observe during the progress of the Rebellion, he did not escape some of
its penalties. He was included in the act of attainder, and the house in
Breadalbane, which was his place of retreat, was burned by General Lord
Cadogan, when, after the conclusion of the insurrection, he marched
through the Highlands to disarm and punish the offending clans. But upon
going to Inverary with about forty or fifty of his followers, Rob
obtained favour, by an apparent surrender of their arms to Colonel
Patrick Campbell of Finnah, who furnished them and their leader with
protections under his hand. Being thus in a great measure secured from
the resentment of government, Rob Roy established his residence at
Craig-Royston, near Loch Lomond, in the midst of his own kinsmen, and
lost no time in resuming his private quarrel with the Duke of Montrose.
For this purpose he soon got on foot as many men, and well armed too, as
he had yet commanded. He never stirred without a body-guard of ten or
twelve picked followers, and without much effort could increase them to
fifty or sixty.
The Duke was not wanting in efforts to destroy this troublesome
adversary. His Grace applied to General Carpenter, commanding the forces
in Scotland, and by his orders three parties of soldiers were directed
from the three different points of Glasgow, Stirling, and Finlarig near
Killin. Mr. Graham of Killearn, the Duke of Montrose's relation and
factor, Sheriff-depute also of Dumbartonshire, accompanied the troops,
that they might act under the civil authority, and have the assistance of
a trusty guide well acquainted with the hills. It was the object of these
several columns to arrive about the same time in the neighbourhood of Rob
Roy's residence, and surprise him and his followers. But heavy rains, the
difficulties of the country, and the good intelligence which the Outlaw
was always supplied with, disappointed their well-concerted combination.
The troops, finding the birds were flown, avenged themselves by
destroying the nest. They burned Rob Roy's house,--though not with
impunity; for the MacGregors, concealed among the thickets and cliffs,
fired on them, and killed a grenadier.
Rob Roy avenged himself for the loss which he sustained on this occasion
by an act of singular audacity. About the middle of November 1716, John
Graham of Killearn, already mentioned as factor of the Montrose family,
went to a place called Chapel Errock, where the tenants of the Duke were
summoned to appear with their termly rents. They appeared accordingly,
and the factor had received ready money to the amount of about L300, when
Rob Roy entered the room at the head of an armed party. The Steward
endeavoured to protect the Duke's property by throwing the books of
accounts and money into a garret, trusting they might escape notice. But
the experienced freebooter was not to be baffled where such a prize was
at stake. He recovered the books and cash, placed himself calmly in the
receipt of custom, examined the accounts, pocketed the money, and gave
receipts on the Duke's part, saying he would hold reckoning with the Duke
of Montrose out of the damages which he had sustained by his Grace's
means, in which he included the losses he had suffered, as well by the
burning of his house by General Cadogan, as by the later expedition
against Craig-Royston. He then requested Mr. Graham to attend him; nor
does it appear that he treated him with any personal violence, or even
rudeness, although he informed him he regarded him as a hostage, and
menaced rough usage in case he should be pursued, or in danger of being
overtaken. Few more audacious feats have been performed. After some rapid
changes of place (the fatigue attending which was the only annoyance that
Mr. Graham seems to have complained of), he carried his prisoner to an
island on Loch Katrine, and caused him to write to the Duke, to state
that his ransom was fixed at L3400 merks, being the balance which
MacGregor pretended remained due to him, after deducting all that he owed
to the Duke of Montrose.
However, after detaining Mr. Graham five or six days in custody on the
island, which is still called Rob Roy's Prison, and could be no
comfortable dwelling for November nights, the Outlaw seems to have
despaired of attaining further advantage from his bold attempt, and
suffered his prisoner to depart uninjured, with the account-books, and
bills granted by the tenants, taking especial care to retain the cash.*
* The reader will find two original letters of the Duke of Montrose, with
that which Mr. Graham of Killearn despatched from his prison-house by the
Outlaw's command, in the Appendix, No. II.
About 1717, our Chieftain had the dangerous adventure of falling into the
hands of the Duke of Athole, almost as much his enemy as the Duke of
Montrose himself; but his cunning and dexterity again freed him from
certain death. See a contemporary account of this curious affair in the
Appendix, No. V.
Other pranks are told of Rob, which argue the same boldness and sagacity
as the seizure of Killearn. The Duke of Montrose, weary of his insolence,
procured a quantity of arms, and distributed them among his tenantry, in
order that they might defend themselves against future violences. But
they fell into different hands from those they were intended for. The
MacGregors made separate attacks on the houses of the tenants, and
disarmed them all one after another, not, as was supposed, without the
consent of many of the persons so disarmed.
As a great part of the Duke's rents were payable in kind, there were
girnels (granaries) established for storing up the corn at Moulin, and
elsewhere on the Buchanan estate. To these storehouses Rob Roy used to
repair with a sufficient force, and of course when he was least expected,
and insist upon the delivery of quantities of grain--sometimes for his
own use, and sometimes for the assistance of the country people; always
giving regular receipts in his own name, and pretending to reckon with
the Duke for what sums he received.
In the meanwhile a garrison was established by Government, the ruins of
which may be still seen about half-way betwixt Loch Lomond and Loch
Katrine, upon Rob Roy's original property of Inversnaid. Even this
military establishment could not bridle the restless MacGregor. He
contrived to surprise the little fort, disarm the soldiers, and destroy
the fortification. It was afterwards re-established, and again taken by
the MacGregors under Rob Roy's nephew Ghlune Dhu, previous to the
insurrection of 1745-6. Finally, the fort of Inversnaid was a third time
repaired after the extinction of civil discord; and when we find the
celebrated General Wolfe commanding in it, the imagination is strongly
affected by the variety of time and events which the circumstance brings
simultaneously to recollection. It is now totally dismantled.*
* About 1792, when the author chanced to pass that way while on a tour
through the Highlands, a garrison, consisting of a single veteran, was
still maintained at Inversnaid. The venerable warder was reaping his
barley croft in all peace and tranquillity and when we asked admittance
to repose ourselves, he told us we would find the key of the Fort under
the door.
It was not, strictly speaking, as a professed depredator that Rob Roy now
conducted his operations, but as a sort of contractor for the police; in
Scottish phrase, a lifter of black-mail. The nature of this contract has
been described in the Novel of Waverley, and in the notes on that work.
