The great extent of Mackay’s line, which reached considerably beyond Dundee’s wings,[594] compelled the latter, to prevent the danger of being outflanked, to enlarge the intervals between his battalions. A general movement from right to left accordingly took place along Dundee’s line. Before Dundee’s left halted, Mackay, imagining that the object of the movement in that quarter was to get between him and the pass, for the purpose of cutting off all communication between him and Perth, made his line make a corresponding movement to his right, but on observing that Dundee’s left wing halted, Mackay brought his line to a stand. These different movements necessarily occupied a considerable time, and both armies being now finally arranged, they gazed upon each other with great composure for the space of two whole hours.
During this interval of care and anxious suspense, the feelings of both parties—their hopes or their fears—would probably be tinctured by a deeper hue of confidence or despondency as they reflected on the events of former days. Though more than forty years had elapsed since the brilliant achievements of Montrose, the Highlanders,[595] naturally brave, had lost none of their military ardour, and the descendants of the heroes of Tippermuir, Aldearn, and Kilsyth, who now stood in battle array on the upper plain, whence, with a scowl of scorn and defiance, they looked down upon the Sassenachs below, calling to mind the recital of the heroic deeds of their fathers, to which they had listened with wonder and enthusiasm in their childhood, would burn for the moment when, at the command of their chief, they should measure their broad swords with the bayonets of their Lowland foes. On the other hand, Mackay’s men had no such recollections to inspire confidence or to cheer them in their perilous enterprise, and when they beheld the Highland host ready at a moment’s notice to burst like a mountain torrent upon their devoted heads, and called to mind the tales they had heard of the warlike prowess of the Highlanders, they could not but recoil at the idea of encountering, in deadly strife, such determined antagonists. There were, it is true, many men in Mackay’s army to whom the dangers of the battle field were familiar, and in whose minds such reflections would doubtless find no place, but the great majority of his troops consisted of newly raised levies, who had never before seen the face of an enemy.
Mackay himself, though an old and experienced officer, and a brave man, was not without his misgivings; and as the evening advanced without any movement on the part of Dundee to commence the action, his uneasiness increased. Nor were his apprehensions likely to be allayed by the reply made by the second son of Lochiel, who held a commission in his own regiment of Scots fusileers, in answer to a question put to him by Mackay. “Here is your father with his wild savages,” said Mackay to the young man, on seeing the standard of the Camerons, putting on at the same moment an air of confidence, “how would you like to be with him?” “It signifies little,” answered the son of the chief, “what I would like, but I recommend to you to be prepared; or perhaps my father and his wild savages may be nearer to you before night than you would like.”[596] The apparent irresolution of the Highlanders to begin the battle was considered by Mackay as intentional, and he supposed that their design was to wait till nightfall, when, by descending suddenly from their position, and setting up a loud shout, according to their usual custom, they expected to frighten his men, unaccustomed to an enemy, and put them in disorder. As Mackay could not, without the utmost danger, advance up the hill and commence the action, and as the risk was equally great should he attempt to retreat down the hill and cross the river, he resolved, at all hazards, to remain in his position, “though with impatience,” as he observes, till Dundee should either attack him or retire, which he had better opportunities of doing than Mackay had. To provoke the Highlanders, and to induce them to engage, he ordered three small leather field pieces to be discharged, but they proved of little use, and the carriages being much too high, broke after the third firing.
Towards the close of the evening, some of Dundee’s sharpshooters, who had kept up, during the day, an occasional fire in the direction in which they observed Mackay moving, by which they had wounded some of his men, as already stated, took possession of some houses upon the ascent which lay between the two armies, for the purpose of directing their aim with surer effect. But they were immediately dislodged by a party of musketeers despatched by Mackay’s brother, who commanded the general’s regiment, and chased back to their main body with some loss. This skirmish Mackay supposed would soon draw on a general engagement, and his expectations were speedily realized.
