication - rewarding them by presents, in the shape either of
money or of grants or land, and securing their services in reducing to
obedience such of their fellow chieftains as proved contumacious,
or actually rose in rebellion." [Tytler, vol. iv., pp. 367-368.]

To carry out this plan he determined to take pledges for their
good behaviour from some of the most powerful clans, and, at the
same time, educate the younger lairds into a more civilized manner
of governing their people. Amongst others he took a special
interest in Kenneth Og, and Farquhar Mackintosh, the young lairds
of Mackenzie and Mackintosh, who were cousins, their mothers being
sisters, daughters of John, last Lord of the Isles. They were
both powerful, the leaders of great clans, and young men of great
spirit and reckless habits. They were accordingly apprehended in
1495 ["The King having made a progress to the North, was advised
to secure these two gentlemen as hostages for securing the peace of
the Highlands, and accordingly they were apprehended at Inverness
and sent prisoners to Edinburgh in the year 1495, where they
remained two years." - Dr George Mackenzie's MS. History,] and sent
to Edinburgh, where they were kept in custody in the Castle, until
a favourable opportunity occurring in 1497, they escaped over the
ramparts by the aid of ropes secretly conveyed to them by some of
their friends. This was the more easily managed, as they had
liberty granted them to roam over the whole bounds of the Castle
within the outer walls; and the young chieftains, getting tired of
restraint, and ashamed to be idle while they considered themselves
fit actors for the stage of their Highland domains, resolved to
attempt an escape by dropping over the walls, when Kenneth injured
his leg, so as to incapacitate him from rapid progress; but
Mackintosh manfully resolved to risk capture himself rather than