The Road to Culloden Moor

by Diana Preston

  Action was forthcoming in the corpulent form of the Duke of Cumberland who now flew north ‘like an arrow’ to deal with his cousin once and for all. As he could hardly be allowed to set out on his quest without a poem or an ode or a song, a ‘British Bard’ composed the following lines ‘upon his Setting out’:

  Go, glorious Youth, belov’d of Britain, go,

  And pour Just Vengeance on the traitrous foe,

  William return’d with health and laurels bless’d,

  And curs’d Rebellion totally depress’d,

  Crush’d! Sunk! confounded! never to rise again,

  And let exulting Britains say — Amen.

  The True Patriot noted the great number of cooks who were also sent up to Scotland to satisfy the royal appetite at Holyrood. ‘Perhaps,’ Fielding speculated satirically, ‘it is intended to let these Cooks fall into the Hands of the Enemy, which would be no bad Stratagem, for could we introduce some of our Luxury among them, we should soon find it a much easier Task to beat them.’ The Edinburgh populace took comfort from the knowledge that Cumberland was back in the saddle and the mere sight of him when he arrived in the early hours of 3o January apparently did ‘the Business’, ‘banishing all Remembrances of the late untoward Accident, and the Troops shew’d uncommon Ardour to be led (Bad as the Weather was) into the Field again’. Bells and illuminations greeted the young hero.

  However, the time for battle had not yet come. In the Jacobite camp the usual arguments had been going on about what to do next. Lord George wanted to march on Hawley and finish the job. Others argued for marching on London at once. There was also a powerful lobby in favour of continuing the siege of Stirling Castle and this prevailed with Charles. To Chevalier Johnstone it was a ‘fatal resolution’. The Jacobites were putting all their faith in the ridiculous Mirabelle de Gordon and his wild promises that the castle could be reduced in a matter of days. As Johnstone pointed out, ‘The possession of this petty fort was of no essential importance to us; on the contrary, it was of more advantage to us that it should remain in the hands of the enemy, in order to restrain the Highlanders, and prevent them from returning, when they pleased, to their own country, from the fear of being made prisoners in passing this Castle, for they were constantly going home, whenever they got possession of any booty taken from the English in order to secure it.’ Desertion was, indeed, a growing problem. It was made worse when Glengarry’s second son was accidentally killed by a stray shot in the streets of Falkirk — the clansmen were casual with their weapons. Although it was an accident, which the young Glengarry forgave on his deathbed, and although the unfortunate culprit was executed to stop inter-clan bloodshed, the Macdonalds of Glengarry were disheartened and began to fade away.

  The Commander of Stirling Castle was adamant the Jacobites should not have it, whether it would be to their advantage or not. On receiving a summons to surrender, Major-General Blakeney sent the tart response that he had always been looked upon as a man of honour and that the rebels would find that he intended to die as one. Predictably enough it was difficult to persuade the Highlanders to do manual work. The batteries were ‘injudiciously errected, and the Highlanders shew’d a great Aversion for that Kind of Service, for which they are naturally unfit’. However, eventually three of the battery’s six emplacements were ready. One 16-pounder gun and two 12-pounders were mounted and Mirabelle predicted the fall of the castle within eighteen hours of opening fire.

  The cannonade began on 29 January, and ‘M. Mirabelle, with a childish impatience to witness the effects of his battery unmasked it … and immediately began a very brisk fire … but it was of short duration and produced very little effect on the batteries of the Castle, which being more elevated than ours, the enemy could see even the buckles of the shoes of our artillerymen. As their fire commanded ours, our guns were immediately dismounted, and in less than half an hour we were obliged to abandon our battery altogether ….’ The furious Highlanders began to wonder if Mirabelle had been sent amongst them as a saboteur.

  Meanwhile news that Cumberland was on his way had given the clan chiefs the jitters. Not only that, but since Falkirk the Government forces had been joined by the artillery train from Newcastle and reinforcements of cavalry and infantry. A formidable force was collecting and would soon be at the Jacobites’ throats. There then followed one of those events that Charles would always remember as a betrayal. Lord George Murray and the chiefs presented Charles with an address. This expressed their fears that they were in no state to meet the Government troops which would march as soon as the Duke arrived. There had been too many desertions from the Highland ranks. The only course was an immediate retreat to the Highlands to sit out the winter there and wait for the spring to come. The greatest difficulty they foresaw was over what to do with the artillery, particularly the heavy cannon, but the situation was so serious that it would be better to throw them into the Forth than risk either Charles or the flower of his army.

