Glencoe Massacre: Hell in the Scottish Highlands

Summary

After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal Episode Summary: Glencoe Massacre: Hell in the Scottish Highlands Release Date: February 13, 2025

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "Glencoe Massacre: Hell in the Scottish Highlands," hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling delve into one of Scotland's most notorious historical events—the massacre of Clan MacDonald in Glencoe in 1692. Joined by historian Dr. Alan Kennedy from the University of Dundee, the episode unpacks the intricate web of political tension, cultural conflicts, and tragic missteps that culminated in this dark chapter of Scottish history.

Historical Background: Scotland in the 1690s

Dr. Alan Kennedy sets the stage by describing the tumultuous climate of Scotland during the 1690s. This decade was marked by intense anxiety stemming from the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89, which saw the overthrow of James VII of Scotland (also James II of England) and the ascension of William and Mary to the throne. While William and Mary's takeover is often depicted as a peaceful transition, Kennedy emphasizes that in Scotland, it ignited immediate unrest.

"It is a decade of very intense anxiety... the Massacre of Glencoe can fit into this wider narrative of anxiety, of unease, of arguably disaster for Scotland in the aftermath of the revolution." ([07:07])

Economic strains further exacerbated the situation as Scotland entered a costly war with Louis XIV's France, deeply impacting its reliance on French trade and setting the stage for future hardships, including severe famine.

The Glorious Revolution and the Rise of Jacobitism

Kennedy provides a detailed account of the Glorious Revolution's impact, particularly highlighting the rise of the Jacobite movement—a fervent group dedicated to restoring James VII to the throne. Originating from the Latin "Jacobus" (James), Jacobitism was fueled not only by religious tensions, given James's Catholicism in a predominantly Protestant Scotland, but also by loyalty to hereditary monarchy.

"These Jacobites, led by John Graham of Claverhouse... launched the Jacobite rising of the spring of 1689." ([09:42])

The Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 are rooted in the same ideological foundations established in the immediate aftermath of the Glorious Revolution.

Clan MacDonald: Reputation and Allegiances

The MacDonalds of Glencoe, a small and often maligned clan, played a central role in these historical events. Kennedy explains that their involvement in the Jacobite rising solidified their image as staunch rebels against William and Mary. Moreover, pre-existing prejudices cast the MacDonalds—and Highland clans in general—in a negative light, labeling them as "uncivilized barbarians" and "addicted to thieving."

"The MacDonalds of Glencoe are usually picked out as one of the three or four worst clans in the entire Highlands." ([22:09])

This entrenched bias significantly influenced the Scottish government's perception and subsequent treatment of the clan.

The Oath of Allegiance: A Tool of Control

In the wake of quelling the initial Jacobite uprising, William and Mary sought to consolidate their rule by enforcing the Oath of Allegiance across Scotland. This simple yet potent oath was designed to secure loyalty and identify remaining Jacobite sympathizers.

"The Oath of Allegiance... is just one line, basically saying, I acknowledge William and Mary is King and Queen and I am loyal to them." ([23:40])

For those like the MacDonalds who failed to comply, this oath became a gateway to vulnerability and persecution.

Arrival of the Troops in Glencoe

As the narrative progresses, Kennedy introduces the arrival of Scottish government troops in Glencoe, led by Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon. Contrary to popular belief, their initial mission was not to massacre but to extract "free quarter" from the MacDonald household for unpaid taxes.

"They are there extracting what's called free quarter... they are sending troops to extract tax payments from a family that has not been paying its taxes." ([27:31])

Lucy Dugan, a local representative from the National Trust for Scotland, provides a vivid depiction of Glencoe's landscape and the traditional Highland hospitality that would have been extended to these soldiers.

"Hospitality was a really important part of their culture... they never turned a stranger away." ([31:51])

Mounting Tensions and the Path to Tragedy

Despite the seemingly cordial interactions, underlying tensions simmered between the MacDonalds and the government troops. Kennedy notes that while daily interactions might have been manageable, the overarching hostility and prejudiced views created a fertile ground for conflict.

