The Widow Of Glencoe

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Title:     The Widow Of Glencoe
Author: W. E. Aytoun [More Titles by Aytoun]

The Massacre of Glencoe is an event which neither can nor ought to be forgotten. It was a deed of the worst treason and cruelty--a barbarous infraction of all laws, human and divine; and it exhibits in their foulest perfidy the true characters of the authors and abettors of the Revolution.

After the battle of Killiecrankie the cause of the Scottish royalists declined, rather from the want of a competent leader than from any disinclination on the part of a large section of the nobility and gentry to vindicate the right of King James. No person of adequate talents or authority was found to supply the place of the great and gallant Lord Dundee; for General Cannon, who succeeded in command, was not only deficient in military skill, but did not possess the confidence, nor understand the character of the Highland chiefs, who, with their clansmen, constituted by far the most important section of the army. Accordingly no enterprise of any importance was attempted; and the disastrous issue of the battle of the Boyne led to a negotiation which terminated in the entire disbanding of the royal forces. By this treaty, which was expressly sanctioned by William of Orange, a full and unreserved indemnity and pardon was granted to all of the Highlanders who had taken arms, with a proviso that they should first subscribe the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, before the 1st of January, 1692, in presence of the Lords of the Scottish Council, "or of the Sheriffs or their deputies of the respective shires wherein they lived." The letter of William addressed to the Privy Council, and ordering proclamation to be made to the above effect, contained also the following significant passage:--"That ye communicate our pleasure to the Governor of Inverlochy, and other commanders, that they be exact and diligent in their several posts; but that they show no more zeal against the Highlanders after their submission, than they have ever done formerly when these were in open rebellion."

This enigmatical sentence, which in reality was intended, as the sequel will show, to be interpreted in the most cruel manner, appears to have caused some perplexity in the Council, as that body deemed it necessary to apply for more distinct and specific instructions, which, however, were not then issued. It had been especially stipulated by the chiefs, as an indispensable preliminary to their treaty, that they should have leave to communicate with King James, then residing at St. Germains, for the purpose of obtaining his permission and warrant previous to submitting themselves to the existing government. That article had been sanctioned by William before the proclamation was issued, and a special messenger was despatched to France for that purpose.

In the mean time, troops were gradually and cautiously advanced to the confines of the Highlands, and, in some instances, actually quartered on the inhabitants. The condition of the country was perfectly tranquil. No disturbances whatever occurred in the north or west of Scotland; Locheill and the other chiefs were awaiting the communication from St. Germains, and held themselves bound in honour to remain inactive; whilst the remainder of the royalist forces (for whom separate terms had been made) were left unmolested at Dunkeld.

But rumours, which are too clearly traceable to the emissaries of the new government, asserting the preparation made for an immediate landing of King James at the head of a large body of the French, were industriously circulated, and by many were implicitly believed. The infamous policy which dictated such a course is now apparent. The term of the amnesty or truce granted by the proclamation expired with the year 1691, and all who had not taken the oath of allegiance before that term, were to be proceeded against with the utmost severity. The proclamation was issued upon the 29th of August: consequently, only four months were allowed for the complete submission of the Highlands.

Not one of the chiefs subscribed until the mandate from King James arrived. That document, which is dated from St. Germains on the 12th of December 1691, reached Dunkeld eleven days afterwards, and, consequently, but a very short time before the indemnity expired. The bearer, Major Menzies, was so fatigued that he could proceed no farther on his journey, but forwarded the mandate by an express to the commander of the royal forces, who was then at Glengarry. It was therefore impossible that the document could be circulated through the Highlands within the prescribed period. Locheill, says Drummond of Balhaldy, did not receive his copy till about thirty hours before the time was out, and appeared before the sheriff at Inverara, where he took the oaths upon the very day on which the indemnity expired.

That a general massacre throughout the Highlands was contemplated by the Whig government, is a fact established by overwhelming evidence. In the course of the subsequent investigation before the Scots Parliament, letters were produced from Sir John Dalrymple, then Master of Stair, one of the secretaries of state in attendance upon the court, which too clearly indicate the intentions of William. In one of these, dated 1st December 1694,--a month, be it observed, before the amnesty expired--and addressed to Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, there are the following words:--"The winter is the only season in which we are sure the Highlanders cannot escape us, nor carry their wives, bairns, and cattle to the mountains." And in another letter, written only two days afterwards, he says, "It is the only time that they cannot escape you, for human constitution cannot endure to be long out of houses. This is the proper season to maule them, in the cold long nights." And in January thereafter, he informed Sir Thomas Livingston that the design was "to destroy entirely the country of Lochaber, Locheill's lands, Keppoch's, Glengarry's, Appin, and Glencoe. I assure you," he continues, "your power shall be full enough, and I hope the soldiers will not trouble the Government with prisoners."