  For Charles it was Derby all over again. He argued, stormed and raved. He ‘struck his head against the wall until he staggered and exclaimed most violently against Lord George’. His bitter words were ‘Good God! Have I lived to see this?’ He predicted nothing but ruin and destruction, but the chiefs remained unmoved. He could not understand why they were willing to throw away the advantage so recently gained at Falkirk, and pointed out that a move north would destroy any hopes of major French aid — he had written to Louis after Falkirk appealing for help. Neither would it encourage any assistance from his friends in England which he still hoped for. It was no good. In the end Charles wrote to his chiefs agreeing to the retreat but saying that he washed his hands of consequences which he knew would be fatal.

  The retreat began on the morning of February, the day after Cumberland and the bulk of his force had marched into Linlithgow and his bivouacking troops burned down the ancient palace through carelessness. It had been agreed that the Jacobite force would rendezvous near St Ninians at nine in the morning, but this went wrong. Before daybreak the Highlanders were racing for the Fords of Frew in what looked like a complete panic, carts and cannon abandoned on the road. Even worse, the church in St Ninians was blown up by accident. It had been used by the Jacobites as a powder-magazine and the idea was to destroy the remaining powder by exploding it on waste-ground. However, the local people were busily pilfering it to sell to Cumberland’s men. To put a stop to this freebooting a Highlander fired a warning shot and ignited a trail of spilt powder leading straight back to the church which was blasted to smithereens. Only the tower was left standing amidst the smoking rubble. Lochiel had narrowly avoided being hit by falling masonry and Murray of Broughton’s wife was flung out of her chaise to lie senseless on the road until picked up by some village people. Lord George arrived, cursing furiously, to find this depressing scene and not a man in sight, despite all his carefully laid plans for an orderly withdrawal.

  It was not surprising that the council of war held at Crieff on the evening of 2 February was bitterly acrimonious. According to one report, ‘there never had been such heats and animosities as at this meeting …’ — in the light of the rancour at previous councils this was saying something. Charles laid the blame for the disorder and chaos firmly on the shoulders of Lord George. Lord George blamed O’Sullivan and would hardly allow Charles to speak. In the end it was agreed that the army would divide. The cavalry and low country regiments would take the coast road to Inverness. The Prince and the clan regiments would take the Highland road. These were the high road and the low road of the songs. On 4 February the two forces went their separate ways but with Cumberland in hot pursuit. Like his cousin, Cumberland had an eye for an occasion. ‘Shall we not have one song?’ he asked and spurring his horse struck up with:

  Will ye play me fair?

  Highland laddie, Highland laddie

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘LA BELLE REBELLE’

  The wintry weather matched Charles’s mood as he marched through ‘the cruelle
st snow that cou’d be seen’ with his Highlanders. Meanwhile Lord George Murray struggled with the bulk of the artillery train. He tried to send cannon ahead to Blair Castle as Charles had asked, but the going was too difficult and fourteen of them had to be thrown into the Tay — a gift to Cumberland who fished them out again a few days later. However, Charles was this time able to subdue the small garrison at Ruthven with ‘three Swedish pieces, & the Cannon he took at Falkirk’. From there his road lay via Aviemore where he crossed the Spey and made for Inverness. On 16 February he reached the welcoming walls of Moy Hall — home of Lady Mackintosh. This slender young woman had defied her husband, Aeneas Mackintosh, twenty-second Laird of Mackintosh, by herself calling out his men for the Prince after he had decided to throw in his lot with Hanover in return for ‘half-a-guinea the day and half-a-guinea the morn’.

  Charles was nobly entertained by ‘Colonel Anne’ who laid on an exceedingly ‘plentiful and genteel’ supper for his entire household of seventy-five. This was a welcome contrast to his stingy hostess of the previous night — Lady Dalrachny — who had charged the Highlanders for meal and said that she was glad to be shot of the lot of them: ‘What a pack ye are! God let me never hae the like of you in my house again!’ Yet the fine old house of Moy with its gracious hostess was no refuge. It did not take long for news of Charles’s whereabouts to reach the Hanoverian Lord Loudon who was holding Inverness. Learning that Charles was at Moy he decided to try and capture him, lured both by the thought of the £30,000 reward and even more enticingly perhaps by the prospect of putting Cope’s and Hawley’s noses out of joint. The stories about what happened that night vary according to the teller, but what occurred was probably something like this.

