The material remains of the battle of Glenshiel
Derek Alexander of the NationalTrust for Scotland reports on archaeological artefacts that help to illustrate the military activity on the Jacobite battlefield of 1719
Report on archaeological artefacts from the site of this 1719 battle
The battle of Glenshiel was the only pitched battle fought during the 1719 Jacobite uprising. It was fought between the Jacobites under the earl of Tullibardine against a force of British government troops under the command of General Joseph Wightman. The Jacobites are recorded to have had around 1,200 highlanders along with 240 Spanish regulars. The government forces consisted of 850 infantry, 130 highlanders, 120 dragoons and a battery of coehorn mortars. Although casualties appear to have been relatively low on both sides, the Jacobites were defeated and were forced to withdraw, leaving the Spanish troops to surrender on the following day.
One of the most interesting aspects of Glenshiel is the fact that the battle was surveyed in detail and plans were produced by a military surveyor, John Henry Bastide, whose regiment (Monatgue’s) was at the battle on 10 June 1719. There are three versions of Bastide’s plan available in the National Library of Scotland, each of which shows slightly different details. These maps are very good at displaying the varied topography of the battlefield and the position and movement of the troops thereon. They also show a polygonal enclosure on the summit of the spur, Spanish Hill, the two ‘breastworks’ to the east and the ‘barricade’ blocking the approach to the bridge.
It is the survival of traces of these features on the ground, especially the breastworks, that has led to the spur of Spanish Hill being designated as a Scheduled Monument. In addition to the depicted location of General Wightman (which varies) one of the key differences to these maps is the representation on one of a small, roofed structure which appears in the location of the shielings on the site – a ‘shiel’ of Glenshiel. These plans were then used by Dutch artist Peter Tillemans to produce a very detailed painting of the battle which now hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.
The National Trust for Scotland’s Kintail estate (6,540ha) was acquired in 1945. The land includes the magnificent hill ridge of the Five Sisters and part of the Glenshiel battlefield. 2019 marked the 300th anniversary of the battle and the National Trust for Scotland (NTS) were keen to improve our understanding of the engagement and how it is presented to the public. An application for Scheduled Monument Consent to undertake excavation work and metal detecting within the Scheduled Area, which formed the Jacobite centre, was submitted to Historic Environment Scotland.
Shot - The Jacobite centre
The Jacobite centre controlled access through the glen at its narrowest point. A ‘barricade’ was thrown up across the road (D) with the drop to the river to the south and a steep slope rising to the north, while two ‘breastworks’ of loose boulders (E) were constructed on the hillslope above to cover the approach along the road from the east. All three of these positions appear to have been manned by groups (perhaps around 80 each) of the Spanish troops. Close to the summit of the spur, a drystone polygonal enclosure, which was possibly a stock enclosure, was used as the command position and baggage area; it was here that the MacDonalds and the Camerons appear to have been positioned.
Three trenches were excavated in the area of the Jacobite centre – one at the polygonal enclosure, one at the shieling and one across the northern breastwork. Nothing of significance was found at the enclosure and the trench over the shieling revealed occupation debris, including a spindle whorl made from a broken sherd of pottery, but nothing that related to the battle.
The stone construction is about 8m long and stands 0.6m high on the downslope, south-eastern side. There is a slight cut into the hillslope behind the wall which forms a terrace 2m wide.The stone wall face links two outcrops of bedrock and curves, with the contour of the hill in between. The curve of the wall seems unusual,
although perhaps this is a result of the front face having slumped forward in places or perhaps it was built with small angles to provide different fields of fire. Removal of the turf and topsoil from in front of the wall, downslope, to the south-east, revealed a wall of irregular blocks two or three courses high in places.
The second, southern, breastwork is interpreted here as a line of stone-walling that runs up and down the contours, c.20m downslope, measures 7m long and is aligned north to south. Unlike the northern one it runs up the slope. The construction incorporates a number of large natural boulders which have been joined by lengths of poorly-built drystone walling. In places the walling still stands a couple of courses high but elsewhere it has collapsed. This position would have provided a clear firing position along the road to the east but also would have allowed troops to have been moved to provide covering fire into the flank of any government forces attacking straight along the road at the barricade.
The only significant metal detecting find was an anomaly that had been located at the base of large natural boulder downslope and to the south of the northern breastwork. This was the first metal detecting anomaly to be investigated and proved to be a flattened lead shot.This ball measured 21mm long by 20mm, and was 7-8mm thick. It was clearly distorted and flattened on the inside form presumably having struck the bedrock and then dropped to the ground below.The inside flattened surface shows some dimples where the soft lead had pressed against the rock face and some stress cracking, from the force of the splaying impact. The diameter of the musket ball cannot be determined but it weighs 25.7g.
