In May 1647 Montrose's well-known lieutenant, Sir Alexander Macdonald, the son of Colla Ciotach Macdonald (Alastair Mac Coll Ciotach) left a garrison of some 500 men in Dunavertie Castle in Kintyre, which was besieged by the Covenanters under David Leslie, afterwards Lord Newark. According to Sir James Turner, who was Leslie's Adjutant-General, "after some fighting inexorable thirst made them desire a parley. I was ordered to speak with them. Neither could the Lieutenant-General be moved to grant any other conditions then that they should yeeld on discretion or mercy ; and it seemed strange to me to heare the Lieutenant-General's nice distinction that they sould yield themselves to the kingdomes mercy and not to his. At length they did so, and after they were comd out of the Castle they were put to the sword everie mothers sonne except one young man Mackoull, whose life I begd to be sent to France with a hundredth countrey fellows whom we had smoked out of a cave as they doe foxes, who were given to Captain Campbell, the Chancellors brother.'
There is controversy as to the circumstances. In Bishop Guthry's Memoirs, p. 24.3, it is distinctly said that the garrison had been promised quarter, "But having surrendered their arms the Marquis (Argyll ) and a bloody preacher, Mr. John Nevoy, prevailed with him to break his word, and so the army was let loose upon them and killed them all without mercy, whereat David Lesley seemed to have some inward check. For while the Marquis and he with Mr. Nevoy were walking over the ancles in blood he turned about and said, Now, Mr. John, have you not once gotten your fill of blood?"
In the appendix to his memoirs, Turner, who had seen the Bishop's MS., and seems to have felt that his own honour was involved, contradicts certain of its statements. In particular he denies that there was a promise of quarter, and that Leslie, Argyll, and Nevoy walked over the ankles in blood. An ingenious argument with regard to this latter point is also submitted in his by the Rev. Dr. Willcock, who says: 'As a mere matter of fact there was probably but little blood on the ground if the local tradition be correct that most of the prisoners were killed by being thrown over the cliffs into the sea.'
Be this as it may, two questions still remain. Was quarter promised? and, Who was responsible for the butchery?
Even if it be true that Leslie attempted to salve such conscience as he had by the ' nice distinction ' which surprised
Turner, it is extremely probable that his victims were misled by his quibbling. For otherwise it is unlikely that they would have surrendered. And the fact that they were induced to believe that quarter had been promised seems established by the decree in an action raised after the Restoration against Argyll, Ardkinglass, and others said to have been concerned in the massacre, at the instance of Sir John Fletcher, the King's Advocate, John M'Dougall of Donnollie, Alane M'Dougall of Rarae, Dougall M'Dougall of Donnach, and John M'Dougall of Dagnish. After narrating that Sir James Lamont had been commissioned to raise troops in the King's service the decree proceeds:
'The said John M'Dougall of Donnollie and the deceast Alexander M'Dougall, his father, having risen in arms with all their followers to the number of 500 men of their friends kindred and tennents and joyned themselves to the said Sir James Lamont during the war in the said years, and being still in his Majesty's most royal father his service were invaded by the said Defenders and particularlie be the said deceast Archibald Campbell, late Marquess of Argyll, and David Leslie and these in armes with them, and pursued to the fort of Dunavertie in Kintyre, which not being able to hold out there being ane message sent into these within the fort that if they did not come forth again ten hours the next day they should not have quarters, and if they came out they should have quarters. And the said Johne M'dougall being within the fort with his friends, who having punctually as wes desired at the verie hour of the day com forth and rendered themselves they wer all be the instigation of the deceast Archibald Campbell, late Marquess of Argyll, to the number of fyve hundredth men, officers and souldiers, cruellie and inhumanelie butchered in cold blood (The said John M'Dougall being then a child and in nonage wes only spared).'
From this decree it is clear that at that time it was believed that quarter had been promised, and the minutely detailed statement of the circumstances seems to show that belief to have been well founded, and this will be confirmed a little later when Leslie's record has been considered. Turning for the moment to the next question—who was responsible for this butchery? Bishop Guthry alleges that Argyll was responsible, and so also does the decree above quoted. In view of the wholesale murder of the Lamonts by the Campbells in June 1646, it is easy to believe that Argyll, whose own people had suffered so much at the hands of Alastair Macdonald, may have been pleased with the killing of the prisoners, and may even have done his best to bring it about. And his instigation of the massacre was actually one of the charges brought against him, not only in the action already referred to, but also in his trial for treason. But Turner, who was a witness in that trial, after saying that there was no evidence against him, goes on to give his account of what really happened:
' Mr. John Nave (who was appointed by the Commission of the Kirke to waite on him (Leslie) as his chaplaine) never ceased
to tempt him to that bloodshed, yea and threatened him with the curses befell Saul for spareing the Amalekites, for with them his theologie taught him to compare the Dunavertie men.' And in the Appendix, p. 240, he is even more emphatic : 'It is true'.
The traditional account of this bloodshed and devastation is given in Adventures in Legend, by the Marquis of Lorne, K.T.
