In Our Time - The Glencoe Massacre

Episode Date: January 21, 2010

Melvyn Bragg and guests Karin Bowie, Murray Pittock and Daniel Szechi discuss the Glencoe Massacre of 1692, why it happened, and its lasting repercussions.On a winter night in 1692, a company of soldiers quartered with the MacDonalds of Glencoe rose early and slaughtered their hosts. About 38 men, women and children were killed. Their homes were torched and many survivors died as they fled into the snow. This mass killing was branded by a Scottish Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry as 'murder under trust'.Why did this still infamous atrocity happen? The answer takes in the seismic impact of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the ongoing struggles for religious power that swept through the country in the 17th century. Crucially, Britain was at war in Europe, and the distracting nature of the conflict in Scotland, as far as the London government was concerned, helped to give the events at Glencoe their particular character. But this is also a story of a deadline and the fatal consequences of the Glencoe MacDonalds' attempts to meet it - and of how their technical failure to do so was exploited.The Glencoe Massacre had a severe impact on the reputation of the government of the Protestant King William III, who had ousted the Catholic James II with the support of the English and Scottish Parliaments only four years earlier. Some historians contend that it pushed the two states along the road to the Act of Union of 1707. Karin Bowie is Lecturer in Scottish History at the University of Glasgow; Murray Pittock is Bradley Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow; Daniel Szechi is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Manchester.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, at 5 o'clock in the morning of the 13th of February 1692, the McDonald's of Glencoe were massacred by the Scottish Army. Three years later, a parliamentary commission branded the attack as murder under trust.

The massacre was one consequence of the glorious revolution of 1688 and of the ongoing struggles for religious supremacy that had raged across England and Scotland for much of the 17th century. But even in this period of endemic violence, what happened at Glencoe stood out as an act of atrocious cruelty? The motives behind it encompassed political power battles, military codes of obedience and fatally a missed deadline. With me to discuss the Glencoe massacre,

Karen Bowie, a lecturer in Scottish history at the University of Glasgow, Daniel Seychi, Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Manchester, and Murray Pittick, Bradley Professor of English Literature at the University of Glasgow. Murray Pittick, can you give us the outline of what happens so that listeners know what we're going for? On the day itself, the Campbell of Glen Lyon, who was commanding the force in the Glen, the 120 men, two companies that have been billeted on the McDonald's, and who had just received the previous day, the order, which until that time he was ignorant of,

to carry out the massacre under trust. His fellow officer Drummond did have knowledge of the order earlier than that. Attacked, at a given signal, attacked a number of houses up and down the glen. They'd been noticed that they were arming by the McDonald's and they had said that they were off to pursue Glen Garry, who was also Madalda of Glengarry, who was also out.

Then they sent clumps of soldiers back into the Glen. The McDonald's started to get nervous. Some of them were warned. And the first killing was McKeon, the chief of MacDonald of Glencoe. And after that, they went up and down the Glen, killing everybody under the age of 70.

In fact, most of the casualties were women. Quite a number of children were killed, including five-year-olds, five-year-olds attending his ill father. There was going to be an attempt to close the glen from both ends by Hamilton coming down from Fort William, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton with 400 men. He was driven back by a snowstorm, so couldn't close the glen at one end, and by Major Duncanson coming up from the south with two companies of Argyles,

who didn't actually get through to close again from the other end either. and the passes weren't closed over the tops. So in the end a lot of people got away, a lot of McDonald's got away, including all of McKeehan's sons, but between 40 and 70 died, the vast majority of whom were women and children. The official record, only 13 men,

who were the principal target actually were killed. So it was a calculated act of mass murder, really, by Scottish troops billeted there. They'd been taking the hospitality of the McDonald's, before. Almost all of them didn't know what was going to happen, didn't know what the order was. And the clan chief was the first to be shot, as I understand it, around 5 o'clock in the morning, point blank, four bullets as he was getting dressed, receiving, as he thought guests, people who'd been staying with him. So that's the bare bones of it in 1692.

