Robert Tannahill

On the 17th of May, 1810, Robert Tannahill, known as the ‘Paisley Poet’, who was also a songwriter and playright, drowned himself in a Paisley canal.

In his day, Robert Tannahill held a place second only to Robert Burns in the pantheon of Scottish writers. That should be the precursor to a wonderful story of achievement. Instead, the tale of Robert Tannahill is a depressing story. Like many others of his generation, Tannahill drew inspiration in terms of style and substance from his near-contemporary, Robert Burns. Burns was the ‘ploughman poet’, drawing on his rural experiences, whereas Tannahill was the ‘weaver poet’, whose life and times are intrinsically linked to the Industrial Revolution. Nevertheless, his nostalgic view of the Scottish landscape is far more idyllic than anything Burns wrote. Surely that was Tannahill’s antidote to the harsh and noisy urban scenes of 19th Century Paisley. Sadly for Robert Tannahill, the antidote, was to be ineffective.

Since his death, widespread knowledge of Tannahill’s work has much diminished. However, these days, his name is kept alive and honoured in the name of the band of musicians known as ‘The Tannahill Weavers’. Tannahill’s reputation at the height of his popularity was as ‘The Paisley Poet’, yet it is mostly his songs that have survived into the modern day. You may recognise the tunes and lyrics when you hear them, but you’re less likely to associate them with Robert Tannahill. Just think of these two for a start: ‘Are ye sleeping Maggie’ and ‘Gloomy winter’s noo awa’’ of which the following is the first verse:

“Gloomy Winter’s noo awa’; soft the westlin breezes blaw.
Among the birks o’ Stanley Shaw the mavis sings fu’ cheerie O.
Sweet the crawflowers early bell decks Gleniffer’s dewy dell.
Blooming like your bonny sel’, my ain my airtless dearie O.”

Some of Tannahill’s best work was inspired by his walks on the Gleniffer Braes. Amongst the most famous of these works are ‘Thou Bonnie Wood o’ Craigie-lea’ and, obviously, the ‘The Braes o’ Gleniffer’. As a songwriter and poet, Tannahill explored themes of love and friendship, but many of his poems are of battles or heroic figures. The folly of the Napoleonic Wars affected him deeply as is seen in his writing.

Robert Tannahill was born in Castle Street, Paisley on the 3rd of June, 1774, but soon after his birth the family moved to a thatched cottage, which his father had built, in nearby Queen Street. This cottage became both family home and weaving shop and today is a meeting place for the Paisley Tannahill Club. Robert received a basic education, but he read widely and showed an early interest in poetry. When he was twelve years old, he left school and became an apprentice weaver to his father. In between times, he was able to continue his self education and also learned to play the flute.

Robert Tannahill started writing verses whilst still at school and these were generally about some odd character about the place, or any unusual event. After school-hours, he and his mates used to offer each other riddles or, as we say in Scotland, “speer guesses”. Here’s one attributed to young Tannahill, in rhyme as was his wont:

“My colour’s brown, my shape’s uncouth,
On ilka side I hae a mouth;
And, strange to tell, I will devour
My bulk of meat in half an hour.”

The answer to this riddle turns out to be “the big, brown, unshapely nose of a well-known character, who took large quantities of snuff.”

After his father’s untimely death, Tannahill started to publish his poems and, in some cases, lyrics to existing folk tunes. The first of his poems that appeared in print was in praise of Ferguslee wood. That was one of his favourite haunts, and often rang to the notes of his flute in the summer evenings as he wandered lonely as a cloud. The poem was sent to a Glasgow periodical and immediately published. The request for further submissions delighted Tannahill and that was his first sign of success after previous efforts had been rejected. His work also appeared in a number of journals, including the ‘Scots Magazine’.

The first edition of his ‘Poems and Songs’ appeared in 1807 and all nine hundred copies of that 175-page volume were sold by subscription within a few weeks, making a profit of twenty pounds. By that time, he had become well known and several of his songs quite fashionable. It is recorded in some biographies that once, whilst on one of his walks, he came upon a girl, in an adjoining field, who was singing one of his songs and that he was more pleased at this evidence of his popularity than at any tribute, which had ever been paid to him. You’d think, then, that he’d nothing to worry about, but melancholy was lurking around the corner.

It seems Tannahill was a bit of a perfectionist as he felt his first, published foray needed correcting. Tannahill even went to the length of re-writing all his pieces and intended to publish a second edition. Unfortunately, however, during that time, poor Robert suffered from depression and it seems he showed all the classic signs of that illness. It’s clear that he was on the edge of a mental and physical breakdown. Things came to a head when the reworked, second edition of his Poems was presented to publishers in Edinburgh and Greenock, and Tannahill was turned down by both. If only they had realised.

