Britain’s Last Frontier

by Alistair Moffat

  The forces of the Lordship made no such complicated manoeuvres. They had only one tactic. In preparation for a furious charge of swordsmen, Donald’s generals had formed their men into a broad wedge shape with the Clan Donald contingents in the centre, Clan Chattan on the left wing and Hector Roy MacLean in command of his clansmen on the right. Just as they were to do at Culloden, almost 350 years later, the Highlanders began to recite the sloinneadh, the naming of the names of their ancestors, a call down the generations for the army of the dead to come to Harlaw. And then Lachlan Mor MacMhuirich, the bard of the Lords, stood forward. As the ranks of men hushed and a quiet descended on the battlefield, he lifted his voice in the brosnachadh catha, the incitement to battle. Lachlan too called on the dead, reaching back through the mists of an immense past to sing of a hero, the ancient Irish ancestor of Clan Donald, the great warrior Conn of the Hundred Battles.

  O Children of Conn, remember

  Hardihood in time of battle,

  Be strong, nursing your wrath,

  Be resolute and fierce,

  Be forceful, standing your ground,

  Be nimble and full of valour,

  Be dour, inspiring fear,

  Be exceedingly fierce, recklessly daring,

  Be spirited, inflicting great wounds,

  Be venomous, implacable,

  Be glorious, nobly powerful,

  Be exceedingly fierce, king-like,

  Be vigorous, nimble-footed,

  In winning the battle,

  Against your enemies.

  O Children of Conn of the Hundred Battles,

  Now is the time for you to win renown,

  O raging whelps,

  O sturdy bears,

  O most vigorous lions,

  O battle-loving warriors,

  The Children of Conn of the Hundred Battles,

  O Children of Conn, remember

  Hardihood in time of battle.

  Heroic origins mattered to the men standing in the Highland ranks at Harlaw, nervously checking their gear, turning to their comrades beside them, exchanging reassurance, exhorting each other. Clan captains always set the older men in front. More experienced, they would break into the charge when the order was given and pull the younger men along behind them. They believed absolutely that they were ‘the Children of Conn’, the High King of Ireland, the progenitor of the Connachta and the Ui Neill, the pre-eminent kindred of the north of Ireland. He made the Stone of Destiny roar. Long before it was brought to the Moot Hill at Scone, it sat on the Hill of Tara in the centre of Ireland. But, when in a rage-fit the boy-hero, Cuchulainn, sheared it with his sword because it would not roar when his patron, Lugaid, stood on it, the great stone was lost and passed out of memory. Then Conn walked the ramparts of Tara and stepped on it by accident and it roared out that one day he would be High King. And it came to pass.

  Myth-history such as this may be scoffed at as ahistorical, even irrelevant. But what people believed at the time mattered and the tale of Conn and the stories of the Stone of Destiny are no harder to accept than Christian miracles or the Virgin birth. They spoke to the warriors at Harlaw of heroic ages, druids, Celtic gods and feats of superhuman courage. The men who stood opposite the Highlanders and the Islesmen had, by partial comparison, no lineage to speak of, no such richness to encourage them into the charge. They did not fight for their names, alongside the army of the dead, but only for land and for wealth – poor things, both of them. Clansmen believed themselves to possess nobility, a substance bestowed by lineage and a long and deep past described in the mouth-filling glories of the Gaelic language. Racing across the heather at Harlaw, the ghosts of Conn of the Hundred Battles and his war bands would charge the Gall, the Lowlanders and sweep them into oblivion, where they belonged.

  Known in Gaelic as Cath Gairbheach, ‘the Wild Battle’, Harlaw was bloody in two languages for, in English, it was ‘Red Harlaw’. When the pipers blew the battle rant and signalled the Claidheamh Mor, ‘the Great Sword’, the order to charge, the clansmen fell upon Sir James Scrymgeour’s formation of men-at-arms. Many were killed on both sides but no momentum was gained as the Lowlanders held their ground. Summoned from the rear, fresh waves of Highlanders crashed against the schiltrons but they could not be moved either. When the Earl of Mar saw an opportunity and rallied his mounted knights into the gallop, they, in turn, could make no impression. Many horses were hamstrung by the claymores hacking at their legs and brought down, their heavily armoured riders pinned and stabbed to death.