Before we move on to unravel it, it's been just a few more headlines, if you don't mind, Murray. It's been seen as a consequence of a hostility between two clans. the Campbell's and the McDonald's. Can you talk to that? I think that it's popularly seen as a Campbell-Maddonald conflict and has been mostly in the 19th and 20th century, but possibly that actually itself dates back to the 1690s because John Campbell, Earl of Bedalban,

was one of the first to be blamed for the massacre. And the massacre itself was, of course, carried out by Campbell of Glenn Lyon, whose own lands had been raided by MacDonald of Glencoe in the preceding war in 1689. But it is much more complicated than that. For one thing, the McDonald's of Glencoe were being massacred because they were Jacobites, they were supporters of the exiled stewards,

and the Campbells of Glen Lyon continued to support the exiled stewards themselves into the 1740s, and like the main branch of Clan Campbell. And also Glenn Lyon himself was, as I mentioned in the first, the beginning of the program, Glenn Lyon was actually ignorant of the order. The orders were created by King William,

by Dalrymple, the future of Viscount Stair, by Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton and Fort William, and executed principally, even more than by Glenn Lyon, by enthusiastic officer called Drummond on the ground. It's not a Campbell-Maddle-Food. It was painted as that from the beginning. It's been popularised as that, but it was never about that. Karen Bowie, let's step back and trace how this happened.

Let's take it a bit further back, but not spent too much time on it, with the Revolution of 1688, called the Glorious Revolution, because a blow was not struck, well, not in England, but certainly in Scotland. King William and his wife, Mary, the daughter of King James II, come across at the invitation of the English aristocrats. James, the second, who tried to turn the country Catholic. this is van acumen. Wafts away to France,

they take over the government, then what happens? Right, well, the revolution sets up our Glencoe massacre because it creates Jacobites, and the revolution is very much about religion. Jacobites being followers who still have an allegiance to James II.

Yes, followers of James from Jacobus, the Latin, the Latin for James. The key thing about James is that he's a Catholic, and the revolution happens because people believe that he is trying to reverse the Protestant Reformation in his dominions, and he's king, of course, of Scotland, England and Ireland. So the Jacobites emerge in Scotland in response to the making of the revolution, and the revolution in Scotland has two elements.

William and Mary are accepted as joint monarchs, but also there is a religious revolution in the Scottish Parliament, and the Episcopal Church that had been established under James begins to be taken apart, and a Presbyterian church is clearly going to be established as a part of the revolution. So Jacobites emerge in Scotland because of three factors. Firstly, those who are royalists who support the notion of hereditary monarchy and the rights of the stewards to the throne. Episcopalian Protestants who are very disturbed at the idea that this revolution is going to set up a Presbyterian church, and also Catholicism.

There's not many Catholics in Scotland at the time. time, but it's a factor in Scottish jacobotism. And so Scottish jacobotism emerges mostly in the north of Scotland, and this is how we get the highland jacobotism as a factor in the massacre. So the revolution creates the jacobite movement in Scotland, and we get armed action emerging in Scotland from the spring of 1689. And when we're talking about the highlands, nowadays we think of the Highlands as sparsely under barely populated. Then they were 25, 30% of the Scottish population. It was a hefty group of people up there. They were known to be great soldiers and so on. So we're talking about a force. Yes. And so the Jacobite leader at the time is John Graham of Claverhouse,

Viscount Dundee, and he rides north as the convention in Scotland is voting to give the crown to William and Mary and to move towards a Presbyterian settlement. He is recruiting support in the north, and they are in arms against the government by July of 1689. So they're rising up against William Murray pretty quickly. Dundee's interesting because he leads them into a battle, which he wins. Jacobites win. He is killed.

Is his death very significant? Because they lose the next two battles badly. It is. I mean, nominally they win that battle, but in losing Dundee, they lose a key leader, and it weakens the movement. And broadly speaking, the Jacobites in Scotland remain in arms, but it becomes clear that they're not going to restore James by themselves.

