Crown, Covenant and Cromwell, page 30
19 There is some confusion over this officer’s name. In describing the battle Ruthven calls him McConeil, while Spalding declares him to be Colonel James McDonnel alias Mc Oneill. The List of men gone unto the Isles (see Appendix 1) names him James McDermott. The most likely explanation is that the regiment was commanded by its former Lieutenant-Colonel John McDonnell. As to O’Cahan’s Regiment, Spalding explicitly refers to Lieutenant-Colonel O’Cahan.
20 Spalding, vol. 2, p. 444; Gordon of Ruthven, p. 101; J. M. Bulloch, The House of Gordon (Gordons under Arms), Spalding Club, 1903 – 12, no. 835(a). However Wishart, p. 82, while concurring in an overall total of some 1,500 men, relates that most of Clanranald’s and Inchbrackie’s people had gone home to secure their plunder.
21 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 101.
22 Napier, vol. 2, p. 176.
23 Napier, vol. 2, p. 177.
24 First published in Cambridge in 1632 and heavily derivative of continental works, it was extremely influential and reprinted during the war.
25 Spalding, vol. 2, pp. 454 – 5; Gordon of Ruthven, pp. 110 – 13. The part played by Hurry’s infantry in the affair is obscure, but they were more than likely mounted on horseback and posted at the Bridge o’ Dee to secure his retreat.
26 Probably the Lieutenant-Colonel John Cockburn who commanded one of the regular battalions at Inverlochy. He had given his parole there not to serve against the Royalists again but can hardly be blamed if they came knocking.
27 Wishart, pp. 93 – 4.
28 His testimony can be found in Napier, vol. 2, p. 184; ominously it is endorsed Guilty.
29 Baillie, vol. 2, p. 418.
30 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 121; Spalding, vol. 2, p. 473.
Chapter 6
1 Gordon of Ruthven, pp. 121 – 3.
2 Now crowned by the Boath Doo-cot and a not entirely accurate interpretative map of the battlefield.
3 Fraser, p. 295.
4 Wishart, p. 99.
5 Mercurius Aulicus, 2 June 1645 (Montrose’s own account); Gordon of Ruthven, p. 122; Spalding, vol. 2, p. 473.
6 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, Record Commission, 1835, vol. 6, p. 176.
7 Fraser, p. 294.
8 Balfour, vol. 3, p. 296.
9 Spalding, vol. 2, pp. 463, 473.
10 Fraser, p. 295; Gordon of Ruthven, p. 123. Fraser simply refers to a yellow banner, which has cheerfully been interpreted to mean that Montrose gave MacColla the royal standard – the red lion rampant on a yellow ground – in order to purposefully deceive Hurry as to his own whereabouts as he prepared his cunning trap, but Fraser conspicuously does not identify it as such. Perhaps significantly a list of Irish colours in a contemporary newsletter, the True Informer, which can be linked to the brigade does include a single yellow one bearing an image of the risen Christ.
11 Fraser, p. 296; Sir Thomas Hope, A Diary of the Public Correspondence etc., 1633 – 1645, Bannatyne Club, 1843, p. 220.
12 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 123.
13 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 124.
14 Mercurius Aulicus, 2 June 1645.
15 Drummond was subsequently court-martialled at Inverness and shot ‘at the post upon the high rodde as yow go to Tomnihurich’ : Fraser, p. 296.
16 Gordon of Ruthven, pp. 125 – 6.
17 Fraser, p. 296.
18 Traditionally Montrose is said to have assembled his counter-attack in a hollow to the southwest of the village, but Wishart (ibid.) states that the hollow was ‘covered’ by the village, i.e., behind it rather than below it, and this is confirmed by Fraser’s (ibid.) eyewitness description of the Royalist infantry sweeping round the village. It is possible however that Aboyne’s cavalry formed up in what is now known as Montrose’s Hollow.
19 Fraser, p. 295; Gordon of Ruthven, p. 126; Spalding, vol. 2, p. 473.
20 All six of them, together with five lieutenants and 200 men were afterwards buried at Cawdor, a Campbell seat, although as the church lies some ten kilometres from the battlefield many of the latter may have been wounded men and fugitives from a variety of other units.
