Rob Roy and General Wade
The Old Pretender's Jacobite rising in 1715 might have been a spectacular failure - but it taught the Hanoverian British government that they simply couldn't afford to take the Scots for granted.
One of the best ways to bring order to the rebellious north, they decided, was to tame the still-remote Highlands once and for all by bringing in tough new laws and by improving road communications.
One of their first attempts to restrict the unruly lifestyle of the Highlanders was to introduce the Disarming Act in 1725, banning them from carrying arms and ordering that they hand in their weapons.
Like many laws aimed at taming the wild and stubborn north, it had virtually no effect. However, a new policy was to be introduced which really would begin to subdue what was still the remotest part of Britain and finally start to bring the King's influence onto the clans.
In 1726, the government appointed an Irishman called General George Wade Commander in Scotland. Wade's task was made clear - he had to bring order to the Highlands by improving communication links and strengthening government defences there.
Until then, most people had travelled to and from the remote north either on foot or by horse on simple unfinished tracks. Alternatively, they may have gone by sea.
However, Wade took to his improvement task with vigour. He surveyed the area, and then built a network of 240 miles of new road and a total of 40 new bridges. These roads and bridges linked forts such as Fort Augustus - designed to increase the pressure on the Highlanders and remind them who was in charge - together.
Wade's workrate was prodigious. He built a proper road between Perth and Inverness for the first time in a mammoth project which took 600 men three years.
His workers came from the Black Watch - a regiment made up of Highlanders who were loyal to the Crown and who could be persuaded to act for it. They also policed the Highlands and helped regular British government solders to find their way among the forbidding hills and glens.
The Highlanders, however, would not easily be subdued. For hundreds of years, they had refused to succumb to the laws which governed the rest of the country, preferring instead to run their own lives in their own traditional way.
These tough, resilient men resented attempts to make them conform to a more mainstream lifestyle. Most famous of all the rebels of the time was Rob Roy MacGregor, whose exploits and bravery became legendary.
The MacGregors were one of the most rebellious of the Highland clans - they had been outlawed in 1590 and again in 1695 for persistent lawbreaking. Rob Roy - the name means "red haired" - MacGregor was born at Glengyle near Loch Katrine in 1671.
Rob Roy certainly did not come from the heart of the Highlands - the country around Balquidder and Loch Lomond where he lived and operated is on the very edge of the area, where it meets the lowlands - but he was steeped in their traditions and history.
Born as a Protestant, he was the younger son of the 15th chief of the MacGregors, Donald MacGregor, while his mother was a daughter of Campbell of Glenfalloch, so he was hardly an ordinary Highland clansman. He owned land around Inversnaid on Loch Lomondside, and appears to have become a cattle dealer.
Rob was regarded as good at his job - Highland cattle were sold in lowland markets at places like Falkirk, and he developed a reputation as a man who could get a fair price for his clients.
All apparently went well until 1712, when Rob was cheated by one of his partners and found himself staring bankruptcy in the face. However, he did have a stock of cash - his customers had given him £1000 in cash to buy cattle for them in the Highlands.
Choosing between insolvency and a life of crime, he apparently chose the latter and made off with the cash. Unfortunately, one of the men he had swindled out of their money was the Duke of Montrose, who was meant to be his protector.
Rob was declared bankrupt and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The enraged Montrose seized his property, driving Rob's wife out of her house. From then on, until a reconciliation in 1722, the two men became bitter enemies of each other.
For his own safety, Rob placed himself under the protection of the Duke of Argyll - a sensible move, since he was linked to the family through his mother, and the Argylls and Montroses were already enemies of each other.
Armed with this level of protection, he felt able to take revenge on Montrose. Rob raised his land whenever he could, stealing his cattle and running a protection racket among lowland cattle farmers.
Rob Roy's politics are unclear. He called himself a Jacobite, and was certainly with the Old Pretender's army during the indecisive battle against the Hanoverians at Sheriffmuir in 1715, though it is unlikely he played a major role in the fighting.