And so they have further battles in 1689, and again in the spring of 1690, both of which they lose. And really the Jacobites in Scotland need to wait and see what happens in an international context. There is a much bigger theatre of war in Ireland. There's an issue of what France is going to do to support James. So it is in the interest of the Jacobites in the north of Scotland to remain in arms and to not settle with the government while they wait and see what happens. internationally. Let's bring internationally in for a moment and then we'll

focus back on Glencoe. We have William Omborind, the great Protestant leader of the North, the great Dutch leader whose fleet swept up the Tams who held off the French and so on. He comes, he's determined to stop France growing over there. He's got the Jacobites in Ireland who are very powerful. He knows

that he's got to do something about them and he goes to face them up, the Great Battle of the Boin in 1619 and the Siege of Limerick. So that's going on over there. But Scotland is something very, very difficult. You've already hinted to the complications, religious divisions as well as political divisions. Was William excessively or rightly worried about this?

No, I think certainly that in the broader context, international context, jacobotism, is an issue. He's certainly worried about the possibility of the French supporting, sorry, William's concerned about the French supporting James in the theatre in Ireland. In terms of Scotland in particular, the Jacobite forces are, as I say, are not going to restore James by themselves, but he needs to settle the war in the Highlands. And this is how we come on to the massacre, is that they need to pacify the highlands. By the time we get through the Treaty of Limerick, the theatre of war is moving to the continent. And William is at war with France in Flanders,

and he needs to bring troops through from Scotland to Flanders, and so they need to settle the war in Scotland. Daniel Sachi, can we go further into William's strategy here then? He's faced with this. He's got problems in Ireland, he's got problems in Scotland, and their problem is because he wants to get those armies back to take on what he considered as the great threat, which is a threat of a bigger, growing, dominating France.

Can you tell us how he went about those three problems, Ireland, Scotland and France? Well, France is obviously, the big issue as far as he's concerned. In fact, the Grand Alliance, which he is the Premier Military Commander for in Flanders, is about containing France. The Grand Alliance being... The Grand Alliance is the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs,

the Netherlands, various German princes, and after the revolution in the British Isles, the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. And as far as William's concerned, anything that is going on in the British Isles is a distraction from the main game. He is set on finally bringing France to book, humbling France.

There's a great irony there because in fact by 1688 France was a sated power and effectively stumbles into the war that breaks out with full force in the winter of 1688 to 9 because of Louis XIV's miscalculations and ineptitude. He doesn't want war but ends up by attempting to bully his way out of having to fight, getting the war that he feared. and William is following up on that and is determined to try and break French power once and for all

So then he turns, in the British Isles context he starts in Ireland, why is that the real problem? As he sees it then. Because the war in Ireland is very much bigger and the majority of the population in Ireland indeed one may say the overwhelming majority of the population are and remain supporters of James II. They regard him in some ways their king

because the Irish provided the king to Scotland and he was a steward. There's that loop as well, isn't it? There is that loop, but the clearest affinity between the Irish population and James II is his Catholicism and the fact that the Jacobite regime in Ireland

had been pretty good for the Catholics of Ireland. they'd been reintroduced into the army, into the administration. The Catholic Church was operating pretty openly, despite the established church remaining the Protestant Church of Ireland. The other problem for William is that if he does not deal with Ireland, Ireland is very clearly a possible stepping stone back into England for James, a launching platform for a full-scale French expedition. In fact, the French kept going there to help the Irish,

and a small detachment. Small, insufficient. Indicative. Yes. And there was the Battle of the Boy, and then he took him on 1619. That was, in William's term, a famous victory. It was a famous victory. It was a famous victory in terms of seeing James off as well.

James effectively flees Ireland straight after the battle. the battle of the buoy is very far from the end of it because William fails to take Limerick in the first siege of Limerick in 1690 which means that the whole of the west of Ireland is still to be conquered

after William's left and the all the resources that William has to commit to Ireland to do that are resources taken from Flanders But there is a seizure of Limerick, there is a treaty, and that treaty is a sort of honourable draw so he can start moving troops out. Not honourable, where did I use the word honourable?

