At the battle of Dunkeld on 21 August 1689, the Jacobites under the command of Brigadier-General Alexander Cannon attacked a Scottish government force of Cameronians, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel William Cleland, in and around the town of Dunkeld. The brutal urban fighting would see most of the town destroyed.
The Revolution of 1688 and the first Jacobite Rising
In the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Catholic King James VII of Scotland and II of England was deposed by his Protestant son-in-law, William of Orange and his wife Mary (James’s Protestant daughter). William, the stadtholder of the Netherlands, had landed with a Dutch army at Torbay in the English West Country on 5 November 1688. He had been invited to England by a group of lords fearful of a Catholic absolute monarchy and the spectre of a succession of popish monarchs following the birth of James’s son, James Francis Edward Stuart, on 10 June 1688.
William was also keen to detach England from a possible alliance with France under Louis XIV — whom the Dutch were at war with — and bring English troops, ships and money to bear against the French. With his support melting away rapidly in the face of William’s advance on London, James fled to France on 23 December. The English Parliament declared that in fleeing the country James had abdicated the throne and offered the crown to William and Mary. On 4 April 1689, the Scottish Parliament ruled that James had forfeited the crown. William and Mary were invested as monarchs of England, Scotland and Ireland.
Scotland was a divided country on the issue of the crown. After the persecutions of the Covenanters in southern Scotland by the Stuarts, many Presbyterians were glad to see the back of James. James had also alienated many Episcopalians. However, the House of Stuart had ruled Scotland for over three centuries and despite his failings, there was still support for James and the senior line of the Stuarts. In 1689 most of this support came from the western highlands where ancient loyalties and tradition ran deep, although the Gàidhealtachd had suffered at the hands of the Stuarts in the past.
Supporters of King James became known as Jacobites (from Jacobus, the Latin for James) and in April 1689, shortly after the Scottish Parliament’s ruling, the Jacobites rose in support of King James. With men drawn predominately from the Catholic and Episcopalian western clans, the rising of 1689 was led by John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee.
Known as ‘Bluidy Clavers’ by his Presbyterian enemies following his part in the repression of the Covenanters in southwest Scotland, and ‘Dark John of the Battles’ by his highland allies, Claverhouse was a relation of James Graham, Marquis of Montrose who had led the highlanders to a string of victories for the royalist cause of James’ father Charles I during the civil war of the 1640s. Claverhouse had served under William of Orange while with the Scots-Dutch Brigade during the Franco-Dutch War (1672-78) and is reputed to have saved William’s life at the battle of Seneffe.
As part of the wider European war that was taking place at the time (War of the Grand Alliance 1688-97), the French landed James in Ireland in March 1689 with 4,000 French troops, opening a new front against William. The army was bolstered by large numbers of Irish Catholics but could not seize the northern Protestant stronghold of Londonderry.
On 27 July 1689, Claverhouse’s highland army routed a Scottish government force led by William and Mary’s commander in Scotland Major-General Hugh Mackay at the battle of Killiecrankie. In a major blow to the Jacobite cause, Claverhouse was killed in the fighting. So too were many highlanders, cut down by musket fire before they had reached Mackay’s lines.
After Killiecrankie
Following the death of John Graham of Claverhouse at the battle of Killiecrankie command of the Jacobite forces fell to Brigadier-General Alexander Cannon, a lowland Scot from Galloway who had also served under William of Orange as an officer in the Scots-Dutch Brigade. Cannon, a colonel in the English military establishment at the beginning of the revolution, had accompanied James into exile in France and was with James when he landed in Ireland.
Cannon had been promoted to Brigadier-General and sent to Scotland with 300 men to support Claverhouse’s rising. He was, however, “unfit for the command of such an army. He seems to have possessed none of Dundee’s genius, and his regular military experience rendered him totally unfit to deal with such an irregular and capricious race as were the Highlanders, with whose habits, feelings, and dispositions, he was totally unacquainted”.1
After the Battle of Killiecrankie, Cannon gathered the Jacobite forces and marched south from their base at Blair Castle to Dunkeld, spending two days there where they received reinforcements, including the Macdonalds of Glencoe and Stewarts of Appin. Further clansmen were assembling at Braemar, and the Jacobite forces in Scotland under the command of Cannon soon numbered around 5,000.
