On 14 May 1752, Colin Campbell of Glenure, the royal agent collecting rents from the Ardshiel Stewarts, was murdered. As Alan Stewart had previously publicly threatened 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 investigations suggest that the murderer could not have been Stewart. In the murder of Glenure, the British government saw the potential danger of Jacobite assassinations of their agents 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, Alan Breck Stewart was portrayed as a romantic figure.