  By gloaming on 24 July, a great slaughter had taken place at Red Harlaw but neither side could claim the field. Seeing that his forces were too exhausted to retreat a safe distance, the Earl of Mar ordered them to camp on the battlefield, close to rucks of dead and dying men. Amidst the agonies and the cries of those bleeding to death, slipping in and out of consciousness, many with hacked and lifeless limbs, few will have slept more than fitfully. But, when the dawn glimmered over the flat eastern horizon of the Garioch and lit the peaks of Bennachie, Mar was roused to be given startling news. During the starless and dark night, the Islesmen had slipped away and scouts reported them marching westwards, back to where they had come from. Mar could claim to have driven them off. If Harlaw was not a defeat for the Lord of the Isles, then it was certainly a decisive retreat. Donald was forced to give up his claim to the Earldom of Ross and, while the Lordship remained intact, its ambition was badly blunted.

  A wide and sheltered anchorage two miles north of Tobermory on the Isle of Mull, Bloody Bay is a peaceful place now. A lighthouse punctuates its northern headland and it looks over to the mouth of Loch Sunart and Ardnamurchan beyond. More than five hundred years ago it earned its name. In 1483, Clan Donald and the Lordship of the Isles tore itself apart at Bloody Bay in one of the largest and most destructive naval engagements in late medieval Europe. No precise numbers were recorded but historians reckon the navy of a united Lordship could have included 500 ships and perhaps as many as 400 birlinns clashed at Bloody Bay.

  The Treaty of Westminster–Ardtornish had backfired badly for John of Islay. A decade after it was agreed, Edward IV of England’s priorities changed as he turned his attention from the Wars of the Roses to France. When he prepared for war across the Channel, he needed no threat at his back and good relations with James III of Scotland required to be encouraged. An indication of good faith was needed and, without a moment’s hesitation, the English king gave instructions that the secret terms of his treaty with the Lordship were to be divulged to James. It was high treason worthy of dire punishment and John of Islay was summoned before parliament to answer for himself. When he failed to appear, his vast territories were declared forfeit to the crown. But the Scottish king had not the means or the inclination to back that decision with action and, in the summer of 1476, a deal was done. With the loss of the earldom of Ross, with the exception of Skye, as well as Knapdale and Kintyre, John was absolved but, crucially, he lost the ability to pass on his title and the right to confer the dignity of the Lord of the Isles passed to the crown, where it remains.

  This was a wounding slight and it caused serious domestic discord. With a contracting principality and no guarantee that his heir would bear the title won by Somerled, John’s reputation withered and his position grew weak. The heir to the Lordship, Angus Og MacDonald, gathered support amongst the leading figures of Clan Donald and, in a palace coup, had his father removed and marginalised. One tradition has John of Islay forced to live under an upturned boat. But old allies rallied, the boat was righted and, with the support of Clan Maclean, Clan Macleod of Lewis and Clan MacNeil, he mustered a great fleet of birlinns and an army to man the oars. And, to meet them, Angus Og called on Clanranald and the MacDonalds of Ardnamurchan and Keppoch to join him and Macleod of Harris. Only half of the birlinns that sailed into Bloody Bay would sail out again.

  First known as ‘the little ships’, birlinns were based on the design of the Viking longship and it is thought that they evolved during th
e 12th century in the decades before the rise of Somerled. Their compact size and shallow draft allowed them to outrun larger craft by moving inshore or navigating the many narrow channels along the jagged Atlantic coasts. The principal development was the use of a hinged rudder attached to the stern. The Vikings had relied on the ‘steerboard’ (the derivation of ‘starboard’) or steering oar and they made turning slower and wider. Hinged rudders allowed birlinns to be much more manoeuvrable.

