It has been said of Sir Walter Scott that he was never a man to decline the opportunity of talking up a good story. His novel Rob Roy is woven around the exploits of the most famous MacGregor, a man who lived about 100 years after the Battle of Glen Fruin. Scott introduced his novel with a history of the Clan Gregor in order to give his readers a better understand of the background against which Rob Roy was set. In these opening pages, he includes an account of the event surrounding the Battle of Glen Fruin and some have agued that here, Scott’s ability as a story teller has overtaken his accuracy as a history. So, at the risk of perpetuating myths, let us look more closely at the Battle of Glen Fruin.
Because of the events in 1603, the valley of the Fruin has also been called the Glen of Weeping, which contrasts with its likely Gaelic translation, the Valley of the Sheltered Places. The Fruin is a small river that enters Loch Lomond near its southwest corner, very close to where the geological Highland Boundary separates the Highlands of Scotland from the Lowlands. In the lower reaches of the glen, the rocks of the Lowlands produce a more fertile soil surrounded by more gentle hills than is found toward the head of the glen, a classic U-shaped glacial valley with poorer quality soil and steep hills. Glen Fuin is the nearest Highland glen to Glasgow, only some 25 miles from the city centre. Today, it lies within the boundaries of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park – all very much more in keeping with the Valley of the Sheltered Places.
The origins of the Clan Colquhoun are traced back to the 12th century when they lived at Milton of Colquhoun overlooking the River Clyde a couple of miles upstream from Dumbarton. It was through marriage to a lady known only as the Fair Maid of Luss in the 14th century that the clan chief became Colquhoun of Colquhoun and Luss. Although the village of Luss is firmly in the highlands, the Colquhoun lands stretched southwards and included the latter, more fertile lower reached of Glen Fruin where the river flows into Loch Lomond.
The seat of the chief of Clan Colquhoun was at Rossdhu, about a mile to the south of Luss. Initially the chief lived in a castle built on the crannog of Ellan Rossdhu (there are several of these artificial prehistoric islands in Loch Lomond). Today, because of silting, Ellan Rossdhu is almost attached to the mainland, depending on the level of water in the loch. In the 15th century, the clan sear moved to Rossdhu Castle, just a couple of hundred yards away form Ellan Rossdhu but now on the mainland, Finally, in 1773, the clan chief moved his sear another couple of hundred yard further, to the elegant Rossdhu House which today is the clubhouse of the Loch Lomond Golf Club.
This picture of relatively affluent and successful Colquhouns stand in marked contrast to the fortunes of the MacGregors. Early in the 14th century, King Robert the Bruce had made the MacGregors a gift of land at the east end of Loch Awe. However over time they had been gradually driven out into poorer lands. Although a number settled at Inversnaid on the rugged east side of Loch Lomond and other by Loch Katrine, the clan was widely scattered.
Since living on the poor soil of this area was always going to be difficult, the MacGregors would always be tempted to prey on their more prosperous Colquhoun neighbours on the better lands to the south of the Highland Line. The MacGregors were not the only one to indulge in this kind of behaviour; the MacFarlanes who lived across Loch Lomond from the MacGregors also preyed on the more prosperous Colquhouns.
It would be wrong to think that the behaviour of the MacGregors and MacFarlanes was particularly out of the ordinary for that time. Successive Scottish kings had found it very difficult to exercise control over the Highland clans. However, one has to admit that the MacGregors perhaps had a worse reputation than most others. In 1563, Mary, Queen of Scots, by and Act of the Privy Council, allowed several noblemen to pursue the MacGregors with “fire and sword.” And the word “blackmail” was coined to describe the practice whereby the MacGregors would not steal a person’s cattle – provided they were paid sufficient money.
So, who or what started it . . . and when? Pick any area of conflict in recent years – between Palestine and Israel for instance, or the Troubles in Northern Ireland – and try asking the same question of the two sides. You will get a multitude of different answers, some of them going back days, others months, years or even centuries. Exactly the same is true of the events leading up to the Battle of Glen Fruin.
Some, including Sir Walter Scott, argue that it all started when two MacGregors were refused food and overnight accommodation in the Colquhoun territory. They then caught a sheep, killed it and ate it. Unusually, however, the sheep was black in colour so its absence was quickly noticed and the alarm raised. The MacGregors were subsequently caught and taken before the laird of Luss. As free barons, the chiefs of the Colquhouns had the right to administer justice and in those days stealing or killing a sheep was a capital offense. The MacGregors, it is said, so incensed the rest of their clan that revenge was necessary. There are two difficulties with this story however: first, none of the MacGregors cited it in their defence after the battle and, second, some historians have placed the event as early as 1526.