The Orders: A Command for Massacre

The episode reaches a chilling climax when Anthony Delaney reads out the handwritten orders received by Captain Campbell on the evening of February 12, 1692:

"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 escape this you are to put in execution at five of the clock precisely." ([36:48])

These stark and uncompromising instructions signal a departure from tax extraction to an indiscriminate slaughter, targeting not just combatants but entire families, including women and children.

"This is extirpate the family, get rid of the MacDonalds of Glencoe." ([37:32])

Conclusion: The Looming Massacre

As the episode concludes, the hosts tease the impending tragedy that unfolds on February 13, 1692, urging listeners to stay tuned for the second part, which promises to delve deeper into the horrifying events that followed these deadly orders.

"So we have a little bit of conflict brewing, but when we get to the arrival of troops in Glencoe... they are going to cause a massacre." ([27:04])

Notable Quotes

• Maddy Pelling on Highland Hospitality:
  "Hospitality was a really important part of their culture... they never turned a stranger away." ([31:51])

• Anthony Delaney Reading the Orders:
  "You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the MacDonalds of Glencoe, and put all to the sword..." ([36:48])

• Dr. Alan Kennedy on Jacobitism:
  "Ultimately, this is the group which underpins the Jacobite movement into the 18th century." ([09:42])

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This episode masterfully intertwines firsthand accounts, expert analysis, and evocative storytelling to shed light on the complex factors leading to the Glencoe Massacre. By examining political maneuvers, cultural biases, and individual tragedies, "After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal" offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of this pivotal moment in Scottish history.

Transcript

[Anthony Delaney]

Hi, we're your hosts Anthony Delaney and Maddy Pelling. And if you would like After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal ad free and get early access.

[Maddy Pelling]

Sign up to History Hit with a History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries with top history presenters and enjoy a new release every week.

[Anthony Delaney]

Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.

[Maddy Pelling]

Hey, let's talk about your expense report.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

I didn't submit an expense report. You will.

[Maddy Pelling]

Custom saddles and dog training services are not within policy.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

What are you talking about?

[Maddy Pelling]

SAP Concur uses advanced AI to audit and automatically detect out of policy expenses.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

It's the breakthrough I needed to focus.

[Maddy Pelling]

More on our future.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

These are my future expenses.

[Maddy Pelling]

Yes, and self defense classes are out of policy.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

I'll need self defense classes.

[Maddy Pelling]

You will?

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

For what?

[Maddy Pelling]

It's a big dog.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster.

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[Maddy Pelling]

Aleister MacDonald or Macian as he was known to his friends. The old fox to his enemies stood on the threshold of his home. In front of him were the snow spattered heath strewn mountains and black winding river of Glencoe. The houses of his clan were made of turf, heather ferns and merged into the landscape, cows huddling round them as wintry clouds rolled down the craggy hills. He breathed a lungful of frosty air and sighed. He'd better set off. The deadline was near and he had an unpleasant but necessary journey ahead of him. He must go to swear his allegiance to King William before the year was out, and the low light told him that was not far off. Mist descends now, hiding our view of these ancient deep glens as we follow him. When it finally clears, we're 15 miles north and Macian is arriving at his destination. The military outpost of Fort William. Built by Oliver Cromwell's men to control the wild land. It's now full of William's troops. It's New Year's Eve. Macian is just in the nick of time to take the oath. Except he's come to the wrong place. No one here, they tell him, has the authority to take his allegiance. He should have gone to a place called Inverary, several days journey south of here. Administrative errors can be costly, but few have consequences like those that will unfold from this missed deadline. As the old fox wraps his plaid around him and sets off across the frozen land, we can only guess at the panic running through his mind. Does he think of home and his loved ones? What will this mistake cost him? This is After Dark and today is the first of two episodes about one of the most notorious moments in Scottish history. This is the massacre of Glencoe.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Foreign.

[Anthony Delaney]

Hello and welcome to After Dark. I'm Anthony.

[Maddy Pelling]

And I'm Maddie.

