NEVER, perhaps, in any history was there a march more mournful than that
of the Highland army from Derby. These soldiers had never known defeat,
and yet there they were, in full retreat through a hostile country. So
secret and rapid were their movements that they had gained two full
days' march before the Duke of Cumberland had any certain news of their
retreat. Though he started at once in pursuit, mounting a body of
infantry on horses that they might keep up with the cavalry, and though
all were fresh and in good condition, it was not till the 18th that he
overtook the Prince's army in the wilds of Cumberland. Lord George
Murray, looking upon himself as responsible for the safety of the army,
had sent on the first division under the Prince, and himself brought up
the rear with the baggage and artillery. In the hilly country of the
North of England, it was no light task to travel with heavy baggage. The
big wagons could not be dragged up the steep ill-made roads, and the
country people were sullenly unwilling to lend their carts. The general
was reduced to paying sixpence for every cannon ball that could be
carried up the hills. The Prince was already at Penrith on the 17th, but
Lord George had been obliged to stop six miles short of that point.
Marching before daybreak on the 18th, he reached a village called
Clifton as the sun rose. A body of horsemen stood guarding the village;
the Highlanders, exhilarated at meeting a foe again, cast their plaids
and rushed forward. On this the Hanoverians--a mere body of local
yeomanry--fled. Among a few stragglers who were taken prisoner was a
footman of the Duke of Cumberland, who told his captors that his master
with 4,000 cavalry was following close behind them. Lord George resolved
to make a stand, knowing that nothing would be more fatal than allowing
the dragoons to fall suddenly on his troops when they had their backs
turned. He had a body of Macdonalds and another of Stuarts with him; he
found also some two hundred Macphersons, under their brave commander
Cluny, guarding a bridge close to the village. The high road here ran
between a wall on one side, and fields enclosed by high hedges and
ditches on the other. On either side he could thus place his soldiers
under cover. As evening fell he learned that the Hanoverian soldiers
were drawn up on the moor, about a mile distant. He sent some of his men
to a point where they should be partly visible to the enemy over a
hedge; these he caused to pass and repass, so as to give a delusive idea
of numbers. When the night fell the Highland soldiers were drawn up
along the wall on the road, and in the enclosures behind the hedges;
Lord George and Cluny stood with drawn swords on the highway. Every man
stood at his post on the alert, in the breathless silence. Though the
moon was up, the night was cloudy and dark, but in a fitful gleam the
watchful general saw dark forms approaching in a mass behind a hedge. In
a rapid whisper he asked Cluny what was to be done. 'I will charge sword
in hand if you order me,' came the reply, prompt and cheery. A volley
from the advancing troops decided the question. 'There is no time to be
lost; we must charge,' cried Lord George, and raising the Highland war
cry, 'Claymore, Claymore,' he was the first to dash through the hedge
(he lost his hat and wig among the thorns, and fought the rest of the
night bareheaded!). The dragoons were forced back on to the moor, while
another body of horse was similarly driven back along the high road by
the Stuarts and Macdonells of Glengarry. About a dozen Highlanders,
following too eagerly in pursuit, were killed on this moor, but the loss
on the other side was far greater. Nor did the Duke of Cumberland again
attack the retreating enemy; he had learned, like the other generals
before him, the meaning of a Highland onset.[39]
A small garrison of Highlanders had been left in Carlisle, but these
rejoined the main army as it passed through the town. There was an
unwillingness among the soldiers to hold a fort that was bound to be
taken by the enemy. Finally the Manchester regiment consented to remain,
probably arguing, in the words of one of the English volunteers, that
they 'might as well be hanged in England as starved in Scotland.'
The Esk was at this time in flood, running turbid and swift. But the
Highlanders have a peculiar way of crossing deep rivers. They stand
shoulder to shoulder, with their arms linked, and so pass in a
continuous chain across. As Charles was fording the stream on horseback,
one man was swept away from the rest and was being rapidly carried down.
The Prince caught him by the hair, shouting in Gaelic, 'Cohear, cohear!'
'Help, help!'
They were now again on Scottish ground, and the question was, whither
were they to go next? Edinburgh, immediately after the Prince's
departure, had gladly reverted to her Whig allegiance. She was
garrisoned and defended; any return thither was practically out of the
question. It was resolved that the army should retire to the Highlands
through the West country.
