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When King James vacated the
throne of England and Scotland, and the Revolution of 1688 was an
accomplished fact, William of Orange found himself confronted with a war in
Flanders, a war in Ireland, open mutiny amongst the troops in England, and
an almost certain Jacobite insurrection in Scotland—a train of circumstances
which necessitated an increase in the army.
Amongst those who accompanied the new King to England was Archibald
Campbell, who, since the execution of his father, the ninth Earl of Argyll
in 1685, had been an exile in Holland, but had since been restored to the
properties and family dignaties. To shew his gratitude to the new
Government, and not without an eye to his own further interests, the new
Earl, in view of the trouble in Scotland, proposed to raise a regiment of
600 men from among his tenants in the Western Highlands. The offer being
readily accepted, the following order was issued to raise the regiment: ‘The
Estates of the Kingdome of Scotland, considering that the Earl of Argyle Hes
made ane offer to Levie one Regiment of six hundred foot to be commanded by
him as Collonell, And to be Imployed in the service of His Majestie William,
By the Grace of God King of Great Britain, Ffrance, and Ireland; And the
Estates Reposing speciall trust and confidence in the fidelitie, couradge,
and good conduct of the said Earl of Argyle, Have therefor nominated,
constitute, and appointed, And by these presents Do nominat, constitute, and
appoynt The said Earl of Argyle to be Collonell of a Regiment of foot,
appointed by the act of the said Estates of dait oF these presents, to be
levied by him as said is, consisting of ten companies
trouble in Scotland, proposed to raise a regiment of 600 men from among his
tenants in the Western Highlands. The offer being readily accepted, the
following order1 was issued to raise the regiment: ‘ The Estates of the
Kingdome of Scotland, considering that the Earl of Argyle Hes made ane offer
to Levie one Regiment of six hundred Toot to be commanded by him as
Collonell, And to be Imployed in the service of His Majestie William, By the
Grace of God King of Great Britain, Ffrance, and Ireland; And the Estates
Reposing speciall trust and confidence in the fidelitie, couradge, and good
conduct of the said Earl of Argyle, Have therefor nominated, constitute, and
appointed, And by these presents Doc nominal, constitute, and appoynt The
said Earl of Argyle to be Collonell of a Regiment of foot, appointed by the
act of the said Estates of dait oT these presents, to be levied by him as
said is, consisting of ten companies and sixtie men in each company; with
full power to the said Earl of Argyle to nominat the Li veten riant
Collonell and Major of the said Regiment, and the Captaines and inferior
officers of the several companies, and to grant commissions accordingly; And
to command and exercise the said regiment, both officers and souldiers,
carefully and dilligently; and to keep them in good order and discipline;
And to do and act all things competent and incumbent for any collonell of
foot to doe and per forme; Requiring and commanding thereby all officers and
souldiers of the said Regiment to give due obedience to the said Earl of
Argyle as their collonell, and to their respective commanding officers; and,
further, the Estates doc hereby command and require the said Earl of Argyle
to observe and prosecute such orders and directiones as he snail receive
from tyme to tyme from them, or from Major Generali M‘Kay, present Commander
in Chiefe of the forces of this Kingdome, or any other commander in chiefe
for the tyme, or any superior officers, according to the rules and
discipline of warr; and the Estates Doe Declair that each company, both
officers and souldiers, is to enter in pay after the same is mustered
compleat, and the field officers after the wholl regiment is mustered; and
that this commissione shall continue untill the King's most excellent
Majestic shall be pleased to grant new commissions for the said regiment, or
otherwayes dispose thereof. Signed by Warrand, and in the name of ye
Estates,
Hamilton.
22nd April, 1689.
President.
No definite information regarding the uniform worn by this regiment of
Argyllshire Highlanders is at present obtainable; but it is believed that it
was similar to that of an English line regiment of the period, substituting
the round blue bonnet for the English cocked hat. Above the door of
Dunstaffnage House is a coat, İf arms, carved, which formerly stood over the
door of the old castle. It has for supporters what are believed to be two
privates of Argyll’s Regiment in 1692. I am indebted to Dunstaffnage for a
steel engraving done from the stone carving over his door. With the
exception of the head-dress, which is a Scottish round flat bonnet such as
is now worn, the uniform closely resembles the uniform of an ordinary line
regiment of the period.
