Roy’ (Red Rob). He continued to occupy Balquhidder, and on the death of Gregor MacGregor in 1693 became for a time the nominal head of the clan, as tutor to his nephew, James Graham of Glengyle. In the marriage contract of his nephew he is denominated ‘of Inversnail’ (Inversnaid); and he had ‘acquired an interest, by purchase, wadset, or otherwise, to the property of Craigroyston,’ a ‘domain of rock and forest lying on the east side of Loch Lomond’ (Sir Walter Scott). His territory lay between possessions of the rival houses of Montrose and Argyll, and he seems to have made it his aim to use that rivalry to his own advantage. For some time after the revolution he would appear to have been in special favour with Montrose, who had by advances of money greatly assisted him in extending his business as a cattle-dealer.
According to a ‘Memorandum of Rob Roy's Dealings in Cattle’ among the ‘Montrose Papers,’ he had for several years traded in bringing black cattle from the highlands to the lowlands in May or June for persons who had advanced the price in money the winter before; but ‘finding his affairs backward’ in 1711, he absconded with the money to the Western Isles, ‘with the intention of leaving the country’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. p. 381). On obtaining promise of protection from James Graham, first duke of Montrose [q. v.], to come to Glasgow, he returned home, but declined to take further advantage of the duke's offer (ib.) In 1712 his case came before the court of session at Edinburgh, when it was declared that he ‘did most fraudulently withdraw and fled, without performing anything on his part, and therefore became unquestionably a notour and fraudulent bankrupt’ (Burton, Criminal Trials, i. 55). In a warrant granted for his apprehension in October 1712 by the lord advocate, Sir James Stewart, he is described as ‘a notour bankrupt,’ who ‘by open fraud and violence hath embezzled considerable sums of money,’ and ‘refusing to come to any account’ keeps himself ‘with a guard or company of armed men in defiance of the law’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. p. 381). But the charge of fraudulent bankruptcy was ill-supported. Rob's principal creditor was the Duke of Montrose, and his aim in avoiding his creditors was to keep out of the clutches of the law, which as a representative of a proscribed clan he had good reason to dread. Moreover, an edictal citation was on 27 Nov. granted against him before his case came on for trial (Forbes, Decisions of the Court of Session, p. 635). According to his own plausible version of the dispute, as narrated in a letter to John Murray, first duke of Atholl [q. v.], 27 Jan. 1713, he had offered Montrose, who was endeavouring to ‘ruin’ him ‘upon the accompt of cautionrie, … the whole principal soum with a year's annual rent, which he positively’ refused. ‘The reasone why he did refuse it was he sent me a protectione, and in the meantime that I had the protectione his grace thought fitt to procure me order from the Queen's advocate to Funab [Campbell of Finab] to secure me.’ ‘This,’ adds Rob, ‘was a most ridiculous way to any nobleman to treat any man after this manner’ (Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. App. pt. viii. p. 65); and he ingenuously suggests to Atholl to ‘speake to the advocate to countermand his order, since it's contrary to law.’
During Rob's enforced absence to avoid arrest his wife and family were evicted in mid-winter at the instance of Montrose, and it was on leaving her homestead that his wife is said to have composed the pathetic piece of pipe music known as ‘Rob Roy's Lament.’ Rob now placed himself under the protection of John Campbell, first earl of Breadalbane [q. v.], and gathering a powerful band of followers declared ‘that the estate of Montrose should in future supply him with cattle, and that he would make the duke rue the day he had quarrelled with him.’ A fort erected by the government at Inversnaid was seized by him just as it was completed, and utilised for his own safety. For a time he was able to make good his footing in his native territory, and the unsettled state of the country following the death of Queen Anne enabled him to defy the law with impunity. It is affirmed that he signed his name to a bond in favour of the Pretender, and that the bond came into the hands of Campbell of Glenlyon, who was ordered to carry it to the privy council, and that Campbell and his party were stopped while on the road by a strong force under Rob Roy, and compelled to surrender the incriminating document (Millar, History of Rob Roy, pp. 86–8). Haldane of Gleneagles, writing from Glasgow on 1 Nov. 1714, reported that Rob a few evenings before appeared at the Cross of Crieff, and after drinking to the Pretender's health departed unscathed (Hist. MSS. Comm. 3rd Rep. p. 378), and on 5 Feb. 1715 he wrote that Rob at his last appearance at Crieff had drunk ‘to those honest and brave fellows that cut out the gaudger's ear’ (ib.), an outrage committed in the previous December. After the arrival in Scotland of John Erskine (1675–1732), earl of Mar [q. v.], Rob Roy went north to Aberdeen to collect a part of the clan Gregor settled in that county, and while there was