A draw. A draw. Yes, it's tactically it's a draw, strategically it's a win for William. It actually shows quite how desperate William was to end the war, indeed all the fighting in the British Isles, that he was willing to allow the evacuation of the colonel. of the Irish brigades to France. In other words,

the Jacobite army in Ireland is evacuated to France where it's reorganised and eventually becomes a kind of elite corps within the French army. Right, let's get back to Scotland now, Maripitig. Marianne concentrate home into Glencoe. William has made his mark in Ireland. The Scots are still at unrest, he turns to deal with the Scots.

So let's start to homing on these troublesome persons are holding him back. How does he dive into that? What's his focus there? Well, he largely works through intermediaries. And the story of Glencoe is a story of the struggle between two of those intermediaries. Dalrymple, who is the Joint Secretary of State for Scotland. And a Scot. And a Scot.

Becomes the Earl of Star. Indeed so. And Bradalban, the Earl of Bradalban, who is another Scott. And Bradalban agrees with the remaining Jacobite leaders, or most nearly all of them, to come into the King's Peace in the summer of 1691 before Limerick in return for large sums of money. It's about 12,000 sterling, is the total. In those days, is it possible to translate it? It's possible to translate it, and it's probably about 1.5 million,

the purchasing power is much greater because of the cost of labour. That's the overall inflationary aspect, but he would effectively be more than that. But two things happen. One, there's a delay for Berdalen goes down south to get the money. There's a delay in getting the money.

And Bradalban's opponents in Scotland offer the Jacobite leaders more. And the Jacobite leaders, therefore, don't submit because they're holding out for more. But the trick is, they're offering them more in order to actually ensure that they don't come into the king's peace and to destroy them.

So we're looking at bribery and we're looking at these Jacobites in the Highland. The clans are playing for advantage. Are they just playing for advantage, Kaya, or they are playing for advantage and they're also committed to the idea of overthrowing William and Mary and bringing James the second back to the throne? Yes. I think it's important to recognize that the failure of the pacification reflects the conflict within this actual revolution government at the time as well as issues with the clans. So they've tried to go to pacify the Highland's alliances. So Dalryple and Bradalban have...

You just sort of torture, I don't like interpreting. I would like people know a little more about Sir John Dalrymple. Yes, Sir John Dalrymple had been Lord Advocate under James I in Scotland. and he supported the revolution, went down to London, very much impressed himself on William, and William appoints him as Lord Advocate again. And I mentioned that there was this Presbyterian revolution in Scotland,

and so the Revolution government is split between Presbyterians and more moderate Episcopalians who accept the revolution. And Dalrymple is on this more Episcopalian side. And the Presbyterians are appalled that he is in office under this revolution regime. And he's very anti-Harlander. Why is he so anti-Hilander?

Well, having been Lord Advocate for a number of years, he's been dealing with some of the justice issues coming out of the Highlands. But he shares a very general prejudice in the lowlands towards the Highlanders are considered uncivilised barbarians and that in general severe measures are needed to deal with them. It's a very negative attitude that he and many others hold towards the Highlands. Daniel, so the Episcopalians, they're given in a sense royal authority through Dalrymple, who his influence on or his closeness

to William. But the authorities to make peace with the Highlands, as Murray said, which failed. Can you develop that a little? Well, the peace... The pacification, the pacification.

It does sort of fail, but it also kind of succeeds in the sense that there is a kind of settling down. The level of violence diminishes. There is a a will to end it on the part of both the government and of the Highlanders.

There are manufactured incidents which arise out of the context of Scottish politics, which Karen just referred to. And there are some lawless groups on the fringes of the Highland War who have essentially used the war as simply as an excuse to raid and they continue to raid. So though there are incidents, one might say, the pacification does have more depth than at first sight, one might think. So, Ari, just to come back to what you were saying earlier for a moment,

Are we sitting in London and in Edinburgh are we? It's William sitting in London with Dalrymple there, Nalrymple sometimes in Edinburgh, saying, what am I to do with these troublesome people? They won't sign anything, they won't come to agreements. We can't trust them. Is the irritation growing? After Limerick, it most certainly intensifies.

