1715. CHAP. hundred, on the 14th November. Such was the indigX. nation of the Highlanders at this inglorious capitulation that they at first resolved to sally forth, and cut their way back, sword in hand, to their native hills; but, being unsupported by the English, they were obliged to abandon the design, and submit to the general doom. Among the persons taken on this occasion were Lords Derwentwater, Widdrington, Nithsdale, Wintoun, Carnwath, Kenmure, Nairn, and Charles Murray-names, 1 Mahon, i. some of which have so often thrilled the hearts of the Berwick, generous in after times, when joined to the witchery of vi. 330, 331. Scottish song, while the fate of others excited such a mournful and tragic interest throughout the world.1 254-256. 249. Coxe, 31. Mar to She riffmuir, Nov. 10. Meanwhile Mar, having collected eight thousand men, Advance of a force double that with which Charles Edward did such great things thirty years afterwards, broke up on the 10th December from Perth, and again took the road to Stirling. But the circumstances were very different from what they were a month before, when he might, by a little vigour, have made himself master of all Scotland. Several regiments had been hurried over from Ireland, and Argyll at Stirling was now at the head of three thousand three hundred regular troops, of whom twelve hundred were cavalry. Mar was joined by Gordon with two thousand men, chiefly from the western counties, which he had raised after an unsuccessful attack on Inverary. But although this reinforcement raised the numerical amount of the insurgents to ten thousand men, yet, being only half-armed, they presented so motley an array that it was thought there were more firelocks in the comparatively diminutive royal army. On the 12th, Mar with the united force reached Ardoch, and his troops bivouacked in the noble Roman Camp there, the largest and most perfect in Britain. CHAP. X. Argyll, who deemed himself sufficiently strong to engage, did not decline the combat; and on the following day, the 13th, being the 1715. very day of the capitulation at Preston, both armies approached each other on the SHERIFFMUIR, an open heath stretching from the high-road from Perth to Stirling, towards the foot of the Ochil Hills, so called from 1 Mahon, i. its having been the place where the armed force of the Coxe, vi. county, arrayed by the sheriff, had been exercised in wick, 249. former days.1 257-259. 328. Ber 32. ment of the success of Argyll on his right. When Mar saw that the enemy stood firm, he called a council of war to determine whether they should fight Commenceor retire. Fight, fight!" was the universal cry; and battle, and the words being heard in the ranks, such a tumult of cheers and tossing up of bonnets arose that the resolution was in a manner carried by acclamation. Mar himself was on his own right, but the battle began on his left towards the hills. The insurgents there, who were drawn up in admirable order, opened on Argyll's men a fire so close and well directed that even Marlborough's veterans were staggered. But Argyll's experienced eye discerned a morass on their flank, by which, as it was frozen over by the severe frost of the preceding night, they might be charged in flank. Thither accordingly he sent a squadron of horse under Captain Cathcart, who charged the insurgents on their left side, while he himself, with two squadrons, assailed them in front. The double shock proved irresistible: the horsemen bore down the Highland ranks, and the whole left wing of the Jacobites was driven back to a considerable distance Mahon, i. 259,260. from the field of battle.2 Their retreat, however, was Berwick, that of the lion when he retires before a circle of hunters, vi. 329. for nine times in the course of it they faced about and 249. Coxe, X. CHAP. poured in volleys upon their pursuers. Argyll behaved with equal humanity and gallantry on this occasion, 1715. offering quarter to all who would surrender; and on one occasion he was seen himself parrying three strokes aimed by one of his troopers at a Highland gentleman. 