21 The latter three were buried in Auldearn church, along with a Captain Crichton who probably belonged to Findlater’s Regiment. A memorial is still set into the wall.
22 Gilbert Gordon of Sallagh, Continuation of a History of the Earldom of Sutherland by Sir Robert Gordon of Gordonstoun, Edinburgh, 1813, p. 525; Gordon of Ruthven, pp. 126 – 7; Spalding, vol. 2, p. 473.
23 They were evidently a hard-bitten crew. In February 1646 the officers complained that they had been in garrison at Inverness since October 1644 and only received a half month’s pay in all that time! Indeed the regiment would soldier on under his son, Sir James, to help give Montrose his quietus at Carbisdale five years later – and later survive an even greater débâcle at Dunbar.
24 Baillie, vol. 2, p. 418; Spalding, vol. 2, p. 476.
25 Wishart, p. 108; John Buchan, Montrose, London, 1928, p. 255.
26 The ballad was apparently first published in Anon., The Thistle of Scotland: A Selection of Ancient Ballads, Aberdeen, 1823:
We lay at Lesly a’ that nicht,
They camped at Asloun
And up we rose afore daylicht,
Tae ding the beggars doun.
Afore we was in battle rank,
We were anent Mill Hill,
I wat fu’ weel they garr’d us rue,
We gat fachtin’ oor fill.
27 Baillie, vol. 2, p. 419.
28 Fraser, p. 299; Wishart, p. 109.
29 Wishart, p. 109. Anon, ‘True rehearsall’, p. 61 – the unknown author of the latter mistakenly identifies Kennedy as Cassillis’ brother, but picturesquely notes that he was ‘ane man of huge stature’.
30 Baillie, vol. 2, p. 419.
31 Fraser, p. 299; Gordon of Ruthven, p. 135; ‘True rehearsall’, p. 61. William Gordon, The History of the Ancient, Noble and Illustrious Family of Gordon, Edinburgh, 1727, p. 469, quotes a now lost portion of Spalding’s history to evidence seven dead including Lord Gordon, Mowat of Balquholly and Ogilvy of Milton.
Chapter 7
1 He was the elder but illegitimate son of Sir William Baillie of Lamington. However the Lamington estate went to a younger but legitimate sister, and Baillie was consequently distinguished as Letham, a property he had acquired by marriage.
2 Baillie, vol. 2, p. 417.
3 Baillie, vol. 2, pp. 424 – 5.
4 Baillie, vol. 2, p. 421. As it is cumbersome to reference each individual line from Baillie’s detailed evidence no pagination will be given for subsequent referrals.
5 This was of course the Earl of Lindsay, or rather Earl of Crawford-Lindsay and not to be confused with the Royalist Earl of Crawford, then a prisoner at Edinburgh.
6 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 139. The wearing of shirts over armour in this way was a common practice, especially during night attacks (such affairs being known as camisadoes) largely because of the difficulty of telling men apart when both wore the same clothing and spoke the same language.
7 The identity of Argyle’s Regiment is unclear; it was most likely what remained of his ‘Irish’ regiment as it was clearly a regular unit, but there is a possibility that it was the small regiment from the Berwick garrison. As to ‘the three that were joyned in one’, although only some 300 strong, they must have been a pretty tough bunch for they comprised the remnants of the Lord Chancellor’s, Cassillis’ and Glencairn’s regiments and their having fought their way out of the disasters at Auldearn and Alford implies a certain hardiness.
8 Gordon of Ruthven, ibid. The ‘reide cottes’ were Home’s.
9 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 145: perhaps not uncoincidentally a hillock by Baillie’s start line is identified by the Ordnance Survey as ‘Girnal Hill’. As a girnal is a store chest, was this where Baillie’s baggage train was parked?
10 David Stevenson (ed.), Government of Scotland under the Covenanters, Scottish History Society, 1982, p. 21.
11 Traditionally he was also met at Gladsmuir by a messenger from the Earl of Traquair, telling him that the Royalists were still in Tweeddale, which may be true enough, although it seems unlikely that this news will have come as a surprise.
12 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 158.
13 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. 6, pp. 246 – 7. The Philiphaugh bounty warrants give a total of 700 men for Coupar’s Regiment, yet Leslie is known to have had only 500 musketeers when he went in pursuit of the king. Presumably, to avoid jealousy, the bounty was paid to the whole regiment rather than to the musketeers alone.