  Delighted with his own cunning, Loudon threw a cordon around Inverness, reinforced the castle garrison and marched stealthily towards Moy with fifteen hundred of his men. His plan was to take Charles by surprise. However, fifteen hundred men cannot move unseen and unheard even on a cold February night in the Highlands. News of his scheme reached the dowager Lady Mackintosh in Inverness who shared her daughter-in-law’s Jacobite, rather than her son’s Hanoverian, sentiments. She despatched a young Mackintosh clansman with instructions to dodge through Loudon’s patrols and get to Moy to warn the Prince. It was a hasty departure. He left the house with his bonnet on top of his nightcap, a somewhat ludicrous but heroic figure. Meanwhile young Lady Mackintosh had already taken the precaution of sending the Moy blacksmith, a massive man called Donald Fraser, and four others to camp out ‘upon a moor, at some distance from Moy, towards Inverness’ to keep watch.

  Straining into the blackness, the blacksmith made out the shadowy figures of Loudon’s advance guard and fired his piece, his four companions following suit. At the same time they bellowed their clan war-cries at the tops of their voices, and according to one account the blacksmith shouted, ‘Advance, Advance, my lads, Advance! … I think we have the dogs now,’ which ‘so struck Lord Loudon’s men with horror, that instantly they wheel’d about, after firing some shots, and in great confusion ran back with speed to Inverness,’ imagining the Prince’s entire army to be at their heels. Lord Loudon wrote his own more dignified account but could not conceal that an army of fifteen hundred men had been thrown into ‘the greatest confusion’ by a blacksmith and four companions. The only casualty had been a piper — the famous Macrimmon, hereditary piper to the Macleod. He died at the blacksmith’s first discharge and is reputed to have foreseen his end as befitted a man believed to have the second sight. Before leaving Skye he had composed a sad lament ‘Cha til me tuille’, meaning ‘I’ll return no more’:

  Macleod shall come back

  But Macrimmon shall

  never.

  This inglorious episode came to be known as the ‘Rout of Moy’ and established Anne Mackintosh in the first rank of Jacobite heroines. Although the accounts of that night show a somewhat distraught young woman ‘in her smock-petticoat, running through the close, speaking loudly and expressing her anxiety about the Prince’s safety’, and even ‘running about like a madwoman in her shift’ as O’Sullivan unchivalrously described her, it was her presence of mind that saved Charles. Hearing that Loudon was on his way, she had dashed into Charles’s room where he lay fast asleep. Charles instantly jumped out of bed ‘and would have been going down stairs directly, but Lady Mackintosh importuned him to stay in the room till she should get him further notice and try what could be done ….’ However, Charles did not apparently do as she bade. Instead, ‘he run hastily out of bed to call up his men, and as it was a keen frost contracted thereby such a cold as stuck to him very long, and I may ev’n say endanger’d his life, which was one great reason of his staying so much at Inverness afterwards, to the great detriment of his affairs in other places.’ Certainly the freezing night air was too much for him, clad as he was in dressing gown and slippers and his resulting illness put him out of action for the rest of February. A Whig version of events did its best to make him look ridiculous, describing him flying in déshabille out of the house, running three miles and roaming through the wilds till morning.

  Whatever the effect on Charles, the whole experience proved too much for some of Loudon’s men. Next morning some two hundred of them deserted. This led Loudon to decide that his best course was to hurry across the ferry at Kessock to Easter Ross which was relatively friendly to the Government and there await the arrival of Cumberland. This enabled the Jacobites to march to Inverness and take possession of the town without firing a shot. It was one of those situations where the victorious army marched in at one end and the defeated one hurried out at the other — in this case retreating shambolically over the Ness Bridge. The castle as well as the town quickly surrendered to its new masters and yielded some barrels of beef that were very welcome to the famished Highlanders. Charles insisted that the fortifications be blown up and it was unfortunate that the French artillery sergeant charged with the task blew himself up too, but it was apparently considered worth reporting, in typically British fashion, that a dog which was also caught in the blast ‘received little Damage’!

