Killing Fields of Scotland

by R J M Pugh

  Mar was soon in communication with every important Jacobite in Scotland. He summoned several Clan chiefs to Aboyne on 26 August where he outlined his plans for a campaign against the Hanoverian king and his government. Among those who responded were the Marquis of Huntly, eldest son of the Duke of Gordon, the Marquis of Tulliebardine, eldest son of the Duke of Atholl, George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, James Carnegie, 5th Earl Southesk, James Maule, 4th Earl of Panmure, John Lyon, 5th Earl of Strathaven and Kinghorne, Earls Carnwath, Errol, Nithsdale, Traquair, William, 5th Earl of Seaforth and head of Clan Mackenzie, the Earl of Linlithgow and James Ogilvy, the future Earl of Airlie. (The sons of John Murray, 1st Duke of Atholl, a Hanoverian to the core, defied their father; Charles, George and William Murray declared for James.) Mar was possessed of a persuasive, silver tongue and soon won any remaining waverers over. After presenting his credentials from the Pretender, Mar agreed to raise the Royal Standard on 6 September at Castleton, Braemar where James Francis Edward Stuart was proclaimed King of Great Britain and Ireland.

  Second Jacobite Rising, 1715

  Like so many attempts to regain the throne for the Stuarts between 1688 and 1746, the ’Fifteen was beset by abysmal leadership. As James’s commander in chief, Mar was notoriously unsteady; the extent of his incompetence will shortly become apparent. For its part, the Hanoverian government in London passed ‘An Act for Encouraging Loyalty in Scotland’ on 30 August, commonly known as the Clan Act. Under the terms of the measure, every Crown vassal found guilty of treasonable correspondence with the Pretender would forfeit his estates; furthermore, if the tenants of the guilty person remained loyal to the House of Hanover, they would live rent-free for two years. The effect of the Act was the opposite of what it set out to achieve; the hitherto wavering estate owners were driven to join Mar. The clans who answered Mar’s call to arms included the Lochiel Camerons, the Campbells of Breadalbane and Glenlyon, the MacDonalds of Clanranald, the Mackenzies, Macleans, Macleods, Frasers and Gordons.

  Mar had but sixty supporters at Braemar on 6 September; however, by the middle of the month, he was strong enough to capture Inverness – or rather, his associate Lachlan Mackintosh of Borlum did with 500 of his clansmen. The towns of Aberdeen, Dundee and Brechin favoured the Pretender and proclaimed their loyalty, enabling Mar to march south, reinforced by 4,000 Murray of Atholl and Campbell of Breadalbane clansmen. On 28 September Mar occupied the important town of Perth, which became the headquarters of the Rising. By this move Mar was able to prevent the forces loyal to the House of Hanover in the north and south from joining. On the surface all was progressing favourably; however, a shadow had appeared on the horizon on 1 September with the death of Louis XIV of France, the Pretender’s staunchest Continental ally. The regent Duke of Orleans who governed France during Louis XV’s minority made peaceable overtures to England with the result that the French ships equipped with men and arms, ammunition and gunpowder were de-commissioned. During the entire period of the ’Fifteen, not a single French musket reached Scotland.

  The townships south of the Firth of Forth remained unswervingly loyal to George I and associations of volunteers were formed in the towns and the country districts. General Wretham was appointed commander in chief of the forces loyal to the Hanoverian king in Scotland; he made his headquarters in Stirling which gave him control of the main passages across the river Forth. However, a more distinguished and influential commander than Wretham was needed to rally the Hanoverian supporters in Scotland. That man was John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, a staunch supporter and mover of the Treaty of Union in 1707. Argyll had also distinguished himself in Flanders in the Williamite war against France, serving under the famous John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough. Those Scottish magnates who supported the House of Hanover – the Duke of Roxburghe, the Marquises of Tweeddale and Annandale, the Earls of Selkirk, Loudon, Rothes, Haddington and Forfar – were ostensibly loyal but due to their animosity towards the Campbell clan, many refused to co-operate with Argyll. Argyll reached Stirling on 17 September where he reviewed his small force of 1,800 which was subsequently reinforced by 2,000 troops and volunteers from Glasgow and other towns. The Glasgow Volunteers under the command of Colonel John Blackadder were set to guard the old bridge of Stirling, remaining as rearguard when Argyll marched out of Stirling to confront Mar. (It will be remembered that Colonel Blackadder’s father, the Reverend John Blackadder, the celebrated Covenanter minister and Martyr died in prison on the Bass Rock and was buried in the Church of St Andrew, North Berwick.)15, 16 Then the Earl of Sutherland, loyal to George I mustered an army in the north which Mar later gave as his reason for declining to invade southern Scotland.

