Unknown (60 page)
Authors: Unknown
While
these dispositions were hastily taking place, the Master of Madderty
reached the enemy lines. Montrose could not actually sec what then
took place, but there arose a great shouting and hooting, and white
flag and envoy both abruptly disappeared. Then, three horsemen came
galloping from the Covenant centre, to rein up some two hundred
yards away, across the Cowgask Burn and its reedy bed, there to
shout that the Lord Elcho and the Military Committee held no
truck with traitors and excommunicates of Christ's Kirk; that they
had chosen the Lord's Day to do the Lord's work; and that the
insolent envoy had been arrested, was being sent bound to Perth, and
would be hanged just as soon as the Lord Elcho had leisure to
arrange the matter. No quarter would be granted to traitors, in the
name of Jesus Christ and His Holy Kirk.
The
bold trio wheeled their mounts, and raced back whence they had come.
Even
before they were back, to a great and fierce chanting of 'Jesus, and
no quarter! Jesus, and no quarter
1'
from
the thousands of infantry, led by black-robed divines, the enemy
cavalry charged, the Lord Drummond's banner at their head. It was
the left-wing squadron, and no doubt was intended partly as a feint,
to force the royalist centre into a premature break-up of formation,
for it was aimed to right of centre. Not for nothing, however, had
Montrose placed Alastair MacDonald and the most experienced fighters
in the middle. Although only in three ranks, they stood their ground
stoutly as the cavalry bore thundering down on them, the front rank
kneeling, to fire their single musket-shot from that position, the
second crouching, and the third standing - only these last were
mainly without muskets and had only stones to throw, which their
leaders had had them collect
They
waited until the charging horsemen were almost upon them, so that
even stones would have maximum effect. But well before the clash,
and just as soon as Montrose had assured himself that the other
squadron of enemy cavalry were not immediately being thrown in in
support, on the right, he had a trumpet - borrowed from Atholl -
blown high and clear as signal to Kilpont, half a mile away. That
man promptly swung his bowmen down into the Tippermallo Myre, and
from that wet and difficult stance faced west to pour a shower of
arrows into the flanks of the advancing cavalry just as they reached
Colkitto's front - at extreme range but galling. At the same time,
Montrose led his own people down into the Cowgask bog, from which,
however uncomfortably, they also could discharge their muskets
against the left flank of the enemy horse.
The
Lord Drummond, therefore, found himself under fire from three sides
- in a box, in fact. He could have smashed his way, no doubt,
through Colkitto's centre, though at severe loss almost certainly;
but then would as certainly have found the royalist horns closing in
behind him, between him and his army, so that he would either have
been out of the battle for good or have to cut his way back through
the enemy. As probably most cavalry commanders would have done in
the circumstances, he chose to swing away to the side, his feint not
having worked. To swing to his right would have brought him closer
to those hundreds of archers, already sorely harassing his flank. He
swung left-handed, westwards, for Montrose and the Athollmen, and
out of the range of the arrows.
Casting
aside their useless muskets, the Atholl Stewarts and Robertsons drew
swords and dirks, while those with pikes formed up into hasty
hedgehogs, many of them up to their knees in mud and water. Drummond
was no fool - and, after all, he knew this place as well as did
Montrose, with his father's castle not a dozen miles away. He saw
those foreshortened legs, and knew that his horses would
inevitably get much more seriously bogged down than men on foot, and
that this mire was a trap For him. He yelled and gestured for what
remained of his squadron to swing still farther round, and keep on
swinging, so as to ride back to the main army.
But
it is not so easy to control a cavalry charge gone wrong, with a
third of its men down, riderless horses careering everywhere,
men shouting and screaming. His Fife yeomanry were far from
highly trained, and yelling Highland-men darting out, bent low to
avoid swinging cavalry swords from above, but dirks out to rip open
horses' bellies, are apt to distract even the most stolid. The
entire turning manoeuvre became little short of a shambles, which
quickly developed into complete and disorganised flight.
Out
of perhaps
350
horsemen,
only some
120
were
down. But the remainder, in fact, now offered Montrose a sudden and
unexpected opportunity. They were fleeing back singly and in groups,
anyhow, across the levels of Tippermuir, widespread, scattered.
Taking an enormous risk, the Graham shouted to his trumpeter to
sound the General Advance; and, in a fever of urgency, himself raced
forward, broadsword on high, to lead his Athollmen out of their bog
after the fleeing horse. Those
200
-odd
cavalrymen were wholly masking their own cannon.
Alastair
saw the situation and its possibilities, and swiftly flung his own
three regiments forward at the run. It all meant abandoning their
good positions, but he obeyed his commander's summons. Kilpont,
farther away and less well placed to co-operate, lagged somewhat.
Yelling
their clan slogans, the
2000
Highlanders
and Irishmen charged, steel brandished, behind the fleeing
cavalry, with half a mile to cover. And seeing them coming, a savage
tide, and their own cannon unable to fire without shooting down
their own folk, the prudent artillerymen did the sensible thing, and
fled likewise.
