Scotland by Magnus Linklater

Author:Magnus Linklater
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Published: 2018-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Massacre of Glencoe

And so a company of trustworthy Campbell troops, from the Earl of Argyll’s Regiment of Foot, commanded, as it happened, by a relative by marriage of MacIan’s, Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, were sent to Glencoe and billeted in the cottages of the clansmen. The MacDonalds received them hospitably. Captain Campbell spent a couple of weeks drinking and playing cards with MacIan and his sons, while his soldiers fraternized with the clansmen. Then, on 12 February, he received from his military superior, Major Duncanson, the following instructions: ‘You are hereby ordered to fall upon the McDonalds of Glencoe and put all to the sword under seventy; you are to have a special care that the old fox and his sons doe on no account escape your hands.’

That night Robert Campbell and two of his officers accepted an invitation to dine with MacIan. Meanwhile a force of four hundred Government troops moved to block the northern approach to the glen and four hundred more to close the southern. At five in the morning of 13 February Glenlyon and his troops started to carry out their instructions. Parties of soldiers went from cottage to cottage, slaughtering the sleeping MacDonalds and setting light to their houses. MacIan himself was shot by one of his guests of the night before. A Campbell soldier gnawed the rings from Lady Glencoe’s fingers with his teeth. A child of six, who clung, begging for mercy, to Glenlyon’s knees, was promptly dispatched. As the massacre proceeded, snow began to fall. Some of the inhabitants of the glen were able to escape in the confusion. Others died in the snow.

King William and Stair had succeeded in their object, which was to make an example of a Jacobite clan and establish a measure of control over the Highlands. But, in spite of their efforts to hush things up, the affair gave rise to unfavourable comment, not only in the Highlands, but in the Lowlands and even in England, and in the end William was forced to dispense with the services of his Secretary of State. In due course, however, Stair was rewarded with an earldom, while Campbell of Glenlyon was promoted to colonel. King William, for his part, despite documentary evidence to the contrary, loftily disclaimed any previous knowledge of the affair.

In Church matters, too, the new King, though reassuringly Protestant, found himself confronted with a number of problems. Most Scottish Episcopalians were opposed to him on dynastic grounds, while many Presbyterians suspected him of being half-hearted in his attitude towards ‘prelacy’. A settlement had finally been reached in 1690 under which bishops and patronage were abolished, the Westminster Confession re-adopted, Episcopalian ministers driven out and the Presbyterian system re-established in its entirety. But William’s not unreasonable plan for a wider and more comprehensive solution was doomed to failure.

Nor did William’s reign do much in other ways to improve feeling between Scotland and England. The massacre of Glencoe, while doubtless winning him the admiration of the Whigs, had sullied his reputation in the Highlands.

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