GLENCOE!

NZ Truth, Issue 92, 23 March 1907, Page 4

GLENCOE !

THE ORDER FOR THE

JWASSACRE.

A Famous Document, Dis-

covered

And Pat Up for Auction.

Early this month there was to have been offered for auotion sale m London a document of great historical interest, and to which clings the memory of one of the blackest of the crimes that stain the escutcheon of English Government. This document is no other than the order for the wholesale midnight butchery of the McDonalds, of GJencoe, m 1692. There has, as an historical fact, always been a certain amount of mystery attached to the massacre of that simple clan, though there are some historians who haye attempted to painty the exterminated Highlanders as a gang of "filthy, abject beingjT, jcut-throats and thieves." The truth of the butchery was slowly unfolded, and many years really elapsed after 1692, ere the treachery of William m. (Blessed Billy of Boyne memory) and' his Scottish satraps was know# m all its horror and hideousness. The history of the document m question is little known during the past two centuries, except for the fact that it was sent from London to New Zealand for sale. The whole of the momentous documont, the order for the bloody butchery, is on one singlo slip of paper, -Which, while leaving the inscription fairly legible,- nevertheless bears the indications of wear, and of much folding and unfolding. , The whole story of Glencoe is so well known to readers of English -and Scottish history that only the merest details need be entered upon here. In response to a proclamation issued m August, 1691, the Scottish chiefs took the oath of allegiance to the English King and. Queen, and apparently the only one to hold out until the last moment was the old chief of the Clan Mac Donald, of Glencoe. The period of grace was dated to expire on January 1, 1692, and those who failed to sign before that date were threatened with the "penalties of treason and of military execution upon their territories," as Hill Burton .phrases it m his brilliant chapter on this episode ("History of Scotland," vol. 7, 397-413). Towards the end. of the year the Chief of Glenooe," finding himself alone, " made a desperate effort to offer the oath at the last moment;" but by a series of extraordinary mischances, some of which have the appearance of being due to MacDonald's enemies, the oath of allegiance was not signed by him until January 6; but by some cause or other the roll was returned to the Privy Council to the clerks "with the portion relating to Glenooe scored oiit," thus rendering Mac Donald's submission a dead letter. , On February 12, 1692, Major Eobert Duucanson wrote the following order (m which' we, London '" Times," have modernised: the orthography) to Captain Eobert Camp* bell of Glenlyon : — You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the Macdonalds of Glencoe, and to put all to the sword under seventy. You are to have a special care that the did fox and his sons do not escape, your hands. You are to secure all the avenues that no man escape. This you are to put in ' execution at five of the clock precisely, and at that time, or very shortly after it, I will strive to be at you with a stronger party. If I do not come to you at five, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. This is by the King's special commands, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants be cut off root and branch. See that this be put m execution without fear or favor, or you may expect' to be dealt with as one not true to King and country, nor a man fit to i carry commission m the King's service. Expecting ye will not fail m the fulfilling hereof, as you love yourself; I subscribe this with my hand at Ballacholis, 12 Feb ? , 1692, E. Duncanson. ■