Locheill was more fortunate than others of his friends and neighbours. According to Drummond,--"Major Menzies, who, upon his arrival, had observed the whole forces of the kingdom ready to invade the Highlands, as he wrote to General Buchan, foreseeing the unhappy consequences, not only begged that general to send expresses to all parts with orders immediately to submit, but also wrote to Sir Thomas Livingston, praying him to supplicate the Council for a prorogation of the time, in regard that he was so excessively fatigued, that he was obliged to stop some days to repose a little; and that though he should send expresses, yet it was impossible they could reach the distant parts in such time as to allow the several persons concerned the benefit of the indemnity within the space limited; besides, that some persons having put the Highlanders in a bad temper, he was confident to persuade them to submit, if a further time were allowed. Sir Thomas presented this letter to the Council on the 5th of January, 1692, but they refused to give any answer, and ordered him to transmit the same to Court."

The reply of William of Orange was a letter, countersigned by Dalrymple, in which, upon the recital that "several of the chieftains and many of their clans had not taken the benefit of our gracious indemnity," he gave orders for a general massacre. "To that end, we have given Sir Thomas Livingston orders to employ our troops (which we have already conveniently posted) to cut off these obstinate rebels by all manner of hostility; and we do require you to give him your assistance and concurrence in all other things that may conduce to that service; and because these rebels, to avoid our forces, may draw themselves, their families, goods, or cattle, to lurk or be concealed among their neighbours: therefore, we require and authorise you to emit a proclamation to be published at the market-crosses of these or the adjacent shires where the rebels reside, discharging upon the highest penalties the law allows, any reset, correspondence, or intercommuning with these rebels." This monstrous mandate, which was in fact the death-warrant of many thousand innocent people, no distinction being made of age or sex, would, in all human probability, have been put into execution, but for the remonstrance of one high-minded nobleman. Lord Carmarthen, afterwards Duke of Leeds, accidentally became aware of the proposed massacre, and personally remonstrated with the monarch against a measure which he denounced as at once cruel and impolitic. After much discussion, William, influenced rather by an apprehension that so savage and sweeping an act might prove fatal to his new authority, than by any compunction or impulse of humanity, agreed to recall the general order, and to limit himself, in the first instance, to a single deed of butchery, by way of testing the temper of the nation. Some difficulty seems to have arisen in the selection of the fittest victim. Both Keppoch and Glencoe were named, but the personal rancour of Secretary Dalrymple decided the doom of the latter. The Secretary wrote thus:--"Argyle tells me that Glencoe hath not taken the oath, at which I rejoice. It is a great work of charity to be exact in rooting out that damnable set." The final instructions regarding Glencoe, which were issued on 16th January, 1692, are as follows:--

"William R.--As for M'Ian of Glencoe, and that tribe, if they can be well distinguished from the rest of the Highlanders, it will be proper for public justice to extirpate that set of thieves."--"W.R."

This letter is remarkable as being signed and countersigned by William alone, contrary to the usual practice. The Secretary was no doubt desirous to screen himself from after responsibility, and was further aware that the royal signature would insure a rigorous execution of the sentence.

Macdonald, or, as he was more commonly designed, M'Ian of Glencoe, was the head of a considerable sept or branch of the great Clan-Coila, and was lineally descended from the ancient Lords of the Isles, and from the royal family of Scotland--the common ancestor of the Macdonalds having espoused a daughter of Robert II. He was, according to a contemporary testimony, "a person of great integrity, honour, good nature, and courage; and his loyalty to his old master, King James, was such, that he continued in arms from Dundee's first appearing in the Highlands, till the fatal treaty that brought on his ruin." In common with the other chiefs, he had omitted taking the benefit of the indemnity until he received the sanction of King James: but the copy of that document which was forwarded to him, unfortunately arrived too late. The weather was so excessively stormy at the time that there was no possibility of penetrating from Glencoe to Inverara, the place where the sheriff resided, before the expiry of the stated period; and M'Ian accordingly adopted the only practicable mode of signifying his submission, by making his way with great difficulty to Fort-William, then called Inverlochy, and tendering his signature to the military Governor there. That officer was not authorised to receive it, but at the earnest entreaty of the chief, he gave him a certificate of his appearance and tender, and on New-Year's day, 1692, M'Ian reached Inverara, where he produced that paper as evidence of his intentions, and prevailed upon the sheriff, Sir James Campbell of Ardkinglass, to administer the oaths required. After that ceremony, which was immediately intimated to the Privy Council, had been performed, the unfortunate gentleman returned home, in the full conviction that he had thereby made peace with government for himself and for his clan. But his doom was already sealed.

