13/07/2022
Not many people, even in the unruly and most violent days of the old Highlands, can boast such a brutal introduction to life as that of James Beag Stewart 2nd of Ardvorlich.
In 1589 a band of MacGregors from Balquhidder were caught hunting deer in the King’s forest of Glenartney by the chief forester John Drummond of Drummondernoch, an estate near Comrie. To teach the poachers a painful lesson Drummond had their ears cut off before sending them on their way.
Back in Balquhidder bloody vengeance was sworn against Drummond and the MacGregors, backed up by their young chief Alasdair MacGregor of Glenstrae set out to even the score. Drummond was caught and decapitated and his head wrapped in a plaid, from here they made their way to Ardvorlich House on the south shore of Loch Earn, home of Alexander Stewart and his pregnant wife Margaret, the sister of the murdered Drummond.
On arrival at the house, as was custom in the Highlands, the visitors asked for and were given food by Margaret, her husband on that day being away from home. When she returned from the kitchen she was shocked to find the bloody severed head of her brother on the table with bread and cheese stuffed into his mouth.
By now utterly delirious, Margaret, heavily pregnant, ran out into the wild country at the foot of Ben Vorlich, the mountain which rises steeply behind the house where she lingered for some time. At a small body of water high in the hills, today called Lochan na Mna, Little Loch of the Woman, she gave birth to her son James, who in adulthood would be the notorious and much feared Major James Beag Stewart, 2nd of Ardvorlich.
In 1620 Ardvorlich suffered a raid by the MacDonalds of Glencoe out on a creach, or cattle foray. It would prove an extremely costly venture for the Highlanders from the west with 7 killed, at least one by hand of the 31 year old heir to Ardvorlich. The skeletons of these men were discovered in the 19th century and today a memorial stone marks the spot and reads:
‘Here lies the bodies of 7 McDonalds of Glencoe killed while attempting to harry Ardvorlich AD 1620’.
James Beag is most notably remembered for his time as a Captain in the army of James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose when following that most bloody battle at Tippermuir in 1644 and while camped at Collace, 10 miles NW of Perth he brutally murdered his good friend and kinsman of Montrose, John Graham Lord Kilpont.
The background to the killing, according to the later Ardvorlich family, stems from a raid on James Beag’s estate by the fearsome leader of Clan Donald south, Alasdair MacColla, who like Stewart was a fellow soldier in Montrose’s royalist army during the Wars of the Covenant, but MacColla cared nothing for Lowland culture or the fortunes of Charles I and was wholly bent on plunder and ultimately breaking the power of the Campbells in the west with his fearsome army of Gaels from the Western Highlands and Ireland.
In a murderous rage James, now 55 years of age was keen to settle the score with MacColla in a one on one to the death. This conflict led Montrose, and James’s close friend Kilpont to call a truce. James reluctantly accepted, and he shook hands with his adversary and it is said Stewart gripped his hand so tight MacColla bled from the fingernails.
Back in their tent at Collace, which James Beag and Kilpont shared, some say intimately, a violent argument, augmented by drink broke out between the two, likely to do with the lack of redress for MacColla’s murderous raid on the estate of Ardvorlich, James drew his dirk and stabbed his friend Lord Kilpont killing him there on the spot. Stewart ran out of the tent to escape, and when attempted to be apprehended by two of MacColla’s Irish Gaels, Stewart stabbed them to death also.
James Beag escaped into the darkness and left behind him his dead friend and also his seventeen year old son Harry, who lay close by in Collace churchyard mortally wounded after action at the recent engagement at Tippermuir, James never saw his son again, he passed away soon after. From Collace and without many options he made his way west where he offered his services to Montrose’s bitter enemy, Archibald Campbell Earl of Argyll, and reaching the rank of Major saw out the rest of his military career surprisingly unscathed.
Stewart of Ardvorlich was also known for his brutal treatment and relentless persecution of the MacGregors, his introduction to the world, the torment experienced by his mother and the murder of his uncle by the wild men of Balqhuidder left deep scars that would never be healed while he lived, and any of the Clan Gregor, man woman or child he came in contact with were mercilessly put to death. He was known to have hanged seven in a day from trees near Comrie without fear of reprisal as the name MacGregor had now been proscribed and its use completely outlawed by the crown.
In 1658 - 68 years after his birth by the lonely Lochan high in the hills James died at his Perthshire house of Ardvorlich by Loch Earn. He was to be buried in the little chapel of St Fillans at Dundurn five miles to the east but his old adversaries, the MacGregors, intended to hijack the cortege and mutilate Stewart’s deceased co**se, consequently he was secretly buried by Loch Earn close to the house and there he would lie for many years until it seemed all meaning resentment had passed and he was at last disinterred and moved to Dundurn. Today an engraved stone from the 18th century commemorates the site of his temporary interment.
The history of the Scottish Highlands is littered with stories and accounts of men and their dark deeds of pillage and murder, but for guile, strength of body, skill in arms, and utter ruthlessness, few names would live into modernity with such notoriety and fearsome respect as Major James Stewart, 2nd of Ardvorlich.
Ardvorlich and the Murder, Alexander Stewart of Ardvorlich, Stewart Society Vol 21, No 2 - 2001.
Rennie McOwan, With Fire & Sword, Scots Magazine 1995.
rykbrown.net Genealogy Databa