Those rejections were the final straw for Tannahill and he set about destroying everything that he’d written. All his songs, many of which had never been printed, and all those that had been corrected and amended, he threw into the fire. Robert Tannahill’s last desperate act was suicide. Robert Tannahill was found dead in a culvert at the Candren Burn, in Paisley, in the early hours of the morning of the 17th of May, 1810. Tannahill was buried in an unmarked grave in what is now Castlehead Kirkyard, but in 1866, after public outcry, a granite monument was erected beside his grave.

Professor Hector Munro Macdonald

Professor Hector Munro Macdonald, one of Europe's foremost mathematicians, died on the 16th of May, 1935.

Professor Hector Munro Macdonald brought the world of science half way to an understanding of how Guglielmo Marconi was able to transmit wireless signals across the Atlantic. Marconi knew how to transmit and receive radio waves, but he didn’t know how they managed to navigate the curvature of the earth to get across the ‘pond’. That was the major problem tackled by Macdonald. Coincident with Macdonald publishing his Adams Prize winning essay on electric waves, Marconi was successfully transmitting the first wireless signals across the Atlantic. However, unless Marconi had been feigning his successful reception of those signals, science had been posed a major ‘problemo’. According to the then current theory, that should’ve been impossible. An answer was proposed by Scotland’s own Professor Hector Munro Macdonald.

Light and wireless waves are both electric waves of different wavelengths, but both have a wavelength, which is very small compared with the radius of the Earth. Light does not bend round the Earth, yet wireless waves do as is proved by transmitting them across the Atlantic. The answer that Macdonald came up with was that the means was due to refraction. That is partially true, but not completely so as experimental evidence later showed, since wireless waves bent round the Earth more than could be explained by refraction alone. The answer, as we now understand, is due to reflection of waves of particular wavelengths by the upper atmosphere. Nevertheless, Macdonald’s early theory was most certainly an important step towards such an understanding.

Macdonald’s great publication, which established his reputation in the world of science, and which led to his being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, was his volume on ‘Electric Waves’. Macdonald’s main body of scientific work was on electric waves and he solved several difficult problems regarding diffraction of these waves by summing series of ‘Bessel functions’. Incidentally, Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel was the director of Frederick William III of Prussia’s Königsberg Observatory and its professor of astronomy. He was born in Minden, Westphalia, in 1784. Bessel worked out a method of mathematical analysis, involving what are now known as ‘Bessel functions’, which are a special class of coefficients that have become an indispensable tool in applied mathematics, physics and engineering.

Hector Munro Macdonald was born on the 19th of January, 1865, in Edinburgh. Soon after he started school in Edinburgh, the family moved to a farm near Fearn, in Easter Ross; a long way from Edinburgh. Hector attended the Hill of Fearn Public School, before attending the Royal Academy in Tain. He then completed his school education at the Old Aberdeen Grammar School, before entering Aberdeen University, in 1882.
After studying mathematics at Aberdeen University, Macdonald graduated with First Class Honours in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, in 1886, winning the Simpson Mathematical and Arnott Experimental Physics Prizes, and a Fullerton Scholarship.

As did many Scottish mathematicians of that era, Hector Munro Macdonald went to Cambridge to take the Mathematical Tripos after completing his first degree in Scotland. Entering Clare College as a foundation scholar, he graduated with a First Class degree. Macdonald was awarded a fellowship at Clare in the following year and, in 1891, was awarded the second Smith’s Prize. Macdonald began his research career at Cambridge working on topics in pure mathematics. That work was on the relations between convergent series and asymptotic expansions, the zeros and the addition theorem of the ‘Bessel functions’, various ‘Bessel integrals’, spherical harmonics and ‘Fourier series’.

Macdonald’s research changed direction, however, when in 1899, Cambridge University announced that the topic for the 1901 Adams Prize would be “the improvement of existing knowledge in respect of ... the modes and periods of free electric vibrations in systems of charged bodies, and the radiation from them ... [and] the theory of wireless telegraphy.” Macdonald’s essay won the Prize and later working up from the foundation of his paper, he published the book, ‘Electric Waves’, in 1902. Macdonald also published a volume on ‘Electromagnetism’, in 1934.

Whilst at Clare, Macdonald became acting senior bursar. His experience in that role, coupled with that from his early life on a farm, meant that he was, quite naturally, a good candidate to take up the oversight of the University lands and buildings. So, he did just that. Macdonald’s conception of a ‘cité universitaire’ for the neighbourhood of King’s College has left a permanent, positive impression on that region. Macdonald was elected to the Royal Society in 1901, but left Cambridge to return to Scotland in 1904, after he was appointed Professor of Mathematics at Aberdeen University. In 1907, Macdonald was appointed to the Court of Aberdeen University and he remained on that administrative body for the rest of his life. Macdonald was awarded the Royal Society’s Royal Medal in 1916 and, during 1916-18, served as President of the London Mathematical Society.

