Post by Waverley on Jun 22, 2008 18:12:23 GMT 1
The Siege of Dunavartie Castle.
Although it had long been the custom to dismantle the scaffold almost immediately after a public execution, on this occasion the bloodstained platform beside the Mercat Cross was kept standing for several weeks to become known in time as 'the altar of Argyll and the ministers' whereon, it was remarked, the Kirk 'delighted not in unbloody sacrifices'.' The Lord had appointed that the men of blood should die, and eight days after Montrose's execution Sir John Spottiswoode, grandson of the dead archbishop, and Major-General Hurry were beheaded by the Maiden, followed on 4 June by Hay of Dalgetty and Colonel Sib bald. The cycle was finally concluded with the death of Captain Alexander Charteris on the very eve of Charles II'S arrival in Scotland. It was the end of Montrose's company. Some had perished in the early wars; many after Philiphaugh; a number lay in Carbisdale; a few languished in exile on the continent. The best of the Irish were buried under Slain-Man's-Lee, and of the remainder the most part had fallen in a smaller cause. The old Royalists had disappeared.
Alastair had died by treachery with a knife in his back. The campaign in Kintyre for which he had deserted Montrose was violent and undistinguished. For a year the highlanders had been elevated into the greater perspective of the national struggle, but they never fully understood it. Now the old forces were again predominant and the western clans returned to their particular kind of war against the hereditary enemy. The old Coli Kietache and his sons were on the loose again, bent on a predatory war in Argyll and the Western Isles, and with a mind to bleed Diarmid and scorch the lands of the MacCailein Mhor. With this intent they cleared Clan Campbell out of Islay and fortified a number of strongpoints on the Kintyre peninsula including Dunavertie. But the MacCailein Mhor would have revenge, and he was not alone. Of the Scottish army that had returned from EnglilOd, a sizeable proportion was still under arms and had been campaigning against the Gordons in the North. When the principal strongholds at Huntly and the Bog of Gight finally capitulated to the Covenanters, Middleton stayed to hunt down the Marquis in Lochaber while David Leslie was free to march soUth for the reckoning with Alastair. At Dunblane he joined up with Argyll and on 21 May 1647 their combined forces reached Inverary. By 24 May they were ready to counter-attack in Kintyre. The brief campaign that followed would reveal only too clearly Alastair's incompetence as a strategist. Access to Kintyre depended upon the control of the narrow passes at the neck of the peninsula where a sma]} determined force could have surprised an army as it straggled through the defile. But Alastair's pickets were caught unawares, and Leslie's troops were able to penetrate into Kintyre without great hindrance. After a day's skirmishing against superior forces, Alastair left 300 of his clan to hold the castle of Dunavertie and withdrew to Islay. There he also posted his old father to garrison Dunneveg, and himself retired to Ireland with the rest of his men. At Dunavertie the three hundred prepared to die. The castle might have been defensible but for the fact that it had no water supply and could not hope to sustain a prolonged siege against a determined attacker. The dreadful story of what happened there was later told by Sir James Turner, at that time Leslie's adjutant, and afterwards a witness at Argyll's trial: We besieged Dunavertie which held out well enough, till we stormed a trench they had at the foot of the hill whereby they commanded two strips of Water. This we did take in the assault. Forty of them were put to the sword. We lost five or six with Argyll's Major. After this, inexorable thirst made them desire a parley. I was ordered to speak with them: neither could the Lord Lieutenant be moved to grant other conditions than that they should yield on discretion or mercy: and it seemed strange to me to hear the Lord Lieutenant's nice distinction that they should yield themselves to the kingdom's mercy and not to his. At length they did