At this stage, we introduce a new suspect, albeit briefly. He was Archibald the Grim, 7th Earl of Argyll. In 1587, the Scottish Parliament had passed the Act of General Ban which required lords to control all those living within their lands or face heavy fines. Some MacGregors were considered to be living on land belonging to the Earl of Argyll, and in 1593 the Earl obtained a commission to suppress the “wicked Clan Gregour, and diver other broken men of the Hielands.”
However, the MacGregors were still a problem to their neighbours nine years later, as evidenced by the fact that the Colquhouns were granted the exceptional right to bear arms for their own protection. On December 1 of that year (1602), Alexander Colquhoun lodged a complaint against the Earl of Argyll with the Privy Council on the grounds that he had failed to control the MacGregors.
Six days later, the MacGregors instigated what is now known as the Glenfinlas Raid – although some historians have believed that the Glenfinlas Raid and the Battle of Glen Fruin were one and the same. Glenfinlas is a small valley very close to Rossdhu that lies between Glen Fruin and Glen Luss. It was alleged that 300 cows, 100 horses, 400 sheep and 400 goats belonging to the Colquhouns were taken by the MacGregors. Not only do these figures appear suspiciously high in themselves, but one has to wonder how the MacGregors would ever have succeeded in getting so much livestock either over Loch Lomond or around it to their own lands at Insversnaid – even allowing for the fact that some of the raiders may have taken their plunder elsewhere.
More importantly in terms of subsequent events, it was also alleged that two Colquhouns had been killed during the Glenfinlas Raid. This occasioned two Colquhoun advisers, Sempell of Fulwood and William Stewart, captain of Dumbarton Castle, to suggest in a letter to Alexander Colquhoun on December 19 that the relatives of the dead take the “bluidie sarks” (bloody shirts) of the deceased to King James VI at Stirling Castle. The king was known to be highly squeamish at the sight of blood. Indeed the number of “widows” who bore the blood-stained shirts of their late husbands on spears and who actually appeared before King James was apparently very much greater than two.
In any event, the sight of the Colquhouns’ bluidie sarks had the desired result: King James granted them the right to pursue the MacGregors. The MacGregors were not best pleased by this, feeling sore done by. Once more, revenge was in the air.
At this point, both sides started recruiting allies to swell their numbers. The MacGregors were accompanied by men from Clan Cameron, MacIains of Glen Coe and Robertsons of Struan. It has been suggested that the MacGregors and their allies totalled 400 men. This makes one wonder whether or not the MacGregors were expecting a battle or merely trying to mount an even bigger raid on the lands and livestock of the Colquhouns. Certainly, none of the allies of the MacGregors at the battle had been involved in the events leading up to it.
The Colquhouns were accompanied by men from as far away as Buchlyvie in Stirlingshire; their presence seems to indicate that they, too, had been subject to the depredations of the MacGregors. Townsmen from Dumbarton swelled the Colquhouns’ ranks, as well as Napiers from Cardross and other from the surround area. Many accounts have suggested that the Colquhouns and their allies had as many 500 men on foot and another 300 on horseback. While this may seem improbably large number, there has never been any suggestion that the Colquhoun were outnumbered by the MacGregors.
The MacGregors decided to approach Glen Fruin from its top end. Some crossed Loch Lomond by boat from Inversnaid to Tarbet, probably met their allies en route, proceeded thence to Arrochar and down the east side of Loch Long, ultimately approaching Glen Fruin from the direction of Garelochhead. The MacGregor force was split in two: one part headed a little down the glen while the other took up position near the head of the glen above Strone. Clan Chief Allaster MacGregor led the first part of the force while his brother John Dhu led the other. We have no way of knowing how much the MacGregors knew in advance about the plans of the Colquhouns, and so we are left to guess just how much the positions adopted by the MacGregors were planned or purely fortuitous.
The Colquhouns, meantime, had decided not to approach Glen Fruin by what one might consider the most obvious route, namely to follow the river upstream from Loch Lomond. Instead, they went up Glen Luss, a little to the north of Glen Fruin, and parallel to it. Near the head of Glen Luss there is a low pass to Auchengeich Glen which in turn leads into Glen Fruin near Stone. The Colquhouns may well have expected to surprise the MacGregors there.
Instead, the opposite happened. The MacGregors launched a downhill surprise attack on the Colquhouns, which drove them back in the direction they came from, namely the Auchengeich Glen. Unfortunately for the Colquhouns, the second part of the MacGregor force was lying in wait for them there.
Just as there are doubts over the numbers in the tow opposing forces, so there are also doubts as to how many were killed. A fairly commonly accepted figure is that 140 Colquhouns and their allies were killed, although some accounts have put the number as high as 200. On the other hand, most traditional accounts have said that only two MacGregors were killed, which seems a very unrealistically low figure. Not content with having rousted the Colquhouns, the MacGregors then carried off or destroy the “haill plenishing, guids, and fear of the . . . land of Luss.”
