Rob Roy | Page 5

to
the Earl of Argyle and the powerful clan of Campbell, and to the Earl
of Athole and his followers in the more eastern Highlands of Perthshire.
The MacGregors failed not to resist with the most determined courage;
and many a valley in the West and North Highlands retains memory of
the severe conflicts, in which the proscribed clan sometimes obtained
transient advantages, and always sold their lives dearly. At length the
pride of Allaster MacGregor, the chief of the clan, was so much
lowered by the sufferings of his people, that he resolved to surrender
himself to the Earl of Argyle, with his principal followers, on condition
that they should be sent out of Scotland. If the unfortunate chief's own
account be true, he had more reasons than one for expecting some
favour from the Earl, who had in secret advised and encouraged him to
many of the desperate actions for which he was now called to so severe
a reckoning. But Argyle, as old Birrell expresses himself, kept a
Highlandman's promise with them, fulfilling it to the ear, and breaking
it to the sense. MacGregor was sent under a strong guard to the frontier
of England, and being thus, in the literal sense, sent out of Scotland,

Argyle was judged to have kept faith with him, though the same party
which took him there brought him back to Edinburgh in custody.
MacGregor of Glenstrae was tried before the Court of Justiciary, 20th
January 1604, and found guilty. He appears to have been instantly
conveyed from the bar to the gallows; for Birrell, of the same date,
reports that he was hanged at the Cross, and, for distinction sake, was
suspended higher by his own height than two of his kindred and
friends.
On the 18th of February following, more men of the MacGregors were
executed, after a long imprisonment, and several others in the
beginning of March.
The Earl of Argyle's service, in conducting to the surrender of the
insolent and wicked race and name of MacGregor, notorious common
malefactors, and in the in-bringing of MacGregor, with a great many of
the leading men of the clan, worthily executed to death for their
offences, is thankfully acknowledged by an Act of Parliament, 1607,
chap. 16, and rewarded with a grant of twenty chalders of victual out of
the lands of Kintire.
The MacGregors, notwithstanding the letters of fire and sword, and
orders for military execution repeatedly directed against them by the
Scottish legislature, who apparently lost all the calmness of conscious
dignity and security, and could not even name the outlawed clan
without vituperation, showed no inclination to be blotted out of the roll
of clanship. They submitted to the law, indeed, so far as to take the
names of the neighbouring families amongst whom they happened to
live, nominally becoming, as the case might render it most convenient,
Drummonds, Campbells, Grahams, Buchanans, Stewarts, and the like;
but to all intents and purposes of combination and mutual attachment,
they remained the clan Gregor, united together for right or wrong, and
menacing with the general vengeance of their race, all who committed
aggressions against any individual of their number.
They continued to take and give offence with as little hesitation as
before the legislative dispersion which had been attempted, as appears

from the preamble to statute 1633, chapter 30, setting forth, that the
clan Gregor, which had been suppressed and reduced to quietness by
the great care of the late King James of eternal memory, had
nevertheless broken out again, in the counties of Perth, Stirling,
Clackmannan, Monteith, Lennox, Angus, and Mearns; for which reason
the statute re-establishes the disabilities attached to the clan, and, grants
a new commission for enforcing the laws against that wicked and
rebellious race.
Notwithstanding the extreme severities of King James I. and Charles I.
against this unfortunate people, who were rendered furious by
proscription, and then punished for yielding to the passions which had
been wilfully irritated, the MacGregors to a man attached themselves
during the civil war to the cause of the latter monarch. Their bards have
ascribed this to the native respect of the MacGregors for the crown of
Scotland, which their ancestors once wore, and have appealed to their
armorial bearings, which display a pine-tree crossed saltire wise with a
naked sword, the point of which supports a royal crown. But, without
denying that such motives may have had their weight, we are disposed
to think, that a war which opened the low country to the raids of the
clan Gregor would have more charms for them than any inducement to
espouse the cause of the Covenanters, which would have brought them
into contact with Highlanders as fierce as themselves, and having as
little to lose. Patrick MacGregor, their leader, was the