medieval-atlas/events-from-about-850-to-1460/148

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Clan support for the house of Stuart The clans -the Gaelic-speaking, patriarchal amalgams of kinship, local association and feudal deference-were the bedrock of both the Royalist campaigns of 1644-47 and the fust Jacobite rising of 1689 90. The persistence of hosting and the ready mobilisation of the clans by passing round the fiery cross meant a lower threshold in the Highlands than t/:le Lowlands for the resort to arms. The militarism ofthe clans can be overplayed, however. The resolution of territorial disputes by the wholesale recourse of clans to arms was becoming less of an occasional practice, more of a rarity in the course of the seventeenth century. Technological change meant that it was becoming no longer fashionable to take arms off trees. The chiefs and leading gentry of the clans were increasingly reluctant to meet the expense of providing guns. The professional backbone to the Royalist and Jacobite campaigns was formed by Irish troops. Three regiments served under James Graham, marquis of Montrose during the civil war, and John Graham, viscount Dundee from 1689. The "Highland charge" deployed successfully on both campaigns was probably introduced to Scotland by Montrose's major-general, Alasdair MacColla, who can be said to have imported from Ulster in the summer of 1644 a tactic for irregular infantry which was designed to suit highland terrain, the technology clans could afford and the effectiveness of the sword and targe in close-quarters after the discharge of firearms. In terms of strategy, clan support for the house of Stuart was most effective in the pursuit of guerilla warfare. After joining forces in August 1644, Montrose and MacColla commenced a twelvemonth campaign of continuous movement running up a series of six bloody victories that culminated in the defeat of Covenanting forces at Kilsyth. Each victory attracted increased support from the clans. However, the military success of guerilla warfare was not converted into political achievement, notably the capture of leading towns, the key to control in the Lowlands. Within a month of parting from MacColla and the western clans, Montrose's fortunes went into rapid decline. From his defeat at Philiphaugh in September 1645, until his departure into exile twelve months later, Montrose was a spent force in Scotland. Although he was eventually forced to retire to Ireland by July 1647, MacColla fared relatively better on the western seaboard where his continued pursuit ofguerilla warfare was distinctly less naive and more constructive. Other than the MacDonalds of Sleat who preferred to remain rather than accept his leadership, MacColla's affiliations to the lineal descendants of the Lords of the Isles created a ready reservoir of support. Unrivalled charisma based on his personal valour in battle and the fact that he was not required to lay siege to large towns enabled MacColla to occupy Kintyre and Islay and thus maintain, for eighteen months, a Royalist bridgehead with Ireland. Nor did the successful pursuit ofguerilla warfare prove politically remunerative during the fust Jacobite rising. Dundee's stunning victory at Killiecrankie in July 1689, was neutralised by his death in the course of battle. The burgeoning clan support occasioned by his personal charisma and his inspired generalship was soon dissipated by insipid and inept leadership from his officers with the Irish forces who assumed command but failed to make a military breakthrough either into central Lowlands or areas ofJacobite affinity in the north-east. Admittedly, the Stuart cause was not helped by the fluctuating nature of clan support during the Jacobite rising as during the civil war. While undoubtedly influenced by their desire to return home with booty, this fluctuating support was attributable more to the clans' reluctance to disrupt the agrarian cycle of sowing and harvesting and, above all, to their aversion to prolonged absence from their patrimonies which sustained campaigning left exposed to the ravages of cateran bands or reprisals by political opponents. For although around 5,000 clansmen were mobilised during the civil war and again for the Jacobite rising, the 47 foremost clans were never united in their support for the Stewarts albeit over 60% of the clans actively supported or shifted their support in favour of the royal house on both occasions. Clan support for the house of Stuart as hereditary rulers of Scotland was based primarily on the projection of traditional values of c1anship onto the national political stage. As the chiefs were the protectors of the clan patrimonies, so were the Stuarts trustees for Scotland. At the same time, clan support for Charles I during the civil war was essentially reactionary. The 21 clans who declared unequivocally for the Royalist cause were fighting less in favour of that absentee monarch than against the Covenanting Movement