33. But while fortune thus smiled on the royal arms on Success of their right, where Argyll commanded, a very different gents on the scene presented itself on their left, where General Witham the centre. had the command. How often during that century, the insur right and in "When the volleying musket played Against the bloody Highland blade," has victory inclined to the inexperienced arms of fidelity and devotion! The first fire of the English mortally wounded Clanranald, who had served with distinction abroad under Marshal Berwick, and his men thrown into some disorder by the discharge. But Glengarry, who had borne the royal standard at the battle of Killiecrankie, immediately started from the ranks, and throwing his bonnet into the air, exclaimed in Gaelic, Revenge! Revenge! To-day for revenge, to-morrow for mourning!" Animated by these words, the Highlanders rushed forward, and parrying the bayonet-thrusts with their broadswords, or averting them by their targets, they dealt destruction around. In a few minutes the whole of Argyll's left wing broke and fled; General Witham himself never stopped till he was in the streets of Stirling. The left centre of the English followed the example, and fled back to the Forth; and so great was the panic, that, had the right centre been charged instead of the fugitives being pursued by the victorious 260, 261. Highlanders, a decisive victory would have been gained.1 But this opportunity, as is so often the case in war, was lost; and General Wightman took advantage of a few 1 Mahon, i. Berwick, 249. minutes' breathing-time to draw off the right centre and join Argyll, who was returning from the pursuit of the wing he had beaten. CHAP. X. 1715. 34. result of the which turns vantage of Argyll, upon hearing of the disaster of his left and centre, immediately led back his right wing, and joined Indecisive Wightman and the remains of the centre. Mar did the battle, but same with his right, which had pursued the enemy to the to the advery gates of Stirling; and the two armies mutually the English. regained the field of battle on the Sheriffmuir. There Mar took up a position to guard against the horse, in which arm the English were greatly superior, on an eminence which commanded a view all around. Soon Argyll's men appeared painfully toiling their way over a bad road at the foot of the hill, so wearied, and in such woeful plight, that, by the admission of the English general himself, an attack from the Highlanders must have entirely destroyed their army.* But Mar, though personally brave, was destitute of military conduct. He allowed the enemy to defile beneath him, where they were already taking measures to repel an attack; and instead of directing a charge, ordered the bagpipes to play a retreat. It was then that an old Highland officer, Gordon of Glenbucket, who had seen Killiecrankie, uttered the celebrated exclamation,-" Oh for an hour of 1 Mahon, i. Dundee !" Both parties retreated: Argyll slept at Berwick, Dumblane, and next day withdrew to Stirling; and vi. 328. Mar wended his way back to his old quarters at Perth. 1 * "If they had either courage or conduct, they might have entirely destroyed my body of foot; but it pleased God to the contrary.”—Wightman's Official Despatch, Nov. 14, 1715. Argyll himself, hearing it said the victory was not complete, answered in the words of the Scottish song "If it wasna weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel bobbit, If it wasna weel bobbit, we'll bob it again." MAHON, i. 261, 262. 262, 263. 250. Coxe, CHAP. X. 1715. 35. Argyll is in the com mand by Cadogan. It is with an insurrection as with an invading army: a drawn battle is equivalent to a defeat; continued success is the condition of existence. Disaster, long continued, and in the end overwhelming, from that date superseded assailed the Stuart cause. Several of the clans had been lukewarm in their support, and openly counselled submission before the battle began; others dropped off after the retreat to Perth. Soon the insurgent army was reduced to half its numbers; and Mar himself, seeing no appearance of the Chevalier, and hearing of the disaster at Preston, privately communicated with Argyll as to the possibility of a general submission. Argyll was disposed to receive it favourably, and applied to Government for powers to that effect; but Ministers had other views. Having crushed the insurrection in Lancashire, and averted that in Devonshire, they were not disposed to treat for a capitulation with that in Scotland, but resolved to push their advantages to the uttermost. So far, therefore, from enlarging Argyll's powers, they deprived him of his command, and, by Marlborough's advice, bestowed it on General Cadogan. It does not appear that Argyll had been unfaithful to his trust; his activity, which saved Edinburgh, his gallantry, which stemmed disaster at Sheriffmuir, forbade such a supposition. But, with all his valour and eloquence, he wanted the still more important requisite of firmness of conduct. His political vacillation necessarily rendered him suspected in critical times.1 He had rendered himself, by repeated attacks, personally obnoxious to Marlborough; * and the enmity between them had grown up to such a pitch that no cordial co 1 Mahon, i. 268-270. Tindal, vi. 492. * "It is impossible to have a lower opinion than I have of the Duke of Argyll."-Marlborough; TINDAL, vi. 492. |