by John Prebble
To the exhausted gillies, following the heels of MacIain's pony, the sight of Inveraray must have been unnerving, the tall castle with round turrets, the streets of huddled houses, the merchants' shops, the Tolbooth and Court House, the herring-boats riding snow and wind on the loch water. Here was Campbell wealth and Campbell power, and here was Doom Hill where more than one Lochaber man's life had been choked from his throat. Beyond the castle were great parks of snow, avenues of trees and splendid gardens awaiting spring. This was the town their fathers had twice looted, and they walked softly and cautiously by the step-gabled houses.
MacIain took lodgings at a discreet change-house. The townsfolk in their Lowland breeches had not finished their New Year drinking, and he wanted no quarrels, no dirking between them and his gillies. He sent word to Ardkinglas and waited. A Town Officer came to him eventually, an old man in a scarlet coat, pacing out his steps with the haft of his Lochaber axe. He had numbing news.
Ardkinglas was away from Inveraray. He was across Loch Fyne, seeing in the New Year with his family, and no reasonable man could expect him back before the weather improved.
For three days the MacDonalds kept to the change-house. This was no time for a man with Clan Donald's badge in his bonnet to be abroad in the heart of Argyll. They waited, and they chewed bitterly on their pride. On Monday, 5 January, Sir Colin Campbell of Ardkinglas returned from his New Year's holiday and summoned MacIain to the Court House. Although he was not an ungenerous man, he was sharp-tongued and irritable when put out of temper. He scolded MacIain for being late, would not accept the delay caused by either the weather or Drummond's men, and refused to administer the oath. MacIain gave him Hill's letter, and Ardkinglas hesitated as he read the Governor's appeal… he has been with me, yet slipped some days out of ignorance, but it is good to bring in a lost sheep at any time, and will be an advantage to render the King's government easy. The hesitation was brief, again the Campbell shook his head. The law was the law. The Proclamation had been issued five months ago, time enough for MacIain to have come before this.
And then he stared with astonished disbelief. MacDonald of Glencoe was weeping.
He wept without shame, tears on his leathered face and defiant moustache. His head was erect and his eyes were staring at the Sheriff, yet suddenly he was an old and broken man. Though Ardkinglas was close to the south and its colder emotions, he was as much Highland as MacIain, and he was moved by the nakedness of the MacDonald's fear. He said nothing. He waited kindly.
‘Administer the oath to me,’ said MacIain at last, ‘and upon my honour I promise you that I shall order all my people to do the same. Those who refuse you may imprison, or send to Flanders as soldiers.’
It was a terrible submission, and Ardkinglas had no will or strength to resist it. ‘Come to me tomorrow,’ he said, ‘and it will be done.’
The next morning MacIain walked from his tavern to the Court House, his gillies behind him, his bonnet cocked and his head up. Before the Sheriff and the clerks, before the Town Officers in scarlet and the townsfolk at the windows, he swore and signed the oath of allegiance to King William and Queen Mary, asking their pardon and craving their protection and indemnity. A night's thought had chilled some of the Sheriff's sympathy, and perhaps he remembered that here was a man whose insolent tribe had greviously abused both the Law and Clan Campbell. Once more he lectured MacIain for coming late, and warned him that there could be no assurance that the Privy Council would accept his oath. Then, softening again, he said that he would send Hill's letter to the Sheriff-Clerk of Argyll, who was then in Edinburgh, and also his own recommendation, asking the Sheriff-Clerk to place them before the Privy Council.
And so, lighter in heart, MacIain went home to Glencoe. The weather had lifted, the sun shone, melting much of the snow. He ordered a great fire to be lit on top of the rock in the elbow of the River Coe, summoning the men and women of his clan to Carnoch. He told them that he had taken the oath in their name as well as his own, and he ordered them to live peaceably under King William's government. If the oath were kept, there was nothing to fear.
