Glenfinlas and Glenfruin, in one or both of which fights Dumbarton citizens were involved, raised such a noise in the Lowlands that, for the moment, anything would be believed against the Macgregors. James’s parting legacy to them was a persecution that aimed at exterminating the “viperous clan,” as a Campbell styles them in a letter to the king. Their very name was prohibited. They were forbidden to carry any arms but a pointless knife for eating their victuals. Not more than four of them might be suffered to show themselves together. Other offenders were offered pardon on condition of quelling Macgregors, whose heads, in one instance at least, were put to a price like wolves’. Within a year after Glenfruin, more than thirty of them had been executed at Stirling alone. The chief was hanged at Edinburgh; after one daring escape from treacherous arrest, he had fallen into the hands of Argyll, who is said to have promised to send him to England, a promise kept to the letter by taking the captive over the Border, but at once bringing him back to his doom. Hostile clans were set to hunt down the sons of Alpin, as Uncle Sam has employed Cheyenne scouts against the Sioux. As with runaway slaves, bloodhounds were employed in the chase of the proscribed rebels, some of whom took refuge on an island of Loch Katrine, no doubt the same as figures in the Lady of the Lake. Severe penalties were denounced against “resetters” of those outlaws, and all holding friendly intercourse with them. They did not want for sympathisers as well as persecutors. It had to be expressly forbidden to ferry any of the fugitives across the lochs to the south of their country, where they might else seek refuge in the wilds of Dumbarton and Argyll.
Under this proscription the Macgregors became broken men. Bands of them, “wolves and thieves,” wandered here and there on dark errands of violence and vengeance. But many let themselves be crushed into submission, changed their names, found “caution” for quiet behaviour, or put themselves under protection of other lords and chiefs. The ruined state of the clan is shown, ten years after Glenfruin, by the Laird of Lawers having on his hands three or four score Macgregor “bairns,” their fathers slain or outlawed, as to whom he was urgent with the authorities that other landlords should at least contribute to the expense of such a troublesome charge, not ten of them above the age of five. What to do with this nursery was a question of some difficulty. It was proposed to apprentice them in the Lowlands, like that uncongenial pupil of Simon Glover; also to distribute them among families who should be answerable for their safe keeping. Any child venturing to run away was liable to be scourged and burned on the cheek, and to be hanged if he tried it again; but over the age of fourteen, a youth risked hanging for the first attempt. Even in face of such penalties, Macgregor bairns must have been hard to hold or to bind on their native heath; and it is likely that some of them gave their keepers the slip. A few years later, His Majesty’s Council in England were made aware of emboldened outlaws, who, after lurking quietly for a time, had again “broken loose, and have associated unto them a number of the young brood of that clan who are now risen up, and with them they go in troops and companies athwart the country, armed with bows, darlochs, hackbuts, pistols, and other armour, committing a number of insolencies upon His Majesty’s good subjects in all parts where they may be masters.” As the Sahara to-day is haunted by veiled Touareg caterans, even so we can imagine how civilescent Murrays and
Menzies would be fain to keep a sharp lookout in crossing the wild moor of Rannoch.
The moon’s on the lake, and the mist’s on the brae,
And the clan has a name that is nameless by day.
Like other dubious characters, the sons of Alpin are now found passing under aliases. Fresh outrages charged on them provoked an Act of Charles I., 1633, confirming the former proscription, and specially enjoining, on pain of deprivation, that ministers of the Highland or bordering counties should baptize no child by the name of Gregor, and that no clerk or notary should draw any deed in this forbidden patronymic. So late as 1745, when Prince Charlie’s army was at hand, the conscientious minister of Drymen refused to give it to a child offered for baptism as Gregor. It was the real name of that Gilderoy, “the red lad,” precursor of Rob Roy, who came to a more untimely end, as told in his sweetheart’s lament—
If Gilderoy had done amiss,
He might have banished been.
Ah! what fair cruelty is this,
To hang such handsome men!
This bandit was hanged at Edinburgh, 1636. Among the charges against him was one of taking part in a feud in the Grant country, where the Forbes and the Gordons were concerned; we hear of those Ishmaelites as having a hand in various quarrels as well as those of their own country. The fellest foes of the Macgregors could seldom accuse them of not being ready to fight, unless, as at Sheriffmuir, when distracted by plunder. James VI. had offered Elizabeth a levy of Highlandmen, including fifty Macgregors, to put down her Irish rebels. Sundry members of the bellicose stock were let out of prison to make recruits for Gustavus Adolphus in Germany. The Earl of Moray enlisted three hundred Highlanders from Menteith and Balquhidder to overawe the Clan Chattan in the north: these auxiliaries are believed to have been Macgregors, and they are reported not to have taken kindly to this police service, so that their employer dismissed them; while another story makes some of them refuse to be dismissed, settling down on the Deeside lands, whither they had been rashly called in as bailiffs.
In their own fastnesses the Children of the Mist still held out stubbornly. When Montrose set the heather on fire he was followed by part of the proscribed clan, coming boldly forth from the islands and the wild nooks in which they had taken sanctuary; and we may be sure their tartans were made welcome for the nonce. That blaze extinguished, again they rallied to Charles II.’s standard set up by Glencairn at Killin, which soon went down before Cromwell’s soldiery; then when their Argyll enemies were out of favour, the King’s gratitude for fruitless loyalty availed them in the repeal of the act of proscription. Their forfeited lands, however, were not restored, as Montrose had promised in his master’s name; and for the most part they had to content themselves with becoming tenants or dependents of more thriving names.