Mr. Grahame of Gartmore's description of the character may be here
transcribed:--
“The confusion and disorders of the country were so great, and the
Government go absolutely neglected it, that the sober people were obliged
to purchase some security to their effects by shameful and ignominious
contracts of _black-mail._ A person who had the greatest correspondence
with the thieves was agreed with to preserve the lands contracted for
from thefts, for certain sums to be paid yearly. Upon this fund he
employed one half of the thieves to recover stolen cattle, and the other
half of them to steal, in order to make this agreement and black-mail
contract necessary. The estates of those gentlemen who refused to
contract, or give countenance to that pernicious practice, are plundered
by the thieving part of the watch, in order to force them to purchase
their protection. Their leader calls himself the _Captain_ of the
_Watch,_ and his banditti go by that name. And as this gives them a kind
of authority to traverse the country, so it makes them capable of doing
any mischief. These corps through the Highlands make altogether a very
considerable body of men, inured from their infancy to the greatest
fatigues, and very capable, to act in a military way when occasion
offers.
“People who are ignorant and enthusiastic, who are in absolute dependence
upon their chief or landlord, who are directed in their consciences by
Roman Catholic priests, or nonjuring clergymen, and who are not masters
of any property, may easily be formed into any mould. They fear no
dangers, as they have nothing to lose, and so can with ease be induced to
attempt anything. Nothing can make their condition worse: confusions and
troubles do commonly indulge them in such licentiousness, that by these
they better it.” *
* Letters from the North of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 344, 345.
As the practice of contracting for black-mail was an obvious
encouragement to rapine, and a great obstacle to the course of justice,
it was, by the statute 1567, chap. 21, declared a capital crime both on
the part of him who levied and him who paid this sort of tax. But the
necessity of the case prevented the execution of this severe law, I
believe, in any one instance; and men went on submitting to a certain
unlawful imposition rather than run the risk of utter ruin--just as it is
now found difficult or impossible to prevent those who have lost a very
large sum of money by robbery, from compounding with the felons for
restoration of a part of their booty.
At what rate Rob Roy levied black-mail I never heard stated; but there is
a formal contract by which his nephew, in 1741, agreed with various
landholders of estates in the counties of Perth, Stirling, and Dumbarton,
to recover cattle stolen from them, or to pay the value within six months
of the loss being intimated, if such intimation were made to him with
sufficient despatch, in consideration of a payment of L5 on each L100 of
valued rent, which was not a very heavy insurance. Petty thefts were not
included in the contract; but the theft of one horse, or one head of
black cattle, or of sheep exceeding the number of six, fell under the
agreement.
Rob Roy's profits upon such contracts brought him in a considerable
revenue in money or cattle, of which he made a popular use; for he was
publicly liberal as well as privately beneficent. The minister of the
parish of Balquhidder, whose name was Robertson, was at one time
threatening to pursue the parish for an augmentation of his stipend. Rob
Roy took an opportunity to assure him that he would do well to abstain
from this new exaction--a hint which the minister did not fail to
understand. But to make him some indemnification, MacGregor presented him
every year with a cow and a fat sheep; and no scruples as to the mode in
which the donor came by them are said to have affected the reverend
gentleman's conscience.
The following amount of the proceedings of Rob Roy, on an application to
him from one of his contractors, had in it something very interesting to
me, as told by an old countryman in the Lennox who was present on the
expedition. But as there is no point or marked incident in the story, and
as it must necessarily be without the half-frightened, half-bewildered
look with which the narrator accompanied his recollections, it may
possibly lose, its effect when transferred to paper.
My informant stated himself to have been a lad of fifteen, living with
his father on the estate of a gentleman in the Lennox, whose name I have
forgotten, in the capacity of herd. On a fine morning in the end of
October, the period when such calamities were almost always to be
apprehended, they found the Highland thieves had been down upon them, and
swept away ten or twelve head of cattle. Rob Roy was sent for, and came
with a party of seven or eight armed men. He heard with great gravity all
that could be told him of the circumstances of the _creagh,_ and
expressed his confidence that the _herd-widdiefows_* could not have
carried their booty far, and that he should be able to recover them.
* Mad herdsmen--a name given to cattle-stealers [properly one who
deserves to fill a _widdie,_ or halter].
He desired that two Lowlanders should be sent on the party, as it was not
to be expected that any of his gentlemen would take the trouble of
driving the cattle when he should recover possession of them. My
informant and his father were despatched on the expedition. They had no
good will to the journey; nevertheless, provided with a little food, and
with a dog to help them to manage the cattle, they set off with
MacGregor. They travelled a long day's journey in the direction of the
mountain Benvoirlich, and slept for the night in a ruinous hut or bothy.
The next morning they resumed their journey among the hills, Rob Roy
directing their course by signs and marks on the heath which my informant
did not understand.
About noon Rob commanded the armed party to halt, and to lie couched in
the heather where it was thickest. “Do you and your son,” he said to the
oldest Lowlander, “go boldly over the hill;--you will see beneath you, in
a glen on the other side, your master's cattle, feeding, it may be, with
others; gather your own together, taking care to disturb no one else, and
drive them to this place. If any one speak to or threaten you, tell them
that I am here, at the head of twenty men.”--“But what if they abuse us,
or kill us?” said the Lowland, peasant, by no means delighted at finding
the embassy imposed on him and his son. “If they do you any wrong,” said
Rob, “I will never forgive them as long as I live.” The Lowlander was by
no means content with this security, but did not think it safe to dispute
Rob's injunctions.
[Illustration: Cattle Lifting--000]
He and his son climbed the hill therefore, found a deep valley, where
there grazed, as Rob had predicted, a large herd of cattle. They
cautiously selected those which their master had lost, and took measures
to drive them over the hill. As soon as they began to remove them, they
were surprised by hearing cries and screams; and looking around in fear
and trembling they saw a woman seeming to have started out of the earth,
who _flyted_ at them, that is, scolded them, in Gaelic. When they
contrived, however, in the best Gaelic they could muster, to deliver the
message Rob Roy told them, she became silent, and disappeared without
offering them any further annoyance. The chief heard their story on their
return, and spoke with great complacency of the art which he possessed of
putting such things to rights without any unpleasant bustle. The party
were now on their road home, and the danger, though not the fatigue, of
the expedition was at an end.
They drove on the cattle with little repose until it was nearly dark,
when Rob proposed to halt for the night upon a wide moor, across which a
cold north-east wind, with frost on its wing, was whistling to the tune
of the Pipers of Strath-Dearn.*
* The winds which sweep a wild glen in Badenoch are so called.
The Highlanders, sheltered by their plaids, lay down on the heath
comfortably enough, but the Lowlanders had no protection whatever. Rob
Roy observing this, directed one of his followers to afford the old man a
portion of his plaid; “for the callant (boy), he may,” said the
freebooter, “keep himself warm by walking about and watching the cattle.”
