Edd,
I was at the Kiowa Colorado Games and found the same kind of comments
against teh Campbells until I actually talked to thopse making the comments
about something different but Highland and then they were othewise quite
positive people. Since there were only eight 'clan tents' and about 300
people at the tiny Games everyone talked to everyone, which was very pleasant
Kiowa is a cow country community out on the plains and the Games are got up
almost single handedly by one Jim Campbell who is from an outlaw Campbell
family who drove a stolen herd into the Rockies from Texas just before the
Civil War. They survived, but two Texas Rangers who went to find them seem
to have fallen down a mine shaft. Their saddled horses were found wandering
in a snow storm but the Rangers never turned up. The family has more such
stories.
Anyhow I think that much of the 'Campbell bashing' comes from ignorance of
any Scottish or Highland history and when you are at a Highland Games you
feel obliged to show off what you think you know. That "the Campbells and
the MacDonalds" had their reputations is one thing everyone knows, so it
gets dragged out thankfully, given the lightest opportunity. It is
basically something to say - although some people who are already a bit
'off' do actually get het up about it at times.
At Kiowa one kid started on "Agh, Campbells!" and his girlfriend chirped up
"I'm a Campbell" so he made a joke of himself. What they really wanted was
someone to talk to about things Highland.
But you suggest we need better information at the Campbell tents at Highland
Games. You are right.
I recently produced a display - or set of display boards - which could be
hung round a tent pole on four conjoined 9" wide by 24" high boards. This
gives a synopsis in brief (with illustrations) on the Campbells - origins,
chiefs, castles, tartans, name and so on. It is from material I wrote for
the special issue of teh 'Clan Campbell Society (NA) Journal' which I put
out in 1994 and which forms the basis of the articles we put on the web
site. I had Alastair Campbell of Airds at Inveraray (clan historian) check
it all.
We will be coming up with a revised edition in 1998 to celebrate the 25th
anniversary of the founding of the society.
Since the original is on a 24"x36" sheet they can be printed on cream paper
in sepia line by a blue print shop for about $13 each - then one has to cut
(1/8" or 1/4" hardboard boards and have them laminated onto the boards with
holes and grommets in the corners which costs another $35, so it is not
cheap. And it doesn't give any facts on Glencoe.
You should pass on your convictions about the need for better information to
"Tommy" Thomson who lives in Orange CA at (714) 998-1811. He would be
delighted to hear you would produce something succinct and help you check it
for accuracy (or I can). I have written so much material for the outfit
that it would be highly refreshing to have somone else who was in fact a
professional writer come up with some ideas.
But to try to answer your questions:
I do not have a short article on Culloden - far too much is made of it as
the end of an era, much of which is romanticised out of all proportion.
Life was already changing and had alwqays been changing - only change got
swifter.
I will send you an article on Glencoe later as an attachment.
On Glencoe:
1) Was the attack manned only with Campbells?
No. Of the men of the British army company of infantry involved,
only 13 were named Campbell. Six had Clan Donald names. Others were of
other Highland families and the cruelest were said to be the few Lowlanders.
The Captain was Campbell of Glenlyon who was probably given the job since he
was in the army due to being bankrupted by the MacIains of Glencoe
(MacDonalds to you) who had stolen all his tenant's cattle and burned their
houses and so he got no rents. He was an alcoholic and also kin to the
Glencoe Chief through marriage.
"The Campbells" got blamed due to the regiment having been raised by the
Earl of Argyll who was a supporter of William and Mary as protestant
monarchs as opposed to the hated James II who had fled and was Catholic.
2) Where in the chain of command did Campbells fit in?
The Earl of Argyll, although he had raised the regiment, was not in
the chain of command. He was in the government but had no control over the
Earl of Stair who interpreted the King's (William's) orders as meaning genocide.
Stair gave orders to Hill who passed them on to his second in
command Duncanson (I think Hill was away from Fort William at the time) and
Duncanson sent them to Campbell of Glenlyon in the middle of the night and
only a couple of hours before his orders were to be carried out. Duncanson
said he would arrive with reinforcements but carefully delayed (fortunately,
as the massacre was a total failure as a military operation). Duncanson's
orders were highly threatening so that Glenlyon knew it was his life or
theirs - but his family would suffer the disgrace of his firing squad end.
3) How was the attack carried out - by total deceit?
I am not sure what you mean by "total deceit". The intent was
"surprise". The soldiers were billeted on the MacIains, not through any
kindly hospitality of the MacIains, but as a means of obtaining for the
crown the food and lodging they were due to provide in lieu of the "Cess
Tax" which the MacIains had failed to pay. The tax was to help Dutch
William conduct his European campaigns. So the whole idea of the massacre
being a breaking of the laws of hospitality is flawed. The government
soldiers were in no way 'guests' but were forcibly billeted on the MacIains.
The 'slaughter under trust' concept was put out by the very efficient
Jacobite PR machine after the massacre. For them the PR victory was of far
more value than any loss of their supporters.
Because the soldiers of Glenlyon's company were completely
un-suspecting of the idea of a massacre - and were sleeping amongst the
MacIains in their houses (likely on the floor) - the waking and mustering of
them without waking and alarming the MacIains was virtually impossible
(fortunately). That is why only 35 of over 200 were slaughtered. The story
goes that others may have perished crossing the high passes in the snow but
I have never seen proof of it.
My own family of the Campbells of Inverawe had a bond of friendship
with the MacIains, and one of my gt-gt-gt-gt-grandfather Archibald
Campbell's tenants was a MacIain - to whom he later sold the farm of Dalness
which he leased. So many of them went over the rugged hills in the dark and
snow and were succoured at Dalness on Campbell land.