Instead of marching on a lightly defended Perth with his full force, Cannon sent a party of 300 men to secure supplies that had been stockpiled there for use by government forces. On 1 August the party was taken by surprise by government cavalry led by Major-General Hugh Mackay, with around 100 killed or captured. Fearing government forces would be too strong in the Perth area, Cannon marched his army north to Braemar to collect the additional reinforcements, all the while pursued by Mackay’s mounted force.
General Canon’s army was now so reduced, that he was obliged to betake himself to the mountains; and so marched round the skirts of the Highlands, while MacKay kept the plains below, every day in sight of each other, exchanging bravadoes to fight, but the one durst as little goes up to the high-ground, as the other descend to the low; so that they were in mutual fear of each other.2
The decision not to move south in a decisive show of force angered many of the clan chiefs including Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, the most prominent of the chiefs, who left the army and returned home, although he allowed his Camerons to remain with the Jacobite army under the command of his son.3
The Cameronians
To guard against any Jacobite move on Perth from Atholl the Privy Council of Scotland ordered the Earl of Angus’s Regiment on 12 August 1689 to march from their billets in Doune and Dunblane to Dunkeld, a small market town ringed with high hills on the north bank of the River Tay.
The Lords of his Majesties Privy Council do hereby ordained Lieutenant-Colonel Clelland to march the Lord Angus regiment under his command from Downe and Dunblane and where they are now quartered to Dunkeld, and upon their arrival at that place appoints the said Lieutenant-Colonel to acquaint Major General Lanier and the commanding otficer of his Majesties forces at Perth and to receive and prosecute such orders and directions as Major General MacKay, the said Major General Lanier or the commanding officer of the forces at Perth shall give or send to him.4
Known as the Cameronians after the fanatical Presbyterian minister and Covenanter Richard Cameron, the regiment was raised in May 1689 by James Douglas, Earl of Angus from the Cameronians on his father’s — the Marquis of Douglas — estates. With an initial strength of around 1,200 men, it was the largest of eight Scottish regiments raised to support the revolution and was commanded in the field by Lieutenant-Colonel William Cleland, the son of one of the Earl’s gamekeepers.
Described as a “brave and well-accomplished gentleman within 28 years of age”, Cleland had helped defeat Claverhouse’s dragoons at the Covenanter victory at Drumclog on 1 June 1679 and served as a captain at the battle of Bothwell Bridge later that month. Major-General Mackay assessed Cleland as “a sensible, resolute man though not much of a souldier”.
Bemused by the order by the Privy Council, Major-General Mackay who knew that Dunkeld was not the ideal place to defend later wrote: “without the consideration of the insufficiency of the place for defence, ordered the Earle of Angus’ regiment to Dunkeld, then miles above Perth, separate from all speedy succour, and exposed to be carried by insult, without the least prospect of advancement to the service by their being posted there”.5
The deployment of the Cameronians to Dunkeld was to be part of a much larger operation that would see an expeditionary force move into Atholl and capture the Jacobite base of Blair Castle.
With rampant desertion and detachments being sent to Argyll and Kintyre the regiment’s strength was reduced to around 800 by the time the Cameronians marched to Dunkeld. Prior to their move to Dunkeld, the regiment was issued with 400 flintlock muskets, 400 pikes, and 40 halberds from the magazine at Stirling Castle. The pikes and halberds were described as excellent weapons with which to take on the highlanders armed with sword and targe at close quarters. Only a limited number of uniforms had been issued to the regiment so many of the Cameronians would have been wearing their civilian clothing and not the standard issue red coat.