  Like the longships, they were propelled by single banks of oars and a square sail set on a mast secured amidships. Made from wool woven into small squares and sewn together, birlinn sails were often dyed bright colours so that they were visible from a distance and in a swelling sea. Boat-building skills were well honed in the Hebrides and the woods preferred were oak and yew. Both were durable and flexible. In heavy weather, the gunwales of a birlinn could twist a long way out of true and, if it was not to disintegrate, the long, overlapping wooden strakes needed to flex. B’e sin fiodh a chur do Loch Abar is a Gaelic phrase analogous to ‘carrying coals to Newcastle’. Meaning ‘bringing wood to Lochaber’, it shows the source of oak for shipbuilding. An alternative Gaelic word for a birlinn is iubhreach and it simply means ‘yew built’.

  The Aileach is very beautiful. Made in 1991 in Donegal, it is a modern replica of a birlinn and, like the boats that went to Bloody Bay, it can glide through the water when rowed on by all hands and is able to go very close inshore. After he had fought on the losing side at Culloden in 1746, Alasdair macMhaighstir Alasdair composed a glorious poem called ‘The Birlinn of Clanranald’ and his verses, even in translation, catch the elegance of these little ships perfectly.

  The smooth-handled oars, well-fashioned,

  Light and easy,

  That will do the rowing, stout and sturdy,

  Quick-palmed, blazing,

  That will send the surge in sparkles,

  Up to skyward,

  All in flying spindrift flashing,

  Like a fire-shower!

  With the fierce and pithy pelting

  Of the oar-bank,

  That will wound the swelling billows,

  With their bending.

  With the knife-blades of white thin oars

  Smiting bodies,

  On the crest of the blue hills and glens,

  Rough and heaving.

  And, when all the oarsmen are seated in the birlinn, Malcolm, son of Ranald of the Ocean, begins the boat song.

  Now since you’re all chosen,

  And ranked in good order,

  With a bold stately plunge send her forward!

  With a bold stately plunge send her forward!

  A plunge quick and handy,

  Not reckless, nor languid,

  Keeping watch on the grey briny storm-hills

  Keeping watch on the grey briny storm-hills.

  The discipline and close teamwork so beautifully described by Alasdair macMhaighstir Alasdair converted these little ships into lethal weapons. Naval warfare with birlinns depended on the skill of a crew and their coordinated power in pulling hard at the knife blades of whip-thin oars through the water. Tremendous bursts of speed over short distances enabled birlinns to ram an enemy ship, perhaps sink it, certainly splinter its oars on one side and probably allow warriors to board it. When that happened, swords and dirks could do their work. Many birlinns carried archers and crossbowmen (the short bolts were less affected by the wind) and, earlier in his poem, Alasdair spoke of ‘our birchen shafts that split not, cased in grim badger skin’.

  In an age before marine cannon, all medieval naval actions were fought at close quarters to make ramming and boarding possible. When the opposing fleets sailed into Bloody Bay in 1483, it is likely that their admirals disposed them in a line abreast formation – that is, a long row of birlinns moving side by side, being careful not to foul each other’s oars, all pointing their ramming prows at the enemy. Some birlinns may have been lashed together to create a wider platform for archers and crossbowmen or boarding parties. Less nimble and slower but heavier and more threatening to single boats, these multiple-hulled craft were themselves better defended and more difficult to board.

  In common with all sea battles, Bloody Bay was a chaotic affair – a struggle on unsteady, swaying birlinns – and it was difficult to tell after the fleets clashed which side was which and where, if anywhere, advantage was being gained. In the ferocity of the hand-to-hand fighting and the shattering impact of ramming, many men will have gone overboard to drown or even to be attacked while they thrashed helplessly in the water. But the outcome was clear. Those watching from the shores of Mull will have seen Angus Og’s captains triumph. And, after the wholesale loss of life and many birlinns having been rammed, broken and sunk, John of Islay lost the Lordship to his son. But he was not to enjoy it for long. Angus Og was murdered in 1490 and John of Islay emerged once more from the shadows, reappearing briefly only to meet more humiliation. James IV of Scotland, a Stewart king with fewer of his dynasty’s feckless failings, had tired of the pretension of Clan Donald and especially the raiding of John’s nephew, Alexander MacDonald of Lochalsh, and, in 1493, the Lordship of the Isles was declared forfeit to the crown. Reduced to the status of a dependant pensioner at the Scottish court, John MacDonald of Islay, Lord of the Isles, Earl of Ross and the descendant of Somerled, King of Man and Dominus Insularum, died a miserable and lonely death in a Dundee lodging house in 1506.

