As at Tippermuir the Irish held the centre; Rollo commanded on the right, Nathaniel Gordon on the left. The cavalry were on the two wings, interspersed with musketeers and bowmen. Montrose, well mounted, clad in coat and trews, with a bunch of oats in his bonnet—a whimsy adopted by all his infantry—was everywhere his keen eye told him there was need of his services. The fighting was hot while it lasted, and at one moment the left flank of the Royalists was within an ace of being turned. But Montrose brought up the horse and a fresh supply of musketeers from the right wing in the nick of time, and the Covenanters having no one to take advantage of the crisis, the danger was averted. The fifty troopers performed wonders, and the Irish fought like trained soldiers. In the end good leadership and discipline prevailed over numbers, and a general charge led by Montrose in person decided the day. Within two hours after the first shot was fired the army of the Covenant was in flight. Balfour, who seems to have played no part in the battle, galloped off north across the Don with his cavalry. The foot were cut down as they ran, and the victorious Royalists burst into the town at the heels of the fugitives. Then followed a hideous scene. Montrose would not, or could not, retract the promise he had given in a moment of anger, and the wild Irish ran riot through the defenceless town. The unarmed citizens were butchered like sheep in the streets; the better sort were stripped before death, that their clothes might not be soiled with their blood; women and little children were slaughtered for bewailing their dead, and those women were happiest who expiated their tears with life. For three days the sack continued, without any interference, so far as we know, on the part of Montrose. Hitherto we have invariably seen him courteous and humane to a defeated foe, and always where it was in his power active to spare a defenceless people, and as such we shall find him hereafter. On this solitary occasion he outdoes the worst brutalities of the German wars. It was a mistake as well as a crime. It turned the scale against him in many wavering minds; and it inflamed the anger and fear of his enemies to a savage and unrelenting hatred which was destined to bear bitter fruit upon a later day. A price was now set upon his head, and Argyll openly offered a reward of £1000 to any man who should bring it in by fair means or foul.
It was now felt that some more serious measures must be taken with this terrible enemy. Argyll's pursuit of Macdonald had slackened since he learned that the Irish had joined hands with Montrose; but he was still laboriously plodding after them with three thousand of his Campbells. To these were now added two regiments from the regular army in England, and a strong force of cavalry. These reinforcements did not quicken Argyll's pace, but they prevented Montrose from giving battle to a foe whom above all others he longed to meet on a fair field. His little force had been still further diminished by the despatch of Macdonald with half his men into the Western Highlands to beat up recruits among the men of his name, who had been from time immemorial the sworn foes of Mac Callum More. For some weeks therefore the nimble Cavalier was forced to content himself with leading his heavy-footed, heavy-hearted pursuer a chase backwards and forwards through the Grampians, till at last he rested at Fyvie Castle on the Ythan, in the north-east corner of Aberdeenshire.
Here he was nearly caught napping. Argyll had crept within two miles of the castle before Montrose knew that he had so much as crossed the Grampians. It was a dangerous moment for the King's Lieutenant. He dared not risk a battle on the open ground: the castle would not stand a siege; and to make matters worse, the Royalists had run short of ammunition. But behind the castle rose a rugged hill, crowned with trees and roughly defended with some farm enclosures. Here Montrose stood at bay. The pewter vessels of the castle were melted into bullets, and the first attack of the Covenanters supplied the defenders with powder. Argyll's men were half-way up the hill, when Montrose, turning to a young Irishman whom Macdonald had left in charge as his lieutenant, said, "Come, O'Cahan, what are you about? Take some of your handiest fellows, drive those rascals from our defences, and see that we are not troubled with them again." The brave young soldier rushed down the hill at the head of his men, drove the Covenanters pell-mell before him, and returned in safety with several bags of powder. As they came back into their lines, one of the Irishmen said, looking at the powder, "We must at them again; the stingy rogues have left us no bullets." The jest was soon made earnest. As Argyll's foot retired, the horse came up on another side against the little body of Royalist troopers. But Montrose saw the movement, and leading some of his musketeers round the brow of the hill, poured so hot a volley into the Covenanting squadrons, that they descended the slope much faster than they had climbed it. This was enough for Argyll. He withdrew his men beyond the Ythan, and Montrose marched back unmolested to Blair-Athole.