And at that stage, James, who's still thinking that he can launch a landing on the west coast of Scotland, hasn't given authority to the Jacobite leadership to submit. and that authority comes very late in the year. So he's got to give, it's quite important to get all this sorted out. Sorry, it's perniquity, but that's what history is sometimes. Not as penicator as you really are, but still, we'll do our best.

The Jacobites want to get the permission of James to submit to the deal being offered by William. And he takes a long time about it, and then when he tries to get it to him, it's late and so forth. So there's that factor as well. He's there. We keep forgetting him. He's there hovering around, a threat.

Yes, he is. To be fair, I think that James doesn't delay that long. He, and he has a good reason. The reason is the evacuation of the Jacobite Irish Army. He's thinking that if it's in good fettle, he can just briefly land it in France, really upload it on ships and take it to the west of Scotland. Take it to the west of Scotland, exactly.

Yeah, there's another. delay that helps to sink the specification, which is more unfortunate for Glencoe eventually. And that's that Bedalban makes this deal on very generous terms. And then he heads down to London to get James' approval to make it happen, sorry, William's approval, to make

it happen, to release the 12,000 pounds and do the deal. And of course, William is away in Flanders on campaign, and so he decides to sail to Flanders to speak to him in person. And four days after he sails, permission from William arrives by letter to London. But

he's already gone, and he doesn't come back until September. And it's in that time from July to September that the pacification begins to fall apart. Because the Presbyterian rivals to Dalrymple try to undo it. They don't want him to get credit for the pacification of the Highlands. And they don't trust him. They think he and all his group are crypto-Jacobites anyway, and they don't think it's a real deal. They dangle alternative terms in front of the chiefs. And the chiefs begin to lose faith in this deal and to step away from it.

But then an ultimatum comes. We're talking about 1891 as an ultimatum, Murray. And the thing is signed by the end of the year. First January 1692, sign. Or we will come and get you. Yes. Or an example will be made. But the thing about the Glencoe McDonald's, of course,

is that they sign late, but they attempt to sign within the deadline because they attempt to get the, governor of Fort William, Colonel Hill, to take the signature on the 31st of December, at which stage he's not empowered to do. He's empowered to take submissions by two weeks later, but he's not empowered at that point.

So then they go in a chase round to get Campbell of Arkanglass to sign it at Inverrera, and in the end, it comes late to the council in Edinburgh. But it's very important to note that at that stage, quite a lot of other leaders haven't submitted. Glengare hasn't effectively submitted. Clan Ranald McDonald's haven't effectively submitted, the McLean haven't effectively submitted,

and their people are negotiating with the McLean's about what they'll take to submit at the same time as the Glencoe McDonald's are being massacred under trust. So we're not talking about any consistent policy. We're talking about isolating a particular group who are small and relatively vulnerable and dealing with them in exemplary fashion. Well, let's come to that now,

but let's just mention the number of missed opportunities because people were in the wrong sort of place and it took, in one case, two months to get there, and he'd need them gone there because the letter had come. In one case, going snowbound journeys from one Scottish Highland town to another Scottish Highland town, taking far away. It's full of that sort of thing.

Now let's get to the McDonald's in Glencoe. There's two lots. There's the Glencoe and there's Langari. The Glencarry, Gangari? Glengari and Capoe. They're very powerful. They've got a castle. They've got a lot of men.

They can put how many men? have several hundred mentors. They're powerful people. Those in Glencoe aren't very powerful, aren't trusted, are relatively poor, and they become the target. Now, Daniel, why do you think they were the target because of the fact that they were poor

and because of the obvious fact that they were poor? Well, I think they're the target for two, one might say, practical reasons. One is that they had not been very good vassals of the Duke of Argyle, future Duke of Argyle, for some considerable time. They had been, as they say, consumacious vassals. And the other is that Fort William is close by Glencoe.

So a raid out of Fort William with part of the garrison was extremely feasible. Was it one of those, just to teach people a lesson by doing this with one lot? Was that the idea behind it? if there was an idea behind it? It was. I have to say from Fort William also, they could have attacked Camel of Lockheel easily.

