Killing Fields of Scotland

by R J M Pugh

  Alford

  Finally, the two armies met on 2 July at Alford, some twenty miles west of Aberdeen. Montrose occupied a strong position on Gallows Hill which overlooks a ford over the fast-flowing river Don. Approaching Montrose’s position from the north, Baillie was unable to see Montrose’s men who had occupied the reverse slope of Gallows Hill; Montrose left a small force on the summit of the hill, hoping this would encourage Baillie to attack him, which the Covenanter general obligingly did. Baillie thought the Royalist army was in retreat, so he ordered his cavalry across the ford to outflank Montrose. As he did so, Montrose formed his entire army on the crest of Gallows Hill. Unable to retreat to a safer position, Baillie was forced to deploy his infantry in a marshy area close to the river Don, which is where Montrose wanted him to be. Baillie ordered his men to take whatever cover they could in the hedgerows and wet ditches. Both armies formed up in the standard formation; infantry in the centre, cavalry on each flank.

  Baillie’s infantry of 2,000 and 500 or 600 cavalry had a slight numerical advantage over Montrose’s 2,000 foot and 250 – 300 horse. Lord Gordon’s cavalry were placed on the Royalist right wing, Lord Aboyne’s on the left, both supported by a few companies of MacColla’s Irish mercenaries. The centre was held by the Irish, Strathbogie’s men from Huntly, Colonel Farquharson of Inverary and the MacDonalds. Baillie’s army was composed of six regular infantry regiments – those of the Earls of Cassillis, Glencairn, Lanark and Lords Callander and Elcho. Lord Balcarres commanded the Covenanter horse on the left wing, Sir James Hackett on the right.

  Lord George Gordon opened the battle by charging down Gallows Hill to engage Balcarres’s cavalry, veterans who had fought in the Cromwellian battle at Marston Moor. This was the first decisive cavalry action between Montrose and the Covenanters in the civil wars in Scotland. Balcarres stood his ground and even looked like driving Gordon back until the latter was reinforced by the Irish mercenaries who threw away their pikes and muskets, resorting yet again to the sword and dirk to hamstring Balcarres’s poor horses. This was too much for Balcarres’s troopers who broke and fled. On the opposite wing Lord Aboyne was engaged in a messy contest with Hackett’s horse, exchanging desultory carbine and pistol fire. Gordon rode his troopers round Baillie’s rear and joined in the attack on Hackett. In the ensuing fight Lord George Gordon was killed by a stray musket ball thought to have been friendly fire. But, with the Covenanter wings broken, Baillie’s infantry also broke and were put to flight. On this occasion, Montrose’s casualties were reckoned as several hundred, Baillie losing 1,500. The Covenanter armies could afford such losses; Montrose could not.

  After Alford, Baillie offered his resignation which parliament accepted, although he remained in command until his replacement, Major General Munro, serving in Ulster could take up his post as commander in chief of the entire parliamentary army. Meanwhile, Montrose was growing from strength to strength; MacColla rejoined him in July with 1,400 recruits, added to which were 200 Athollmen led by Patrick Graham of Inchblackie. Montrose now commanded the largest force he had ever had – 3,000 infantry and 500 horse, the latter commanded by Lord Aboyne, Colonel Nathaniel Gordon and Lord Airlie. After raiding the north-east for provisions, Montrose led his men into Perthshire, making his base at Dunkeld. The Scottish parliament, forced to leave Edinburgh due to an outbreak of plague, arrived in Perth, resolved to concentrate all the available manpower to defeat Montrose, who was intent on taking Edinburgh and thereby commanding the entire central Lowlands. A new Covenanter army was raised but, while it outnumbered Montrose, the recruits were untrained and poorly disciplined. Early in August, Montrose marched out of Dunkeld and crossed the Firth of Forth at Stirling, intending to menace Lowland Scotland. Again his adversary was the luckless Lieutenant Colonel William Baillie whose replacement had not yet arrived from Ireland.