14 Gordon of Ruthven, pp. 157 – 8. Ruthven has Powrie’s patrol going out the previous evening, before Amisfield’s outpost was surprised, and being ‘deceaved’ by the country people, but at that point Leslie must still have been on the other side of Galashiels.
15 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 159.
16 Anon. [W. H.], ‘A more perfect and particular RELATION OF THE Late great VICTORIE in Scotland’, London 25 September 1645.
17 Anon. [W. H.].
18 Wishart, p. 145.
19 Gordon of Ruthven, p. 11; Extracts from the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. 1, p. 578.
20 In a rare moment of comedy the Earl Marischal and the other committee members imprisoned at Pitcaple Castle managed to lock their jailers outside while they were busy skinning an ox, and then held on to the place for twenty-four hours until the Master of Forbes turned up ‘in the verie nick of tyme’ – account by Alexander Jaffrey, in Spalding, vol. 2, pp. 505 – 6.
21 Extracts from the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. 2, p. 60.
22 Fraser, pp. 315 – 16; Gordon of Ruthven, pp. 184 – 7.
23 Billeting records show that the foot in the burgh on 14 May belonged to Lord Kenmure’s and Colonel William Stewart’s regiments. These presumably accounted for the bulk of the prisoners.
24 Extracts from the Council Register of Aberdeen, vol. 2, p. 63; William Gordon, pp. 511 – 13; Gordon of Ruthven, pp. 187 – 8; Spalding, vol. 2, p. 499 (Appendix 16).
Chapter 8
1 National Archives (Kew) SP.41/2.
2 Leslie’s Regiment was originally intended to have been commanded by William Stewart, but although a commission was drawn up for the latter on 29 January he declined on the grounds of age and infirmity.
3 David Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution 1644 – 1651, London, 1977, p. 69. Similarly Sir James Campbell of Lawers’ Regiment, still grimly holding on to Inverness, flatly refused to give up any of its men to the New Model or to return to Monro’s army in Ireland unless their arrears of pay were met.
4 Ironically enough Hamilton had been out of circulation for some time because in 1643 he had gone to the English Royalist capital at Oxford as the Estates’ commissioner, only to be denounced as a traitor by Montrose and imprisoned in Pendennis Castle for the duration of the war.
5 See Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution 1644 – 1651, Chapter 3 for a fuller discussion of the political manoeuvrings which led to the signing of the Engagement with the king.
6 This was a purely local revolt which began when Poyer’s men refused to disband without their arrears of pay and declared for the king only in hopes that he might pay them instead!
7 Turner, pp. 52 – 5. Turner was an engaging rogue who cheerfully declared: ‘I had swallowed without chewing, in Germanie, a verie dangerous maxime, which all militarie men there too much follow; which was, that so we serve our master honestlie it is no matter which master we serve; so without examination . . . I resolved to go with that ship I first encountered’ (ibid., p. 14). That random ship took him to serve in the Scots army at Marston Moor and in 1648 he was given command of Holburne’s Regiment when that fanatical Covenanter resigned rather than serve the Engagers.
8 Brother to the more famous (or infamous) Sir John Hurry and sometimes confused with him.
9 George was the nephew and son-in-law of the ‘Irish’ army’s commander, Robert Monro.
10 Brigadier Peter Young, Edgehill 1642, Kineton, 1967, p. 22 quotes the dramatist John Lacy, who had been a cavalry officer during the Civil War: ‘Rascals, did I not know you at first to be three tattered musketeers, and by plundering a malt mill of three blind horses, you then turned dragooners.’
11 Turner, pp. 66 – 7.
12 Oliver Cromwell, The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, ed. by W. C. Abbott and C. D. Crane, Harvard, 1937 – 47, vol. 1, p. 637.