Dumfries, in the centre of the Covenanting district, had always been
hostile to the Stuarts. Two months before, when the Highland army
marched south, some of her citizens had despoiled them of tents and
baggage. To revenge this injury, Charles marched to Dumfries and levied
a large fine on the town. The Provost, Mr. Carson, was noted for his
hostility to the Jacobites. He was warned that his house was to be
burned, though the threat was not carried out. He had a little daughter
of six years old at the time; when she was quite an old lady she told
Sir Walter Scott that she remembered being carried out of the house in
the arms of a Highland officer. She begged him to point out the
_Pretender_ to her. This he consented to do, after the little girl had
solemnly promised always to call him the _Prince_ in future.
[Illustration: 'The Prince caught him by the hair']
An army which had been on the road continuously for more than two winter
months, generally presents a sufficiently dilapidated appearance; still
more must this have been the case with the Highland army, ill-clad and
ill-shod to begin with. The soldiers--hardly more than 4,000 now--who on
Christmas day marched into Glasgow, had scarcely a whole pair of boots
or a complete suit of tartans among them. This rich and important town
was even more hostile than Dumfries to the Jacobites, but it was
necessity more than revenge that forced the Prince to levy a heavy sum
on the citizens, and exact besides 12,000 shirts, 6,000 pairs of
stockings, and 6,000 pairs of shoes.
At Stirling, whither the Prince next led his army, the prospects were
much brighter. Here he was joined by the men raised in Aberdeenshire
under Lord Lewis Gordon, Lord Strathallan's Perthshire regiment, and the
French troops under Lord John Drummond. The whole number of his army
must have amounted to not much less than 9,000 men.
The Duke of Cumberland had given up the pursuit of the Highland army
after Carlisle; an alarm of a French invasion having sent him hurrying
back to London. In his stead General Hawley had been sent down to
Scotland and was now in Edinburgh at the head of 8,000 men. He was an
officer trained in the Duke of Cumberland's school, severe to his
soldiers and relentlessly cruel to his enemies. A vain and boastful man,
he looked with contempt on the Highland army, in spite of the experience
of General Cope. On the 16th he marched out of Edinburgh with all his
men, anticipating an easy victory. Lord George Murray was at Linlithgow,
and slowly retreated before the enemy, but not before he had obtained
full information of their numbers and movements. On the nights of
January 15 and 16, the two armies lay only seven miles apart, the
Prince's at Bannockburn and General Hawley's at Falkirk. From the one
camp the lights of the other were visible. The Highland army kept on the
alert, expecting every hour to be attacked.
All the day of the 16th they waited, but there was no movement on the
part of the English forces. On the 17th the Prince's horse reconnoitred
and reported perfect inactivity in Hawley's camp. The infatuated general
thought so lightly of the enemy that he was giving himself up to
amusement.
The fair and witty Lady Kilmarnock lived in the neighbourhood at
Callender House. Her husband was with the Prince, and she secretly
favoured the same cause. By skilful flattery and hospitality, she so
fascinated the English general that he recklessly spent his days in her
company, forgetful of the enemy and entirely neglectful of his soldiers.
Charles knew that the strength of his army lay in its power of attack,
and so resolved to take the offensive. The high road between Bannockburn
and Falkirk runs in a straight line in front of an old and decaying
forest called Torwood. Along this road, in the face of the English camp,
marched Lord John Drummond, displaying all the colours in the army, and
making a brave show with the cavalry and two regiments. Their advance
was only a feint. The main body of the army skirted round to the south
of the wood, then marched across broken country--hidden at first by the
trees and later by the inequalities of the ground--till they got to the
back of a ridge called Falkirk Muir, which overlooked the English camp.
Their object was to gain the top of this ridge before the enemy, and
then to repeat the manoeuvres of Prestonpans.
Meanwhile, the English soldiers were all unconscious, and their general
was enjoying himself at Callender House. At eleven o'clock General
Huske, the second in command, saw Lord John Drummond's advance, and sent
an urgent message to his superior officer. He, however, refused to take
alarm, sent a message that the men might put on their accoutrements, and
sat down to dinner with his fascinating hostess. At two o'clock, General
Huske, looking anxiously through his spy-glass, saw the bulk of the
Highland army sweeping round to the back of the ridge.
