by R. W. Hughes
‘Their officers are still in the castle, according to our scouts’ said John McKay.
‘If we can get between Cromartie’s officers and his men, the advantage will be greatly in our favour,’ said George unable to keep the excitement he felt from showing in his voice. He quickly positioned his Highlanders in the woods, with a clear field of fire but out of sight of anyone travelling down the lane.
Having taken the castle and chased the Sutherland men off into the hills the column of five hundred Jacobites was overconfident and strolling slowly down the track waiting for their officers to join them. The devastating volleys of musket fire took them completely by surprise creating carnage in their ranks, and the following volleys spread panic amongst the leaderless men. Their return fire was spasmodic, and having no targets, they were just firing blindly into the wood that overlooked them. A group of the Mackenzies made a brave attempt of a charge up the hill towards the MacKay’s position in the wood, but they were cut down by musket fire as they tried to cross the open ground. After several more volleys from the protection of the wood into the Mackenzies, they started to retire in disorder back along the lane. The following charge of the MacKays led by George bursting from their cover and bearing down on them firing their pistols at close range, before drawing their swords and engaging them before they had time to organise, created further panic in their ranks.
After firing his musket into the group on the lane, he had placed it on the ground, then drawing his two pistols he had chased down the short slope. His first victim was struggling to prime his musket as he bore down on him, as the man attempted to use his weapon as a club, he fired his pistol and the man collapsed as he took the ball in the face. His second target rushed towards him with a drawn raised broadsword but spun around with the force of the ball hitting him in his shoulder at such short range. Clearing a low broken-down fence in one leap, he landed on a man sheltering behind the obstacle who had just primed his musket. Both men tumbled in a heap on the ground, and as the man pulled back the hammer of his weapon, George, while still lying in a prone position, lunged with his sword penetrating the man’s lower stomach, the man’s pistol fired in return, the ball ricocheting off the wooden fence post and splattering Georges cheek with splinters of wood. As he started to rise, a nearby Highlander wearing the Fraser tartan raised his sword to make a fatal blow at the man on the ground. Swinging his pistol with all his might from his prone position and using the butt as a club, he heard the knee bone of his assailant shatter, followed by a scream of pain as the man collapsed, his mangled knee unable to carry his weight, the misjudged swing of his blade crashing into a fence rail above George’s head. Looking around from his prone position, he could see that the Jacobite troops were being driven backwards in disarray by the velocity of the charge, and with no officers to rally them, they were quickly scattered, many being driven onto the nearby beach and were attempting to swim Loch Fleet rather than face the MacKay charge, others threw down their weapons in surrender.
It was on this scene of devastation that the Earl of Cromartie and his mounted officers finally arrived. From what had initially been a successful day for the earl, he was in time to see his force of five hundred men being routed and destroyed.
It was Douglas and John McKay who astride their own mounts brought up George’s horse.
‘Cromartie has turned tail along with several of his officers and deserted his men,’ shouted Douglas pointing to a group of horsemen riding off down the lane.
George vaulted in the saddle.
‘You are in charge, Hugh! Collect the prisoners and all their weapons. I am going after a bigger fish,’ he shouted to his cousin as he followed Douglas and John McKay who were already riding down the lane in pursuit of the disappearing figures of George, the Earl of Cromartie, and several of his mounted officers.
It was not long in the chase before the superior horses left the smaller animal of John McKay behind, and they quickly gained on the group in front of them. It was at this point that these riders realised they could not outrun their pursuers and left the track to take their chances by riding over the moorland, hoping their horses would be nimbler over the rough ground than the larger horses of George and Douglas. But the Earl of Cromartie was also mounted on a better-quality horse and he was well in front of his men when they decided to diverse across the moor, leaving him on his own still travelling along the track at a fast canter.
George stopped at where the officers had left the track and Douglas also pulled his horse up beside him.
‘I will continue to chase the Earl. It seems as if he is heading for Dunrobin Castle; you wait for John and then continue to follow his companions across the moor.’
Before Douglas could raise any objection, he had spurred his horse and was off cantering down the track in the direction taken by the Earl of Cromartie.
As he entered the courtyard of Dunrobin Castle pulling up his steaming stallion in a cloud of dust and loose shale, he leaped from the saddle, drawing his pistol from his belt as he did so. He was surprised to be met by Lady Sutherland coming from the kitchen door of the castle.
‘Where is George Mackenzie, Lady Sutherland? I have chased him here across the moor from Bonar Bridge.’
‘You are mistaken, George MacKay. No one of that name is here,’ she said barring his way from entering the kitchen, the response surprising George, but then he recalled the conversation with his uncle of the doubtful loyalties of the Earl of Sutherland and the rumours of the leanings towards the Prince’s cause by the Earl’s wife.
‘You must excuse me, Your Lady, but I think you may be mistaken. For your safety, I will search your property as you are obviously not aware there is a violent and desperate man hiding in your home.’
He pushed past her ignoring the protests and proceeded to search the rooms in the castle.
It was in the bedroom that he noticed a smear of mud on the bottom of white sheets that hung just above the floor near the bottom of the large four poster bed.