13 Totals are set out in a contemporary pamphlet ‘THREE LETTERS CONCERNING THE SURRENDER OF MANY Scottish Lords . . . Read in both Houses of Parliament the 25 of August 1648’, while the colours are pictorially recorded in BM Harl.1460. Although the latter are unlabelled it is possible to identify them both by heraldic devices and reconciling them with the numbers of ensigns who surrendered from each regiment:
Regiment:
Marquess of Argyle 10 officers, 5 sergeants, no private soldiers; one ensign/colour
Earl of Atholl 9 officers, 5 sergeants, 155 private soldiers; seven colours
William Baillie 5 officers (inc. Baillie), 4 sergeants, 120 private soldiers; three colours
Lord Bargany 6 officers, 6 sergeants, 82 private soldiers; two colours
Lord Carnegie 11 officers, 8 sergeants, 140 private soldiers; five colours
Richard Douglas 10 officers, 7 sergeants, 124 private soldiers; ten colours
Sir James Drummond 8 officers, 2 sergeants, 90 private soldiers; five colours
Earl of Dumfries 8 officers, 4 sergeants, 44 private soldiers; one colour
Fraser’s Firelocks 6 officers, 4 sergeants, 150 private soldiers; two colours
Sir John Grey 3 officers, 32 private soldiers; one colour
Duke of Hamilton 17 officers, 19 sergeants, 360 private soldiers; eight colours
Sir Alexander Hamilton 3 officers 5 sergeants, 46 private soldiers; no identified colours
Lord Home 13 officers, 14 sergeants, 250 private soldiers; five colours
George Keith 8 officers, 4 sergeants, 130 private soldiers; five colours (misidentified in ‘Three letters’ as Lord Riche!)
Earl of Kellie 5 officers, 5 sergeants, 100 private soldiers; three colours
Harry Maule 5 officers, 3 sergeants, 119 private soldiers; four colours
Earl of Roxburgh 3 officers, 3 sergeants, 30 private soldiers; one colour
Earl of Tullibardine 4 officers, 11 sergeants, 116 private soldiers; two colours
James Turner 5 officers, 7 sergeants, 120 private soldiers; three colours
Lord Yester 19 officers, 12 sergeants, 50 private soldiers; eight colours
14 ‘Sir Philip Musgrave’s “Relation” ’, in Scottish History Society, Miscellany II, Edinburgh, 1904, p. 309.
15 The term supposedly derives from the traditional cry of ‘Whiggam’ used by western drovers, while those shouting it and by extension all of the Covenanters became known as Whigs.
Chapter 9
1 Again those requiring to know more of the political and diplomatic background to the events described in this chapter are referred to Chapter 4 of Stevenson, Revolution and Counter-revolution.
2 Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. 6, pt ii, pp. 216 – 19.
3 Fraser, pp. 338 – 41. Acts of the Parliament of Scotland, vol. 6, pt ii, pp. 394 – 5.
4 Sir James Balfour (vol. 3, pp. 438 – 40) has a note that Montrose shipped 1,200 soldiers and officers for two regiments, besides twelve brass guns and the usual warlike stores. It is commented that ‘most . . . was destroyed and spoyled’, but it is unclear whether it was lost at sea or whether Montrose had been palmed off with useless rubbish. It is also unclear whether this represented all of the soldiers as he apparently only brought some 200 in March or April, or as seems more likely that the 1,200 actually included the Orcadian levies.
5 Wishart, p. 294. Montrose’s orders to Hurry: ‘part of my company of Guard, with four of my Life regiment, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel George Drummond, with four other companies of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Stewart’s squadron’.
6 Balfour, vol. 4, p. 9. The ‘Irish Troop’ is not to be confused with the remnants of Monro’s army but was about forty strong and formed in August 1649 from Scots Presbyterian refugees from Ulster. A regiment of foot, four companies strong was also formed from these refugees and later assigned as the king’s lifeguard. The identity of Captain Cullace or Collace is unclear.
7 After forming the garrison of Inverness for nearly four years, Lawers’ Regiment came south in 1648, but refused to serve under Hamilton. Its movements at that point are obscure, but it may have joined Livingston at Carlisle for a time and afterwards served under Leslie. In February 1649 Lawers was assigned to command the new levies to be raised out of the sheriffdom of Linlithgow, but such men as were raised went into his old regiment rather than forming a new one. Thereafter it appears to have been quartered in Fife before being ordered back up to Inverness. The fact the detachment at Carbisdale was commanded by the quartermaster suggests that this was the only advance party and that the main body of the regiment had not then reached Inverness.