[Anthony Delaney]

And if you've been listening to After Dark for some time, you'll know that Maddie and I have a serious love for Scotland and all things Scottish history. We have talked about the final days of Mary Queen of Scots, although that didn't technically happen in Scotland, but that's beside the point. We've also had our history hit TV documentary on Burke and Hare and on the North Berwick witch trials. So we love spend of time in the past in Scotland and today is no different because we are talking about the massacre of Glencoe. This is the first of two episodes and let me just give you a little bit of a taster of what's to come before I introduce the guest for today's episode and next week's episode. On 13 February 1692 Scottish government troops slaughtered between 30 and 40 members of Clan MacDonald in their home in Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands. They fell upon them without warning, attacking in the early hours of the morning and killing indiscriminately women, children and the elderly. But this is a complex history and we're untangling the, I suppose the romance versus the reality and the agenda and fact that have come along with this history. It's quite difficult, but we're going to try our best in the next two episodes. Behind those layers, we will find myth making, narrative building, lies, and I suppose, most, most interestingly of all, a human history, a human tragedy that, more than three centuries later, still retains the power to shock. That is our introduction. So who's guiding us through this over the next couple of episodes? Well, we have Dr. Alan Kennedy from the University of Dundee. And Alan is a historian who studies the social and political history of 17th century Scotland. And his first book was all about the Highlands and the Scottish state. And his new book, which is out this month, is entitled Serious crime in late 17th century Scotland. So there's nobody better to guide us through this than Alan. Alan. Alan. Hello, and thank you so much for being on After Dark.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Hello there and thank you very much for the invitation to come on and speak to you. Delighted to be here.

[Maddy Pelling]

We are very, very happy to have you. Alan, let's dive straight in with the 1690s in Scotland, because this is a time of huge anxiety, isn't it? Can you give us a sense of the lay of the land? I suppose, in this moment, politically and culturally speaking?

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Yes, absolutely. It is a decade of very intense anxiety. And you get a real sense, if you study this period for any length of time, that there's fear running through virtually every corner of Scottish public life. And a lot of that goes back to the revolution of 1688-9, what used to be called the Glorious Revolution, which overthrew James vii of Scotland, 2nd of England, and replaced him with William and Mary in England. Famously, that was a relatively peaceful transition, although even there, there's some room for questioning quite how peaceful it was in Scotland. However, it definitely wasn't peaceful because it provoked an immediate attempted counter revolution, sometimes called the first Jacobite rising, started in 1689, in fact, started almost immediately after William and Mary had been accepted as king and queen, led by a man called John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, and he reads A small Jacobite force which scores a very embarrassing victory over the government, the Scottish government forces at the Battle of Killiecrankie. But fortunately for the government, he is killed at Killiecrankie, which means that the rising loses a lot of its momentum, but doesn't end. It rumbles on for a couple of years, and that forms an important background to the Massacre of Glencoe. At the same time, the 1690s is beginning to shape up from a more general perspective as a rather uncomfortable decade for Scotland. Partly that is because William, as one of his first Acts, once becoming king of England, Scotland and Ireland, takes his new kingdoms into war with Louis XIV's France. That's very damaging for the Scottish economy, which relies heavily on trade with France. So there's a sense of economic malaise that's running through all of this. And we're just about getting into the phase as well where Scotland will end up in a period of very serious famine. Other things will come along later in the decade as well to crown this extremely unhappy decade for Scotland. So it means that the Massacre of Glencoe can fit into this wider narrative of anxiety, of unease, of arguably disaster for Scotland in the aftermath of the revolution.

[Maddy Pelling]

It's a really complex moment, I think, in Scottish history that you've laid out so brilliantly there. Can you just give us a little bit more of a sense of the so called Glorious Revolution and the players of that and who the subsequent Jacobites are? Because I know a lot of our listeners may have a sense of who the Jacobites are through the amazing, in my opinion, TV show Outlander, which is not always known for its historical accuracy. So, Alan, can you give us the real Jacobites?

