The Flames of Wrath

Nowhere on the face of the earth is more fitted, than the evocative, mountain-thirlled trench of the valley of Glencoe, to witness the deeds it has seen. A placeof awesome grandeur, deep sadness, and soaring joy; said to have been hewen from the earth with one mighty slash of the Devil's tail. Zealots and bigots walked the land. Religious strife rent the Kingdom. This, the Establishment countered with harsh new laws and armed force. Bloody Claverhouse started out on his military career, rising through the ranks of the army like a shooting star. On the river of time the aspirations, ambitions and needs of two men collided; the new King William III, and the other, one of the foremost legal brains in Scotland and also its most powerful politician. On the loom of Fate King William and the Master of Stair spun their web. To both was the prime need of the pacification of the turbulent Highlands, which were peopled by warriors, whose only allegiance was to their Clan Chief. How best to achieve this end? By bribery? By force of arms? By the subtle manipulation of human weaknesses? Each Clan was fiercely autonomous; the very core of its being. It was self contained by differences of race, its age old customs and religious persuasion. Feuds were perpetuated by the slaying of enemies, by acts of arson and the theft of cattle. The hills and the glens of the North were a loaded powder keg. Would someone strike the spark to ignite the fuse that would unleash the all consuming flames of wrath?