It was said of Macdonald that “he spoke little, and when he spoke he was always brief, but what he said was usually decisive and always undeviatingly to the point.” He was a man of few wasted words. Interestingly, Macdonald also had the capacity to make himself rapidly an authority on any subject to which he gave his attention. Macdonald’s great passion was mountaineering and he climbed most of the highest peaks of the Bernese and Valaisian Alps in between theorizing on electric waves. Although a true Highlander, Macdonald was apparently never a fluent Gaelic speaker, nevertheless, his grandmother taught him to read the Gaelic Bible and he was a regular at the annual Gaelic Service in King’s College Chapel, and he was often seen at students’ Gaelic society meetings. Not surprising, since those folks knew how to enjoy a wee ‘Cailidh’.

Professor Hector Munro Macdonald died in a nursing home in Aberdeen, to which he was removed to undergo an operation only the week before, on the 16th of May, 1935. His death was unexpected, judging by the fact that in the week of his demise he was reappointed as the University’s representative Governor on the Highlands and Islands Education Trust for another five years. Macdonald was buried in the old Churchyard of St. Machar’s Cathedral.

Alexander II

On the 15th of May, 1239, Alexander II married his second wife, Marie de Coucy.

After the accession of Henry III of England, a rapprochement between England and Scotland followed. Diplomacy and reconciliation between the two countries was further strengthened by the marriage of Alexander II to Joan of England, sister to Henry III, on the 21st of June, 1221, at York Minster. Alexander was twenty-three, Joan just eleven. They had no children prior to Joan’s death, in Essex, on the 4th of March, 1238, and in the following year, Alexander remarried. His second wife was Marie de Coucy, daughter of Enguerrand III, Baron de Coucy in Picardy. Marie became Queen consort of the Kingdom of Scotland upon her marriage, which took place on the 15th of May, 1239, at Roxburgh. The royal couple produced one son, the future Alexander III, born in 1241.

Alexander’s second marriage brought a new alliance, between the Scots and the Coucy lordship, and for the rest of the 13th Century, they exchanged soldiers and money. Incidentally, two years after Alexander died, in 1249, Mary returned to Picardy, where sometime before 1257, she became the second wife of Jean de Brienne, Grand Butler of France. Marie de Coucy, who made a habit of becoming a second wife, died in 1285.

Alexander II was the King of ‘three treaties’ – the Treaty of Kingston, the Treaty of York and the Treaty of Newcastle – all made with the English King, Henry III, the son of King John; he of the Magna Carta. Alexander himself was the only son of William the Lion, King of Scots, and Ermengarde of Beaumont, and he was born in Haddington, East Lothian, on the 24th of August, 1198. On the 4th of March, 1212, aged just thirteen, he was knighted by King John of England at Clerkenwell Priory. Alexander then became King of Scots at the age of sixteen, on the 4th of December, 1214. He was proclaimed King on the 6th of December, 1214, at Scone Abbey, in the traditional manner.

Despite his youth at the time of his accession to the throne, Alexander II made a strong early impression. In 1215, he quelled a rebellion by the persistently revolting mac Williams and mac Heths in Moray and Angus. On Alexander’s orders, the mac Williams were totally wiped out in a brutal reprisal, which was gruesome enough, even by the standards of the time. The last surviving member of the mac William family didn’t survive for long. A wee bairn, the poor lassie had her brains bashed out against the Mercat Cross in Forfar, just in case she grew up and gave birth to rebellious offspring. Alexander thereafter courted powerful allies in the north of the country and attempted to bring these territories, which had been in the hands of Norse and Gaelic rulers for centuries, under his influence. His other notable achievements included the subjection of the hitherto semi-independent district of Argyll, in 1216, and the crushing of a revolt in Galloway, in 1235.

Alexander made an equally vigorous start to his reign in his dealings with England and has the honour of being the only Scottish King to take his invasion force all the way to the south coast of England. In 1215, whilst still a teenager, Alexander threw the weight of Scotland behind the rebellion of the English barons against John I. Hoping to secure the territories of Northumbria as his prize, Alexander and his army invaded England. That enraged King John who, referring to Alexander’s red hair, sought to smoke out “the little fox cub from his den” by burning Berwick, in 1216. Later that summer, a French invasion force under Prince Louis of France, a claimant to the English throne, landed in Kent. Alexander’s invading Army marched south, where he met Louis at Canterbury, was granted the land of ‘Loonois’ (probably Northumberland) and with that concession from the French Prince, went back to Scotland, pausing only to besiege Barnard Castle again.

