Glencoe

by John Prebble

  Six weeks earlier at Inverlochy, John Hill had frankly acknowledged his responsibility under the order he had given Hamilton. On the evening of the massacre, his men and Duncanson's returned to Fort William, driving Glencoe's cattle before them, their weapons bloody, their loot hanging from pike and musket. Hill listened to reports from Hamilton and the Argyll officers, and he spent all Sunday alone at his desk. He wrote to Livingstone and to the Earl of Tweeddale. ‘I have ruined Glencoe,’ he said, ‘their goods are a prey to the soldiers, and their houses to the fire.’ He sent the letters south the next morning by the hand of Captain James Cunningham, an officer of his regiment who had marched with Hamilton, instructing him to give by word of mouth any information the dispatches lacked.

  For a week he kept his soldiers and the Campbells strictly within the limits of the garrison and Maryburgh. The MacDonalds' cattle, sheep and goats were herded on the recreation field by the burial-yard, until he could decide how many should be slaughtered for the soldiers' food, and how many might be sold to Lowland graziers for prize-money. For a week, too, he was afraid of savage reprisals. He sent out scouts from the Independent Companies of Atholl men, and they brought him confused news. The Camerons were in a rage, threatening to attack any redcoat patrol seen north of the River Spean. In Appin, John and Alasdair MacDonald had obtained arms for their men, and had scattered them across the hills between Dalness and Glen Duror. They were cold, starving and desperate, and the bitter suffering of the women and children had put the Stewarts in an obstinate temper.

  And then, after days of uncertainty, a miracle happened. Terrible though the massacre had been in its violation of trust, it had been successful in its effect on the laggardly clans. Within eight days young Robert Stewart of Appin came to Fort William by boat, and was carried ashore on a stretcher. He wished to submit, he said, and would have come before had he not been too ill to leave his bed. He was the first of many. ‘They come from all parts to submit to the King's mercy,’ Hill reported with delight, ‘and to take the oath of allegiance and (according to my orders) save their lives. I hope this example of justice and severity will be enough.’ Clanranald, who Hill thought was one of the most handsome young men he had ever seen, brought in his chiefs, kinsmen and friends from Moidart and the Isles, and all of them ‘took the oath with the greatest frankness imaginable’. The boy Clanranald did more than take the oath. He asked leave to visit his uncle, the Laird of Macleod, from whom he wished to borrow money, and he also wanted a pass for London. There, he said, he would ask King William to find service for him in Flanders. Every day, long-oared birlinns came to the quay-side at Maryburgh, and proud men in tartan, with eagle or black-cock feathers in their bonnets, stepped ashore to submit, masking their fear behind the arrogant calm of their faces. MacNeill of Barra, the tall man whom James Philip had seen at Dalcomera with axe in hand and a rainbow plaid on his shoulder, was ready to come over from his blue isle when the weather permitted. And on Skye the MacDonalds of Sleat were said to be anxious to take the oath before they, too, were Glencoed. The noun had become a verb.

  Now Hill could give some attention to his honest concern for the desperate and starving survivors of the massacre. Beyond the cautious aid and shelter given them by the Appin men, they had received little help. The great chiefs of Clan Donald cannily ignored them, but on the tiny isles of Monach, six miles into the Atlantic from North Uist, Archibald MacDonald of Grimmish loaded a boat with meal and steered it through a storm to Loch Linnhe, leaving the cargo on the shores of Appin. It was an isolated and brave act of compassion. The Glencoe men were rarely seen by the patrols which Hill sent to Appin or to the black and empty valley, but he received sound intelligence of their mood and temper, and he was afraid that unless something were soon done to help them they would ‘lie in every bush and glen in small parties to shoot men and rob up and down the country’. At the end of February, he appealed to the indolent and indifferent Earl of Portland, using parenthesis like a prodding finger.

