Latest / The Story of Scotland: Clans, Crowns, and the Fight for Identity — Fexingo History / The Glen Coe Massacre: Campbell vs MacDonald Betrayal
Transcript
- Lucas: Today we're looking at a single event that's come to symbolise treachery in Highland history — the Glen Coe Massacre. February 1692, thirty-eight MacDonalds killed by men they'd hosted, under orders from the government. But the story's more tangled than just clan vengeance. Luna: I've heard it described as 'murder under trust' — is that the legal term? Lucas: Exactly. That phrase carries enormous weight in Scots law — hospitality was sacred, and violating it was a uniquely heinous crime. But to understand why it happened, you need the political context. Scotland in 1688 had just gone through the Glorious Revolution — the Catholic James VII was deposed, and the Protestant William of Orange took the throne. Most Lowlanders accepted the change, but the Highlands were heavily Jacobite — loyal to James. William needed their allegiance to secure Scotland. Luna: So he demanded an oath of loyalty from the clan chiefs? Lucas: Yes, by a specific deadline: January 1st, 1692. All chiefs had to swear an oath before a magistrate. If they missed it, they'd face 'fire and sword' — brutal military reprisals. Now, the chief of the Glen Coe MacDonalds was Alasdair MacIain — an old man in his seventies, a known Jacobite. He set out for Fort William to swear the oath, but he arrived a few days late. Luna: He missed the deadline? Lucas: He did. But that's partly because the government had deliberately delayed communicating the deadline. MacIain then rode to Inveraray to swear before the sheriff there, but that sheriff was a Campbell — the archrivals of the MacDonalds. MacIain finally took the oath on January 6th, five days late. The sheriff recorded it, but the paperwork was delivered late to Edinburgh. Luna: So technically he complied, but the authorities had a loophole. Lucas: They seized it. Secretary of State for Scotland, John Dalrymple, saw an opportunity. Dalrymple was a Lowlander, a hardline Presbyterian, and he despised the Jacobite clans. He drafted orders to 'extirpate' — wipe out — the MacDonalds of Glen Coe. The orders went to Sir John Livingstone, the military commander at Fort William, who delegated the actual operation to a Campbell — Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon. Luna: Campbell of Glenlyon — so he was a local Campbell, and he knew the MacDonalds? Lucas: He did. He was actually related to some of them by marriage. His soldiers — about 120 men from the Earl of Argyll's regiment — arrived in Glen Coe on February 1st, claiming they were billeted there because of overcrowding at Fort William. The MacDonalds welcomed them, as Highland custom demanded. For almost two weeks, the soldiers were fed, housed, and treated as guests. They played cards with their hosts, shared meals. Luna: And then they turned on them in the middle of the night. Lucas: Early morning of February 13th. The snow was thick. At around five a.m., Campbell's men began the killing. MacIain was shot in his bed — his wife was stripped and thrown out into the cold. All over the glen, houses were set alight, and men, women, children were shot or burned. In the chaos, about thirty-eight died directly, but many more — perhaps dozens — fled into the blizzard and perished from exposure. Luna: What happened to the survivors? Lucas: Some escaped into the mountains, and some were hidden by other clans. But the massacre didn't achieve its goal of wiping out the MacDonalds. Instead, it became a rallying cry. The Jacobites used it to recruit — if you can't trust the government's word, why support them? The official inquiry later blamed Dalrymple and Livingstone, but neither was punished severely. Dalrymple lost his office briefly but regained favour. Luna: So it was effectively official policy, and the scapegoats were minor figures? Lucas: Pretty much. King William signed off on the orders, though he claimed later he hadn't known the details. The massacre hardened the divide between Highland and Lowland, and between Campbell and MacDonald, for centuries. In popular memory, it's remembered as a Campbell atrocity, but it's worth noting that not all Campbell's soldiers were Campbells — some were Lowlanders. Still, the clan label stuck. Luna: You mentioned the phrase 'murder under trust'. Was anyone actually punished for that crime? Lucas: No, not a single soldier or officer was executed for the massacre. The inquiry did recommend that some be tried, but it never happened. The government preferred to let it fade. But the memory didn't fade — it's embedded in Scottish folklore, in poems, in place names. The glen itself became a site of pilgrimage for Jacobites. And the phrase 'murder under trust' entered the legal lexicon as the worst kind of homicide. Luna: Do we know how many people actually died? There are different numbers. Lucas: Official reports say 38, but that's likely an undercount. Many who fled into the snow were never found. Some estimates put the total death toll around 80. And the psychological impact was even larger — the entire glen was depopulated for years. It was intended as a terror tactic, to show other Jacobite clans what would happen if they resisted. Luna: And it worked, in a way — it broke the back of Jacobite resistance for a generation. Lucas: It did, but it also created martyrs. The Jacobite rising of 1715 drew heavily on the memory of Glen Coe. And even after the final defeat at Culloden in 1746, the massacre was cited as proof that the British government couldn't be trusted. It's one of those events that changes how a people see the state. Lucas: Speaking of trust — and I know this is a bit of a shift — this show exists because of a small group of listeners who chip in through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. That's what keeps us ad-free and allows us to spend weeks researching a single episode. It's a quiet way of saying this work matters to you. Luna: It's true. We don't have a big studio or ads, just people who care about history and want it told properly. Lucas: And that support directly funds the deep dives — like tracing the exact route MacIain took to Inveraray, or reading Dalrymple's actual letters. So, thank you to those who do. Luna: Back to the glen — what happened to the Campbell soldiers afterwards? Did they feel any guilt? Lucas: Some may have. Captain Campbell reportedly drank heavily afterwards and died within a few years. But there's no record of remorse. For the Campbells as a clan, the massacre became a stain they've tried to live down ever since. In Glen Coe today, there's a memorial to the MacDonalds, erected in the 19th century. It doesn't mention the Campbells by name — just says 'murdered under trust'. Luna: That's a powerful epitaph. And it keeps the story alive. Lucas: It does. History isn't just dates and battles — it's about how people remember, and what they choose to forget. Glen Coe is a place where memory is carved into the landscape.