The Committee were agreed on one point at last, that the enemy army must be cut off before it accomplished this. It was believed to be of far greater strength than it had ever mustered before – but then so were the armies of the Covenant, which had just been reinforced by three new regiments from Fife, and the remnant of Argyll’s Highlanders.
Both sides had realized that the next battle must be the decisive one, and were putting every ounce of their weight into it; nor, it was obvious, would Montrose strike this time before he was fully prepared. So Baillie went after him as fast as he could along the Allan Water, but there again he fell out with his Committee, or rather its Dictator.
For Argyll had just heard how one of his possessions, Castle Campbell, had been sacked and burned by the enemy; still worse insult, his young ward, Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, a black-eyed rascal of a schoolboy, had been in the castle, and instead of longing to avenge the action, had tried to join the rebels and fight against his guardian. It seemed that Montrose held enchantment for every boy in the country, while Argyll’s face sagged more and more heavily in an age that was not of years.
He insisted on reprisals, and waited to burn the house of Airthrey, belonging to the Graham of Braco, and Lord Stirling’s house of Menstrie, though Baillie was driven nearly mad by the delay.
‘Are we to waste time in little revenges like a mob of angry women?’ he fumed – ‘for God’s sake let us stick to the main object.’
By the sun-baked evening of August 14th he was at Hollin-bush, and his scouts brought him word that Montrose was at Kilsyth, only two and a half miles off, and had been joined by the ‘valetudinary’ Lord Airlie, whom everyone had expected to die decently in his bed of fatigue. But there was the undefeated old gentleman back again, with his son, and young Alexander Ogilvy of Inverquharity, a boy fresh from college.
‘All infants and dotards,’ muttered Argyll, but his practical sense had to admit the news that eighty horsemen of the Ogilvy family had accompanied the infant and dotard.
Aboyne was there too, they heard, with the Gordon horse, so Montrose must have collected all the cavalry he could hope for.
Lanark and his new army was by now just twelve miles off from Baillie, who decided that it would be madness not to wait for them; they would be with him in a few hours; this was to be their greatest chance of smashing the enemy; and why take any unnecessary risks?
So he appointed pickets and went to bed.
At dawn on the 15 th, the misty milky dawn that promised a grilling August day, he was woken by his scouts, who brought him news of the enemy as ordered.
Almost on their heels, Argyll appeared in the doorway of hi tent, his stooping form dark against the white morning light.
‘Whereabouts are the rebels?’ he asked curtly.
‘Still at Kilsyth,’ replied Baillie.
‘Might we not advance nearer them?’ rejoined the other.
‘We are near enough already, if we do not intend to fight – and we do not intend it until Lanark comes up. Your Lordshit knows well how rough and uneasy a way lies between then and us.’
‘But,’ said Argyll, ‘we need not keep the highway; we may march upon them in a direct line through the cornfields and over the braes.’
With silent obstinacy, he had ignored the reference to Lanark, His face was so sunken with lack of sleep that the pale skin seemed to hang in folds and pouches. Baillie’s round rubicund countenance, cheerful, in spite of his apprehensions, by reason of a few hours deep sleep and the sound working of his digestion, exasperated Argyll as much as his own did Baillie.
Nothing, the General considered, would keep this man quiet till he had had a sleeping-draught and a dose of rhubarb. Aloud, on a sigh that touched the patience of despair, he said, ‘Very well. Let Lord Lindsay and the rest of the Committee be called in from the next tent.’
They were called in, and Argyll drove them before him like sheep. He had been tossing and turning in his brain all night all the moves possible on their side and the enemy’s. And he had convinced himself that Montrose meant to slip through their fingers and escape to the hills. If they delayed a few hours to wait for Lanark’s reinforcements, they would lose their prey altogether.
But if they attacked instantly they would have Montrose in a trap, for his army lay in a hollow with the river Forth to the north of him, cutting off his retreat to the Highlands – and by the time Lanark’s army arrived, it would just be in time to help cut down the fugitives.
Thus Argyll argued; and it all sounded to Baillie just a bit too good to be true. But he hoped for the best.
