SUCCESS, THEY SAY, is its own justification – a cynical dictum that was certainly most true in the misgoverned and war-torn Scotland of 1691. Young Rob Roy MacGregor’s first and highly individual demonstration of leadership and cattle-thievery in a big way, came to be accepted more or less as a model and exemplar for all time to come. It went down in history as the Herriship (or harrying) of Kippen, in which parish Buchlyvie lies, and was a success by almost any standard save perhaps that of the vexed and difficult question of ethics. Fortunately, that night after the cattle-lifting at Buchlyvie, a brief and accidental encounter with a small picket of suspicious dragoons returning to Cardross at the far side of the Moss, had resulted in nothing more than a headache to add to Rob’s sore throat – although, had he not habitually worn a steel plate within his bonnet be would likely have been cut down to the very shoulders by a heavy cavalry sabre, the wielder of which was promptly shot by Macanleister, thus rather spoiling the bloodless record of an otherwise admirably conducted enterprise. But since this disappointing incident took place in fairly thick darkness, the cattle-herders were not identifiable as MacGregors, and no harm was done; the fact that the six remaining troopers bolted post-haste at the fall of their impetuous colleague, probably helped to ensure that no major enquiries were instituted thereafter into the wounding of the corporal in charge. At any rate, the MacGregors heard no more of it.
The cattle all arrived safely and in good order at Glen Gyle, remote amongst its inaccessible mountains between Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, and proved to be a credit to the Lord Linlithgow’s judgement: fine, well-conditioned beasts that in due course would fetch maximum prices at Falkirk sales, 225 of them, with not a really poor one in the lot. Fed and fattened for three weeks on MacGregor oats, some shaggy coats clipped, some heads dehorned, and all branded with the authentic Glengyle mark, they produced not only sufficient to pay the government’s iniquitous charges for entertaining the Laird of Glengyle for two years, but something over – and moreover no single inquiry into their legal ownership, whatever doubts may have been harboured by the chronically suspicious. The Earl of Linlithgow’s protests to the Secretary of State produced only polite commiserations and regrets; after all, if the noble Lord could not look after his own livestock, His Majesty’s Government could hardly be expected to take on the task.
Cattle-stealing – although of course it was seldom called that, the term ‘lifting’ or ‘reiving’ being preferred by all but the late owners – was a major preoccupation in 17th-century Scotland, as indeed it had been for time out of mind. To appropriate someone else’s cows was altogether a different matter from, for instance, filching his watch or his money. It was accepted as coming approximately under a category similar to wife-stealing – a personal issue between gentlemen, where final judgments were best deferred. It was an activity, like the other, about which songs, ballads and poems had always been made. Cattle were the sort of commodity that feeble folk who could not hold should not own. The entire clan system of the Highlands was based on the rearing of cattle on the hills, sheep being a very minor consideration, and each clan almost as a matter of duty took its neighbours’ cattle when it could. Highlanders looked on Lowlanders’ beasts as fairer game still; and Lowlanders, especially Borderers, seldom missed a moonlit night to raid the farms of Northumberland and Cumberland – or the next dale over the hill if time was short.
When the Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland, Lord Aberuchill, head of the Scottish judiciary and a Campbell to boot, was prepared to pay regular blackmail, as it was called, to the Glengyle Highland Watch to protect his herds, no serious opprobrium could be attached to young Rob Roy MacGregor’s name for his methods of raising a wronged father’s ransom – especially when he had achieved it with such flair.
History does not record his elder brother’s reaction. No doubt John MacGregor, Younger of Glengyle, read Rob a lecture on the dangers of too precipitate private enterprise, where failure might have meant disaster for more than the headstrong adventurer and possible disbandment of the Watch. But, in the circumstances, that would be as far as it could go especially as Rob’s reputation and popularity with the clan soared as a consequence.
On the 1st of October 1691 the Privy Council of Scotland gave orders for the release of Lieutenant-Colonel Donald MacGregor, only demanding that he swear first the required oath of allegiance to Dutch King William. Every Highland chief must swear this before New Year’s Day anyway, on pain of treason, they insisted. But what was an oath given under duress, and in English, when there was an added rider in good Gaelic, pledging faith instead to the House of Stewart. The Stewarts, that ancient royal house, whose name derived from their former office of High Stewards of Scotland, a name which Mary Queen of Scots had written ‘Stuart’ merely because she was brought up in France where the letter W did not exist, but which all good Scots continued to spell in proper fashion. Donald MacGregor of Glengyle, the wreck of his former commanding self but still a proud eagle of a man, came home to his own clan and territory at last, amid great rejoicings. And Rob, his youngest son, the apple of his eye, who had made it possible, was the hero of all the glens.