My informant heard this sentence with no small distress; and as the frost
wind grew more and more cutting, it seemed to freeze the very blood in
his young veins. He had been exposed to weather all his life, he said,
but never could forget the cold of that night; insomuch that, in the
bitterness of his heart, he cursed the bright moon for giving no heat
with so much light. At length the sense of cold and weariness became so
intolerable that he resolved to desert his watch to seek some repose and
shelter. With that purpose he couched himself down behind one of the most
bulky of the Highlanders, who acted as lieutenant to the party. Not
satisfied with having secured the shelter of the man's large person, he
coveted a share of his plaid, and by imperceptible degrees drew a corner
of it round him. He was now comparatively in paradise, and slept sound
till daybreak, when he awoke, and was terribly afraid on observing that
his nocturnal operations had altogether uncovered the dhuiniewassell's
neck and shoulders, which, lacking the plaid which should have protected
them, were covered with _cranreuch_ (_i.e._ hoar frost). The lad rose in
great dread of a beating, at least, when it should be found how
luxuriously he had been accommodated at the expense of a principal person
of the party. Good Mr. Lieutenant, however, got up and shook himself,
rubbing off the hoar frost with his plaid, and muttering something of a
_cauld neight._ They then drove on the cattle, which were restored to
their owner without farther adventure--The above can hardly be termed a
tale, but yet it contains materials both for the poet and artist.
It was perhaps about the same time that, by a rapid march into the
Balquhidder hills at the head of a body of his own tenantry, the Duke of
Montrose actually surprised Rob Roy, and made him prisoner. He was
mounted behind one of the Duke's followers, named James Stewart, and made
fast to him by a horse-girth. The person who had him thus in charge was
grandfather of the intelligent man of the same name, now deceased, who
lately kept the inn in the vicinity of Loch Katrine, and acted as a guide
to visitors through that beautiful scenery. From him I learned the story
many years before he was either a publican, or a guide, except to
moorfowl shooters.--It was evening (to resume the story), and the Duke
was pressing on to lodge his prisoner, so long sought after in vain, in
some place of security, when, in crossing the Teith or Forth, I forget
which, MacGregor took an opportunity to conjure Stewart, by all the ties
of old acquaintance and good neighbourhood, to give him some chance of an
escape from an assured doom. Stewart was moved with compassion, perhaps
with fear. He slipt the girth-buckle, and Rob, dropping down from behind
the horse's croupe, dived, swam, and escaped, pretty much as described in
the Novel. When James Stewart came on shore, the Duke hastily demanded
where his prisoner was; and as no distinct answer was returned, instantly
suspected Stewart's connivance at the escape of the Outlaw; and, drawing
a steel pistol from his belt, struck him down with a blow on the head,
from the effects of which, his descendant said, he never completely
recovered.
In the success of his repeated escapes from the pursuit of his powerful
enemy, Rob Roy at length became wanton and facetious. He wrote a mock
challenge to the Duke, which he circulated among his friends to amuse
them over a bottle. The reader will find this document in the Appendix.*
It is written in a good hand, and not particularly deficient in grammar
or spelling.
* Appendix, No. III.
Our Southern readers must be given to understand that it was a piece of
humour,--a _quiz,_ in short,--on the part of the Outlaw, who was too
sagacious to propose such a rencontre in reality. This letter was written
in the year 1719.
In the following year Rob Roy composed another epistle, very little to
his own reputation, as he therein confesses having played booty during
the civil war of 1715. It is addressed to General Wade, at that time
engaged in disarming the Highland clans, and making military roads
through the country. The letter is a singular composition. It sets out
the writer's real and unfeigned desire to have offered his service to
King George, but for his liability to be thrown into jail for a civil
debt, at the instance of the Duke of Montrose. Being thus debarred from
taking the right side, he acknowledged he embraced the wrong one, upon
Falstaff's principle, that since the King wanted men and the rebels
soldiers, it were worse shame to be idle in such a stirring world, than
to embrace the worst side, were it as black as rebellion could make it.
The impossibility of his being neutral in such a debate, Rob seems to lay
down as an undeniable proposition. At the same time, while he
acknowledges having been forced into an unnatural rebellion against King
George, he pleads that he not only avoided acting offensively against his
Majesty's forces on all occasions, but, on the contrary, sent to them
what intelligence he could collect from time to time; for the truth of
which he refers to his Grace the Duke of Argyle. What influence this plea
had on General Wade, we have no means of knowing.
Rob Roy appears to have continued to live very much as usual. His fame,
in the meanwhile, passed beyond the narrow limits of the country in which
he resided. A pretended history of him appeared in London during his
lifetime, under the title of the Highland Rogue. It is a catch-penny
publication, bearing in front the effigy of a species of ogre, with a
beard of a foot in length; and his actions are as much exaggerated as his
personal appearance. Some few of the best known adventures of the hero
are told, though with little accuracy; but the greater part of the
pamphlet is entirely fictitious. It is great pity so excellent a theme
for a narrative of the kind had not fallen into the hands of De Foe, who
was engaged at the time on subjects somewhat similar, though inferior in
dignity and interest.
As Rob Roy advanced in years, he became more peaceable in his habits, and
his nephew Ghlune Dhu, with most of his tribe, renounced those peculiar
quarrels with the Duke of Montrose, by which his uncle had been
distinguished. The policy of that great family had latterly been rather
to attach this wild tribe by kindness than to follow the mode of violence
which had been hitherto ineffectually resorted to. Leases at a low rent
were granted to many of the MacGregors, who had heretofore held
possessions in the Duke's Highland property merely by occupancy; and
Glengyle (or Black-knee), who continued to act as collector of
black-mail, managed his police, as a commander of the Highland watch
arrayed at the charge of Government. He is said to have strictly
abstained from the open and lawless depredations which his kinsman had
practised.
It was probably after this state of temporary quiet had been obtained,
that Rob Roy began to think of the concerns of his future state. He had
been bred, and long professed himself, a Protestant; but in his later
years he embraced the Roman Catholic faith,--perhaps on Mrs. Cole's
principle, that it was a comfortable religion for one of his calling. He
is said to have alleged as the cause of his conversion, a desire to
gratify the noble family of Perth, who were then strict Catholics.
