I'm Bruce Fummey. Do you recognize this little known monument, on a little rural side road? You probably
don't, and yet it commemorates the biggest battle in Medieval Scotland. Was it a battle of the clans,
or was it a battle for dynastic control, or culture, or national identity, or was it something else,
or all of these? Lots of people from the Scottish diaspora asked me to talk about the clans, and
Karen Cocca asked me to cover the Battle of Harlaw, so I'm going to do both, by telling you about Red
Harlaw, the biggest clan battle ever, and then we'll deal with the question,
why? If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then click the
subscribe button at the bottom right hand side of the screen, in the meantime let me tell you a story.
In 1411, Donald of Isla, Lord of the Isles, raised an army, and he set out from Ardtornish Castle by the
sound of Mull. Now you can see the exact spot on a video that I made about a later Lord of the Isles,
and I'll leave a link to that video at the end, but this huge force headed east into Rosshire.
Now Clint, in the Scottish Clans Podcast, lists them as all the Macdonald's, Clan Ranald, Dunnyveg,
Keppoch, Maciains of Ardnamurchan, the Macleods of Lewis and Dunvegan,
Macleans of Duart and Lochbuie, MacNeils of Barra and Ghia, Mackinnon, MacQuarrie, Mackay of the Rinns,
MacNicol of Scorrybrec, MacEchan, MacGilvary of Mull, Macmillans of Knapdale, Maclauchlans, Lamonts,
Macewans, Macintoshes, Camerons, Gilliards, Mathesons and Rosses of Balnagowan. This was a party.
They ravaged Ross, and as he swept eastwards towards the Rosshire seat of power at Dingwall, they met and
defeated their Stuart supporting opponents; Clan Mackay, Clan Fraser Mackenzie's and possibly
Monroe's. Having swiped them aside
they pressed further south and east with the intention of burning Aberdeen.
They approached from this direction, an army estimated to be up to 10,000 Highlanders. Now
hold on, you were gonna let that number pass by you without even thinking about it, but stop!
This was a bigger Highland army than Bonnie Prince Charlie had at Culloden, at Falkirk
at Prestonpans, it's more than Robert the Bruce had at Bannockburn, than William Wallace had at
Stirling Bridge. This was a host approaching the biggest, and as we'll see the bloodiest, battle
in Medieval Scotland. They made camp in this direction, in the shadow of Benachie.
Who would save Aberdeen from this marauding horde?
From Angus, the Mearns and Buchan, Alexander Stewart, the Earl of Marr, had managed to gather
between one and two thousand men; Irvings, Leslies, Lovells, Maules, Morays, Stirlings and Straitons.
Now I know Medieval battle numbers get skewed and distorted, so in truth, I'm not entirely sure
if the Highland host outnumbered these men five to one, or ten to one, but put yourself in their shoes.
As you approach from this direction, up from the River Urie towards this plateau on the morning
of the 24th of July, 1411, how confident would you be in seeing the end of that
summer's day? Your one advantage was that you had armour, that the Highlanders lacked.
We're told that these Lowland defenders of Aberdeen approached this spot in shilterns, big
round hedgehogs of men and spear, with some limited cavalry support. The Highlanders charged towards
them in wedges, the Chief of Clan Maclean, Red Hector of the Battles, led the right wing, Malcolm
Beg Macintosh on the left and Donald, Lord of the Isles, in the middle. They smashed into the Lowland
shilterns, and drove the defenders back in that direction, and then the lone cavalry tried to stem
the losses, by coming around and hurtling into the side of the Highland host, but after an initial
impact, they were bogged down by the sheer number of Highlanders surrounding their horses. These men
at arms, were pulled down from their steeds and stabbed and stabbed and stabbed again.
Okay, so no cavalry, but even more dead bodies to clamber over as the blood that they oozed
made the ground slippery. Now it was a brutal bludgeoning and cutting that they say went on
all day. It was only as darkness began to fall, that the two forces disengaged. Now you've seen
how long a July day is in the north of Scotland, can you imagine the anguish, gore and death? Nine hundred
of the 10,000 Highlanders lie dead, their armour protection at Aberdeen's Lowland defenders meant
that they've got only 600 dead, but if you only started with 1500, then your total remaining force,
is just the number that they've lost, and with that you have to face 9,000 Highlanders tomorrow.
You know the battle's lost. When you die tomorrow,
what happens to Aberdeen then? What happens to your family, your home? I wonder how much of the
sleep you so desperately need, you'll actually get. In the morning, when the Lowlanders stand to,
no onslaught comes. Donald, Lord of the Isles, has retreated. Aberdeen is saved. They say many families
lost every male in their house; Leslie of Balquhain, just over the hill there, died with six of his sons.