This extraordinary campaign—this "strange coursing" as Baillie shrewdly called it—could not continue. It was now November. The rains of autumn were already turning into the snows of winter. The mountains would soon be passable only for wolves and eagles. Argyll turned from a pursuit for which he had no heart, led his men back to Edinburgh, and resigning his commission to the Estates retired to his own country. The road into the Lowlands lay open. Now was the time to put in practice that plan which Montrose had always kept steadily in view. This mountain warfare against irregular levies led by incompetent generals was but a waste of good powder and shot. If he could descend into the Lowlands with a force sufficient to bring Leven back over the Border, his promise to the King would be redeemed. Macdonald had rejoined him with the rest of the Irishmen and five hundred stout fellows of his name, Macdonalds of Glengarry, Clanronald, Keppoch, and Glencoe. Camerons from Lochaber, Stewarts from Appin, Farquharsons from Braemar, had also gathered to the Standard. Surely now he was strong enough to put his cherished design into practice. But his Lowland officers demurred. They were weary of a campaign where victory brought no solid fruits, and where the advance of one day seemed to be inevitably followed by the retreat of the next. The invitations and promises of Argyll had begun to work. They knew that pardon and preferment awaited every deserter from the royal cause, and though they had no design of betraying Montrose, they thought the time favourable for making their own peace. Under pretence of being unfit to face the hardships of a winter campaign, one after another took leave of his general. The brave Airlie, for all his sixty years, and his sons alone stood by him, and Nathaniel Gordon, who, though he left his leader, left him on the King's service. Montrose let the recreants go without a word, and turned to the Highlanders. They too deprecated a descent on the Lowlands, but for a different reason. These Macdonalds and Camerons were ready enough to fight under the royal banner, but they must fight against their own foe. They hated King Campbell more than they loved King Charles. Between all who bore the name of Macdonald and all who bore the name of Campbell there had been war to the knife for many generations. There was hardly, indeed, a clan in all the Highlands of Scotland which had not a grudge to pay against the Race of Diarmid. Beyond the great mountain barrier with which Nature had guarded the domains of Mac Callum More lay a land, rough indeed and sparsely cultivated, but rich in fat cattle and well-stocked homesteads. Argyll was used to say that he had rather lose a hundred thousand crowns than that any mortal man should know the way by which an army could enter his country. There were men now at Montrose's side who knew that way as well as Argyll himself. Something clearly must be done. Neither his temperament nor his position would suffer Montrose to be idle. He could not hope to keep his men together without pay, and pay was only to be found in the pockets of a defeated enemy. Moreover, to strike a blow at Argyll in his own home was in some sort to do the King's service, and in a sort not uncongenial to himself when no better was possible. He agreed, therefore, to a plan which it was not altogether in his power to refuse, and in the first week of December the westward march began.
They marched in three divisions. Montrose led one, Alaster Macdonald another, and the third was commanded by the Captain of Clanronald. On December 13th they struck down through those mountains whose secrets had been so jealously guarded right into the heart of the promised land. At the first rumour of their approach Argyll had fled from Inveraray in a fishing-boat, leaving his clansmen to shift for themselves. For upwards of a month the triumphant Macdonalds carried fire and sword through the length and breadth of the country. Every unfortified dwelling was sacked and burned to the ground; every head of cattle not wanted for the destroyers' consumption was slaughtered. Montrose would have spared the people if he could; but a Macdonald with a sword in his hand could give no quarter to a Campbell, and when Montrose was not by to save him every son of the accursed race old enough to bear arms was ruthlessly cut down where he was found. By the end of January the work was done: to the lands of Argyll had been meted the measure their owners had never spared to measure to others; and leaving a smouldering waste behind him Montrose turned leisurely northwards through Lochaber.
He had reached Kilcummin, where Fort Augustus now stands, at the head of Loch Ness, when he heard news which made him pause. In front Seaforth was barring the way with five thousand men, his own Mackenzies and others from the hardy northern shires. Behind him Argyll was coming up with all the Campbells he could muster and some Lowland levies hastily gathered to his aid. To meet these two armies Montrose had only his Irishmen, a handful of Airlie's troopers, and such of the Highlanders as had not yet made off with their plunder, barely fifteen hundred men in all. He made his choice in an instant. Only thirty miles off, down the road by which he had just ascended the valley, Argyll lay at Inverlochy three thousand strong. But that road was certain to be watched by Argyll's scouts, and this time Montrose was determined that his enemy should not escape him. There was another road by which the Campbells might be reached in flank at a point where no retreat was possible. It was a road rarely trodden even in summer by any foot save that of the deer or wolf, and now, when winter lay white on the mountains and the passes were choked with snow, shunned even by those wild travellers. But any road that led to his enemy was a good road for Montrose, and the dauntless spirit of their general beat high in the hearts of his men. Striking southward over the rugged shoulder of Corryarrick, through the bleak wastes of Glen Roy and Glen Spean, now wading waist high through the snow, and now clambering among the bare mountain peaks of that lonely land, by day and by night the little host held on its painful way. On the evening of February 1st, on the second day after leaving Kilcummin, they saw from the skirts of Ben Nevis the towers of Inverlochy and the moonlit waters of Loch Eil.
