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Welcome back to This Day in Scottish History. I’m your host, Colin MacDonald. Today, we journey back to the 14th of May, 1752—an ominous day that shook the Highlands to their core. It was on this day that Colin Campbell of Glenure, a government agent known as the “Red Fox,” was assassinated in the wooded glen of Lettermore near Ballachulish. His killing would ignite one of the most controversial trials in Scottish legal history, enveloping the Highlands in fear, fury, and injustice.
To understand this moment, we must first return to the bitter aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite Rising. After the crushing defeat at Culloden in 1746, the British government turned its full attention to dismantling the traditional Highland clan system. Tartans were banned, Gaelic was suppressed, and hereditary chiefs lost their power and lands. Into this volatile landscape stepped Colin Campbell, appointed as the government’s factor, or land manager, for the forfeited Stewart estates in Appin. His job: to evict Jacobite supporters and replace them with loyal tenants.
Campbell was a Campbell of Glenure, a name already detested in this region due to the deep-rooted feud between the Campbells and the Stewarts. He was viewed not just as an outsider, but a traitor sent to deliver the final blow to an already humiliated people. As Campbell traveled to enforce another round of evictions, accompanied by an armed escort and with writs of removal in hand, the air was thick with tension.
Then, as he passed through the wooded narrows of Lettermore, a single musket shot rang out. The “Red Fox” slumped in his saddle, mortally wounded, and fell to the ground. Panic erupted. His attendants fled, and by the time they returned with help, the killer had vanished into the Highland mist.
The authorities, determined to make an example, quickly honed in on James Stewart of the Glens—half-brother of the chief of Clan Stewart and a known Jacobite sympathizer. Though there was no direct evidence placing him at the scene, James was arrested, charged with aiding and abetting the murder, and brought to trial in Inveraray—a town under the influence of the powerful Campbell family.
The trial was fraught with irregularities. The presiding judge was the Duke of Argyll, head of Clan Campbell. The jury was overwhelmingly Campbell. Despite a spirited defense and a glaring lack of concrete evidence, James Stewart was found guilty. He was hanged on November 8, 1752, his body left suspended in chains for years as a grim warning to any who might resist the government’s authority.
Yet doubts about his guilt emerged almost immediately and have never faded. James Stewart had an alibi, witnesses testified to his absence from the scene, and even some Campbells expressed private misgivings. Over time, the case came to symbolize the ruthless suppression of Highland culture and the miscarriage of justice that followed Culloden.
The identity of the actual assassin remains a mystery, though speculation has pointed to Allan Breck Stewart, a Jacobite fugitive and skilled marksman who disappeared shortly after the murder. His daring escape and alleged role in the crime later inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novel Kidnapped, embedding the story of the Appin Murder into Scotland’s literary canon.
Today, the site of Campbell’s death is marked by a simple cairn, hidden among the trees where history and myth continue to entwine. The memory of James Stewart endures in folk songs and oral traditions as a martyr—wrongfully executed, but never forgotten.
Thank you for joining me on this haunting journey into one of Scotland’s darkest chapters. For more stories like this, visit my blog at bagtownclans.com/thisday. The link is in the description. Until next time, I’m Colin MacDonald—Haste Ye Back!
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