A 300-year-old document which led to one of the darkest episodes in Scottish history will form the centrepiece of a display of cultural "treasures" to go on show this week.
The signed order for the Massacre of Glencoe is to go on display at the National Library of Scotland this week.
The document is to be unveiled alongside nine other artefacts to mark the end of the Year of Homecoming.
The paper served as a mandate for one of the most infamous events in Scottish history, as the Campbells were ordered to attack their hosts, the MacDonalds, and "putt all to the sword under seventy".
It followed a proclamation issued in August 1691 requiring the chiefs of the Scottish clans to take an oath of allegiance to William III by the end of that year
Alasdair MacDonald of Glencoe missed the deadline, providing the authorities with an opportunity to crush his clan. Thirty seven were killed in the massacre.
Also in the exhibition is a hand-written poem by Robert Burns, The Battle of Sherramuir, a "rare glimpse" of a Sherlock Holmes tale in the handwriting of his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Forlani Map, thought to be the first printed map of Scotland on its own, and another from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island are among the other “priceless” Scottish treasures on show.
Martyn Wade, chief executive of the National Library of Scotland, said: "The collection has a wide appeal, with pieces from iconic Scottish literary figures in Burns, Conan Doyle, Scott and Stevenson, and from key moments and movements in the history of Scotland, including the Covenanters, the Jacobites, the Union of the Parliaments and, of course, the massacre at Glencoe.”
The items will be on show at the library from 19 November to 8 January, 2010.