Joy was something of a scarce commodity in the Highlands that winter. The swearing of the oath of allegiance proceeded amongst the glens, and proud chiefs and their clansfolk did not relish the indignity imposed upon them. But instructions from exiled King James advised compliance meantime, and the reprisals after the late fruitless Rising were too recent to be forgotten. Only one chief failed to make his oath in time: old MacIan of the Glencoe MacDonalds, boasting that he would be the last to make it, was held up by snow on his journey to Inveraray, and arrived there three days after the appointed 1st of January 1692. His delayed oath did not appease the government, although it appeared to do so at the time. A few weeks later 120 soldiers, led by Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, arrived at Glencoe and billeted themselves on the MacDonalds, living with their involuntary hosts for a fortnight in perfectly friendly fashion. Then, one February morning of snow and gale, the blow fell. McIan was shot dead as he was getting out of bed, his wife immediately thereafter meeting the same fate. Thirty-eight MacDonalds were slain in cold blood that grim morning by their government guests, from children in arms to old men of 80. Only the darkness and blizzard enabled some to escape to tell the tale. Scotland stood appalled, the Highlands especially. And none more so than the Glengyle MacGregors, who knew well that they were far from beloved of Dutch William’s government and, worst of all, who could not deny that Campbell of Glenlyon, whose name would be execrated for ever more, even though he acted under superiors’ orders, was Glengyle’s own brother-inlaw, Rob Roy’s mother’s brother.
Old Glengyle was already an ailing man when he heard the news. MacIan had been an old friend and companion-in-arms of his. Those years cooped up in a cell had been too much for him. He knew that he would not last long now, and desired to demonstrate his affection and gratitude towards his youngest son in some tangible. form. But he had little but his lands to leave, and the clan’s needs demanded that these pass to his eldest son, the new chieftain. Something had to be done for Rob, however, and his father did the best that he could. A month or two later, to celebrate the young man’s 21st birthday, he managed to settle him on a farm of his own.
This holding, unfortunately, could not be in the lairdship of Glen Gyle itself; for though extensive, running to perhaps 25,000 acres, nine-tenths of it was mountain, heather, woodland and bog, and the remaining precarious tenth of possible workable land in such glen-floors as were not covered by water, was already fully taken up by other relations of the chieftain – uncles, brothers, cousins and his two elder sons. Clan Alpine, the parent tribe of the great race of Gregor, once one of the largest and proudest in Scotland, was now largely landless, owing to a chronic failure to select the winning side in innumerable causes, and subsequent persecution by these more shrewd in their allegiances. Land hunger, therefore, was acute amongst the Gregorach, and this branch of the tribe, the Clan Dougal Ciar, the Sons of Brown Dougal, was almost the only group which had managed to cling to its paternal acres – largely, probably, because few envied them their steep barren fastnesses.
There was, however, a large glen lying parallel with Glen Gyle, a few miles northwards over the hills, called Balquhidder. This, after being fought over by various clans, had come into the hands of the Marquis of Atholl, head of the powerful family of Murray. It was occupied by members of many clans, a sort of republic amongst the little clan kingdoms – although there were more MacGregors and MacLarens than most of the others put together. Balquhidder in consequence, was a place of cheerful anarchy, of divided loyalties and considerable lawlessness, from which the marquis was apt to consider himself lucky to get any rents at all – undoubtedly the least prized of his vast domains. Here the failing Glengyle managed to lease a farm of sorts for young Rob Roy, at a rent which his chronically empty coffers could just afford.
Monachyle Tuarach was perhaps not much of a place even as Highland farms go. Its name means the narrows of the mount, facing north, which will tell its own story. There was, and still is, a small single-storey house with a garret in the roof, a square of steading containing byre, stable and barns, and some hundred steep grassy acres on the south side of the glen, which the sun is not apt to reach much after midday for most of the year. With the water-meadows between Lochs Doine and Voil filling all the valley floor, there was practically no arable land to grow winter feed for cattle – a circumstance which undoubtedly was largely responsible for the farm being vacant in the first place. It would not be every pastoralist’s idea of an earthly paradise.
Rob Roy, however, was well content. Of an independent frame of mind, he wanted to be on his own – for various reasons. Monachyle was only eight miles from Glen Gyle, with a handy little pass through the hills which he could traverse on a garron, a sure-footed Highland pony, in an hour. So he could continue to engage in clan activities and play his part in the Watch.