The death of John I in October, 1216, saw the English Barons change their allegiances, preferring John’s Plantagenet son to any French popinjay. The French were defeated at the Battle of Lincoln in 1217 and the Papal Legate, Gualo, excommunicated Alexander for his support of the French. Alexander’s plans for expansion into England were abandoned and he was left with nothing more than a renewed grant of his Earldom of Huntingdon. A peace then ensued between Henry III, Prince Louis and Alexander, which was formally settled on the 12th of September, 1217, by the Treaty of Kingston. Diplomacy between the English and Scots was further advanced by Alexander’s marriage to Henry’s sister. That treaty was to last for twenty years until a time, shortly after Alexander crushed the aforementioned revolt in Galloway, when the bold Henry III issued the Scots King with a claim for homage, based on a renewal of the Treaty of Falaise. With an oath that has not been recorded by history, Alexander promptly issued a counter claim to the northern English counties of Northumbria and Cumbria.

The ensuing dispute, which didn’t lead to any real hostilities, was settled by the Treaty of York on the 25th of September, 1237. That landmark treaty defined the boundary of the two kingdoms as running between the Solway Firth in the west and the mouth of the River Tweed in the east. With the exception of an area around Berwick upon Tweed, which was to remain the subject of dispute for another two centuries until it was seized by England, in 1482, the treaty fixed for the first time the border we see today. Under the Treaty of York, Alexander II made a fundamental compromise in which he rescinded Scottish claims to the English counties of Northumbria and Cumbria – claims dating back several generations – in return for £200’s worth of land in those counties.

Later, in 1244, the threat of invasion by Henry, on the back of a dispute involving the Comyns, interrupted the friendly relations between the two countries. However, the disinclination of the English Barons for war compelled Henry to make peace. The reconciliation was concluded that same year by the Treaty of Newcastle in which a marriage alliance between Alexander’s son and Henry’s daughter was arranged. In the late 1240s, Alexander II turned his attention to regaining control of the Hebrides. His attempts to break the allegiance of Ewen, the son of Duncan, Lord of Argyll, to the Norwegian King, Haakon, brought the issue of who governed the marginal areas of the Scottish kingdom to a head. Having long since been controlled by Norse rulers, Alexander had made numerous attempts to purchase the islands. However, in 1249, when efforts at negotiation and purchase had failed, he mounted a military campaign and sailed forth in a fleet to take the isles by force.

On the way to deal with Ewen, Alexander suffered from a fever and died in the bay of the Isle of Kerrera, on the 6th of July, 1249. Alexander’s legacy would be that, for the first time, Scotland as a territorial kingdom had been officially defined and recognised. He was buried at Melrose Abbey and his ambitions for expanding his realm in the north and west passed on to his son, Alexander III.

The Appin Murder

Colin Campbell of Glenure was killed, the victim of the Appin Murder, near Ballachulish, on the 14th of May, 1752.

The murder of Colin Campbell, known to this day as the Appin Murder, is an unsolved murder mystery. It occurred on the 14th of May, 1752, near Ballachulish, in the district of Appin, to the north of Oban, in the tumultuous aftermath of the ‘Forty-five’ Rebellion. There have no doubt been several murders in Appin, over the years, yet there is only one Appin Murder, infamous, not so much for the murder itself, but for its sinister aftermath.

The incident has been given greater notoriety by Robert Louis Stevenson having incorporated a fictionalised account in his novel ‘Kidnapped’. The enigmatic figure of Alan Breck Stewart, as portrayed in the novel, is based on a real person who was a prime suspect, but his flight through the heather with David Balfour, is pure invention.

Colin Roy Campbell of Glenure, at the age of forty-four, was an ambitious landowner and Government Factor. Campbell, christened ‘The Red Fox’ by Stevenson, was just going about his usual business of collecting rents, however, it has been claimed, that his mission was also to indulge in a bit of ethnic cleansing i.e., to evict Jacobite sympathisers from amongst the Stewarts on the forfeited Ardsheal estate. That claim doesn’t seem to have been proved, but post-Culloden, anti-Campbell sentiment was rife in the west Highlands. The Campbells were loyal to the Hanoverian monarchy and deeply unpopular.

Notwithstanding the distasteful nature of Campbell’s work, the more fair-minded regarded him as a decent man who made the best of a difficult job. At Ardsheal, the second major personality in this story, ‘James of the Glens’, often helped the Factor collect Stewart rents. The two men habitually worked together and for a time enjoyed friendly relations despite their clan and political differences.

Campbell, his nephew Mungo, servant Ewan Mackenzie, and sheriff’s officer Donald Kennedy, had just crossed the narrows of Loch Leven, from Callart, by the ferry on route to Kentallan. This small party was then passing the road below Lettermore Wood, which clutched the shoreline of Loch Linnhe, when a single shot rang out. As Stevenson put it; ‘There came a shot from a firelock from higher up the hill; and with the very sound of it Glenure fell upon the road. “Oh, I am dead!” he cried, several times over…’.

