An Ancient Strife

by Michael Phillips

  But as Kendrick Sorley had foreseen, the duke of Argyll, arguably the most powerful man in Scotland, remained loyal to King George. With two thousand government troops at Stirling, he now blocked Mar’s way south to England. Though Mar could easily have overrun him with decisive action, instead he delayed at Perth. Throughout Scotland individual clan leaders led sporadic and independent battles and sieges of various towns and castles, but for weeks their leader did nothing.

  Valuable time and opportunity passed. The impassioned momentum that had lit the flame of unrest so brightly at first began to slow.

  And then came the word that finally stirred the earl of Mar to action. Strong government reinforcements were on their way from Holland to join Argyll. If the Jacobites did not capture Stirling before the reinforcements arrived, they would probably not take it at all. And if they failed to take Stirling, they would lose all hope of moving south and accomplishing their objective.

  The quagmire of swampy lowland running west to east between the firths of Clyde and Forth essentially bisected Scotland with a line of impassable terrain. In only one spot, at the head of the Firth of Forth, could this morass be crossed. At Stirling a ridge of rock and solid ground—overlooked by the natural fortress of stone upon which its castle had been built—had allowed passage in former times to explorers, in these latter times to armies. Whoever held Stirling, therefore, controlled access to the only land bridge between north and south. It was the most strategic site in all Britain—as the earl of Mar knew all too well.

  Quickly rallying his Highlanders, Mar set off with a large force in the direction of Stirling with the intent of taking town and castle before more troops could arrive. John Campbell in turn moved out from Stirling to meet him.

  The two armies met on November 13 at Sheriffmuir, north of Dunblane. As he looked out on the line of hated Campbells, Maclean of Duart, a veteran of Killiecrankie, where the first blood had been shed for the Stuart cause in 1689, addressed the men of his clan. “Gentlemen,” he said, “this is a day we have long wished to see. Yonder stands MacChailein Mor for King George. Here stands Maclean for King James. God bless Maclean and King James. Gentlemen . . . charge!”

  The attack of Highland clans was fierce and forced Argyll to retreat. Yet this apparent victory proved indecisive, for the government troops simply fell back to Stirling and continued to hold it. The battle had been won, but no objective gained. The land bridge remained blocked, and the rebels still could not penetrate into England. Mar retreated again to Perth, where Kendrick Gordon and the viscount of Tullibardglass remained among his number.

  The battle of Sheriffmuir changed nothing. The Jacobites still had no way into England. Meanwhile, the government troops from the south arrived. The force at Stirling doubled, with more soldiers on their way. Gradually the Highland Jacobites, bored from inactivity and concerned about the coming winter, drifted back into the hills. Soon government troops in Scotland outnumbered Mar’s dwindling army three to one.

  In the third week of November, a messenger rode into Perth from the north. He had traveled all the way from Tullibardglass Hall with an urgent message for the viscount: His wife had given premature birth to a daughter. It appeared that the tiny little girl was healthy and would live. His wife, however, was in desperate straits.

  Murdoch Sorley immediately sought his cousin and showed him the hastily written message from the doctor. Within an hour, both men were on their horses riding for home.

  When they arrived two days later, it was too late. Lady Sorley was dead, the infant in the hands of a nurse.

  Ten

  The snows came to Scotland early as fall gave way to winter in the year 1715. Fortunately for Caledonia’s wives, those snows kept Campbell’s hugely increased army bottled up at Stirling. But the cold did nothing to assuage the bitter grief in the heart of Murdoch Sorley of Tullibardglass.

  After spending a day at the hall following their return, doing his best to console his friend, Kendrick Gordon returned home to Cliffrose. After joyful greetings, tinged with sorrow for the devastating loss of Murdoch’s wife, the earl filled Aileana in on all that had happened since he had seen her.

  “The English were outnumbered to begin with,” he said. “A swift decisive stroke into England, a rapid march to London . . .”

  He paused and shook his head in frustration.