I think that the Glencoe McDonald's are marginal. Because they're poor, they're at the edge of the highlands, and they have a lot of living by cattle raiding. They have a lawless reputation. They're small, they're vulnerable, they're isolated, and critically also, Glenn Coe can be sealed at both ends.

It's difficult to cross over the mountain passes at the top, and the idea was to massacre at them in the gang and plug the gaps everywhere so there was no way out and to destroy them all. Not just to kill the men, but to destroy everybody. And that's how the order has transmuted itself by the beginning. Because in some of the notes I've read

it says every man under 17. In some it says everybody under 17. There's an important story here about the making of an atrocity. So which was it? Man or everybody? The military instructions say to cut off the men. And they are military instructions aimed at combatants, at intransigent

rebels. And it's meant to, originally attack the men. But there's a whole story of how it turns into an atrocity. First, Dalrymple writes covering letters which target Glencoe and he says it would be good to wipe out this clan. And so he's already starting to push those instructions in the different direction. As he uses the word extirpate. And so we're starting to move towards a massacre. And then it's crucial how it moves through the chain of command in Scotland. It goes to the head of the army in Scotland and he does not resist these orders. He agrees this is Livingston. This is Livingstone. Sir Thomas Livingston, Commander-in-Chief,

and he agrees that severe measures are necessary with the Highlanders. Goes on to Fort William to Colonel Hill. He doesn't like the orders at all, but he's concerned about his job and he's prepared to obey. Goes to Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, who actually creates the plan for the attack. Which is to billet them. Yes, and this is his...

Because they can do that, because they haven't paid their taxes, so they can pay tax by putting up soldiers and feeding them and looking out to them. Yes, you're quarter soldiers. Order soldiers, yes. And so he comes up with that idea, and this is where it's really becoming an atrocity, because it's quartered soldiers who are then going to attack without provocation.

And then it comes down to Campbell of Glenn Line. He gets his orders at the last minute. He chooses to obey. And it's not until you get to the very bottom of the chain to some junior officers who choose to resist the orders and who stand aside. Two out of the four or five officers resist, they're carted away, but they're exonerated, aren't they?

They were. Sorry, Daniel. Yes, sorry. ultimately exonerated by the commission. So let's say this chain of command is quite a long chain of command, very clearly described by you there, and it went down and down and down and down the line, not resisted anywhere.

We're talking about four or five Scottish soldiers from Dalrymple, Sir John Donal Ripple, right down to the man in Glencair itself. There is a certain amount of resistance. Not enough, though? No, not enough, not by any means. But Colonel Hill, the commander at Fort William, does procrastinate,

and it seems that he was trying to play for time that hoping that the order would be cancelled, presumably. So why do they feel driven through by it? And you said he'll procrastinates, let's assume the others had some had misgivings. Never mind. What was the force that drove it through man after man after man, and then these orders which he opened the day before,

when he said, it said, five o'clock tomorrow morning, kill everybody. It's the socialisation of obeying orders and the fact, I think, that Hill was aging and ineffective, that Hamilton was ambitious, far more effective, and Hamilton had absolutely no scruples. Hamilton's the effective, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, second in command at Fort William, is the effective man in charge, and he wants the deed done in the most savage and complete way possible. But I would say to take it back up the chain, not to make it an officer's atrocity, that King William signs the orders which say extirpate. He signs Dalrymple's orders on extirpation.

And McCauley, of course, and William's been defended ever since from deferred to McCauley. McCauley says he didn't know, you know, extrapart wasn't to be taken literally. It was a metaphor. But, you know, William knows fine well what it is. So we're ready, when we come to the orders at the top, we are talking not just about letters of fire and sword, about putting men to the sword. We are talking about getting rid of the clod. But the argument there, as I understand it, there is an argument, Daniel, you put me right, please,

that he was thinking about this in combat, not in being billeted and then turning in cold blood on your hosts. No, I don't think William was thinking about combat at all. And I would see this as in many ways a structural event in that the career officers of Argyle's regiment of foot, who were in Fort William billeted in Glencoe and moving in on the McDonald's of Glencoe, many of them literally saw their futures as being on the line, that if they did this and did this well, they would please King William and assure their future career prospect.

