IT TOOK A few months to tidy up the loose ends of the Rising of 1715 – especially since, to the astonishment of all, King James himself turned up at Peterhead, north of Aberdeen, the day before Christmas. What made him come from France at this stage, months too late, without bringing reinforcements, munitions or money, without even the Duke of Berwick, is not known. He may have thought that he was being courageous – but he could do nothing useful. Nor was he of the temperament to inspire enthusiasm amongst his dejected supporters who nicknamed him Mr Melancholy. Nevertheless, until he sailed away again at the beginning of February, with Mar, now created a duke for his services, the Rising could not be said to be officially over.
During that period of almost three months, Rob Roy, strangely enough, was perhaps the most active of any of the Jacobite commanders still in the field, more able and apparently willing, with his tight-knit, disciplined Gregorach, to tackle tasks the others were in no state nor mood to do which gives the lie to any suggestion that Mar or other leaders, including the king, looked on him as in any way having let the side down at Sheriffmuir. The stories to that effect grew up later, in the main. We read of him in various activities for the cause – levying ‘cess’, or extra tax, on unfortunate towns and villages for King James, making raids to indicate that the Jacobites were still a force to be reckoned with, and generally showing the flag up and down the country.
Two interesting incidents preserved for us in correspondence, however, reveal that in all this military campaigning, he had not forgotten his private war with Montrose and Killearn. We read that he was in Drymen with 100 men on December 7th, marching through Montrose’s estates of Buchanan, ‘proclaiming the Pretender’. And again, on December 16th, he was back in the same home area, to teach a lesson to Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Luss – who, it will be remembered, had joined the extraordinary boating expedition up to Inversnaid to beat drums and rival the thunder. It is not reported that Rob and his men did much damage on either of these two exploits; clearly he was only reminding his own home area that he was still a force to be reckoned with.
The most notable of Rob Roy’s activities during these last expiring months of the Rising, was the curious little campaign in Fife. Jacobite headquarters were still at Perth, and Argyll evidently did not feel strong enough to make any head-on attack there. But Fife represented the Jacobites’ weak left flank. Any move through Fife, of course, meant a sea-borne invasion across the Firth of Forth. Though a large area, Fife was fairly strongly Jacobite, and had been garrisoned by a mere 500 Atholl clansmen under young Lord George Murray, the Duke of Atholl’s son, later to be Bonnie Prince Charlie’s famous general. It so happened that hard winter weather, which put an end to all normal campaigning, coincided with the belated arrival from the Continent of no fewer than 6,000 government-hired mercenary troops, Brunswickers, Hessians, Prussians, and so on, the main reinforcements for which Argyll had been waiting in Stirling. These arrived in ships off the Fife coast early in January. Mar perceived that his time was now short. He had to move. But in order to allow King James and the Jacobites to move away northwards unmolested, he first sent Rob Roy and a few hundred Highlanders to reinforce Lord George in Fife.
For almost a month Fife was held, and Rob seems to have taken the most prominent part in the Jacobite activities – at least, his name keeps recurring in local histories, levying contributions at Falkland, foraging at Freuchie, and capturing and burning Balgonie Castle. The German mercenaries had been landed near Burntisland, and amongst other strong points they were garrisoning this castle a dozen miles away. Rob attacked it with flair and complete success, marching off from the burning tower with about 100 officers and men as prisoners.
However, all this, though inspiring, could only delay the inevitable ending. The dwindling Jacobite forces marched from Perth on January 30th to Dundee, then to Montrose and finally to Aberdeen. Both King James and Mar left them before that, sailing back to France, and on February 6th, 1716, the sad remnants of a once great army were ordered to disperse quietly to their homes as best they could.
It was all over. The chiefs were advised to make formal submission to the government as soon as possible. The government, not being very strong or happy about Scotland, could be expected to be reasonably lenient if this was done quickly, not wishing to provoke any unnecessary hostility in Scotland, with the Union still so unpopular.