The one shot had taken Campbell in the back with two bullets no more than two and a half inches apart, both of which exited his abdomen. Two bullets are explained by the practice of loading an extra bullet, half the size of the other, and known as a ‘chaser’. The unknown assassin, who must have been lying quite close, judging by the proximity of the bullets in Campbell’s back, disappeared into the rugged countryside and, unlike in Kidnapped, there were no soldiers to give chase.

There followed a witch hunt throughout the district, during which the Campbells rounded up the usual suspects. One of those was James Stewart's half-brother, Alan Breck Stewart, who was described as a young hothead, who had stirred up anti-Campbell hatred. Alan Breck could not be found, so within a couple of days, they arrested James of the Glens and dragged him off to the Campbell stronghold of Inverarray.

The trial, before the Campbell Duke of Argyll and a 15-man jury, comprising eleven Campbells, was a travesty. Stewart had an alibi, claiming that he had been several miles away at the time. No evidence was presented to show that he had been involved in a conspiracy and Mungo Campbell, could state only that he had seen a man with “a short dark coat” and carrying a gun, some distance away. His first impression, which he later retracted, was that this unidentified figure could not have fired the shot. Despite this, Stewart was convicted as being ‘art and part’ (an accessory) and condemned.

On the 8th of November, 1752, the hapless scapegoat, James Stewart, was hanged, on a small knoll called Cnap a’ Chaolaise on the south end of the Ballachulish Ferry. His body was left on the gibbet, with chains and wires to hold it together, to remind Appin folk of the ‘majesty’ of the Law. Nobody dared remove the corpse, but the story goes that the macabre remains were eventually cut down by the local halfwit, ‘Daft Macphee’.

All told, it was a sinister aftermath to one of the most shameful episodes in Scottish history. The late High Court judge, Lord ‘Jock’ Cameron deemed the trial, “The blackest mark on Scottish legal history”. This sorry affair claimed the lives of two men – one murdered by a sniper’s musket; the other ‘judicially murdered’ after a rigged trial, which paid heed only to the needs of vengeance and political expediency.

It is said that on the day of the hanging, the real murderer had to be held down, at a house in Ballachulish, to prevent him giving himself up. Stewart unquestionably went to the gallows an innocent man. His own clan knew that from the beginning, but refused to turn in the guilty man. Instead, in one of the best kept secrets in history, the identity of the third major personality in this tale seems to have been passed on by word of mouth through the generations, before being ‘revealed’ only recently.

In 2001, nearly 250 years after the incident, and reported by various sources, including the BBC, an eighty-nine-year-old descendant of the Stewarts of Appin, Anda Penman, claimed the murder was planned by four young Stewart lairds, with the gun being fired by the best shot, Donald Stewart of Ballachulish. Penman died soon afterwards and her incredible story has never been substantiated.

The same accusation is indicated in The Dewar Manuscripts, a collection of stories gathered by John Dewar, who was a meticulous, nineteenth century recorder of tales. However, the Reverend Somerled Macmillan, the local Free Church Minister, in the 1940s, stated, as published in the old Weekly Scotsman, in the 1960s, that the killer was Donald’s brother, John. Also interesting is that, after Stewart’s body was cut down, his remains were seemingly gathered and buried – by none other than Donald Stewart.

The Battle of Langside

The Battle of Langside took place on the 13th of May, 1568.

The Battle of Langside, was a sort of internecine quarrel, involving, as it did, a mother who was fighting her half-brother who was, in turn, ostensibly defending the rights of her infant son. It’s probably more accurate to suggest that Mary’s primary antagonist, the Regent Moray, was more concerned with maintaining his power and influence in the Kingdom, than with any altruistic feelings towards the young King James. At the Battle of Langside, Mary I, Queen of Scots, was finally defeated in her attempt to regain the throne from those controlling her infant son, James VI.

In 1567, Mary’s short personal rule ended in recrimination, intrigue and disaster when she was forced to abdicate in favour of James VI, her infant son. The Catholic Mary was sent into captivity in Loch Leven Castle, while her Protestant half-brother, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, was appointed Regent on behalf of his nephew. In early May, 1568, Mary escaped and headed west to the country of the Hamiltons, who figured high amongst her remaining supporters, determined to restore her rights as Queen. News of Mary’s escape was welcomed, even among sections of the Protestant nobility. With an escort of fifty horse, led by Lord Claude Hamilton, she arrived in Lanarkshire, soon to be joined by a wide cross-section of the nobility, including the Earls of Argyll, Cassillis, Rothes and Eglinton, the Lords Sommerville, Yester, Livingston, Herries, Fleming, and Ross, who all assembled at the town of Hamilton with their followers and vassals.