It's very striking that the letter to Green William, in Lyon, telling him to do them to begin at 5 o'clock the next day, warns him that he is bound to do it on his honour and if he wishes to attend to his career. It's pretty clear.

Murray Piddock, the massacre occurs. There seems to be, there had been quite, they were not unused to massacres. There had been other massacres, the one in the islands and so on, not the highlands, the islands and so on. But after a very, After comparatively short time, it assumes a unique position, and there's an inquiry set up, which is in one way.

It's rather admirable that they set up an inquiry that quickly. So given the violence of the time, and given the violence, especially in the highlands and the islands, what gave it the... What characteristic did it have that made it stand out as a particular event, particular savage event? Well, I think to this day, The commission of genocidal activities on the back of enjoying several days' hospitality

from the people you're about to murder is extremely unusual. But it had particular resonance in the Scottish culture of the day because of the traditions of hospitality, which are deeply ingrained in highland culture. And I think also, Canon, there are other levels to the extent of the level to which it was an atrocity which would do with the relationship that the quartering soldiers actually expected in the glen on the back of the of their paying of taxes.

Yes, it's partly this cultural concept of hospitality, but it's also, because they quartered soldiers for the payment of tax, they were treating the McDonald's as citizens. And then to turn around and attack them as rebels is a betrayal of the trust that a citizen should be able to place in their state. So that's why this great phrase,

murder under trust. Yes, so it's trust at all different levels. There's the notion of hospitality, but there's also the trust that a citizen should be able to place in the state. their security with their state. Can I reinforce what Karen and Murray have just said, particularly

because those troops had been there for over two weeks. Cracky, I didn't know that. They had been there for some time living alongside the McDonald's. Playing cards. Playing cards. Drinking with them.

Doing as much hunting as could be done at that time of year. And so on. I mean, it made it particularly pernicious and evil. The inquiry set up they want to find who's responsible and to blame someone.

Why, Karen, I suppose why was Dalrymple not, as it were, quite soon held to be the most responsible person or even William? Because it didn't go there, did it? Yes. What's interesting about this is that people need to become aware of the massacre first, and so we get publications about the massacre, and people start

to talk about it in Scotland. And there's... Publications first in France, weren't they? Yes, so we get the Jacobite report. The Jacobite reports in France. Yes, the Paris Gazette. And then we get a Scottish pamphlet at the end of 1692,

an English pamphlet, early 1693. And people are finally starting to talk about this. And so it comes up to the Scottish Parliament of 1693. And there is strong opposition to William in this Parliament, and one of the things they do is demand an inquiry. And it's because they're outraged at what has happened, but there's also political hate to be made. They want to attack Dalrymple in particular.

So these are the Presbyterians trying to get this Episcopalian minister out of William's government. But William is very happy with Dalrymple. And he feels that his initial instructions were acceptable within the rules of war and that although they may have been interpreted badly, he's going to stand by Dalrymple. So there is this inquiry, but Dalrymple survives the inquiry. In terms of the greater plan, Daniel, the greater plan, of William to get forces from there on his side

and to stop them bleeding his forces dry by having to send troops up to Scotland. How did that work out for him in his, let's call it, his greater plan? As far as William's greater plan is concerned, it works out just fine, except that he didn't need to do the massacre of Glain Co. The Highland Clans had had enough, and the McDonald's of Glencoe

were within a day's march of Fort William. So as long as there was a garrison at Fort William, they were not going to be causing any more trouble. So it was all completely unnecessary. He could have withdrawn the troops without doing the massacre. Was it revealing Murray of a great political miscalculation early on? People think this was a very stupid thing to do. I think that there was huge avulsion.