That was all very well for most of the Jacobite lords, chiefs and leaders. But not for Rob Roy MacGregor. He was still a civil outlaw, still bankrupt and nominally in debt to Montrose. He could not submit himself, without suffering the direst penalties. Montrose had no more forgotten him than Rob – and now that the war was over and Argyll, the Commander-in-Chief, no longer so important, Montrose, the Secretary of State, was supreme ruler in Scotland for King George. Whilst general orders went out to act mildly towards the late misguided insurgents and to accept the chiefs’ submissions and so on, orders were also issued to apprehend and by all measures bring to book Robert Campbell, alias MacGregor, commonly called Rob Roy.
These orders had the result that the house which Rob had used as the home for his family during the campaign, at Auch near the head of Strathfillan, was burned down by a special force at the beginning of April, 1716. Although Rob was warned in time to get Mary and the children away, he does not seem to have been able to muster sufficient forces at short notice to prevent the large number of German mercenaries from wrecking the house and farm. Reports say, however, that he did manage to ambush the expedition, presumably afterwards, killing two or three and wounding about a dozen men. This was, it is believed, the last actual engagement of the 1715 Rising.
It was by no means the last of Rob’s warlike engagements, of course – but thereafter they could not be excused or described as Jacobite military moves. It was just Rob Roy the outlaw and freebooter again. A week after Auch was burned, he led a daring reprisal raid on Montrose’s lands in the Lennox, as far south as Duntreath, only a short distance from Killearn itself and less than a dozen miles from Glasgow. This was serving notice with a vengeance on Montrose that he still had Rob Roy to deal with. Moreover, it produced enough sheep and cattle to more than compensate for the losses at Auch.
Nevertheless, the situation was not the same as before the Rising. Now Gregor of Glengyle was being involved and all Clan Dougal Ciar. In government reprisals, Glengyle House itself was burned down, and no doubt the homes of many lesser MacGregors. It was one thing for Rob, the outlaw, to defy the authorities, but altogether another for Gregor and all the other settled members of the proscribed clan. Rob perceived that he could not go on using the MacGregor regiment for his own private feud without grievously harming those he cared for, and indeed the entire clan. But that did not mean that he was going to concede victory to Montrose. And he had not forgotten his personal account with Graham of Killearn. He made one of his sudden and typical changes of tactics. Urging Gregor to make the formal submission to the government to disband the regiment and to return to as peaceful a life as was possible, he himself collected a tough group of volunteers, the hard core of his own fierce Gregorach, veterans of the Watch, and marched them away north by west, to Inveraray of the Campbells, the capital of the Duke of Argyll. When Montrose and Killearn heard of it, they must have been perplexed indeed – but probably heaved sighs of relief nevertheless.
The situation with regard to Argyll has to be explained. Despite the fact that Sheriffmuir had spelt the end of the Rising, his handling of the battle had done much harm to his military reputation. He was suspected by the government of being too kind-hearted towards the rebels, especially the Highlanders. Indeed it is reported that during the battle, when he watched his cavalry cutting down the clansmen, he cried out: ‘Oh, spare the poor blue bonnets!’ A Highlander himself, even though a hated Campbell, the duke undoubtedly was merciful after the collapse of the Rising.
Moreover, Marlborough, who was now ruling in London for King George, did not like him. He sent General Cadogan up as Argyll’s second-in-command, but his real duty was to spy on him. Worst of all, Montrose was intensely jealous of him and of the great political power of the Campbells. As Secretary of State he was the supreme civil power, but in war the Commander-in-Chief was on top. Whenever the emergency was over, therefore, the Secretary of State reasserted himself, and used his great influence in London to bring down his rival. The Duke of Argyll, after having been feted in Edinburgh as the saviour of the country, was summoned down to London supposedly to receive the thanks of his grateful Hanoverian monarch. Instead he was dismissed as Commander-in-Chief and deprived of all other offices, General Cadogan being promoted in his place.
Disgraced and angry, Argyll came back to Inveraray a disillusioned man. Montrose had won.
