
Charles Graham-Campbell
Director, Scotland
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Director, Scotland
The first of these letters dates from soon after George I's accession to the throne and with it renewed Jacobite activity, when Robert MacGregor, known to history and folklore as Rob Roy (1671-c.1734), was seeking to restore his fortunes by embarking on a campaign of raiding Montrose's estates, in the hope of gaining concessions from him.: "Parties of soldiers sent to track him down were thwarted by the wild terrain, the weather, and his evasive skills. In November he kidnapped Montrose's factor, John Graham the younger of Killearn, while he was collecting rents, and demanded that for his ransom Montrose cancel all his debts, pay him for his losses through the destruction at Craigrostan, and give his word that he would not trouble Rob in future. If men were sent against him Killearn would suffer for it. The demands were unrealistic, as Rob probably knew, and he had not the ruthlessness to make good his threats against his captive, whom he freed after a week or two. To Rob, no doubt, the gesture was worthwhile in so far as it showed his contempt for Montrose and humiliated him. The duke complained furiously to London of this insult done to the authority of the state, but the military was reluctant to act, believing that Rob would always succeed in slipping away when troops were sent against him—and there are indications that in any case it was feared by some that if Rob was captured he might cause political embarrassment by revealing Argyll's contacts with him and other Jacobites during the rising of 1715" (David Stevenson, ODNB). The second letter probably dates from a little earlier, when Rob Roy was engaged, not always successfully, in cattle trading, receiving advances from landowners and others to buy cattle, delivery often being due months later; a dubious business which was denounced by Montrose.