Robert Campbell of Glenlyon

Robert Campbell, 5th Laird of Glenlyon (1630 – 2 August 1696), was a minor member of Scottish nobility and is best known as one of the commanding officers at the Massacre of Glencoe.

Workmen arrived from the lowlands to fell the trees, which were sent floating down the Lyon, choking the river, causing widespread flooding, but consolidating his financial position.

While Robert Campbell was still unable to satisfy his creditors, his own tenants offered him half their cattle to pay off his debts but he refused, and sold almost all of the estate to the Earl of Tullibardine in 1684.

In 1689, on their return from the Battle of Dunkeld, the MacIains of Glencoe (a sept of Clan MacDonald), together with their Glengarry cousins, looted Glenlyon, stole his livestock, and razed Campbell's last remaining holdings, increasing his financial problems from debts.

In a final effort to support his wife and family, Robert Campbell, at the age of fifty nine, joined the Earl of Argyll's Regiment of Foot and came to play his part in the Glencoe massacre.