Rob Roy required a strong patron more than ever. Breadalbane had had 400 men in the Jacobite army and was in disgrace. Atholl, whose sons had taken King James’s side, was also under a cloud and a sick man. Montrose was Rob’s inveterate enemy. Ever shrewd at manoeuvre, Rob saw his opportunity. Was he not called Campbell, and his mother a Campbell? Would this duke not look kindly on a man who was such a thorn in the side of that other duke, Montrose? Argyll might be out of favour now, but he was in a very different position from the others, a lifelong Whig of hitherto unimpeachable integrity, and head of the most powerful Whig clan in Scotland. So Rob took the road to Inveraray and put himself under the protection of MacCailean Mor, the Chief of Clan Campbell. Here we get the first glimpses of intriguing questions that have never been satisfactorily answered, and some whiffs of the particularly dirty politics of the 18th century. Had Rob had earlier dealings with Argyll? Was Argyll, the noted Whig, a secret Jacobite sympathiser all the time? Was he possibly just a patriot who loved his country, and sought to pick his way through the mire of politics on both sides?
We shall probably never know. Scott had accused Rob Roy of treachery towards the Jacobite cause because, it was alleged, he had been in touch with Argyll, the Hanoverian Commander-in-Chief, throughout. If there was any truth in this – and Rob’s letter of 10 years later to Wade seems to confirm it – then the possibility of Argyll’s Jacobite sympathies puts an entirely different face on the matter. Rob’s services to the Jacobite cause were innumerable, open and consistent. If he was in touch with Argyll throughout, then it is reasonable to believe that it was not to the detriment of the Jacobite cause. After all, would it be so strange if this duke had divided loyalties? What of the Duke of Atholl, who had been Whig Secretary of State, who had been dismissed because of alleged implication in a Jacobite conspiracy, and whose sons were leaders in the Rising? What of the Earl of Breadalbane, who had been ready to buy Whig favour with the Bond of Association, but who produced 400 men for the rising? What of Montrose himself – who, when the 1708 Rising looked like coming off, advanced Rob money on a mortgage on Craigrostan estate, knowing the money was to buy arms, and the estate to be restored to Rob if the Rising succeeded? These were the divided loyalties of the times, while the Houses of Stewart, Orange and Hanover tugged for the throne.
Whether or not Rob had had previous dealings with Argyll, the duke did in fact receive him favourably. Rob’s interpretation of the situation proved both accurate and justified. Smarting under Montrose’s perfidy and spleen, Argyll was glad to give shelter and protection to so noted a bugbear of the Secretary of State. Certain formalities had to be gone through first, of course. Rob had to make the required formal submission to a nominee of the government. This was done to Colonel Campbell of Finnab, one of Argyll’s lairds who was in command of the Independent Company of Militia in the Inveraray area – actually an old acquaintance and sparring partner of Rob’s. He had to surrender the arms of his band but this was got over satisfactorily by handing over a rusty collection of old guns and swords sufficient to comply with regulations – keeping, of course, their own bristling array of well-used arms.
Rob could now be accepted by Argyll – who presumably did not take the old outlaw sentence of 1712 very seriously. Montrose did, of course, and was soon protesting to London about Argyll’s infamous behaviour. It was one thing for London, however, to deprive a government commander of his appointment, and altogether another to make any impression of the great Duke of Argyll in his own country. Rob was given the use of a small farm in Glen Shira, a few miles from Inveraray, less than 20 miles from the head of Loch Lomond, and there he brought Mary and the children. Nobody, however, imagined that he had gone there to retire.
Montrose did not remain inactive, either. A military expedition was mounted on quite a large scale, with dragoons from Glasgow and grenadiers from Stirling, to clean out the nests of insurgents lingering about the head of Loch Lomond. This brought fire and sword to Craigrostan and Inversnaid once more, but failing to bring Rob and his men to battle, it had to content itself with setting fire a second time to Inversnaid House – which presumably Rob had had rebuilt – and beginning the restoration of Inversnaid Fort across the burn. We read that Graham of Killearn, in his capacity of Sheriff-Depute, ventured north into the wilds on this occasion with a strong body of militia – so he must have come to believe that the personal threat of Rob Roy was now more or less a thing of the past. He was to learn otherwise.