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Absolutely, yes. The central player in this story is the man I've already mentioned, King James VII of Scotland, second in England, who succeeded Charles II as king of the Three Kingdoms in 1685 and very quickly unveils a strong agenda for his kingship. And that's rooted in the fact that he is a Roman Catholic. He had converted to Catholicism in the 1670s, and when he becomes king, he's determined, it very quickly becomes clear, to try and revive the Catholic Church across the three kingdoms. That doesn't go down terribly well in England and Scotland, both of which are firmly Protestant countries and whose political cultures are quite strongly anti Catholic. So the result for James is that he's overthrown in a revolution at the end of 1688, his nephew, but also his son in law, William of Orange, the Prince of Orange, who's the stadtholder of the Dutch Republic as well, invades, chases James away from England and proclaims himself, or has himself and his wife Mary proclaimed King and Queen of England. Scotland then follows suit at the start of the following year. William and Mary are accepted as King and Queen of Scotland in April of 1689. And that's where the Jacobite movement begins, because there's a core of supporters of James in Scotland. They might not necessarily have supported his policy objective of restoring Catholicism, but they supported his right to be king, for whatever reason. Some of that might have been principled, some of that might be because they'd done well out of James regime. Whatever the reason, you have this core of individuals who want to see James restored and who don't accept the regime of William and Mary and all the other constitutional machinery that comes with that. So it's these Jacobites, led by John Graham of Claverhouse I've already mentioned, who launched the Jacobite rising of the spring of 1689. And that is the genesis then, of the Jacobite movement. Jacobite, of course, coming from the Latin for James Jacobus, Jacobite follower of James. Ultimately, this is the group which underpins the Jacobite movement into the 18th century. So when we look at the risings of 1715 or 1746, this is the same political movement fundamentally as had emerged in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. So that is, if you like, the context in which Jacobitism emerges and in which we have to see the Massacre of Glencoe.

[Anthony Delaney]

So, Alan, where does our family, the MacDonalds, lie in that dynamic, then?

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Yeah, well, there's two answers to that. The immediate one is that the MacDonalds had been part of the Jacobite rising in 1689-91. That Jacobite rising had drawn its manpower strongly from the Highlands. Most of those who'd fought for Dundee, despite the fact that he himself has Lowlander, most of his troops had been drawn from the Highlands, and among Those are the MacDonalds of Glencoe. So in that sense, the immediate answer to the question is that they are Jacobites, they are part of that rising, and that is how they are bound up with this story. There's also a longer term issue, which is to do with the fact that even before the Jacobite rising, the MacDonalds of Glencoe had been notorious among Highland clans. They're a very small group, they're part of a much wider family conglomerate, if you like. There's lots of different sects of Clan MacDonald, and they're one of them, they're one of the smallest. But they're also traditionally seen as one of the most troublesome, allegedly addicted to animal theft and robbery and all sorts of other criminal activities, which means that by the time they get into the Jacobite rising, by the time they get behind the cause of James vii, and second, they've already got an extremely black reputation. And so being part of the Jacobite rising, if you like, just reinforces the sense this is a group of bad people, essentially, and that underpins a lot of the responses to them on the part of the government.

[Anthony Delaney]

That's really clear, Alan. I think that's really helpful for people to bear that in mind. As we head further into this story. But the other thing that I want to establish before we go into it, say story, this history. But the other thing I want to get a clearer picture of is a sense of place. And so to help bring that history to life, we are going to speak to somebody. You'll hear from somebody who grew up in Glencoe, and that is Lucy Dugan. Now, Lucy and her family go back centuries in Glencoe. And we'll be hearing from her throughout this episode and the next. She works for the National Trust for Scotland's visitor centre at Glencoe. And she, amongst other things, gives tours of the turf house that they've built there, which is a reconstruction of the homes that the McDonald's that we're talking about, the McDonald's of Glencoe, might. What that might have looked like and felt like. So here's Lucy to help us set the scene.

[Lucy Dugan]

Glencoe is a glen, Glen being a valley, the glen of the River Coe. And it stretches from the banks of Loch Leven up towards Rannoch Moor. I've lived my whole life in Glencoe, in the village. My mum's family are from here, from Glencoe and Ballahoolish. And I've never traced a family tree all the way back. But I know that our family have been here for hundreds of years. And quite possibly from before the time of the massacre. I spend quite a lot of time in the turf house. I always think it kind of mirrors the hill behind it, actually, even the slope of the roof and the angle of the roof kind of mirrors the hill behind it. And Thrawn, the walls are low and made of turf. And in the summertime the grass continues to grow out of the turf grass. And we get marsh orchids growing out of the wall and dog violet, different things like that that would grow on the hillside around it as well. And the thatched roof hangs down over the walls. So kind of shaggy looking. And it's a heather thatch. So it's this kind of brown, shaggy looking thing. The sound from outside is dampened by these thick walls. And it's quite quiet and dark because, you know, there are only two very small windows and it's quite a soft light. One of the windows is actually a goatskin. We maybe don't always think about how lively these places were, that there was life going on, that they were busy, there were children running around, there were animals. The sounds of work songs, people singing while they milk the cows or while they grind grain. The sounds of children playing, the sounds of livestock. People were known to be quite poetic. And particularly Achatriachdin, which inspired our turf house, was known to be home to a number of Gaelic bards over the years. And you can understand why because there's so much inspiration around you. You're right there at the foot of these really steep, rugged hills and there's always the sound of the river churning beneath you and deer on the hill and birds flying over you. And yeah, I always think of the layers of time sitting side by side or sitting one on top of the other. And in that building you can kind of connect with that. These people that were here before you, you know, we're just building time layer on layer on layer. And that past is there, it's still there beneath you. And you can connect to.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