Having, as he observed, assumed the name of the Duke of Argyle, his first
protector, he could pay no compliment worth the Earl of Perth's
acceptance save complying with his mode of religion. Rob did not pretend,
when pressed closely on the subject, to justify all the tenets of
Catholicism, and acknowledged that extreme unction always appeared to him
a great waste of _ulzie,_ or oil.*
* Such an admission is ascribed to the robber Donald Bean Lean in
Waverley, chap. lxii,
In the last years of Rob Roy's life, his clan was involved in a dispute
with one more powerful than themselves. Stewart of Appin, a chief of the
tribe so named, was proprietor of a hill-farm in the Braes of
Balquhidder, called Invernenty. The MacGregors of Rob Roy's tribe claimed
a right to it by ancient occupancy, and declared they would oppose to the
uttermost the settlement of any person upon the farm not being of their
own name. The Stewarts came down with two hundred men, well armed, to do
themselves justice by main force. The MacGregors took the field, but were
unable to muster an equal strength. Rob Roy, fending himself the weaker
party, asked a parley, in which he represented that both clans were
friends to the _King,_ and, that he was unwilling they should be weakened
by mutual conflict, and thus made a merit of surrendering to Appin the
disputed territory of Invernenty. Appin, accordingly, settled as tenants
there, at an easy quit-rent, the MacLarens, a family dependent on the
Stewarts, and from whose character for strength and bravery, it was
expected that they would make their right good if annoyed by the
MacGregors. When all this had been amicably adjusted, in presence of the
two clans drawn up in arms near the Kirk of Balquhidder, Rob Roy,
apparently fearing his tribe might be thought to have conceded too much
upon the occasion, stepped forward and said, that where so many gallant
men were met in arms, it would be shameful to part without it trial of
skill, and therefore he took the freedom to invite any gentleman of the
Stewarts present to exchange a few blows with him for the honour of their
respective clans. The brother-in-law of Appin, and second chieftain of
the clan, Alaster Stewart of Invernahyle, accepted the challenge, and
they encountered with broadsword and target before their respective
kinsmen.*
* Some accounts state that Appin himself was Rob Roy's antagonist on this
occasion. My recollection, from the account of Invernahyle himself, was
as stated in the text. But the period when I received the information is
now so distant, that it is possible I may be mistaken. Invernahyle was
rather of low stature, but very well made, athletic, and an excellent
swordsman.
The combat lasted till Rob received a slight wound in the arm, which was
the usual termination of such a combat when fought for honour only, and
not with a mortal purpose. Rob Roy dropped his point, and congratulated
his adversary on having been the first man who ever drew blood from him.
The victor generously acknowledged, that without the advantage of youth,
and the agility accompanying it, he probably could not have come off with
advantage.
This was probably one of Rob Roy's last exploits in arms. The time of his
death is not known with certainty, but he is generally said to have
survived 1738, and to have died an aged man. When he found himself
approaching his final change, he expressed some contrition for particular
parts of his life. His wife laughed at these scruples of conscience, and
exhorted him to die like a man, as he had lived. In reply, he rebuked her
for her violent passions, and the counsels she had given him. “You have
put strife,” he said, “betwixt me and the best men of the country, and
now you would place enmity between me and my God.”
There is a tradition, no way inconsistent with the former, if the
character of Rob Roy be justly considered, that while on his deathbed, he
learned that a person with whom he was at enmity proposed to visit him.
“Raise me from my bed,” said the invalid; “throw my plaid around me, and
bring me my claymore, dirk, and pistols--it shall never be said that a
foeman saw Rob Roy MacGregor defenceless and unarmed.” His foeman,
conjectured to be one of the MacLarens before and after mentioned,
entered and paid his compliments, inquiring after the health of his
formidable neighbour. Rob Roy maintained a cold haughty civility during
their short conference, and so soon as he had left the house. “Now,” he
said, “all is over--let the piper play, _Ha til mi tulidh_” (we return no
more); and he is said to have expired before the dirge was finished.
This singular man died in bed in his own house, in the parish of
Balquhidder. He was buried in the churchyard of the same parish, where
his tombstone is only distinguished by a rude attempt at the figure of a
broadsword.
The character of Rob Roy is, of course, a mixed one. His sagacity,
boldness, and prudence, qualities so highly necessary to success in war,
became in some degree vices, from the manner in which they were employed.
The circumstances of his education, however, must be admitted as some
extenuation of his habitual transgressions against the law; and for his
political tergiversations, he might in that distracted period plead the
example of men far more powerful, and less excusable in becoming the
sport of circumstances, than the poor and desperate outlaw. On the other
hand, he was in the constant exercise of virtues, the more meritorious as
they seem inconsistent with his general character. Pursuing the
occupation of a predatory chieftain,--in modern phrase a captain of
banditti,--Rob Roy was moderate in his revenge, and humane in his
successes. No charge of cruelty or bloodshed, unless in battle, is
brought against his memory. In like manner, the formidable outlaw was the
friend of the poor, and, to the utmost of his ability, the support of the
widow and the orphan--kept his word when pledged--and died lamented in
his own wild country, where there were hearts grateful for his
beneficence, though their minds were not sufficiently instructed to
appreciate his errors.
The author perhaps ought to stop here; but the fate of a part of Rob
Roy's family was so extraordinary, as to call for a continuation of this
somewhat prolix account, as affording an interesting chapter, not on
Highland manners alone, but on every stage of society in which the people
of a primitive and half-civilised tribe are brought into close contact
with a nation, in which civilisation and polity have attained a complete
superiority.
Rob had five sons,--Coll, Ronald, James, Duncan, and Robert. Nothing
occurs worth notice concerning three of them; but James, who was a very
handsome man, seems to have had a good deal of his father's spirit, and
the mantle of Dougal Ciar Mhor had apparently descended on the shoulders
of Robin Oig, that is, young Robin. Shortly after Rob Roy's death, the
ill-will which the MacGregors entertained against the MacLarens again
broke out, at the instigation, it was said, of Rob's widow, who seems
thus far to have deserved the character given to her by her husband, as
an Ate' stirring up to blood and strife. Robin Oig, under her
instigation, swore that as soon as he could get back a certain gun which
had belonged to his father, and had been lately at Doune to be repaired,
he would shoot MacLaren, for having presumed to settle on his mother's
land.*
* This fatal piece was taken from Robin Oig, when he was seized many
years afterwards. It remained in possession of the magistrates before
whom he was brought for examination, and now makes part of a small
collection of arms belonging to the Author. It is a Spanish-barrelled
gun, marked with the letters R. M. C., for Robert MacGregor Campbell.
He was as good as his word, and shot MacLaren when between the stilts of
his plough, wounding him mortally.
The aid of a Highland leech was procured, who probed the wound with a
probe made out of a castock; _i.e._, the stalk of a colewort or cabbage.
This learned gentleman declared he would not venture to prescribe, not
knowing with what shot the patient had been wounded. MacLaren died, and
about the same time his cattle were houghed, and his live stock destroyed
in a barbarous manner.
Robin Oig, after this feat--which one of his biographers represents as
the unhappy discharge of a gun--retired to his mother's house, to boast
that he had drawn the first blood in the quarrel aforesaid. On the
approach of troops, and a body of the Stewarts, who were bound to take up
the cause of their tenant, Robin Oig absconded, and escaped all search.
