Chapter 32
The rout of Moy - Monday February 17th, 1746
The men of Clan Gregor bivouacked for the night on the low ground near where the outfall of Loch Moy joins the Findhorn. It was late at night and Glengyle was telling Rob of the Gregarach families who had settled in these parts, one hundred and twenty years earlier at the invitation of the Earl of Moray. Rob Roy had visited these families when drumming up support during the Fifteen. They dined well, not on Lady Macintosh's kyloes, but on some that they had found 'wandering'. They probably belonged to the Laird of Grant who was in arms against them with the Earl of Loudoun.
In the distance they briefly heard musket fire, but thought little of it. Glengyle walked over to the sentinels to listen more carefully, but decided there was no cause for alarm.
A little later, a ghillie arrived in their encampment. "A message for the colonel of the Clan Gregor regiment,” he had panted. Both Glencarnaig and Glengyle, followed by their officers, roused themselves and came over to hear it.
The messenger recounted that Lord Loudoun’s regiment had attempted to surprise the Prince and his staff. Anne Farquharson, Lady Macintosh, was their hostess. Her husband, however, was not at home, for he held a commission as captain in Lord Loudoun’s regiment. It was thought that Loudoun was now retreating back to Inverness. The Prince requested that a pursuit be mounted immediately. There were insufficient men available at any nearer encampment. Clan Gregor were nearest, although two miles to the South. Glengyle gave directions to the ghillie as to the location of the next encampment of the Highland army. Then he issued orders to raise the men.
So it was that Rob found himself on a night march again, beside his father with no certain knowledge of what lay ahead. Onwards the Gregarach marched through the hours of early morning darkness. They followed General Wades’s new military road along which Loudoun's force had retreated shortly before. The glow of daylight increased in the East. The mysterious stone circles of the ancients were just visible. They crossed the final ridge of the Monadhliadh range and the town of Inverness lay before them. They would not catch Loudoun on the road, but they might win an advantage before his officers’ recovered control in the town.
The Clan Gregor officers stood upon the high ground of Hilton. They could see boats crossing the Kessock narrows into Ross. Glenyle decided to wait for the reinforcements that Clan Donald and Lochiel were bringing up the road behind.
Now, in clearer daylight, the combined regiments prepared to storm the defences of Inverness. As it turned out, there were no defences of Inverness, except for Fort George on its eminence above the tolbooth. Lord Loudoun and the Lord President, Duncan Forbes of Culloden, had abandoned the little town. Rob and his men stood on the escarpment of the Crown. They looked down at the corner of High Street and Doomside where the Town house stood. Opposite was the old Tolbooth. Beside it lay the new Coffee House, the fashionable resort of the gentry of the district. Beyond them, at the foot of Bridge Street, stood the seven-arched bridge over the Ness. As Rob watched, companies of the Highland army made their way across the bridge to secure the few cot-houses and isolated mansions, such as that of Balnain on the north side of the river. Other troops ran along Church Street searching the houses, down to the burial ground and the harbour. Loudoun had left a garrison in the Castle opposite them, with the ravine of Doomside between the Crown and Castle Hill. So far there had been no fire from the castle. Heads could be seen peering over the ramparts.
From their vantage on the Crown Hill, Rob and Glengyle watched the Jacobite light field guns being set up at Kessock. The Spanish and Irish gunners commenced firing on the last of Loudoun's force as they crossed the narrows into Ross. No hits were apparent. They looked further to the North, where Loudoun had retired. Rob spoke. "One of the townsmen called that 'The Black Isle', is it an island?"
"No,” Glengyle responded. “It has the meaning of the ‘territory of Duthac’, an ancient missionary of the Celtic church. Ignorant people with poor knowledge of the Gaelic thought it sounded like Eilan dubh, which they translated into Black Isle."
Rob pondered. "if it is not an island, then why do we not go round by land to attack Loudoun?”
"Hold there, Rob," his father laughed. "There are those in the army here with better knowledge of this country than us. Lord Lovat in particular and Lord Cromartie also. This is a matter for the Prince's Council to consider. They will tell us soon enough, and we may well be on the road, or perhaps we can find an entertaining ploy of our own."
Rob and Glengyle turned their attention back to the barrack block of Fort George sheltering behind ramparts opposite. Soon the light cannon were being positioned ready for the assault on the Castle. French engineers were reconnoitring for suitable points from which to begin mining. A group of staff officers rode up. “There is the Prince,” Glengyle indicated.
Soon enough, however, Glengyle was summoned to a council. Rob amused himself by touring the town. It was nothing by comparison to Edinburgh and Glasgow but still it was the largest in the Highlands. Along Church Street stoods substantial, well built stone houses. A tacksman of the Macintoshes, ensign of the regiment that Lady Macintosh had raised, pointed them out to Rob. "This is Dalcross house,” he said, indicating a fine mansion with a double storey set in the loft space, "and this Bow Court,” pointing out another four storey building with a pend through the centre, through which lesser houses could be reached. "Next to that lies the Dunbar’s Hospital which houses the Burgh Grammar School and opposite, through the pend, there is the House of Abertarff."
They walked on, past the ancient parish church to the burial ground and the meaner houses which were not very different, except in quantity and proximity, to others throughout the Highlands. Rob observed that the middens before the doors which would be of no great consequence before cottages each set on their own farms, ran into each other and were of great nuisance. "Man, have you been to Edinburgh?" Rob asked. On finding that his companion had not, he told him of the huge size and noxious nature of the middens in the High Street. They walked back to the Coffee House next to the Tolbooth where other officers of the Highland army had gathered.
