Massacre of Glencoe

The mountains of Glen Coe: The Aonach Eagach ridge, to the north side of the glen. Glencoe village is at the north-west end of the glen, to the left of this picture. At the south side of the glen the hills are more broken.

The Massacre of Glencoe was an incident at the village of Glencoe, Glen Coe, Scotland early in the morning on February 13, 1692, during the era of the Glorious Revolution and the Jacobite Risings. About 78 Macdonalds were killed by the guests who had accepted their hospitality, for not promptly pledging allegiance to the new king, William of Orange.

Background

In 1688, William took the thrones of England and Scotland from James VII (II of England). In 1689, John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, led Scottish Highlanders in the Jacobite uprisings in an attempt to return the throne to King James. Dundee was killed at the Battle of Killiecrankie, and the rising in Scotland ended in defeat at the Battle of Dunkeld. On their way home from this battle, the MacIains of Glencoe, a sept of Clan Macdonald, looted the lands of Robert Campbell and stole his livestock, leaving him heavily in debt and forcing him to take an army commission to provide for his family.

James was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690. On August 27 1691, William offered all Highland clans a pardon for their part in the Jacobite Uprising, as long as they took an oath of allegiance before January 1 1692 in front of a magistrate, if they did not sign they were threatened with death. The Highland chiefs sent word to James, now in exile in France, asking for his permission to take this oath. James dithered over his decision, convinced that he was close to returning to Britain to reclaim his throne. When it became apparent that this was not going to happen before the deadline, James sent orders back to Scotland telling the chiefs to take the oath. This message reached its recipients in mid-December, only a few weeks before the deadline. Nearly all managed to comply promptly, but Alastair MacIain, 12th Chief of Glencoe, waited until the last day before setting out to take the oath.

On December 31, 1691, he travelled to Fort William and asked Colonel Hill, the governor, to administer the required oath. Colonel Hill, however, demurred on the grounds that he was not authorized to receive the necessary oath. He instructed MacIain to proceed quickly to Inveraray to make his oath before Sir Colin Campbell, sheriff of Argyll. Colonel Hill gave MacIain a letter of protection and a letter to Sir Colin asking that he receive MacIain's oath since MacIain had come to Colonel Hill within the allotted time. Colonel Hill also reassured MacIain that no action would be taken against him without his having the opportunity to make his case before the king or the king's privy council.

It took MacIain three days to reach Inverary, partly due to winter weather, partly due to him being detained for a day at Balcardine Castle by the 1st company of the Earl of Argyll's Regiment of Foot, at the command of Captain Drummond, ensuring his lateness. On arrival at Inverary, he was forced to wait for three days for the arrival of Sir Colin who was absent. Upon his return, Sir Colin reluctantly accepted MacIain's oath.

While MacIain was satisfied that he had satisfied the spirit of the required oath, and therefore did not anticipate any action against himself or his people, some elements within the government saw an opportunity to use his failure to fulfill the letter of the requirement (by missing the deadline) to at one stroke make an example of the Macdonalds and simultaneously eliminate some enemies.

The massacre

The Three Sisters of Glen Coe on the south side of the glen. The dip to the left of the picture leads into Coire Gabhail, commonly known as the Lost or Hidden Valley, which the Macdonalds of Glencoe legendarily used in times of trouble and for hiding stolen cattle

A plot was set in motion which apparently involved John Dalrymple, Master of Stair and Lord Advocate, John Campbell, Earl of Breadalbane, Sir Thomas Livingstone, commander of the forces in Scotland, and even King William, who signed and countersigned the orders.

In late January or early February, 1692, the first and second companies of the Earl of Argyll's Regiment of Foot, around 120 men, under the command of Captain Robert Campbell were billeted on the McDonalds in Glencoe, who received them in the hospitable tradition of the Highlands. Thirteen members of this force were Campbells, as was the Earl of Argyll (the Colonel-in-Chief of the regiment and chieftain of Clan Campbell). Captain Campbell was related by marriage to old MacIain himself and so it was natural that he should be billeted at the Chief's own house. Each morning for about two weeks, Captain Campbell visited the home of Alexander MacDonald, MacIain's youngest son, who was married to Campbell's niece, the sister of Rob Roy MacGregor. At this stage, it is not clear that Campbell knew the nature of their mission - ostensibly the purpose of collecting the Cess tax, instituted by the Scottish Parliament in 1690. The planning was meticulous enough that they were able to produce legitimate orders to this effect from the very Colonel Hill who had tried to help MacIain complete his oath in the first place, thus dispelling any suspicion the Macdonalds might have felt, although it was also Colonel Hill who issued the orders to begin the massacre two weeks later.