The doctor already mentioned, by name Callam MacInleister, with James and
Ronald, brothers to the actual perpetrator of the murder, were brought to
trial. But as they contrived to represent the action as a rash deed
committed by “the daft callant Rob,” to which they were not accessory,
the jury found their accession to the crime was Not Proven. The alleged
acts of spoil and violence on the MacLarens' cattle, were also found to
be unsupported by evidence. As it was proved, however, that the two
brothers, Ronald and James, were held and reputed thieves, they were
appointed to find caution to the extent of L200, for their good behaviour
for seven years.*
* Note D. Author's expedition against the MacLarens.
The spirit of clanship was at that time, so strong--to which must be
added the wish to secure the adherence of stout, able-bodied, and, as the
Scotch phrase then went, _pretty_ men--that the representative of the
noble family of Perth condescended to act openly as patron of the
MacGregors, and appeared as such upon their trial. So at least the author
was informed by the late Robert MacIntosh, Esq., advocate. The
circumstance may, however, have occurred later than 1736--the year in
which this first trial took place.
Robin Oig served for a time in the 42d regiment, and was present at the
battle of Fontenoy, where he was made prisoner and wounded. He was
exchanged, returned to Scotland, and obtained his discharge. He
afterwards appeared openly in the MacGregor's country; and,
notwithstanding his outlawry, married a daughter of Graham of Drunkie, a
gentleman of some property. His wife died a few years afterwards.
The insurrection of 1745 soon afterwards called the MacGregors to arms.
Robert MacGregor of Glencarnoch, generally regarded as the chief of the
whole name, and grandfather of Sir John, whom the clan received in that
character, raised a MacGregor regiment, with which he joined the standard
of the Chevalier. The race of Ciar Mhor, however, affecting independence,
and commanded by Glengyle and his cousin James Roy MacGregor, did not
join this kindred corps, but united themselves to the levies of the
titular Duke of Perth, until William MacGregor Drummond of Bolhaldie,
whom they regarded as head of their branch, of Clan Alpine, should come
over from France. To cement the union after the Highland fashion, James
laid down the name of Campbell, and assumed that of Drummond, in
compliment to Lord Perth. He was also called James Roy, after his father,
and James Mhor, or Big James, from his height. His corps, the relics of
his father Rob's band, behaved with great activity; with only twelve men
he succeeded in surprising and burning, for the second time, the fort at
Inversnaid, constructed for the express purpose of bridling the country
of the MacGregors.
What rank or command James MacGregor had, is uncertain. He calls himself
Major; and Chevalier Johnstone calls him Captain. He must have held rank
under Ghlune Dhu, his kinsman, but his active and audacious character
placed him above the rest of his brethren. Many of his followers were
unarmed; he supplied the want of guns and swords with scythe-blades set
straight upon their handles.
At the battle of Prestonpans, James Roy distinguished himself. “His
company,” says Chevalier Johnstone, “did great execution with their
scythes.” They cut the legs of the horses in two--the riders through the
middle of their bodies. MacGregor was brave and intrepid, but at the same
time, somewhat whimsical and singular. When advancing to the charge with
his company, he received five wounds, two of them from balls that pierced
his body through and through. Stretched on the ground, with his head
resting on his hand, he called out loudly to the Highlanders of his
company, “My lads, I am not dead. By G--, I shall see if any of you does
not do his duty.” The victory, as is well known, was instantly obtained.
In some curious letters of James Roy,* it appears that his thigh-bone was
broken on this occasion, and that he, nevertheless, rejoined the army
with six companies, and was present at the battle of Culloden.
* Published in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. ii. p. 228.
After that defeat, the clan MacGregor kept together in a body, and did
not disperse till they had returned into their own country. They brought
James Roy with them in a litter; and, without being particularly
molested, he was permitted to reside in the MacGregor's country along
with his brothers.
James MacGregor Drummond was attainted for high treason with persons of
more importance. But it appears he had entered into some communication
with Government, as, in the letters quoted, he mentions having obtained a
pass from the Lord Justice-Clerk in 1747, which was a sufficient
protection to him from the military. The circumstance is obscurely stated
in one of the letters already quoted, but may perhaps, joined to
subsequent incidents, authorise the suspicion that James, like his
father, could look at both sides of the cards. As the confusion of the
country subsided, the MacGregors, like foxes which had baffled the
hounds, drew back to their old haunts, and lived unmolested. But an
atrocious outrage, in which the sons of Rob Roy were concerned, brought
at length on the family the full vengeance of the law.
James Roy was a married man, and had fourteen children. But his brother,
Robin Oig, was now a widower; and it was resolved, if possible, that he
should make his fortune by carrying off and marrying, by force if
necessary, some woman of fortune from the Lowlands.
The imagination of the half-civilised Highlanders was less shocked at the
idea of this particular species of violence, than might be expected from
their general kindness to the weaker sex when they make part of their own
families. But all their views were tinged with the idea that they lived
in a state of war; and in such a state, from the time of the siege of
Troy to “the moment when Previsa fell,” * the female captives are, to
uncivilised victors, the most valuable part of the booty--
* Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto II.
“The wealthy are slaughtered, the lovely are spared.”
We need not refer to the rape of the Sabines, or to a similar instance in
the Book of Judges, for evidence that such deeds of violence have been
committed upon a large scale. Indeed, this sort of enterprise was so
common along the Highland line as to give rise to a variety of songs and
ballads.*
* See Appendix, No. VI.
The annals of Ireland, as well as those of Scotland, prove the crime to
have been common in the more lawless parts of both countries; and any
woman who happened to please a man of spirit who came of a good house,
and possessed a few chosen friends, and a retreat in the mountains, was
not permitted the alternative of saying him nay. What is more, it would
seem that the women themselves, most interested in the immunities of
their sex, were, among the lower classes, accustomed to regard such
marriages as that which is presently to be detailed as “pretty Fanny's
way,” or rather, the way of Donald with pretty Fanny. It is not a great
many years since a respectable woman, above the lower rank of life,
expressed herself very warmly to the author on his taking the freedom to
censure the behaviour of the MacGregors on the occasion in question. She
said “that there was no use in giving a bride too much choice upon such
occasions; that the marriages were the happiest long syne which had been
done offhand.” Finally, she averred that her “own mother had never seen
her father till the night he brought her up from the Lennox, with ten
head of black cattle, and there had not been a happier couple in the
country.”
James Drummond and his brethren having similar opinions with the author's
old acquaintance, and debating how they might raise the fallen fortunes
of their clan, formed a resolution to settle their brother's fortune by
striking up an advantageous marriage betwixt Robin Oig and one Jean Key,
or Wright, a young woman scarce twenty years old, and who had been left
about two months a widow by the death of her husband. Her property was
estimated at only from 16,000 to 18,000 merks, but it seems to have been
sufficient temptation to these men to join in the commission of a great
crime.
