Volume 3

The Scottish nation, or, The surnames, families, literature, honours, and biographical history of the people of Scotland / by William Anderson.

Date:: 1863

Credit: The Scottish nation, or, The surnames, families, literature, honours, and biographical history of the people of Scotland / by William Anderson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$were disposed of. Having thus reason to distrust tlie fidelity of a portion of liis force, Macliay con- tinned his retreat till he was joined by some rein- forcements upon whom he could rel}\ when he turned upon Dundee, and pursued him into Rade- noch. He subsequently marched to Inverness, whence lie wrote to the duke of Hamilton, presi- dent of the convention, urging the necessity of establishing a formidable garrison at Inver- lochy, and small ones in other places in the north, without which lie considered that it would be ut- terl}^ impossible to subdue the Highlanders. He himself soon after repaired to Edinburgh, to has- ten the preparations for carrying such a project into effect; but the plan he proposed, as he him- self confesses, considering the inability, ignor- ance, and little forwardness of the government to furnish the necessary ingredients for the advance of their service, was built upon a sandy founda- tion, and much like the building of castles in the air. (JMackaifs Memoirs, p. 46.) After completing his arrangements at Edin- burgh, Mackay went to Stirling, to inspect the castle. From that place he proceeded to Perth, and on the 26th July 1689, he began his march into Athol, at the head of an army, as generally stated, of 4,500 men, but he tells us himself, in his 'Memoirs,' that he had with him only six battalions of foot, making at the most 3,000 men, with four troops of horse and as many dragoons. Among the foot were two Scottish regiments, which, as stated in Mr. Mackay of Rockfield's Life of General Mackay, as well as the horse, were not only new levies, but were also command- ed by noblemen and gentlemen wholly destitute of military experience, and selected for their re- spective commands solely on account of their power of raising men ; little more, therefore, than one half of the whole number could be said to be disciplined. At night the general encamped op- posite to Dnnkeld. Here, at midnight, he re- ceived an express from the marquis of Tullibar- dine, (often styled Lord Murray,) announcing that Viscount Dundee had entered Athol, and in consequence he had retreated from before the cas- tle of Blair, which he had for some time block- aded, and informing him that at the upper end of the pass of Killiecrankie, which lay between him and Lord Dundee, he had posted a guard to se- cure a free passage through it to liis troops. On receipt of this alarming intelligence, Mac- kay despatched orders to Perth, to hasten the arrival of six troops of cavalry which he had left there, and at daybreak next day, proceeded in di- rection of the pass. At ten o'clock in the morning he reached its lower extremity, when he halted his ti'oops, and allowed them two hours to rest and refresh themselves. Receiving notice that the pass was clear, he again put his men in motion, and they effected their passage through this terrific defile, with the loss only of a single horseman. In that siiigularlj' wild and stupen- dous locality', a handful of men, with no other ammunition than stones, stationed at intervals on the summit of the precipices, could easily impede the progress of any troops. If even at the pres- ent time, with the advantages of the excellent road, formed nearly sixty years afterwards, its passage is difficult to the traveller, it must have been much more so in General Mackay's time, when it was in a state of the most savage desola- tion. When the pass of Killiecrankie, says one authority, is traversed, the country beyond is found to open suddeiilj' up into a plain, which is expressively called the Blair or field of Athol. Immediately beyond the pass this plain is not very spacious, but is confined to that description of territory Avhich in Scotland is called a liaugh, or a stripe of level alluvial soil by tlie brink of a river. The road debouches upon tliis narrow- plain ; the river runs along under the hills on the left; on the right rise other hills, but not of so bold a character. ]\Iackay no sooner arrived at a space sufiiciently wide for di'awing up his armj' than he halted and began to intrench himself. He left his baggage at a blacksmith's house near the termination of the pass, so as to have the pro- tection of the army in front. As it was Viscount Dundee's object to prevent Mackay from establisliing himself in Athol, he did not hesitate to meet him with an inferior force, amounting to little more than the half of that under Mackay. In making his dispositions, the latter divided every battalion into two parts, and, as he meant to fight three deep, he left a small distance between each of these sub-battalions.$