Campbells were, naturally, a predominating element in the regiment: of the
first nine principal officers appointed six bore that name. The Earl of
Argyll, colonel also of rhe Dumbarton and Bute Militia, was the colonel and
captain, and Sir Duncan Campbell, Bart., M.P., of Auchenbreck? the
lieutenant-colonel and captain; the field officers, as was customary in
those days, also commanding companies. The other captains appointed were
Archibald M‘Aulay of Ardincaple; James Campbell, younger of Ardkinglass;
Archibald Lamont of Lamont; Archibald Campbell of Torrie; Archibald Campbell
of Barbreck; Hector Bannatyne, younger of Kames; and John Campbell of Airds.
The recruiting of the regiment was fairly quickly completed in the Western
Highlands, but not before the battle of Killiecrankie had restored to James
the whole country beyond the Forth. And, looking to the probabilities of the
case, nothing saved the rest of Scotland from a similar fate but the death
of the gallant Dundee. However, the regiment is soon found engaged in its
unenviable duty of coercing its fellow countrymen; no doubt hoping to be
even with some of the clans, for the Campbells had some old scores to wipe
out. The Lowlands ar this time were peaceful and progressive enough under
the new Government, but the emblems of civil war still smouldered in the
Highlands. There the poverty of the people and the want of industrial
employment made peace anything but welcome to the chiefs or their retainers.
There was ample occupation, therefore, for the Argyll Highlanders in
reducing the strongholds of those who still held out for King James, in
suppressing cattle stealing and other raids, and in otherwise maintaining
order among rival clans. If there was little love lost between the Campbells
and the Jacobite clans, and if the duties of the regiment were sometimes
carried out in a manner which would now-a-days be considered unnecessarily
severe, allowance must be made for the custom of the times, and for the
manner in which the Campbells had themselves suffered. Only five years back
the head of their clan, the ninth Earl, had been put to death, his property
confiscated, and his sons exiled. Within the same period their lands had
been overrun by ten of the Jacobite clans, who drove the population into the
woods, and pillaged and burned their homes.
Deprived of their one capable leader in Dundee, the Highlanders after
Killiecrankie were helpless. His death, in the moment of victory, broke the
only bond which held them together, and in a few weeks the host which had
spread terror through the Lowlands melted hopelessly away. The clans
returned, to their mountains, not forgetting to load themselves with plunder
on the way. The opportunity was not lost on ‘Coll of the Cows,' as Macdonald
of Keppoch was called on account of his lifting propensities. With his own
men and the Macdonalds of Glencoe he made his way through Perthshire,
spoiling the lands and goods of Campbell of Glenlyon, a man who could ill
afford the loss. By this raid in which was carried out in violation of the
Protection order which Glenlyon had received from the Commander-in-Chief of
King James1 Army, Glenlyon and his few dependents lost their whole stock—all
they had in the world—estimated at some /8ooo of Scots money—a large sum in
those days. To the unfortunate Laird, who had already suffered considerable
misfortune, it meant such complete ruin that, driven in his advancing years,
for he then bordered on sixty, to earn his daily bread, he was glad to
accept a company in the Argyllshire Highlanders, in which he was destined to
achieve an unfortunate notoriety.
By the end of 1689 the Argyllshire Highlanders—as the regiment may properly
be called — were busy at work, one detachment under Captain John Campbell of
Airds being specially employed in an effort to reduce what was clearly his
own property — Castle Stalcairc or Island Stalker, between Lismore and Appin,
but which was then held for the young Laird of Appin by his tutor John
Stewart of Ardsheal fresh from leading the clan at Killiecrankie. The
castle, which was strongly placed and well fortified, had been disposed of
by the Stewarts of Appin some years before, but as Hereditary Keepers they
had seized and held it for the King. In July, 1690, the headquarters of the
regiment were at Perth, whence they marched to Stirling in anticipation of a
descent of the Jacobites, but as that never came off the regiment was moved
into Argyllshire, with Glencairn’s Regiment, for the purpose of reducing the
Isles, the Earl of Argyll specially devoting himself to the strongholds in
Mull. The castle of Island Stalker surrendered to him on the 9th October,
1690, and, to his credit, he treated the defenders considerately, and gave
them honourable terms. After this he tried his hand hard at the castles of
Duart and Cairnburgh, strongholds of the young Sir John Maclaine, the chief
of that clan. Though the Highlands were comparatively quiet at this time,
the war still smouldered, and the pacification of the clans was slow work.
