the discipline of the Highlands was slackened; and one of the acts of the first session of the Scottish parliament in his reign, was to repeal the statutes against the Macgregors. This restoration to the rights and honours of clanship was, however, of short duration; for after the Revolution the edicts were again revived, in pursuance, probably, of the same line of policy as that which prompted the massacre of the Macdonalds of Glencoe. But though re-enacted, the regulations were very laxly put in force. THE CLAN AT ITS LOWEST FORTUNES-LIFE AND EXPLOITS OF ROB ROY. After the legal abolition of the clan in 1603, we have already informed our readers that there was no acknowledged chief of the Macgregors. There were, however, a number of chieftains, or heads of particular branches of the clan. One of these chieftainfamilies was the Macgregors, or, as they now called themselves, the Campbells of Glengyle, on the northern extremity of Loch Lomond, the descendants of one of the old Macgregor heroes, called Dugald Ciar Mohr, or the Great Mouse-coloured Man. In the short reign of James II., Donald Macgregor of Glengyle had a lieutenant-colonel's commission in the army. He married a daughter of a neighbouring gentleman, Campbell of Glenfalloch. The issue of this marriage was ROB ROY. Accord Rob Roy Macgregor, or, as he was obliged to call himself, Rob Roy Macgregor Campbell, was born at Glengyle, probably about the close of Cromwell's government, the precise year being uncertain. His youth was spent in the calm intervening between two storms the Civil War and the Revolution of 1688. ingly, the first active enterprise in which we find him engaged Occurred after the Revolution, when he must have been nearly thirty years of age. It was a petty incursion into the parish of Kippen, one of those little outbreaks of Jacobite feeling which were common in remote districts in the early part of the reign of King William. At this time, or shortly after, he was known as Robert Campbell of Inversnaid; and before the year 1707, he appears also to have come into possession of Craigroystan, a small and romantic property on Loch Lomond, lying between his paternal Glengyle and his maternal Glenfalloch. His nephew, Gregor Macgregor, by some unexplained way came to inherit Glengyle on the death of Robert's father; but the uncle managed the nephew's estates, and was regarded by all the clansmen of the district as really the chief and governing Macgregor. Little is known of Rob's manner of life till the period of the union between Scotland and England (1707), at which time he must have been about forty-eight years of age. For several years after this, we find him pursuing the occupation of a drover or cattle-dealer. This was not only an honest, but it was also, in Highland estimation, an honourable and gentlemanly profession. Previously to the Union, no cattle had been permitted to pass the English border. As a boon or encouragement, however, to conciliate the people to that measure, a free intercourse was allowed; and as cattle was at that period the principal marketable produce of the hills, the younger sons of gentlemen had scarcely any other means of procuring an independent subsistence than by engaging in this sort of traffic." Collecting his own, or purchasing his neighbours' cattle, the gentleman-drover, with a number of assistants, drove them into the Lowlands, and disposed of them there to Lowland dealers who supplied the Engfish market; not unfrequently, however, the Highland drover made the journey into England himself. As the Lowland cattledealers were, for the most part, Borderers, as fierce and strong as the Highlanders, it often happened that the Lowland markets were the scenes of tough battles between the buyers and sellers. In such frays the Borderers, dipping their bonnets in the nearest brook, wrapped them round the end of their cudgels, so as to guard the hand, and then stepped boldly out to meet the Highlanders, who fought with their broadswords: giving remarkable fair-play, however, says Sir Walter Scott, and never using the point of the sword, far less their firearms. In the last generation, old men were alive who had been engaged in these fights, in which "One armed with metal, t'other with wood, These recreations never interrupted the commerce between the parties, nor did the dealers, with all the heat of their blood, display less sagacity or less talent for money-making. Many of the Highland drovers were remarkably shrewd and intelligent men; and by all accounts Rob Roy, a man now of mature age and experience, obtained the character of being one of the most successful and respectable of the profession. One of the first men in Scotland to take advantage of the privilege of free trade in cattle