This poor young victim lived with her mother in her own house at
Edinbilly, in the parish of Balfron and shire of Stirling. At this place,
in the night of 3d December 1750, the sons of Rob Roy, and particularly
James Mhor and Robin Oig, rushed into the house where the object of their
attack was resident, presented guns, swords, and pistols to the males of
the family, and terrified the women by threatening to break open the
doors if Jean Key was not surrendered, as, said James Roy, “his brother
was a young fellow determined to make his fortune.” Having, at length,
dragged the object of their lawless purpose from her place of
concealment, they tore her from her mother's arms, mounted her on a horse
before one of the gang, and carried her off in spite, of her screams and
cries, which were long heard after the terrified spectators of the
outrage could no longer see the party retreat through the darkness. In
her attempts to escape, the poor young woman threw herself from the horse
on which they had placed her, and in so doing wrenched her side. They
then laid her double over the pummel of the saddle, and transported her
through the mosses and moors till the pain of the injury she had suffered
in her side, augmented by the uneasiness of her posture, made her consent
to sit upright. In the execution of this crime they stopped at more
houses than one, but none of the inhabitants dared interrupt their
proceedings. Amongst others who saw them was that classical and
accomplished scholar the late Professor William Richardson of Glasgow,
who used to describe as a terrible dream their violent and noisy entrance
into the house where he was then residing. The Highlanders filled the
little kitchen, brandishing their arms, demanding what they pleased, and
receiving whatever they demanded. James Mhor, he said, was a tall, stern,
and soldier-like man. Robin Oig looked more gentle; dark, but yet ruddy
in complexion--a good-looking young savage. Their victim was so
dishevelled in her dress, and forlorn in her appearance and demeanour,
that he could hardly tell whether she was alive or dead.
The gang carried the unfortunate woman to Rowardennan, where they had a
priest unscrupulous enough to read the marriage service, while James Mhor
forcibly held the bride up before him; and the priest declared the couple
man and wife, even while she protested against the infamy of his conduct.
Under the same threats of violence, which had been all along used to
enforce their scheme, the poor victim was compelled to reside with the
pretended husband who was thus forced upon her. They even dared to carry
her to the public church of Balquhidder, where the officiating clergyman
(the same who had been Rob Roy's pensioner) only asked them if they were
married persons. Robert MacGregor answered in the affirmative; the
terrified female was silent.
The country was now too effectually subjected to the law for this vile
outrage to be followed by the advantages proposed by the actors, Military
parties were sent out in every direction to seize the MacGregors, who
were for two or three weeks compelled to shift from one place to another
in the mountains, bearing the unfortunate Jean Key along with them. In
the meanwhile, the Supreme Civil Court issued a warrant, sequestrating
the property of Jean Key, or Wright, which removed out of the reach of
the actors in the violence the prize which they expected. They had,
however, adopted a belief of the poor woman's spirit being so far broken
that she would prefer submitting to her condition, and adhering to Robin
Oig as her husband, rather than incur the disgrace, of appearing in such
a cause in an open court. It was, indeed, a delicate experiment; but
their kinsman Glengyle, chief of their immediate family, was of a temper
averse to lawless proceedings;* and the captive's friends having had
recourse to his advice, they feared that he would withdraw his protection
if they refused to place the prisoner at liberty.
* Such, at least, was his general character; for when James Mhor, while
perpetrating the violence at Edinbilly, called out, in order to overawe
opposition, that Glengyle was lying in the moor with a hundred men to
patronise his enterprise, Jean Key told him he lied, since she was
confident Glengyle would never countenance so scoundrelly a business.
The brethren resolved, therefore, to liberate the unhappy woman, but
previously had recourse to every measure which should oblige her, either
from fear or otherwise, to own her marriage with Robin Oig. The
cailliachs (old Highland hags) administered drugs, which were designed to
have the effect of philtres, but were probably deleterious. James Mhor at
one time threatened, that if she did not acquiesce in the match she would
find that there were enough of men in the Highlands to bring the heads of
two of her uncles who were pursuing the civil lawsuit. At another time he
fell down on his knees, and confessed he had been accessory to wronging
her, but begged she would not ruin his innocent wife and large family.
She was made to swear she would not prosecute the brethren for the
offence they had committed; and she was obliged by threats to subscribe
papers which were tendered to her, intimating that she was carried off in
consequence of her own previous request.
James Mhor Drummond accordingly brought his pretended sister-in-law to
Edinburgh, where, for some little time, she was carried about from one
house to another, watched by those with whom she was lodged, and never
permitted to go out alone, or even to approach the window. The Court of
Session, considering the peculiarity of the case, and regarding Jean Key
as being still under some forcible restraint, took her person under their
own special charge, and appointed her to reside in the family of Mr.
Wightman of Mauldsley, a gentleman of respectability, who was married to
one of her near relatives. Two sentinels kept guard on the house day and
night--a precaution not deemed superfluous when the MacGregors were in
question. She was allowed to go out whenever she chose, and to see
whomsoever she had a mind, as well as the men of law employed in the
civil suit on either side. When she first came to Mr. Wightman's house
she seemed broken down with affright and suffering, so changed in
features that her mother hardly knew her, and so shaken in mind that she
scarce could recognise her parent. It was long before she could be
assured that she was in perfect safely. But when she at length received
confidence in her situation, she made a judicial declaration, or
affidavit, telling the full history of her wrongs, imputing to fear her
former silence on the subject, and expressing her resolution not to
prosecute those who had injured her, in respect of the oath she had been
compelled to take. From the possible breach of such an oath, though a
compulsory one, she was relieved by the forms of Scottish jurisprudence,
in that respect more equitable than those of England, prosecutions for
crimes being always conducted at the expense and charge of the King,
without inconvenience or cost to the private party who has sustained the
wrong. But the unhappy sufferer did not live to be either accuser or
witness against those who had so deeply injured her.
James Mhor Drummond had left Edinburgh so soon as his half-dead prey had
been taken from his clutches. Mrs. Key, or Wright, was released from her
species of confinement there, and removed to Glasgow, under the escort of
Mr. Wightman. As they passed the Hill of Shotts, her escort chanced to
say, “this is a very wild spot; what if the MacGregors should come upon
us?”--“God forbid!” was her immediate answer, “the very sight of them
would kill me.” She continued to reside at Glasgow, without venturing to
return to her own house at Edinbilly. Her pretended husband made some
attempts to obtain an interview with her, which she steadily rejected.
