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For the chief of a seventeenth - one C Scots clan , lack a deadline was nothing to shrug off . In fact , on Feb. 13 , 1692 , when he bomb to swear his swearword of allegiance to the king on time — maybe held back by a blizzard — a mass murder ensued . Soldiers killed dozens of men , women and children who were part of the Clan MacDonald of Glencoe .
Now , archaeologists desire to recover out what exactly happened on that notorious day in story . " We are sample to find remains that tie the landscape painting to the tale of the massacre , " said Derek Alexander , the head of archaeology at theNational Trust for Scotland ( NTS ) , who is conduct the subject area team .
Survivors of the massacre at Glencoe fled into the steep snow-filled mountainsides, where many froze to death.
The team , Alexander say , will focus on three former farm settlement in Glencoe on land that is now possess by the NTS . At the time of the carnage , the settlements at Achtriachtan , Achnacon and Inverrigan in Glencoe were traditional Highland agriculture villages locate a few miles apart , but they were afterward abandon , Alexander suppose . [ 25 Grisly Archaeological discovery ]
Highland massacre
In the recent seventeenth hundred , each of the three former farm resolution had eight to 10 stone buildings and supported 70 to 80 citizenry link to the Glencoe branch of the powerful MacDonald clan , Alexander say .
The villagers made their living primarily by farming some crops , like oats and barleycorn , and by raising cattle . They often stole cattle from other clan , too , a far-flung recitation inthe Highlandsat the meter , Alexander order .
In former February of 1692 , two companies of soldier , consist about 120 men , came to Glencoe and were billeted in the settlements throughout the vale , in grouping of three to five . ( The duty to house government troops for a time was a common var. of tax , Alexander say . )
The massacre of the Glencoe MacDonalds by government troops in 1692 took place during a blizzard in the depths of winter.
But on Feb. 13 , after the soldiers had stayed almost two workweek in the MacDonald domicile , the companies ' require policeman , Robert Campbell of Glenlyon , carry out secret orders to"put all to the steel " in Glencoe .
From around 5 a.m. local time , during a snow rash , the soldier sweep from the compass north to the southward of Glencoe , gathering up more of their scout troop as they moved through the vale , Alexander say . Along the way , they pour down MacDonald human being and set fire to the cottages , he said . [ In exposure : The UK ’s Geologic Wonders ]
More government troops were placed at the north and south ends of the valley to block any escape .
The renowned mountain landscape of Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands hides a bloody history.
According to witnesses , 38 men were pour down in or outside their homes and 14 people were burned to destruction in one cottage .
Alexander say many more people , fair sex and children among them , fled onto the snow - covered mountainsides , among the exorbitant crags and ridges of Glencoe . Some subsist to contact houses in the next valley , but around 40 hoi polloi reportedly stop dead to death , he said .
Deadly deadline
An investigation by Scotland ’s fantan ( England and Scotland remained freestanding kingdoms until the Act of Union in 1707 ) reveal that the government dictate the Glencoe carnage as a punishment and an example to other ill-affected Highlanders .
The rationality ? The kindred chief had failed to meet a deadline to affirm allegiance to King William of Scotland and England ( the MacDonalds said big C. P. Snow make the delay ) .
But many criminate the king ’s Protestant government rector in Scotland of acting out of hate for the rebellious and Catholic Highlanders . Most Highlanders had supported William ’s competition , King James of the House of Stuart , in the first Jacobite go up a few years earlier , according to the BBC .
The archeologic team from the NTS has conducted resume at the three former MacDonald farm settlement on NTS land , where the remains dwell of the foundations of what would have been cottages built of turf and stone , Alexander said .
The first detailed investigations and dig of the abandoned settlements would follow , he said .
The human chronicle of the Glencoe butchery , meanwhile , has persisted as a famous Highland feud between Clan MacDonald and Clan Campbell , who made up most of the regiment of soldiers who expect out the butchery . However , there were reports that many of the soldiers were reluctant to take part and warned their hosts to flee .
harmonize to theethnographer Calum Maclean , many Highlanders saw the Campbell soldier as unwilling tools of the government .
" The name of Campbell has been eternally demean by the event of that dark February nighttime , not so much because the victims were dispatched without warning , but because the fourth dimension - honored code of hospitality was outraged , " Maclean wrote in his story book " The Highlands , " print in 1975 .
" Despite all that , it will surprise many to know that even to this very day in such territorial dominion as Keppoch and Moidart , both in the heart of MacDonald country , democratic tradition exonerates the Campbells , " Maclean wrote .
Original article onLive skill .