That.

[Anthony Delaney]

Description of the house from Lucy is particularly evocative. There's something about that to me feels like I want to go there and I want to be there and I want to surround myself in that landscape, in that building. But, Alan, tell us what life in one of those dwellings was probably like in historic terms.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Very difficult, I think, is the basic response to that. I mean, we're not talking about a wealthy group of individuals. Individuals. I don't think the clan elite in Glencoe might have had slightly more comfortable surroundings, but for the vast majority of people, they are living hard lives. They are almost certainly making their living through agriculture, probably pastoral, because the landscape of Glencoe is not a landscape that lends itself to arable agriculture. So they're probably tending to livestock and around that, scrabbling a living from the landscape as best they can. So they're. Their material surroundings are going to be basic. The houses they're living in are probably not going to be massively comfortable. They're not going to have lots of knickknacks around the house or much equipment. So it's going to be a hard life. It's going to be a life that is dominated by the rhythms of pastoral agriculture. It's not going to be a luxurious lifestyle that these people were living. I don't think so.

[Anthony Delaney]

It's not Instagram cottagecore worthy like I have painted it in my. I suppose the only thing to pick up on there is that sometimes I think, and this goes for me too, when you hear about clan history and Highland clans, you do imagine a kind of a layered situation where there is potentially some kind of a, you know, almost semi noble person, that there may be a castle. But actually what you're describing there, Alan, is far more interesting and far more, far more gritty. I suppose, and survivalist in a way where it's. It's not. We're not necessarily always on the edge of nobility here.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Well, I mean, that's largely, I think, a function of the fact that the MacDonalds of Glencore are a very small clan. Most of the clans or senior Highland families are larger and some of their chiefs are essentially just noblemen. They do live in castles. They are very far removed from their clansmen. They will have their cast of kind of what's called taxmen, which is not taxmen, but it's a form of gentry who will run their estates for them. So in these larger clans, like the Campbells or other sects of the McDonalds or, I don't know, the Macleans or whoever you want to talk about, you will be talking about a more hierarchical structure, which looks pretty similar to Lowland forms of noble family and social organisation. The MacDonalds of Glencore are a much smaller group and therefore there's not the same wealth to provide the chiefly family with extreme luxury that you might expect from some other clan chiefs. Which is not to say that he's living exactly the same lifestyle as ordinary clansmen. He probably does have more luxurious surroundings and he's probably not involved in the kind of hardscrabble of pastor agriculture culture to the same extent. So we are looking at a flatter hierarchy in Glencoe, but that's probably an exception to the rule in Gaelic Scotland, which is developing more generally into a more hierarchical system that looks pretty similar to what's going on in the rest of Scotland and indeed most of Europe in this period.

[Anthony Delaney]

Alan, give us an idea of what the Lowland perspective of Highland culture, I mean specifically, and not specifically the McDonald's. We've talked about how they had a reputation of being animal thieves, basically. But more generally, what's the. The view of Highland culture from a Lowland perspective?