Following the council, all was movement and purpose once more. Glengyle summoned his son and the rest of the Clan Gregor. "Lord Kilmarnock is to command a detachment after Loudoun, to travel around by Beauly. We are commanded to join him with Barrasdale, Clanranald and Lovat. The Prince has gone to stay at the House of Culloden, which Lord President Forbes has precipitately abandoned."
Once again they were on the road, accompanied by one of the best regiments of the Clan Donald. They trotted across the Ness Bridge. A couple of harmless cannon-shots from the castle saw them off. On they went, past the flat carseland of the Merkinch. Soon they were passing through Lord Lovat's lands. His regiment accompanied them and the people favoured their cause. They forded the Beauly River by the ruins of the ancient Priory. Here they left a detachment to guard the ford and from there they marched on to Dingwall. There, Lord Kilmarnock stopped, unsure of his next move.
Rob, frustrated by days of inaction and boredom interspersed with fruitless patrols, spent his time discussing affairs with other junior officers. There was an increasing food shortage. Last year’s harvest had been poor and Loudoun had already requisitioned more of the common peoples’ scanty provisions than they could afford. Kilmarnock seemed to have no idea what he should do. Loudoun could not be found. It was said that he had moved into Sutherland. Desertion from the army began to be a problem once more, though few of the Clan Gregor had gone.
At the end of February, Glengyle was commanded to go to the house of Ross of Pitcairney, thought likely to join the Prince but in need of a little encouragement. Rob went with fifty men. Once again, it was an uneventful expedition. They trotted through the starving country, with barely a poke of meal to be found. Pitcairney, himself, would not come out after all, but allowed them to take a couple of recruits away with them.
Rob commanded a forage party. They
arrived at a farmhouse. It resembled his own. In the parlour of the house, he read his warrant from the army command. "The Prince requires meal for his army, and forage for the horses. You shall be paid in his bills."
The farmer, obviously poverty stricken and blind in one eye, claimed that he had no provisions, beyond what would keep his family for the next week. After that they would be reduced to gathering shellfish on the mudflats and bleeding the few remaining cows, already barely strong enough to stand. Rob, aware of their plight, like most of the others in the area, moved on empty-handed.
Other foragers were less scrupulous. The Earl of Cromartie found it necessary to issue instructions to his forage parties to allow free movement of trade in Ross. Rob, on forage duties once more, stopped a farmer with meal loaded on to pannier bags of his packhorse. The farmer presented the Earl's pass, clearly marked with his seal. Rob read "These are requiring all officers of his Royal Highnesses army, and all others whom it concerns, to allow all and sundry the heritors, tenants, and possessors of the shire of Ross that are employ'd in carrying their farm meal, to pass to and return from Inverness to their respective homes, without any molestation to theirselves, servants, horses, etc., hereby certifying that such as countervene these, or give them disturbance of any kind, shall be highly culpable, and punish'd accordingly." Rob had no intention of countervening the Earl's commands, particularly as the farmer was taking meal to the army in Inverness in any case.
The Duke of Perth arrived with a considerable extra force, including Cromartie’s, MacKinnon’s and Ardshiel’s Appin Stewart regiments to relieve Lord Kilmarnock. Their force now two thousand strong, marched to Tain where they faced Lord Loudoun across the Dornoch Firth. Loudoun had withdrawn or destroyed all the boats. He defended likely landing sites on the Northern bank of the Firth in strength. Patrols reported back to the commanders that the overland passes by Bonar and Lairg were strongly defended by the Sutherland Militia. Once again Rob found himself waiting, inactive.
Glengyle read out to his men, a letter from the Prince's council in Inverness. "Information being got yesterday that about sixty Campbells and thirty of Kingston's horse were at Keith, and to stay there all night, Lord John Drummond order'd Major Glasgow, with about 200 foot picquets of the different corps, 14 of the guards and some Hussars, to march there in the night and attack them, which accordingly was done with success. They attack'd them about one of clock in the morning, and the whole are either killed or taken: the exact number killed is not yet known; I believe about 20 or so: the rest are all in our camp. Only three of our side killed, and some wounded."
The listening men cheered at this news, there was little else to cheer about on this dismal March day.
While Rob waited, he could not know, but across on the Dornoch firth, Donald Polson also waited, even more bored than Rob. Captain Gunn's company had been detailed to guard the crossing of the River Oykel at Bonar. The affair at Moy, though a terrible panic at the time had at least enlivened Donald’s life. Apart from that, since coming to Inverness, a town even less exciting than his father had related, they had drilled and marched about a bit. Then they had crossed to Ross, and marched about a bit more, to Cromarty, then Tain, across the firth to Dornoch, back to Tain, back yet again to Dornoch, and now here they sat. Donald was cold, hungry and miserable. More of the men had deserted. While they had been at Inverness, one of his Uncle's subtenants had gone. George Fraser had a cottage on Alasdair Polson's little farm at Lothbeg. George had taken himself home as his wife was ill, a perfectly reasonable thing to do, Donald thought. George had been arrested at the command of the Earl of Sutherland, confined for days in a dungeon, before being sent in manacles back to Inverness where he was given a lashing by one of Lord Loudoun's regular warrant officers. Poor George still could not understand that he had done anything wrong, but the example had made most of the others fearful of the same treatment.
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