A story by Dr Edward Stewart
Alisdair Mac Alisdair Ruadh (‘Alexander son of red-haired Alexander‘) Chief of the MacIain MacDonalds of Glencoe.
The chief, an old man now, sits by the fire on a chair carved of hewn oak staves, carved when the chief was but his fathers heir, and polished with age and wear. The hearth crackles and spark fly, reflecting in sharp eyes, and a well-thumbed piece of silver. In the grand hall his retinue, Aonghus mac Alisdair Ruaidh (‘Angus, son of red-haired Alexander’) the poet, the piper Mac Eanruig (‘Henderson‘), and Gilleasbuig Mòr (‘Big Archie’) and a host of others sup from grand tankards of Rhine stoneware. Ale and wine pour from imported jugs with staring bearded ceramic faces.
In the chief’s lap an old pot is nestled in the cradle of his plaid, a smooth shiny polishing stone which served as the lid rests on his thigh. One by one the chief with deft fingers plucks coins from the pots broken neck. He holds a small silver disk to the light of the peat fire flame. A coin of Henry VIII, a king who reigned in south over 150 years before. This coin was the first to be kept, by Alisdair’s Great Great Great Grandfather, Iain Abrach Mac Iain. It was in his time that Campbell of Argyll came to be overlord of these lands at the hands of the Infant Queen Mary. His ancestor had been summoned to a court session in Inverary to meet his new superior, and this silver coin was pressed into his hand by the Campbell lord of Lorn.
Picking up another coin, this one dulled with many oily finger prints and pitted from its travels, Alisdair inspects it by his eye. A doorway, and on the reverse a crest flanked by papal keys. A Quattrino of Clement VIII, a Pope almost 100 years ago, back when the whole of this part of the country still looked to the priests and found certainty in the timelessness of their church. Things were different today, the reformers and covenanters had swept the country back and forth, leaving a patchwork of faiths and allegiances scattered in their wake, old bonds had been shattered and new friendships formed. An ancestor had collected this, on travels to Rome in his youth, while visiting the Scots College. Many Chief’s heirs were sent to continent in those days, it was prefered to a lowland education by many, where their sons might become unclannish, Alisdair himself had been educated in Paris almost half a century ago.
Another coin catches his attention and is swiftly plucked from the pot, a silver soin, well rubbed on one side till the face of Elizabeth of England, who had executed Mary of Scots, was entirely gone with only faint impressions of a slipping crown and the lacy ruffles of a tudor collar remaining. On the reverse ‘1602’ was stamped clear still, only a year before the union of Scotland and England’s crowns under James VI. The House of Stuart was gone now, across the water to France, but Alisdair like many others in this corner of the world still held true to his King, if only word would come. In James VI’s time Glencoe and the West Highlands were in turmoil… the Battle of Glen Fruin was the end of the MacGregors in these parts for a while, and had allowed the unchecked expansion of the Glenorchy branch of Campbells from Loch Awe to Loch Tay and into the vast Moor of Rannoch and Forests of Ba. Alisdair’s Great Grandfather Iain Og Mac Iain (‘John Og‘) was there, and later was killed in a feud with the Stewarts of Appin, Balquidder and Atholl in revenge for the killing of Stewart of Strathgarry over lands in Rannoch.
Another coin catches his eye, small, pierced to be worn on a chain, hammered silver with the emblem of St George in one shield, and a harp in the other. Cromwells’ Commonwealth had fallen in Alisdair MacIain’s childhood, his father had gathered the Glencoe men and marched off with their neighbours the Appin Stewarts, and Camerons from across Loch Leven, the Nevis men and MacDonalds from across the west, to fight for Montrose in his brave campaigns.
A french jeton, an accounting token, catches his eye from the pot’s gloomy neck, fleur-de-lis on one side and an image of a temple, like those from Greece or Rome, on the other. In his youth the chief had visited Paris, and like many young Highland gentlemen, had frequented the coffee houses and parlours there. In one he had met a young gentleman of France in powdered wig and court regalia, who traded him a jeton from the palace of the French king for a Bawbee coin and a flint arrowhead cased in silver. Fairy bolts, some people called them, saying they were proof of the mischief of the fairy folk who lived in the dark mounds by the shore.
Alisdair had returned to Glencoe when news of his fathers ill health reached him, and he succeeded his father soon after. He recalled passing by Islay, slighted seat of his own kin; the Campbells’ fortresses, gloomy Dunstaffnage on its grim rock, and bright Balcardine a far newer house; and the towers of the Stewarts, Shuna across the water and Castle Stalker on its cormorant covered rock. At Shuna he stopped to pay homage to the Appin Stewart’s chief, and hear news of his people, before heading up past Ardshiel’s rocky shores, to the racing narrows of Ballachulish. Up Loch Leven he passed first the small round isle of the beacon, where news of the plague at Callart was signalled many years before, past the burial place of his kin, the Ballachulish Stewarts and Camerons of Callart on Eilean Munde, past the Isle of Discussions, to the shore of Glencoe below his fathers house at Invercoe.
The chief looks up again, eyes misty, to a room wreathed in bluish peat smoke. His eyes cast across the faces of his family, retinue and guests as they cast dice, shuffle cards, puff from long stemmed clay pipes and guzzle from their tankards. Coins flash on the table as games are lost and won.
This story is based on the discovery of the Glencoe Hoard in 2023 and our speculations about how the hoard might have been collected and curated. These coins have been studies by Dr Jesper Ericsson of the Hunterian Museum and the story has been shaped by his expert identification.
The events, characters and connections mentioned in this story are speculative associations, aimed to guide the reader to think of these coins not as a pot of portable wealth, but as a collection curated to tell stories across generations of great events and grand travels!
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