by John Buchan
Fyvie, an old seat of the Earls of Dunfermline, had by this date become more of a seventeenth-century dwelling-house than a baronial keep. On three sides lay bogs with a few strips of hard ground too narrow for the approach of an army. On the eastern side was a low ridge of hills, which — a rare thing in that countryside — was thickly wooded on one flank. Montrose cannot have had more than 800 foot, and at the moment of the surprise 150 mounted Gordons whom he had recruited in Strathbogie deserted his standard, leaving him with only 50 horse. Argyll outnumbered him by at least five to one, and he dared not meet him on the level; to defend Fyvie was to be caught in a trap; his only hope lay in the strong defensive position afforded by the hill-face broken with ditches and dry-stone walls, and the good cover in the adjacent scrub. He was desperately short of ammunition, and melted down the pewter vessels of the castle to make bullets; for powder he could only look to the pouches of the enemy.
Argyll, believing that at last he had driven his nimble foe into a blind alley, and strong in the consciousness of a force many times as large, attacked the position with — for him — considerable spirit. At last the omens were propitious, for he had heard of the Gordon desertions. A regiment of foot advanced up the little hill and carried some of the dykes and trenches, difficult places from which to eject well-armed men. Montrose saw that the only hope lay in cold steel. He called to a young Ulsterman, Magnus O’Cahan, whom Alasdair had left behind him, and bade him drive the enemy from the slopes. A gallant handful of Irish charged with pikes and broadswords, drove back the Covenanters and made prize of many bags of powder for their famished muskets. It is recorded that one of them, looking at the booty, cried: “We must have at them again; these stingy hucksters have left us no bullets.” Then came a charge of Lothian’s horse on the flank. Montrose had his men well in cover, and, had the enemy been drawn in sufficiently deep, there might have been an end of Lothian’s 500. But the excitement of the Atholl men brought about a premature volley, the battle was joined too soon, and the Covenant cavalry were easily routed by the charge of Montrose’s 50 mounted men supported by his musketeers. After that followed some half-hearted skirmishing, in which Lord Marischal’s brother was slain on the Covenant side, and then Argyll withdrew and put the Ythan between himself and his enemy.
1644 November
But Fyvie was no place to tarry in, since 800 men cannot for ever defy an army. Under cover of darkness Montrose slipped away, and was presently heard of in Strathbogie. Here he hoped for news of Alasdair and his western men, but no news came. His aim is clear; he had still expectations from the Gordons, and was loth to leave their country. This Argyll knew well, and he, too, followed to Strathbogie, keeping up a show of attacks which were easily repulsed. But the Campbell chief was engaged on work more suited to his genius than fighting, and busied himself with making overtures to Montrose’s Lowland officers. Since Alasdair went, Montrose had more officers than rank and file, and these Angus and Perthshire and Aberdeen gentry, half-hearted about the campaign and timid about their estates, appeared to be fruitful soil. He did not ask them to betray their cause; he only offered, of his generosity, free passes to any who wished to go home, asking no payment in return. It was a subtle plan, and it largely succeeded. Sibbald, a companion on the ride from Carlisle, left, and the seeds were sown of further discontent. A council of war was called, and it was resolved to retreat into the hills. The royalists marched by moorland roads to Speyside, and at Balveny, on the west bank of the Fiddich, out of reach of Argyll’s horse, took stock of their position. Argyll, avoiding the mountains, went south by an easier road, and lay with his army in the neighbourhood of Dunkeld.
At Balveny matters came to a crisis. The Lowland gentlemen had no love for a campaign in midwinter, conducted at Montrose’s incredible speed, and offering little hope of finality. They feared for their lands and families, now at the mercy of the Covenant. Moreover, Highland and Lowland are ill to mix, and they may well have disliked their associates. Montrose accordingly proposed a descent on the Lowlands, the plan which he had always had in view, for his aim was to relieve the king by drawing back Leven’s army from England. So far his victories had availed nothing to that purpose, for Newcastle had fallen on 19th October, and Tynemouth on the 27th. Leven was now in Scotland, his army was in winter quarters, and a descent upon the Border would gravely embarrass the Parliament plan of campaign. But the scheme found little favour. The Lowlanders argued that success in hill warfare was no warrant for victory against regulars in a settled and hostile country, and the Highlanders had grievances of their own to avenge, which they thought of far greater moment than any royal necessities. Men like Dupplin (now Earl of Kinnoull), Colonel Hay, and Sir James Drummond, slipped away to make a temporary peace with the Covenant. Almost alone of the gentry old Airlie and his gallant sons refused to leave. They, like Montrose, fought not for safety or revenge, but for an ideal of statesmanship.
III
1644 Nov.-Dec.
It was now far on in November. In the levels the heavy rains told of the beginning of winter, the high tops were whitening with snow, the bogs were morasses, the streams were red with flood, and the days were short and dark. Argyll was at Dunkeld, busy with attempts on the loyalty of Atholl, and he must have believed that no general in his senses would continue the war in such inclement weather. Indeed he had already sent his cavalry, his chief arm, into winter quarters. Montrose resolved to disappoint his expectations, and led his handful of troops through the Badenoch passes for a descent on Dunkeld. His route was by Dalnaspidal and Dalwhinnie to Blair, and in a single night he covered twenty-four miles. But long ere he could reach the Tay Argyll had news of him, and wisely decided that he could not face him with foot alone, even though the odds were four to one, and that he at any rate would end the campaign. He fell back on Perth, dismissed his Campbells to their homes, and himself posted with Lothian to Edinburgh, where he surrendered his commission as general-in-chief into the hands of the Estates. He complained that he had not been supported—”whether through envy or emulation, or negligence or inability”; but it is hard to see what more he could have needed in the way of foot, horse, or guns; neither Kirk nor Council could give him a genius for war. His reception was a little chilly; his services were formally approved, but it was dryly observed that the approbation was the greater because he had shed so little blood. The question was who should succeed him. Lothian and Callander brusquely declined the thankless post, and the Estates fell back upon a professional soldier, William Baillie of Letham, one of the best of Leven’s generals in England.
At Blair Montrose met Alasdair returning out of the western mists. The meeting changed his plans. He may have thought of winter quarters, like his opponents, but that would be a difficult business, since they must be in the desert and hungry hills, and at the best a fruitless one, since precious months would be lost. But now he had the Ulstermen again under his command, and with them a formidable levy of the western clans. Alasdair had been no laggard. Clan Donald had not forgotten Argyll’s commission of fire and sword in 1640, and Clan Gillian had long scores to settle with the secular enemy of their name. Five hundred Macdonalds — of Glengarry, Keppoch, Clanranald, and the Isles — had flocked to his standard. None of the resounding names which, forty-five years later, were to muster under another Graham, were lacking. There were Macleans from Morvern and Mull, Stewarts from Appin, Farquharsons from Braemar, and the eastern Camerons of Lochaber. John of Moidart, the Captain of Clanranald, brought his fierce spirit and devoted following to Montrose’s side. There was young Aeneas of Glengarry, with his three uncles, and Donald Glas of Keppoch, and the chiefs of the fierce septs of Glen Nevis and Glencoe. The middle Highlands, for the first time since Harlaw, were united, but it was not in the king’s cause. The hatred of every clansman was directed not at the Covenant, but at the house of Diarmaid. Now was the time to avenge ancient wrongs, and to break the pride of a chief who had boasted that no mortal foe could enter his borders. The hour had c
ome when the fray must be carried to Lorn.
Montrose had that supreme virtue in a commander which recognizes facts. He could not maintain his army without war, and to Lowland war they would not listen. If he looked for their help in the future he must steel their valour and rivet their loyalty by fresh successes. In return for their assistance in the king’s quarrel they must have the help of the king’s lieutenant in their own. Again, a blow at the Campbells in their own country would put fear into the heart of the Covenant, and shatter Argyll’s not too robust nerve. It was a wild venture, an unheard-of thing to scour the hills when decent soldiers were warm in camp, and even the shepherds and the hunters lay snug in their bothies; but in its audacity lay its merit, for wild ventures have their psychological value in war. In a sense, too, it had always been Montrose’s second line of strategy, for we have seen him writing to Sir Robert Spottiswoode from York: “We intend to make all possible dispatch to follow him (Argyll) at his heels in whatever posture we can.” He had the wit to see that a deadly thrust might be delivered in a region far from the main front of the campaign. There may have been a further reason. The Estates had confiscated his lands and taken captive his friends. Wishart, his chaplain to be, and Lord Ogilvy, his dearest comrade, were in the Edinburgh Tolbooth; his kinsfolk, when hands could be laid on them, had been consigned to squalid prisons. A blow at the arch-enemy would be some little solace to a heart which was only too prone to the human affections.
CHAPTER IX. INVERLOCHY (December 1644-February 1645)
Through the land of my fathers the Campbells have come,
The flames of their foray enveloped my home;
Broad Keppoch in ruin is left to deplore,
And my country is waste from the hill to the shore.
Be it so! By St. Mary, there’s comfort in store!
Though the braes of Lochaber a desert be made,
And Glen Roy may be lost to the plough and the spade,
Though the bones of my kindred, unhonoured, unurned,
Mark the desolate path where the Campbells have burned —
Be it so! From that foray they never returned.
— Ian Lom Macdonald.
(Mark Napier’s translation.)
1644 December
In seventeenth-century Scotland Clan Campbell stood by itself as a separate race, almost a separate state, whose politics were determined by the whim of its ruling prince. Built upon the ruins of many little septs, it excelled in numbers and wealth every other Highland clan; indeed, if we except the Gordons, it surpassed in importance all the rest put together. It was near enough to the Lowlands to have shared in such civilization as was going, including the new theology. Craftsmen had been brought to Inveraray from the Ayr and Renfrew burghs, schools had been established, and of a Sunday the townsfolk could listen to notable preachers of the Word. On the other hand, its territory was a compact block, well guarded on all sides from its neighbours, so that it enjoyed the peace and confidence of a separate people. With its immense sea-coast its doors were open to the wider world, and the Campbell gentry acquired at foreign universities and in foreign wars a training which few landward gentlemen could boast; while Flemish velvets and the silks and wines of France came more readily and cheaply to its little towns than to the burghers of Perth or Edinburgh. The country, though less fertile than the Lowlands, was a champaign compared to Lochaber or Kintail. Thousands of black cattle flourished on its juicy hill pastures, and farms and shielings were thick along the pleasant glens that sloped to Loch Fyne and Loch Awe. In the town of Inveraray the clan had its natural capital, and from Inveraray ran the Lowland road through Cowal and Dumbarton for such as preferred a land journey. Compared with other clans, the Campbells were prosperous and civilized; they did not live from hand to mouth like the rest, nor did each winter find them at the brink of starvation; yet they still retained the martial spirit of the Gael, and could put into the field the most formidable of Highland levies. Accordingly, by their neighbours they were both detested and feared. They had eaten up the little peoples of Benderloch and Morvern, and their long arm was stretching north and east into Lochaber and Strathtay. Every Maclean and Stewart who could see the hills of Lorn from his doorstep had uneasy thoughts about his own barren acres. The Campbells had a knack of winning by bow and spear, and then holding for all time by seal and parchment.
Not without reason Argyll boasted that his land was impregnable, for strategically it had every advantage. On the eastern side, where it looked to the Lowlands, there were the castles of Roseneath and Dunoon to keep ward, and deep sea-lochs to check the invader. Besides, the Lowlands and Argyll were always at peace. South and west lay the sea, and the Campbells had what little navy existed at the time in Scotland. The Macleans in Mull were too small and broken to take the offensive, and in any case it was a long way from the coast at Knapdale to the heart at Inveraray. North and east lay a land of high mountains and difficult passes, where no man could travel save by permission of the sovereign lord. Moreover, the Campbells of Lochow and Glenorchy had flung their tentacles over Breadalbane, and held the marches around the headwaters of Tay. There might be a raid of Macgregors or Maclarens on the east, or a foray from Appin on Loch Etive side, but not even the king and his army could get much beyond the gates. “It is a far cry to Lochow,” so ran the Campbell owercome, and it was a farther cry to Inveraray.
Montrose, when he assented to Alasdair’s wishes, resolved to strike straight at the enemy’s heart. He would wage war not in the outskirts, but in the citadel. From Blair there was little choice of roads. To go due west by Rannoch and the springs of Etive would mean a march among friendly clans, but a few score Campbells could hold the narrows of Loch Etive or the Pass of Brander against the strongest army. The Lowland road by Dumbarton and Loch Lomond was out of the question, for it meant a dangerous proximity to the Covenanting westlands and the difficult pass of Glencroe. But midway through Breadalbane ran a possible route, among wild glens and trackless bogs, which at this winter season would be deep in snow. This was the old raiding road out of Lorn, and Argyll flattered himself that his clan alone had the keys of it. But with Montrose were men who had made many a midnight foray into the Campbell domain, and who knew every corrie and moss as well as any son of Diarmaid. A Glencoe man, Angus MacAlain Dubh, was the chief guide, and he promised Montrose that his army should live well on the country, “if tight houses, fat cattle, and clear water will suffice.” Accordingly, with Airlie and the Ogilvys and his eldest boy, Lord Graham, as his Lowland staff, the king’s lieutenant ordered the march to the west. The army travelled in three divisions: the Ulstermen under Alasdair in three regiments, commanded respectively by James Macdonnell, Ranald Og Macdonnell, and Magnus O’Cahan; the western clans, Macdonalds, Camerons, Stewarts, and Macleans, under John of Moidart, Captain of Clanranald; the Atholl, Badenoch, and Aberdeenshire contingents, and the small Lowland force under the king’s lieutenant himself. Montrose had now some 3,000 troops, drawn from every corner of Scotland. There were men from Orkney, from Uist, and from Skye; from the whole Highland mainland between Knoydart and Braemar; from Kintyre; from Angus and Moray and Buchan; from the villages of Forth, Earn, and Tay; even from Lothian, Galloway, and the distant Borders.
Montrose left Blair on or about the 11th day of December. The road was at first the same as that taken in the march to Tippermuir. The lands of the small and uncertain clan of Menzies were traversed, and the laird of Weem taken prisoner. Then westward by both shores of Loch Tay swept the advance, where the Macdougal settlers from Lorn suffered, till the confines of Breadalbane were reached and a country that owned Campbell sway. Up Glen Dochart they went, following much the same road as the present railway line to Oban, past Crianlarich and Tyndrum, and into the glens of Orchy. John of Moidart, with the western men, was sent on in advance, and did not rejoin the army till Kilmartin Glassary, far down in Argyll; his business was to collect food, and he brought in a thousand head of cattle. In Glen Dochart Montrose was joined by the l
ocal septs, the Macnabs and the Macgregors, and it was by a ruse of the former wily and resourceful clan that the difficult narrows of Loch Dochart were passed, and the island castle was surrendered. A Catholic priest was the meteorologist of the army, and he had promised them that the weather would hold, since the wind blew from the east; he proved right, for there was neither rain nor snow to hinder their speed.
It was partly a raid of vengeance, and behind them rose the flames of burning roof-trees. Presently Loch Awe lay before them under the leaden winter sky, and soon the little fortalices of the lochside lairds smoked to heaven. All fighting men who resisted were slain or driven to the high hills, every cot and clachan was set alight, and droves of maddened cattle attested the richness of the land and the profit of the invaders. It was Highland warfare of the old barbarous type, no worse and no better than that which Argyll had already carried to Lochaber and Badenoch and the braes of Angus.
Argyll was well served by his scouts, and to him at Edinburgh word was soon brought of Montrose’s march to Breadalbane. He must have thought it a crazy venture. Now at last was his enemy delivered into his hands. No mortal army could cross the winter passes, even if it had the key, and the men of Glenorchy would wipe out the starving remnants at their leisure. Full of confidence he posted across Scotland to Inveraray. There he found that all was quiet. Rumours of a foray in Lorn were indeed rife, but the burghers of Inveraray, strong in their generations of peace, had no fear for themselves. Argyll saw to the defences of his castle, and called a great gathering of his clansmen to provide reinforcements, if such should be needed, for the Glenorchy and Breadalbane men, who by that time had assuredly made an end of Montrose.