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Things are very complicated in reality, in terms of social structure, in terms of how different Highlands and Lowlands are. But that doesn't really matter from the perspective of discourse and perceptions, because the basic perception from the Lowlands, and this is then echoed in English and wider European perspectives, is that Highlanders are essentially uncivilized barbarians. That's the idea that they are people who tend not to display loyalty to the Crown. They are people who tend not to do civilized things like live in towns or farm the land properly. They are people who tend not to have been touched by religion adequately enough. And if they have, it's usually some old fashioned, primitive, possibly even Catholic form of religion, which is even worse. And in particular, by the late 17th century, they are regarded as being, and this is the phrase often used, addicted to thieving, addicted to robbery. The idea is that basically, Highlanders don't particularly want to learn an honest day's living and they'd much prefer to just steal everybody else's cattle. Now, I stress that the reality is very different from that, but the perception is clear. And from the point of view of the MacDonalds, and particularly the McDonald's of Glencoe, they're very much subject to that narrative. In fact, the Glencoe MacDonalds are usually picked out as one of the three or four worst clans in the entire Highlands. There's them and there's the Camerons of Lochiel and a few others are regarded as the worst of the worst. Now, again, whether that's fair or not is kind of immaterial, because the perspective is there and it's a discourse that is, by the late 17th century, very clearly hardened. So it means MacDonalds have got this very black reputation, which colours everything to do with their interactions with central government and with the Lowlands more generally.

[Maddy Pelling]

So, Alan, we've got this complicated relationship between the Highlands and the Lowlands and a lot of prejudice mixed in there, a lot of political tension, and then on top of that, we have the Glorious Revolution, so called happening, and William and Mary taking the throne. And I suppose the obvious next step, if you take the English and Scottish thrones, is to try and control the Highlands and that area of land that is seen as barbaric and its occupants are seen as barbaric. Is this where the Oath of Allegiance comes in, that we heard at the beginning, the MacDonalds and other clan leaders are, let's say, invited to take.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Well, yes and no. I mean, the Oath of Allegiance, actually, it didn't originate as anything to do with the Highlands specifically. It came in immediately after the revolution as a mechanism, a more general mechanism, that applied to the whole of Scotland for shoring up the regime in William and Mary. It's a very simple oath. It's just one line, basically saying, I acknowledge William and Mary is King and Queen and I am loyal to them. The way it becomes connected to the MacDonalds is that after the end of the first Jacobite rising, which is petered out by around 1691, as part of that, the mopping up exercise, William decides that he wants to force all of the erstwhile Jacobites to sign this oath of allegiance. It's basically, it's part of the. The deal for them coming back into William's peace and bringing the Jacobite rising to an end.

[Maddy Pelling]

So, Alan, we heard at the beginning of the episode that Macian does not take this oath. He misses the deadline. And we might think on the surface that this is just an administrative error, but it is going to cost him, isn't it? How serious is this situation?

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Yes, I mean, ultimately it is an administrative error. It's very clear that McKeon is going to take the oath, is willing to do so, but just goes to the wrong place. The oath can only be taken legally by a sheriff or a sheriff's officer. The closest of them are in Inverary. All McKeon finds in Fort William are soldiers and members of the military establishment. So from one level, it's not serious, the fact that he's missed the oath. On the other, he has technically breached the terms that William set for accepting people back into his peace. And that means that the MacDonalds are now vulnerable. If the government decides that it wants to take exemplary action against them, it has its excuse because McKeon has missed the deadline by all of about two.

[Maddy Pelling]

Days.

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[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

No, I asked why wouldn't you switch from Verizon or T Mobile?

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[Anthony Delaney]

So we have a little bit of conflict brewing, but when we get to the arrival of troops in Glencoe, and you know, this is bringing us closer to the history that we're. We're trying to get at here, that that group of soldiers, they're not arriving with deadly intent in mind or anything at this point. So can you give us an idea of who they are and what they're doing there in the first place?

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Who they are is a fairly straightforward question. They're just regular Scottish soldiers who happen to be organised into one of the companies in the Scottish army. As far as we can tell, a lot of them are drawn from the South Western Highlands. They tend to come from the Argyll area initially, but they are just, if you like, bog standard troops, normal run of the mill Scottish soldiers under the command of Robert Campbell of Glenlyon. As to what they're doing there, they are there extracting what's called free quarter. And basically, again, this is a fairly standard mechanism of Scottish government. And what it comes down to is that the MacDonalds, as well as being in rebellion, had not been paying their taxes. So one of the ways the Scottish government deals with people who are deficient in payment of taxes is you send in the troops to extract free quarter. That doesn't mean that you're kind of duffing people up or anything like that. You live there for a period of time, you extract your board and quarter for free from the people you're quartering on. And that means that they are indirectly, therefore paying the taxes in which they are deficient. So when this group comes to Glencoe about a fortnight or so before the massacre, they are not there to massacre the McDonalds, nor are they there, as is sometimes said, as their guests. They're not that either. What they are is members of the Scottish army on essentially a civic mission to extract tax payments from a family that has not been paying its taxes. So we have quite a different mission at the start of February 1692, from the one that they eventually end up performing on the 13th of that month.