However, his protector Argyll was a Whig and so a backer of the government cause - in fact, he actually commanded the Hanoverian army at Sheriffmuir. The most likely scenario is that Rob Roy acted for both sides, working as a spy for whoever was prepared to pay him. It was a dangerous game, but he evidently got away with it.
When the rebellion fell to pieces, Rob Roy was accused of high treason for his part in the fighting. He wrote to General Wade, who had been involved on the government side, to explain his actions.
Rob said he had been forced to take part in the rebellion to avoid being imprisoned because of the action Montrose took against him. He said that he had really wanted to fight on the king's behalf and had supplied Argyll with as much intelligence about the rebels as he could find. Parts of this must almost certainly have been true, because yet again he managed to escape retribution.
After the fighting, his luck stayed with him. He continued his illegal dealing, but every time he was arrested, he managed to escape. On one famous occasion in 1726, he was sent to London to be transported to the colonies, but managed to win a pardon while in Newgate Prison.
On another occasion, he was taken prisoner near Stirling, but he escaped while being taken across the River Forth by slashing the belt that held him and swimming to freedom.
After a life on the run, Rob Roy ended his days peacefully. By this time, he had become something of a hero, and tales of his exploits impressed even the English, to the point where a biography was published during his own lifetime.
His daring exploits so impressed the authorities that he eventually received a King's Pardon, and he finally passed away in 1734, shortly after converting to Roman Catholicism, at the head of the Glen of Balquidder in Perthshire.
Rob Roy MacGregor was the last of a particular type of Highlander - proud, tough, fiercely independent and perfectly happy to shun the laws of the country and to live as an outlaw.
Wade's roads, however, had changed the area irrevocably. For the first time, it was possible to bring law and order in and to orchestrate a measure of control over Britain's and Scotland's wildest outpost.
Anyone who thought that the Highlands would be subjugated on the death of Rob Roy would, however, have been very much mistaken. The union with England may have been maturing, and government forces becoming more confident. But the Jacobites continued to promote the cause of the Stewart kings over the water.
Soon, they would have their glorious moment with a military campaign which would spread out from the Highlands until even London quaked in terror before it?.
Meanwhile...
- 1712 The last execution for witchcraft in England
- 1726 Jonathan Swift writes Gulliver's Travels
- 1739 Camelias arrive in Europe from the Far East
- 1739 David Hume publishes his, Treatise on Human Nature
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- Name : Adam
- Born : 1828
- Died : 1892
- Category : Architects
- Finest Moment : A synthesis of the best of European design in architecture and interiors.
Born 3 July 1728 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, his father, William Adam, was already Scotland's best known architect. William was master mason to the Board of Ordnance in North Britain, as Scotland was sometimes called following the last Jacobite defeat in 1745. He also had a prosperous construction and contracting company in Kirkcaldy, so that Robert and his elder brother James grew up in a comfortable and cultured family environment.
The family soon moved to Edinburgh, where Robert entered the Edinburgh High School. In 1743 he enrolled at Town's College, now Edinburgh University, but dropped this after two years to go into his father's architectural office. In 1754 he started his grand tour, in company with the Hon Charles Hope (of Hopetoun House). Charles Hope was the Earl of Hopetoun's younger brother. Robert was immensely ambitious, and was quite open in his initial plans for the trip, which included setting out 'to lay in a stock of good acquaintance that may be of use to me hereafter.'
In Florence, however, Adam met a young French architect and draftsman, Charles-Louis Clerisseau, who then accompanied him on the tour as instructor. They went on to Rome, where Adam spent most of his time, soaking up the architecture. He returned to London in 1758 and set up practice.
His father had used a wide range of sources for his designs, and Robert Adam was to further this with his use of a wide range of classical sources. His main influence lay in interior decorations, using plasterwork with neo-classical and Renaissance motifs. Like Mackintosh in the distant future, he designed every detail of a room. This was allied to the work of contemporary French designers. He also used ideas from Sir John Vanbrugh.