  By October Mar’s army numbered 12,000. On the day he had entered Perth, he had received a formal commission from the Pretender appointing him commander in chief of the Jacobite forces in Scotland. In many ways, this was the proverbial poisoned chalice, given the uncertainty of the resolve of his largely Highland force; one of the Jacobite officers made it known that the Highlanders would desert for three reasons – (1) if they were not committed to battle soon; (2) if they gained booty from a victory and; (3) if Mar was defeated. Mar kept his men interested by paying them regularly, the money coming from levying a charge on communities from Fife to the Moray Firth; he justified this unpopular measure by informing the town fathers that his treasure chest had not been enriched by any contributions from the Pretender, which must have led some to doubt the wisdom of their support.

  Apart from minor skirmishing and raids there was no major confrontation between Mar and Argyll until November, when Mar emerged from Perth intending to cross the Forth and attack Argyll in Stirling. On 10 November Argyll received word of Mar’s movements; two days later he marched out of Stirling by way of Dunblane, intending to confront Mar at Sheriffmuir, which he reached on the evening of 12 November. Mar proceeded to Auchterarder, then to the old Roman camp at Ardoch, making his camp at Kinbuck, about two miles from Sheriffmuir. The following morning Mar deployed his forces in battle formation before Argyll’s position.

  Sheriffmuir

  On 13 November, a Sunday, Mar’s army of 12,000 advanced towards Argyll’s lesser force of about 6,000 which overlooked the road over which Mar was advancing. Argyll’s left wing was commanded by General Wightman, the centre by General Wretham; the entire Hanoverian line was shorter than Mar’s on account of their smaller numbers. Battle commenced with Argyll’s right wing, commanded by himself, subjected to a murderous fire. Undaunted, Argyll sent a detachment under Colonel Cathcart to attack Mar’s left flank which had the desired effect; Argyll’s right wing kept up a withering fire until the entire left wing of the Jacobite army collapsed. The survivors greatly outnumbered those of Cathcart’s men who pursued them; they attempted several times to rally but without success, dispersing after three hours of flight. Meanwhile, Mar’s right wing vigorously attacked General Wightman on Argyll’s left wing; the wing collapsed in the face of a Highland charge by Clans MacDonald, Maclean and the Breadalbane Campbells which drove both Royalist foot and horse back in confusion. Mar’s victorious right wing took up position on the Stony Hill of Kippendavie where, incredulously, they remained inactive while Argyll’s right wing pursued the other half of Mar’s army. Argyll then joined forces with General Wightman but, with only between 1,000 and 2,000 troops, he felt unable to attack Mar’s 4,000 men on the rocky eminence. Neither side was willing to resume the battle, so Argyll retired to Dunblane to re-group his by now scattered forces. By the following morning Mar and his army had disappeared. Losses sustained by Mar were 663 killed (including Alan, 13th Chief of the MacDonalds of Clanranald), wounded, missing and captured, among the last being the Earl of Panmure. (Panmure was executed in February 1716 for high treason.) Argyll’s losses were 232 killed, wounded and captured. 15

  Sheriffmuir was an inconclusive battle, both sides claiming victory, although the result was conclusive insofar as Argyll’s tactical success. The Royalist press, notably the recently-e
stablished Glasgow Courant, trumpeted on 14 November that ‘His Grace the Duke of Argyll obtain’d an Intire Victory over the Rebels in Sheriff Moor, a mile north of Dumblain.’17 A Royalist officer wrote to Colonel Blackadder in Stirling on 16 November, as follows:

  By a Royalist to Colonel Blackater [sic]: on the field near Dunblane our right wing beat their left and their right wing our left. Their army was reckoned 9 or 10000 men. Ours was not above 3400. Fifteen hundred of our right wing chased 5000 of their left two or three miles. We have the marks of victory. We have taken 14 colours and Standards, 4 of their cannon and about 100 prisoners.18

  Mar’s official despatch to Colonel Balfour, Governor of Perth states the following: ‘We attacked the enemy on the end of the Sheriff Muir, carried the day entirely, pursued them down to a little hill on the south of Dunblane.’19 In strategic terms, the day had been Argyll’s as he had effectively blocked Mar’s progress into the Lowlands, Mar being forced to retreat to Perth. A grateful government awarded those Royalist regiments containing the word ‘King’s’ in their battalion designation a badge in the form of a white horse, the insignia of the House of Hanover. Discouraged by the loss of territory to the pro-government clans of Sutherland, Ross, Munro and Forbes and the deaths of Jacobite leaders such as John Lyon, 5th Earl of Strathaven and Kinghorne, Alan MacDonald of Clanranald and the capture of the Earl of Panmure, the dispirited Jacobite army melted away rapidly At Sheriffmuir, Mar had committed a grave error – that of allowing Argyll’s army to march away intact, being afraid to risk his command.