So the army of the Covenanters went straight through the fields of ripening corn, pale in the heat haze that hung over the land and turned the sky to leaden gold; they climbed up the rough slopes of the Campsie hills; and there Baillie wished to halt. His position he said was impregnable, and what more could anyone want?
But Argyll, with a plan in his hand, that he had drawn up himself, pointed out that there was a narrow ravine to the north, through which Montrose might still escape to the hills. Let them therefore stop this possible loophole by marching the army round to the north and getting it astride the gap, thus hemming Montrose in between them and the Lowlands.
‘Gentlemen!’ exclaimed Baillie in desperation to the Committee, ‘a flank march across the enemy’s front is the most difficult manoeuvre in all warfare. I beseech you not to risk it now. Why should we not wait for Lanark and his extra five hundred horse and thousand infantry?’
Argyll glowered at him.
‘Are not six thousand foot and eight hundred horse enough or General Baillie?’
Baillie did not look at his Dictator. He said very quietly, Remember, gentlemen, what we have all agreed – the loss of this day will mean the loss of the kingdom.’
But reason had no chance against hatred as strong as Argyll’s, Even his personal fear was swallowed up in the greater dread lest his enemy should escape to laugh at him yet again. He would how Montrose, he would show the insufferable Baillie, Balcarres and the rest of the pack, that he was the greatest soldier of them ill. He would leave no possible point of vantage to his foe, he declared, as he feverishly reiterated the reasons for his advice.
His appallingly conscious brain was fertile as a nest of maggots, thought Baillie with a shudder of repulsion – for how could any soldier think out everything like this and leave nothing to the inspiration of the moment – it was against nature, and he knew it, even if all these clever fools did not. Argyll thought he was taking a leaf out of Montrose’s book – but Baillie doubted if his men were fast or well-disciplined enough to do it.
Balcarres backed him up, but the two of them were stifled with arguments.
When everybody’s nerves were fretted to fiddle-strings, he reluctantly gave the orders to march, despatching Balcarres and a squadron of cavalry in the vanguard, while himself, Lindsay and Burleigh came on with the infantry close behind.
These three commanders, as they came up over the hill, rode to the edge, and looked down into the valley below. There waved the scarlet of the Royal Standard, and the enemy army was massed round it. They were on a low spur in a cup of the hills – a position that had spelled certain defeat to the minds of the Committee. But Baillie knew how those Highlanders could charge uphill as well as down. And the sheer size of the army was for the first time considerable. Clan after clan could be counter below, and the three generals calculated that there could not be less than five thousand men in all, and about five hundred of them, cavalry. The Covenanters were accustomed to better odds than that.
Montrose must have heard from his scouts that the enemy were now on the slopes above him; and the whole camp was in stir and bustle. Their weapons and metal-studded shields shimmered over the misty ground like the dewdrops on cobwebs the catch the first rays of the sun. All round them lay the quied hills, with the faint sunshine beginning to gild the bent, bleache nearly white by that dry summer.
A single figure rode into the midst of
the men in the valley and the generals above heard the echoes among the rocks of very short speech, shouted to the army.
‘That is Montrose,’ said Burleigh.
‘How do you know?’ said Lindsay, ‘I never heard that you Lordship stayed long enough to see him at Aberdeen.’
‘Nor your Lordship above Newtyle,’ retorted Burleigh.
‘My lords –’ expostulated Baillie, and then – ‘What th devil are they yelling back at him? I believe he has given then the choice whether to retreat or attack – those savage battle crie are their answer.’
‘Why are they undressing?’ asked Lindsay, but knew the answer, which none of them gave – ‘So that they can charge uphill in the coming heat, quicker than our heavily accoutred infantry can charge down.’
They saw the Highlanders, in answer to Montrose’s order, unwind and throw down their plaids, and knot up the long tails of their saffron shirts between their legs to keep them out of the way. At almost the same instant the three generals saw a number of these men running up as fast as wild cats through the bushes and undergrowth at the head of the glen, towards some cottages and garden walls which might prove a useful vantage ground to either side.