[Maddy Pelling]

What's really incredible is we do have a surviving image of Captain Robert Campbell, who was in charge of these troops. And in true After Dark tradition, I'm going to make Anthony describe it and then Alan, you can maybe tell him how he's done afterwards. But it is genuinely a really, really striking portrait, isn't is?

[Anthony Delaney]

And it's funny because you wouldn't just flick past this portrait and there is a gentleman center of a portrait. It's all very dark and murky around him. That's probably somewhat got to do with age, but also just in the execution of the image, he is placed in the centre. He seems to have qu. At least shoulder length, quite voluminous strawberry blonde hair, shall we say, which is doing a great impression of a King Charles spaniel. Down either side of them they seem to become more voluminous. Down the side of his face, very long elongated face, very pointed chin, very pointed nose. The eyes seem very close set together. So that's why it's striking in the first place. Now he's wearing armour, as you might expect, but just above that he has this very elaborate cravat type scenario going on where it's all wrapped around his neck and then it's kind of blossoming out from underneath the armor. So it's a very, very striking image. As I say, he's not somebody you'd pass by without taking a second look at. He looks, he certainly looks important. He looks. He doesn't look like he's come from one of these Highland huts as we have been hearing a description of. So Alan, fill us in with some of the real history as opposed to my off the cuff remarks just then.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

I think it's a very, in some ways an odd image that we have of Glen Lyon. I mean, the basic thing to remember about Glen Lyon is that he is a career soldier, but he's also a member of the gentry. He's a sort of minor nobleman. He's also part of the great Campbell family, which is itself, from some perspectives, a Highland clan based in the Argyll area. The head of the Campbell family, or Campbell clan, if we can call it that, is the Earl or Marquess or Duke of Argyll. And Glenlyon is a relative, a fairly senior relative of the, at this point, the Earl of Argyll. So in that sense he's quite emblematic of a particular type of Scotsman. He's middle ranking, he's not rich enough to be, you know, swarming around a castle. But he's also not poor, so he has a job, and his job is that he's a career soldier, very typical kind of work, or somebody of his kind of social status and level of wealth.

[Maddy Pelling]

So we're going to hear now from Lucy, who's going to give us a sense of what this meeting of different groups here would have felt like, and the kind of Highland hospitality that Glen Lyon might have met with there.

[Lucy Dugan]

Hospitality was a really important part of their culture. The Highlands weren't necessarily an easy place to survive. And if you were traveling through the Highlands, it might be miles between one place and the next, where you would meet nobody and you would have nowhere to shelter, really. So it was part of Gaelic culture in the Highlands that you never turned a stranger away. They would be probably expected to give something in return as well. And that might just be give a song from their area or tell a story about their people, and that would be the start of your evening. Ceilidh, the way that you would spend the evening around the fire. Not a ceilie as we know it today, which has, you know, got accordions and fiddles and strip the willows. Ceilie is a Gaelic word that means a visit, to visit and to have a social interaction, telling stories, singing songs, that kind of thing. I'm not sure the soldiers would have been necessarily welcome guests. I think the McDonald's had to offer hospitality to them rather than, you know, really wanting to. They didn't have much choice in the matter, but that hospitality was ingrained in them. It was really a part of who they were. From stories I've heard, you know, they ate and drank together, they played card games together, they'd have a wee drum together as well. And even stories about the McDonald's and the soldiers playing shinty against each other. Shinty is the traditional sport of the Highlands of Scotland. It's very similar to hurling that you find in Ireland. I've heard it described as being like field hockey, with fewer rules and more violence. If the shiny match between the machine, Donald and the soldiers really did happen, I imagine it would have drawn quite a crowd. It's such a physical game played by the great heroes of Gaelic and Celtic mythology, like Cuchulainn, in which you can prove your strength and athleticism, and in a way, almost it's like going into battle. And of course, many of these men that would have been in the glen at the time were fighting men who had fought real battles in the past and survived. You can just imagine the Tension hanging in the air, and the people gathered around waiting to see who would be victorious.