  Those men of Glencoe that (by the help of the storm) escaped, would submit to mercy if their lives may be granted them, upon giving security to live peaceably under the Government, and not to rob, steal, or receive stolen goods hereafter, and I humbly conceive (since there are enough killed for an example, and to vindicate public justice) it were advisable to receive them, since it will be troublesome to take them, the Highlanders being generally allied one to another, and they may join with other broken men and be hurtful to the country. At the present they [the men of Glencoe] lie dormant in caves and remote places.

  This sensible and generous suggestion was ignored. In March, Hill was hurt and angered by the news he received of the rumours then current in Edinburgh. It was said that he and his officers had exceeded their orders, that the savage slaughter had been without sanction. Remembering the long days he had spent, struggling with his conscience, before he could write that order to Hamilton, he sent an injured protest to Tweeddale.

  I understand that there are some severe reflections made upon the action in Glencoe (and that perhaps by many good men too). Therefore I think it my duty to give your lordship a more particular account thereof…. I had several orders from London, and also several orders from the Commander-in-Chief, and all extraordinary strict, to destroy these people and take no prisoners, and (lest I should prove remiss) another of the same orders was directed to my Lieutenant-Colonel to do the same, and after all that another order under the King's hand to root out that sept of thieves.

  He was saying that the responsibility for the act was not his. He had obeyed the ultimate authority of the Throne, and that in honour and good conscience he could not have refused. It was a defence more readily accepted in his day than it would be two and a half centuries later at Nuremberg, but even so the principle of his argument had already been challenged by the two young officers who broke their swords at Kinlochleven, by the unknown Campbell soldiers who warned or spared their hosts. Inwardly, Hill was desperately confused and unhappy. To keep his peace of mind, perhaps, he said that by their own incorrigible behaviour the MacDonalds had brought disaster upon themselves. It was a solacing argument, and would be used again by other men in his position after Culloden. In its easy contempt for the Highland people it would be used to justify their eviction and their dispersal across the world a century later. ‘If any censure the severity of man's justice,’ Hill told Tweeddale, ‘yet the justice of God is to be reverenced. For there was much blood on these people's hands…’

  The news of the massacre had reached London on 27 February. As yet it was known to a few only, but one of them was Grey John, who had been told by letters from Barcaldine and Carwhin. He was astonished and angry, or at least he said he was. After weeks of uncertainty, he was beginning to feel more sure of his welcome at Court. Three days before, he had come back to his lodgings from Kensington Palace to find Coll MacDonald of Keppoch sitting comfortably in his dining-room. The leader of the Lochaber Men, having taken the oath within the time set, now wanted Breadalbane's help in securing a commission in the King's army. Breadalbane was glad to take this tamed eagle to Court, as evidence of his influence over the rebel clans, but the news from the north took the pleasure from the little success, and he was not sure what mental reservations the dark young MacDonald might now make as he bent to kiss the Dutchman's hand. Anxiously, Breadalbane went from one great man to another, boring them with his worried disapproval of the massacre, declaring it was neither legal nor honourable. Those who were English could not see why there should be so much concern over a handful of savages, and those who were Scots were disgusted by what they thought was the Earl's hypocrisy. The suave, unruffled Argyll smiled and shrugged his shoulders, and his indifference angered Breadalbane. What if the Glencoe MacDonalds and other broken men came down upon honest Campbells in reprisal? Argyll smiled and shrugged again. ‘I hope the King will protect them.’

  ‘The King's in London,’ said Breadalbane ironically, ‘and it's a far cry to Loch Awe!’ It was a
n old saying, and once it had meant that Campbells were safe in their own country.

