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The Highland Clearances A Brief History of the Clan System in the Highlands. (Page 3) Dawn in Glencoe |
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The Highland Clearances A Brief History of the Clan System in the Highlands. (Page 3) Dawn in Glencoe |
The years 1500 to 1700 were perhaps
quieter ones for the Highland clans, but great events were taking
shape
which would push them to the front of the stage and change the
Highlands for ever. The crowns of Scotland and
England were amalgamated in 1603, so that King James VI of Scotland
became James I of a United Kingdom; a
hundred disputatious years later the countries were united
politically by the Union of the Parliaments in 1707.
Scotland was no longer, in any sense, an independent country, and the
Highlands were now a distant,
unregarded and Catholic part of a very much larger Protestant
kingdom. In 1692, there was a portent
of the dark years that were to come for the Highlands.
The Macdonalds of Glencoe, a troublesome clan detested by the
establishment in Edinburgh, were a few
days late in declaring their allegiance to King William of Orange, a
Protestant Dutchman who had been recruited
to fill the vacant crown of the United Kingdom. The clans had been
commanded to submit to the power of King
William and sign oaths of allegiance by 1st Jan. 1692; the lateness
of the MacDonalds was at least partly due to
a conspiracy against them by many who wanted them punished. Later
that year a detachment of Government
troops, commanded by Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, were
billeted on the Glencoe people; the massacre
of the innocents which followed was " a day which will live in
infamy". Thirty-eight members of the clan, largely
women, children and the elderly were murdered, though the plan had
been to exterminate the entire clan of
perhaps 200 people. Though Glencoe was neither the first nor the
worst massacre perpetrated in the Highlands
by the Government, it was the only one which could not be hushed up,
and the one which demonstrated best
the absolute hatred and contempt in which Highlanders were held by
those in the south, and in power.
This was to have dramatic consequences during the crucial events of
the 18th century.
In 1708, 1715 and again in 1745 the
Jacobites, the supporters of the Stewarts, the original royal
Scottish line,
rebelled and tried to put a king back on the Scottish throne. The
1708 rebellion was over almost before it was
begun; the 1715 rebellion was hastily and poorly organised, and few
of the western clans supported it. These
facts, and a combination of poor judgement, bad luck and chaotic
communications, made ot certain to fail, too.
The rising of 1745, however, when the clans rallied to the flag of
"Bonnie Prince Charlie" was altogether different
in scale and initial effectiveness. After a series of stunning
successes the Prince and his generals had reached
Derby with their army of Highlanders; they were only 130 miles from
London and arguably had the capital at
their mercy. When the decision to retreat was taken - on the best
available intelligence, and for the best of
military reasons, the fate of the Highlands was sealed. A government
army, led by the Duke of Cumberland
pursued the Jacobites northwards and met with them at Drummossie, a
few miles east of Inverness,
on the morning of 16th April 1746.
The Battle of Culloden, as it has since become known, was less
immediately decisive than legend tells.
It was, of course, a great defeat; but only 1000 or so Highlanders
were killed in the battle itself. The Prince's
instruction for each man to save himself signalled the end of the
Jacobite army as a fighting force and opened the
way to the savage reprisals of Cumberland and his army across the
whole Highlands and Islands. Not only the
survivors of the battle but the entire population of the Highlands
were subject to a campaign of murder, rape
and pillage, whose intent was no less than the complete destruction
of Highland society, once and for all, and
the establishment of the English Empire, and its unchallengeable
power, throughout the region.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xRuthven Barracks in the Spey Valley, was built
for
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx----------------------------------------------xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The Tower of London where many
xGovernment troops after the '15 rebellion. It
was xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-----------------------------------------------xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Jacobites were imprisoned, and
xtaken and burned by the rebels in 1745.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx------------------------------------------------------xxxxxxxxxxxxxx some executed.
It was the end for the ancient clan
system. Its chiefs and their families were dead or taken as hostage
to
London. The people had been massacred or dispossessed wherever they
were found; they were denied their
long-held rights to bear arms or wear tartan; the new military roads
which had been driven through the Highlands
meant that any future trouble could be quickly snuffed out. When
their chiefs were allowed to return from the south,
they were estranged from their people and few of them retained any
loyalty to the clans which had supported
them unswervingly, and had died for them. Most had also picked up the
expensive tastes and habits of the
southern court. Rents were very soon increased alarmingly, and
demanded in cash. Between 1763 and
1775, over 20,000 Highlanders emigrated, unable to pay the new rents.
The Clearances had begun.