A few days later John Hill got word from Ardkinglas. ‘I endeavoured to receive the great lost sheep Glencoe,’ said the Sheriff, ‘and he has undertaken to bring in all his friends and followers as the Privy Council shall order. I am sending to Edin-burgh that Glencoe, though he was mistaken in coming to you to take the oath of allegiance, might yet be welcome. Take care that he and his friends and followers do not suffer till the King and Council's pleasure be known.’* With happy relief John Hill wrote to MacIain, telling him this good news and assuring him that he and his people were now under the protection of the garrison at Inverlochy.
In Edinburgh about the middle of January, Colin Campbell of Dressalch, Writer to the Signet and Sheriff-Clerk of Argyll, received a packet of papers from Ardkinglas. The first was a certified list of all those who had taken the oath at Inveraray, including the name of Alasdair MacDonald of Glencoe. The second was Hill's letter begging that the lost sheep might be received. The third was in Ardkinglas's own hand and addressed to his Sheriff-Clerk. He asked Dressalch to place these papers before the Council, and to let him know as soon as possible whether MacIain's oath had been accepted or not.
It may be that Dressalch felt no pleasure at seeing Glencoe's name on the certificate. He had lost a dozen fine cows to MacIain's men during the Atholl Raid, and he was still petitioning for £240 in compensation. He was also a man with a literal mind and a great respect for the letter of the law, and he was reluctant to place the certificate before the Council without first taking advice from members of his own profession. They were also members of his own clan, for the Campbells counted many heads at the Bar. He went first to another Writer, John Campbell, who could give him no firm guidance, and together they approached a third Campbell lawyer, Lord Aberuchill, a member of the Privy Council. Dressalch asked him if he would canvass the private opinion of some Council members on the legality of leaving MacDonald's name on the list. Aberuchill willingly did so, and reported a day or so later that ‘it was their opinion that the certificate could not be received, without a warrant from the King’. One of those whom he had asked was the Viscount Stair, father of the Master.
This was not at all what the generous Sheriff of Argyll had wished. He had asked Dressalch to place the certificate and letters plainly and openly upon the Council table. But even now the three Campbells were not finished. They went to Sir Gilbert Elliott and David Moncrieff, Clerks to the Council, both of whom said that MacIain's oath could not be accepted after the expiry of the time set.
Thus Alasdair MacDonald's name was scored from the certificate by several strokes of a pen, though not heavily enough to become illegible. It was done in the office of the Clerks to the Council and in the presence of John Campbell, David Moncrieff, Lord Aberuchill and Colin Campbell of Dressalch. Which one of them struck out the name was never determined. Three years later Colin Campbell of Dressalch, who had lost twelve fine cows to the Glencoe men, said on oath that he may have done it, and then again it may have been done by his servant.
‘I entreat that Glencoe may be rooted out in earnest’
MAJOR DUNCAN MENZIES, now recovered from his journey and aware of an ugly danger, wrote anxiously to Sir Thomas Livingstone. He said that he had been unable to reach the Highlands before the time for taking the oath had expired, and therefore could not use his influence with those chiefs who might still be obstinate, ‘some persons having put them in a bad temper’. If the time were extended, he was sure he could still persuade them. On 5 January Livingstone read this brave letter to the Privy Council, which refused to answer it, advising the handsome Commander-in-Chief to send it to Kensington Palace without comment. All great men in Scotland were looking over their shoulders to England, and those who had some suspicion of what was in the Master of Stair's mind were not inclined to prejudice their interests by idle compassion.
It was a time of uncertainty, a time of no
news. No one yet knew how many chiefs had taken the oath, or indeed if any had done so. Breadalbane's law-agent in Edinburgh, Campbell of Carwhin, sent his master what information he could, and passed on to the Highlands what news he received of Grey John's affairs in London. Nothing must be done by the Earl's servants to hazard his delicate position at Court. ‘You did not tell me,’ Carwhin wrote to Barcaldine at Balloch, ‘what Keppoch and Glencoe has done or resolves to do. It is not safe now to correspond with any who are not come in, without allowance from the Government, wherefore take notice of what you do.’ When news of the troop movements north reached Edinburgh, Carwhin was delighted that the ingrates who had rejected the Earl's unselfish intercession would now regret it. ‘Those people are fallen into a strange delusion and they will certainly find the evil of it. How are all the fair promises they had from others now performed when the forces are marching toward them? Where are all the other great performances when…’ And here, as always, Carwhin was the true echo of his master's voice. ‘… when nothing but ruin and desperation is said to be determined for some of them?’
