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The Battle of Glen Fruin

February 7, 1603

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Clan MacGregor, fresh from a raid upon the lands of Sir Alexander Colquhoun, the Laird of Luss on Loch Lomondside, found themselves once again in Royal disfavor with King James VI.  Records indicate   With full authorization from the Crown the Colquhouns readied a strong armed response, consisting of their own kin along with Buchanans and the burgesses of Dumbarton.

Not content to wait for an impending attack, Alasdair MacGregor advanced south to meet his opponents with 300 of his own men, in addition to men from the MacDonalds and MacIans of Glencoe, Robertsons, Macleans and "some Camerons."  These men were armed with "halberschois, powaixes, twa-handit swordies, bowis and arrowis, andwith hagbutia and pistoletis."  The armies met in Glen Fruin (the Field of Lennox), which runs westward from Loch Lomond.  The Colquhouns, whom numbered a reported three hundred mounted men and five hundred foot were soundly defeated by the MacGregor contingent of 300 men.  Later, it was recorded that 140 Colquhoun men were killed that day in Glen Fruin.  Their lands were once again raided by the MacGregors and presumably their aforementioned associates, with 80 horses, 600 cows and 800 sheep going to the victors.

Soon afterwards the MacGregors found themselves an outlawed clan.  Less than two months following the battle, on April 3, 1603 an Act of the Privy Council proscribed the use of the names Gregor or MacGregor, and prohibited those who had borne the names from carrying arms.  Within ten years of Glen Fruin most of them were either dead, run off their lands or in Government hands.