Baillie had hoped to keep his flank movement hidden from the enemy, and had instructed his men to keep behind the ridge of the hill along which they marched. But to his horror he now saw one of his officers, Major Haldane, break off from the centre of the main march, and lead a body of his musketeers down the hill to attack this position of the cottages, pulling after him four regiments of infantry (one of them Argyll’s) towards the edge of the ridge.
This unauthorized move of his would expose the whole plan to Montrose. It was in vain for Baillie to gallop back and try to recall Haldane. He had already been driven back on to the other regiments by the Highlanders – and a mere repulse to an attack was never enough for them.
Alasdair at once sent a counter-attack from the Maclean clan. As they charged uphill, the Macdonalds of Clanranald, not to be outdone by their ancient rivals, charged also towards the dikes on top of the ridge. The distant fire of the enemy only excited them the more; but this was not so much an attack on the foe as a race for precedence between the clans.
The Clanranalds overtook the Macleans, and broke right through their ranks, jostling and pushing them aside in their determination to be foremost. Young Donald of Moidart won, and was the first to leap the dyke, but Lachlan of Duart was just behind him, and so were the MacGregors, all mixed up with the Macleans and the men of Duart.
Up over the dikes on top of the hill there came leaping all those long red shanks under their yellow shirts, their targes held high on their left arms, their heads bent low under them for protection, and in their right hands their gleaming claymores.
The four regiments that Haldane’s move had led to the edge of the ridge, tried to make a stand against the savage onrush, but soon broke and fled. The Covenanting army was cut right through its centre, and its forces in the rear were left squirming and disorganized like a decapitated caterpillar.
Yet this wild and independent action was as likely to upset Montrose’s plan of battle as Haldane’s had upset Baillie’s. For when the clans charged uphill in that frantic helter-skelter, they exposed themselves to the chance of a heavy cavalry attack on the flank.
So Montrose said to Lord Airlie, as they watched from their eminence in the middle of the valley.
The old man, recovered after weeks of fever, and now sitting his horse again beside his commander, swore volubly at those mad rascals’ antics. They did not deserve the success they seemed to be getting – and what was Balcarres and all his horse doing that he did not cut them in pieces?
‘He must be somewhere up there,’ said Montrose, and then – ‘Look! What is that the sun is flashing on – there on the left?’
It looked as though it were on the windows of a house among the rocks and scrub on the hill, but the windows were moving.
As he had spoken, he had guessed that it was the steel cuirasses of Balcarres’ cavalry that had caught the sun. They had already crossed the gap at the head of the glen, and were making up to the hill on Montrose’s left. This would give them a very strong position for attack by a charge downhill. To forestall them, he sent a body of Gordon infantry to hold the hill against them. He dared not use his cavalry till he saw how Alasdair’s men were faring.
Balcarres had done better than Haldane in keeping the main part of his troops concealed behind the ridge. But now more and more of these came forward to meet the Gordon infantry, who were soon driven backwards towards the edge of the hill, and were in great danger of being overwhelmed.
Aboyne was one of the little group of commanders who sat their horses, watching the course of the battle. Montrose had insisted that he should not expose himself needlessly to danger, but remain in the rear with a bodyguard of horse and give his orders from there. He was fidgeting furiously at this restraint, which he knew to be reasonable since his brother’s death, and his father’s now frantic efforts to recall him from the campaign.
But that put him in no better temper ; he had said no word while the two other commanders discussed the next move; and now, looking up to the hill on their left, he saw that his men were holding the crest with the greatest difficulty and were gradually being driven back over the edge of it.
There must be a heavy weight of cavalry against them. Plunging horses could be seen silhouetted here and there on the sky line, and the confused bobbing of heads. His clan had marched into what looked like a death trap. He could bear it no longer, but rose in his stirrups and with a shout to his men led the Gordon horse in a charge to their help, galloping up the slope in his haste and getting his horses badly winded before the encounter.
