Christmas Every Day

1692 The Glencoe Massacre

“Cruel is the snow that sweeps Glencoe and covers the graves o’ Donald” — T.S. Eliot

In the western Scottish Highlands is Glen Coe, a narrow valley of considerable beauty. There, on the morning of February 13, 1692, settlements inhabited by members of the MacDonald clan were set upon and murdered by troops associated with the Campbell clan, a massacre that is still remembered today.

In the fighting that took place after the 1688 ouster of King James II by his daughter Mary and her Dutch husband William of Orange, the highlanders were largely Jacobites — supporters of James. Following their defeat, the new King William offered a pardon to all clans who acknowledged his legitimacy with an oath taken by January 1, 1692. Some clan leaders delayed until the last moment and bad weather prevented one of them, Alastair Maclain, Chief of Glencoe, from doing so until after the deadline expired.

This technical lapse allowed some Scotsmen, hostile to the MacDonalds and highlanders in general, to plot the eradication of the clan. John Dalrymple, Secretary of State Over Scotland, was a lowlander with a desire to break the power of the clan system in northern Scotland. He conspired with leaders of clan Campbell who had a long-standing feud with the MacDonalds to carry out an exemplary extermination of their mutual enemies. He arranged to have troops commanded by a Campbell officer billeted in the homes of Glencoe and to kill their hosts at a pre-arranged time. This is the order given to Captain Robert Campbell who was staying at the house of the MacDonald chieftain:

You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebells, the McDonalds of Glenco, and put all to the sword under seventy. you are to have a speciall care that the old Fox and his sones doe upon no account escape your hands, you are to secure all the avenues that no man escape. This you are to putt in execution att fyve of the clock precisely; and by that time, or very shortly after it, I’ll strive to be att you with a stronger party: if I doe not come to you att fyve, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. This is by the Kings speciall command, for the good & safety of the Country, that these miscreants be cutt off root and branch. See that this be putt in execution without feud or favour, else you may expect to be dealt with as one not true to King nor Government, nor a man fitt to carry Commissione in the Kings service. Expecting you will not faill in the full-filling hereof, as you love your selfe, I subscribe these with my hand  att Balicholis  Feb: 12, 1692.
For their Majesties service (signed) R. Duncanson

On the snowy morning of February 13, the troops in three valley settlements attacked the householders, killing 38 men and burning the homes. An additional 40 women and children would die from exposure having lost their shelter.

The killings created a scandal. The Scottish Parliament ordered an inquiry which declared the deed to be one of murder, an illegitimate order that should have been disobeyed. It demanded that the MacDonalds be recompensed and the guilty officials punished but little was done to enforce this.

The “Red Wedding” episode of Game of Thrones is said to have been based on this massacre.

1554

The execution of Lady Jane Grey

Under the rule of Edward VI (r 1547-53) England became a Protestant country with the Church of England the only legal religion. By 1553 it was clear that Edward did not have long to live and that the heir, according to the will of their father Henry VIII, would be the Catholic loyalist, Edward’s half-sister Mary. The Duke of Northumberland, John Dudley, was the power behind the throne and sought to divert the succession away from Mary by marrying his son Guilford to Lady Jane Grey, a reliably Protestant royal cousin. Edward agreed to this in his will and directed the English political class to submit to Jane on his death.

When Edward died on July 6, 1553, Northumberland kept the death a secret while he tried to gain support for the 16-year-old Jane and arrest Mary. Though Jane was proclaimed Queen, her supporters in the main deserted her for the claims of Mary who was deemed to be the legitimate heir and not the puppet of the unpopular Dudley. After a reign of only 9 days, Jane stepped down and was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London. She was found guilty of treason but was not executed.

Early in 1554 a Protestant rebellion led by  her father, the Duke of Suffolk, failed and in the aftermath he, Jane, and her husband were beheaded. England would be ruled by a Catholic who over the next four years would burn almost 300 Protestants at the stake and win the nickname Bloody Mary.