In London, however, the Earl of Breadalbane was less happy than his agents. He was to be found every day in the corridors of Kensington, but was told little. There was bleak comfort in the Palace this winter. Wren's handsome red building, half-finished and with £60,000 already spent upon it, had been badly damaged by fire eight months before, and on damp days it still smelt abominably of charred wood.* Although Breadalbane lodged elsewhere, he spent as much time as he was allowed in Stair's ante-room. He had an audience with William and Mary, kissed their hands, and was granted ‘several conferences’. But there was, he sensed, a growing lack of confidence in him, or at best an irritating indifference, and he complained of this pettishly. He was desperately anxious for news from Scotland, finding this useful in holding the attention of Stair. His vanity, ambition and fears were inextricably mixed this January, and he cherished a smile from the Queen, even a spattering cough in his direction from the King. But certain truths were evident, or he pretended they were. ‘Now my commission is extinct,’ he wrote to Carwhin on 5 January, ‘and so is my meddling. All methods have been ordered before I came here, for that which will shortly be put in execution. I have not meddled in it, measures were agreed on before I came.’
It is not easy to see what he meant, or what he wished Carwhin to believe. That he knew what was being planned, and was in no way responsible? That he was responsible, but wished Carwhin to declare his innocence in the Highlands? Perhaps the strongest feeling he had was resentment at being shouldered from the centre of events, from the confidence of a man who had once written so flatteringly of ‘your Lordship's scheme’. What was to happen now, said Breadalbane, would be ‘the work of the Government and Army wherein I am no member’.
The seventh day of January dispelled some of his rancour. The Master of Stair came to dine with him at his lodgings, although his delight may have been soured by the fact that his nephew, the Earl of Argyll, came too. Nothing is known of the conversation across this intriguing dinner-table, but it is unlikely that Stair came for the pleasure alone. It was the eve of great decisions. That morning the Master had written to Livingstone. ‘To-morrow,’ he said, ‘we fall upon the Highland business.’ And now he sat with the greatest chiefs in the Highlands, both with a family and personal hatred of the Lochaber clans, both ambitious, both anxious. And both, too, had a detailed military knowledge of the glens, of how, and when, and where troops might be moved in winter. There would have been no reason for keeping from them what Stair had already told Livingstone. ‘You know in general that these troops posted at Inverness and Inverlochy will be ordered to take in the house of Invergarry, and to destroy entirely the country of Lochaber, Lochicl's lands, Keppoch's, Glengarry's, Appin and Glencoe.’ A Lowlander who, so far as is known, had never been in the Highlands, Stair would want to know what difficulties there might be, which glen offered the best approach, and which would be impassable. His later letters show a knowledge of the district about Glencoe which he could have got from these Campbells only.
He was still thinking of a punitive assault on all the Lochaber clans, Camerons, Stewarts and MacDonalds, if they had not taken the oath. Perhaps he watched Breadalbane above his glass, blandly waiting for the Earl to defend his ‘doited cousin’ Lochiel. Too concerned with self-protection, Breadalbane would not have risked his own interests so foolishly, but he or Argyll would have argued against the practicability of such a proposal, particularly since Stair intended the punishment to be bloody and merciless. ‘I hope the soldiers will not trouble the Government with prisoners,’ he had told Livingstone, ‘slighting the offered mercy will justify all the severity used.’
But, if a lesson must be taught…. After this evening Stair wrote and spoke of the Glencoe MacDonalds with venomous hatred and contempt. They were Papists, murderers and thieves, a damnable sept whose extirpation would be regretted by none. And if none would grieve their total destruction, all would see in it the strength and anger of the King. These were thoughts which an Argyll or Breadalbane chief, long victims of the Gallows Herd, could put into a Dalrymple's mind.
