Appin Murder

[4] Shortly before his assassination, Colin Roy Campbell had become important to what 21st-century Celticist Robert Dunbar has termed, "the eighteenth century Golden Age" of Scottish Gaelic literature.

In the poem, which satirizes the Aisling, or dream vision poetry then being composed in Munster Irish, the ghost of a beheaded Jacobite appears and prophesies that his Campbell clansmen will soon be punished with a second great flood on their lands for committing high treason against their lawful king, except for a list of those whom the Ghost considers to be honourable Campbells who were to be welcomed aboard a new Ark.

[8] James Stewart was hanged on 8 November 1752 on a specially commissioned gibbet above the narrows (Scottish Gaelic: Caolas Mhic Phadruig, lit.

Before mounting the scaffold, James of the Glens, who was described at the time as a "decent, God-fearing Highlander",[9] also drew upon the tradition of exclusive psalmody in Reformed worship in the Gàidhealtachd and sang the Metrical version of the 35th Psalm in Scottish Gaelic: False witnesses rose; to my charge things I not knew they laid.

[13] Ian Nimmo explained, however, "Everyone thought that the bullets came from high on the hillside because of evidence from Mungo Campbell - Colin's nephew - saying that he saw a figure there with a gun going away from him.

"[13] Furthermore, according to journalist Senay Boztas, "There was one shot but two wounds to Glenure's body because two bullets were loaded into the same gun barrel, the second called a 'wanderer' - (Scottish Gaelic: fear siubhail)[14] - as it was less accurate.

[10] Penman's allegations are supported by the local oral tradition, which has long held that Donald Stewart of Ballachulish, rather than Allan Breck or James of the Glens, was responsible.

Following James' execution, large scale evictions continued anyway as did voluntary emigration to new communities like Stewartsville, Scotland County, North Carolina and in other parts of the Highland Scottish diaspora.

Ownership of the estate was restored to Duncan Stewart of Ardsheal, James' nephew, who had emigrated to the Colony of Connecticut, and fought at great personal cost as a Loyalist during the American Revolution, in 1785[17] and the leases of the remaining Campbell tenants were quietly bought out.

In 2016, Allan MacInnes, an academic at the University of Strathclyde and historian Mhàiri Livingstone expressed a belief that, rather than being a conspiracy by members of Clan Stewart of Appin, the murder was far more likely to have been committed by the victim's nephew, Mungo Campbell.

Mungo Campbell was the only witness and inherited his uncle's position as estate factor for the Crown, which both historians said was a consistent motive based on what is known of his personality.

Most crucially, Mungo Campbell took charge of the investigation into his uncle's assassination and routinely used excessive force while interrogating witnesses and suspects, which would have allowed him the opportunity to deflect suspicion from himself.