Legend of Bruce’s Brooch
While Morvern Lines is always a favourite, I noticed Valerie Forsyth’s pleasant piece on The Legend of Bruce’s Brooch in your March 12 issue. If I may, I would like to make a small correction.
She is absolutely right that The Statistical Account has it that, in the storming of Gylen Castle in 1647, the Brooch of Lorne was captured by Campbell of Inverawe. However the brooch never came into Inverawe hands. It was seemingly found, not by Lt. Col. Dougall Campbell of Inverawe who had been sent by General Leslie to capture the tower, but by his colleague in the brief siege, Campbell of Bragleen.
Bragleen in Scammadale, is still owned by his descendants, the Robertsons of Bragleen, and it was when that Campbell family ran out to heiress daughters who were left short of funds, that the brooch went to be sold. Campbell of Lochnell, from whose ancestors the Bragleen Campbells were descended, stepped in both to help the young ladies of Bragleen and so as to restore the brooch to the MacDugalls of Dunollie, as is mentioned.
Briefly, the attack on Gylen was a part of the Civil War which, in Scotland, was largely fought between two marquessses: the able administrator
the Marquess of Argyll, and the brilliant soldier the Marquess of Montrose. Montrose, sent north by Charles I without an army, was joined by Alastair MacColla MacDonald, son of Coll Coitach, with his skilled force of Irish clan Donald. Before defeating the forces of the Marquess of Argyll and Lowland forces at Inverlochy, MacColla and his men had devastated Argyll. But following Montrose’ subsequent campaign about the north of Scotland, he was deserted by MacColla after the battle of Philliphaugh. Lamont of Lamont lent MacColla boats to return to Argyll, earning him Campbell rage. MacColla again burnt crops and houses in a barely recovered county and narrowly escaped Leslie’s forces at Rhu na Haorain in Kintyre, sailing for Gigha and Islay.
Inverawe was sent north to find boats so Leslie could chase MacColla, but found none until
Loch Sween. So while Leslie continued south, Inverawe was sent north again to capture Gylen, which he did, although the garrison was not large enough for a ‘massacre’ – as one Gaelic tale would tell (in the Dewar M.S.). Perhaps the poet confused Gylen with ‘the barn of the bones’.
When MacColla had herded women and children into a barn and set the thatch alight – recalled locally as ‘the barn of the bones’ – Campbell of Bragleen was with them. He is said to have burst his way up through the thatch, challenged MacColla to a duel, and when he got no response, flung his sword high in the air. While all looked up to be sure they would not be hurt by its fall, Bragleen escaped. The impoverished heiresses of Bragleen were his descendants.
Diarmid Campbell, Kilchoan Farmhouse, Kilmelford.