It was, indeed, largely what Rob had learned in the Watch that made him well enough pleased with his new farm. Rob had a nimble mind for more than banditry and Latin tags – moreover, he was of an impatient temperament. Observing, considering, and putting two and two together, he had perhaps not unnaturally come to the conclusion that the slow, painstaking business of growing crops and breeding cattle was not for such as himself. Cattle dealing was the thing – trading, buying and selling, droving. That was where profits were to be made – especially for a MacGregor, who could be reasonably sure that his own and his clients’ cattle would not suffer interference, at home or on the road. Moreover, if other beasts, less conventionally acquired, came his way, they would be the more conveniently dealt with by an established dealer. Monachyle, with its upland pastures and water-meadows, would serve adequately as a base, to assemble and feed up his purchases, to rest his droves, to provide a safe headquarters for a man of initiative – for no constables, sheriff officers or other minions of authority, less than a full squadron of cavalry, would dare to penetrate so far into unruly Balquhidder.
At the May term, then, of 1692, Rob Roy, Macanleister and one or two carefully selected choice spirits, settled in at the little farmery under the hill. Neighbours, even Balquhidder neighbours, tended to look thoughtful, and counted their livestock with more than usual care. Without capital, of course, Rob had to start business in a modest way. It was sensible, also, to restrict himself to fairly orthodox trading at first. Sheep were cheaper to buy and sell than cattle; therefore, as far as dealing went, he tended to concentrate on sheep to begin with. The redheaded, pleasant-faced if curiously-built young Highland man, with his tough-looking companions, became a well-known figure at sheep sales and markets from Inverness to Glasgow, and as far south as Galloway and the Borderland. None found occasion to distrust him; his word was his bond; he never claimed that clients’ beasts had died on the way – a favourite assertion of drovers; he delivered the goods; and none lost their stock while it was in Sheep Robbie’s care.
This was a nickname dubbed on him by some Lowland wit – although it was not one which many men would dare use to the bearer’s face. Rob, like most other Highlanders, was punctilious about modes of address. He gave others their proper designation, and expected the same courtesy for himself. If men could not call him Mr MacGregor, they could say Robert Ruadh or Rob Roy; but MacGregor itself, alone and unadorned, was not admissible since it implied the chiefship of all the MacGregors; and anything like Sheep Robbie was not to be endured for a moment.
Highland susceptibilities and pride are matters which Lowland Scots and Englishmen still have to take into consideration. Few Highlanders fail to consider themselves gentlemen, whatever their financial background, the ownership of mere money being but little esteemed north of the Highland line. Rob, as son of a chieftain of a sept or branch clan, expected a decent respect.
He had his own way of emphasising this. That the offender might hold high position did not affect the issue. For example, it is told how even his own landlord was not immune from education in this matter. The Marquis of Atholl was old, and his great estates were now under the management of his eldest son, the Lord Murray – who, as it happened, was also Secretary of State for Scotland, the government’s principal representative. Despite all this, however, Murray was unwise enough not only to refuse to pay protection money to the Glengyle Highland Watch – which, after all, the government had set up – but to make disparaging remarks about MacGregor honesty. One night, a flock of 350 prime sheep disappeared without trace from Atholl property in upper Glen Almond, near Crieff – and nobody would hazard a guess as to where they might have gone.
Not until next market-day at Crieff, that is.
Lord Murray was there in person, and complained bitterly of his loss to John Menzies of Shian, one of Atholl’s largest tenants.
Perhaps Shian had had a drink or two, after a successful sale, for he was imprudent enough to comment in a voice loud enough to be heard by others, at the market-cross of Crieff. ‘Och, my lord – you have but yourself to blame, I’m thinking’ he said. ‘Our friend Sheep Robbie would likely ken the whereabouts of your wethers – if indeed he had not his own hand at them, whatever!’
Menzies of Shian was not long in ruing that remark. Rob’s intelligence system was very good, and he heard of it all quickly.
‘Sheep Robbie, am I, to Shian?’ he cried, when informed of it. ‘As Royal’s my Race, it will be Cattle Robbie he’ll be calling me next!’
And that very night, Shian’s entire herd of cattle vanished from their pastures in Glen Quaich, 10 miles north of Crieff. No-one ever traced the thieves or the beasts – although there was no lack of people to venture an opinion. But they tended to do it in a whisper.