On February 12, Captain Drummond arrived. Due to his role in ensuring MacIain was late in giving his oath, Drummond would not have been welcomed. As Drummond was captain of the grenadiers, the 1st company of the regiment, he was the ranking officer, yet did not take command. Drummond was bearing the the following instructions for Robert Campbell, from his superior officer, a Major Duncanson.

He spent the evening playing cards with his unsuspecting victims and upon retiring, wished them goodnight and accepted an invitation to dine with MacIain, the chief, the following day.

Alastair MacIain was killed while trying to rise from his bed by Lt Lindsay and Ensign Lundie but his sons escaped as initially did his wife. In all, 38 men including were murdered either in their homes or as they tried to flee the glen. Another 40 women and children died of exposure after their homes were burned. Elsewhere, various members of the two companies found ways of warning their hosts. Some took insubordination further – two lieutenants, Lt Francis Farquhar and Lt Gilbert Kennedy broke their swords rather than carry out their orders. They were arrested and imprisoned, but were exonerated, released and later gave evidence for the prosecution against their superior officers.

In addition to the soldiers who were actually in Glencoe that night, two other detachments each of four hundred men were, according to the plan, to have converged on the escape routes. Both were late in taking up their positions, by design or incompetence. It is possible that the snowstorm made arrival on time quite difficult – especially for those approaching over the Devil's Staircase from Kinlochleven, while it is equally possible that they simply did not want to play any part in what they knew to be a heinous crime.

Inquiry

Under Scots law there was a special category of murder known as "murder under trust" which was considered to be even more heinous than ordinary murder. The Glencoe massacre was a clear example of such, and the results of the inquiry into it draws parallels with the Nuremburg Trials.

Though the command of superior officers be very absolute, yet no command against the laws of nature is binding; so that a soldier, retaining his commission, ought to refuse to execute any barbarity, as if a soldier should be commanded to shoot a man passing by inoffensively, upon the street, no such command would exempt him from the punishment of murder.

The challenge to the inquiry which had been established was to apportion blame on those responsible for the massacre, and yet the orders which lead to the massacre were signed by the King himself, who could not be seen to be responsible. By 1695, the Duke of Argyll's Regiment had surrendered to the French in Flanders, putting Campbell, Drummond and Duncanson beyond the reach of Scots law. The conclusion of the commission was to exonerate the King and to place the blame for the massacre upon Secretary Dalrymple. The Scottish Parliament, after reviewing the commission report, declared the execution of the MacDonald men to have been murder and delegated the "committee for the security of the kingdom" to prepare an address to the king which included recommendations for the punishment of the perpetrators of the plot and compensation to be paid to the surviving Macdonalds. As far as is known, these recommendations were never acted upon except for the imprisonment of Lord Breadalbane for a few days in Edinburgh castle because he had opened himself to a charge of high treason.

Aftermath

The Glencoe massacre became a propaganda piece for Jacobite sympathies which were to come to a head in the next generation in the Rising of 1745. In the Victorian era interest was revived and the massacre was romanticised in art and literature, such as Sir Walter Scott's "The Highland Widow". The massacre became translated from a government action to a clan fight in which - because of Argyll's regiment happening to be involved and with Glenlyon in command, the ancient MacDonald-Campbell rivalry was remembered.

Memory of this massacre has been kept alive by continued ill feeling between Macdonalds and Campbells — in the late 20th century the Clachaig Inn, a hotel and pub in Glencoe popular with climbers, had a sign on its door "No Hawkers or Campbells".

External links

• BBC - History - Massacre of Glencoe 1692 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/britain/stu_glencoe.shtml) Brief account of the massacre.
• Massacre of Glencoe 1692 (http://www.scotclans.com/clans/1692.htm) Brief account of the massacre which ascribes ultimate blame to King William.
• Glen Coe Massacre (http://www.rampantscotland.com/features/glencoe.htm) Detailed account of the events leading up to the massacre and the massacre itself.
• The Massacre of Glencoe (http://www.electricscotland.com/history/glencoe/) Very detailed account of the plot and massacre.de:Massaker_von_Glencoe

sv:Glencoemassakern pl:Rzeź_w_Glencoe