4) What are the facts of earlier, historical attacks by MacDonalds on
Campbells?
To answer this correctly would take a book.
Three families succeeded eachother in prominence in Argyll from 1163 to 1476.
On the death of Somerled who was a Ri or 'king' in parts of Argyll
and the Isles in 1163, his eldest son Dougall appears to have inherited the
heartland of his territories while the other sons inherited lands on the
periphery of Argyll - Ranald and Angus in Islay and southern Kintyre and
Ruari in Garmorran to the north of Ardnamurchan. Dougalls' descendants, now
called MacDougall or sons of Dougall, became known as lords of Argyll and
the isles and were a highly prominent and powerful family in the west until
the time of Robert Bruce.
The lords of Argyll opposed Bruce since he had murdered the Red
Comyn, brother-in-law of their leader Alexander of Argyll.
At the Battle of the Pass of Brander in Argyll in 1308 Bruce and his
Campbell and MacDonald allies defeated the MacDougall lord of Argyll. His
lands were divided between Campbell and MacDonald, with MacDonald obtaining
more of the Isles and Campbells more of teh mainland. However the heartland
of Lorne remained in royal hands. The MacDonalds were descendants of
Donald, son of Ranald son of Somerled and now began to take the place of
their MacDougall cousins in leadership in Argyll.
Gradually the family of the MacDonalds of Islay obtained the lands
of their cousins. By 1350 they started calling themselves 'Lords of the
Isles'. and eventually where granted the Earldom of Ross. But they came
into conflict with the royal house at times and the Campbells were kin to
Bruce and later his Stewart successors and so upheld the authority of the
crown in the west and often were obliged to "sort out" the Islemen
(including clan Donald). Each time the Campbells were successful they were
rewarded by grants of lands since the crown had little coin.
In 1476 the King of Scots discovered that the Earl of Ross had
earlier made a treaty with the king of England to take over Scotland and be
England's vassals.
So the Earl of Ross was forfiet and, lacking leadership, clan Donald
fell into disunity. The power vacuume was filled by the Campbells under
their Chief the Earl of Argyll and by the reformation of 1560 the 5th Earl
of Argyll had so won over the Islemen that he was acknowledged as having won
"the Headship of the Gael", or the leadership of the western Highlanders and
Islanders of all those clans. He was the only aristocrat in Europe with his
own artillery and could call to the field a larger army than either Mary
Queen of Scots or Elizabeth of England. (so writes J.Dawson of Aberdeen
University in the Scottish Historical Review.)
This, then, was the setting in which clan Donald attacks on 'the
Campbells' took place.
The notable attacks were not 'clan' oriented as such but were a
result of being on opposite sides in the Civil Wars of the 17th century.
The attack on the lands of Argyll by Alasdair MacColla (son of the
pirate 'colkitto' or 'Coll coitach' from Colonsay) at the head of his
Irish
clan Donnell in 1644-5 was devastating. He was called the 'house piercer'
as a result. Thatch was burned and cattle driven off. The people of Argyll
of all clans suffered greatly that winter yet have sensibly allowed the
worst to sink from memory - rather than building any monuments and visitor's
centres to the event. This was the occasion near Bragleen (south of Oban)
where MacColla crowded the women and children into a barn and set it alight.
It is said that one woman stuck her head through the thatch and yelled that
she was a MacDonald married to a local man but MacColla shouted the Gaelic
equivalent of "More fool you" and she was pushed back in. They all died and
the piper is said to have been told to play to drown the sound of their screams.
At the Battle of Inverlochy that year MacColla achieved a
spectacular forced march through the snow and surprised the Protestant army
of the Marquess of Argyll. The Lowland troops fled at the Highland charge
and while the Campbells stood their ground, hundreds were killed or
captured. Argyll's general, Campbell of Auchinbreck, was brought before
MacColla and asked whether he would be hung or beheaded. His answer was "A
poor choice, MacColla" - which inferred dishonour upon MacColla. This so
infuriated MacColla that he swiped at his head with his sword and instead of
hitting the neck, sliced it off at the ears.
I will stop there because I think it gives you the idea that it was
a rough time and we were all rough people
I do not know the answer to your questions about Culloden. I suggest that
you get John Prebble's (Penguin paperback) book on that battle which,
despite being coloured with his socialist politics, is well researched and
easily read.
However I do know for a fact that in the overall conflict there were more
Scots on the British side than on the Jacobite side which had a number of
Irish and French regiments.
Anyone who ever says that Culloden was a battle between "The English against
the Scots" deserves to be handed over to the ghost of Alastair MacColla and
given up to his 'justice'.
Culloden was a battle between the British government and people on the one
side and the rebel Jacobites on the other. The Jacobite clans were by no
means all the clans. Far from it. And not all in any clan fought or fought
on the same side. There were Campbells on both sides and at the time of the
battle two companies of MacDonalds from Skye - in units of what were called
"the Independent Companies" (later the Black Watch) were marching to join
the government army from Skye.
Probably no event in history has ever had more nonsense spoken about it or
even written about it, I suspect. I just hope I have not added to that.
But you would be cowardly if you ever again let anyone get away with saying
that Culloden was a battle of the Scots against "The English" without
challenging them to prove their facts, for they are blatantly wrong.
However their mistakes are understandable since it is a view promoted by
some political elements in Scotland today so as to forward their concept of
the future. Like the 'clearances', Culloden and Glencoe are still being
milked for their political worth by some gentry in Scotland.
I am sorry if you find this a lengthy "text bookish diatribe" but maybe you
have the skill which I have not and which can put it all into "sound bytes",
what I see as the bane of our civilization and the enemy of good communications.
All best, Diarmid Campbell