In February 1603 Sir Alexander Colquhoun of Luss led a force of some four hundred horse and five hundred foot into Glenfruin, west of Loch Lomond, to confront the MacGregors who had been raiding Colquhoun lands. Alasdair MacGregor of Glenstrae had anticipated the Colquhoun advance and positioned his men in the wooded hillsides of the glen. The Colquhouns were channelled into the narrow glen floor where the MacGregors ambushed them from above on both sides. The Colquhoun horse was useless in the confined ground and the infantry broke in confusion. The massacre that followed — including the killing of students and bystanders who had come to watch what they thought would be a bloodless confrontation — gave James VI the pretext to proscribe the entire MacGregor clan.
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