She died on the 4th October 1751. The information for the Crown hints
that her decease might be the consequence of the usage she received. But
there is a general report that she died of the small-pox. In the
meantime, James Mhor, or Drummond, fell into the hands of justice. He was
considered as the instigator of the whole affair. Nay, the deceased had
informed her friends that on the night of her being carried off, Robin
Oig, moved by her cries and tears, had partly consented to let her
return, when James came up with a pistol in his hand, and, asking whether
he was such a coward as to relinquish an enterprise in which he had
risked everything to procure him a fortune, in a manner compelled his
brother to persevere. James's trial took place on 13th July 1752, and was
conducted with the utmost fairness and impartiality. Several witnesses,
all of the MacGregor family, swore that the marriage was performed with
every appearance of acquiescence on the woman's part; and three or four
witnesses, one of them sheriff-substitute of the county, swore she might
have made her escape if she wished, and the magistrate stated that he
offered her assistance if she felt desirous to do so. But when asked why
he, in his official capacity, did not arrest the MacGregors, he could
only answer, that he had not force sufficient to make the attempt.
The judicial declarations of Jean Key, or Wright, stated the violent
manner in which she had been carried off, and they were confirmed by many
of her friends, from her private communications with them, which the
event of her death rendered good evidence. Indeed, the fact of her
abduction (to use a Scottish law term) was completely proved by impartial
witnesses. The unhappy woman admitted that she had pretended acquiescence
in her fate on several occasions, because she dared not trust such as
offered to assist her to escape, not even the sheriff-substitute.
The jury brought in a special verdict, finding that Jean Key, or Wright,
had been forcibly carried off from her house, as charged in the
indictment, and that the accused had failed to show that she was herself
privy and consenting to this act of outrage. But they found the forcible
marriage, and subsequent violence, was not proved; and also found, in
alleviation of the panel's guilt in the premises, that Jean Key did
afterwards acquiesce in her condition. Eleven of the jury, using the
names of other four who were absent, subscribed a letter to the Court,
stating it was their purpose and desire, by such special verdict, to take
the panel's case out of the class of capital crimes.
Learned informations (written arguments) on the import of the verdict,
which must be allowed a very mild one in the circumstances, were laid
before the High Court of Justiciary. This point is very learnedly debated
in these pleadings by Mr. Grant, Solicitor for the Crown, and the
celebrated Mr. Lockhart, on the part of the prisoner; but James Mhor did
not wait the event of the Court's decision.
He had been committed to the Castle of Edinburgh on some reports that an
escape would be attempted. Yet he contrived to achieve his liberty even
from that fortress. His daughter had the address to enter the prison,
disguised as a cobbler, bringing home work, as she pretended. In this
cobbler's dress her father quickly arrayed himself. The wife and daughter
of the prisoner were heard by the sentinels scolding the supposed cobbler
for having done his work ill, and the man came out with his hat slouched
over his eyes, and grumbling, as if at the manner in which they had
treated him. In this way the prisoner passed all the guards without
suspicion, and made his escape to France. He was afterwards outlawed by
the Court of Justiciary, which proceeded to the trial of Duncan
MacGregor, or Drummond, his brother, 15th January 1753. The accused had
unquestionably been with the party which carried off Jean Key; but no
evidence being brought which applied to him individually and directly,
the jury found him not guilty--and nothing more is known of his fate.
That of James MacGregor, who, from talent and activity, if not by
seniority, may be considered as head of the family, has been long
misrepresented; as it has been generally averred in Law Reports, as well
as elsewhere, that his outlawry was reversed, and that he returned and
died in Scotland. But the curious letters published in Blackwood's
Magazine for December 1817, show this to be an error. The first of these
documents is a petition to Charles Edward. It is dated 20th September
1753, and pleads his service to the cause of the Stuarts, ascribing his
exile to the persecution of the Hanoverian Government, without any
allusion to the affair of Jean Key, or the Court of Justiciary. It is
stated to be forwarded by MacGregor Drummond of Bohaldie, whom, as before
mentioned, James Mhor acknowledged as his chief.
The effect which this petition produced does not appear. Some temporary
relief was perhaps obtained. But, soon after, this daring adventurer was
engaged in a very dark intrigue against an exile of his own country, and
placed pretty nearly in his own circumstances. A remarkable Highland
story must be here briefly alluded to. Mr. Campbell of Glenure, who had
been named factor for Government on the forfeited estates of Stewart of
Ardshiel, was shot dead by an assassin as he passed through the wood of
Lettermore, after crossing the ferry of Ballachulish. A gentleman, named
James Stewart, a natural brother of Ardshiel, the forfeited person, was
tried as being accessory to the murder, and condemned and executed upon
very doubtful evidence; the heaviest part of which only amounted to the
accused person having assisted a nephew of his own, called Allan Breck
Stewart, with money to escape after the deed was done. Not satisfied with
this vengeance, which was obtained in a manner little to the honour of
the dispensation of justice at the time, the friends of the deceased
Glenure were equally desirous to obtain possession of the person of Allan
Breck Stewart, supposed to be the actual homicide. James Mhor Drummond
was secretly applied to to trepan Stewart to the sea-coast, and bring him
over to Britain, to almost certain death. Drummond MacGregor had kindred
connections with the slain Glenure; and, besides, the MacGregors and
Campbells had been friends of late, while the former clan and the
Stewarts had, as we have seen, been recently at feud; lastly, Robert Oig
was now in custody at Edinburgh, and James was desirous to do some
service by which his brother might be saved. The joint force of these
motives may, in James's estimation of right and wrong, have been some
vindication for engaging in such an enterprise, although, as must be
necessarily supposed, it could only be executed by treachery of a gross
description. MacGregor stipulated for a license to return to England,
promising to bring Allan Breck thither along with him. But the intended
victim was put upon his guard by two countrymen, who suspected James's
intentions towards him. He escaped from his kidnapper, after, as
MacGregor alleged, robbing his portmanteau of some clothes and four
snuff-boxes. Such a charge, it may be observed, could scarce have been
made unless the parties had been living on a footing of intimacy, and had
access to each other's baggage.
Although James Drummond had thus missed his blow in the matter of Allan
Breck Stewart, he used his license to make a journey to London, and had
an interview, as he avers, with Lord Holdernesse. His Lordship, and the
Under-Secretary, put many puzzling questions to him; and, as he says,
offered him a situation, which would bring him bread, in the Government's
service. This office was advantageous as to emolument; but in the opinion
of James Drummond, his acceptance of it would have been a disgrace to his
birth, and have rendered him a scourge to his country. If such a tempting
offer and sturdy rejection had any foundation in fact, it probably
relates to some plan of espionage on the Jacobites, which the Government
might hope to carry on by means of a man who, in the matter of Allan
Breck Stewart, had shown no great nicety of feeling. Drummond MacGregor
was so far accommodating as to intimate his willingness to act in any
station in which other gentlemen of honour served, but not otherwise;--an
answer which, compared with some passages of his past life, may remind
the reader of Ancient Pistol standing upon his reputation.