An ambitious development by Robert and his brother James was to prove a financial disaster; the Adelphi on the Thames. This was a terrace of 24 grand houses on the river's north bank, but in the end the properties had to be disposed of by lottery. It dented his reputation, and he spent the last ten years working in Scotland, where he left Register House (1774-92), elevation designs for Charlotte Square (1791), and Culzean Castle, in Ayrshire (177-92).
He died on 3 March 1792, in London.
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You are here: Heritage | Timelines | Robert the Bruce
Robert the Bruce Period
He was the hammer of the English - the legendary Scots war hero who commanded the Flower of Scotland and sent proud Edward home to think again.
Yet the great Scottish patriot, king and fighter Robert the Bruce may well have been an Englishman himself. It is rumoured that he was born in Essex, and he was wily enough to know when to pretend to be England's friend.
But of one thing there is absolutely no doubt. Robert I, King of Scots, was the architect of our country's greatest ever victory over the English at Bannockburn, driving them out and uniting all Scotland in a burning desire for independence.
Bruce took up the reins of Scotland's freedom as the other great patriot of the age, Sir William Wallace, was forced to let them go. Robert was crowned King a year after Wallace was hung, drawn and quartered by the English in 1305, and he became determined to achieve the one feat his heroic predecessor had never managed - to free Scotland of the marauding English.
Many modern Scots do not realise that Robert spent virtually as much of his time fighting his own countrymen as he did attacking the armies of Edward I and Edward II - or that the greatest achievement of Bannockburn was not that it drove out the English, but that it finally united Scotland.
Robert the Bruce - the name comes, ironically, from the Norman surname De Brus - was the eldest son of one of the richest and most famous Scottish nobles, also called Robert, who had royal Scottish blood in his veins. Because of the Bruces' Anglo-Norman links to William the Conquerer, the family were also strongly linked to the English court.
Robert was born, possibly in Essex or in Turnberry in Ayrshire, on July 11, 1274. During his early life, the young man was well educated - he learned Latin, English, Scots and Gaelic and was also trained in the arts of warfare. He was always aware he could be a contender for the Scottish throne because of his father's royal lineage.
Robert's chance to seize the throne came after the Scots king John Balliol abdicated in 1296 following a raid on Scotland by Edward I. Edward then imprisoned Balliol and decided to rule the Scots himself.
Robert then saw his opportunity of taking the Scottish crown, but knew that in order to do so, he would have to defeat the forces of powerful Scots families such as the Comyns and McDougalls who supported the continuation of the Balliol line.
The peace between the Bruces and the Comyns was kept when Robert and John "The Red" Comyn were both appointed joint guardians of Scotland after Wallace resigned the position in 1298. Two years later Bruce gave up this title and, despite his driving desire to free Scotland, suddenly decided to submit to Edward.
"Why this happened is a mystery, although there are a number of theories", explains one historian. "It could be that Robert wanted to protect his land, his titles and his influence at the time, and felt this was the best way of going about it.
"It might also be that Robert knew that he couldn't take Edward on at that moment in time, and the best solution was to join him until an opportunity presented itself. This would also have given him the chance to spot Edward's weaknesses at close hand."
In 1304, William began to secretly work with Scottish rebels, and his desire to see Scotland free was strengthened when Wallace was executed in 1305. But the following year, John Comyn tipped off Edward about the Bruce's divided loyalties, and Robert was lucky to flee London with his life.
Furious at Comyn's treachery, Robert put together a plan for vengeance. He asked Comyn to meet him at Greyfriars Church in Dumfries on February 10 1306. There was a struggle, and Comyn ended up dead - either slain by Bruce on the altar, or killed by one of Bruce's knights after Robert left.
With Comyn dead, the way was open for Robert to take the Scottish throne. He was crowned at Scone the following months, and many of the nobles rallied to him. The Bruce then also started to openly defy Edward, who saw him as a traitor and attempted to crush him.
After defeats in battle by the English at Methven near Perth in June and then by Comyn's close colleague the Lord of Argyll at Dalry near Tyndrum in August, Robert was forced into hiding. He fled to Rathlin Island off the coast of Ulster and stayed there until February 1307, when he felt the coast was clear and returned to Ayrshire.
