"If MacIain of Glencoe and that tribe can be well separated from the rest, it will be a proper vindication of the public justice to extirpate that sect of thieves."
For two weeks his soldiers enjoyed the MacDonalds' hospitality.
Then, in the cold darkness, a massacre began. Old MacIain was shot trying to get out of his bed. His wife had her fingers bitten off for their rings and she froze to death stripped naked in the snow the following day.
Thirty eight died but one hundred and fifty managed to escape thanks to the late arrival of more troops who were supposed to block the bottom of the glen. Dalrymple was incensed that some had escaped as it was his intention to swiftly erase all the Camerons and MacDonalds of Glengarry next.
The Campbells were allowed to take the blame but very few of the troops involved were Campbells. It was William of Orange who signed and counter-signed the order for the slaughter.
Dalrymple took the blame from the Scottish Parliament so King William made him Earl of Stair and gave him free reign to destroy Scotland's parliament in the Union of 1707, when the rights of the Scots were sold to England by the 'Parcel of Rogues'.
The Massacre at Glencoe
ScotClans - Scottish History
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Glencoe was in bed, and while in the act of rising to receive his cruel visitors, was basely shot at by two of the soldiers, and fell lifeless into the arms of his wife. The lady in the extremity of her anguish leaped out of bed and put on her clothes, but the ruffians stripped her naked, pulled the rings off her fingers with their teeth, and treated her so cruelly 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 busily doing his bloody work at Inverriggen, where his own host was shot by his order. Here the party seized nine men, whom they first bound hand and foot, after which they shot them one by one. Glenlyon was desirous of saving the life of a young man about twenty years of age, but one Captain Drummond shot him dead. The same officer, impelled by a thirst for blood, ran his dagger through the body of a boy who has grasped Campbell by the legs and was supplicating for mercy.
A third party under the command of one Sergeant Barker, which was quartered in the village of Auchnaion, fired upon a body of nine men whom they observed in a house in the village sitting before a fire. Among these was the laird of Auchintriaten, who was killed on the spot, along with four more of the party. This gentleman had at the time a protection in his pocket from Colonel Hill, which he had received three months before. The remainder of the party in the house, two or three of whom were wounded, escaped by the back of the house, with the exception of a brother of Auchintriaten, who having been seized by Barker, requested him as a favour not to despatch him in the house but to kill him without. The sergeant consented, on account of having shared his generous hospitality; but when brought out he threw his plaid, which he had kept loose, over the faces of the soldiers who were appointed to shoot him, and thus escaped.
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As for the Master of Stair, at whose door the chief blame of the infamous transaction was laid by the commission of inquiry, and who is popularly considered to have been a heartless and bloodthirsty wretch, he could not understand the indignant astonishment expressed on all hands at what he considered a most patriotic, beneficial, and in every respect highly commendable proceeding. He considered that he had done his ungrateful country excellent service in doing a little to root out a band of pestilential banditti, whom he regarded in as bad a light as the Italian government of the present day does the unscrupulous robbers who infest the country, or as the American government did the bloodthirsty Indians who harassed the frontiers. Letters of "fire and sword" against the Highlanders were as common, in the days of the Stewarts, as warrants for the apprehension of house-breakers or forgers are at the present day. They were looked upon as semi-civilised aborigines, characterised by such names as "rebellious and barbarous thieves, limmers, sorners "etc.; and the killing of a Highlandman was thought no more of than the killing of a "nigger" was in the slave-states of America. In various acts of the privy council of Scotland, the clan Gregor is denounced in the above terms, and was visited with all the terrors of "fire and sword". "their habitations were destroyed. They were hunted down like wild beasts. Their very name was proscribed."
The Infamous Massacre of the MacDonalds by the Campbells
macdonald.com
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Ballacholis
Feb. 12, 1692
Sir:
You are hereby ordered to fall upon the Rebels, the MacDonalds of Glencoe, and put all to the sword under 70. You are to have especial care, that the Old Fox and his Sons do upon no account escape your Hands, you are to secure all the avenues that no man can escape: this you are to put in Execution at five a Clock in the Morning precisely, and by that time or very shortly after it, I'll strive to be at you with a stronger party. If I do not come at five, you are not to tarry for me but fall on. This is by the King's Special command, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants may be cut off root and branch. See that this be put in execution without Feud or Favor, else you may expect to be treated as not true to the King or Government nor a man fit to carry Commission in the King's Service. Expecting you will not fail in the fulfilling hereof as you love yourself, I subscribed these with my hand,
/Signed/ Robert Duncannon
For Their Majesties Service
To Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon"
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The Massacre of Glencoe
at The Campbells of Southwest Virginia
Phil Norfleet