  He was less worried about men of his name, however, than he was about himself and his own property. He was leasing some timber rights in Glen Orchy to two Londoners, who were now understandably reluctant to sign the papers. He urged them to go, and to take tobacco ‘to be in friendship with the Glencoe men’. Despite his protests, those he spoke to at Court held him responsible for the massacre, principally because it had been carried out by his cousin and clansman. He was in a hysterical fury with the drunken and loose-tongued Glenlyon, and was now convinced that the man was insane. Who else but a madman would have accepted the duty, when it could be said that he was exacting his own and his chief's vengeance? Who else but a madman would have exposed his wife and family to reprisals by the MacDonalds? Breadalbane was glad to hear that Argyll's Regiment was under orders for the Continent. ‘An ill and miraculous fate follows the unfortunate Glenlyon in the whole tract of his life,’ he told Carwhin. ‘He is not to be mended. I hope he will go to Flanders. I wish his relations and children pay not for it.’ His anger against Glenlyon was mixed with a maudlin pity for himself. ‘It's villainy to accuse me for Glenlyon's madness, and it's the height of malice if these people chase the poor woman and people out of the country.’

  With subtle spite, Argyll enjoyed sticking pins into Grey John's sensitive skin at this moment, telling him that Breadalbane men were buying Glencoe cows from Inverlochy at a dollar a head. ‘If it be true,’ said Breadalbane angrily, ‘I'll make them restore them to the widows and fatherless!’ He probably meant it, for he sent those instructions to his agents in the Highlands. It is difficult to dismiss as lies all his protestations of innocence, or his argument that he had too much to lose by the massacre to have ‘so contrived it when a profound peace was best and intended’. Though he was a hypocrite and a trimmer, he had hoped to succeed as a peace-maker. He would have been a fool to risk this, and the goodwill he expected from the Jacobites under the Private Articles of Achallader, and though he was frequently a rogue, he was never a fool. Had he been a full party to the scheme, he would not have urged his innocence so vehemently upon men like Argyll, who would have known him to be guilty. It is probable that he put the idea of bloody coercion into Stair's mind, in Flanders or across the dinner-table in London, but he drew back from it later, in disapproval or self-preservation, and he repeatedly said that he had been excluded from the Master's confidence when the act was planned. He had agreed to bar any retreat into Breadalbane by the MacDonalds, and this was the extent of his involvement. Beyond this, ‘I am as free of accession,’ he said, ‘as the man in Spain’. He asked Barcaldine to tell the people of Glencoe that he had had nothing to do with the affair, but with his cousin and debtor as chief executioner no one believed him. For this reason alone was he violently angry with Robert Campbell of Glenlyon.

  Soon there was not an ear at Kensington ready to listen to him. He decided to go home, and he told Carwhin to find him lodgings for a few days in Edinburgh. Then he would go on to Loch Tay. He had a Highlander's longing to be in his own glen when his spirits were troubled. Less sentimentally, he wanted to be sure that the two Londoners could extract turpentine from his fir-woods without having their throats cut by MacDonalds. He left London on 12 April, and on that day copies of the Paris Gazette arrived from France, making the massacre public knowledge.

  The Laird of Glencoe was butchered several days ago in the most barbarous manner, although he was amenable to the present Government. The Laird of Glenlyon, a captain in Argyll's Regiment, following the explicit orders of Colonel Hill, Governor of Inverlochy, went at night to Glencoe with a body of soldiers; and the soldiers, having entered the houses, killed the Laird of Glencoe, two of his sons, thirty-six men or children, and four women. It had been resolved in this manner to wipe out the rest of the inhabitants, not withstanding the amnesty that had been granted them, but about two hundred escaped. It has been rumoured that the Laird was killed in an ambush with his weapons in his hands, in order to diminish the horror of so barbarous an action, which would have made all nations see what little trust can be placed on the words of those who rule.

  Though the report was not wholly accurate, it was close enough to the truth. The information had been sent to France by the Jacobites of Edinburgh, who had not only obtained copies of Duncanson's order but also Hamilton's, both of which they circulated in taverns and coffee-houses. And they may have been responsible for the sentimental ballads that were cried in the streets.

  On that dark and fateful night

  They broke my bower and slew my knight,

  Just in my soft and longing arms

  Where I believed him free from harms,

  They pierced his tender gentle breast

  And left me with sad griefs oppressed.