Rob Roy was beginning to develop his own moral code, nevertheless, however peculiar. He had a soft heart for those in adversity, in need, or suffering under persecution. His was an essentially practical mind, and his sympathy took practical form. What are nowadays called the under-privileged, in the area in which he operated – old people, the infirm, widows and orphans and the like – began to bless his name. Flanks of mutton, haunches of venison or beef, or a bag of meat in hard times or at New Year, usually delivered anonymously at night; a couple of lambs to replace casualties in a tiny flock; a new cow when the old one had gone dry – these were the sort of gestures which Rob Roy liked to make towards the unfortunate. Some may say that perhaps it was done to soothe his conscience; but the probability is that, as far as cattle-lifting and the like was concerned, his conscience troubled him not one whit.
Busy as he was with his farming and dealing and droving, his lieutenancy of the Watch and his clan activities, Rob still found time for one other preoccupation – courting. He had long had an admiration for the other sex, and especially for a dark-eyed and dark-haired far-out cousin of his own, Mary MacGregor of Comar. Now, with an establishment of his own to run, and a growing business bringing him financial independence, like other young men before and after, he recognised the need for a wife rather than mere pleasant dalliance. Macanleister and his other assistants were all very well, on the road or the hill; but of a long winter evening, something more cosy was called for.
There has been much nonsense talked and written about Rob Roy’s romance. Strangely enough, this is mainly Sir Walter Scott’s fault. He was one of the finest storytellers of all time and a man who did an enormous amount for both Scotland and the novel. But on the subject of Rob Roy MacGregor, he was by no means at his best. Which is a pity, for, because of his prestige, much that he wrote has been taken almost for gospel and much that he missed out has been hardly accepted as ever having happened. To a very large number of people his novel and play of Rob Roy are all that they know of ‘the Highland freebooter’, as Scott dubbed our hero – who was in fact so very much more than any freebooter. The novel deals only with a very brief period of Rob’s long and exciting career – and not by any means the most important part of it. Admittedly the notes to the novel do more justice to the man, and cover a longer period, but they are superficial in presentation – and how many people read them? The play made out of the novel is still better known, and here no notes really apply. The film and television interpretations of Rob Roy’s career, until the latest motion picture from United Artists, have all been based on Scott, and therefore only perpetuate and underline the inadequacy of it all. It is like interpreting Napoleon by recounting his behaviour in only one battle.
Scott’s picture of Rob’s wife is far from flattering – and he doesn’t even get her name right. He calls her Helen, whereas her true name was Mary. How he came to make this mistake about the name is not known – but the register of Buchanan parish, where the marriage banns were proclaimed, gives the true name of Mary, spelt in the form of Marie as often done in Scotland.
Scott made his Helen a woman of fierce and violent character. It is very doubtful if this was so. Strong in character almost certainly she was – no unusual attribute in Highland women. And her later sufferings were terrible enough to have permanently soured her temper. But though they may have done so for a while, they did not do so permanently. Despite this period in middle life when she seems to have been at odds with her rather overpowering husband, in the main she was a most faithful and loving wife, patient to a high degree. Rob remained devoted to her to the day of his death. He cannot always have been the easiest of husbands, either.
MacGregor of Comar, Mary’s father, was a second cousin of Glengyle’s, and occupied a remote and wild property tucked away under the east flank of Ben Lomond itself, 15 miles south of Balquhidder, inaccessible then as it is today – surely a most inconvenient place for courting, however suitably solitary. However, Mary seems to have spent much of her time at her uncle’s farm of Corryheichen on the southern shore of Loch Arklet, much nearer to Glen Gyle and a reasonable place to reach. Probably she realised all too clearly that no young men were likely to find their way very frequently to Comar. The little grey cottage under the hill, at the lochside, is still pointed out as the house from which Rob Roy carried off ‘Helen’ MacGregor; but it is not in the least likely that he had to do any carrying-off. They were married perfectly normally and respectably at Corryarklet, the township across the loch where another brother of her father was laird, at New Year 1693.
Monachyle Tuarach in Balquhidder now had a mistress, and no doubt became a more respectable place in consequence.
Soon after this, old Glengyle died. This had a great effect on Rob. Not only did he lose his admired and beloved father, but his whole life changed notably. His brother John now became chieftain of the Clan Dougal Ciar, and had neither the time nor the inclination to continue as Captain of the Glengyle Highland Watch. It is not known what became of the second son, Duncan; perhaps he was not strong, or not adventurously inclined. At any rate, he drops out of history. Rob Roy moved tip to take over the Watch.
Now he was in a position to make his presence felt on quite a wide swathe of Scotland.