Today, if fathers wish to impress their sons, they take them along to watch a football match in which they are playing. Something similar happened in 1603 with the Colquhouns and the allies bringing a number of scholars for the Collegiate School of Dumbarton to watch the “fun”. However, as we know, things did not quite work out in the way that the Colquhouns had expected.
Instead, the scholars were supposedly captured by the MacGregors and locked in a barn for their own safety. However, the MacGregor who was put in charge of them apparently had a change of heart, perhaps out of frustration at being unable to participate himself in the sacking of the glen. The outcome was that he “murdered without pity, the number of forty poor persons who were “naked and without armour.” What is certain is that six years after the battle, Allan Oig MacIntnach was charged with the murder of 40 people, presumably the scholars.
Legends also account that for some 150 years after the battle, the murder of the scholars was commemorated annually at Dumbarton Academy. One boy, the dux (valedictorian) of the school, would be wrapped in a shroud and carried shoulder-high on a bier to the nearby graveyard where a mock burial would take place.
One wonders if the MacGregors had contemplated what the reaction of the Colquhouns might be. Perhaps they were hoping that the severity of the defeat would be such that the Colquhouns might cease to constitute any formal threat to them. However, the opposite happened. The Colquhouns again went hot foot to King James VI. At this point, he was keenly awaiting the news of the demise of Queen Elizabeth of England and the consequent probability that he would inherit the English throne. No doubt the king was looking forward to becoming monarch of a kingdom not inhabited by such barbaric “tribes”.
On February 24, 1603, just 17 days after the battle, the king and the Privy Council settled the future of the MacGregors. The decision was that “that unhappie and detestable race be extirpat and ruttit out, and never suffered to have rest or remaining within this country hierafter.” The very use of the name MacGregor was “altogidder abolisheed” on pain of death. Thus in Rob Roy, the eponymous hero refers to himself as Mr. Campbell. It was also perfectly legal to hunt down the MacGregors like animals, and indeed, bloodhounds were used against them on occasion. These measures remained in force until 1775, albeit with a 30 year gap in the late 17the century during the reign of King Charles II, whose restoration the MacGregors had supported.
And, of course, the leaders of the MacGregors had to be caught and punished. Their chief, Allaster, remained at large for nearly a year before surrendering to the Earl of Argyll who promised him that he could go to England – which, of course, was still a separate county with its own jurisdiction, even though King James VI had by now also become James I of England. The Earl of Argyll was as good as his word. He escorted Allaster MacGregor to Berwick on Tweed, just over the English border, and then immediately took him straight back as a prisoner to Edinburgh! There MacGregor and some of his followers were put on trial.
The day before his trial, MacGregor wrote a confession putting all the blame on the Earl of Argyll. One should not dismiss his accusations out of hand. Although he would have been keen to retaliate against the earl for his recent rip over the border and back, he would also have realized that he was going to be executed anyway, so he had nothing to gain personally from implicating the Earl. Furthermore, MacGregor was a Catholic; a truthful last confession would have been important for him.
It will be remembered that the MacGregors lived on land belonging to the Earl of Argyll and that they had been a thorn in his side for many years. Therefore, it could well be argued that it was in the Earl’s interest to stir the MacGregors up to some form of action that would have harmful consequences for them but beneficial for him. Furthermore, the Earl enjoyed the reputation of being a manipulative individual and the Colquhouns were already his enemies. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the Earl played any role in the events, although some historians still have their suspicions.
Needless to say, Allaster MacGregor was executed. His body was quartered and his head sent to Dumbarton to be displayed on the tollbooth there. Other leaders of the MacGregors were tried and executed over the years, some as late as 1622, 19 years after the Battle of Glen Fruin. For the whole Clan Gregor, the harsh consequences of their victory at the Battle of Glen Fruin lasted for very much longer.
Glen Fruin lies between the Gareloch and Loch Lomond, only 25 miles north of Glasgow. Probably the easiest and best way to visit the glen is to take the A82 from Glasgow and then, on the Loch Lomond side, turn left onto the A816 for Helenburgh. After about a mile on this road, one reaches a roundabout; the Glen Fruin road is unclassified and straight ahead at this roundabout.
The battle took place near the head of the glen in the area of Strone Farm, across the road from which lies the old Admiralty Hydro-Ballistic Research Establishment, now part of the Garlochhead Training Camp. About 100 yard further, as the road starts to climb toward the head of the glen, the monument commemorating the battle can be found on the right-hand side. The monument was originally erected by Gregor Ian Smith, a well-known local artist who lived in Glen Fruin. It was restored about five years ago by Helensburgh Heritage Trust.
The Glen Fruin road then continues up onto the hill before plunging steeply to meet the Gareloch at Faslane. Turn left onto the A814 there and continue through Helensburgh back to Glasgow.