David Leslie hath confessed it afterwards to severalls and to myselfe in particular oftener than once that he had spared them all if that Nevoy put on by Argile had not both by preachings and imprecations instead of prayers led him to commit that butcherie '. Even Leslie, it thus appears, though insinuating that Argyll had stirred up Nevoy, does not venture to say that he ever tried to influence him directly in the matter. It is plain that Turner, as a soldier of fortune, is chiefly anxious to clear Leslie from the charge of having broken his promise of quarter, and his testimony must he taken into consideration. Unfortunately, however, for Leslie such treachery is entirely consistent with his previous record. After Philiphaugh, according to Dr. S. R. Gardiner, there 'ensued a butchery more horrible than any that had followed upon any of Montrose's victories. The wild clansmen of the north had contented themselves with taking vengeance upon men.
The trained and disciplined soldiers of the Covenant slaughtered with hideous barbarity not only the male camp followers but 300 Irishwomen, the wives of these slain or captured enemies, together with their infant children.
To the Scotchman every Irish man or woman was but a noxious beast. It soon repented the conquerors that they had spared the lives of fifty soldiers. The churchmen and the noblemen remonstrated warmly against the act of clemency. Quarter, it was said, by a vile equivocation, had been granted to Stuart alone and not to his men. As the triumphant army passed through Linlithgow, Leslie weakly gave way and stained his honour by abandoning his prisoners. The soldiers were bidden to fall on, and they did as they were bidden'. This statement, it is right to say, has been criticised adversely by the Rev. Professor Mitchell in his introduction to vol. i. of the Records of the Commission of the General Assembly. After preparing the way by quoting (p. xvi.) from Hill Burton some abuse of Celts generally, supplemented by some observations of his own, he cites a statement by Wharton that Sir James Hacket had told him that the Covenanting forces at Philiphaugh ' Killed and took prisoners twelve hundred of their foot, and had put all the Irish to the sword.' Therefore, he argues, 'Leslie could not have bid his soldiers fall on them at Linlithgow, for the very plain reason that they had done so at Philiphaugh.' Unfortunately for this very plain reason Professor Mitchell has failed to remember that, under date Tuesday, 23 December 1645, Balfour records the following resolution of Parliament. 'The housse ordanes the Irische prissoners taken at and after Philiphaughe in all the prissons of Selkirke, Jedburghe, Glasgow, Dumbartane, and Perth, to be execut without anev assyse or processe conforme to the trettey betwix both Kingdomes, past in acte '.
Further light is also thrown on Leslie's character by a significant admission by Turner himself. After the fall of Dunavertie, Turner tells how the Covenanters attacked Dunyveg in Isla, where old Coll Ciotach was in command. And this is what he says occurred: 'Before we were masters of Dunneveg the old man Coll, coming fulishlie out of the house where he was Governour on some parole or other to speak with his old friend the Captaine of Dunstaffnage Castle, was surprised and made prisoner not without some staine to the Lieutenant-Generall' s honour.' So much then for any arguments based on the character of David Leslie as a man of honour.
But while Leslie must ever bear the shame of his cowardly weakness and his broken word, the true bloodguiltiness rests on the Reverend John Nevoy and on the Kirk whose official representative he was. A nephew of the Reverend Andrew Cant, and referred to with much appreciation in the Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Nevoy has most properly been held up to continuous execration. But though more notorious it does not follow that he was in reality worse than many of his neighbours, most of whom are fortunate in this, that their individual activities are not so clearly identified.
Some exceptions, indeed, there are, such as the Reverend Colin Maclachlan, who took a leading part in the butchery of the
Lamonts, and the Reverend David Dickson, whose ghoulish epinicion, ' the work goes bonnily on,' passed into a proverb.
It must be remembered, too, that Nevoy was no obscure fanatic, but, like Dickson, one of the leaders of the Kirk (vide Professor Mitchell's General Assembly Commission Records, passim), and had been specially appointed by the Kirk to the Army At that time practically under the domination of Johnston of Wariston. In his Introduction to vol. ii. of the General Assembly Commission Kecotds, Professor Mitchell writes with approval even of Neil Macleod of Assynt, and
takes the trouble to state an excuse for his betrayal of Montrose, which Macleod himself had too much sense to put forward, and is contradicted by the defence he actually made!
That it was to such exotic theories, and not to any innate savagery of the Scottish nature, that the atrocities of the Covenanters were due seems plain from what occurred at the Restoration. In spite of all that had happened only three of the Covenanting leaders were executed. The Reverend James Guthrie,4 who had behaved with intolerable insolence in his prosperity, was hanged. Argyll, who would, probably, have been left alone if he had stayed quietly indicted for treason, pleaded that they had surrendered on promise of quarter. From this, one instructive sentence may be quoted. ' If this defence of quarters be susteaned then the whole nation expeciallie the estates of Parliament does violat the oathe of ye Covenant and the oalhe of the Parliament anent the prosequuting and censuring of malignants opposers of the Covenant'). It was thus a sin to give quarter, and if quarter had been promised it was sinful to keep that promise.
Attempts have been made to extenuate the Dunavertie massacre by representing that the victims were mere Irish savages, and that it was the custom of the Covenanters and their English allies to treat them as noxious vermin. These apologies, however, are slightly irrelevant. For whatever may have been the merits or demerits of the Irish race, and whatever may have been the practice of Nevoy and his colleagues, the victims contained in the list that follows were not Irish—but Scots. And the Duke of Argyll, to whose unequalled knowledge of such matters the Editor is so often indebted, has kindly dealt with their identity and with other points in the notes.