A messenger was instantly despatched to Callender House. At last Hawley
was aroused to the imminence of the danger. Leaving the dinner table, he
leaped on his horse and arrived in the camp at a gallop, breathless and
bare-headed. He trusted to the rapidity of his cavalry to redeem the
day. He placed himself at the head of the dragoons, and up the ridge
they rode at a smart trot. It was a race for the top. The dragoons on
their horses were the first to arrive, and stood in their ranks on the
edge of the hill. From the opposite side came the Highlanders in three
lines; first the clans (the Macdonalds, of course, on the right), then
the Aberdeenshire and Perthshire regiments, lastly cavalry and Lord John
Drummond's Frenchmen. Undismayed, nay, rather exhilarated by the sight
of the three regiments of dragoons drawn up to receive them, they
advanced at a rapid pace. The dragoons, drawing their sabres, rode on at
full trot to charge the Highlanders. With the steadiness of old
soldiers, the clans came on in their ranks, till within ten yards of the
enemy. Then Lord George gave the signal by presenting his own piece, and
at once a withering volley broke the ranks of the dragoons. About 400
fell under this deadly fire and the rest fled, fled as wildly and
ingloriously as their fellows had done at Coltbridge or Prestonpans. A
wild storm of rain dashing straight in their faces during the attack
added to the confusion and helplessness of the dragoons. The right and
centre of Hawley's infantry were at the same instant driven back by the
other clans, Camerons and Stewarts and Macphersons. The victory would
have been complete but for the good behaviour of three regiments at the
right of Hawley's army, Price's, Ligonier's, and Barrel's. From a point
of vantage on the edge of a ravine they poured such a steady fire on the
left wing of the Highlanders, that they drove them back and forced them
to fly in confusion. Had the victorious Macdonalds only attacked these
three steady regiments, the Highland army would have been victorious all
along the line. Unfortunately they had followed their natural instinct
instead of the word of command, and flinging away their guns, were
pursuing the fugitive dragoons down the ridge. The flight of the
Hanoverians was so sudden that it caused suspicion of an ambush. The
Prince was lost in the darkness and rain. The pipers had thrown their
pipes to their boys, had gone in with the claymore, and could not sound
the rally. It was not a complete victory for Charles, but it was a
sufficiently complete defeat for General Hawley, who lost his guns. The
camp at Falkirk was abandoned after the tents had been set on fire, and
the general with his dismayed and confused followers retired first to
Linlithgow and then to Edinburgh. Hawley tried to make light of his
defeat and to explain it away, though to Cumberland he said that his
heart was broken; but the news of the battle spread consternation all
over England, and it was felt that no one but the Duke of Cumberland was
fit to deal with such a stubborn and daring enemy.
The Prince's army did not reap so much advantage from their victory as
might have been expected; their forces were in too great confusion to
pursue the English general, and on the morrow of the battle many
deserted to their own homes, carrying off their booty. A more serious
loss was the defection of the clan Glengarry. The day after the battle a
young Macdonald, a private soldier of Clanranald's company, was
withdrawing the charge from a gun he had taken on the field. He had
abstracted the bullet, and, to clean the barrel, fired off the piece.
Unfortunately it had been double loaded, and the remaining bullet struck
Glengarry's second son, Aeneas, who was in the street at the time. The
poor boy fell, mortally wounded, in the arms of his comrades, begging
with his last breath that no vengeance should be exacted for what was
purely accidental. It was asking too much from the feelings of the
clansmen. They indignantly demanded that blood should atone for blood.
Clanranald would gladly have saved his clansman, but dared not risk a
feud which would have weakened the Prince's cause. So another young life
as innocent as the first was sacrificed to clan jealousy. The young
man's own father was the first to fire on his son, to make sure that
death should be instantaneous. Young Glengarry was buried with all
military honours, Charles himself being chief mourner; but nothing could
appease the angry pride of the clan, and the greater part of them
returned to their mountains without taking any leave.
[Illustration: The poor boy fell, mortally wounded]