  If Charles thought the flight of Loudon and the capture of Inverness were an amazing stroke of luck, his cousin Cumberland was similarly astounded: ‘I am really quite at a loss to explain all the contradictions I meet here from morning to night, for I am assured by people who should know the hills the best, that there are no places between the Blair of Atholl and Inverness where 500 man can subsist in a body, yet Lord Loudon has been driven across the Firth with 2,000 men which he said he had, and expecting a junction of 1,500 more, by that party of the rebels alone which marched from Blair with the Pretender’s son, and which I could never make, by the best account I had, above 600 men ….’

  Charles chose several comfortable establishments for his recuperation. One of these was Culloden House some five miles from Inverness and the home of the Lord President, Duncan Forbes. Forbes had been working to thwart him from the outset and although Cumberland dismissed him as an ‘old woman’, he had been effective in raising troops and containing the rebellion by discouraging wavering chiefs. So there was a fine irony in enjoying his comfortable house and the hogsheads of claret in his cellars. Even in Captain Burt’s day, Culloden House had been famous for its hospitality so that ‘few go away sober at any time’ and some were incapable of going anywhere. Forbes himself, sober or not, had fled with Loudon just the day before.

  Charles was joined soon after by Lord George Murray, who complained bitterly about the fatigue and trouble he and his men had undergone. One of these men, John Daniels, left a moving account of their journey: ‘When we marched out of Aberdeen, it blew, snowed, hailed, and froze to such a degree, that few Pictures ever represented Winter, with all its icicles about it, better than many of us did that day.’ He described men covered with icicles, their eyebrows and beards encrusted with ice, stragglers lost in the deep snow drifts and driving snow and cutting hail making it impossible to see more than a few yards ah
ead. Lord George’s companions had not been lively company. He had been rejoined on the march north by the love-sick Lord Ogilvy who had left his pretty young wife, his ‘angel’, at his father’s house because he feared the cold would kill her. He also feared a rival might take her away from him and was sunk in gloom. Lord Balmerino, on the other hand, bearing out a description of his ‘warm disposition and blunt deportment,’ was getting more and more short-tempered at what he saw as Murray’s bossiness. ‘Let us do what we are ordered. It is vain to dispute,’ he told his men. ‘A time will come when I shall see things righted at Lord George’s cost and mine. But at present he is my superior, and we must obey for the good of the Prince.’ All in all it had been a trying expedition.

  Murray had sensibly left garrisons behind at Elgin and at Nairn to hinder Cumberland’s advance and stop him joining up with Loudon, but Cumberland was having problems as well in the bitter conditions. Before he could face a Highland winter he had to have supplies. This meant he had no option but to remain at Perth until 20 February when he at last was able to begin his march to Aberdeen. His vanguard reached it three days after the Jacobites had left. He also had trouble with the six thousand or so Hessian troops who had arrived at Leith on 8 February with their Prince Frederick, married to George II’s daughter Mary. The Hessians were a chivalrous group and not much impressed with the blunter manners of Hanover. In particular, they were disgusted by Cumberland’s attitude towards Jacobite prisoners whom he insisted on treating as rebels, undeserving of any code of conduct towards them. The Hessians refused to fight without such a code and the Prince of Hesse found a good way of expressing his contempt for Cumberland. While the young Duke was away campaigning, the Prince gave a series of balls in Edinburgh to which ‘none but Jacobite ladies were invited’.

  In Aberdeen Cumberland was again forced to give his attention to laying in supplies. He seized a supply of Spanish arms and ammunition from Corgarff Castle in Jacobite country. His own behaviour and that of the charming Hawley was that of an army of occupation in hostile territory. They lived completely free for six weeks at the end of which Hawley departed with several hundred pounds’ worth of his hostess’s belongings. They also tried to suppress the distribution of pro-Jacobite ‘Libels dropp’d about the Town by the Rebel Party’ by checking the handwriting of suspected authors, ‘but it proved ineffectual’. A far better use of time was Cumberland’s efforts to train his troops to counter Highland tactics. The Whig newspapers raged against the Highland fighting style, implying it was not only wild and unorthodox but somehow unfair.