He followed the king
also in war to the fertile regions of England, where he employed his
leisure hours so actively in raising subsidies among the boors of
Northumberland and Durham, that upon his return he was enabled to erect a
stone tower, or fortalice, so much admired by his dependants and
neighbours that he, who had hitherto been called Ian Mac-Ivor, or John
the son of Ivor, was thereafter distinguished, both in song and
genealogy, by the high title of Ian nan Chaistel, or John of the Tower.
The descendants of this worthy were so proud of him that the reigning
chief always bore the patronymic title of Vich Ian Vohr, i.e. the son of
John the Great; while the clan at large, to distinguish them from that
from which they had seceded, were denominated Sliochd nan Ivor, the race
of Ivor.
The father of Fergus, the tenth in direct descent from John of the Tower,
engaged heart and hand in the insurrection of 1715, and was forced to fly
to France, after the attempt of that year in favour of the Stuarts had
proved unsuccessful. More fortunate than other fugitives, he obtained
employment in the French service, and married a lady of rank in that
kingdom, by whom he had two children, Fergus and his sister Flora.
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