For almost 317 years the entire Clan Campbell has borne the stigma not only of massacre but of the worst possible breach of the Highland code of hospitality. Early in the morning of 13th February in 1692, thirty eight members of the MacDonad clan were murdered without warning, as they slept, by Campbells lodging in their homes in the Glen; and forty more perished in blizzard conditions when they fled for their lives.

The signal for their murder was triggered by their Chief’s tardiness in taking the oath of allegiance to the then English King, William of Orange.

The revulsion of other Highlanders – and of history – for this action leaves the name Campbell, even today, often accompanied by an inward shudder in the uttering.

But a research publication, Glencoe: The Infamous Massacre 1692, written by John Sadler, a historian from Newcastle University, claims to present a different version of these events – and one relieving the pressure of this dark legacy on the Campbell name.

Where history has held that the massacre was the result of a scheme concocted between the King and the Campbell Clan, Sadler presents the Campbells as little more than a pawn in the game of the British Crown. His argument is that the Campbells lodging with the MacDonalds in Glencoe on the pretext of seeking shelter were not sent their as Campbells by their Chief but by the English as soldiers of the Crown.

Sadler also repeats what is now well known and accepted – that many of the Campbells involved were unable to carry out their instructions because of the strength of the code of hospitality and warned their hosts in time for them to make an escape – although the blizzard may itself have done some of the King’s work for him.

In an pretty wholesale attempt to recast the event, Sadler also makes shift to absolve the King to some degree, suggesting that the massacre was the result of Machiavellian interventions by court and military schemers with their own agendas, who deliberately misinterpreted what Sadler sees as King William’s ambiguous instructions.

The most persuasive element of the continuing attempts by historians to present a more textured perspective on the behaviours of the Campbells on the day is the force of the code of hospitality. This is not just a Scottish code. It is a classical and primitive one which was part of an early set of laws designed to offer as many people as possible as much protection as possible from each othe’s predatory intentions.

The code of hospitality and its origins

The Greek notion of hubris was such a law and is a direct forebear of the Scots code. There the law of hospitality too was central.

• No one could commit a crime against kindred blood
• No one, either as host or guest, could take any action causing harm to the other
• No mortal could take credit to themselves for events whose attribution was due to the Gods

When you look at this ‘law’, it is basic but it does, in the sort of society it was designed to enable, offer widespread protection. The ties of blood locally would have been complex and wide-ranging. Away from home, most people would have been under someone else’s roof. And the final proscription kept people in their place.

What really did keep them in some sort of voluntary control was the penalty paid for infringement. No one could breach any of these conditions without bringing upon their heads the infinite curse of the Gods, enacted by the legendary Furies.

Greek society’s later examination of the ability of this early law to meet the needs of a more developed society is reflected in Aeschylus’s series of three plays on Orestes.

A part of the law forbidding crimes against kindred blood required a form of vendetta. Blood relatives of the dead were themselves required to pursue such crimes to the death of the perpetrator, whatever else the Furies inflicted.

As a son, Orestes, whose Mother Clytemnestra killed his Father Agamemnon on his victorious return from Troy, was required by this primitive law to exact vengeance upon his Father’s killer. But, since the felon was his Mother, if he fulfilled the edict and killed her he would himself fall foul of the law forbidding crimes against kindred blood, bringing the Furies in eternal pursuit. They, of course, had no interest in Clytemnestra’s murder of her husband since she was not his blood relative.

In the plays this complicated narrative weaves its way to a conclusion which sees Orestes pardoned for the murder of his Mother – yes, he did – and the Furies brought within the framework of a modernised law, playing a supervisory role and rebranded as ‘The Kindly Ones’.

So, with the historical embedding of the law of hospitality, it has always been persuasive that many individual Campbell’s would not have played a part in the massacre. Others, of course, did.

An interesting footnote to the news of Sadler’s book is that the management at the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe, famous for displaying to this day a sign saying: ‘No hawkers or Campbells’ is quoted as indicating that, if the history of the massacre is convincingly rewritten, they will consider removing the sign.

The image above is of an Edwardian painting of the site of the infamous 1692 massacre of the MacDonald clan in Glen Coe, Argyll. This picture is the copyright of the Lordprice Collection and is reproduced under the Creative Commons licence.