so: and after they were come out of the castle they were put to the sword, every mother's son, except one young man Mackonnel whose life I begged, to be sent to France with a hundred country fellows whom we had smoked out of a cave as they do foxes, who were given to Captain Campbell, the Chancellor's brother.' Responsibility for the massacre must rest ultimately with David Leslie, who both ordered and permitted it. Many have since blamed Argyll, but in his evidence given under oath, Turner later insisted that to his knowledge he never openly advised the killing, and maintained that, even had he done so in private, 'counsel is not command', and on this campaign Argyll only held the commission of a colonel of foot. Whether he could have actively prevented it is another matter. It is more likely that Leslie acted under pressure from his chaplain John Nevoy, a Covenanting fanatic, who threatened to curse the General as God had cursed Saul for sparing the Amalekites. As it was, Leslie hesitated for two days before allowing the prisoners to be slaughtered, and in the end, may rather have given way to the demands of his soldiers. Some months before the Macdonalds had filled a barn at Lagganmore with men, women and children before setting it alight, and the Campbells would not be denied their revenge. They would have lynched the Macdonald commander on the spot but that the gibbet was too short and his feet dragged on the ground, so they shot him instead. Leslie, for all his faults, seems to have been genuinely sickened by what occurred, and when next day he and Argyll were contemplating the charnel-house, he is said to have turned to Nevoy and exclaimed 'Now Mr John, have you gotten your fill of blood?" Nevertheless, he had earned for himself the sobriquet of 'Executioner'. After Dunavertie the Covenanters crossed to Islay and laid siege to Dunneveg. The fierce old Coli Kietache of Colonsay was tricked into accepting a safe-conduct to visit his friend the governor of Dunstaffnage Castle, was captured, and promptly hanged from the yard of his own galley. Ranald Og, who had commanded one of the original regiments under Montrose, was also taken at this time and hanged at Inverary. Argyll and Leslie then continued to Jura and Mull where the Maclean delivered up his son as hostage and another fourteen 'very pretty Irishes' who 'had all along been faithful to him', whom again the Covenanters executed. In Mull, news arrived of Charles II's abduction from Holmby House, and Argyll hurried back to Edinburgh. Macdonald pretensions in Kintyre had been totally destroyed. In Ireland Alastair and his dwindling band fought on-but with the losing side. Four hundred of the Irish who had marched under Montrose were butchered after the defeat at Dungan Hill, and the remainder perished after the Battle at Mallow in Munster when Murdoch O'Brien, Lord Inchiquin, broke the Royalist forces under Lord Taaffe. Alastair yet survived, since, as an officer, he was granted quarter. Unsuspecting, he went to the parley at Cnoc-na-n-Dos to negotiate the surrender, and Inchiquin's captains murdered him there.
Although it had long been the custom to dismantle the scaffold almost immediately after a public execution, on this occasion the bloodstained platform beside the Mercat Cross was kept standing for several weeks to become known in time as 'the altar of Argyll and the ministers' whereon, it was remarked, the Kirk 'delighted not in unbloody sacrifices'.' The Lord had appointed that the men of blood should die, and eight days after Montrose's execution Sir John Spottiswoode, grandson of the dead archbishop, and Major-General Hurry were beheaded by the Maiden, followed on 4 June by Hay of Dalgetty and Colonel Sib bald. The cycle was finally concluded with the death of Captain Alexander Charteris on the very eve of Charles II'S arrival in Scotland. It was the end of Montrose's company. Some had perished in the early wars; many after Philiphaugh; a number lay in Carbisdale; a few languished in exile on the continent. The best of the Irish were buried under Slain-Man's-Lee, and of the remainder the most part had fallen in a smaller cause. The old Royalists had disappeared.