Within a few short days, Mary had managed to gather a respectable force of some six thousand men willing to fight for her. It was openly declared by her supporters that Mary’s abdication, and her consent to wee Jamesie’s coronation, had been extorted under threat of death. An act of council was then passed, declaring the whole process by which Moray had been appointed as Regent to be treasonable. A bond was drawn up by those present, for Mary’s restoration, and this was signed by eight Earls, and an assortment of Bishops, Lords, Abbots and Barons.

It was Mary’s intention to avoid battle if possible, retiring instead to Dumbarton Castle, still held for her by Lord Fleming, where she would be in a virtually impregnable position and well placed to receive reinforcements from the north. Her intention was to recover a hold on the country, by degrees. The Regent, Moray, recognising the security that Dumbarton Castle would provide to Mary, moved his smaller, better trained army to intercept.

The preliminaries to the Battle of Langside began when Kirkcaldy’s Hackebutters, each mounted behind a horseman, forded the intervening river and deployed in among the cottages, hedges and gardens of the village. These bordered a narrow lane, through which Mary’s army must defile. Meanwhile, the vanguard, under the command of the Earl of Morton, crossed a nearby bridge to deploy both right and left. The left flank extended as far as the farm of Pathhead, the highest point of which is now known as Queen’s Park. That manoeuvre had only just been accomplished, when the Queen’s vanguard, commanded by Lord Hamilton, began its advance through the village.

The engagement began with Hamilton attempting to force a passage through Langside. He was met by close fire from the Hackbutters and many in the front ranks were killed, throwing the remainder back on those following and adding to the general confusion. Hamilton pushed on regardless, finally reaching the top of a hill, only to find the main enemy force drawn up awaiting. Morton’s border Pikemen advanced to intercept Hamilton’s vanguard and the two sides met in ‘push of pike’.

The battle was now at its height and the outcome still doubtful, until Grange saw that the Regent’s right wing was beginning to lose ground. He immediately brought up reinforcements and counter attacked with such force that it broke Hamilton’s resistance. Moray, who had until that moment remained in a defensive formation, repulsing Hamilton’s cavalry, ordered a charge. The Queen’s men crumbled and fled in disarray.
Moray had proved himself the superior tactician and the Battle of Langside, which lasted for a mere forty-five minutes, one of the shortest battles in history, was over. Some three hundred men were killed, a figure that would almost certainly have been higher, but for Moray’s decision to avoid further bloodshed by ordering a halt to the pursuit. Many prisoners of note were taken.

During the battle, the Queen was positioned some distance to the rear, close to Cathcart Castle, on a mound thereafter named Court Knowe. Seeing that the battle was going against her supporters, Mary and her escort rode off, eventually arriving at Dundrennan Abbey, in Galloway, some sixty miles to the south. From here she left for England, never to return.

Langside is one of the oldest and most eventful areas on the south side of Glasgow. There is evidence of prehistoric settlement and a community of radical weavers, before it became a suburb of Glasgow, in 1891. The White Cart Water to the south, and the two long hills with summits in Queen’s Park and Mansion House Road, define its hilly and surprisingly wooded character. The name Langside refers to this feature. The village originated at the crossroads between the north-south route from the crossing of White Cart Water and the east-west path from Crossmyloof, down Lang Loan (Battlefield Road), and was part of the ancient parish of Cathcart.

There is now an 18m (58ft) tall monument, the Langside Battlefield Memorial, which was designed by Alexander Skirving, during 1887-8, to mark the site of Glasgow’s most important, albeit short duration, military encounter.

The Black Watch

On the 12th of May, 1725, what was to become The Black Watch was commissioned under General Wade as an independent militia to police the Highlands.

The Black Watch was an elite military Regiment whose history stretches back almost three centuries. Mention ‘The Black Watch’ almost anywhere around the world and you will almost certainly elicit fond recognition of one of Scotland’s most famous fighting units. Mere mention of the name is enough to conjure up visions of bravery and valour, and swirling kilts (‘ladies from hell’ as the Germans called them in World War I France).

The Black Watch was raised in a unique way, in the wake of the 1715 Jacobite rebellion. Originally, six companies of trustworthy Highlanders were raised from loyal clans; three from Clan Campbell, one of Grants, one of Frasers, and one from the Munros. This was in 1725, when General Wade, as leader of the King’s Army in Scotland, set up the ‘Highland Watch’. The companies of the ‘Watch’ were stationed in small detachments across the Highlands, to prevent fighting between the clans, deter raiding and assist in enforcing the laws against the carrying of weapons. Inadvertently General Wade created what was to become one of the world’s greatest and most enduring military brands.