On the Highland side, Donald lost a much smaller proportion of his force, but that included both his
seconds in command. Donald withdrew, not just back to Inverness or Ross but entirely. Two armies, both
of whom thought they'd been defeated, now claimed victory. The question is, what was it all for,
this biggest ever clan battle? So here's the most important bit, the why?
Some have characterised it as a clash between two peoples and cultures; Normanised Lowlanders
holding out against Celtic Highlander hordes. A victory akin to defeating the English at the Battle
of Bannockburn, and yet much of Aberdeenshire would have been Gaelic speaking themselves,
and how does that explain the Mackays, Frasers and Mackenzie standing up against Donald at Dingwall?
Others have pointed to personal and dynastic ambitions that prevailed. You see some time back
the Earldom of Ross had been granted to William, Earl of Ross by David the Second, but through a complex series of
marriages, husbands predeceasing wives, and varying allegiances of cousins, the Earldom of Ross, and the
influence in that area had passed to the Stewarts of Albany, and the uncle of the
current King. Now I'm going to make an extra video for my Patreon whisky members, to explain
all that messy business, so if you want to become a Patreon member, then click the white tab up there.
The people of Ross were Gaels, and the community was kin based, clannish. Imposing an outside, feudal
overlord connected to the Stuart Royal house, would certainly cause a reaction,
but if that was the case, why is it that when Donald had defeated the force of Mackays at
Dingwall, and then taken Ross, why did he head for Aberdeen instead of just consolidating? More to the
point, why retreat entirely when it was all over and allow the Stuarts to take back control of the
Earldom of Ross so easily? Maybe there's just nothing more than a pillaging raid in Aberdeen gone wrong.
It was supposed to be a walk over, but never before on a field of battle had so many Highlanders been
killed by so few Lowlanders, with such little reward. You'd think they were flying spitfires.
Let me give you a bit of context in a complex situation.
Donald wasn't the first Lord of the Isles. The first one was Somerled. He'd been King of the
Isles, Ri Innse Gall. He'd held the Hebrides in the orbit of Norway, all the way across the North Sea,
and then in the 1263 Treaty of Perth, Magnus the Sixth of Norway, signed the Hebrides over to Alexander
the Third, King of Scots, but just three years later, Alexander the Third died, throwing
us into the Wars of Independence with Edward of England, Edward Longshanks, in that whole debacle,
the Macdougals had supported the wrong side, but the Campbells and the Macdonalds had backed
Robert the Bruce, and the Macdonalds emerged, not as Kings, but as Lords of the Isles.
Just a generation later, the short-lived Bruce Dynasty gave way to Robert the Third, the first
Stuart King. With numerous children, legitimate and illegitimate, the Stuart grip and control
spread, and Rosshire was the buffer between Stuart dominance, and the Lord of the Isles. Now
James the First was King, but he'd been languishing as a hostage in England for five years already,
with his uncle, Robert, Duke of Albany as Regent, and the Albany Stuarts making no effort to gain his
release. Multi-layered negotiations had been going on between the hostage King, James the First, and
Albany Stuarts, between the Albany Stuarts and the Lords of the Isles, and of course between
the Lord of the Isles and Henry the Fourth of England. It was enough to make an EU negotiator's head spin.
In this video here, I point out how 50 years later, the then Lord of the Isles agreed the Treaty of
Westminster Ardtornish, with a later King of England, a pact in which the Lord of the Isles
would attack the King of Scots from the north, and Edward the Fourth of England from the south. It was agreed
in the same castle from which today's protagonist set off. There are those who would say that the
Battle of Harlaw was fought here for exactly the same reasons as that Treaty of Westminster Ardtornish.
Folk like history to be neat and tidy don't they? Black Stetsons and white ones, Macdonalds
are good, and Campbells are bad, and my clan couldn't possibly have done anything wrong.
Nothing's ever that clear is it? Now I love to see your comments on the videos in the comment section
below. I'll be honest, they're starting to get more numerous than I can cope with answering every one
of them, but I do read them and I appreciate them, but sometimes I worry that we look at conflicts
very two-dimensionally. Tell me what you think. I see people from the wider Scottish diaspora
confusing British with English, and clan with country, and let's be honest, blame with analysis.
I often see them, and some of us home-based Scots blaming the English for all Scotland's woes,
whilst yet others make the ludicrous claim that everything in the British garden's rosy.
Nothing's ever that simple. You can believe in Scotland, but still see our own failings. You can
believe in the UK, yet face the fact that sleeping with an elephant means you'll probably be crushed.
You can feel a sense of belonging, without being stuck in the past.
Now I don't know whether to suggest a video about that later Lord of the Isles hatching an alliance
against the Stuart King, or one about where the Stuart Dynasty came from in the first place.
As I say, life's complicated. Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.