Four days later, Breadalbane received news of Lochiel's submission from the Cameron himself. He wrote a testy and immediate reply, advising Lochiel to post for London as early as he could. ‘You may expect the greatest flyting* ever you got in your life.’ Lochiel meekly did as he was told. He came to Kensington Palace at the end of the month, knelt, and humbly kissed the hands of William and Mary.
On Friday, 9 January, dispatches sent from Edinburgh by flying pacquet told Stair that the chiefs of Appin, MacNaughten, Keppoch and Glencoe had also sworn within the time set. The report was half truth and half rumour. John MacNaughten of Dunderave, a merry man with the bottle and an ardent Jacobite despite the fact that he lived in the shadow of Inveraray Castle, had certainly taken the oath before Ardkinglas, and Coll of Keppoch had gone to Inverness. But Robert Stewart of Appin and his Tutor Ardshiel had not left their homes, and MacIain was still struggling down Glen Aray when the pacquet sailed from Leith. Stair accepted the report. He was sorry Keppoch and Glencoe were safe, he wrote to Livingstone that night, but nothing was changed. There were those who still held out, he was thinking of Glengarry again, and for them there could be no mercy. ‘I would be as tender of blood or severities as any man, if I did not see the reputation of the Government in question, and the security of the nation in danger.’ He advised Livingstone to be ready. He had been with the King this day, and His Majesty's instructions would be sent by the next pacquet on Monday.
On Sunday he worked alone with his clerk upon those instructions, and upon other letters to Scotland. The cold, half-built Palace was quiet, the workmen resting on the Sabbath. Beyond the tall windows there was frost on the trees, the deserted scaffolding and columns of bricks, the gardens and the clearing where the King wished Sir Christopher Wren to build an orangery. The only sounds in the world were the scratching of a clerk's pen, the whispering of the fire, and the Master's smooth voice dictating.
There were two sets of instructions to be ready for the King's signature that evening. The first was brief and to the Privy Council of Scotland, in which the King declared: ‘We do consider it indispensable for the well of that our kingdom to apply the necessary severities of law.’ To that end, he was sending orders to the Commander-in-chief for the employment of troops ‘to cut off these obstinate rebels by all manner of hostility’. He required the Council to give all the assistance it could to Livingstone, to make known the extreme penalties men would risk in assisting the rebels, and to take special care that no harm came to those who had taken the oath.
Livingstone's orders were more detailed and set out in seven clauses, and the first was plain and unequivocal:
You are hereby ordered and authorized to march our troops which are now posted at Inverlochy and Inverness, and to act against these Highland rebels who have not taken the benefit of our indemnity, by fire and sword
and all manner of hostility; to burn their houses, seize or destroy their goods or cattle, plenishings or clothes, and to cut off the men.
The castle at Invergarry was to be taken and garrisoned. The Argyll companies at Fort William could be used against the MacDonalds of Skye and Clanranald. Governor Hill at Inverlochy and Baillie Duff at Inverness would supply subsistence, transport and all other necessaries for these expeditions. Where the intransigent Macleans were concerned, Livingstone was to take the advice and orders of the Earl of Argyll's agents, for the Earl had a legal right to Sir John Maclean's estate. The Commander-in-chief was also to use discretion and mercy where both seemed advisable, ‘that the rebels may not think themselves absolutely desperate’.
By that evening the King had slashed his oblique signature above and below both letters of instructions, and the Master was alone in the candle-light, writing covering letters. He wrote to the Earl of Tweeddale. ‘There is a necessity,’ he said, ‘that the world may see the Government, being ill-used, will turn severe, and the obstinacy of those deluded rebels will justify all the rigour that can be done to them.’ He was amused by the irony of the situation. ‘It's a jest to think how they have been forced at last to do what might have got them money if timeously done.’