  “I tell you, Aileana, we were so close. Stirling could have been ours. But Mar is the most indecisive man I have ever met. Sitting in Perth all that time, waiting for the government to gather its wits and catch up. Even by Sheriffmuir, had we pressed our advantage, I think we might have taken the castle. But now I fear it is too late.”

  “What will you do?” asked Aileana carefully.

  “I don’t know,” replied Kendrick. “What can I do but await events? The rebellion is in other hands than mine. I can only watch . . . and hope.”

  Meanwhile, at Tullibardglass Hall, Murdoch Sorley was thinking not of the rebellion, but of the bitter turn his life had suddenly taken. His grief gradually turned dark, hard, malicious.

  As he sat for hour upon hour, whiskey glass in hand and bottle on the table beside him, the viscount of Tullibardglass fell to brooding caustically on the very different ways fortune had treated his cousin Gordon and himself.

  Both had longed for sons to carry on their legacies. And Kendrick had been granted his wish with a son who was healthy and well. But not only had the viscount been given no son, he had been deprived the chance of ever having one! Now his wife was dead, along with the one thing he had hoped for above all else.

  If only she had given me a son! he thought, cursing inwardly at the irony of it. At least then his life might go on with some purpose. But a shriveled, red, smelly little creature who would probably not live through the month . . . !

  The introspective depression deepened. He sat for long hours in darkness, speaking hardly a word, drinking more and more heavily as the winter’s cold closed in around his soul.

  Occasionally the nurse ventured near with tentative step, asking if he would like, perhaps, to hold his daughter. A look of disgust and a shaking of the head was his only response.

  Gradually he began to resent the whole Jacobite cause as responsible for his wife’s death. Surely, he thought, had he not been away, he might have done something to prevent it. With such thoughts increased the silent creeping resentment of his cousin, who still possessed what he should now be enjoying—a wife and family, an heir to his name, a warm hearth. What a bitter Christmas this would be!

  Had their mutual great-grandmother’s blessing come to Kendrick and her curse fallen upon him? wondered Sorley, meditating on the possibility with another sustaining swallow of whiskey. Now that he thought of it, an incident came to mind when the two boys had been standing before some old man ancient beyond years—was it his own grandfather or Kendrick’s? . . . he couldn’t recall—with Kendrick receiving a kindly pat on the head while some harsh word was dished out to him.

  It had always been that way, Sorley thought. Kendrick the favorite . . . his title higher . . . Cliffrose the more desirable of the two estates.

  Sorley continued to brood, the resentments biting deeper and deeper, slowly consuming him.

  He took another long swallow, emptying his glass and pouring it full again to the brim. What was it that his father had told him about some complication in the family finances—that Kendrick’s side had originally been without land but had purchased Cliffrose? There was more to it than that—what was it? A loan with ambiguous terms . . . a lien on the property?

  He had all but forgotten over the years. But now thoughts of the incident began to come back to him . . . his father’s deathbed disclosure that Cliffrose had belonged to them for centuries . . . and that Kendrick’s grandfather had been nothing more than a mere baron at the time he bought it . . . and that the manner in which his son had risen to an earl was a suspicious affair. He possessed the original deed to Cliffrose, the old man said, though he had never pre
ssed the claim. His son could do with it all what he wished. But he had died before divulging anything further.

  He remembered it all clearly now. How could he have forgotten?

  In the dark winter hours of lonely silence within the walls of Tullibardglass Hall, Murdoch Sorley’s brooding thoughts returned to his father’s words. Over and over they repeated themselves in his whiskey-soaked brain, and he resented Kendrick all the more because of them.

  Eleven

  In mid-December, a messenger arrived at Cliffrose with the news that James Edward was on his way from France.

  Immediately the earl set out for Tullibardglass Hall.

  “Let me go with you, Kendrick,” said Aileana. “I haven’t yet seen the little girl.”

  They rode to Tullibardglass that same afternoon. While Aileana sought the nurse, her husband went upstairs to find his friend and tell him the news. Tullibardglass took it disinterestedly.