Years of internal bickering followed, with Robert desperate to establish his kingdom. He defeated an English force at Loudoun in 1307, and also won a battle against John Comyn, Earl of Buchan and cousin of the slain John. The Bruce's supporters steadily captured Galloway, the forest of Selkirk and the eastern Borders, and between 1310 and 1314, he swon control of northern Scotland from his enemies.
During this time of internal war within Scotland, Robert had one huge piece of luck running in his favour. In 1307, Edward I had finally died, leaving the throne for his son Edward II, who was not nearly so enthusiastic about crushing the Scots as his father. As the new English king prevaricated, so the Bruce was able to capture more and more control of Scotland and build up his forces.
Professor Geoffrey Barrow, Emeritus Professor of Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh and Bruce's biographer, says Robert played a clever strategy against his Scottish enemies, picking them off one by one. "These people were strong in their own areas of the country, but they were never able to get together and fight him as a single unit. It is also clear that Bruce had a fairly sizeable force of troops."
By 1314, Robert had captured control of all of Scotland's main castles except Berwick - not yet an English town, as it is today - Bothwell and Stirling. But Edward II was finally stirring against Scotland, and a clash was inevitable. It came when the Bruce and his forces laid siege to Stirling Castle, which was under the governorship of the pro-Balliol Scot Philip Mowbray, and a massive English army was sent north to relieve it.
Both sides knew that the clash which would certainly follow was about far, far more than the capture of the castle. For Edward, it was a last ditch, all-out attempt to finally seize control of all Scotland and subjugate its troublesome people once and for all. For The Bruce, it represented the opportunity to give the English a hiding they would never forget.
Edward came north with the cream of his cavalry and infantry in a force of up to 30,000 men, and the two sides finally squared up to each other on June 24, 1314. Bruce, who had only between 5000 and 10,000 men, positioned his soldiers in a spot south of the town where he knew trees would hamper an attack by the well trained English horsemen.
As a genius at guerilla warfare, The Bruce knew how to make best use of the terrain. The English found themselves confined in a small and marshy area between the River Forth and the Bannock Burn. Their cavalrymen and infantrymen could not manoevere and Robert took advantage of their confusion and launched an attack.
The Scots forced the English back into the burn, where self defence proved almost impossible. A charge of about 2000 Scots came down from the nearby hills then sent Edward's army reeling. Many of those English who were not put to the sword perished in the Bannock Burn or died in their attempts to escape.
Seeing the writing on the wall, Edward attempted to flee to the safety of the castle along with 500 of his best knights. However, by this time Philip Mowbray had seen the way the tide had turned and refused to open the gates. The deeply dejected English king then tried to escape across country with the Scots at his heels. He finally found safety at Dunbar, where a ship was waiting to take him back to England.
Bannockburn was Scotland's greatest ever military victory against the English. Edward's army was completely smashed and he had to abandon hopes of conquering Scotland, though the English did not then recognise Robert as king of Scots and it was not until 1328 that they finally conceded the independence of Scotland.
While the Bruce's victory as Bannockburn was important in terms of disposing of the threat from England, it was even more important in neutralising the threat against Robert from the Scottish nobles who still despised him. Says Geoffrey Barrow: "The victory absolutely silenced Bruce's enemies completely. They either fled to England or came over to his side."
From then on, King Robert could finally devote his energies to the affairs of his kingdom. All, though, was not yet well. One immensely powerful figure who refused to recognise Scotland's nationhood was the Pope. Robert and his nobles saw that they had another crucially important battle to fight - this time not with the sword, but with the pen?..
Meanwhile around the world ...
- 1296 Construction of Florence Cathedral begins
- 1306 Jewish people are expelled from France by Philip IV
- 1307 Dante composes his work, "Divina Commedia"
- 1309 Orleans University is founded
- 1311 The Order of the Knights Templar is abolished
- 1290 Expulsion of the Jews from England.
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