The clan of the Macgregors charged the Colquhouns with fury, and, owing to the fact that part of the opposing force was mounted, and that the horses got mired in the boggy ground, they were able, notwithstanding their inferiority of numbers, to get the best of it, whereupon they set upon their flying foes and slaughtered them mercilessly.
The event which, however, lives in memory longest is that of the action of a gigantic Macgregor, called Dugald Ciar Mohr, or the “great mouse-coloured man,” who was in charge, as their tutor, of a party of youths from Glasgow. It is said that, excited by the sound of his clansmen shouting their war-cry, or incensed by the remarks of the youths against his clan, he lost his head; anyway, he slew them all in cold blood.
The great stone called Leck-a-Mhinisteir, the “minister or clerk’s stone,” is still pointed out as the place where this horrid deed was done, and it is said the stone was bathed red in the blood of the hapless boys. This Dugald was the ancestor of Rob Roy and his tribe.
The terrible song put by Sir Walter Scott into the mouths of the Macgregor boatmen carries with it a wild cry of savagery:
Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin, And Bannacha’s groans to our slogan replied; Glen Luss and Rossdhu they are smoking in ruin; And the best of Loch Lomond lie dead on its side. Widow and Saxon maid Long shall lament our raid, Think of Clan Alpine with fear and with woe; Lennox and Leven Glen Shake when they hear again Roderick vich Alpine dhu! ho feroe!
After this defeat the fury and wrath of the other clans, who were in favour at Court, may be imagined, and the widows of the slain men, to the number of several score, were sent, dressed in deep mourning, and riding upon white palfreys, carrying each her husband’s bloody shirt, to demand vengeance of King James VI. on the Macgregors. The Court was then at Stirling, and surely Stirling never saw a more woesome sight! The vengeance they obtained was all that they could desire, for by an Act of Privy Council, dated April 3, 1603, the name of Macgregor was wiped out of the land, all those who bore it being compelled, under dire penalties, to adopt the name of some other clan; hence it was that Rob Roy was known as Rob Roy Macgregor Campbell. The Macgregors were forbidden to carry any weapons, and were otherwise penalized. The chief, Alistair Macgregor, who had led the fight at Glen Fruin, was seized, and hanged in 1604. Yet, in spite of these and other dire disabilities, the Macgregors continued to be Macgregors in heart, whatever they might call themselves, and held their heads as high as their own crest, a pine-tree. They attached themselves to the cause of King Charles in the Civil Wars, and were subsequently rewarded by the annulling of the Acts and having their rights restored to them.