  Kilsyth

  Ranged against Montrose were the four infantry regiments of the Marquis of Argyll, Lord Crawford-Lindsay, Colonel Robert Home and the Earl of Lauderdale as well as a regiment of survivors from Auldearn and Alford commanded by Colonel Kennedy; a further three regiments of raw recruits from Fife brought Baillie’s strength up to 7,000, with two regiments of cavalry numbering 800 led by Lord Balcarres and Colonel Barclay. Montrose was aware that the Earl of Lanark was mustering a second army in Glasgow and the south-east, so he resolved to engage Baillie before the two armies could conjoin. On 15 August Montrose halted at the village of Kilsyth, between Glasgow and Stirling, on a high meadow overlooking the Glasgow road, intent on ambushing Baillie; however, on this occasion, Baillie out-manoeuvered him, attempting to occupy higher ground above Montrose’s position. To achieve this end Baillie sent forward Major Haldane with a battalion of musketeers to secure the high ground before Montrose could dispute it. Haldane’s men came to grief against a company of Clan Maclean skirmishers ensconced in some farm buildings; the Macleans were reinforced by MacColla and a contingent of MacDonalds. In frustration, Baillie ordered Colonel Home forward to secure the contested higher ground. However, Home either misunderstood his orders or felt compelled to disobey them to go to Haldane’s assistance. In vain, Baillie struggled to re-deploy his forces as regiments in both armies were sucked into the skirmish around the contested farm buildings, a skirmish which soon developed into a full-scale battle on ground not of Baillie’s chooosing.

  Meanwhile, Lord Balcarres rode his cavalry regiment north of Montrose’s position, intent on securing the ground Baillie desired; Balcarres’s advance was briefly stalled by a troop of Royalist horse commanded by Captain Gordon. Gordon was soon in danger of annihilation until Lord Aboyne came to his rescue, galloping across the entire Covenanter front under heavy musket fire. Balcarres stood his ground and forced Aboyne to retreat. The Covenanter advance was only halted when Montrose ordered in the remainder of his cavalry under Nathaniel Gordon and Lord Airlie in a counter-attack. Exhausted and outnumbered, Balcarres’s troopers were driven from the field. Now it was the turn of Montrose’s infantry.

  The flight of Balcarres’s horse exposed the right flank of Baillie’s army to the Royalist cavalry reinforced by MacColla in a full frontal attack; the Covenanter line began to crumble and give ground which induced panic among the raw Fifeshire levies who fled in disorder from the field. The battle was soon over. Perhaps Kilsyth was Montrose’s crowning glory;6 in the battle his casualties were light whereas Baillie’s losses were in the region of a staggering 4,500, more than half his entire army. Montrose was now master of all Scotland, the Earl of Lanark having abandoned his newly-raised army; Lanark fled across the Border, joining the parliamentary Committee of Estates who had also journeyed south, unable to enter Edinburgh on account of the plague. Montrose occupied Glasgow where he issued a summons for the convening of a new Scottish parliament in the name of Charles I.

  However, brilliant though Montrose’s campaign undoubtedly was, it must be viewed in the broader context; the wars of the Covenanters in Scotland were dwarfed by the wars of the three kingdoms, the Scots fighting on all three fronts. Montrose had been ably supported by the warrior Alasdair MacColla but the latter was neither fighting against the Covenant nor for Charles I; a MacDonald, MacColla had fought against the Clan Campbell, venting his spleen on a traditional and hated enemy. Montrose attempted to convene a parliament in Scotland which he hoped would convince the nation that his victories had been fought in a just cause; further, Scotland should now intervene in the Royalist cause south of the Border against Cromwell and in aid of the rightful King. It was a forlorn hope. In June 1645 Charles was decisively beaten at Naseby. Apart from this final blow to Royalist hopes, Lowland Scotland regarded Montrose as nothing better than an instrument of the Devil; even powerful nobles such as the Earls Home, Roxburghe and Traquair faced the reality of the situation, no longer prepared to risk their lives, titles and estates in a lost cause. In any case Nemesis was just round the corner, waiting to claim Montrose.

  Philiphaugh

  With Scotland virtually in his
pocket Montrose could now offer Charles assistance in England, despite the tragic defeat of the King at Naseby. His force was greatly reduced by the departure of Alasdair MacColla and his men; MacColla refused to cross the Border as that would mean his enemies, the Campbells, could menace Clan MacDonald in his absence. The two warriors parted company, Montrose riding south in the hope that he would recruit more men; his force now comprised only 500 or 600 Irish musketeers, 100 foot and a few horse, possibly about 100. The expected recruits failed to materialize.

