Strathspey, Bracmar, Cromar, and countries thereabout, oppressing the whole common and poor people, violently taking and riveing from them of their meat, drink, and all provision, with their whole goods, &c., and for common theft and reset of theft." The record bears that Gilderoy and his band were convicted on their own confession, which, as they could not speak in any language intelligible to the court, was interpreted by Stewart of Ardvoirlich. Confession is a strange and unaccountable act for such men spontaneously to commit in the full assurance of the gallows, and one cannot help suspecting that there must have been foul play in this matter. Along with a coadjutor named Forbes, Gilderoy enjoyed the honour of the gibbet on which they were hanged being raised "one great degree higher nor the gibbet whereon the rest shall suffer." His head and hand were affixed on the east or nether-bow port of Edinburgh.

Thirty years now elapse ere another distinguished leader of the clan gives work to the hangman. On the 25th of March, 1667, Patrick Roy Macgregor was brought to trial for theft, sorning, wilful fireraising, robbery, and murder. He was at the head of a band of desperate banditti, numbering about forty. His latest exploit was an attack almost of the nature of a siege, made on the small town of

Keith, in Banffshire, at which he was wounded and made prisoner. The deed for which he was tried was a midnight attack on the house of Bellkirrie, and the murder of its inmates, Lion of Muiress and his son. The elder victim appears to have secured the vengeance of the banditti, by having brought some of them to punishment for sorning on his lands. His own house was perhaps not so accessible as Bellkirrie; for the news of his visit to his son there, seems to have put the band of freebooters in immediate motion. The indictment charges the murderers with having accepted a capitulation from the victims, with a condition that their lives were to be spared. Patrick Roy did not confess the deed, like his predecessor of greater notoriety; and the records therefore contain the substance of the evidence against him.

James Urquhart, of Camishuin, the principal witness, stated that, while Muiress was with his son, hearing that the freebooters were in the neighbourhood, they took care to house the horses and cattle. The whole household had gone to bed when Roy commenced his attack. The building was low, and thatched; and when the besiegers had collected a quantity of straw from the barn-yard, and "built it," as the witness describes, round the house, the inmates were first awakened to a sense of their

danger by a circle of stifling flames, from which there was no escape, save into the hands of their enemies, surrounding the house to the number of eighteen or twenty. This witness spoke distinctly to the stipulation on which the inmates yielded. "And after Muiress and those that were with him had come out of the house, they (the freebooters) did seize upon and take away the horses to the number of five or six, and their arms-and that Roy took and did wear Muiress's own buff coat and his carbine that they did carry away with them Muiress and his son, and those that were with him, on Muiress's own horses-and that Roy, and Drummond, and others, his accomplices, did ride before and behind them upon the said horses." The witness further said, that he and his companions were removed as prisoners, but "were dismissed the same day, being, before they were dismissed, made to swear upon their dirks that they should not tell where Muiress was, or what should become of him." The next witness, Cruikshank, confirmed this statement; and in continuation, narrated, "That Muiress and his son were carried up and down, from place to place, through the mountains, from Sunday morning, that they were taken-being the 8th-until Wednesday before night that they were murdered, without giving them meat or drink. That they and

Drummond did, about twelve o'clock the day they were taken, leave the prisoners with their complices, and did go away to Ardkingeline on Muiress's horses upon the said day, being Sunday, and did not return until Wednesday thereafter the day that Muiress and his son were murdered-and that after they had returned, which was about two o'clock, Muiress, having desired Thomas Gordon, who, having been sent to Muiress with a letter from Baldovine, and spoke Erse, to see what they intended to do with them, he heard the same Thomas answer him by order of Roy, in English, that he should make him, before his God, very quickly-or such like words." The witness said that they threw a dirk at himself, and threatened him with death. He was removed at the time of the committing of the murder, and the person in charge of him professed, that he had received instructions to put him to death also, but was induced to spare him. His testimony, like that of the other witnesses, terminated with the statement that the prisoners enjoyed in the country the character of being "broken men, thieves, and sorners. None of the witnesses saw the actual perpetration of the murder; but the bodies were found pierced with dirk wounds. The Macgregors were found guilty. Their sentence was, that they were to be hanged, "the right hand being previously

cut off, and their bodies to be hung in chains on the gallow-lee."*

Robert Macgregor, from the epithet Roy, must have been red-haired—a prevailing characteristic of the chief men of the Clan Gregor-whence some ethnologists would infer for them a Scandinavian origin. One of the judges of the court before which he was tried, Lord Pitmedden, has left this brief notice of the appearance and demeanour of the Highland brigand. "He was of a low stature, but strong made; had a fierce countenance-a brisk, hawke-like eye. He bore the torture of the boots with great constancy; and was undaunted at his execution, though mangled by the executioner in cutting off his hand; for which the executioner was turned out."t

The political revolutions of the country had, in the mean time, curiously affected the nominal position of the clan. Their turbulence, under the rule of the Presbyterians and of Cromwell, was interpreted as loyalty to the house of Stewart, and, in the year after the Restoration, the acts against them were repealed. In 1691 they were reimposed by the revolution parliament. The change but little affected the position of the Highland freebooters,

Records of the Hight Court of Justiciary, MS. General Register House.

† Abstract from the Books of Adjournal, MS. Ad. Lib., p. 504.