A company of the Earl of Argyle's regiment had been previously quartered in Glencoe. These men, though Campbells, and hereditarily obnoxious to the Macdonalds, Camerons, and other of the loyal clans, were yet countrymen, and were kindly and hospitably received. Their captain, Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, was connected with the family of Glencoe through the marriage of a niece, and was resident under the roof of the chief. And yet this was the very troop selected for the horrid service.

Special instructions were sent to the major of the regiment, one Duncanson, then quartered at Ballachulish--a morose, brutal, and savage man--who accordingly wrote to Campbell of Glenlyon in the following terms:--

Ballacholis, 12 February, 1692.

"SIR,--You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the M'Donalds of Glencoe, and putt all to the sword under seventy. You are to have special care that the old fox and his sons doe upon no account escape your hands. You are to secure all the avenues, that no man escape. This you are to put in execution att five o'clock in the morning precisely, and by that time, or very shortly after it, I'll strive to be att you with a stronger party. If I doe not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. This is by the king's speciall command, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants be cutt off root and branch. See that this be putt in execution without feud or favour, else you may expect to be treated as not true to the king's government, nor a man fitt to carry a commission in the king's service. Expecting you will not faill in the fulfilling hereof as you love yourself, I subscribe these with my hand."---ROBERT DUNCANSON.

"For their Majestys' service.
To Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon."

This order was but too literally obeyed. At the appointed hour, when the whole inhabitants of the glen were asleep, the work of murder began. M'Ian was one of the first who fell. Drummond's narrative fills up the remainder of the dreadful story.

"They then served all within the family in the same manner, without distinction of age or person. In a word--for the horror of that execrable butchery must give pain to the reader--they left none alive but a young child, who, being frightened with the noise of the guns, and the dismal shrieks and cries of its dying parents, whom they were a-murdering, got hold of Captain Campbell's knees, and wrapt itself within his cloak; by which, chancing to move compassion, the captain inclined to have saved it, but one Drummond, an officer, arriving about the break of day with more troops, commanded it to be shot by a file of musqueteers. Nothing could be more shocking and horrible than the prospect of these houses bestrewed with mangled bodies of the dead, covered with blood, and resounding with the groans of wretches in the last agonies of life.

"Two sons of Glencoe's were the only persons that escaped in that quarter of the country; for, growing jealous of some ill designs from the behaviour of the soldiers, they stole from their beds a few minutes before the tragedy began, and, chancing to overhear two of them discoursing plainly of the matter, they endeavoured to have advertised their father, but, finding that impracticable, they ran to the other end of the country and alarmed the inhabitants. There was another accident that contributed much to their safety; for the night was so excessively stormy and tempestuous, that four hundred soldiers, who were appointed to murder these people, were stopped in their march from Inverlochy, and could not get up till they had time to save themselves. To cover the deformity of so dreadful a sight, the soldiers burned all the houses to the ground, after having rifled them, carried away nine hundred cows, two hundred horses, numberless herds of sheep and goats, and every thing else that belonged to these miserable people. Lamentable was the case of the women and children that escaped the butchery; the mountains were covered with a deep snow, the rivers impassable, storm and tempest filled the air and added to the horrors and darkness of the night, and there were no houses to shelter them within many miles."[1]

Such was the awful massacre of Glencoe, an event which has left an indelible and execrable stain upon the memory of William of Orange. The records of Indian warfare can hardly afford a parallel instance of atrocity: and this deed, coupled with his deliberate treachery in the Darien scheme, whereby Scotland was for a time absolutely ruined, is sufficient to account for the little estimation in which the name of the "great Whig deliverer" is still regarded in the valleys of the North.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheill.]

