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Opposing Dundee stood Mackay with about four thousand two hundred men. As soon as Mackay realised the menace in this disposition of the mobile command arrayed against him, he changed his front and marched his force across the meadow and up over the old river-bank to ground where a chain of fields afforded a suitable arena for the marshalling of his army between a stream, called Allt Chluain, on the left hand, and the roaring Girnaig Burn on the right. This battlefield is a little over a mile in length-1910 yards and a quarter of a mile in breadth. With gentle ascent it stretched up to the stand of Dundee. On this cultivated ridge stood Mackay's the House of Urrard, then also bearing the older name of Runraurie, position. It was to the right of Mackay's centre; and, with its houses, garden, and orchard a little behind the centre, formed another Hougomont. Mackay, fixing his centre at the old drove-road ascending to Lettoch, disposed of his five foot-regiments in ten half-battalions in a line three deep, between Low Mains and the Girnaig Burn. Three leathern guns and some petards were posted in the centre, and behind them stood one hundred horse ready to dash through the intervening spaces between the battalions.1

the fray.

One hundred paces separated the combatants, who faced each other Waiting for for hours like wild cats ready to spring. Dundee could not stir; he had but one charge for his few fusils, and the July sun glared in his eyes. Mackay was too experienced to charge up hill. To wile away the time Dundee rode in burnished armour from clan to clan adjuring all to fight for King, country, and religion, then doffed that panoply for a trooper's jerkin to prove the blood-thirst that was in him—his consuming desire to do his 'Shear-darg,' or harvest-day's work. Mackay, too, addressed his men in terms of his own 'Rules of War,' assuring them that a soldier's safety lay in his victorious fighting.2

1 Professor Terry (John Graham, 338-43) places the centre of the battle too near Allt Chluain, whereas it should be nearer Urrard House. His arena gives too little room for the line of Mackay to stand on. Thirteen hundred men, each having a stance of thirty inches, would extend nearly eleven hundred yards, or past Urrard a quarter of a mile.

2 Mackay, 52, 54; Macpherson, Original Papers, i. 371.

Dundee's

onslaught.

Mackay's

bravery.

The fall of
Dundee.

The clansmen, stripped to their shirts-grey-headed Lochiel casting off his shoes-impatiently waited for the onslaught. The hours were monotonous, save for a few sniping shots and the bursting of Mackay's harmless leathern guns. Dundee's hour had come when the red rays of the sun, disappearing beyond Strath Garry into Benalder Forest, began to embarrass the army of Mackay. Shortly after seven at night he ordered the attack. The mountaineers answered with slogans, and the pipers with their pibrochs. Despite a galling fusillade they rushed upon the Lowlanders, reserving their own one volley, 'like one great clap of thunder,' threw the muskets away, and, wielding with terrible dexterity their great broadswords, mowed down their defenceless opponents before they could fix bayonets. Camerons, Macdonells, Clan Ronald, and Macleans rolled the Scots Brigade, part of Leven's regiment, and Mackay's regiment, down over the bank to the river in the twinkling of an eyeso Mackay declared. Sir Alexander Maclean took the royal

standard.1

Having unleashed the mountaineers, Dundee soon followed with his horse to capture the guns, and put the troopers of Annandale and Belhaven to flight. Mackay himself tried in vain to rally his own men, and, accompanied by his servant, cut his way through the clansmen on to the stricken field, where he could see the débâcle before him, except on the right wing which stood firm. This also Dundee perceived, and the reason-the Macdonalds had not advanced against the pikemen of Hastings on the extreme right. Riding back from the slope below the captured guns, athwart the field, to lead the Macdonalds on his left wing against Leven's Borderers and Hastings, Dundee fell mortally wounded by a shot. Local tradition, handed down in the House of Urrard, declares that the fatal shot came from that house as Dundee passed by, and that he was borne to a mound still pointed out in the garden. This is not improbable when it is conceded that Mackay's line extended

Macpherson, Original Papers, i. 370.

beyond Urrard. Mackay's own regiment took the credit of shooting Dundee, the huge Haliburton of Pitcur, and Ramsay, at the first onset.1

It is now absolutely certain that 'my Lord Dundee was shot dead one the head of his horse,' and did not survive long enough to write the fabricated dispatch to the exiled King announcing his victory.2 The story of Johnston, who said that he caught the General as he tumbled out of his saddle, need not be doubted. Lieutenant John How Dundee passed. Nisbet, prisoner in Blair, testified that a soldier named Johnston informed him that he had caught the General as he fell from his horse. Dundee inquired 'how the day went.' Johnston answered: 'The day went weel for the King [James], bot that he was sory for his Lord, and that the Viscount replied it wes the less mater for him seeing the day went weel for his master.' His body was carried in two plaids to the hostelry of Blair, and, encased in his armour, was buried along with gallant Haliburton, in the parish church of Blair.1

3

Mackay.

The clansmen instinctively turned to looting the baggage. Had Flight of Mackay and his staff, who made for the ford opposite West Balrobie, when by sunset they saw that the Highlanders had overrun the post which Lauder and his fusiliers held, boldly formed and led the gallant battalions which held the field against the demoralised plunderers, they might have turned a bitter defeat into an easy victory. The officers fled: the unbroken regiments marched down the pass in the darkness and escaped.

Thus ended 'The Day of Rinrorie,' as the peasantry in Athole

1 Mackay, Memoirs, 265; Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., XII. vii. 255. The distance from Aldclune to Urrard House is 2950 feet, to the mound, 3400 feet. According to Balhaldy (Memoirs of Lochiel, 270) Leven held Urrard. There is a Border tradition that Ringan Oliver of Smallcleuchfoot, Jedwater, slew Dundee.

2 Newsletter, 10th August 1689, Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., XII. vii. 255. 'It is certain that Lieutenant-Colonel Mackay is dead, he being the man that gave Dundee his passport to heaven or hell, and was afterwards himself shot': Macpherson, Original Papers, i. 372; Terry, App. iii.

3 Act. Parl. Scot., ix. App. 56, 57, 58.

Hist. MSS. Com. Rep., XII. vii. 254; viii. 5, 6, 41; Chron. of Atholl, 302, 304. Cf. Photograph, p. 350. 5 Balcarres, Account, 106.

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