29 NOVEMBER 1997, Page 34

Not just William

Sir: D.A. Brunton's equation of the Bloody Assizes with the Glencoe massacre is typi- cal of neo-Jacobite impudence (Letters, 22 November). The former were conducted on the instructions and with the full approval of King James, who personally refused to pardon Alice Lisle, beheaded for having sheltered and hidden fugitive rebels — the same 'crime' for which Flora Macdonald was feted as a heroine 60 years later, even by fervent Whigs. Glencoe was a shameful episode for which William's government was no more and no less responsible than the Heath government was responsible for `Bloody Sunday'.

David Watkins

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