LOCH-LOMOND. CLAN GREGOR. 119 



they were treacherously beset near Glenfruin, by their inveterate enemy, 

 Colquhoun, with eight hundred of his retainers and neighbours. Macgregor, 

 however, having been secretly apprised of this treacherous design, kept his 

 men on the alert. Colquhoun, confident in his superiority of numbers four to 

 one began the assault with a vehemence which, for a moment, appeared to 

 carry every thing before him. This, however, was speedily checked by the charac- 

 teristic firmness and desperation with which the Macgregors stood the onslaught. 

 As the latter gained ground, their aggressors began to waver, and at length took to 

 a precipitate flight, leaving two hundred of the name of Colquhoun, besides others, 

 dead on the field, and many prisoners in the hands of the Macgregors. 



Besides the mortification of this signal defeat, the Colquhouns had to deplore 

 a catastrophe far more painful than the loss of battle, and which converted their 

 wounded pride into agony and despair. The principal part of the youth 

 of the adjoining district being then at school in Dunbarton, and hearing of 

 the conflict which was to take place on that day between their friends many 

 of them family connexions and the Macgregors, had stolen off to witness the 

 combat, and assist in the triumph in which it was confidently expected to end. 

 Before the action commenced, however, their parents and friends judged it 

 proper to confine them, amounting to about eighty, in a tarn, till the conflict 

 was decided. But the result being very different from what they anticipated, 

 the barn was taken by the Macgregors, who, in the heat of pursuit, left a guard 

 in charge of it. Either from accident, however, or the inhuman act of the 

 party there stationed for its preservation, the barn caught fire, and the unhappy 

 children were suffered to perish in the flames. To this tragical occurrence, 

 or atrocious cruelty, may be attributed the numberless calamities with which 

 the clan Gregor were afterwards visited. A partial statement of all these 

 occurrences was drawn up and presented to James VI. A procession of sixty 

 widows, whose husbands had fallen on that day, mounted on white palfreys, 

 and bearing on long poles, upwards of two hundred bloody shirts tokens of 

 the slaughtered Colquhouns gave effect to the representation, and succeeded 

 so well with the king, that from that hour the clan Gregor was outlawed, their 

 lands confiscated, and their very name doomed to extermination.* Driven to 



As early as 1563, the parliament of Scotland passed an act of attainder and forfeiture against the laird 

 of Macgregor, then in possession of the estate of Glenstrae, in Glenorchy. Other severe enactments suc- 

 ceeded the first; and in 1633 an act was passed, declaring it " unlawful for any man to bear the name of 

 Macgregor ; that no signature under that name, no act or agreement entered into with a Macgregor, 

 was legal. That, to take the life of a man of that clan, was not an act of felony, nor any way punishable ; 

 and that no minister or preacher should at any time baptize or christen any male child of the Macgregors." 

 And, the better to facilitate their extirpation, they were hunted with blood-hounds, trained to follow on 

 the track, and thus discover the haunts and hiding-places of the unfortunate clan. These were measures 