with England was James, Duke of Montrose, who had been a keen advocate of the Union. The duke, on whose property Glengyle and Inversnaid were situated, was well acquainted with Rob Roy and his family. Accordingly, Rob and the duke entered into a partnership, each advancing 10,000 merks: a large sum, says General Stewart, in those days, when the price of the best ox or cow was seldom twenty shillings. Rob was to buy the cattle, and drive them into England, and was to be allowed, in consequence, a per centage for his trouble, in addition to his share of the profit. The speculation, however, turned out a failure. So many others had embarked in the trade, that the English market was overstocked. Rob was obliged to * General Stewart of Garth's Sketches of the Highlanders. sell the cattle at less than prime cost; and, to make matters worse, a person of the name of Macdonald, whom Rob had trusted, cheated him. Returning to Scotland almost totally insolvent, Rob went to reckon up accounts with his partner the Duke of Montrose. There are various versions of this part of the transaction, the most creditable to Rob being that given by General Stewart of Garth, who derived his information from some of Rob's own intimate acquaintances, and which is, that the duke insisted on getting back his 10,000 merks entire, with the interest; that Rob refused to give him more than what should remain of the 10,000 merks, after deducting his share of the loss; and that they parted in anger, without coming to any settlement. Be this as it may, it is certain that Rob disappeared with money belonging to the duke in his possession; and in the Edinburgh Evening Courant for 21st June 1712, there appeared an advertisement, stating that "Robert Campbell, commonly called Rob Roy Macgregor, being lately intrusted with considerable sums for buying cows for them in the Highlands, has treacherously gone off with the money, to the value of £1000;" and offering a reward for his apprehension. As the advertisement is an ex parte statement, it is not inconsistent with the more creditable version of the story given above, or at least with the supposition that Rob's reason for decamping was his being insolvent. Macgregor, now a ruined man, gave up his profession of drover, and began the life of a freebooter and an outlaw. Divided into so many clans at hereditary feud with each other, "cattlelifting" had been a common practice from time immemorial in the Highlands; and no idea of moral turpitude was attached to a creach, or cattle-stealing expedition into the Lowlands, or into the property of another clan. The cearnachs who engaged in these expeditions were the strongest and most select men of the clan; and it was the ambition of every young Highlander to distinguish himself as a successful cearnach. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, these cattle-stealing enterprises had indeed begun to go out of fashion, in consequence of the general advance of society. Still, recollections of creachs were fresh; still the cearnach spirit was not extinct; and there was nothing so strange as might at first be thought in a man like Rob Roy-now beginning to pass the prime of manhood, and who had hitherto pursued a respectable line of life-falling back, in consequence of a reverse of fortune, on his old Highland instincts. Rob Roy belonged to two states of society-the old Highland, and the modern Scotch: he had in him the qualities required by both. Altering a little the words which Sir Walter Scott has put into the mouth of Rob's own wife when speaking to her sons, Rob in his tartan, and with the bonnet on his head, was a different man from Rob when he put on the Lowland broad-cloth. Rob Roy was a respectable drover up to the age of fifty, and he might have died without ever having been anything else, but for the failure of his cattle speculation. The change is finely shaded off by the worthy Bailie Nicol Jarvie. "Rob and me were gude friens ance," said the bailie, "but we hae seen little o' ilk ither since he gae up the cattle line o' dealing. Puir fellow, he was hardly guided by them wha might hae used him better; and they haena made their plack a bawbee o't neither. There's mony ane this day wad rather they had never chased puir Robin frae the cross of Glasgow; there's mony ane wad rather see him again at the tail o' three hundred kyloes than at the head o' thirty waur cattle." Rob, now a Highland chieftain, with all the Macgregors about Glengyle and Glenfalloch at his beck, withdrew from Inversnaid a few miles farther into the Highlands, finding a place of retreat at one time in the lands belonging to the Duke of Argyle, at another in those belonging to the Earl of Breadalbane. Both these noblemen were Campbells; and the