The attempt at bribing the chiefs had failed, and the Government were
getting impatient, for they wanted the troops in Flanders. This was the
situation when a suspension of arms between the 30th June and tst October,
1691, was agreed upon, during which time negotiations for a permanent
pacification went on. in August a proclamation was issued promising an
indemnity to all Jacobites who should swear allegiance to William and Mary
before the 1st January, 1692, and threatening with the severest penalties
those who should neglect the offer. And it is in connection with the
enforcement of this order that occurs the one dark spot in the history of
the Argyllshire Highlanders. The story of the Massacre of Glencoe has often
been repeated, though rarely with strict regard to accuracy in detail, but
it is impossible to avoid reference to it in this account of the regiment.
Most of the chiefs took the alarm at the proclamation, and escaped the
threatened danger by tendering their allegiance before the appointed day,
except Macdonald or Glencoe, whose pride delayed his taking the oath till
after the latest date fixed by the proclamation; and, even then, the fact of
his having sworn allegiance was not permitted to save him and his clan.
Glencoe is a wild and somewhat gloomy vale in the district of Lorn,
Argyllshire, but for beauty and grandeur is excelled by few passes in
Scotland. Mists and storms brood over it through a great part of the finest
summer, while, even on those days when the sun is bright and the sky
cloudless, the impression made by the landscape is somewhat sad, though not
quite such a Valley of the Shadow of Death as Macaulay so picturesquely
describes it.
Sentence of extermination against the clan having gone forth from the King,
through the influence of the Earl of Breadalbane and the Master of Stair,
the instructions for the carrying out of the same were made clear and
unmistakable. They were issued by Brigadier-General Sir Thomas Livingstone,
Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, through Colonel John Hill, Governor of
Fort-William, to Lieutenant-Colonel James Hamilton,16 each of whom perfectly
understood the treachery about to he practised. 'The work' wrote the Master
of Stair to Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton, who willingly undertook it, 'must
be secret and sudden? The troops were chosen from Hill’s Regiment111 and the
Argyllshire Highlanders—the latter not on good terms with the clansmen of
Glencoe. On the 12th February, 1692, 400 of Hill’s Regiment under
Lieutenant-Colonel James Hamilton, and a similar number of the Argyllshire
under Major Robert Duncanson,17 were ordered to Glencoe to co-operate on the
following morning with Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon’s company of the
Argylls, which had been quartered peacefully in the Glen among the
Macdonalds for some twelve days till all suspicion of their errand had
disappeared. Indeed, during that time, he and his men had been living on the
most friendly terms as the guests of those who were soon to be their
victims; and so that there should be no inkling of what was intended, his
men were not informed of the duty on which they were bent until the company
paraded while still dark on the fatal morning of Saturday, the 13th
February. Tradition says that the tune known as the Breadalbane March, the ‘
Carles with the Breeks,* and the * Wives of the Glen,’ was played by
Glenlyon’s piper on this occasion in the hope of warning the M‘Ians of their
danger. It is said that one M‘Ian wife heeded the warning, and fled to the
hills with her child, saving his life:
‘Wives of wild Cona Glen, Cona Glen, Cona Glen,
Wives of wild Cona Glen wake from your slumbers;
Early I woke this morn, early I woke this morn,
Woke to alarm you with music’s wild numbers?
Without waiting for Hamilton’s and Duncanson’s detachments, which had been
delayed by a storm of unusual severity, the troops, as arranged, fell upon
their unarmed and unsuspecting hosts, and in a few minutes thirty of the
clansmen with their chief lay dead—Hamilton’s and Duncanson’s parties
arriving later and completing the tragedy; the rest of the Macdonalds,
sheltered by the storm, escaped to the mountains to perish, for the most
part of cold and hunger. It fell to the lot of Campbell of Glenlyon and his
two subalterns—Lieutenant Lindsay and Ensign John Lundie—with a Captain
Thomas Drummond, to act the principal parts in the tragedy, though
Lieutenant-Colonel Hamilton and Major Duncanson acted with great brutality
when they did arrive.