Alastair had died by treachery with a knife in his back. The campaign in Kintyre for which he had deserted Montrose was violent and undistinguished. For a year the highlanders had been elevated into the greater perspective of the national struggle, but they never fully understood it. Now the old forces were again predominant and the western clans returned to their particular kind of war against the hereditary enemy. The old Coli Kietache and his sons were on the loose again, bent on a predatory war in Argyll and the Western Isles, and with a mind to bleed Diarmid and scorch the lands of the MacCailein Mhor. With this intent they cleared Clan Campbell out of Islay and fortified a number of strongpoints on the Kintyre peninsula including Dunavertie. But the MacCailein Mhor would have revenge, and he was not alone. Of the Scottish army that had returned from EnglilOd, a sizeable proportion was still under arms and had been campaigning against the Gordons in the North. When the principal strongholds at Huntly and the Bog of Gight finally capitulated to the Covenanters, Middleton stayed to hunt down the Marquis in Lochaber while David Leslie was free to march soUth for the reckoning with Alastair. At Dunblane he joined up with Argyll and on 21 May 1647 their combined forces reached Inverary. By 24 May they were ready to counter-attack in Kintyre. The brief campaign that followed would reveal only too clearly Alastair's incompetence as a strategist. Access to Kintyre depended upon the control of the narrow passes at the neck of the peninsula where a sma]} determined force could have surprised an army as it straggled through the defile. But Alastair's pickets were caught unawares, and Leslie's troops were able to penetrate into Kintyre without great hindrance. After a day's skirmishing against superior forces, Alastair left 300 of his clan to hold the castle of Dunavertie and withdrew to Islay. There he also posted his old father to garrison Dunneveg, and himself retired to Ireland with the rest of his men. At Dunavertie the three hundred prepared to die. The castle might have been defensible but for the fact that it had no water supply and could not hope to sustain a prolonged siege against a determined attacker. The dreadful story of what happened there was later told by Sir James Turner, at that time Leslie's adjutant, and afterwards a witness at Argyll's trial: We besieged Dunavertie which held out well enough, till we stormed a trench they had at the foot of the hill whereby they commanded two strips of Water. This we did take in the assault. Forty of them were put to the sword. We lost five or six with Argyll's Major. After this, inexorable thirst made them desire a parley. I was ordered to speak with them: neither could the Lord Lieutenant be moved to grant other conditions than that they should yield on discretion or mercy: and it seemed strange to me to hear the Lord Lieutenant's nice distinction that they should yield themselves to the kingdom's mercy and not to his. At length they did so: and after they were come out of the castle they were put to the sword, every mother's son, except one young man Mackonnel whose life I begged, to be sent to France with a hundred country fellows whom we had smoked out of a cave as they do foxes, who were given to Captain Campbell, the Chancellor's brother.' Responsibility for the massacre must rest ultimately with David Leslie, who both ordered and permitted it. Many have since blamed Argyll, but in his evidence given under oath, Turner later insisted that to his knowledge he never openly advised the killing, and maintained that, even had he done so in private, 'counsel is not command', and on this campaign Argyll only held the commission of a colonel of foot. Whether he could have actively prevented it is another matter. It is more likely that Leslie acted under pressure from his chaplain John Nevoy, a Covenanting fanatic, who threatened to curse the General as God had cursed Saul for sparing the Amalekites. As it was, Leslie hesitated for two days before allowing the prisoners to be slaughtered, and in the end, may rather have given way to the demands of his soldiers. Some months before the Macdonalds had filled a barn at Lagganmore with men, women and children before setting it alight, and the Campbells would not be denied their revenge. They would have lynched the Macdonald commander on the spot but that the gibbet was too short and his feet dragged on the ground, so they shot him instead. Leslie, for all his faults, seems to have been genuinely sickened by what occurred, and when next day he and Argyll were contemplating the charnel-house, he is said to have turned to Nevoy and exclaimed 'Now Mr John, have you gotten your fill of blood?" Nevertheless, he had earned for himself the sobriquet of 'Executioner'. After Dunavertie the Covenanters crossed to Islay and laid siege to Dunneveg. The fierce old Coli Kietache of Colonsay was tricked into accepting a safe-conduct to visit his friend the governor of Dunstaffnage Castle, was captured, and promptly hanged from the yard of his own galley. Ranald Og, who had commanded one of the original regiments under Montrose, was also taken at this time and hanged at Inverary. Argyll and Leslie then continued to Jura and Mull where the Maclean delivered up his son as hostage and another fourteen 'very pretty Irishes' who 'had all along been faithful to him', whom again the Covenanters executed. In Mull, news arrived of Charles II's abduction from Holmby House, and Argyll hurried back to Edinburgh. Macdonald pretensions in Kintyre had been totally destroyed. In Ireland Alastair and his dwindling band fought on-but with the losing side. Four hundred of the Irish who had marched under Montrose were butchered after the defeat at Dungan Hill, and the remainder perished after the Battle at Mallow in Munster when Murdoch O'Brien, Lord Inchiquin, broke the Royalist forces under Lord Taaffe. Alastair yet survived, since, as an officer, he was granted quarter. Unsuspecting, he went to the parley at Cnoc-na-n-Dos to negotiate the surrender, and Inchiquin's captains murdered him there.