Campbells, as our readers know, had always been the greatest enemies of the Macgregors; but now they had received many of the persecuted race into the number of their tenants; and as the Grahams and the Campbells were at mortal enmity ever since the great struggle of the civil war, both Argyle and Breadalbane would be very willing to disoblige the Duke of Montrose by protecting his runaway debtor. The duke, however, adopted legal measures for the recovery of his money, and seized on Rob's property of Craigroystan, selling his stock and furniture. In the execution of the distress, it is also said that the officers insulted his wife, Helen Macgregor, a woman of bold and masculine temper. These accumulated injuries at the hands of the Duke of Montrose made Rob vow eternal vengeance against him; and as long as he lived, he carried on a war of depredation against the duke's property. The duke, however, was not the only landed proprietor who suffered from Rob's predatory visits; all those noblemen or gentlemen, whether Highland or Lowland, who took the opposite side from Rob in politics, or who were unpopular in the neighbourhood, were included in his list. The chief of a bold band of his own clansmen, inhabiting a labyrinth of valleys amid rocks and forests, Rob was no mean modern robber. He was a true Highland cearnach—a robber of the same school as the English Robin Hood. In person, according to the description given of him by the hand of a master, he was singularly adapted for his profession. "His stature was not of the tallest, but his body was exceedingly strong and compact. The greatest peculiarities of his frame were the breadth of his shoulders, and the great and almost disproportionate length of his arms-so remarkable, indeed, that it is said he could, without stooping, tie the garters of his Highland hose, which are placed two inches below the knee. His countenance was open, manly, stern at periods of danger, but frank and cheerful in his hours of festivity. His hair was dark-red, thick, and frizzled, and curled short around the face. His fashion of dress showed of course the knees and upper part of the leg, which was described to me as resembling that of a Highland bull-hirsute with red hair, and evincing enormous muscular strength. The qualities of his mind were equally well adapted to his circumstances. He inherited none of his ancestor Ciar Mohr, the Great Mouse-coloured Man's ferocity; on the contrary, he is said to have avoided every appearance of cruelty. He was a kind and gentle robber; and while he took from the rich, was liberal in relieving the poor. All whom I have conversed with (and I have in my youth seen some who knew Rob Roy personally), gave him the character of a benevolent and humane man ' in his way. 292 One of Rob's sources of revenue was the levying of what was called black-mail. Black-mail was a sum of money paid statedly to a band of marauders, on condition that they should neither touch the property of the person paying it, nor permit any other to touch it. This kind of compact with freebooters was common in Scotland in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries; the peaceable farmer in these disorderly times finding it more his interest to be on good terms with his lawless neighbours, than to run the risk of being ruined by their depredations. The lifters of the black-mail, however, were shrewd enough to see that the only way of keeping up the practice from which they derived such advantage, was to keep the farmers in constant alarm; consequently, it was usual for a captain of marauders to divide his band into two parties, employing one party to steal the cattle, the other to recover them when stolen, and restore them to the owner. Those who refused to pay black-mail were mercilessly plundered, and the stolen cattle sold. The Scottish government had, indeed, prohibited this strange mode of dealing, and even made it a capital crime either to pay or receive black-mail; but as it had no power to protect its subjects in a legal way, the statute against levying black-mail became a dead letter; and in 1713 and 1714, the last year of the reign of Queen Anne, and the first of the reign of George I., the practice was still in active operation. There are few anecdotes of Rob during the first two years of his life as an outlaw; we merely know that he kept the district in alarm, and levied black-mail. On the outbreak of the rebellion of 1715, Rob, being a Jacobite, took the side of the Stuarts, notwithstanding that his protector, the Duke of Argyle, was the leader on the opposite side. Any hopes, however, which the Macgregors might entertain of being once more placed in their ancient position as an independent Highland clan, were * Introduction to "Rob Roy." |