From Bastide’s map, it is clear that the hill was attacked by two separate units. A group of 35 dismounted dragoons came from the east (No. 20 on map), while a part of Clayton’s regiment attacked the barricade from the south side of the river (No 19 on map) before climbing the hill to the polygonal enclosure. On the route to the enclosure, according to the map, both units outflanked the breastwork to the south, rather than tackling them head on. Descriptions of the attack suggest it was over quite quickly, within ten minutes, and it appears that the Spanish troops, probably having seen highland troops on both left and right wings being pushed back, decided to retire before the advancing government troops. As they retired, a Spanish captain was captured. It is possible that the musket ball found below trench 3, and in front of the northern breastwork, was fired from either Clayton’s or the dragoons as they climbed the hill.
Shell - The Jacobite right wing
The Jacobite right wing was positioned on the southern side of the River Shiel where it occupied a prominent hill. The summit of the hill was held by around 150 Mackenzies and ten MacDougalls, under the command of Lord George Murray and John Mackenzie of Avoch. The north-facing slopes of this hill were very steep with areas of near-vertical bedrock cliff face in places. The attack was initiated by a bombardment from two of the coehorn mortars which, according to Bastide’s map, were positioned
to the north-west.This position allowed the mortars a clear field of fire without the risk of any mis-fires dropping short on to the heads of their fellow government troops. The attack, when it came, was from the north-east, probably at an angle across and up the slope aiming to out flank the Jacobite right.The attacking force consisted of 160 men of Claytons and 80 Munro highlanders.
According to Bastide's map, Clayton's unit was split in two, with one half continuing along the river side to engage the Spanish at the barricade.The other 80 was divided into four units of 20 which climbed the hill with the Munros. On the far left of the government line, the left flank of the Munros was exposed to fire from a small group of Jacobites on the hillslope above and within scrub to the south-east (marked as G of Bastide's map). It was during this flanking fire that George Munro was wounded in the thigh. Despite taking relatively heavy casualties (perhaps five killed and 28 wounded) the government troops pushed back the Jacobite right wing, wounding Lord George Murray in the process, and occupied the summit of the hill. A reinforcement unit dispatched from the Jacobite centre, perhaps Camerons or MacDonalds, were too late to prevent the withdrawal of their colleagues (shown as H on Bastide's map).
With the permission of the landowner, a metal-detector survey was undertaken of the Jacobite right wing position. Although no musket balls were recovered, seven fragments of a single coehorn mortar shell were recovered from within a 2m area at the base of a cliff face. These fragments all appear to come from one shell that must have landed and then exploded on the ground, driving half the shell into the ground and the other half into the air. The shell or bomb was a spherical iron hollow casing about 11cm in diameter with a 2cm hole in the top for a fuse.
Sprue – The government centre
The Jacobite right wing was outside the scope of the recent project as it lay within a forestry plantation, but when the conifers were being planted in the 1960s, the local farmer picked up an iron musket-ball mould. The iron scissor-like implement formed two halves of a spherical mould, when held together, lead was poured in at the top to form a musket ball. Unfortunately, it is not recorded exactly where within the plantation this object was found and so it is unclear whether it was dropped by government troops or by Jacobites. However, given that the government forces would probably have left their packs with the rest of their baggage in the bottom of the glen, to be guarded by ten dragoons and perhaps 100 of the Dutch troops, it seems more likely that the shot mould belonged to a Jacobite. Indeed, they may have had time to make additional shot as they awaited the arrival of Wightman's army.
In order to gain an understanding of the size of shot that the mould would have made, an impression was taken from the interior. This produced a ball 16mm in diameter, with a line of moulding flash (where the two parts of the mould met) and the ‘sprue' at the top where the excess lead had been poured in. On examining the impression taken, it is clear that the ‘sprue' would need to be removed before any lead ball could be fired from a musket. A pair of clippers on the inside angle of the moulding implement would have been used to snip off the excess – much like wire cutters you sometimes get on modern pliers. This would have left a small off-cut that would probably have been returned to the melting pot, so no lead was wasted.
The above led to the realisation that a small fragment of lead found at Glenshiel in 2018 was in fact a snipped-off sprue from a casting a musket ball. This had been found by metal-detecting down by the river where the government camp site would have been after the battle. General Wightman was nervous that he might be attacked or forced to fight the next day, especially as most of his troops had used all but two of their eighteen rounds. It's easy to picture the troops after a long day of fighting frantically casting new musket balls to try and supplement dwindling resources. Perhaps having snipped the sprue off, it had been too hot to handle and was dropped rather than retained for re-melting.
The physical remains of the breastworks and the enclosure have long been known to survive at Glenshiel but the recent archaeological work has started to gather battlefield artefacts that shed further light on this intriguing engagement.