The pipe tune commemorating the battle is called 'MacDonald took the Brae on them,' and the title tells you everything about how it ended. In August 1688, on the Brae of Lochaber, the Clan MacDonald of Keppoch -- supported by MacMartin-Camerons who had joined without orders -- attacked downhill into a force of Clan Mackintosh and government soldiers. The Mackintoshes had a royal commission, a company of the king's troops, and the law on their side. They lost anyway. The Battle of Mulroy is remembered as the last private clan battle fought between Scottish clans, and it ended exactly the way the Highlands usually ended things: with the people who held the high ground keeping it.
The dispute was old. In the fifteenth century, the chief of Clan Mackintosh had been granted a charter for the lands of Glenroy and Glen Spean, but the MacDonalds of Keppoch had refused to leave and declined to recognize Mackintosh's title. Cattle raids, lawsuits, and thwarted invasions followed for two hundred years. In 1681, Mackintosh received a commission to eject the MacDonalds, but nothing came of it. When Archibald MacDonald of Keppoch died in 1682, his son Coll of the Cowes petitioned the Privy Council for a 'legal decision or amicable determination.' Mackintosh responded by having Coll arrested and imprisoned in Inverness Tolbooth. Coll was released on bail, but the precedent was set: the law was Mackintosh's instrument, and he meant to use it.
In 1688, the Privy Council renewed Mackintosh's commission -- this time armed with the legal authority of 'fire and sword,' granting him the right to use lethal force. Ewen Cameron of Lochiel tried to mediate but failed and departed for Edinburgh. In his absence, the MacMartin-Camerons, closely related to the MacDonalds through frequent intermarriages, offered their services to Keppoch. Clan Macpherson and Clan Grant, ordered to support Mackintosh, failed to show up. Mackintosh marched into Lochaber with about a thousand of his own men and a company of government troops under Kenneth Mackenzie of Suddie. The battle was fierce and bloody, and Mackintosh was defeated. In the aftermath, Keppoch -- emboldened and unopposed -- marched nearly a thousand men through Mackintosh's territory, entered Inverness without resistance, and threatened to burn the town unless paid four thousand merks. The townspeople lived in terror for three days until Lord Dundee arrived and negotiated a payment of two thousand dollars. The cattle taken from Mackintosh were never recovered. Four months later, the Jacobite rising of 1689 would engulf the Highlands, and the private quarrels of clans would be absorbed into a much larger war.
Battle of Mulroy site at 56.9031N, 4.8386W is in the Brae of Lochaber, in the valley between Glen Roy and Glen Spean, approximately 10 nm northeast of Fort William. The terrain is hilly moorland with scattered settlements. Best viewed at 2,000-4,000 ft. Fort William heliport approximately 10 nm southwest. Glen Roy and Glen Spean valleys provide orientation.