DESPITE THESE TACTICAL successes, however, Rob Roy’s lot was nothing like so happy as before the fiasco of the French ‘invasion’. The same applied to all Jacobites – but Rob’s position, although he avoided arrest and direct political action, grew steadily more difficult. For this he had to blame two men, one high-placed, the other low.
James Graham, Lord President of the Council, former Marquis of Montrose and now made a duke by Queen Anne, was ambitious and determined to reach higher position yet. He owned most of the lands flanking the Craigrostan and Glengyle properties to the south, and was seeking to extend them. As has been mentioned, Rob, always in need of a patron in high places, had adopted this chief of the family of Graham when Atholl fell from power, and Montrose had invested money in Rob’s cattle-dealing business. Rob’s brother John, indeed, had taken the name of Graham when Rob took Campbell, so that Gregor’s legal surname was now Graham also. After the abortive rising of 1708, however, Montrose, who had sat skilfully on the fence, jumped down promptly on the Whig side, and was rewarded by being made Keeper of the Privy Seal. His attitude to Rob changed drastically. This would not have mattered so much had he not held the mortgage of Craigrostan and Inversnaid estates. Rob had of course spent a lot of money in arming and equipping the Glengyle Regiment, and business had necessarily been neglected during the long drawn-out preparations for the rising. Now he was distinctly short of ready cash. The duke, however, demanded his money back, and with interest.
Rob, with a struggle, might just have been able to manage this. But it was at this stage that he was badly let down by the second man. I would not say that it was impossible that Montrose might have had a hand in this too. The man was one of Rob’s own minions, not a clansman but one of his principal drovers, Duncan MacDonald by name, who seems to have managed the Monachyle Tuarach farm for Rob when he moved to Inversnaid. MacDonald was given the task of taking a special and extra large herd of Highland cattle south to the Lowland markets the following May. The country was in an unsettled state, but beef was in great demand. Rob spent every penny that he could raise and borrow on buying Highland beasts, to reap a great reward at the Lowland sales to pay off Montrose. Unfortunately he seems to have been prevented, for some reason, from supervising the droving and selling himself on this occasion why, is not reported. At any rate, MacDonald took charge in his place and after selling the beasts for good prices, quietly disappeared with the money, all of it.
Rob was now in a most serious position. By scraping together every penny, by using every method to raise money, legal and otherwise, he did manage to payoff the mortgage and free the estates. But now Montrose demanded back the money he had invested in the business venture also, plus interest. The fact that this was a mutual business proposition, and that the MacDonald theft was a business loss, made no difference to the duke. He was in it to share the profits, not the losses. He took out a court order against Rob to have his former partner declared bankrupt.
This was a much grimmer development than it sounds. It must be remembered that the entire clan of MacGregor was proscribed already, legally proscribed. Any infringement of the law, therefore, by one of its members could have the gravest consequences. No legal safeguards whatever could be counted upon.
A date was fixed for public trial at Glasgow, but Rob did not attend. He has been blamed for this, of course, by some historians, as an act of folly if not an admission of guilt. I believe neither to be true. It seems to me that those who assert it are shutting their eyes to the real situation in which Rob found himself, and looking on the matter from the snug and secure viewpoint of present-day legalities. Moreover, they perhaps overlook Montrose’s character. The fact that he sent Rob a personal letter on the eve of the trial date, urging a meeting in Glasgow, and adding the promise of a safe conduct, is surely significant. What Montrose wanted was almost certainly Rob’s Craigrostan estate, which projected rather into his own great domains. He was always intensely land-hungry, always seeking to add to his broad acres. In court Rob would have been faced with this choice: either the debtor’s prison, with all that it would mean to a proscribed MacGregor; or Craigrostan to be sold up, and of course taken over by Montrose, the principal creditor, as his own property. Rob undoubtedly valued his freedom above all else but he also looked on his lands, settled now by his MacGregor clansmen, as much clan property as his own, in typical Highland fashion. Rob’s pride was at stake in both respects. Instead of going to Glasgow, therefore, he went in the other direction – northwards, deeper into the inaccessible mountain wilds.
Now the gloves were off. An accused bankrupt had absconded. Rob was solemnly proclaimed an outlaw on October 3rd, 1712, and all Her Majesty’s officers and magistrates instructed to seize him and his goods.
It was one thing to proclaim, and another to carry out, of course. People had tried to catch Rob Roy before, with no great success. But now there was this difference: he left behind not just a small rented farm in Balquhidder but a large and fairly valuable estate.
He went not so very far away, to a holding which he had leased from Breadalbane near the head of Glen Dochart – now marked on the map as Rob Roy’s Castle – which is foolish, for it was never a castle and its true name was Corrycharmaig. It was a place useful to him for the assembly of droves of cattle from the Strathfillan, Glen Falloch and Glen Dochart areas of Breadalbane. As the crow flies, this was less than 20 miles north of Inversnaid – but over trackless mountains. Save with the help of Lord Breadalbane himself, it was practically impossible for the forces of either Montrose or the government to reach it and Rob, holding the famous Bond of Association and its story, had the means of keeping Breadalbane quiet. His person therefore was safe enough – although his business could no longer be carried on as before.
What happened then is one of those terrible incidents which stain Scotland’s history, however minor the scale. Rob has been blamed as well as pitied in this aspect of it. This time I feel that he did commit a grave error of judgement. He could not have been expected to foresee what actually happened – but surely he failed to take proper precautions for his wife and family; for he left them behind at Inversnaid when he removed himself to the north. Probably he did not believe that the government or Montrose would war on women and children. Possibly he felt that, surrounded by his clansfolk, they were safe at Inversnaid, even though he was not. At any rate, on this occasion he failed in a husband’s and father’s first duty, to protect his wife and family.
Montrose was now so powerful that his factor, or principal land agent, Graham of Killearn, was made Sheriff-Depute for the county – that is senior judge and law officer combined. Strictly, Killearn came to Inversnaid not as factor for Montrose, but as representing the law and the state. He brought with him many constables and bailiffs to declare Rob’s property of Craigrostan confiscated and to arrest his stock, belongings, and furnishings, as those of an outlaw. He did not dare to bring his posse through the MacGregors’ mountains, of course, but sailed up Loch Lomond, arriving at Inversnaid one wintery November evening. Darkness helped to hide his approach, as well as the shame of his actions.
This is no place to recount how savagely and inhumanly he and his men assaulted and abused the helpless Mary MacGregor, making cruel sport of her afterwards. She was driven half-crazed, half-naked, with her three children, out of the burning Inversnaid House. All that could not be conveniently carried away was tossed into the flames. Killearn and his men returned whence they had come.
Presumably Gregor, only five miles away at Glen Gyle, and Mary’s father and uncles only three miles off at Corryarklet, like the rest of Clan Dougal Ciar, heard nothing of the outrage until it was too late. At any rate, Killearn got clear away, in the name of the law. He was to pay dearly for his actions later on, however – as was Montrose himself. The government, indeed, was to regret that night’s work at Inversnaid.