Cleland and his men arrived at Dunkeld on the evening of 17 August and “found themselves obliged to ly at their Arms, as being in the midst of their enemies”.6 Cleland sent a request to Colonel George Ramsay who commanded at Perth for supplies and ammunition. The following morning Cleland ordered barricades and entrenchments to be constructed. Dunkeld House, a seat of the Earl of Atholl, was fortified and holes in the walls around the house and cathedral grounds were filled in and scaffolding erected.
The Jacobites move on Dunkeld
Cannon had been informed by some townspeople who had fled before the arrival of Cleland that a single Scottish regiment was at Dunkeld and that they had designs to lay waste to Atholl. A force of fanatical Presbyterians in Episcopal Jacobite country would have raised fears in the area, but Cleland stated he was not there to plunder or destroy but to impress King William’s indemnity and offered a pardon to anyone who submitted to William and Mary.
Seeing an opportunity to destroy an isolated Scottish government force and achieve some success in what had been a lacklustre campaign since he had taken command, Cannon marched his Jacobite army towards Dunkeld. Cannon would also have been aware that the campaigning season would soon be coming to a close and the highlanders would begin to drift off homeward for the coming harvest.
While the defensive work was being carried out in Dunkeld on the 18th, 300 Athollmen appeared on the hills overlooking the town. One of them with a white cloth on top of a halberd approached with a letter for the commanding officer which read: “We, the gentlemen assembled, being informed that ye intend to burn the town, desire to know whether ye come for peace or war, and do certifie you, that if you burn and one house, we will destroy you.”7
Cleland wrote back with his answer: “We are faithful subjects to King William and Queen Mary, and enemies to their enemies; and if you, who send these threats, shall make any hostile appearance, we will burn all that belongs to you, and otherwise chastise you as deserved.”8
On 19 August, the Privy Council ordered Major-General Sir John Lanier to gather the forces under his command and move into Atholl:
The Lords of his Majesties Privy Council having this day received a letter from Major General McKay of the fourteenth instant from Strathboggie, whereby they understand that it may be for his Majesties service and to make a diversion that ye call together the forces lying about Perth, Forfar and Dundee, leaving a suficient detachment at Perth for the security of that place and the country thereabouts, these forces yow march into Atholl, garrison the house of Wemyss and leave as many at that place as it can conveniently contain under the command of the Laird of Wemyss, and thereafter attack and secure the castle of Blair and leave a garrison of such strength therein as you may judge necessary for securing of that place of the country…9
On the same day, Henry Erskine, Lord Cardross arrived at Dunkeld from Perth with a force of cavalry consisting of the Earl of Eglinton’s Troop of Horse, Sir William Bennet’s Troop of Horse, and three troops of Cardross’s own dragoons. He had been ordered to reinforce Cleland by Colonel Ramsay. Cardross and his cavalry reconnoitred the surrounding countryside and captured six Jacobites, while the rest of the highlanders melted away into the woods and hills to the north.
Journal of a Soldier in the Earl of Eglinton’s Troop of Horse described the cavalry’s march to Dunkeld and the action that followed:
My Lord Cardross with two troops of dragoons, our Lieutenant and his troop of horse, and Captan benat and his troop of horse, marched without orders of the Comidant, and was against the waking of the day within two miles of dunkell, where we fixed our sentries and refreshed our horse till day light, and then marched in through the water and town, and drew up in the back of the town in the middle of barley, where Lieutenant-Colonel Cleland came out to us with a great many of his officers, showing us of the highland men upon a mount that was above the town; So we were ordered to go into the town to refresh ourselves, and to be ready upon sound of trumpet; which imeditely there after the trumpet sounding, there was a detachment of horse and dragoons under the comand of Captan benat and our Lieutenant , in order to march to the mount where the hilland men was : so soon as they noticing us advancing towards them retired all in through a wood, we pursuing after them and took four of them prisoners, and got 7 or 8 horse; And then returned back in to the town that night.10
The following morning campfires were observed on the hills overlooking Dunkeld and there were reports of around 1,000 Atholl and Strathtay men led by Alexander Stewart of Ballechin in the vicinity who had been summoned overnight by the fiery cross. While troops in the town were readied to march out and meet them, a detachment of forty fusiliers and fifteen halberdiers under Captain George Munro, supported by fifty horsemen under Cardross were sent out ahead. A further thirty halberdiers led by Ensign James Lockhart followed close behind.11
Cleland led the rest of his regiment out from Dunkeld leaving behind 150 men to guard Dunkeld House. Leading the main body were 100 fusiliers under the command of Captain John Campbell and Captain Robert Hume. Behind them came Captain William Borthwick and Captain William Herries with 200 musketeers and pikemen.