  On 23 December James Stuart landed at Peterhead even though the ‘Fifteen was all but lost. He met Mar at Perth but was unable to convince him to undertake further campaigns, nor inspire his by now much reduced army. What was left of Mar’s command retreated via Montrose and Ruthven, where the clansmen disbanded. Mar received a further blow when he learnt that Argyll’s army had been reinforced by 6,000 Dutch troops; Mar made an approach to Argyll seeking terms but Argyll was unable to accommodate him; nothing short of unconditional surrender would satisfy George I. Sheriffmuir effectively put on hold the Jacobite cause for the next four years. As for ‘Bobbing John’, Earl of Mar, his estates were forfeited and he was forced into exile. Sheriffmuir gave rise to a popular ballad:

  There’s some say that we wan [won], and some say that they wan, and some say that nane [none] wan at ‘a man, but ane [one] thing I’m sure, that at Sheriffmuir, a battle there was that I saw, man, and we ran and they ran, and they ran and we ran and we ran as they ran awa’ [away], man.20

  A cairn monument to the Clan Macrae who fought on the left wing of Mar’s army was erected on the site of the battle in 1915 with a plaque added later by the 1745 Association.

  The spectre of Jacobitism in Scotland refused to go away even if by 1719 the cause had become something of a sideshow overshadowed by events in Europe. The signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1712 – 13 brought to a close the War of the Spanish Succession which gave the crown of Spain to Philip of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. The various belligerent powers including England received territories by way of compensation for expenses incurred by the war; England received Gibraltar and Minorca from Spain, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Hudson’s Bay in Canada and St Kitts in the West Indies from France. France also recognized the Hanoverian succession in Britain and undertook not to unite the crowns of France and Spain. However, Philip of Anjou, now Philip V of Spain, was determined to regain Spain’s standing in Europe by invading Sardinia and Sicily in 1717 – 18. The British government responded by declaring these actions a violation of the Peace of Utrecht and despatched the Royal Navy to confront a Spanish fleet off Syracuse, Sicily, where Philip’s navy was destroyed. Philip then declared war on Britain; his chief adviser, Cardinal Guilio Alberoni took the initiative by stirring up rebellion in Britain to forestall an attack on mainland Spain. Alberoni’s plan was to exploit the matter of succession to the British throne by encouraging and supporting the Jacobites Highland Clan chiefs, claiming that James Francis Edward Stuart, James VIII and III (James’s father James VII and II had died in 1701) and not George I was the rightful King of Britain. In doing so, Alberoni intended not only to destabilize the British throne but also to install a compliant king and parliament favourable to Spanish interests.

  Third Jacobite Rising, 1719

  In December 1718 James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde, the most important of the exiled Jacobites was invited to join Alberoni in Madrid where plans were laid. Alberoni’s strategy was two-pronged; he proposed that George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal would land in Scotland with 300 Spanish marines to raise the Highland clans in the west; at the same time, a fleet of twenty-seven ships and 7,000 troops commanded by Ormonde would invade either south England or Wales where there were Jacobite sympathizers of significant number. Unfortunately, Ormonde’s fleet was badly damaged and dispersed in a storm off Cape Finisterre, most of the Spanish ships having to take refuge in various Spanish ports. As for France, Scotland’s traditional ally, the regent Duke of Orleans still ruled the country and found it suited his foreign policy to remain friends with England, so the Jacobites could not expect any aid from that quarter.

  Keith, Earl Marischal, one of the principal leaders in the ’Fifteen left Spain on 8 March; he landed on the Isle of Lewis early in April where he was joined by the exiled Earl of Seaforth, William Mackenzie, 5th Chief of that clan and the Marquess of Tulliebardine, both of whom had set sail from le Havre. As usual, the leadership squabbles which plagued all four Jacobite rebellions erupted almost immediately; Tulliebardine argued that he, not Keith, should command the Jacobite forces, which Keith conceded. Then there was further disagreement about strategy; Tulliebardine advocated delay, Keith argued for immediate action on the mainland. Because of their squabbling, a landing was not effected until 13 April, on an islet at the mouth of Loch Duich, Ross-shire. Keith had brought 2,000 muskets, ammunition and gunpowder for distribution to the Clan chiefs who unfortunately did not provide the anticipated number of recruits; no doubt the debacle of the ’Fifteen affected their decision, prompting the Clan chiefs to hedge their bets on the success of Ormonde’s invasion in the south of England which, of course, had been aborted. News of this setback convinced the waverers that it would be imprudent to become involved in the rebellion and put at risk their lands and titles to no purpose. The ’Nineteen was doomed from the start.

