Clan MacDonald · 1692
The Massacre of Glencoe
On a February morning in 1692, the king's men billeted in Glencoe under guest-right turned on their MacDonald hosts.
Draft entry · awaiting review
By order of William II, every Highland chief was to swear allegiance to the new crown by 1 January 1692. Alasdair MacIain, chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, set out in time but was sent the wrong way and arrived six days late at Inveraray. The oath was taken. Word of the lateness reached London, and the lateness was used.
A company of 120 government soldiers under Robert Campbell of Glenlyon — most of them not Campbells — was billeted on the glen. For nearly two weeks the soldiers ate and drank with their hosts under the unbreakable Highland code of guest-right. On the night of 12 February the order was passed.
Before dawn on 13 February the soldiers fell on the houses where they had slept. MacIain was shot in his bed. Roughly thirty-eight were killed in the glen; many more — women, children, elderly — fled half-dressed into a snowstorm and died of exposure on the slopes above. The killing was bad. The breach of guest-right was what made the name a byword for treachery.
The order had come from London, signed by Sir John Dalrymple, Master of Stair. A parliamentary inquiry the following year called it 'murder under trust' — but no one was punished.