  And was I not a weary wight,

  A maid, wife, widow all in a night?

  The Jacobites were less horrified by the massacre than they were determined to injure William and the Government by exploiting it. In the busy stir they made, they were joined by many ardent supporters of the Revolution who seized upon the affair as a spade to turn the earth of the Master's political grave. Among them was James Johnston of Warriston, soon to become Joint Secretary with Stair. He was a shrewd, fair-skinned lawyer who had gone into exile when his father was hanged after the Restoration, returning twenty-five years later to prepare the ground for William's invasion. Macky thought he was honest, virtuous and incapable of a lie, but Swift said he was a knave, one of the greatest in Scotland, a country notoriously full of rogues. Johnston was disgusted by the Master's cynical and luke-warm Presbyterianism, and was as anxious to unseat him as the Dalrymples had been to remove Melville. At the end of March he began to drip poison into the ear of Tweeddale, who was then in London. ‘This business of Glencoe makes a scurvy noise. Major Duncan-son's Christian order is in the coffee-houses. It's said that Glencoe had been admitted to take the oath and that the troops were quartered upon them and so against all the laws of hospitality and in cold blood killed their hosts, that women and children were not spared.’ Knowing that Tweeddale would show his letters to the King, Johnston was careful to make it plain that he believed William to be innocent of any charge. The King's clemency had been abused, his orders had been made the instrument of private murder and robbery. MacIain and his tacksmen should have been seized and brought before proper justice, not slaughtered. ‘If any of the inferior officers to whom the execution was committed have been guilty of irregularity in the manner of doing it, they rather than the reputation of the Government ought to suffer by it.’ There would be a time when Johnston, and others, would feel bold enough to say that a King's minister, too, ought to suffer by it, but as yet no one knew how Stair could be brought down without shaking the Throne itself.

  The Master was unmoved by scurrilous rumour and malicious gossip. Before leaving London to join William in Flanders, he wrote to Hill, acknowledging the reports he had received from the Governor and from Hamilton. There was much talk of the Glencoe affair in the city, and that MacIain had been murdered in his bed after taking the oath of allegiance. ‘For the last,’ said Stair, lying blandly, ‘I know nothing of it. I am sure neither you nor anybody empowered to treat or give indemnity did give him the oath, and to take it from anybody else after the diet elapsed did import nothing. All I regret is, that any of the sept got away….’

  In Edinburgh, Livingstone was of the same intractable mind. Four days after the massacre, Hamilton reported that he had taken ‘some Lochaber men’ prisoners. They were probably MacDonalds whom the garrison patrols had surprised among the embers of Glencoe, or on the braes of Appin. ‘I must say it was a mistake,’ said Livingstone irritably, ‘that these villains were not shot in the place where they were found… let no prisoners be brought in, but let them be dispatched in the place where they are found, for such robbers and thieves are not to be treated as regular enemies’.

  When the Paris Gazette r
eached London it was eagerly read by an emotional and wordy Irishman called Charles Leslie. A son of the Bishop of Raphoe and Clogher, he had been both barrister and minister, but when he refused to take the oath to William and Mary he had been deprived of the curacy of Donagh. He went to England where he became one of the most readable of the anonymous Jacobite polemicists. After he read the Gazette, he wrote to Scotland for details, and he gave London its first full account of the massacre in a letter which he said he had received from a friend in Edinburgh. He had some difficulty in finding a printer bold enough to set it in type, but he finally published it as an irrelevant appendix to a now unimportant pamphlet on the Protestant Church in Ireland.* His ‘Gentleman in Scotland’ was undoubtedly an invention, a single voice for all the information he got from Edinburgh, from the same Jacobites who had sent the news to the Paris Gazette. Four thousand words in length, the letter contained copies of the orders from Hamilton and Duncan-son, and it compares well with evidence later given under oath by witnesses of the massacre. It invited its readers to test the truth of the story.