Ordnance gazetteer of Scotland > Volume 3

GLENCOE
short space, liidden between steep rocks : we left the
road, and, going to the top of one of the rocks, saw
it foaming over stones, or lodged in dark black dens ;
birch-trees grew on the inaccessible banks, and a
few old Scotch firs towered above them. At the en-
trance of the glen the mountains had been all without
trees, but here the birches climb very far up the side of
one of them opposite to us, half concealing a rivulet,
wdiich came tumbling down as white as snow from the
very top of the mountain. Leaving the rock, we as-
cended a hill which terminated the glen. We often
stopped to look behind at the majestic company of moun-
tains we had left. Before us was no single paramount
eminence, but a mountain waste, mountain beyond
mountain, and a barren hollow or basin into which we
were descending. ... At Kingshouse, in comparing
the impressions we had received at Glencoe, we found that
though the expectations of both had been far surpassed
by the grandeur of the mountains, we had upon the
whole both been disappointed, and from the same
cause ; we had been prepared for images of terror, had
expected a deep, den-like valley with overhanging rocks,
such as William has described in his lines upon the
Alps. The place had nothing of this character, the
glen being open to the eye of day, the mountains re-
tiring in independent majesty. Even in the upper part
of it, where the stream rushed through the rocky chasm,
it was but a deep trench in the vale, not the vale itself,
and could only be seen when we were close to it.'
Glencoe has been claimed for Ossian's birthplace ; but
its chief, everlasting fame arises from the massacre of 13
Feb. 1692. To break the power of the Jacobite High-
landers, a plan was concerted between John Campbell,
Earl of Breadalbane, and Sir John Dalrymple, Master
of Stair — a Highland chieftain the one, a Lowland
statesman the other. The Earl obtained £20,000 from
government to bribe the allegiance of the chiefs, while
a proclamation was issued by the Privy Council declar-
ing all to be traitors who did not take the oath to
William and Mary on or before 31 Dec. 1691. Not till
that very day did old Macdonald of Glencoe, surnamed
Mac Ian, repair with his principal clansmen to Fort
William and ofl'er to be sworn. At Fort William, how-
ever, there was no magistrate ; the sheriff of Argyllshire
at Inverary was the nearest ; and this caused a further
delay of six days. The roll was then sent into Edin-
burgh, with a certificate explaining the circumstances
of the case ; but that certificate was suppressed, and
Glencoe's name deleted from the roll. Stair was the
man that did this hateful deed, and Stair it was who
straightway procured the signature of William to an
order ' to extirpate that sect of thieves. '
On 1 Feb. 120 soldiers, Campbells mostly, and under
the command of Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, were
approaching Glencoe, when they were met by John Mac-
donald, the elder son of the chief, at the head of some
20 men. To his question as to the reason of this incur-
sion of a military force into a peaceful country, Glen-
lyon answered that they came as friends, and that their
sole object was to obtain suitable quarters, where they
could conveniently collect the arrears of cess and hearth-
money, — a new tax laid on by the Scottish parliament
in 1690, — in proof of which. Lieutenant Lyndsay pro-
duced the instructions of Colonel Hill to that effect.
They thereupon received a hearty welcome, and were
hospitably entertained by Glencoe and his people till
the fatal morning of the massacre. Indeed, so familiar
was Glenlyon, that scarcely a day passed that he did
not visit the house of Alexander Macdonald, the younger
son of the chief, who was married to Glenlyon's niece,
the sister of Rob Roy, and take his morning dram,
agreeably to the most approved practice of Highland
hospitality.
In pursuance of fresh instructions from Dalrj-mple,
on 12 Feb. Lieut. -Col. Hamilton received orders forth-
with to execute the fatal commission. Accordingly, on
the same day, he directed Major Robert Duncanson of
Argyll's regiment to proceed immediately with a detach-
ment of that regiment to Glencoe so as to reach the
GLENCOE
post which had been assigned him by five o'clock the
following morning, at which hour Hamilton promised
to reach another post v/ith a party of Hill's regiment.
Whether Duncanson, who appears to have been a Camp-
bell, was averse to take an active personal part in the
bloody tragedy about to he enacted, is a question that
cannot now be solved ; but it may have been from some
repugnance to act in person that immediately on receipt
of Hamilton's order, he despatched another order from
himself to Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, then living
in Glencoe, with instructions to fall upon the Mac-
donalds preciselj' at five o'clock the following morning,
and put all to the sword under seventy years of age.
Glenlyon himself appears to have been a man equal
to any kind of loathsome work, especially against a
Macdonald. With this sanguinary order in his pocket,
and with his mind made up to execute it rigorously, he
did not hesitate to spend the eve of the massacre play-
ing at cards with John and Alexander Jlacdonald, the
sons of the chief, to wish them good night at parting,
and to accept an invitation from Glencoe himself to dine
with him the following day. Little suspecting the in-
tended butchery, Glencoe and his sons retired to rest at
their usual hour ; but early in the morning, while the
preparations for the intended massacre were going on,
John Macdonald, the elder son of the chief, hearing the
sound of voices about his house, grew alarmed, and
jumping out of bed threw on his clothes and went to
Inverriggen, where Glenlyon was quartered, to ascertain
the cause of the unusual bustle which had interrupted
his nocturnal slumbers. To his great surprise he found
the soldiers all in motion, as if pi'eparing for some enter-
prise, which induced him to inquire of Glenlyon the
object of these extraordinary prepiarations at such an
early hour. Glenlyon endeavoured by professions of
friendship to lull his suspicions, and pretended that his
sole design was to march against some of Glengarry's
men. As John Macdonald, the younger son of Glencoe,
was married to Glenlyon's niece, that crafty knave re-
ferred to his connection with the family, and put it to
the young man, whether, if he intended anything hostile
to the clan, he would not have provided for the safety
of his niece and her husband. Macdonald, apparently
satisfied with this explanation, returned home and retired
again to rest, but he had not been long in bed when his
servant informed him of the approach of a party of men.
Jumping out of bed he ran to the door, and perceiving
a body of 20 soldiers with muskets and fixed bayonets
coming in the direction of his house, he fled to a neigh-
bouring hill, where he was joined by his brother Alex-
ander, who had escaped from the scene of carnage, after
being wakened from sleep by his servant.
The massacre commenced about five o'clock in the
morning at three different places at once. Glenlyon
undertook to butcher his own hospitable landlord and
the other inhabitants of Inverriggen, where he and a
party of his men were cpiartered, and despatched
Lieutenant Lyndsay with another party of soldiers to
Glencoe's house to cut off the unsuspecting chief. Under
pretence of a friendly visit, he and his party obtained
admission. Glencoe was in bed, and while in the act
of rising to receive his visitors, was shot through the
head by two of the soldiers. His wife was already up
and dressed, but the ruffians stripped her naked, tore
the rings off her fingers with their teeth, and so mal-
treated her that she died the following day. The party
also killed two men whom they found in the house, and
wounded a third named Duncan Don, who came
occasionally to Glencoe with letters from Braemar.
While the butchery was going on in Glencoe's house,
Glenlyon was busy with his bloody work at Invei-riggen,
where his own host was shot by his order. Here the
party seized nine men, whom they first bound hand and
foot, and then shot one by one. Glenlyon was desirous
of saving the life of a young man twenty years old, but
Captain Drummond shot him dead. He too it was that,
impelled by a thirst for blood, ran his dagger through
the body of a hoy who had grasped Glenlyon by the
legs and was imploring mercy. •
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