The castle of Inverlochy stood, as all that is left of it still stands, at the juncture of Loch Eil and Loch Linnhe beneath the mighty shadow of Ben Nevis. The Campbells lay in the narrow strip of plain between the mountain and the shore. For them there was no escape if defeated; but unfortunately for his honour a way of escape lay open to their chief. His galley lay at her moorings on the lake, and in the middle of the night he was put secretly on board to await in ignominious security the chances of the day, leaving his people to fight for his name and their lives under his cousin Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck. He excused himself by an injury to his arm which disabled him from using a sword, an excuse that no other man then alive in Scotland would have ventured to plead in the face of his foe.
Though their scouts had brought word early in the evening of an enemy holding the passes above them in force, the Campbells could not believe that enemy to be Montrose. Even the imagination of a Highlander, inured as he was to every form of activity and endurance, could not conceive the possibility of that wonderful march; and supposing that they would have only to deal with some Macdonalds and Camerons gathered to defend their homes from ravage, they slept securely through the night. But when with the first rays of morning they heard from the dark mountain overhead the trumpets pealing the point of war which had been ever used by Scotsmen to salute the standard of their king, they knew too well who was before them. Auchinbreck was a brave and experienced soldier, but he had little confidence in the Lowland levies, and even his own men were better, he knew well, at giving than receiving the attack. Still numbers must be on his side, and his men were fresh. The enemy could not be many, and must be weary and ill-fed. Ill-fed in truth they were; they had not tasted bread since they left Kilcummin; even Montrose and Airlie had to break their fast on a little meal moistened with cold water. But all weariness had vanished at the sight of the enemy; and for the food, they comforted themselves with the assurance of better fare before sunset.
The battle of Inverlochy was little more than a repetition of the battle of Tippermuir. Montrose now led the centre, where the Highlanders fought who would follow no man to battle but the King's Lieutenant. Alaster Macdonald led on the right, and O'Cahan, the hero of Fyvie, on the left. Auchinbreck had placed the Lowland regiments on either wing, himself commanding the Campbells in the centre. The former discharged their muskets and ran so soon as they saw Montrose's fierce warriors burst from the mountain and heard the wild yell with which they came bounding over the plain. The Campbells fought bravely, but unsupported and overlapped they at last too broke and fled. Some pressed into the water to reach their chief's galley, but Argyll had hoisted his sails so soon as he saw that all was lost, and made off down the lake heedless of his drowning clansmen. Others fled southwards along the beach and were cut down as they ran. Some made for the castle, but were driven back by the troopers into the open ground. Quarter was given to the Lowlanders, but Montrose could win no quarter from his men for the Campbells. Fifteen hundred of the great clan perished on that fatal day, including Auchinbreck himself and many gentlemen of rank. On the other side only three private soldiers were killed; but many were wounded, and among them Sir Thomas Ogilvy, by whose death, a few days after the battle, Montrose lost a staunch friend and the King a brave and accomplished officer.
Montrose had won a great and important victory. He had completely broken Argyll's power in the Highlands, and indeed for many years to come the mighty Clan Campbell was but the shadow of its former name. It is small wonder that his head grew hot with success, and that he wrote to the King as though all Scotland lay already at his feet. "I doubt not," ran his triumphant words, "that before the end of this summer I shall be able to come to your majesty's assistance with a brave army, which, backed with the justice of your majesty's cause, will make the rebels in England as well as in Scotland feel the just rewards of rebellion. Only give me leave, after I have reduced this country to your majesty's obedience, and conquered from Dan to Beersheba, to say to your majesty then, as David's general did to his master, 'Come thou thyself, lest this country be called by my name.'"