His wife, Elizabeth Gordon, Lady Frendraught, gained a reputation as a chief agent in the murder, and it was said she had locked the guests in the tower and dropped the key in a well.

[19] She signed the Solemn League and Covenant in June 1650, abjuring "her Poperie", but regretted this by 1652 and would not send her daughters to church or hear preaching.

[23] But the Bishop missed, instead dashing Crichton's hat to the ground, he "dang aff his hatt in publict view and sight of the haill people conveened in the Kirk".

[25] The Scottish Privy council appointed commissioners who visited the ruins of Frendraught in April 1631 and considered the fire was started in three places inside a vaulted space.

[28] Magdalene Innes and George Spense said that the Laird and Lady of Frendraught grabbed their clothes and went down to the barnyard when they were wakened by cries of fire, thinking that the outlaw James Grant was attacking.

[29] Spense's testimony was particularly significant because it was said that Lord Melgum and John Gordon of Rothiemay had cried for help from a tower window and made declarations of faith.

[35] Margaret Wood was found guilty of perjury for her questionable testimony after being counselled to confess by clergy including William Struthers, a neighbour of Crichton at Gladstone's Land.

[39] Henrietta Stewart and her companions wore mourning clothes to bring her complaints to Charles I when he was at Holyroodhouse for his Scottish coronation in July 1633.

[44] Sir George Ogilvy of Banff and Inchdrewer testified that Meldrum said Frendraught was awaiting an evil turn on the night before the fire.

[47] As well as setting precedent and case law, accounts of the murder, and the lodging of guests in the tower at Frendraught, give some insight into the domestic arrangements of early modern houses in Scotland.

Thomas Hope, as Lord Advocate, wrote that she had "dancet with the licht horsemen in the Place of Rothiemay the cusheon dance upone hir schoulder".

[56] Arthur Johnston wrote a Latin lament in Sophia Hay's voice, casting blame on Lady Frendraught, named in his poem as "Lupa", with a dirge for the two chief victims of the fire.

[57] Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun, closely associated with the Sutherland family, asserted that the Crichton and his wife were innocent, describing Meldrum's theft of horses from the "park of Frendret", and repeating an argument that they had lost their silver and property charters in the fire, a loss which they would have planned to avoid.

[58] Some 18th-century writers took the events at Frendraught and the subsequent legal proceedings as an example of the ferocity of Highland clans and the shortcomings of old feudal law in Scotland.

Robert Sanders, who wrote under the pseudonym Nathaniel Spencer, told the story as if the Laird of Frendraught had set fire to the house and Meldrum was an innocent scapegoat.

[59] William Guthrie, historian and journalist, described "how powerful family animosity still operated" and "how strongly the feudal spirit prevailed".

[60] The chronicle or narrative of the period written in the 17th century by John Spalding was published in 1792, including an influential description of the fire and the subsequent legal proceedings.

[61] The 19th-century antiquary Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe heard a version of the story in which Lady Frendraught had made a diabolical pact and watched the tower burn from the green, laughing and clapping, and by the light of the flames appeared "much taller than usual".

[62] Although fascinated by such legends, and working to collect old ballads, C. K. Sharpe followed Sir Robert Gordon in the belief that Crichton and Lady Frendraught were innocent of firing their own house.

[63] In 1633 James Crichton presented a silver communion cup to the parish church at Forgue, perhaps marking, so he thought, the resolution of his troubles after the Fire of Frendraught.