‘You may leave your hiding place now, Mackenzie, or I fire my pistol under the bed and you take your chances.’ There was no sound or movement until he pulled back the hammer of his pistol, the ominous click sounding extra loud in the deathly quietness of the room.
‘I surrender!’ came a voice followed by the figure of the Earl of Cromartie crawling on all fours from under the overlapping blankets and sheets that reached to the floor.
‘You will find it hard to live down, Your Lordship, being captured in a lady’s bedchamber,’ he said unable to resist adding to the embarrassment his prisoner obviously felt by submitting so meekly to just one man.
It was as he was escorting George Mackenzie, Earl of Cromartie, back across the moor, his hand fastened behind his back and George leading his horse by the reins, that he could not help but think back as he left the castle courtyard the sentence shouted after him by the Countess. ‘You have your prisoner, George Charles MacKay, but you will not keep your French gold.’
He could not help but keep repeating the sentence over and over in his mind. What did the women mean! Was she just fishing in the dark hoping for some reaction on his part that may give her and her husband a clue of whether their suspicions were correct? And where were all the Sutherland men? They were conspicuous by their absence.
He joined up with Douglas and John McKay as he neared the ferry point; they had managed to capture two of the officers, the others had split and raced off in different directions across the moor.
‘We will have to escort these prisoners back to Tongue ourselves. I do not trust them in the keeping of the Earl of Sutherland,’ said George to the small group of Douglas, John McKay and his cousin Hugh as they watched the prisoners who were being fastened together in a long chain of men.
‘Yes! Where is the Earl? It is not like him not to appear after the fighting and attempt to take the credit for this action,’ said Douglas sarcas
tically.
‘That is true,’ added John McKay. ‘You would have thought they would have come skulking back now the battle is over.’
A moment of shear panic seized George, as it dawned on him that all this had been planned by the scheming Earl of Sutherland.
He had been drawn away from Tongue leaving the area unprotected and into a battle with the Jacobites that should have left his men badly mauled. The bitter abuse shouted after him by Lady Sutherland suddenly began to make sense, the Sutherlands were attacking Tongue no doubt in search of the French gold, while he and his force had been cleverly drawn away into the conflict with the Jacobite Mackenzie force.
‘You and I, Douglas, along with Hugh and the few other men we can find horses for will make all haste back to Tongue. John and the rest of the men will follow us on foot and escort the prisoners back to Tongue; we will send one of our men with a message to the English garrison to send a ship to Tongue for these prisoners.’
‘Is it wise to split your force, George?’ enquired a concerned Douglas.
‘I have no choice, Douglas, as there is little protection at Tongue. Sutherland can ravage the area at will without any opposition, so I will gather a few more men on my journey and Hugh must do the same, but speed is now of the essence.’
It was the following day that the weary group of horsemen first saw the pillar of black smoke before they eventually came in sight of the hamlet of Tongue. Riding through the village his stomach turned at what he saw before him. Every cottage on either side of the narrow street that led between the properties had been ransacked. The doors smashed off their hinges and the contents of the rooms thrown into the highway, where several bodies could also be seen lying amongst the broken furniture.
On reaching Tongue House, his only concern was for Fiona, as he could see that the great oak door at the entrance had been battered open. In the corridor were large pieces of furniture that had been placed at the back of the door as an extra barricade, these were now smashed and pushed into a pile in the Great Hall, where an attempt to fire this wood had apparently been extinguished. As he desperately searched the ransacked rooms in the property and there was no sign of his sister or Fiona, he could sense the feeling of panic rising in his stomach. Coming back down to the main entrance as he came down the steps into the small courtyard he was met by his cousin Hugh accompanied by Douglas.
‘We have found Sithig in the stables, and he has badly burned hands. He told us it was the Sutherlands and they were led by the assassin, Nicolas Duncan. The scout at the pass give the village some warning of their approach but there were so few able men here to offer any great resistance; those that did were quickly cut down. Your wife and sister are safe. They were sent to Hugh’s farm on the insistence of your uncle, the Reverend Monroe.’
‘And where is my uncle now, Douglas?’ he enquired relieved that at least his sister and wife were safe.
‘The Reverend with Sithig and a young stable lad had locked and barricaded the entrance to the house, then left by a rear entrance; he said that he the stable lad and your uncle struggled with a wooden chest which they took to the kirk. He then told Sithig to hide in the woods. Fortunately, Sithig went back to the Hall and was in time to extinguish the fire started by Nicolas Duncan, although he badly burnt his hands in the process. He had then returned to the kirk and he was there hiding nearby observing a group of Sutherland men with Nicolas Duncan having set fire to the building. They left when one of their scouts came with the information that a large group of horsemen were approaching. The old man tried but could not put out the fire as it was burning too fiercely, and it is still burning now.’
The thought of his uncle and the young stable boy trapped in the church as it burnt around them, and the possibility that he would never see his uncle alive again and that the local Alanson family had lost their only child, Bailoch, was hard for him to contemplate and sent a cold shiver down his spine. It also caused a spasm of uncontrollable shaking that took over his body at the hatred he felt for Nicolas Duncan and the Earl of Sutherland.