Glenlyon has been credited with perhaps an undue amount of the odium which
very properly attaches to the massacre. If anything can be permitted to
condone the breach of hospitality, treachery, and murder of which he was
guilty, it is to be found in the positive orders he received from his
superior officer and in the provocation which he had received at the hands
of the Macdonalds. With the Macdonalds of Keppoch they had completely ruined
him and his clan: indeed his wife and family were at that very time
struggling at home against the severest poverty. Glenlyon’s life had been an
unfortunate one. He was originally a man of prepossessing appearance and
fine physique. He it was who in 1680 marched with the Breadalbane and
Glenlyon men into Caithness in hostile array to reduce the refractory
Sinclairs to obedience—the occasion on which tradition says that his piper
improvised the well-known pibroch of ‘The Carles with the Breeks,’ also
known as the Breadalbane march. In his youth he was unfortunately addicted
to gambling and display, to which in later days he added an excessive love
for wine. With his wife’s extravagance his misfortunes increased, until his
affairs were brought to a climax and ruin by the Macdonald raid in 1689.
After this he appears to have existed on the charity of Breadalbane, who had
to supply his outfit to enable him to accompany the regiment to Flanders.30
He died at Bruges on the and August, 1696, in the sixty-fifth year of his
age—a broken man.
The degree of the Earl of Argyll’s complicity in the massacre is not easy to
determine. As commanding officer of the regiment, he must have been aware of
the sentence of extermination which had been pronounced against the
Macdonalds, but there is no evidence of his being a party to the treachery
by which it was accompanied. Lockhart describes him as 'in outward
appearance a good natured, civil, and modest gentleman,’ whose actions were
quite otherwise; while in Lochiel’s eyes he appears a man of a frank, noble,
and generous disposition. Judging from his conduct generally in the awkward
duty upon which he was employed in the Highlands as colonel of his regiment,
one is disposed to view his character in the more favourable light. The
chief blame surely lies with those who conceived the massacre — the Earl of
Breadalbanc and the Master of Stair, and with the King, who so readily
acquiesced in the scheme. Nor is it to the credit of King William that, when
the affair became public and the prosecution of the chief offenders was
recommended by the Committee of Enquiry, he made no effort to move in the
matter. The subordinates, remorseless tools though they were, merely obeyed
the orders of their superior officers.
Within a few weeks of these events the Argyllshire Highlanders received
orders to march to Leith, with a view to early embarkation to join the army
in Flanders. The order was far from popular with the men, who with
difficulty concealed their aversion to leaving their country. The feeling
was not, however, accompanied with anything like insubordination. It was
merely the outcome of that pardonable devotion to their homes and those dear
to them which characterised all the Highlanders of Scotland; feelings such
as inspired Allan Ramsay’s words in ‘Farewell to Lochabar:'
‘The tears that I shed they’re a’ for my dear.
And no for the dangers attending on weir;
Though borne on rough seal to a far bloody shore,
Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.'
We find the regiment, however, at Brentford in the summer of 1692, and it
did not for various reasons sail for Flanders till the following spring,
about the time King William was preparing to confront the superior numbers
of the French under Louis XIV. William was at his best as a soldier: indeed
he never appeared quite at ease except in the field of battle, where he
repeatedly proved his high personal courage. Lieutenant-Colonel Robert
ackson took the regiment out, and if bravery in the field could atone for
their unfortunate connection with the Glencoe affair, it will be found that
the Argyll men did their utmost to wipe away the stain which attached to
their name.
In May, 1693, the regiment
was encamped at Parck, with the army under King William covering Brussels
and Upper Brabant, and formed part of the Scots Brigade under
Brigadier-General Ramsay. On the 1st July it was detached with a force of
8,000 Infantry and 600 Cavalry under the Prince of Wurtemburg, and bore the
brunt of the fighting on the 9th July, when the Count D’Alfeldt’s Division
played a brilliant part in forcing the fortified lines between the rivers
Scheldt and Lys at D’Otignies, and drove the French from their entrenchments
with heavy loss. The regiment eminently distinguished itself on this
occasion, the Grenadier company under Captain Thomas Drummond leading the
attack on Pont David. Without wincing, his Grenadiers kept steadily on in
the face of the enemy’s fire till they gained the parapet of the redoubt.