The title ‘The Black Watch’ (gaelic: ‘Am Freiceadan Dubh’) was derived from the dark green government tartan it was issued and the original role of the militia companies. The uniform changed over time (Scottish troops wore kilts until 1940), with the distinctive Red Hackle being adopted in 1795, but the nickname has been more enduring. The regimental motto was ‘Nemo me impune lacessit’ (No man provokes me with impunity).

In 1739, King George II authorised the raising of four additional companies and these were amalgamated with the six independent companies of the ‘Highland Watch’ to form a single infantry Regiment of the Line. This Regiment was originally numbered the 43rd Highland Regiment, with John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford as its Colonel, but it was renumbered as the 42nd in 1749. The men were to be “natives of that country and none other to be taken.” The first muster of the new Regiment took place near Aberfeldy, in May, 1740, and is commemorated by a monument in the form of a soldier dressed in the uniform of those days.

The original uniform was a twelve yard long plaid of the dark tartan which is now so well known as the Black Watch tartan. This was fastened around the body with a leather belt. The jacket and waistcoat were scarlet with buff facings and white lace, and a blue bonnet was worn. The men were armed with a musket and bayonet, a broadsword and generally also a pistol and a dirk.

Early the regiment’s history a seemingly inauspicious event occurred, when, in 1743, it was ordered to London, ostensibly for an inspection by the King. However, rumours abounded that the Regiment was to be shipped to the unhealthy climate of the West Indies and that the King was not to inspect. Many of the men genuinely believed they had been enlisted only for service in Scotland and decided to return home. Marching by night, over a hundred of them reached Northamptonshire, before they were eventually captured. They were tried by court martial and three of the leaders were condemned to be shot in the Tower.

The remainder of the Regiment proceeded to Flanders, for action against the French. When the ’45 Jacobite Rising broke out, the 43rd returned to the south of Britain in anticipation of a possible French invasion. However, one company of the regiment fought at the Battle of Culloden, under Dugald Campbell of Auchrossan, with no casualties. You might wonder if the Rebellion would have taken place had The Black Watch been left to fulfill its role policing the Highlands, rather than being posted to the Continent two years previously.

During its time in France, the regiment experienced its first full combat at the Battle of Fontenoy, in 1745, where it surprised the French with its ferocity, and greatly impressed ‘Butcher’ Cumberland. The 43rd was allowed “their own way of fighting”, which meant that each time it received the French fire, its Colonel, Sir Robert Munro, ordered his men to “clap to the ground.” For the first time in a European battle, this Scots Regiment introduced a system of infantry tactics. Alternatively firing and taking cover, springing up and closing with the enemy, it drove them back several times. The Regiment was described by a French officer as “Highland Furies who rushed in on us with more violence than ever did the sea driven by tempest.”

As part of the Childers Reforms of 1881, the 42nd Regiment of Foot was amalgamated with the 73rd (Perthshire) Regiment of Foot to form a new regiment. In recognition of its famous nickname, the new regiment was named The Royal Highland Regiment (The Black Watch), being officially redesignated The Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), in 1931. However, as part of the Government’s 2006 reorganisation of the Army, The Black Watch lost its Regimental status and become a Battalion within the new Royal Regiment of Scotland.

“In a Highland Regiment every individual feels that his conduct is the subject of observation and that, independently of his duty, as one member of a systematic whole he has a separate and individual reputation to sustain, which will be reflected on his family and district or glen.”

These words were written by a 19th Century, Black Watch historian. Today, they illuminate nearly three centuries of courage, honour, gallantry and devoted service to King, Queen and country. From its first great battle, at Fontenoy, to Fallujah, in Iraq, in 2005, with Ticonderoga, Waterloo, and two World Wars in between, the Black Watch has been there when the world’s history was being shaped. Along the way, The Black Watch collected an incredible 164 battle honours, 14 VCs and a reputation that places the regiment in a category of its own.

The Battle of Loudon Hill

The Battle of Loudon Hill was won by Robert the Bruce, on the 10th of May, 1307.

Loudoun Hill is a volcanic plug in East Ayrshire, which is located near the head of the Irvine Water, east of Darvel. Apart from the fact that there is a great view from the top of Loudon Hill, over Ayrshire to the firth of Clyde and Arran, there are several things to say about this hill, which has stood witness to a lot of history, from the earliest of times.

The remains of an iron-age homestead are located at the foot of the south-east slope and, nearby, at Allanton Beg, a Roman fort was built. In 1679, a large Conventicle was held in the vicinity of this hill and, in 1905, a viaduct, which crossed the valley from Allanton and carried the Caledonian Railway, was opened. Several historical battles have been fought around Loudoun Hill, including one, in 1296, in which Sir William Wallace soundly defeated an English force. Wallace was declared an outlaw after the Battle of Loudoun Hill, but that didnae stop him achieving his great victory at Stirling Bridge the following year. However, this episode concerns another battle; one in which King Robert the Bruce inflicted even greater punishment on the English than Wallace did over a decade earlier. Don’t mention Loudon.

