Origins of the 'Forty-five

by Unknown

Of Alexander Macbean’s ‘Memorial’ it is perhaps enough to say that it is, considering the times, fairly impartial, and corresponds on the whole with authentic information gleaned from other sources. I have taken the opportunity of supplementing, perhaps overloading, his text with notes detailing, so far as I have been able to discover them from various sources, the names of the principal Highland gentlemen who were concerned in the Rising of the ’Forty-five.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE LATE REBELLION FROM ROSS AND SUTHERLAND

The author of this narrative was Daniel Munro, minister of the parish of Tain. His origin was probably humble, as in Scott’s Fasti it is stated that owing to his knowledge of the Irish (i.e. Gaelic) language, he was educated on the Church’s charitable funds, and held a bursary from the Synod of Ross at Marischal College, and the University of Aberdeen. Munro was minister of the parish of Auldearn, near Nairn, from 1736 to April 1745, when he was translated to Tain, where he remained until his death in 1748. Of his life and work I have found little record. Andrew Henderson, the author of the Edinburgh History of the Rebellion, who knew this country well, says that he was ‘an uncouth man, a monster of impiety, wickedness, and ill nature.’ He further states that he was turned out of his church for ‘fighting and other immoralities.’[61]

This ‘Account’ is a very meagre one. The important fact in the history of Ross in the ’Forty-five was that the head of the house of Seaforth forsook the family tradition and took active part with the Government against the old royal family. It was a heavy blow to Prince Charles when Lord Macleod, eldest son of Lord Cromartie, who went to Glasgow to see the Prince in January 1746, informed him at supper that Seaforth had furnished two hundred men for the service of the Government. Charles turned to the French minister and gasped, ‘Hé, mon Dieu, et Seaforth est aussi contre moi!’

Kenneth Mackenzie, known as Lord Fortrose (which was really a Jacobite title), would have been the sixth Earl of Seaforth but for the attainder. His wife was Lady Mary Stewart, eldest daughter of the Earl of Galloway. She held Jacobite principles and raised many of her husband’s clan for the Prince, while most of Fortrose’s men eventually deserted to the Jacobites.

The principal operations in Ross and Sutherland began after Inverness had been taken by the Jacobite army. Lord Loudoun then retired to the shores of the Dornoch Firth. Lord Cromartie was sent in pursuit. Loudoun had boats, and when Cromartie approached him, he crossed the Firth to Dornoch. The Jacobites had to go round by the head of the Firth, whereupon Loudoun returned in his boats to the southern shore at Tain, and went back to Sutherland when Cromartie came to Ross. Cromartie was superseded by the Duke of Perth. Land operations seeming to be useless, a flotilla of boats was secretly collected at Findhorn and taken to Tain under shelter of a dense fog. On March 20th, 1746, Perth crossed over the Meikle Ferry, and completely defeated Loudoun at the bloodless battle of Dornoch. Lord Loudoun, along with Duncan Forbes, Sir Alexander Macdonald, Macleod of Macleod, fled to the Isle of Skye, while the chief of Mackintosh was taken prisoner.

On March 25th, the Hazard, a sloop of war which had been captured by the Jacobites at Montrose four months previously and sent to France, when returning with money, stores, and recruits, was forced to run ashore in the Kyle of Tongue by four men-of-war. Lord Reay, the Whig head of the Mackays, took possession of the wreck and its contents, including 156 prisoners and £12,000, the money being sorely needed by the army. Lord Cromartie and his son, Lord Macleod, were sent with a force of 1500 men to expostulate with Lord Reay, and if possible to recover the spoil. In this they naturally failed, but they continued the march as far as Thurso, beating up for recruits and levying the land cess upon the inhabitants.[62] On the way back, Cromartie and his son paid a visit to the Countess of Sutherland at Dunrobin. There, on the day before the battle of Culloden, they were made prisoners by the clever trick of a certain Ensign Mackay, while their followers, then at Golspie, were beaten and dispersed in an action sometimes called the battle of the Little Ferry.

MEMOIRS OF THE REBELLION IN THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN AND BANFF

This manuscript bears neither signature nor date, and gives no indication of authorship. There can, however, be little doubt that the author of the narrative was a minister belonging to Aberdeen or Banffshire, and that it was written at the same time as the two previous papers, about the end of 1746 or the beginning of 1747.

The story of the events of the Rising in the north-eastern counties is recounted with much fulness of detail, and with a minute knowledge of the country and the people. It is told, moreover, with marked fairness. Although the writer is a Whig, he speaks kindly of the Jacobite leaders, and he does not conceal the cruelties committed by the Government troops.