Glencoe Massacre (1692): Murder Under Trust in the Highlands

The Glencoe Massacre took place before dawn on 13 February 1692, when government soldiers who had been guests of the MacDonalds of Glencoe for nearly two weeks turned on their hosts. About 38 people were killed in the Highland glen and more died of cold as they fled. Ordered at the highest level to punish a Jacobite clan, it became a lasting symbol of betrayal in Scottish history.

Background

After the Glorious Revolution removed James VII and II, many Highland clans rose for him in 1689. Under Viscount Dundee they won the Battle of Killiecrankie on 27 July 1689, but Dundee was killed and the rising faded after defeats at Dunkeld and Cromdale. The new government of William and Mary wanted to pacify the Highlands cheaply while its armies fought France.

In August 1691 a proclamation offered pardon to clan chiefs who swore an oath of allegiance before a sheriff by 1 January 1692. Those who refused were threatened with harsh punishment. The exiled James II gave his permission for the oath only in December, so many chiefs left it late.

The MacDonalds of Glencoe were a small branch of Clan Donald with a reputation for cattle raiding. Their chief, Alasdair MacDonald, known as MacIain, was elderly and had fought at Killiecrankie.

Glen Coe itself is a steep, narrow valley in the west Highlands, running about 15 kilometres from Rannoch Moor towards Loch Leven. In 1692 several hundred people lived in small townships scattered along the river, raising cattle and growing oats. In winter the passes at each end could be blocked by snow, which made the glen both a refuge and a trap.

The late oath

MacIain went to Fort William on 31 December 1691 to take the oath, but its governor, Colonel John Hill, was a soldier, not a sheriff, and could not legally administer it. Hill sent him on with a letter to Sir Colin Campbell of Ardkinglas, sheriff of Argyll, at Inveraray. Delayed by winter weather and briefly detained by soldiers on the way, MacIain arrived to find the sheriff absent over the New Year.

He finally swore the oath on 6 January 1692. The certificate was sent to Edinburgh, but there officials removed his name from the list of those who had complied.

The orders

The key figure in the government was Sir John Dalrymple, Master of Stair, Secretary of State for Scotland, who saw a chance to make an example. On 16 January 1692 William III signed instructions which said that if MacIain and his clan could be separated from the others, it would be proper “to extirpate that sept of thieves”. Dalrymple’s own letters show he wanted the action to be thorough and carried out in winter, when the people could not escape into the hills.

Others in government shared responsibility. Sir Thomas Livingstone, commander of the army in Scotland, passed on the orders, and Lieutenant-Colonel James Hamilton at Fort William was given operational charge. Colonel Hill, who had sympathy for the Highlanders, appears to have been bypassed. Orders passed down the chain of command. On 12 February Major Robert Duncanson wrote to Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon instructing him to “fall upon the rebels” and to put all to the sword under the age of seventy.

The massacre

About 120 soldiers of the Earl of Argyll’s Regiment of Foot, under Glenlyon, had arrived in Glencoe on 1 February. They said they had come to collect taxes or because the garrison at Fort William was full, and following Highland custom the MacDonalds gave them food and lodging. Glenlyon was related by marriage to MacIain’s family and spent evenings playing cards with his hosts.

At about five in the morning of 13 February 1692, the soldiers attacked in the settlements along the glen. MacIain was shot as he rose from bed; his wife was stripped and died later. Men were killed in their homes and some were shot after being bound. Houses were burned and cattle driven off.

The operation was poorly coordinated. Troops meant to block the ends of the glen arrived late in a snowstorm, and most of the population of several hundred escaped, including MacIain’s sons. Around 38 people were killed. Perhaps 40 more, mostly women and children, are said to have died of exposure in the mountains after their homes were burned, though that figure is uncertain.

The inquiry

News of the killings spread slowly but caused growing outrage, fed by Jacobite pamphlets. In 1695 the Scottish Parliament set up a commission of inquiry. It found that the killing was “murder under trust”, an aggravated crime in Scots law, and that Dalrymple’s letters went beyond the king’s instructions.

The commission’s findings were widely read in Scotland and later reprinted many times. Dalrymple resigned as Secretary of State but was never tried. William was effectively shielded, and Glenlyon and the other officers were not prosecuted. The surviving MacDonalds were allowed to return to Glencoe and rebuild.

Key people

• Alasdair MacIain MacDonald (d. 1692): chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, killed in the massacre.
• Robert Campbell of Glenlyon (1630–1696): the indebted captain who commanded the soldiers billeted in the glen.
• Sir John Dalrymple, Master of Stair (1648–1707): Secretary of State for Scotland and the main architect of the policy.
• William III (1650–1702): the king who signed the instructions, whose personal responsibility historians still debate.
• Colonel John Hill: governor of Fort William, who tried to help MacIain take the oath.

Myths and facts

A clan feud? Popular memory often presents Glencoe as Campbells against MacDonalds. Glenlyon and Argyll’s regiment gave it a Campbell face, and there was real enmity between the clans, but the decision came from government ministers and the king, and the regiment’s soldiers included men of many names.

Only the late oath? The missed deadline was a pretext. Officials had discussed making an example of Glencoe before it, and a clan that was small, Jacobite and unpopular with its neighbours was a convenient target.

Timeline

• 1689, 27 July: Jacobite victory at Killiecrankie.
• 1691, 27 August: Proclamation offering pardon for an oath sworn by 1 January 1692.
• 1691, 31 December: MacIain arrives at Fort William to take the oath.
• 1692, 6 January: MacIain swears the oath at Inveraray.
• 1692, 16 January: William III signs the instructions concerning Glencoe.
• 1692, 1 February: Glenlyon’s soldiers arrive in Glencoe.
• 1692, 13 February: The massacre.
• 1695: The Scottish Parliament’s inquiry calls it murder under trust.

Legacy

Glencoe deepened Highland hostility to the post-1688 government and was used in Jacobite propaganda for decades, feeding the risings that ended at Culloden. Together with the Darien disaster, it soured Scottish attitudes to William in the years before the Acts of Union. A memorial cross stands at Carnoch in the glen, where a commemoration is held each February. The glen is now cared for largely by the National Trust for Scotland, whose visitor centre near Glencoe village tells the story of the massacre alongside the natural history of the valley.

Why it matters

The Glencoe Massacre was small in numbers but shocking in its betrayal of hospitality and in being ordered by the state. It remains one of the best-remembered episodes in Scottish history and a byword for treachery.