MACDONNELL (or

See also:

• MACDONELL, JAMES (1841-1879)

MACDONELL), ALESTAIR (i.e.

See also:

• ALEXANDER
• ALEXANDER (1461-1506)
• ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OF BATTENBERG) (1857-1893)
• ALEXANDER (ALEXANDER OsxENOVici) (1876-1903)
• ALEXANDER, ARCHIBALD (1772—1851)
• ALEXANDER, FRANCIS (1800—1881)
• ALEXANDER, GEORGE (1858— )
• ALEXANDER, JOHN WHITE (1856- )
• ALEXANDER, JOSEPH ADDISON (18o9—186o)
• ALEXANDER, SIR JAMES EDWARD (1803—1885)
• ALEXANDER, WILLIAM (1824— )
• ALEXANDER, WILLIAM LINDSAY (1808—1884)

Alexander) RUADH (c. 1725-1761)  , chief of Glengarry, a Scottish Jacobite who has been identified by Andrew Lang as the secret agent " Pickle," who acted as a spy on Prince Charles Edward after 1750 . The family were a branch of the clan Macdonald, but spelt their name Macdonnell or Macdonell . His father was John, 12th chief of Glengarry, a violent and brutal man, who is said to have starred his first wife, Alestair's mother, to death on an island in the Hebrides . Alestair ran away to France while a mere boy in 1738, and there entered the Royal Scots, a regiment in the French service . In 1743 he commanded a company in it, and in 1744 was sent to Scotland as a Jacobite agent . In January 1745 he was sent back with messages, and was in France when Prince Charles Edward landed in Scotland . Late in 1745 he was captured at sea while bringing a picquet of the Royal Scots to help the prince . He remained a prisoner in the Tower for twenty-two months, and when released went abroad . In 1744 his father had made a transfer to him of the family estates, which were ruined . Alestair, who still affected to be a Jacobite, lived for a time in great poverty . In 1749 he was in . London, and there is good reason to believe that he then offered his services as a spy to the British government, with which he communicated under the name of Pickle .

His

information enabled British ministers to keep a close watch on the prince and on the Jacobite conspiracies . Though he was denounced by a Mrs Cameron, whose husband he betrayed to death in 1752, he never lost the confidence of the Jacobite leaders . On the death of his father, in 1754, he succeeded to the estates, and proved himself a greedy land-lord . He died on the 23rd of December 1761 . See Andrew Lang, Pickle the Spy (1897) and The Companions of Pickle (1898) .