About two miles from the town Captain Munro’s detachment and Cardross’s cavalry came across 300 Jacobites in a nearby glen. The Jacobites opened fire and wounded Cornet Livingston of Eglinton’s Horse and a number of other horsemen, including the author of Journal of a Soldier. The cavalry pulled back, but Munro’s infantry pushed forward forcing the Jacobites to retreat.
Cleland then arrived and having observed that a nearby house was held by a party of Jacobites ordered Captain Munro to send a sergeant and six men to secure it. On approaching the house around twenty Jacobites moved against them but were quickly beaten back and chased over the hills. Cleland reformed his men and they retired back to Dunkeld along with Cardross’s cavalry. Around thirty Jacobites had been killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. Three of Captain Munro’s detachment had been wounded, one later dying of his wounds.
That night Cardross received orders from Colonel Ramsay to withdraw back to Perth as his ‘dragoons and Horse can be of little use in these grounds’. Cardross protested, but a second order from Ramsay left him with little choice but to obey and his cavalry force left Cleland and his men to their fate.
Lieutenant John Blackadder recounted: “Our men were mightily discouraged to hear this; but whatever could be said, the Horse would not stay, and it was much for us to keep our men from going along with them whether we would or not, but the Lieut. Coll. compelled them and told them, That tho’ every man went away, he resolved to stay himself alone; so we past Tuesday night also in Arms.”12
Battle of Dunkeld
At dawn on 21 August, Cannon’s Jacobite army numbering over 4,000 men appeared on the hills to the north of the town. His force comprised a regiment of regular troops under Colonel Nicholas Purcell, Macleans of Duart, Macdonalds of Sleat, Macdonalds of Clanranald and Glencoe, Macdonnells of Glengarry and Keppoch, Macneils of Barra, Gordons of Strathdon and Glenlivet, Farquarsons, Camerons, Frasers, Macgregors of Glengyle, Stewarts of Appin and the Athollmen along with four troops of horse, and three leather artillery pieces which had been captured at Killiecrankie. The Jacobite army would also have been well equipped with captured muskets taken from the field at Killiecrankie. However, it would appear that they, like the Cameronians, had little powder and shot.
At around 7 o’clock the Jacobite baggage train of 1,000 horses was sent on its way to Blair Castle and the artillery was placed upon Gallow Hill to the north of the town. The battle opened with the leather guns firing on the town, but they soon disintegrated as they had done at Killiecrankie with the gun carriages collapsing with the recoil.13
Shortly afterwards, under the cover of Jacobite musketry, 100 shock troops commanded by Sir Alexander Maclean armed with swords, targes, helmets, and cuirasses stormed Stanley Hill, which was held by a company under Captain William Hay and Ensign James Lockhart. Captain Hay had ordered Ensign Lockhart to take a detachment of twenty-eight men and advance to a stone dyke at the foot of the hill but in the face of Maclean’s attack they were forced to pull back to the main body.