It was within half an hour of sunset, and the moment was at hand, when, at the word of command, the Highlanders and their allies were to march down the hill, and with sword in hand, fall upon the trembling and devoted host below, whom, like the eagle viewing his destined prey from his lofty eyry, they had so long surveyed. Having determined, as much to please his men as to gratify his own inclination, to lead the charge in person, at the head of the horse, Dundee exchanged his red coat, which he had worn during the day, and by which he had been recognised by Mackay’s troops, for another of darker colour, to conceal his rank, and thereby avoid the risk of being singled out by the enemy. Dundee, after the manner of the ancient Greek and Roman generals, is said to have harangued his men in the following enthusiastic strain:—[597]
“You are come hither to fight, and that in the best of causes; for it is the battle of your king, your religion, and your country, against the foulest usurpation and rebellion. And having therefore so good a cause in your hands, I doubt not but it will inspire you with an equal courage to maintain it; for there is no proportion betwixt loyalty and treason, nor should there be any betwixt the valour of good subjects and traitors. Remember that to-day begins the fate of your king, your religion, and your country. Behave yourselves, therefore, like true Scotsmen, and let us by this action redeem the credit of this nation, that is laid low by the treacheries and cowardice of some of our countrymen, in making which request, I ask nothing of you that I am not now ready to do myself. And if any of us shall fall upon this occasion, we shall have the honour of dying on our duty, and as becomes true men of valour and conscience; and such of us as shall live and win the battle, shall have the reward of a gracious king and the praise of all good men. In God’s name, then, let us go on, and let this be your word—King James and the church of Scotland, which God long preserve!”[598]
A pause now ensued, and a death-like silence prevailed along the line, when, on a sudden, it appeared in motion, marching slowly down the hill. The Highlanders, who stript themselves to their shirts and doublets, advanced, according to their usual practice, with their bodies bent forward, so as to present as small a surface as possible to the fire of the enemy, the upper part of their bodies being covered by their targets.
To discourage the Highlanders in their advance by keeping up a continual fire, Mackay had given instructions to his officers commanding battalions, to commence firing by platoons, at the distance of a hundred paces. This order was not attended to, as Balfour’s regiment, and the half of Ramsay’s, did not fire a single shot, and the other half fired very little. The Highlanders, however, met with a very brisk fire from Mackay’s right, and particularly from his own battalion, in which no less than 16 gentlemen of the Macdonells of Glengarry fell; but, undismayed by danger, they kept steadily advancing in the face of the enemy’s fire, of which they received three rounds. Having now come close up to the enemy, they halted for a moment, and having levelled and discharged their pistols, which did little execution, they set up a loud shout and rushed sword in hand upon the enemy, before the latter had time to screw on their bayonets to the end of their muskets. The shock was too impetuous to be long resisted by men who, according to their own general, “behaved, with the exception of Hastings’s and Leven’s regiment, like the vilest cowards in nature.” But even had these men been more stout-hearted, their courage would not have availed them, as their arms were insufficient to parry off the tremendous strokes of the axes, and the broad and double-edged swords of the Highlanders, who, with a single blow, either felled their opponents to the earth or struck off a member from their bodies, and at once disabled them. While the work of death was thus going on towards the right, Dundee, at the head of the horse, made a furious charge on Mackay’s own battalion, and broke through it, on which the English horse which were stationed behind, fled without firing a single shot. Dundee, thereupon, rode off to attack the enemy’s cannon, but the officer (Sir William Wallace) who had that morning produced his commission as colonel of the horse, appears to have misunderstood Dundee, who, on arriving near the enemy’s cannon, found himself alone. He, therefore, gave the horse a signal to advance quickly, on which the Earl of Dunfermline, who then served only as a volunteer, overlooking the affront which had been put upon him, rode out of the ranks, followed by 16 gentlemen, attacked the party who guarded the cannon, and captured them.
As soon as Mackay perceived that Dundee’s grand point of attack was near the centre of his line, he immediately resolved to attack the Highlanders in flank with the two troops of horse which he had placed in the rear of his line, for which purpose he ordered Lord Belhaven to proceed round the left wing with his own troop, and attack them on their right flank; he ordered at the same time the other troop to proceed in the contrary direction, and assail them on their left. Mackay himself led round Belhaven’s troop, but it was scarcely in front of the line when it got into disorder, and instead of obeying the orders to wheel for the flank of the enemy, after some confused firing it turned upon the right wing of Lord Kenmure’s battalion, which it threw into disorder, and which thereupon began to give way.
At this critical moment Mackay, who was instantly surrounded by a crowd of Highlanders, anxious to disentangle his cavalry, so as to get them formed, called aloud to them to follow him, and putting spurs to his horse galloped through the enemy, but with the exception of one servant whose horse was shot under him, not a single horseman attempted to follow their general. When he had gone sufficiently far to be out of the reach of immediate danger, he turned round to observe the state of matters, and to his infinite surprise he found that both armies had disappeared. To use his own expression, “in the twinkling of an eye, in a manner,” his own men as well as the enemy were out of sight, having gone down pell-mell to the river where his baggage stood. The flight of his men must have been rapid indeed, for although the left wing, which had never been attacked, had begun to flee before he rode off, the right wing and centre still kept their ground.