  Meanwhile, in England, news of Montrose’s spectacular victory at Kilsyth had reached Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven, commander in chief of the Scottish Covenanter army at Newark. Leven ordered his nephew, David Leslie, lieutenant general of the Scottish horse with 6,000 cavalry and dragoons and 1,000 foot to confront Montrose before he crossed the Border. Leslie switched his route to the east coast, possibly to deny Edinburgh to the Royalists and to cut off Montrose’s supply of recruits from the Highlands. Then, learning that Montrose was camped near Selkirk, Leslie doubled back, believing he had Montrose in his grasp. The two forces met at Philiphaugh, near Selkirk, on 13 September 1645.

  Montrose, quartered in Selkirk, had left elements of his small force on the south side of the Ettrick Water near Philiphaugh. A contemporary account described the Royalist position as being protected by:

  on one hand, an impassable ditch, and on the other, Dikes and Hedges, and where these were not strong enough, they [the Royalists] further fortified them by casting up ditches, and lined their Hedges with Musketeers.7

  Leslie had arrived at Melrose on 12 September and advanced up the Tweed Valley, driving away the Royalist picquets on sentry duty; incredibly, Montrose’s main force was not forewarned of Leslie’s approach. The next morning, one shrouded by a thick mist, Leslie divided his force; one half would attack the Royalist position frontally, the other half executing a flanking manoeuvre round the nearby Howden Hill to attack Montrose in the rear. Montrose was not on the field that morning until gunfire alerted him to the presence of the Covenanter army; by the time he got there, he found his men in utter confusion, although they remained firm behind their strong defences. His musketeers had already repulsed two of Leslie’s attacks. Then Leslie’s flanking force arrived, ensuring Montrose’s utter defeat in a short, sharp fight. Unrealistically, Montrose attempted to save the day by sending in his paltry 100 cavalry against 2,000 of Leslie’s dragoons; this forlorn hope was a last ditch and pointless attempt. With thirty companions, Montrose escaped to Traquair; most of his Irish troops perished in the battle; a hundred were slaughtered when they sought quarter.8 (A Presbyterian clergyman accompanying Leslie’s army instructed the loyalist officers to commit this foul act.) The remaining prisoners were marched to Newark where, along with about 300 camp followers – mainly women and children – they were shot. Leslie’s casualties at Philiphaugh were trifling; Montrose lost 500.

  Montrose’s force, now reduced to 250 Irishmen, a handful of cavalry and accompanied by the Earl of Crawford and Sir John Hurry who had changed sides after his humiliating defeat at Auldearn, carried on a guerrilla war in the north. Charles I, now a prisoner of the Covenanter army at Newark, ordered Montrose to lay down his arms in the spring of 1646; refused a pardon by the parliamentary Committee of Estates, the three men went into exile, Montrose to Norway on 3 September, where he would remain until 1650, encouraged to return by Charles II to win Scotland for him from the Covenanters he detested but who were vital to his hoped-for success. (In point of fact, Charles was forced to swallow his bile and make peace with the Covenanters, as we shall see.)

  With Montrose out of harm’s way, the Covenanter party in Scotland could breathe easily again; public peace was restored; by the end of 1645 the country was stable enough to allow Sir David Leslie to return to England. On 5 May 1646 Charles I surrendered himself to the Scottish army at Southwell, near Newark, Nottinghamshire; the Scots withdrew to Newcastle with their prize, safer ground from where they could negotiate with the English parliament. The Scots had drawn up the Solemn League and Covenant in 1643 which they had hoped England would embrace, re-fashioning the Elizabethan Protestant Church ‘according to the word of God and the example of the best reformed churches’ – meaning of course, Scottish Presbyterianism. The Scots put it to Charles that, were he to support the new Covenant and continue the war, they would do all in their power to reinstate him on the thrones of Scotland and England. Charles wanted the latter but not the former. The English parliament now wished to rid itself of both King and Scots. The Scottish army was owed £2 million in arrears as payment for its support of the Cromwellian forces; they had to content themselves with only £400,000, half of which would be paid before they re-crossed the Border into Scotland. As for their royal prisoner, the Scots were faced with three choices. They could set him free, allowing him to go abroad, but that might lead to further civil war; they could take him to Scotland which, for many, was unacceptable, given Charles’s track record regarding the Scottish Kirk and the threat to all the advantages they had gained in their recent relationship with England; or they could turn him over to the English parliament. The third option offered the Scots little choice; the English parliament let it be known that if the Scots refused to deliver Charles into their hands, this would be regarded as an act of war. Realistically, there was no other option but the third; Charles was in fact abducted by a company of soldiers in Sir Thomas Fairfax’s New Model Army. In June 1647 the Covenanter Scots huffed and puffed about this illegal act but opinion in Scotland was divided on what the response should be. The argument brought to the surface the conflicting opinions which, since 1645, had existed between the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and the Covenanter regime as to what precisely had the Wars of the Covenant been fought for. What is even more ironic was that Charles, a Scot by birth, had no love for his Scottish subjects, detested Presbyterianism and had no desire to be ‘rescued’ by the Covenanter regime.