THE WIDOW OF GLENCOE

Do not lift him from the bracken,
Leave him lying where he fell--
Better bier ye cannot fashion:
None beseems him half so well
As the bare and broken heather,
And the hard and trampled sod,
Whence his angry soul ascended
To the judgment-seat of God!
Winding-sheet we cannot give him--
Seek no mantle for the dead,
Save the cold and spotless covering
Showered from heaven upon his head.
Leave his broadsword, as we found it,
Bent and broken with the blow,
That, before he died, avenged him
On the foremost of the foe.
Leave the blood upon his bosom--
Wash not off that sacred stain:
Let it stiffen on the tartan,
Let his wounds unclosed remain,
Till the day when he shall show them
At the throne of God on high,
When the murderer and the murdered
Meet before their Judge's eye!

Nay--ye should not weep, my children!
Leave it to the faint and weak;
Sobs are but a woman's weapon--
Tears befit a maiden's cheek.
Weep not, children of Macdonald!
Weep not thou, his orphan heir--
Not in shame, but stainless honour,
Lies thy slaughtered father there.
Weep not--but when years are over,
And thine arm is strong and sure,
And thy foot is swift and steady
On the mountain and the muir--
Let thy heart be hard as iron,
And thy wrath as fierce as fire,
Till the hour when vengeance cometh
For the race that slew thy sire;
Till in deep and dark Glenlyon
Rise a louder shriek of woe
Than at midnight, from their eyrie,
Scared the eagles of Glencoe;
Louder than the screams that mingled
With the howling of the blast,
When the murderer's steel was clashing,
And the fires were rising fast;
When thy noble father bounded
To the rescue of his men,
And the slogan of our kindred
Pealed throughout the startled glen;
When the herd of frantic women
Stumbled through the midnight snow,
With their fathers' houses blazing,
And their dearest dead below.
Oh, the horror of the tempest,
As the flashing drift was blown,
Crimsoned with the conflagration,
And the roofs went thundering down!
Oh, the prayers--the prayers and curses
That together winged their flight
From the maddened hearts of many
Through that long and woeful night!
Till the fires began to dwindle,
And the shots grew faint and few,
And we heard the foeman's challenge
Only in a far halloo;
Till the silence once more settled
O'er the gorges of the glen,
Broken only by the Cona
Plunging through its naked den.
Slowly from the mountain-summit
Was the drifting veil withdrawn,
And the ghastly valley glimmered
In the gray December dawn.
Better had the morning never
Dawned upon our dark despair!
Black amidst the common whiteness
Rose the spectral ruins there:
But the sight of these was nothing
More than wrings the wild dove's breast,
When she searches for her offspring
Round the relics of her nest.
For in many a spot the tartan
Peered above the wintry heap,
Marking where a dead Macdonald
Lay within his frozen sleep.
Tremblingly we scooped the covering
From each kindred victim's head,
And the living lips were burning
On the cold ones of the dead.
And I left them with their dearest--
Dearest charge had everyone--
Left the maiden with her lover,
Left the mother with her son.
I alone of all was mateless--
Far more wretched I than they,
For the snow would not discover
Where my lord and husband lay.
But I wandered up the valley
Till I found him lying low,
With the gash upon his bosom,
And the frown upon his brow--
Till I found him lying murdered
Where he wooed me long ago.
Woman's weakness shall not shame me;
Why should I have tears to shed?
Could I rain them down like water,
O my hero, on thy head,
Could the cry of lamentation
Wake thee from thy silent sleep,
Could it set thy heart a-throbbing,
It were mine to wail and weep.
But I will not waste my sorrow,
Lest the Campbell women say
That the daughters of Clanranald
Are as weak and frail as they.
I had wept thee hadst thou fallen,
Like our fathers, on thy shield,
When a host of English foemen
Camped upon a Scottish field;
I had mourned thee hadst thou perished
With the foremost of his name,
When the valiant and the noble
Died around the dauntless Graeme.
But I will not wrong thee, husband!
With my unavailing cries,
Whilst thy cold and mangled body,
Stricken by the traitor, lies;
Whilst he counts the gold and glory
That this hideous night has won,
And his heart is big with triumph
At the murder he has done.
Other eyes than mine shall glisten,
Other hearts be rent in twain,
Ere the heathbells on thy hillock
Wither in the autumn rain.
Then I'll seek thee where thou sleepest,
And I'll veil my weary head,
Praying for a place beside thee,
Dearer than my bridal-bed:
And I'll give thee tears, my husband,
If the tears remain to me,
When the widows of the foemen
Cry the coronach for thee.

[The end]
W. E. Aytoun's poem: Widow Of Glencoe

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