  All was not ended. A light still flickered in the west and Clan Donald still dreamed of glory. Between 1494 and 1545, there were six major rebellions against the crown, the last being the most threatening. At Islay, Donald Dubh was able to rally a force of 4,000 warriors and 189 birlinns, only a remnant of the former fighting strength of the Lordship but still very formidable. Before war rumbled eastwards from the islands once more, the last claimant to the old principality of Clan Donald died suddenly of a fever in Drogheda in Ireland.

  In the first half of the 16th century, as rebellion after rebellion failed and the Lordship faded, the MacMhuirich bard, Giolla Coluim mac an Ollaimh, could sense the end of the dominance of the MacDonalds and he mourned:

  Ni h-eibhneas gun Chlainn Domhnaill

  It is no joy without Clan Donald,

  It is no strength without them:

  The best race in the round world:

  To them belong every goodly man.

  In the van of Clan Donald

  Learning was commanded

  And in the rear were

  Service and honour and self-respect.

  Brilliant pillars of green Alba

  A race the hardiest that received baptism;

  A race who won fight in every land,

  Hawks of Islay for valour.

  A race without arrogance, without injustice,

  Who seized naught save spoil of war:

  Whose nobles were men of spirit,

  And whose common men were most steadfast.

  It is no joy without Clan Donald.

  13

  Part Seen, Part Imagined

  IRONIES ABOUNDED at Fontenoy. Like so many battles, the one fought in Flanders fields, near the town of Tournai, saw the Duke of Cumberland lead the army of what was known as the Pragmatic Alliance. A combined force of British, Hanoverian, Austrian and Dutch troops faced the might of the French army under the command of Marshal Saxe on 11 May 1745. It was the decisive engagement of the War of the Austrian Succession, in essence a contest for the hegemony of the continent, and its outcome depended largely on the conduct of two regiments of Gaelic speakers and it led directly to the involvement of a third group of Gaels in a desperate and ultimately fatal adventure.

  Fontenoy was won by the French and that reverse for the Duke of Cumberland and the fact that his unsuccessful European expedition had left only 8,000 regular soldiers at home to defend Britain prompted Charles Edward Stuart to raise the Highland clans in rebellion in August 1745. At every twist in this story, the courage of Gaelic-speaking soldiers was
enormously influential but it could not save Highland society from a brutal fate after Culloden.

  Like Highland furies, the Black Watch almost won Fontenoy for Cumberland and, if they had, Charles Stuart may not have rallied his army at Glenfinnan three months later. But, when they and the allied armies were forced back in a fighting retreat, it was Dillon’s Irish Brigade that decided the outcome in favour of the French. Irish Jacobites in the service of the king of France, they tore into the Coldstream Guards, roaring their war cry, Cuimhnigidh ar Luimneach agus feall nan Sassunaich!– ‘Remember Limerick and the treachery of the English!’ They meant the Treaty of Limerick of 1691 that ended Jacobite resistance in Ireland.

  New Maps and Old

  One of the more constructive cultural legacies of the 1745 Jacobite Rising was the Ordnance Survey. This series of uniquely accurate maps takes its name from ordnance or artillery and what prompted the process that led to their creation and precision was initially a military motive. Until the second half of the 18th century, the Highlands of Scotland was a remote region, much of it entirely unknown and inaccessible to outsiders. If the Jacobite threat was to be consigned to history, then its geography needed to be mapped and the redoubts of potential rebels understood better. William Roy, a Scot from the Lanarkshire parish of Carluke, was part of a team commissioned to make an accurate map of the Highlands – what became known as ‘The Duke of Cumberland’s Map’. Roy had grasped the latest mathematical advances of the Enlightenment and, by his careful use of trigonometry and precise formulae, his work broke with the approximations of the past. In particular, he understood the principles of geodesy – how the curvature of the Earth influenced the calculations of surveying and mapping. William Roy rose through the ranks of the British army and became a major general. In 1784, he measured a baseline between Hampton and the tiny hamlet of Heathrow so that he could work out the relative positions of the French and British royal observatories. The Heathrow baseline was the germ of all subsequent surveys of the United Kingdom.