  When the Scottish army re-crossed the Border, it was immediately disbanded although 6,000 foot and 1,200 cavalry remained in service, ostensibly to suppress the troublesome Royalist Clans Gordon and MacDonald, which Sir David Leslie achieved with little bloodshed. What was more important at this juncture was the division of the Covenanter party in two factions. In the knowledge that the English parliament had no intention of meeting the full arrears due to the Covenanter army which had played a crucial role in the English Civil War, nor the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant south of the Border, the Covenanter regime was split down the middle. The radical Covenanters resolutely opposed Charles I and all he stood for were, in turn, opposed by those who continued to entertain hopes of finding a way to work with Charles. Beneath the superficial surface of stability, restless forces were gathering. An apprehensive Radical or Kirk party and a confident Engager party – so-called because, in December 1647, that moderate Covenanter faction signed a Treaty of Engagement with Charles – could no longer continue as full and equal partners in the government of Scotland. Charles signed the treaty on condition that he would introduce a three-year experimental period of a form of Scottish Presbyterianism in England, a condition which fell far short of the demands of the Kirk party, led by Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquis of Argyll. The Kirk party wanted to impose the Solemn League and Covenant in its fullest terms on England in perpetuity, anything less being seen as a betrayal of its fundamental principles which weakened the ideal of a religious union throughout Scotland and England. The Engagers appear to modern eyes as a somewhat naïve faction, given Charles’s track record on the matter of Scotland’s religious preferences. By 1648 the Engagers had become the predominant voice in the Scottish parliament and authorized an army led by James, Duke of Hamilton to march into England to enforce the agreement signed with Charles.

  Mauchline Moor

  In June 1648 the Kirk party met at Mauchline, Ayrshire to celebrate the Eucharist; following the ceremony, some 2,000 Kirk party supporters gathered on Mauchlin
e Moor to declare their opposition to the Engagement. Into this gathering rode John, 1st Earl of Middleton with five troops of Engager cavalry; after some discussion the Kirk party men were given an amnesty provided they surrendered. About two-thirds did; the remaining 850 or so prepared for battle. Middleton was reinforced by 800 foot and 1,000 cavalry and after a short sharp fight, some thirty or forty radicals were killed on the field, the Engagers winning a victory which would have its consequences two years later, at Dunbar. The defeat of the Engagers by Oliver Cromwell at Preston on 17 August 1648 put an end to their aspirations. The Engagers were not only driven from the field of Preston but also from political credibility and any hopes of retaining the upper hand in the future government of Scotland. Henceforth, those who had been Engagers were termed Malignants by the Covenanter Kirk faction, now the ruling party in Scotland supported by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

  After his victory at Preston Oliver Cromwell came to Scotland on 5 October 1648 when he enjoyed a convivial supper with the Marquis of Argyll who in the previous month had crushed the remnants of the Engager forces led by the Earl of Lanark, he who had fled from Scotland after Montrose’s victory at Kilsyth. Cromwell earnestly believed that the rift between the Radical and Engager parties was caused by Charles I, with his stubborn, intractable refusal to bow to the will of his Scottish subjects. Cromwell was now openly describing Charles as ‘the man of blood’ who had caused the unnecessary deaths of countless English and Scottish men who had attempted to curb his powers in the interests of democracy and constitutional monarchy under which King and parliament would work together for the good of the nation. The purpose of Cromwell’s brief visit to Edinburgh was to reach an agreement with the Radical Covenanter, anti-Engager party and the English Independent party in the English New Model Army to take action against any further attempts by the Engagers to upset the tranquillity of Scotland. Surprisingly, there was no mention of the arrears of subsidy due to the Scots for their assistance in the English Civil War, money that would never be paid.