  “I am leaving for the north in the morning,” said Gordon. “Will you join me?”

  Sorley shook his head.

  “It might be good for you to get away,” suggested his cousin.

  The words of advice grated on their listener’s ears. Everything in his life had been swept away, thought Tullibardglass, and now he had to undergo the humiliation of listening to Kendrick preach at him as well!

  “Perhaps,” he replied, keeping his irritation to himself, “but the north coast in the middle of winter doesn’t interest me. And, frankly, I’ve begun to lose interest in the cause.”

  In the nursery, Aileana gently rocked the month-old infant girl in her arms, whispering into its tiny sleeping face, wondering at the tales the infant’s nurse had just passed along about the father’s neglect.

  “You precious dear,” she said softly, little realizing that she would herself become the answer to her own prayer, “may God give you special care to make up for the loss of your mother. And may he soften your father’s heart to love you as a father should. You dear, dear little girl!”

  A faceful of mother’s kisses and the soft words of an ancient lullaby followed, of which the baby felt nor heard none, but all of which went deeply into the mother’s heart.

  Thirty minutes later, Kendrick and Aileana Gordon stood at the door taking their leave of Tullibardglass Hall.

  “I am sorry again, Murdoch, about Jean,” said Aileana.

  “Thank you, Lady Gordon.”

  “Your sweet little daughter is lovely.”

  To her final comment Sorley gave no reply.

  James Edward, the heir to the Stuart legacy, arrived by ship at the northeastern seaport of Peterhead on December twenty-second. Kendrick Gordon, earl of Cliffrose—without his cousin Murdoch Sorley—was part of the small group of Jacobites that gathered there to meet him. By the time Gordon returned again to Cliffrose in early February, the uprising had come to an inglorious end.

  “It was terrible, Aileana,” Kendrick explained to his wife. “James Edward was sick and unimpressive, dour and cranky. From the moment I saw him I knew there was no chance of our prevailing. I tell you, Mar is no leader, but James Edward was even worse. I don’t know how he imagined retaking his father’s throne without at least some attempt to raise the spirits of his supporters. Some of the men called him old Mr. Melancholy rather than His Majesty, and I’m afraid the name is apt.”

  “What did you do?”

  “After getting him ashore and recovered from the voyage for a day or two, we marched to Perth to join the army.”

  “Were there plans of an invasion?”

  “I don’t know. I was not admitted to the inner circle. But I can hardly imagine Mar and James planning anything. There was no leadership whatsoever. Then at the end of January the snow melted somewhat, followed by news that Argyll was advancing north from Stirling to engage us, and with a far superior force. We retreated to Aberdeen. Then suddenly Mar and James fled to France.”

  “What do you mean, fled?”

  “They simply left without a word. I didn’t know of it in advance. Neither, I think, did anyone.”

  “They just left the army on its own?”

  Kendrick nodded. “A message from James Edward was read out to those who remained.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Basically we were told to shift for ourselves. I immediately left for home,” sighed Kendrick, “as did most of the others. If our King is not ready to fight to gain the throne, his supporters certainly aren’t about to risk their lives.”

  After the failure of what came to be known as “the Fifteen,” the union between England and Scotland became even more unpopular in the north. Though Scotland as a nation had not exactly risen up of one accord behind James Edward, his ignominious retreat, followed by an even more heavy-handed response by Parliament toward its northern province, inflamed resentments as in days of old.

  Once again, as they had done for a century, clan Campbell had chosen sides shrewdly and continued to profit by its alliance with the crown. But some of the leading Scottish nobles who had helped spearhead the rebellion found their houses and lands taken from them and titles stripped away. And Parliament went so far as to attempt to disarm the Highlands and do away with the Gaelic language. In the eyes of most English men and women, Scottish Highlanders were backward savages who would continue to rebel until they were entirely quashed. And though most Lowland Scots might have tended to agree about their northern neighbors, they bitterly resented London’s condescending attitude toward the whole of Scotland, savage Highlanders and cultured Lowlanders all together. Thus pro-Jacobite, anti-Hanoverian sentiment continued to foment.