[Maddy Pelling]

Alan, how do you read the mood, the climate in this fortnight before the massacre takes place? Because what we've heard there is that there's a culture of Highland hospitality that is given out to anyone. And as you set up previously, the troops are there on a tax collecting mission. This is very much administration, albeit done with a slightly heavy armed hand, as it were. But is there tension that's palpable in this moment?

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Well, from one perspective, it's difficult to tell because we don't have a huge number of sources. I think what we can say from thinking about how these sorts of tax collecting missions work more generally, clearly there would have been some tension. This is the troops in Glencoe are there as a hostile force. I mean, not murderous yet, but they are there imposing order on the MacDonalds. So I think we can assume that they wouldn't have been necessarily a welcome sight. It does seem, though, that for much of this fortnight or so before the massacre, the troops and the MacDonalds have been kind of rubbing along perfectly reasonably. There does seem to have been social interaction between them, particularly the officers and senior members of the clan gentry. The other thing to bear in mind is, of course, nobody in that Glen probably expected that a massacre was on the rise. I think probably the troops, maybe Glen Lyon himself, wouldn't have expected that the order was coming that would cause the massacre for very good reason, that this kind of thing didn't really happen. By the 1690s, it was an extremely unusual event in lots of ways. So while I think we can assume there would have been tension in the glane, we can also, I think, conclude fairly safely that there would be a limit to that. And that wouldn't have stopped the two groups from kind of bumbling along reasonably amicably.

[Maddy Pelling]

Unfortunately, though, this fortnight is going to come to a close, and we know that these orders are going to come through, and they do. On the evening of 12th February, Glen Lyon receives a piece of paper with handwritten instructions on. Anthony, can you read these instructions for us? Because I'd never seen these before until we were doing the research for this episode. And even though I knew something of this history already, and I know the ending of this particular story, the bluntness of these instructions of this order is really shocking. So can you just read those out for us?

[Anthony Delaney]

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 escape this you are to put in execution at five of the clock precisely. Wow. So these are very specific orders, Alan, and in some respect they're bizarrely specific. So can you just tell us exactly what the instruction is? I love also that they've become known as the orders. When I read that first, I was like, holy orders. No, not holy orders, deadly orders. But tell us exactly what is being instructed here.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

Well, ultimately it's very straightforward. The soldiers are being instructed to kill all the MacDonalds. That's what it comes down to. You mentioned that there's the specific reference to 5am so we have a very clear sense that this is to start very early in the morning, so before dawn. Clearly there is a sense that this has to be a well planned operation. The idea is basically to descend upon the glen and kill everybody almost simultaneously. But that's essentially what it comes down to. And I think the thing to note about those orders is the instruction to make sure that you kill everybody under the age of 70. Note that doesn't say all the men under the age of 70, that is everyone under 70 and some women and children will die as a result of these orders. And what that suggests is that this is not a bit of exemplary punishment that's being proposed. Not going to kill a few people and scare everybody else. This is extirpate the family, get rid of the MacDonalds of Glencoe. So extremely stark, extremely disturbing orders, appropriately for what will become a very disturbing action.

[Maddy Pelling]

Well, we will be discussing in more detail the disturbing action that does follow these horrendous orders in episode two. So you will have to, dear listener, wait until next time to hear more. For now, thanks for listening to After Dark. Thanks very much to our guest Alan and to Lucy from the National Trust of Scotland's visitor centre at Glencoe. Never fear, they'll both be back in part two. And in the meantime, if you want to hear more about the history of this massacre at Glencoe, you can watch our guest, Lucy on a wonderful history hit documentary all about this very topic. You can get in touch by emailing after darkhistoryhit.com you can find our other episodes wherever you get your podcasts. And please, please, please recommend us to your friends and family, but also leave us us a five star review. It helps other people to discover us.

[Dr. Alan Kennedy]

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