Having thus proved intractable, as he tells the story, to the proposals
of Lord Holdernesse, James Drummond was ordered instantly to quit
England.
On his return to France, his condition seems to have been utterly
disastrous. He was seized with fever and gravel--ill, consequently, in
body, and weakened and dispirited in mind. Allan Breck Stewart threatened
to put him to death in revenge of the designs he had harboured against
him.*
* Note E. Allan Breck Stewart.
The Stewart clan were in the highest degree unfriendly to him: and his
late expedition to London had been attended with many suspicious
circumstances, amongst which it was not the slightest that he had kept
his purpose secret from his chief Bohaldie. His intercourse with Lord
Holdernesse was suspicious. The Jacobites were probably, like Don Bernard
de Castel Blaze, in Gil Blas, little disposed to like those who kept
company with Alguazils. Mac-Donnell of Lochgarry, a man of unquestioned
honour, lodged an information against James Drummond before the High
Bailie of Dunkirk, accusing him of being a spy, so that he found himself
obliged to leave that town and come to Paris, with only the sum of
thirteen livres for his immediate subsistence, and with absolute beggary
staring him in the face.
We do not offer the convicted common thief, the accomplice in MacLaren's
assassination, or the manager of the outrage against Jean Key, as an
object of sympathy; but it is melancholy to look on the dying struggles
even of a wolf or a tiger, creatures of a species directly hostile to our
own; and, in like manner, the utter distress of this man, whose faults
may have sprung from a wild system of education, working on a haughty
temper, will not be perused without some pity. In his last letter to
Bohaldie, dated Paris, 25th September 1754, he describes his state of
destitution as absolute, and expresses himself willing to exercise his
talents in breaking or breeding horses, or as a hunter or fowler, if he
could only procure employment in such an inferior capacity till something
better should occur. An Englishman may smile, but a Scotchman will sigh
at the postscript, in which the poor starving exile asks the loan of his
patron's bagpipes that he might play over some of the melancholy tunes of
his own land. But the effect of music arises, in a great degree, from
association; and sounds which might jar the nerves of a Londoner or
Parisian, bring back to the Highlander his lofty mountain, wild lake, and
the deeds of his fathers of the glen. To prove MacGregor's claim to our
reader's compassion, we here insert the last part of the letter alluded
to.
“By all appearance I am born to suffer crosses, and it seems they're not
at an end; for such is my wretched case at present, that I do not know
earthly where to go or what to do, as I have no subsistence to keep body
and soul together. All that I have carried here is about 13 livres, and
have taken a room at my old quarters in Hotel St. Pierre, Rue de Cordier.
I send you the bearer, begging of you to let me know if you are to be in
town soon, that I may have the pleasure of seeing you, for I have none to
make application to but you alone; and all I want is, if it was possible
you could contrive where I could be employed without going to entire
beggary. This probably is a difficult point, yet unless it's attended
with some difficulty, you might think nothing of it, as your long head
can bring about matters of much more difficulty and consequence than
this. If you'd disclose this matter to your friend Mr. Butler, it's
possible he might have some employ wherein I could be of use, as I
pretend to know as much of breeding and riding of horse as any in France,
besides that I am a good hunter either on horseback or by footing. You
may judge my reduction, as I propose the meanest things to lend a turn
till better cast up. I am sorry that I am obliged to give you so much
trouble, but I hope you are very well assured that I am grateful for what
you have done for me, and I leave you to judge of my present wretched
case. I am, and shall for ever continue, dear Chief, your own to command,
Jas. MacGregor.
“P. S.--If you'd send your pipes by the bearer, and all the other little
trinkims belonging to it, I would put them in order, and play some
melancholy tunes, which I may now with safety, and in real truth. Forgive
my not going directly to you, for if I could have borne the seeing of
yourself, I could not choose to be seen by my friends in my wretchedness,
nor by any of my acquaintance.”
While MacGregor wrote in this disconsolate manner, Death, the sad but
sure remedy for mortal evils, and decider of all doubts and
uncertainties, was hovering near him. A memorandum on the back of the
letter says the writer died about a week after, in October 1754.
It now remains to mention the fate of Robin Oig--for the other sons of
Rob Roy seem to have been no way distinguished. Robin was apprehended by
a party of military from the fort of Inversnaid, at the foot of Gartmore,
and was conveyed to Edinburgh 26th May 1753. After a delay, which may
have been protracted by the negotiations of James for delivering up Allan
Breck Stewart upon promise of his brother's life, Robin Oig, on the 24th
of December 1753, was brought to the bar of the High Court of Justiciary,
and indicted by the name of Robert MacGregor, alias Campbell, alias
Drummond, alias Robert Oig; and the evidence led against him resembled
exactly that which was brought by the Crown on the former trial. Robert's
case was in some degree more favourable than his brother's;--for, though
the principal in the forcible marriage, he had yet to plead that he had
shown symptoms of relenting while they were carrying Jean Key off, which
were silenced by the remonstrances and threats of his harder natured
brother James. A considerable space of time had also elapsed since the
poor woman died, which is always a strong circumstance in favour of the
accused; for there is a sort of perspective in guilt, and crimes of an
old date seem less odious than those of recent occurrence. But
notwithstanding these considerations, the jury, in Robert's case, did not
express any solicitude to save his life as they had done that of James.
They found him guilty of being art and part in the forcible abduction of
Jean Key from her own dwelling.*
* The Trials of the Sons of Rob Roy, with anecdotes of Himself and his
Family, were published at Edinburgh, 1818, in 12mo.
Robin Oig was condemned to death, and executed on the 14th February 1754.
At the place of execution he behaved with great decency; and professing
himself a Catholic, imputed all his misfortunes to his swerving from the
true church two or three years before. He confessed the violent methods
he had used to gain Mrs. Key, or Wright, and hoped his fate would stop
further proceedings against his brother James.*
* James died near three months before, but his family might easily remain
a long time without the news of that event.
The newspapers observed that his body, after hanging the usual time, was
delivered to his friends to be carried to the Highlands. To this the
recollection of a venerable friend, recently taken from us in the fulness
of years, then a schoolboy at Linlithgow, enables the author to add, that
a much larger body of MacGregors than had cared to advance to Edinburgh
received the corpse at that place with the coronach and other wild
emblems of Highland mourning, and so escorted it to Balquhidder. Thus we
may conclude this long account of Rob Roy and his family with the classic
phrase,
Ite. Conclamatum est.
I have only to add, that I have selected the above from many anecdotes of
Rob Roy which were, and may still be, current among the mountains where
he flourished; but I am far from warranting their exact authenticity.
Clannish partialities were very apt to guide the tongue and pen, as well
as the pistol and claymore, and the features of an anecdote are
wonderfully softened or exaggerated as the story is told by a MacGregor
or a Campbell.