William Wallace died fighting to restore King John Balliol to the throne and free Scotland from the yoke of English domination. Whilst Wallace had been somewhat sidelined, and suffered betrayal and gruesome execution, there had been a period of jostling for power and infighting overlapping that of the English domination. The primary tensions were between the well established, national political leaders, the Comyns and their supporters, on the one hand, and the vacillating upstart, Robert the Bruce and his following, on the other. Despite having previously recognised Edward I as his feudal overlord, Scotland’s internecine squabbles had presented ‘the Bruce’ with an opportunity. In reality, it was a case of ‘now or never’ for Robert the Bruce if he was ever going to claim what his grandfather, ‘the Competitor’, had always claimed as the family’s birthright – the Scottish crown.

As hostilities with the Balliol-supporting Comyns escalated, Robert the Bruce killed John ‘The Red’ Comyn, in Greyfriar’s Kirk, Dumfries, on the 10th of February, 1306. Comyn’s death is commonly considered to have been murder, however, nobody knows what went on inside the Kirk and the killing could easily have been self defence. In any event, it was an act that saw Bruce excommunicated; for many, Bruce had gone too far. For Bruce, he had only one place to go. In March, 1306, Robert the Bruce declared himself King. Bruce was crowned twice at Scone, on the 25th and the 26th of March – just to make sure – in “the presence and with the agreement of four bishops, five earls and the people of the land.” As Walter of Guisborough further records, “The wife of the Earl of Buchan, who was the daughter of the Earl of Fife, to whom by hereditary right it belonged to place the crown on the head of the new king, secretly withdrew from her lord, …so that she might exercise that office.”

Of course, those events weren’t too pleasing to Edward I. Once he had “heard and learnt” of the coronation of the new King of Scots, “on the feast of Pentecost” the English King sent the Lord Henry de Percy, the Lord Aylmer de Valence and the Lord Robert Clifford to oppose Bruce and hunt him down. The English moved north in great number and the early exchanges saw Bruce defeated by the forces of Edward I. At the Battle of Methven, on the 19th of June, 1306, Bruce’s troops were routed by Aymer de Valance. Bruce went into hiding. However, Bruce was a worthy adversary of Edward I and he wisnae about to give up just yet.

In 1307, eleven years after the first battle of Loudoun Hill, King Robert the Bruce adopted, almost exactly, the same site and tactics as did Wallace. The Bruce’s encounter with the English at Loudon Hill also had the same result. Robert the Bruce had learned his lessons from his defeat at Methven and, this time, the English would be tackled on his terms. Taking his cue from Wallace and that man’s mastery of the art of guerilla warfare, Bruce used local knowledge to his advantage. Bruce’s scorched earth policies had weakened the marauding English Army and, by the time it reached Loudoun Hill, a defeat for its commander, Aymer de Valance, looked possible, if not to the English, certainly to Robert the Bruce and his men.

Modern interpretation places Bruce’s battlefield further east, on the farm of Allanton, on the plain between the bog to the north and Loch Gait, since drained, beside the Avon Water. Looking at the battle now, it seems likely that Bruce deployed his forces on the advice of the veterans of Wallace’s Army that he commanded. Similar to Wallace’s victory at Stirling, Bruce got his men to dig a series of trenches on either side of the plain. This had the effect of narrowing the passage available to the English Army, forcing it onto the only possible approach – the difficult terrain between the heavy bogland and the loch. Effectively, Bruce was able to corral the English in the narrow gap between the trenches, slowing down its cavalry and restricting its ability to manoeuvre.

Bruce’s tactics prevented the main English force of three thousand men from mounting a frontal attack at full pace, which would have been disastrous for the Scots, who were vastly outnumbered. Bruce’s Army amounted to no more than a paltry five or six hundred men. Despite the obvious hindrance, the English Army remained arrogant and over confident, simply because of its superiority in numbers. Aymer de Valence ordered his men to attack, while Bruce and his schiltroms stood patiently waiting. The English attack floundered against the Scots pike men, who maintained their discipline, steadfast to a man, and they were able to repulse the headstrong English attack. Immediately, sensing victory, the Scots launched a counter attack and the English fell back in disarray. Thus routed and with his Army in chaos, de Valence fled the field, abandoning his men to the mercy of the Scots.

Just over a month later, the elderly Edward Plantagenet, King Edward I of England, known to his friends as ‘Longshanks’ and to his enemies as ‘The Hammer of the Scots’, died on route to Scotland, near Solway. Loudoun Hill was Bruce’s first major victory over the English. It would not be his last.