  Tulliebardine and Keith established their headquarters at Eilean Donan Castle, Loch Duich. Among those who came to Eilean Donan were John Cameron of Lochiel and Lord George Murray, second son of the pro-Hanoverian Duke of Atholl, along with a few Irish officers. Over the next few days, Tulliebardine and Keith were joined by a few hundred Highlanders from Clans Macrae and Macgregor, Rob Roy Macgregor, one of the most celebrated freebooters in Scotland’s history, being among the latter. Heartened by the growing army, Tulliebardine – still reluctant to take action – and Keith marched from Eilean Donan Castle to recruit more clansmen with a view to capturing Inverness. The two Jacobite leaders agreed that they should leave a small garrison at Eilean Donan to guard the stores of gunpowder and ammunition. The garrison comprised between forty and fifty Spanish marines; occupying the castle as a base was a prudent move but storing the bulk of the ammunition and gunpowder there would prove to be a major tactical error.

  By now the government had received news of the Jacobite landing in the area of Skye and Lochalsh and despatched five Royal Navy frigates to patrol the seas there in the first week of May. On 10 May, three of the warships anchored off Eilean Donan Castle; learning that the rebels were ensconced there, the ships’ captains attempted to negotiate with the garrison which promptly fired on the small ships’ boat carrying the negotiators, forcing them to withdraw. The captains of the frigates HMS Worcester, HMS Flamborough and HMS Enterprise returned the fire, bombarding the castle for about an hour. The following evening, under cover of a heavy cannonade, sailors and marines stormed ashore in the ships’ small boats, taking the garrison p
risoner, along with about 400 barrels of gunpowder and ammunition. The frigates spent the next two days reducing Eilean Donan Castle to ruins. HMS Flamborough took on board the Spanish prisoners and set sail for Leith.21

  Cut off from escape by sea – even if they had possessed ships – the Jacobite army failed to recruit more than about 1,000 clansmen; hardly a few miles away from Eilean Donan, Tulliebardine and Keith were still intent on capturing Inverness, despite the news of Ormonde’s aborted invasion in south England. On 5 June a government army led by General Joseph Wightman who had been present on the field of Sheriffmuir advanced south from Inverness to confront Tulliebardine and Keith; Wightman’s force numbered 850 foot, 150 dragoons, 130 clansmen and six coehorn mortars. Wightman faced Tulliebardine and Keith at Glenshiel, a lonely spot a few miles south of Loch Duich, near the Five Sisters Hills.

  Glenshiel

  The valley of Glenshiel was good terrain, favourable to the Jacobite Highlanders who, if they could not execute the famous Highland Charge, were adept in sniping at their enemies from concealed positions behind boulders, birch trees and bushes. The Glen had a drovers’ road which crossed the river Shiel by the contemporary single-arched stone bridge, an example of which is so beloved of modern tourists visiting the Highlands. At that point, the shoulder of a hill projects into the glen, causing it to narrow to a gorge. The shoulder was covered with heather, bracken and birch trees, offering ideal protection for musketeers. The Jacobites also strengthened their position by digging entrenchments on the contours of the hill to the north of the Shiel river; they also erected a stout barricade across the drove road that ran the length of the glen between the river and the entrenched hill. On high ground south of the river, the right flank of the Jacobite position was held by Lord George Murray, a boy of only fourteen years in command of elements of Clan Murray. To Murray’s left, the centre was held by 250 Spanish marine regulars commanded by Colonel Don Nicolas Bolano. To Bolano’s left were positioned Cameron of Lochiel’s men, supported by Rob Roy Macgregor and forty of his clan. The line continued with Clan Mackenzie, commanded by Sir John Mackenzie of Coul, the Campbells of Ormdale and the Mackintoshes. On the extreme left flank, William Mackenzie, Earl of Seaforth was stationed on a steep incline. Facing the Jacobites was General Wightman’s force of English and Scottish troops. Wightman’s right wing was commanded by Colonel Jasper Clayton with his force of grenadiers, two battalions of foot, a Dutch regiment and companies from Clans Fraser, Sutherland and Mackay. The flank of Wightman’s right wing rested on the road and the river Sheil held by his 150 dismounted dragoons. The weaker left wing was held by Colonel Clayton’s own regiment commanded by Colonel Reading with eighty men of Captain George Munro of Culcairn’s clansmen and the six coehorn mortars.