Captain Hay’s men fired on the approaching highlanders but were forced to retreat to Dunkeld House as they “were not able to sustain their great number and fierceness”. Hay suffered a broken leg in the engagement but was able to extract himself and his men without significant loss. Lieutenant Blackadder described the highland attack:
the enemy approached very fast, the Highlanders came running on like desperate Villains, firing only once, and then came on with sword and target… After which, the Highlanders came swarming in on all sides, and gave a desperate assault in four places all at once, first firing their guns, and then running in on us with sword and target. But it pleased God, that they were also bravely repulsed, our men still firing on them, where they came on thickest.14
The Jacobites then began an assault on the eastern end of the town. The defenders, not able to effectively hold such an open space, fired on the attackers and pulled back across the Market Cross to a barricade at the end of the street called Scots Raw, setting fire to houses as they withdrew. The Stewarts of Appin and Jacobite cavalry then moved against the western side of the town.
At the western end of the town Lieutenant John Forrester and Ensign William Campbell held a barricade with twenty-four men. They “fired sharply” upon the Jacobite cavalry that approached their position forcing the horsemen to pull back, but their position soon became untenable when “great numbers of foot attack’d their dyke” and they withdrew to the Cathedral which was held by around 100 men. Along the riverbank, the Stewarts stormed a row of houses and used them as fighting positions against the cathedral.
After around an hour of fighting, Cleland, who was ‘going up and down encouraging his men’, was fatally wounded by a shot through his head and another in his liver. Cleland’s second in command, Major James Henderson, was hit and mortally wounded shortly afterwards and command fell to the senior captain, George Munro. Munro, who had been commanding one of the barricades, left it in command of Lieutenant Henry Stewart. Stewart’s position was soon attacked, and he was killed while attempting to withdraw his men.
The Exact Narrative of the Conflict at Dunkeld described the onslaught by the highlanders in their efforts to break through the town defences:
All the Out-posts being forc’d, the Rebels advanced most boldy upon the Yard-dykes all round, even upon those parts which stood within less than fourty paces from the River; where they crowded into multitudes , without regard to the shot liberally pour’d in their Faces and struck with their Swords at the Souldiers upon the Dyk, who with their Pikes and Halberts returned their Blows with Interest.15
The Jacobites were pressing in hard and the Cameronians were left holding only the cathedral, Dunkeld House, and a few nearby houses. Running dangerously low on ammunition they stripped lead from the roof of Dunkeld House and melted it down for musket balls. Captain Munro organised small parties with burning faggots attached to the end of pikes to go out and set fire to the buildings held by the Jacobites and then pulled all of his forces back to Dunkeld House for a last stand. Thick smoke shrouded the town as the fires took hold. The Jacobites too were also setting fires to dislodge the Cameronian defenders.
After four hours of fighting, the battle had reached a stalemate. The costly uncoordinated Jacobite assaults had taken their toll and to the astonishment of the defenders, the highlanders, who were now also running low on ammunition, withdrew from the fight. The highland charge that had worked so well at Killiecrankie floundered upon the barricades and walls of the town. Blackadder recalled:
In this hot service we continued above three hours, the Lord wonderfully assisting our men with courage, insomuch that old soldiers, that were with us said, They never saw men fight better, for there was not the least sign of fear to be seen in any of them, every one performing his part gallantly.
At length the Rebels, wearied with so many fruitless and expensive Assaults; and finding no abatement of the Courage and Diligence of their Adversaries who treated them with continual shot from their posts, they gave over and fell back and ran to the hills in great confusion.
…found themselves necessitate to flee back on all hands, leaving a number of dead carcasses behind and a great many of them getting into houses to fire upon us, our men went and set fire to the houses, and burnt and slew many of them.16
Blackadder also mentioned that “One of the prisoners we have taken, told us, That after they were gone off, their officers would have had them come back, and give us another assault, but they would not hear of it, for they said we were mad and desperate men” and that “Their Commanders assay’d to bring them back to a fresh Assault, as some Prisoners related, but could not prevail; for they Answered them, they could fight against Men, but it was not fit to fight any more against Devils.”17
At around midday, an officer was dispatched to Perth to report news of the victory to Colonel Ramsay. Blackadder recounted the celebrations following the Jacobite army’s withdrawal: “Our men gave a great shout and threw their caps in the air, and then all joined in offering up praises to God for a considerable time for so miraculous a victory.”18
Lochiel’s Memoirs criticised Cannon’s attack on Dunkeld: “He resolved to dislodge them, and might have easily effected it, had he used a little policy, and sent a small party of five or six hundred men to have trained them out of the town, where they were strongly fortified, and kept the army at a short distance, as he could easily have done, without the enemy’s getting any intelligence, the people thereabouts being all his friends”.19
The Jacobite casualties at the battle of Dunkeld were between 150-300 men killed with the same number wounded, while the Cameronians lost around 50 men killed and many more wounded. Only three houses survived the battle, with the rest of the town destroyed by fire. Lieutenant-Colonel William Cleland was later laid to rest in Dunkeld Cathedral.