  A minor Jacobite uprising flared up in 1719, this time with Spanish support. But a storm prevented most of the Spanish vessels, which carried more than five thousand troops, from landing. Those who did come ashore were easily beaten back by government forces. Yet again, the Jacobite cause seemed doomed by ill fortune and went underground.

  After both the Fifteen and the Nineteen, it was clear that neither the earl of Mar nor the King over the water possessed the leadership necessary to reinstate a Stuart on the throne of Great Britain. If that time were to come, new leaders would have to arise to carry the Jacobite cause forward.

  One of those new leaders would be Kendrick Gordon of Cliffrose.

  Twelve

  SUMMER 1721

  The retreating sound of horses’ hooves had not yet completely faded away when suddenly the playful shouts of children filled the large kitchen of Cliffrose Castle. Aileana Gordon turned from the door toward the youngsters. Her son was holding out two yard-long pieces of wood.

  “Take this stick, Culodina,” cried Sandy, “it will be your claymore.”

  “What’s a claymore?” asked the girl, taking one of the sticks, but without much interest in putting it to use.

  “A sword, what else? The kind the Highlanders use. Defend yourself!”

  “Be careful, Sandy,” said Aileana.

  “He won’t hurt me, Lady Gordon. Look, I’m bigger than—”

  Suddenly Sandy’s blunt weapon crashed against the girl’s unprepared stick, nearly knocking it from her hand.

  “Ouch!” she cried. “That hurt.”

  “I warned you to defend yourself. Lift it up again.”

  “Sandy, please,” interposed his mother, approaching quickly before serious injury resulted. Knowing her Sandy, the next blow could land on top of their guest’s unsuspecting head!

  But not to be caught unaware a second time, Culodina had already grabbed her stick with both hands, not realizing that in so doing she had indeed turned it into a Scottish claymore, and hoisted it to shoulder level. A sharp whack followed against both Sandy’s calves with one well-aimed blow. He yelled in pain and leapt back. He hadn’t expected quite such a vigorous counterattack from a girl!

  “I think that is enough sword fighting for now, Sandy,” said Aileana, stepping between the two combatants. “Even the mightiest of Highlanders don’t use their claymores in the kitchen.�
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  “My father says Highlanders are savages,” said Culodina.

  “Your father doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” rejoined Sandy a little angrily. His legs still stung from the blow. “We have to win our freedom back. I’m going to fight the Sassenach when I’m old enough.”

  He raised his pretend sword in renewed challenge.

  “Why don’t you and Culodina give me your claymores for now,” said Sandy’s mother, “then go outside and find a more gentle game. I hear some of the other boys.”

  “Come on, Culodina,” said Sandy, throwing down his stick and dashing for the door. “We’ll play Killiecrankie!”

  He was outside the next instant, and his cousin followed.

  Sandy’s mother watched them go with a wistful look. Why did everything in this country have to revolve around battles and swords and fighting?

  Soon she heard shouts from outside as Sandy and Culodina joined three or four of the sons of Cliffrose’s servants and two more youngsters from Baloggan a mile away. Being son of the earl certainly did not prevent Sandy from having many lads to play with, and his parents encouraged his associations with them. If he picked up an occasional bad habit or an expression unbefitting one of noble fatherhood, mingling with the families of the region still kept him in touch with the humble roots of his maternal stock.

  Aileana sighed at the sounds of pretended battle, helped the cook with cleaning up after the men’s breakfast, then went outside and walked slowly away from the castle. It was a warm morning, and she knew her husband and his friends would relish the day’s hunt in the forests south of Tullibardglass Hall. Kendrick had been anticipating this day for weeks. He and Murdoch had seen one another but infrequently since the rising, mostly on social occasions or at a rare hunt with other men of the region. She was glad he had this opportunity to enjoy a hunt with two or three other friends.