In accordance with the
fosterage customs of the Highland clans, Allan Stewart and his brothers grew up under the care of their relative
James of the Glen in
Appin. His nickname, Breck, came from the Gaelic for "spotted", as his face bore scars from
smallpox. Stewart enlisted in the
British Army of
George II in 1745, just before the
Jacobite rising of that year. He fought at the
Battle of Prestonpans, but
deserted to the
Jacobite Army. He subsequently fought alongside his clansmen, but after they were defeated at the
Battle of Culloden, he fled to France, accompanying his commander and clan captain, Colonel Charles Stewart of
Ardshiel (Ardshiel was not the chief of the Appin Stewarts, but took command in the absence of the chief). After joining one of the Scottish regiments serving in the
French Royal Army, Stewart was sent back to Scotland to collect rents for the exiled
Scottish clan chiefs and to recruit soldiers for the French crown. On 14 May 1752,
Colin Campbell of Glenure, the royal estate
Factor collecting rents from the Stewarts of Appin and ordering evictions in an early version of the
Highland Clearances, was murdered by a
sniper in the wood of
Duror. As Allan Stewart had publicly threatened the life of Glenure and had enquired about his schedule for the day in question, a warrant was issued for his arrest. However, he evaded capture. He was
tried in absentia and sentenced to death. His foster father, James, was convicted as an accessory to the murder and hanged. Later assessments of the evidence have reached mixed conclusions as to whether Allan Stewart was in fact the murderer, and to whether James Stewart had any involvement. In the murder of Glenure, the British government saw the potential danger of the assassination of their estate factors and officials in the Highlands, on the one hand, and also a potential renewal of a Campbell/Stewart feud, on the other. The execution of James of the Glen increased the Stewarts' discontent. Locally, especially after he was immortalised in fiction, Allan Breck Stewart was portrayed as a romantic figure. Some time after the murder Stewart escaped to France, where he continued his military career, being awarded the prestigious
Military Merit Cross before retiring from the army in 1777. The last records of him were two sightings in Paris in the late 1780s, at which time he still maintained that he was not the murderer of Glenure. ==In popular culture==