which was making unprecedented demands for ideological, financial and military commitment. More especially the clans were reacting against powerful nobles whose public espousal of the Covenanting cause masked the private pursuit of territorial ambitions. Thus, the Mackays took up the Royalist mantle to defend their patrimony of Strathnaver against the acquisitive overtures of John Gordon, earl of Sutherland. The most acquisitive influence, however, was undoubtedly that of the Clan Campbell, the main beneficiaries of the expropriation of MacDonalds from Kintyre, Islay, Jura and Ardnamurchan since the outset of the seventeenth century. Having been evicted by Campbel\s from Colonsay in 1639, the determination of MacColla to perpetuate the feud under the Royalist mantle was endorsed by the Irish regiments under his command which were recruited almost exclusively from among his kinsmen on the Ulster estates of Randal MacDonnell, earl ofAntrim, whose own territorial ambitions on the western seaboard had encouraged Campbell forces enlisted in the Covenanting army despatched to Ireland in 1642 to wreak havoc on the isle of Rathlin and the glens ofAntrim. The deliberate but wanton ravaging of Argyll and northern Perthshire during the winters of 1644 and 1645 persuaded six clans hitherto contained within the territorial spheres of Campbell influence to cut loose in support of the Reyalist cause albeit the two most prominent, the Lamonts and MacDougalls, were subsequently massacred for their temerity to switch sides and plunder Campbell estates. The polarizing impact of the Campbells was not confined to the western seaboard since their chief, Archibald, marquis of Argy le, in the four years prior to the outbreak of the civil war, had utilised military commissions not only to harry suspect Royalists in Atholl, braes ofAngus, Braemar and Deeside, but also to push his territorial claims over Badenoch and Lochaber. Because their chief was in the tutelage of the marquis, Camerons of Lochiel who held their lands of the house of Argyle, maintained a prudent neutrality throughout the civil war. Conversely, aversion to the hitherto pervasive influence of the Royalist magnate, George Gordon, marquis of Huntly, in the central Highlands, persuaded the Frasers and originally the Grants to declare for the Covenanters and for the Mackintoshes, but not all of the Clan Chattan to remain neutral. The willingness of the Royalist commanders to despoil territories of clans reluctant to join their cause convinced the Grants of the expediency of switching sides. The MacLeods of Dunvegan and the Sinclairs limited their support for the Covenanting Movement to the protection of their clan patrimonies. Tom between the defence of their clan patrimonies and the political ambitioning of their vacillating chief, George, second earl ofSeaforth, the MacKenzies, together with their allies, the MacRaes and MacLeods of Assynt, demonstrated an unparallelled lack of touch in switching adversely whenever Royalist or Covenanting forces enjoyed ascendancy. While the Campbells and the other clans who campaigned offensively for the Covenanting Movement were in broad sympathy with presbyterianism, the militant catholicism of the Irish forces, while espoused by MacColla and the leading branches of the ClanDonald, was certainly not shared by the majority of the Royalist clans. However, religion was a principal factor influencing clans to come out for the first Jacobite rising. The sporadic inroads of Catholic missions served to solidify the opposition offormer Royalist clans to the disposition of James VII. More significant in attracting support from hitherto neutral clans and in persuading Covenanting clans to adopt a neutral standpoint was the spread of episcopalianism during the Restoration era, which not only provided a religious complement to the hierarchical nature of clanship, but inculated a spirit of obedience and submission to royal authority throughout Gaeldom. Accordingly, the replacement of James VII by William of Orange was interpreted as a breach of patriarchal duty by Gaelic poets for whom the sundering of genealogical continuity imperilled the lawful exercise of government which, in turn, subverted the maintenance of a just political order. Far from being tyrannical or oppressive, James VII had won a favourable press from the clans. When duke ofYork, he had instituted the commission for pacifying the Highlands in 1682 which, for the next three years, had sought the co-operation of chiefs and leading gentry in maintaining law and order. This commission represented a brief, but welcome, respite from the grasping and intimidatory policies of successive regimes in the Restoration era which had sought to tarnish the Highlands as an area of endemic lawlessness in order to maintain a standing army and facilitate the collection of onerous taxes. Moreover, James !"tad proved notably responsive in redressing the 148

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