Down
- or rather up - on Elcho's waiting centre, then, pounded and flooded
a host of men and horses, in flight and charge, in panic and pursuit,
in chaos and yelling confusion. But the panic came first - and panic
is perhaps the most infectious disease known to man. The thought that
nine loaded cannon were now lost to diem and could well be turned
point-blank upon themselves, no doubt contributed. Despite the
screaming, furious ministers urging death to the Philistines, and too
full of the wrath of God to be frightened, the foot from Angus,
Dundee and Fife wavered, appalled, gave ground involuntarily in
anticipation, and then turned and bolted in a vast human flood.
It
was not all fright and shame, of course. Elcho sought to rally those
around him, and succeeded in forming at least an island in the rout.
Sir James Scott, the mercenary veteran on the right wing, did not
flee, but wheeled the second squadron of cavalry round to come up
behind the advancing royalists - since he could not assail front
or flanks without riding down his own folk; but now Kilpont was
coming up fast on that flank, with his bowmen, and they paused to
wing hundreds of vicious arrows at the circling horsemen at short
range, to devastating effect. It was enough. Seeing all else
disintegrating, all so suddenly lost, and no doubt worried also about
those captured cannon, the cavalry, after a single ragged charge,
rode off in the general direction of Perth.
Elcho
and his lieutenants, recognising reality all too clearly, retired
while still they could, and hurriedly.
Montrose
himself was quite dumbfounded at the speed and scale of his
unexpected success. But despite his continuing anger over the
shameful 'Jesus, and no quarter' sacrilege, he by no means lost his
head in triumphant glee. He perceived very well that this was not a
true victory, but something of an accident, a fortunate chance for
him and a mere superficial defeat for his enemies. Excellent for
morale and prestige though it would be, he had not really vanquished
the Covenanting army, only dispersed it in panic. At the end of
the day it would recover itself, and be still twice as large and many
times as powerful as his own â and that much wiser. In
his
circumstances,
he needed much more than that.
Pandng
then, at a lull in the flailing, stumbling swordery, he gasped to
Black Pate who never left his side, 'On!
On!
Smite!
Tell Alastair. Pursue. To the . . . very gates
...
of Perth! No let-up. Tell all - on!'
'Aye.
God, aye! Trumpeter? Sound Advance again
...
?'
The
other nodded, and plunged on.
And
so took place, along the Lamberkine ridge, over it on to the
Aberdalgie side, and on across the east-facing slopes of the Burgh
Muir
and
the braes of Friarton and Craigie, what was nothing less than a
running and interminable slaughter. And deliberately, torturing
himself, the man who had ordained it, and who hated bloodshed,
steeled his heart to it all, and pressed on and on towards the
outskirts of Perth. This army, this impious army that chose to
pervert the very name of the Saviour in its arrogant savagery, must
be destroyed. Destroyed, not just scattered. The cavalry could
get clear, and did; but the foot, the staggering, stumbling, frantic
foot was their prey. Some stood and fought, of course, some few
grouped together and cut their way to safety, some managed to outrun
their pursuers; but the great majority not only just ran, but threw
away arms and armour to run the faster - and were in consequence cut
down by the hundred. Included in the shambles were not a few
citizens of Perth who had elected to spend their Sabbath watching the
sport of the Host of the Lord destroying the Midianites hip and
thigh. When Montrose discovered this and perceived what they were, he
sought to command that all such should be spared. Also any of the
ministers fleeing. But to control Irish and Highland fighting-men in
the heat of victory, and over a wide area, was wellnigh impossible.
Many non-combatants fell with the rest, undoubtedly.
It
was a long, bloody and vastly exhausting business for all concerned -
save the cavalry - despite the brevity of the actual battle, a
four-mile carnage over a great expanse of moorland, rough pasture,
and latterly quite steep scrub-covered braesides down around
Pitheavlis and Craigie. Weary, hoarse, mud- and blood-spattered, but
unhurt, Montrose at length found himself at the very southern
walls of the city - indeed exactly at the place which he had
originally hoped to reach by surprise. Under-officered as his host
was, he sought at last to hold on, to draw up and take a firm grip of
his fevered, excited horde, his trumpeter blowing and blowing, big
Alastair's bull-like voice bellowing, hunting-horns winding. Long
before there was any real semblance of order, and with running fights
still going on over a wide area, a deputation of magistrates and
leading citizens of Perth came hurrying out under a positive forest
of white flags, evidently believing that the trumpeting represented a
summons to surrender, shouting aloud for mercy, forbearance,
peace, declaring complete submission. Their Provost was amissing,
none knew where; but the city was the Lord Marquis's, and all
therein. If he would but spare it, and them
...
A
little dazed by the suddenness of it all, as well as by sheer
physical fatigue, Montrose drew strongly upon his reserves of wits,
discernment, even courtesy, and switched from playing the
guerilla leader to playing the King's representative and responsible
governor. He accepted the city's surrender, the third greatest in the
land, declared that he had no quarrel with its leaders, promised
order and good treatment for all, so long as his needs were supplied,
his orders obeyed and his men well treated and catered for; but
demanded that all arms and ammunition, and all horses, should be
brought and handed over to his officers before nightfall. All
fugitives who had taken part in the late treasonable fighting must
render themselves to him as prisoners; and if they did so without
delay and further resistance, there would be mercy and no more
slaughter. Let the magistrates and bailies take fullest charge of
their city; he would require a good accounting. But he hoped
that there would be no need to make examples. God save the King!