Historic Environment Scotland has included the battle of Dunkeld in their Inventory of Historic Battlefields describing the battle as “an incredibly significant battle in the history of 17th century Scotland, occurring at a time when King William was yet to wholly solidify his position on the throne and on the back of a significant Jacobite victory at Killiecrankie.”20
End of the Jacobite Rising
Cannon’s Jacobite forces withdrew back to Blair Castle and the highland army soon dispersed to gather in the harvest with the clan chiefs issuing promises to raise their men again the following spring.
By 25 August Major-General Hugh Mackay, this time taking no chances, had assembled a formidable military force at Perth comprising seven infantry regiments, two regiments of horse, two regiments of dragoons, and three Independent Highland Companies. Setting out on the 26th, Mackay marched his army into Atholl, passing the site of his defeat at Killiecrankie a month earlier. He arrived at Blair Castle on the 28th and established a 500-strong garrison.
In April 1690, the Jacobite clans gathered again for a new campaign under a new commander, Major-General Thomas Buchan, but were defeated by Scottish government troops under Brigadier-General Sir Thomas Livingstone at the battle of Cromdale on 1 May 1690 which effectively ended the first Jacobite rising.
Scottish government operations continued against the Jacobite clans until 1692, the most infamous of these actions being the Massacre of Glencoe.
Notes:
- John Scott Keltie (ed), A History of the Scottish Highlands, Highland Clans and Highland Regiments, Volume 1, (London 1882), p 380. ↩︎
- John Drummond of Balhaldie, Memoirs of Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheil. ↩︎
- Ibid; Some claim that Locheil was unhappy at not being given command of the Jacobite army, however, he had no interest in command and a clan chief in command of a highland army would have been unacceptable. ↩︎
- Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1689. ↩︎
- Hugh Mackay, Memoirs of the War Carried on in Scotland and Ireland, 1689-1691, p 68. ↩︎
- Andrew Crichton, The life and diary of Lieut. Col. J. Blackader: of the Cameronian regiment, and deputy governor of Stirling castle (Edinburgh 1824), p 90. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Ibid. p 91. ↩︎
- Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 1689. ↩︎
- Journal of a Soldier in the Earl of Eglinton’s Troop of Horse, Anno 1689. ↩︎
- The Exact Narrative of the Conflict at Dunkeld, Betwixt the Earl of Angus’s Regiment and the Rebels, Collected from Several Officers of that Regiment, Etc, (1689), p 2. ↩︎
- Crichton, The life and diary of Lieut. Col. J. Blackader, p 103. ↩︎
- The Exact Narrative of the Conflict at Dunkeld, p 4. ↩︎
- Crichton, The life and diary of Lieut. Col. J. Blackader, p 104. ↩︎
- The Exact Narrative of the Conflict at Dunkeld, p 5. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Ibid. p 98 ↩︎
- Ibid. p 105 ↩︎
- Balhaldie, Locheil’s Memoirs, p 286. ↩︎
- Historic Environment Scotland, Inventory of Historic Battlefields: Battle of Dunkeld: http://portal.historicenvironment.scot/designation/BTL32 ↩︎
Article first published on 9 July 2021
Cite this article: Ritchie, N. (9 July 2021). Battle of Dunkeld during the Jacobite Rising of 1689. https://www.scottishhistory.org/articles/battle-of-dunkeld/
