Highland Constable Rob Roy MacGregor – the Whole Story Book I . The Coming to Balquhidder .................................................................................................................................2 CHAPTER I. 21st August 1689 .....................................................................................................................................2 CHAPTER II. August 1689—February 1691 ................................................................................................................4 CHAPTER III. 1691.......................................................................................................................................................8 CHAPTER IV. 1693 ....................................................................................................................................................12 CHAPTER V. September 1694—June 1695................................................................................................................15 Book II. Within The Law .................................................................................................................................................17 CHAPTER I. 1696—I700 ............................................................................................................................................17 CHAPTER II. 1703—1706 ..........................................................................................................................................19 CHAPTER III. March 1707—March 1708 ..................................................................................................................22 CHAPTER IV. Summer 1708 ......................................................................................................................................25 Book III. Outside the Law................................................................................................................................................31 CHAPTER I. 1713—1714 ...........................................................................................................................................31 CHAPTER II. July 1714—February 1715 ...................................................................................................................36 CHAPTER III. 1st August—15th September 1715......................................................................................................39 CHAPTER IV. 22nd September—6th October 1715...................................................................................................42 CHAPTER V.11th 18th October 1715.........................................................................................................................45 CHAPTER VI. 19th October—10th November 1715..................................................................................................48 CHAPTER VII. 12th13th November 1715 ..................................................................................................................50 CHAPTER VIII. November—December 1715............................................................................................................55 CHAPTER IX. Christmas 1715—2Ist January 1716 ...................................................................................................58 CHAPTER X. 27th January—10th February 1716 ....................................................................................................60 CHAPTER XI. April 1716 .........................................................................................................................................62 Book IV. Beyond the Law................................................................................................................................................64 CHAPTER I. May—October 1716 .............................................................................................................................64 CHAPTER II. 19th November—December 1716......................................................................................................66 CHAPTER III. April—Jane 1717 ..............................................................................................................................69 CHAPTER IV. 1718 ...................................................................................................................................................74 CHAPTER V. January—June 1719 ...........................................................................................................................77 CHAPTER VI. 16th February—July 1720.................................................................................................................81 CHAPTER VII. 1725—1727 .....................................................................................................................................86 CHAPTER VIII. December 1734...............................................................................................................................90 1 Highland Constable Rob Roy MacGregor – the Whole Story Book I . The Coming to Balquhidder CHAPTER I. 21st August 1689 THERE was a stout sixfoot wall about Dunkeld House and park, designed to shelter my lord Marquis’s flowerbeds from the winter winds; but its task was a sterner one today. The rose bushes lay trampled and forlorn beneath banks of new-turned earth, whereon awkward looking soldiers in long red coats crouched in a cloud of smoke, loading and firing, loading and firing. The Tay slid furtively past Dunkeld town, bustling a little at the ford, glad to leave such a scene of noise and violence. Two buildings thrust their beads above the smoke that billowed about the roofs and gable-ends. Here the square mass of the Marquis of Atholl’s new mansion loomed above the fight, it's three rows of windows stuffed with sandbags, the little cupola on its roof a nest of sharpshooters; and away by the riverbank the grey tower of the Cathedral caught the early sunshine from behind Birnam Hill. In these two buildings Angus’s Regiment of Foot found itself penned, after two hours of most desperate fighting. Last winter the Glorious Revolution had seemed to carry all before it. Hatched in the stately homes of England, welcomed to Scotland by delirious congregations, it lifted King William upon King James’s throne before most of his subjects knew what was afoot. But here was the tardy counterrevolution at its height, with half Scotland and three parts of Ireland in arms for old dynasty. Perhaps no man in Scotland but the gallant Dundee could have moulded the capricious Highland clans into a formidable army, which three weeks since had cut up King William’s entire Scottish command in Killiecrankie Pass. There he had fallen in the moment of victory; but the Highlandmen now pouring into Dunkeld town were the same that chased the regular soldiers from that grim battlefield. Things looked black for the new Government, and blacker still for Angus’s Regiment of Foot. These were raw troops, recruited a few months before on the Douglas estates in the west country; but if they were new to the Army List there were few of them had not smelt gunpowder before. The west country was the last refuge of the old-fashioned Covenanters; self righteous folk, oddly convinced that their own harsh way of life was the only one pleasing to God. And if a man would live according to God’s Law (they argued) he must first refuse obedience to any earthly authority —a theory that had brought endless tribulation on their beads throughout the last two reigns. It had also made them the best natural soldiers outside the Highlands. “Cameronians” was the popular name for these pseudobiblical warriors, after one of their numerous martyrs; and it followed them into the Army. They showed no proper respect for their officers, or King William, or anyone else short of Jehovah. But if any corps in the service could stand up to the Highland claymores it was these recruits of Angus’s. They fought now in a state of wild exaltation, the Lord’s people doing battle with Anaalek and Moab. Lieutenant-Colonel Cleland, a man-of-the-world as well as a Cameronian, reconciled himself to a martyr’s death, but with less enthusiasm. In the regiment’s present plight he saw not so much the finger of God as the folly of those armchair strategist on the Privy Council, who had taken to interfering in military matters since Killiecrankie, and ordered them up, alone and unsupported, into this hostile country beyond the Highland Line. Was that another assault coming? Cleland stepped out from a doorway, to see for himself, and fell, shot through the head. Down by the parkwall young Lieutenant Blackadder peered out across a strip of orchard ground, now dotted with tartan-clad slain, and prayed for strength. Suddenly aware of fresh movement out there, he yelled an order, and the gleaming musket-barrels slid out across the parapet. .. The Highland army, too, lacked a leader this morning. While Dundee yet lived the Chiefs had often to complain of his habit of acting first and consulting them afterwards. Nobody could accuse his successor of that particular fault. Brigadier Cannon came over from Ireland without the least notion of succeeding to the command, being a modest man that knew his own limitations, and ignorant of Highland warfare. He was fond of drilling his one squadron of Lowland horse and his train of very unreliable artillery; but this being an infantry battle, he was content to follow the course of