Those gleaming cuirassiers made charge after charge from over the top of the hill; the Gordons were pushed steadily backwards and soon were in danger of being surrounded. It looked as though Balcarres must have the whole bulk of his cavalry up there over the ridge. But it was fairly clear by now that Alasdair’s face of the clans must be successful. Montrose determined to afford all his cavalry for the battle with Balcarres.
‘Now, my Lord Airlie,’ he said, ‘will you show seventeen what seventy can do?’
And while his son mustered the rest of the Ogilvy horse, the old man and the boy, Alexander of Inverquharity, went off at a steady trot at the head of their men. The Gordons, unable to extricate themselves from Balcarres’ cuirassiers, who seemed to be coming on interminably over the ridge, felt the shock of the Ogilvy horse as it plunged through them against the enemy, and were able to get clear, and charge again.
And again and again, as Nathaniel Gordon now came to their help with the last of the cavalry. That meant that Alasdair was being victorious in his part of the battle, and the knowledge put new heart into them. Airlie, bare-headed by now, and his white hair flying in the wind of his own speed, pulled his men out of the mêlée, got Aboyne to do the same, and all plunged back again in a final charge of such fury that the cuirassiers were driven back over the ridge and on to their own infantry.
On came the Gordons and Ogilvys, but even they did not do more damage than Balcarres’ terrified horse, plunging and trampling the crowded ranks of their own musketry. Their huge numbers only added to the hideous confusion. Both cavalry and infantry broke and fled.
Baillie, utterly distracted, had been galloping over the field of action, sending warnings to Argyll and his staff to retire, ordering officers to their posts, hearing on every side the maddening question of his subordinates, ‘What am I to do now?’
What indeed? He tried to disentangle the screaming confusion of flying horse and infantry, but they overbore him in their blind flight. He dashed to the rear, hoping to bring up the Fife reserves, but by the time he got there, the Fife reserves had decided that there was no sense in waiting to be killed, and were making for home. All the rest of the Covenanting army decided the same, but most were too late.
Montrose’s tru
mpets were sounding the general advance; his main army came up to the top of the hill, and looked down all round them on thousands of flying foes.
The pursuit and slaughter lasted for a dozen miles. When it was over, they found three cannon at the first position of Baillie’s army, which might have been the greatest help in covering his flank march. But they had been forgotten.
‘He must have been badly flustered,’ said Montrose sympathetically.
Only a few hundreds of that army escaped, but among them were all the chief leaders. Baillie, Balcarres and Burleigh shut themselves up in Stirling Castle. Lanark, thankful that he had been too late for the fight, fled to Berwick; Lindsay of the Byres as far as England; Cassilis and Glencairn further still, to Ireland. Only the sea seemed safe enough to Argyll. He rode twenty miles to Queensferry, dashed on board a ship that was lying at anchor in the Roads of Leith, and insisted on the Captain hoisting sail and taking him down the coast to Newcastle, well across the Border.
The common soldiers on foot or on inferior horses paid the price of the Irishwomen ordered to be killed in cold blood at Naseby and Methven Wood.
‘Man, it was a grand day,’ said one of Alasdair’s men at the end of it – ‘At every stroke of my sword I slit an ell of breeks.’
Chapter Twenty-seven
THERE WAS no Covenanting army left in Scotland. Its leaders were all in exile or in hiding. Montrose was everywhere recognized as the representative of the King, and the ruler of Scotland.
The year of miracles had come full cycle. It was August 1645. In the last days of August a year ago, Montrose and his cousin had walked twenty miles across the heather to pick up a little army of half-starving men. Within three days he had led them to his first victory over the ruling government of the Covenant, which held the whole country in subjection. Within one year, and in six crushing battles, he had beaten army after army of that government, until after its final defeat it no longer existed.
The chief towns of Scotland, and foremost among them Edinburgh, Glasgow and Linlithgow, hastened to send him their loyal submission. The shires of Renfrew and Ayr sent deputations to placate him, laying all their former disloyalty at the door of the Covenanting clergy and the spiritual tyranny exercised by them. Sir John Hurry, who had been a loyalist before he was a Covenanter, now changed his coat again, and left the enemy camp to join Montrose.
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