There was a bad thing, yeah. There was huge avulsion of the atrocity. And I think one of the interesting things about the inquiry into the atrocity is that is that how seldom inquiries find those who are actually culpable and how seldom culpability is made to stick

and of course without suggesting their references elsewhere I think we might have seen inquiries since that might form that kind of basis of interpretation but it is the situation is fundamentally that it's regarded as an atrocity, it's one of the

Jacobite issues of complaint but it is not a dominant theme really until the 19th century. It's the romanticisation of Glenn Coe in the 19th and 20th centuries that makes it a huge part of the story. It's just a part of the story until then

and a reason for discontent in the 1690s and a lasting source of resentment. Before we get the 90th century in a couple of minutes, just let's pause at 1707, the union. Did Glenn Coe play a part, do you think, in the union between England and Scotland in 1790s? in terms of short-term significance. William faces this opposition from his 1693 parliament again in

1695 there's a second inquiry and he's appalled at what these parliaments do. The 95 parliament demands to see the inquiry report before it even goes to William. He considers that an affront. And so this difficulty he has with his parliaments is part of much broader difficulties he has for the entire decade. And by 1700, William has concluded that he would be better. off without a Scottish Parliament. And it becomes his settled policy. Partly because of the irritation of Glencoe. Yes, partly because of the parliamentary difficulties after Glencoe.

And then there's all sorts of other difficulties that he has as well. He concludes to get rid of the Scottish Parliament. He recommends to the English House of Lords in 1700 that they should consider a closer union. And who pops up Dalrymple as the Earl of Starr making spectacularly effective speeches? Yes, in 1706, when the Treaty of Union comes forward, Anne has continued this policy. She's also committed to a union.

very complicated story of how the union happens, but this is a key thread through it that the monarch wants it and secures it and Stair argues for it. Can we turn to what Murray referred to, Daniel, and the romanticisation of the massacre in the 19th century and how that played into the idea of Scottish history,

as it were almost Dalrymple, Redal Bay and all those people were whitewain. It became the English, dreadful English, Gainko had done this terrible thing. Right, 19th century. The 19th century is the origin, in effect, of the Highland Heritage myth that I've encountered most spectacularly

in the United States, where the retelling of the story of Glencoe and the singing of very sad songs about it is a regular part of the Highland Games Millier they have taken the kind of sense of victimhood which is developed

in the 19th century to the very core of the Scottish exile identity that they are assuming in those circumstances So Glenn Coe has been part of the Scottish exile identity What about the identity at home

Murray? I think I think the identity at home is very similar. In 19th and 20th century, what happens is that Glenn Coe becomes, first of all, in the Romanticism, it's a sublime landscape. Sublime and savage, terrible things happen in terrible landscapes. This is the kind of the story of the Highlands and miniature, that it's a place of savagery and loyalty and high passion, because it's in a scenery of savagery and loyalty and high passion.

And then it becomes a kind of, in 19th century painting, it becomes a kind of forerunner of the clearances, that Glencoe is a kind of Highland clearance before the Highland clearances happen. The destruction... Yeah, the burning. Well, mixed responsibility for the Highland clearances, I think. But certainly some Scots involved.

But the burning of the houses, the driving away of the livestock, all seems to be a kind of avatar, a forerner of the subtle and clearances from 1794. and Glenco becomes this iconic moment which defines the nature of Highland Experience and the future of Highland Experience and that's when it truly becomes important

when it becomes visualised as landscape painting and landscape appreciation. Karen, finally, it's extraordinary way these things do become, and they have a particular mythical power which can't be gained said, can it? That's right. I think this murder under trust

remains the core to this, that people think back to with horror. But there are other contemporary parallels. I mean, there is, what we have is a military exercise against rebels who are in a village setting. And this is something that comes up in modern warfare all the time. And the euphemism we use now is collateral damage. So there are still modern echoes, you know, of this event 300 years ago.

Well, thank you all very much. Thank you, Karen Bowie, Daniel Seych, and Marie Pittick. And next week we will be talking about. George Eliot's novel Silas Marna. Thanks very much for listening. If you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast, why not try others, such as Thinking Aloud, where Laurie Taylor discusses the latest social science research. To find out more, visit BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio 4.