1990

Down goes Tyson

The most ferocious of all heavyweight boxing champions was Mike Tyson, who was also the youngest man to win the world title. He was fast and a tremendously hard hitter. It also helped that he was insane, a wife abuser, convicted rapist, an ear biter and capable of threatening to eat an opponent’s children. The sight of him charging across the ring in the first round was enough to cause faint hearts and trembling knees in those he faced.

In February 1990 he was at the peak of his form, with a 37-0 record, almost all by knockouts early in the fight. He had defeated creditable foes such as Larry Holmes, Trevor Berbick, James “Bonecrusher” Smith, and Michael Spinks.  His opponent in Tokyo was the little-regarded Buster Douglas, 29-4-1, who deemed to be a mere warm-up for a match later in the year with Evander Holyfield. Only one Las Vegas casino would even take a bet on the fight and the single one to do so offered odds of 42-1.

But from the beginning it was clear that Douglas had no fear of Tyson and refused to be bullied. His jab, with a 12-inch reach advantage, kept the shorter Tyson at bay and by the fifth round had created a dangerous lump above the champion’s left eye. Tyson seemed to believe he could end the fight with a single blow and was willing to trade punches, a tactic that seemed to work in the 8th round when he felled Douglas with an uppercut. Taking advantage of what seemed to be a long count, Douglas was able to regain his feet. Tyson’s aggression was reawoken, but to no avail. In the ninth and tenth rounds Douglas battered him into submission, finally knocking Tyson off his feet for the first time in his career. The dazed champion could not beat the count and Buster Douglas was declared the winner of what was called the most amazing upset in boxing history.

Alas for Douglas. He declined a rematch with Tyson and elected to fight up-and-coming Evander Holyfield. During his nine-month reign he had let himself get fat and lazy and was knocked out in the third round. His career was over but his fight with Tyson is part of boxing history.

1945

Daring escape from Peenemünde

In July 1944 Soviet pilot Mikhail Devyatayev was shot down over Poland and made a prisoner of war by the Germans. He was held in a series of concentration camps (Nazis treated Soviet prisoners much more harshly than those captured on the Western Front) and was eventually sent as a slave labourer to the missile site at Peenemünde, on an island in the Baltic. There Germany developed the V-1 and V-2 missiles that were used against Britain late in the war and where conditions for the slaves were brutal.

Devyatayev was determined to escape and convinced other Russian prisoners to join his plan. On February 8, 1945 ten captives overpowered their guards and made for the airfield where the camp commandant had landed his Heinkel bomber. Devyatayev piloted the craft back to Soviet territory despite Luftwaffe attempts to shoot him down and fire from Soviet air defences.

The daring prisoners were not, however, treated as heroes. The paranoid Soviet authorities were scornful of their story. Devyatayev was thrown in jail (a common fate for returned prisoners, especially officers) and the others were posted to penal battalions where they were assigned the most dangerous duties and from which only a battle wound could release them. Five of them died before the war ended. As a “criminal” Devyatayev had a miserable post-war existence until 1957 when he was finally cleared on the testimony of rocket scientists who affirmed that his information about the German programs was correct. He was then rehabilitated and given military decorations.

1968

Death of The Rebel

There was a day when every self-respecting tv series had a catchy theme song, particularly westerns. To this day I sing the lyrics of the Disney oater “Texas John Slaughter” — “Texas John Slaughter made ’em do what they oughter/ And if they didn’t they died.”  And how about Bonanza? “We chased lady luck, ’til we finally struck Bonanza!/ With a gun and a rope and a hat full of hope, planted a family tree. /We got hold of a pot full of gold, Bonanza!”One of the catchiest of these ditties was the theme for “The Rebel” 

Johnny Yuma, was a rebel, 
He roamed, through the west. 
And Johnny Yuma, was a rebel, 
He wandered alone. 

He got fightin’ mad, 
This rebel lad, 
He packed his star as he wandered far 
Where the only law was a hook and a draw, the rebel. 

On this day in 1968 died Nick Adams, the eponymous rebel who, as you may have heard, roamed through the west. Adams was a relentlessly self-promoting actor known for such classics as Invasion of Astro-Monster and Frankenstein Conquers the World before landing the lead role in The Rebel which ran from 1959-1961. His death was the result of a drug overdose.