MacGregor

Chapter 28

  Stirling - Saturday January 18th, 1746

  Hawley’s defeated army had retreated to Edinburgh leaving the Prince in possession of Falkirk. The remants of their camp were blackened by fire and sodden with rain, however, much of the materiel remained from its precipitate abandonment. Food lay on tables and kettles on fires. Plentiful supplies stood on wagons. Seven pieces of artillery, together with plentiful powder and ammunition, had been left in working condition. The artillery was quickly limbered up and removed to Stirling to augment the battery supplied from France.

  The quartermasters did their utmost to secure the military supplies, but all around them was chaos as the Highland army dissolved into its constituent parts, pillaging the camp for any items of value and trash of none. The rain lashed down, the gale blew fragments of tent and clothing here and there. All night the looting continued.

  It was Sunday morning before order began to be restored. A stream of Highlanders were making their independent ways back to the North. Their booty secured on their backs or on horseback. Rob knew that some of their own men had gone, but Clan Gregor had fared less badly than others. Glencarnaig and Glengyle had succeeded in retaining the bulk of their companies. Glencarnaig was ordered to proceed beyond Falkirk with Lord George to Linlithgow and beyond in pursuit. Glengyle was to return to Doune.

  Burial parties were detailed to collect together and bury the dead. There were more than six hundred dead from Hawley’s army but no more than forty of the Highlanders. Rob hated this task and many of his men refused. There was great superstition among the Highlanders regarding the handling of dead strangers. Especially as the army possessed sufficient low-countrymen more prepared to perform this duty.

  Rob had been ordered to collect together the prisoners and identify them. Officers were to be taken to Doune, along with any captured militiaman from Glasgow and Edinburgh. Regular soldiers were to be handed over to other units. The surgeons treated the injured on both sides. Doctor Stewart Thriepland worked through the night, setting bones, sawing off limbs and dressing sword cuts.

  Rob noticed a large formation of Highlanders could be seen marching off the field. They were the men of Glengarry. He thought it seemed to be a large escort for the single stretcher that they carried. He approached to be told that the regiment was leaving for home. Their colonel, Aeneas MacDonald, second son to Glengarry, had been accidentally shot by another Highlander cleaning his musket. Aeneas had begged with his dying breath that his men should not exact revenge from the unfortunate Keppoch man. However, they had and then resolved to escort their colonel’s body home.

  Late on Sunday Rob was given the task of escorting prisoners to Doune. More than seven hundred of Hawley’s army had been captured, but only the more important could be held. The gentlemen volunteers of the Edinburgh Company were those being convoyed by Rob as he rode once more the familiar road to the Fords of Frew.

  The old fortress was bursting at the seams with prisoners who had refused their parole. Private men were in the cellars of the retainer’s hall and officers in the chambers of the kitchen tower. In total they had more than one hundred and fifty. The sanitation of the castle was of a most primitive form - merely holes in the floor of the garde-robe recesses that opened directly onto the castle walls. Glengyle had attempted to ease the lot of the prisoners by providing blankets. Firewood was available in plenty. Nevertheless, conditions were grim. Glengyle had removed his own lodging to the Bailiff’s house.

  Many Highlanders were passing through Doune on their way North, but Glengyle did not attempt to hold them. Many of Glengyle’s own men had also gone home. So many that he had barely enough to garrison the castle.

  On the night of the 25th January, Glengyle was away at army headquarters in Falkirk. Rob had the command at Doune. He was awakened from his sleep by one of the sentinels. Prisoners had escaped. The sentinel took Rob round the outer walls to the place below the kitchen tower where one of the Edinburgh volunteers lay moaning. His legs were broken. Rob looked up the wall, stained with the effluent of the latrines. Hanging from the crenellation at the wall head was a rope. It had broken twenty feet from the ground. The rest of the rope lay beside the volunteer. It had been formed of twisted and knotted sheets. Rob commanded that the volunteer be taken back inside. He did not look as if he would live long. A roll-call revealed that three others had succeeded in making their escape.