The French fire was tremendous. Both the subalterns dropped; and, before the
main body could reach the redoubt, the company was reduced to a few
scattered men, still fighting on against thirty times their number. At the
end of the day more than a quarter of Drummond’s company lay-dead on the
ground. The regiment afterwards acconipanied Wiirtemburg’s Division of the
Allied Army, destined tor the relief of Charleroi; but King William
abandoned the enterprise. Charleroi fell on the 1st of October, the campaign
closed, and the regiment went into winter quarters at Bruges. The year 1693
had not been a profitable one for the Allies. They had suffered, a crushing
defeat at the hands of the renowned Duke of Luxembourg at Landen, as at
Steinkirk the year before. ‘Am I always to be beaten by that hunchback?’
exclaimed the King, passionately, alluding to the victorious French Marshal,
who was somewhat deformed. William III. was a soldier and a general of no
mean order, but in strategy he was much interior to Luxembourg, who was
known in France as the taptssier of Notre Dame, from his having upholstered
that Cathedral with so many captured flags. Macaulay has given a vivid
portrait of William at the battle of Landen, and nis admirable retreat from
that fatal field.
Shortly after the arrival of the Argyllshire Highlanders in Flanders some
busybody reported to King William that certain men of the regiment were in
the habit of drinking to King James’s health; which was quite possible,
seeing that many of the Campbells were known to have strong leanings in
favour of the Stuarts and hereditary right, although, since the restitution
of the MacCailean-Mores to their homes and dignities, they kept their
feelings quiet. Turning to General Tollmache—the Taimash of Tristram Shandy—the
King asked how they behaved in the field. ‘As well as any troops in the
army,’ was the reply. ’Well, then,’ rejoined the sensible King, ‘if only
they fight for me, why, let them drink my father-in-law’s health as often as
they please.
In March, 1694, the Earl of Argyll resigned the colonelcy of the regiment in
favour of his son John, Lord Lorne, then a lad of fifteen, who was duly
appointed captain of a company and colonel on the 7th April. The other
principal officers at this time were Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Jackson,
Major Robert Duncanson, Captains Neil Campbell, Duncan Campbell, Thomas
Drummond (Grenadiers), Colin Campbell, senior, Colin Campbell, junior,
Robert MacAulay, Alexander Campbell of Finab, John Louis de la Bene, George
Somerville, and Robert Campbell of Glenlyon. The Earl of Argyll, if not a
great soldier, had performed useful service in Scotland since the
Revolution. By considerable tact he had, through the influence of religion,
gradually habituated his followers to the new order of things, till the
country of the Campbells exhibited a picture of peacefulness and
civilization in strong contrast to the rest of the Highlands. In 1696 he was
appointed Colonel of the Scots Troop of Life Guards. He was created a Dulce
33rd June, 1701, became Major-General 12th May, 1702, and died at Newcastle,
on his way to Scotland, on the 28th September, 1703, and was buried at
Kilmun, the burying-place of the family of Argyll.
In 1694 the army of 90,000 men which William commanded did no more than hold
the French successfully at bay; year after year he had to fight against
odds. Soon after the campaign of 1695 opened, the regiment, under command of
LieutenantColonel Patrick Hume, recently appointed in place of
Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson, was detached with a large force, under
Major-General Ellenberg, to garrison Dixmude, which was invested by the
French. This General, a Danish officer who had risen from the ranks, was in
command. Of supplies and munitions of all descriptions there were plenty.
