The Battle of Sheriffmuir

“Now had ye seen this double flight,

Some fell for wrang, and some for right,

But monie bade the world guid-night:

Say, pell and mell, wi' muskets' knell

How Tories fell, and Whigs to Hell

Flew off in frighted bands, man!”

Let’s set the scene. The year is 1715. The war of the Spanish succession has ended and the treaties establishing the new world order are being signed. Queen Anne, the last of James II’s children, is dead and George I is on the throne. James Francis Edward Stewart, the Old Pretender, is in deep discussion with Jacobite sympathisers in Britain. Under a deeply optimistic notion that John Churchill*, Duke of Marlborough, will flock to his banner, James imagines victory is looming …

Enter John Erskine, the Earl of Mar.

John Erskine, a Tory peer, had been one of the Commissioners for the Union in 1707. He had subsequently become a Secretary of State and had very firmly become part of the new political order, even going so far as to express his loyalty to the new King, George I. However, all of this was done under a deeply optimistic notion that King George I would dissolve the Act of Union … Spoiler alert: he did not.

And when he didn’t, The Earl of Mar opted to support the exiled Stuarts and he raised his standard in rebellion on the 6^th of September.

The Battle

13th November, 1715.

Mar, has established control of the north of Scotland largely by accident. After dithering at Perth for a while, he has moved south to contest Scotland’s chokepoint in the vicinity of Stirling. It has now been 68 days since he raised his standard over 77 miles away.

Camped at Kinbuck, along the left bank of the Allan Water, Mar’s 12,000 men sought to move south along the river. Barring their way in Dunblane were 6,000 government troops under John Campbell, Duke of Argyll.

Scouting

To the east of Dunblane rises the Sheriffmuir; an elevated area of moorland which sweeps round to the northeast in something like a semicircle before blending in with the northwestern foothills of the Ochils. Crucially, an observer on the military crest of the moor would have a clear view of the Jacobite army at Kinbuck and be able to warn of their approach. Argyll sends scouts to do just that and Mar, possibly overreacting a tad, assumes these scouts signify the presence of the entire Government army and sends the entire Jacobite host, arrayed in four columns, to occupy those same heights. In response, Argyll sends his much smaller force racing up to the same ground to meet them. He rather sensibly wanted to avoid his redcoats having to contend with a Highland charge from higher ground. The nature of the geography means that these forces are converging at a slightly acute angle.

Contact

The ripples of the ground of the Sheriffmuir do not permit of extensive sightlines from all points. By a fluke of circumstance, the armies catch sight of each other with their closest soldiers only a mere 200 yards apart, they nearly blundered into each other. The Jacobites were arrayed in their four columns and the Redcoats were in a single column with dragoons in the vanguard.

Then follows a frantic and incomplete deployment. Argyll’s men simply left turn, and close up into line in battle order. Mar’s men have a more complex task: shaking out into line, to their front, from their four parallel columns. The result of this, unbeknownst to either commander, is that the resulting lines are mismatched; each substantially overlapping the other’s left flank.

[Saorsa Expert inculcating a novice in battle wisdom] The double flight…

The Jacobite right, which by some accounts is described as being concealed by a streambed or similar, is comprised of Highland clans and they immediately conduct a Highland charge which negates the redcoats’ superiority in firepower. The government left proceeds to fold like wet cardboard.The bravest (or slowest) amongst them conduct a last stand upon the midden heap of the farm that is immediately to the south, a spot that appears on the map as “The Linns”. The remainder of the Redcoats flee along the line of the Wharry Burn and they are increasingly impeded by the steepening sides as it narrows into a gorge. Some of the escapees make it to Stirling castle but many do not. Soldiers in training digging trenches by the Wharry burn in the Second World War uncovered countless skeletons trampled into the peat in 1715.

This success however, is not replicated on the Jacobite left. The confused deployment has left a Jacobite lowland regiment exposed and slightly forward of the main line. They are armed but not like their northern clansmen, rather they have very similar gear and arms to their Redcoat opponents except with much less training. These men exchange fire with the redcoats on that flank and, having very much the worst of it, flee.

The Jacobite left, already a smaller contingency compared to their opponents, is further shrunk by the fleeing men. The Camerons there cannot withstand both the subsequent onslaught of the government infantry opposite and the entirety of the government dragoons positioned on that flank. These dragoons are led by Henry Hawley, the experience of which will have consequences in around 30yrs time. We are left with a bit of a confusing situation …Each army has had its left flank routed. Redcoats are fleeing to Stirling with clansmen in hot pursuit and the Jacobites are running hell-for-leather back towards Perth with dragoons on the hunt after them.

Consolidation

Much like the difference between Prince Rupert and Oliver Cromwell 70 years before, reigning in pursuing forces has the decisive effect. Argyll, after his immediate success, is acutely aware that his left has collapsed. He moves his remaining formed men back into the vicinity of Dunblane, occupying and loopholing farm buildings and drystone dykes. In spite of losing half his men, those who are left are well fortified and ready to sell their lives dearly.

By comparison, the Jacobite ditherer-in-chief general, Mar, has the victorious half of his army haring off towards Stirling and the beaten half making dust in the opposite direction…

Conclusion?

At dawn on the 14th Argyll’s men, those who hadn’t been stood to in their hastily improvised fortifications in the previous hour, awoke expecting an assault … but there was only silence. In spite of Mar outnumbering them 2:1 at the outset and having inflicted more casualties on the day of battle, he had recoiled at the first rebuff and hightailed it for Perth.

Effectively, thus ends the ‘15.

The followers of James will have another go but not for another generation!*Yes, this is the Churchill you’re thinking of.