#campbells

At around 5am on February 13th 1692 the Massacre of Glencoe began……….

The Glencoe Massacre, probably the most infamous and shameful episode in Scottish history, has led to ill feeling between two Scottish clans for hundreds of years.

The shameful atrocity of 13 February 1692 was not, as first believed, a clan feud between the Campbells and MacDonalds, it was in fact a government operation.

Events leading up to the massacre are important to understand the massacre itself.

King James VII of Scotland, and II of England, (a Stuart and a catholic) was deposed by Parliament in 1689, and William of Orange was installed as Monarch, which would lead to the massacre in 1692, and would later spark off the Jacobite Uprisings,the attempts to reinstate the Stuarts to the Throne.

The action was sanctioned and implemented by the Crown, with approval by Lowland elites, and it intensified the already bitter Highland-Lowland divisions.

The actual massacre itself was a direct order from the Master of Stair, Joint-Secretary of State for Scotland for the new King, William of Orange.

Thirty-eight MacDonalds from the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by the Campbells, (the guests who had accepted their hospitality) on the grounds that the MacDonalds had been slow to pledge their allegiance to the new king.

Besides being ineffectual, it proved to be a monumental blunder, and public opinion was such that the Government was forced to hold an inquest into the affair.

When two advance units were sent to Glencoe on the 1st February they were under the command of Captain Robert Campbell of Glen Lyon, an alcoholic gambler who had gambled away most of his estates. The massacre was to begin simultaneously in three settlements along the glen (Invercoe, Inverrigan, and Achacon) although the killing took place all over the glen as the fleeing MacDonalds were pursued and slain.

On the night before the slaughter, Campbell was given orders to fall upon the rebels, the MacDonalds of Glencoe, and put all under 70 years of age to the sword.

He was told to begin the massacre at 5am on 13 February, 1692, but his superior officers were told to commence at 7am. In addition to the soldiers who were actually in Glencoe that night, there were two other detachments, each of four hundred men, who were, according to the plan, to have converged to cut off the likely escape routes.

Details of the events became public knowledge only because the tormented Campbell leaked his orders to kill in the days after. He had betrayed people he knew. MacIain of Glencoe, the chief of the small branch of the Clan Donald, was a friend with whom he had hunted and fished, and the story goes that Campbell died of his shame.

The scandal was further enhanced when the leading Scottish jurist Sir John Lauder, Lord Fountainhall, was, in 1692, offered the post of Lord Advocate but He declined it, because there was a condition attached that he should not attempt to prosecute any of the people implicated in the Glencoe Massacre.

The Glencoe massacre memory has been kept alive by continued ill feeling between the MacDonalds and the Campbells. Since the late 20th century the Clachaig Inn, a hotel and pub in Glencoe popular with climbers, has had a sign on its door that says ….

“No hawkers or Campbells"

Glencoe is sometimes said to mean ‘Glen of Weeping’, which may be a reference to the massacre of Glen but the Gaelic 'Gleann Comhann’ doesn’t translate as 'Glen of Weeping’, the Glen is actually named after the River Coe which runs through it and had this name long before the 1692 massacre.I would assume it got the moniker after the events on that fateful day.

Oh cruel is the snow that sweeps Glencoe And covers the grave o' Donald And cruel was the foe that raped Glencoe And murdered the house o' MacDonald

(chorus) They came through the blizzard, we offered them heat A roof ower their heads, dry shoes for their feet We wined them and dined them, they ate o' our meat And slept in the house O' MacDonald

(chorus) They came from Fort William with murder mind The Campbell had orders, King William had signed Pit all tae the sword, these words underlined And leave none alive called MacDonald

(chorus) They came in the night when the men were asleep That band of Argyles, through snow soft and deep Like murdering foxes, among helpless sheep They slaughtered the house o' MacDonald