The works were not strong, but the place was capable of a prolonged
resistance. Not twenty-four hours, however, had elapsed after the trenches
were opened before Ellenberg beat a parley and called a Council of War. He
laid before the Council the condition of the place, and proposed a
capitulation, to which, after some persuasion, the majority of the officers
consented. But Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Duncanson, who had succeeded
Lieutenant-Colonel Hume in the command of the Argyllshire Highlanders,
though the youngest in the Council of War, flatly refused to give his
adherence. With only one supporter, he urged that as yet there was no
breach, and the enemy had not effected a lodgement in the counterscarp, and
to talk of surrender was dishonourable. The General, however, obtained a
majority, and the capitulation was signed the next day—17th July, 1695. It
is recorded that the soldiers forming the garrison were greatly exasperated
when required to lay down their arms and surrender their colours as
prisoners of war. The Argyll men were loud in their remonstrance, and, to
their credit and honour be it said, rather than the colours under which they
had fought so well should fall into the hands of the enemy, they tore them
from the poles and destroyed them.' General Ellenberg was tried by Court
Martial, and beheaded; O’Farrel was cashiered and imprisoned; while most of
the others who had signed the capitulation were broke. The officers and men
of the garrison were shortly afterwards released, and the regiment went into
winter quarters at Damme. The year’s campaign ended in a great triumph over
the French in the capture of Namur, which would have been more marked had
King William been able to follow it up by a victory in the field.
The campaigns of 1696 and 1697 were uneventful, the duty of the regiment
consisting chiefly in protecting Bruges, Nieuport, and the neighbourhood.
The war, in fact, was fast drawing to a close, and when King William
returned to Holland in the spring of the latter year, peace negotiations
were on the point of being opened at Ryswick. No further military operations
took place, and it only remains to add that France, reduced to utter
exhaustion, was only too ready to consent to peace, which was concluded by
England, the United Provinces, and Spain on the 10th September, 1697: the
Emperor definitely acceded on the 30th October. And so ended the military
service of the Argyllshire Highlanders, the first Highland regiment raised
for the British Standing Army. For though there was an Independent Foot
Company of 'Highland men’ on the Scottish establishment in 1678, and a
similar Company of Highlanders was raised by Lieutenant-General Hugh Mackay
in 1689, there appears to have been no Highland Regiment on the
establishment prior to the raising of the Argyllshire Highlanders in 1689.
The late Colonel Clifford Walton, C.B., in his History of the British Army,
1660-1700 claims the distinction for Colonel George Hamilton’s Scottish
Regiment of Foot. But Hamilton’s Regiment, though raised in Scotland, was
apparently not raised in the Highlands. Nor was it formed until more than
three years after Argyll’s regiment. The Argyllshire Highlanders were
disbanded in Flanders, the officers and men returning home by the end of
1697, the former being placed on half-pay in 1698.
Lord Lorne’s connection with the regiment had been very slight, though he
nominally commanded it since April, 1694. He succeeded his father as second
Duke of Argyll in 1703, and was created Duke of Greenwich in 1719. Pope
immortalized him in the well-known lines:
'Argyll, the State's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the Senate and the field.’
But we are concerned with him here as a soldier. He served as a general
officer under Marlborough at Ramillies, Oudenarde, and Malplaquet, in which
last-named battle he greatly distinguished himself by his extraordinary
bravery. He served also at the sieges of Ostend, Menin, Lille, and Ghent. As
Lieutenant-General he commanded at the siege of Tournay, where he was
wounded. In February, 1711, he was appointed Commander-in-Chief in Spain,
with the rank of General. After his return he was appointed
Commander-in-Chief in Scotland and Governor of Edinburgh Castle. He
commanded the Government troops at Sheriffmuir against the Jacobite forces.
He held at different times the colonelcy of the 3rd Foot, the Scots Troop of
Life Guards, the 2nd Dragoon Guards, and the Royal Horse Guards. He was also
Master-General of the Ordnance, Field Marshal, and Commander-in-Chief,
besides being a K.G. and K.T. He died in October, 1743.
Lieutenant-Colonel Duncanson, whose admirable conduct in command of the
Argyllshire Highlanders atoned in some measure for his unfortunate
connection with the Glencoe affair, was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel of the
Earl of Huntingdon’s Regiment (afterwards the 33rd) on 12th February, 1702;
Brevet Colonel in the Army, 1st November, 1703 ; Colonel of Huntingdon’s
Regiment, 22nd February, 1705; and died as a soldier, being killed at the
siege of Valencia de Alcantara on the 8th May, 1705.
Robert MacKenzie Holden. |