‘Our horses are too weary to give chase, Douglas,’ he said reluctantly. ‘We will organise what men and women are available and try to extinguish the fire at the kirk as quickly as possible.’
It was the following day before the continuous dousing with water taken from the nearby well made it possible to search the charred smouldering remains of the small kirk and confirm that the Reverend Monroe had indeed perished in his beloved place of worship, but further searching did not reveal the young stable boy nor the treasure chest that the Reverend had taken into the kirk. It was concluded that the young stable boy had run and hidden in the surrounding hills, obviously terrified of what he had seen happening around him and he would no doubt return in due course. It was several days later that the messenger sent to Edinburgh with the request for a ship in which to convey the prisoners from Tongue also returned bringing news of the battle at Culloden, and the outcome and failure of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s attempt to claim the throne for his father. But it would be many days later before the Highland communities would hear of the atrocities carried out on the battlefield to the wounded Scotsmen and the devastation and looting of the surrounding countryside by the Hanoverian and English troops of the Duke of Cumberland’s English army.
The joint funeral at Tongue of the remains of Reverend Monroe and the men from the village who had been killed in the Sutherland raid, plus several others who had also lost their lives at the battle of Bonar Bridge, took place on a grey, wet miserable morning in the shadow of the now burnt out kirk, whose oak timbers were still smouldering slightly amongst the collapsed roof. It was a sorrowful affair with much uncontrolled wailing from the womenfolk of the dead men’s families. George noticed Riavach, who had broken down at his father and brother’s funeral, keeping surprisingly steadfast as George comforted his sister Ailie and his wife, Fiona.
His mind was not on the service that he had arranged to be taken by a close friend of the Reverend from the nearby parish of Durness. Instead, his thoughts were on what plan of action he could recommend to the meeting of sub chiefs after the funeral. He was in no doubt they would demand a reprisal raid on the Sutherlands for the death of the Reverend and their fellow clansmen.
But George knew that the Earl was a crafty old fox, the way he had enticed him and his men from Tongue and the MacKay lands while he helped himself to the French muskets, the French gold and the clan’s funds from Tongue House had proved how cunning he was. No! He could not just charge blindly into a raid on Sutherland lands as much as the meeting would be in favour of such an escapade, as the Earl would be well prepared for such a venture on their part, but he could well be able to convince the English Generals that it was another Highland uprising against the Crown. This was something he would have to think through himself, as now he didn’t have the benefit of his uncle’s advice.
It was a disgruntled group of sub chiefs that left the meeting that midday after the funeral; they had reluctantly agreed to wait awhile to give him time to formulate a plan before taking any retaliatory action against the Sutherlands.
As he had been at pains to point out, that to go to war now against the Sutherlands could be construed as an uprising by the very nervous English authorities, being as The Sutherlands were supposedly supporters of the Crown, and the Earl would no doubt be shouting the loudest to any English official that was prepared to listen, to propagate this belief.
In the next few days, more information filtered through to the Highlands of details of the battle at Culloden. Also, the English frigate, HMS Sheerness, again appeared in the bay at Tongue to collect the Earl of Cromartie and the rest of the Jacobite prisoners. It was after the ship had left that George called together his close friends to share the information and the proclamation he had received from the ship’s captain.
‘Gentlemen!’ he said loudly to attract their attention as he looked around the small s
tudy filled now by his brother Riavach, John McKay, Douglas and his cousin Hugh MacKay.
‘First I have more details of the battle that took place on the moor at Culloden. It appears that the Prince ignored the advice of his generals of the unsuitable position of his choice to do battle, and insisted on taking charge of the operation himself. The Jacobite forces were pounded by the English artillery with little return fire by their own cannons; the conditions did not suit the Highland way of fighting and their final desperate charge was repulsed by the foreign Hanovian troops, the English Redcoats and those Scottish clans supporting the Crown.
The Jacobites were scattered and driven from the field in total disorder chased by the English cavalry. After the battle, the Hanovian soldiers searched the battlefield and bayonetted any wounded Highlander they came across. Even the men in the room hardened to such scenes and the aftermath of a skirmish and battle gasped in disbelief at this act of such barbarity.
‘After the Prince’s Jacobite Army was routed and scattered after the battle, the English army were let loose on the surrounding countryside and its innocent occupants, burning, looting, and stealing their livestock while being encouraged in these acts by their officers. The Prince and his supporters have been hunted by the English soldiers and anyone found hiding or suspecting of assisting these men in any way have been arrested and treated as Jacobites or shot out of hand.’
‘Where did you come by this information, George?’ asked Hugh MacKay.
‘Several of our clan who were misguided fought for the Prince, and have returned to these lands and are now sheltering on the moors above Tongue. They tell of atrocities carried out by redcoat soldiers on the rampage through the area and seemingly encouraged by their officers. Also, the captain of the HMS Sheerness gave me a proclamation to be placed in all public places and read in all places of worship, it reads: