by R J M Pugh
Dunkeld
The Jacobites’ morale was high after Killiecrankie. Dundee’s inept successor, Colonel Alexander Cannon, appointed by James VII and II, led the the Jacobite army to the town of Dunkeld, Perthshire, on 21 August. Dunkeld was held by a single regiment of 1,200, the recently mustered Cameronians, Covenanter Lowlanders who who took their name from the Covenanter Reverend Richard Cameron (1648 – 80). The Cameronians were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William Cleland who had given the Covenanters their victory over Claverhouse at Drumclog in 1679. Dunkeld not being a walled town, the Cameronians fought in the streets, a mode of fighting alien to the Jacobite Highlanders who were used to charging their foe with broadsword and targe after firing a single volley. Knowing they would not have to face a Highland Charge, the Cameronians had no intention of surrendering; they took up position behind the garden walls of Dunkeld Cathedral and the mansion house of the Duke of Atholl where they withstood a constant fire from the Jacobites ensconced in the nearby cottages. Sadly, in the first hour of the engagement, William Cleland, the hero of Drumclog and participant in Bothwell Brig was fatally wounded by two musket balls. Despite this setback the Cameronians kept up a hot masking fire until they ran out of ammunition when they stripped the lead from the Cathedral roof to make bullets. Then, with burning faggots attached to their pikes, they sallied out from their safe position, setting alight the houses occupied by the Jacobites and locking the doors. (It was said that in one house alone, sixteen Jacobites were burnt alive.) After four hours’ fighting, the Jacobite survivors fled.
Cromdale
In May of the following year, Mackay, still in command of the Williamite forces in Scotland was determined to defeat the small Jacobite army commanded by Colonel Cannon. The remnant of the Highland element of the Jacobite force was led by Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel who, along with a few other Clan chiefs, wrote to James VII and II, complaining about his dwindling support for the rising. James sent clothing, arms, ammunition and provisions but no reinforcements other than a handful of Irish officers including Major General Buchan who assumed command of the Highland army. James was preoccupied with his invasion of Ireland, a disastrous venture which led to his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne on 1 July 1690c and the final destruction of the Jacobite campaign at Aughrim and Limerick the following year.
Buchan marched his force of 1,200 through Badenoch, hoping to attract more recruits from the Duke of Gordon’s estates. The opposite occurred; during the march, 400 of his small force deserted but, undaunted, Buchan proceeded through Speyside, making his camp at Cromdale, east of Grantown-on-Spey on 30 April. There he was confronted by Sir Thomas Livingston, commander of the garrison of Inverness. As Livingston approached Buchan on the opposite bank of the Spey, the Jacobites began to retreat; Livingston’s cavalry splashed across the river and attacked Buchan, who made a brief stand until a thick mist thankfully came down from the mountain Creagan a’ Chaise; under cover of the fog, Buchan escaped but left 400 dead on the field. The following day about 100 survivors crossed the Spey seeking refuge wherever they might. Livingston caught up with the fugitives on the Moor of Granish, near Aviemore, killing a few and dispersing the rest. In many ways, Cromdale rang the death knell of the Covenant and its diehard supporters who had become an anachronism. The defeat at Cromdale ended the first Jacobite rebellion. The battle is commemorated by a plaque on the side of Cromdale Kirk.
With the death of Bonnie Dundee, the possibility of James VII and II regaining the throne had perished. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was complete by 1690; that year Hugh Mackay erected a fort at Inverlochy which was named Fort William. Although warfare in the Highlands was now at an end, the disaffected Clan chiefs loyal to James were led to believe that a French fleet would land a force on the west coast of Scotland, a rumour which proved unfounded. As for William III, he cared little for Scotland and her people, regarding it solely as a source of recruits for his armies fighting Catholic France. William’s Secretary of State for Scotland, John Dalrymple, the Master of Stair, convinced the King that the residual Clan chiefs could be brought to heel by making an example of one clan – that of Alasdair, the MacIain MacDonald of Glencoe. A proclamation was issued requiring the Clan chiefs to swear allegiance to William III on 1 January 1692.
The MacIain’s clan were regarded as little more than cattle thieves, praying on their knees every Sunday and preying on their neighbours the other six days of the week. The clan was described as a thieving tribe, a damnable sept, the worst in all the Highlands. The MacIain went to Fort William to swear his oath but found that the officer in command, Colonel Hill was not empowered to accept his signature, so MacIain was sent to Inverary, where he duly signed the paper. He was five days’ late. In the government’s eyes MacIain was already a marked man, having fought in Bonnie Dundee’s army at Killiecrankie, the over-riding factor in the Master of Stair’s eyes for justifying the subsequent events of February 1692. In London, Dalrymple refused to accept the reason given by MacIain for his failure to submit on 1 January – bad weather – simply because he wanted to make an example that would convince the other Clan chiefs of their folly in supporting the Jacobite cause. He authorized two Campbells – the traditional enemies of the MacDonalds – Major Robert Duncanson and Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon to descend on Glencoe ‘secret and sudden’ to ‘root out to purpose’.5 William III was not informed of Dalrymple’s plan; the slaughter of the entire MacDonald clan in Glencoe would serve as a lesson pour encourager les autres. On 1 February 1692 Glenlyon and 120 Campbells arrived in Glencoe, announcing his mission as that of tax collector; according to the traditions of Highland hospitality, Glenlyon and his men were wined and dined for the next twelve days. On 12 February Major Duncanson sent Glenlyon this message:
To Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon ‘ for their Majesties service.’ Sir, – You are hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels, the McDonald [sic] of Glencoe, and putt [sic] [all] to the sword under seventy. You are to have special care the old fox [the MacIain] and his sons doe [sic] upon no account escape your hands. You are to secure all the avenues, that no man escape. This you are to put into execution att [sic] five o’ clock in the morning [of 13 February] precisely, and by that time, or or very shortly after it, I’ll strive to be att [sic] you with a stronger party. If I do not come to you att [sic] five, you are not to tarry for me, but to fall on. This is by the king’s special command, for the good and safety of the country, that these miscreants be cutt [sic] off root and branch. See that this is putt [sic] in execution without feud or favour, else you may be expected to be treated as not true to the king’s government, not a man fitt [sic] to carry a commission in the king’s service. Expecting you will not faill [sic] in the fulfilling hereof as you love yourself, I subscribe thee with my hand.
Robert Duncanson
Ballacholis [Ballachulish], 12 February 1692.6
Glencoe
At precisely 5am the bloody work began. MacIain was shot out of hand as he was rising from his bed; his wife was brutally used – a euphemism for rape – and she died within a few hours. Although escape routes had been guarded, several of the MacDonalds managed to evade the Campbells in the snow-covered hills. In all, thirty-eight of the clan were butchered, including two children, two women and an old man of seventy years.7 Of the massacre of Glencoe, William III wrote to Colonel Hill at Fort William thus:
There is much talk of it here [London] that they [the MacDonalds] are murdered in their beds after they had taken the allegiance; for the last, I know nothing of it … all I regret is that any of the sect got away.8
As for Dalrymple, he never wrote a word expressing remorse or regret for Glencoe; in his own eyes he had merely carried out his duty to the King.
After Glencoe there was peace in the Highlands, albeit a grudging acceptance of the Williamite monarchy. With a peaceful Scotland in the north and south, the Scottish parliament turned its mind to the expansion of manufactory, trade and commerce, not only with Europe but far
ther afield. National and international trading was the key, re-invigorating the economy as well as diverting peoples’ minds from the scandal of Glencoe. In 1697 a Dumfriesshire financier, William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England, floated the idea of establishing a trading colony on the Isthmus of Darien, or Panama, to establish commerce with South America and Asia. It was a grandiose scheme; at first, English investment in the Darien Company formed in 1695 was robust until the Dutch East India Company put pressure on William III, with the result that English money was withdrawn. Indignant Scots subscribed £400,000, half the capital in the country. In 1698 five ships carrying stores and 1,200 colonists set off for Darien, in territory belonging to the King of Spain. The scheme was a disaster. Disease, fever-ridden swamps and attacks by hostile natives, then Spanish soldiers, took their toll of the colonists. ‘New Caledonia’ withered on the bough; within two years, the Company of Scotland had collapsed. The severe economic crisis of 1697 had worsened; matters grew worse in the first few years of the eighteenth century, when starvation stared many in the face.
It is perhaps appropriate here to discuss the origins of the Whig and Tory political parties, as these will occur in the text from now on. The terms were introduced into the language in the middle of the seventeenth century. The Whig or Whiggamore term is believed to derive from a command given by carters to their horses, urging them to move faster; the carters came from the south-west of Scotland. The word applied to the carters themselves and to the extremist Covenanters who, in 1648, marched from the south-west to Edinburgh in what was known as The Whiggamore Raid. From that time ‘Whig’ was a contemptuous term applied to extreme Presbyterians, then those who opposed Charles II and finally a cognomen ridiculing the Opposition party in parliament, those who denied the divine right of monarchs in the reign of William III, then Anne. The Whigs supported the Glorious Revolution , the Act of Settlement in 1701, the war with France and opposed a Stuart restoration. The Tory party took its name from Irishmen dispossessed of their lands and declared outlaws; the Whigs accused the Tories of relying on Irish Catholic support for the restoration of the Stuarts.
With the death of William III in 1702, his sister-in-law Anne, daughter of James VII and II succeeded him, the last of the Stuart dynasty to occupy the throne. William, never popular in Scotland and even less so after Glencoe and his blocking of the Darien Scheme, still harboured fears of a Stuart attempt to regain the throne. However, Anne was Protestant, as was her husband George, younger brother of Christian V of Denmark. In 1701 the English parliament had passed the Act of Settlement under which Sophie of Hanover, Charles II’s cousin, would succeed Anne if she died childless, which she did; the intention was to deny the crown to a Catholic Stuart. William’s fears were reflected in the English parliament, especially when in 1703, the Scottish parliament passed an act which declared that on Anne’s death, Scotland would have the right to pursue an independent foreign policy. Many interpreted this as a tacit warning that the Scots could conceivably choose James Francis Edward Stuart as their king, a fear which was not without some foundation.
When the Treaty of Union uniting the two parliaments was signed in 1707 the mood in Scotland was one of both anger and frustration. The most vociferous of opponents, James Hamilton, 2nd Lord Belhaven and his colleague, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun were in the minority; most of the nobles and gentry who voted for union had lost considerable fortunes in the failure of Darien and saw advantages in union England. In 1707 the majority of the people of Scotland did not want union; the nation’s security was threatened by disturbances in the south-west, Ayrshire and the Highlands; in the last case, the Presbyterian Duke of Atholl made his views known throughout the north. In that year of 1707 the seeds of a second Jacobite rebellion were sown.
At the end of February 1708, alarming news reached London; France was preparing to invade England with James VII and II at the head of an army. At the time there were only 1,500 Royalist troops in Scotland, ill fed, ill equipped and unpaid. On 17 March the invasion force sailed from Dunkirk; the fleet consisted of five ships of the line, twenty-one frigates and two transports carrying 6,000 men. It was James’s intention to land at Leith and capture Edinburgh, where only token resistance was expected. However, after some navigational problems, the French fleet did not drop anchor in the Firth of Forth until 23 March; the following day, before the landing could take place, the English fleet commanded by Admiral Sir George Byng appeared. Byng had been shadowing the French fleet commanded by Admiral Forbin since his departure from Dunkirk. Drawing his fleet up in battle formation, a procedure which took time and was dependent on favourable winds, Forbin slipped past Byng and made for the open sea. Thus L’Enterprise d’Ecosse came to a close; James, the Chevalier of St George to his friends, the Old Pretender to his enemies, had to slink back to France, having achieved nothing.9
When Queen Anne died in 1714 without heirs, George, Elector of Hanover became George I of Britain through his mother, Sophie of Hanover. The Whig party was jubilant, the Tory party despondent, as the majority of their supporters regarded the son of James VII and II the rightful heir to the throne. The proclamation of George I in Edinburgh on 5 August 1714 was, to say the least, disconcerting to the Jacobites. Unrest was growing, particularly in the Highlands; on 15 September 1714 a reward of £100,000 was offered for the apprehension of the Old Pretender should he set foot in any part of Britain.10 A General Election took place in February 1715, the Scots returning an overwhelming Whig majority. The Jacobites were now openly challenging George I and his government, declaring it unlawful. A correspondent to John Forbes of Culloden, a wealthy landowner in Invernesshire wrote that:
‘the vanity, insolence, arrogance and madness of the Jacobites is beyond all measure insupportable …’
The writer proceeded to point out that Edinburgh was swarming ‘with Papists and Jacobites’ and that ‘saddles were being manufactured in the capital for the use of dragoons in the Pretender’s service’.11 In March the same correspondent wrote that the Pretender was expected any day and that his supporters were ready.12 During the next few months George I announced to parliament that the country faced grave danger and the reward of £100,000 for the apprehension of James was renewed. As a precaution the army and the Royal Navy were put on a war-footing; twenty-one new regiments were formed and the trained-bands (militia) were ordered to maintain a state of readiness. Sir George Warrender of Lochend, near Dunbar, Whig politician and lately Provost of Edinburgh – he had given up the latter appointment to take his seat in the House of Lords – wrote to the city fathers in Edinburgh, advising them how to keep control in Edinburgh. (An attempt by local Jacobites to take Edinburgh Castle in September prompted Sir George to urge Westminster to provide regular troops to be stationed in the capital during the emergency.)13
On 2 August John Erskine, 11th Earl of Mard left London for the north, his intention being to send the Fiery Cross throughout the Highlands – the traditional way of raising the clans – to gather in James Francis Edward Stuart’s name. Mar had earned his soubriquet ‘Bobbing John’ on account of his predilection for changing sides when the mood and political climate suited him. He had been a Privy Councillor in William III’s Scottish parliament, an adherent of James, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, who had been virtually alone in seeking the Treaty of Union as early as 1702 during Queen Anne’s reign; Queensberry voted for union, Mar deserted him, then subsequently rejoined him. Mar was one of the principal movers in forming the Treaty of Union, then he changed his mind, confessing he regretted his actions. He had also been in correspondence with James Francis Edward Stuart for four years before Queen Anne’s death in 1714. Next, Mar was fulsome in his praise and enthusiasm for the accession of the Hanoverian King George I. In an age when ‘versatility’ in politics was commonplace, Mar made a career of it; today, he is held in contempt by modern historians, not for his frequent changes of heart but because he courted first Anne, then George in the hope that these monarchs would fulfil his aims and ambit
ions in the power stakes, enriching himself along the way. However, George I had been fully briefed about Mar’s deviousness; the King knew that Mar had been ‘passed over’, (to use a modern civil service term) for the important and lucrative post of Secretary of State for Scotland, a position that went to the Duke of Montrose. A further rebuff came when Mar was deprived of the custody of Stirling Castle which, as he took pains to inform Montrose, had been an hereditary Mar appointment for hundreds of years.14 To whom else could Mar turn to seek redress of these real or imagined wrongs and insults but James Stuart, the Old Pretender?
