Montrose's High Tide - Kilsyth 15 August 1645

Background

Following his victory against Baillie at Alford Montrose moved south at a leisurely pace to try and draw off any Covenanter reprisals against the Gordon’s heartlands round Huntly. His string of victories now began paying dividends as he was now joined by considerable numbers of reinforcements. Firstly MacColla returned from his recruiting drive in the Western Highlands, bringing in some 1600 fighting men from the Clanranald, MacLean and various other Western clans, all allies of the McDonald’s in their feud with the Campbells.  Slower to return, but equally welcome, was Viscount Aboyne with some 300 Gordon Horse and 120 dragoons. With around 5000 men Montrose now found himself at the head of the largest army he would command in his 1644-45 campaign.   

 After Alford Baillie tried to quit his post as Commander in Chief of the Covenanter forces in Scotland. His resignation was not wholly accepted by the Committee of Estates of the Scottish parliament. Instead he was temporally retained, under the close supervision of the Committee, until Major-General Munro, the current commander of the Covenant Army serving in Ireland, could be recalled to take over the Scottish command.

 The Covenanters began an ambitious recruiting campaign to try and bolster the number of troops available to them in Scotland, but Montrose’s progress towards the lowland heartlands meant that there was no time to train new replacements properly. So, beyond the few remaining regular units already present in Scotland, themselves hastily filled with survivors of earlier engagements against the Royalists, only a few hastily raised units could be added to the Covenanters ranks.

Amongst these was a newly raised 1200 strong brigade made up of 3 conventionally armed infantry regiments levied in Fifeshire which were very reluctant to serve outside the boundaries of the shire. To further bolster their forces in Scotland a further 1200 experienced infantrymen were detached from various Covenanter regiments in Ireland and sent back to Scotland post haste to serve under Ballie.

 A separate force of some 1500 men under the Earl of Lanark that had been raised in the Clydeside region was marching to join Baillie’s command.  

 Advancing towards Glasgow Montrose crossed the field of Bannockburn the day before the battle was fought. He was seeming well aware of the Covenanters plans and drew up on the high ground to the East of Kilsyth village above the Glasgow to Stirling road where the enemy was expected to appear, but they did not arrive by that route.

Instead Baillie appeared from the East as the Committee had instructed him to attack at once with the forces he had at hand, without waiting to link up with Lanark’s men. Baillie’s plan was to use dead ground on Montrose’s right flank to screen his advance and then seize the high ground behind Montrose’s positions near Auchincloch.

However Baillie’s carefully laid plan soon came adrift when his advance guard decided to take a short cut to their objective which enabled them to be spotted by the Royalists, who quickly reorientated their force to meet the still marching Covenanters....  

Playing The Game

As we are currently developing a few scenarios I will not include my OOB and map that we used for this refight as I have done in my previous occasional battle reports. The game was played over two sessions with four players, two on each side. We use "For King and Parliament" rules with local house rules for playing the "Celtic Fringe" which encompass the unique nature of the smaller scale actions in Scotland and Ireland during the War of the Three Kingdoms from 1639 - 51.

 

View of the terrain and inital Covenanter deployment in response to the Royalist army approaching from the west (top left of the picture). The Earl of Balcarres' cavalry brigade on the far right with Major General Baillie's more experienced infantry brigade on the left. Major General Holborne's small infantry brigade trails behind Baillie. The inexperienced brigade of Fifeshire militia under Major General John Leslie remains off-board till turn two. 

The Royalists deploy for battle - nearest the camera Montrose choose to join with Col Manus O'Cahan's Irish Brigade made up of three units of veteran commanded shot. Across the Banton Burn is Farquharson of Inverary's small but experienced brigade of regular Gordon foot. Next up on the hill is MacColla's Highland Brigade made up mainly of MacDonald, Clanranald, MacDonell and MacLean clansmen from the Western highlands. Lastly in the distance beyond Drum Burn is Nathaniel Gordon's small brigade of Gordon Horse, representing half of Montrose's cavalry contingent. The rest of the cavalry under Viscount Aboyne, representing the right wing of Montrose's intial deployment has further to travel so it will arrive on turn 2 in any four of the boxes containing markers that can be seen on the hills in the top left of the picture. 

Major General Baillie's view of the advancing Royalists as his own troops deploy. Gordon of Gight's troop on the right was very eager to engage with the Covenanters.......

Who were not slow to take up the challenge, with Forbes of Craigevair's troop from Balcarres' own regiment charging and disbursing Gight's troop (Troops of Horse are only small one hit units in FK&P).

This was to prove one of the few sucesses for the Covenanters as next turn Forbes' troop was in turn destroyed by Nathaniel Gordon's regiment. Meanwhile Aboyne's brigade arrived (top of the picture) and was committed in support of the Royalist left wing.

The Royalist infantry continues it advance in the centre and their left wing. Baillie's brigade has taken up good defensive positions along Banton Burn opposite MacColla's Highlanders on the central hill. Meanwhile the Covenanter's Fifeshire militia brigade arrives and Holborne's infantry are committed to defend the Convenant right wing.      

Balcarres brigade soon came under further pressure with Aboyne's cavalry disbursing Barclay's small unit of lancers (In pursuit down the table edge) and Haldane's commanded shot being roughed up by Clan MacDonnell's small array in the centre of the picture. But support is at hand from Holborne's infantry brigade inclining to the right.   

On the Covenanter left the Irish brigade, lead by Montrose himself, attempted to outflank Baillie's line by wotking through the rough terrain. They succeeded in dispatching one of Col Home's redcoat battalia's after a massive fight where the smaller but veteran Irish units survived thanks to the sacrifice of their AKS detachments. In the centre the highlanders and Gordon regulars pause temporaily to see how the Irish Brigade attack works. At the bottom of the picture Major General Leslie's Fifeshire brigade nervously awaits the approaching Royalists.

Things start to really unwind for the Covenanters at this stage of the game. Major General Baillie manages to turn Col Home's Second battalia to face the oncoming Irish but it takes a hit from thier salvee charge and in testing (since he was with the unit) Baillie is hit and is carried badly wounded from the field (1 and 8 chits drawn), leaving his brigade without a commander and handing over 5 victory medals to the Royalist players.

With their flanks secure MacColla's highlanders charge in against their old foes The Marquis of Argyle's Highland Regiment, but they get as good as they get, each side taking a hit. Meanwhile Kennedy's battalion, made up of surviviors from units Auldearn and Alford, fails its untried test dispite being classed as veterans and become disordered, taking another hit from the Clan MacLean as they charge across Banton Burn.

Another turn and Kennedy's battalia takes a third and final hit, leaving the space for Clan MacLean to advance into next to Argyle's now surrounded battalia. Behind Kennedy's now destroyed unit Henderson of Fordell's Fife militia fails thier untried test and becomes disordered.....its almost time to go home for them!

Given the long history of animosity of the clan feud between the Campbells and MacDonalds the Marquis of Argyle's regiment fights to the bitter end against the Clanranald highlanders as the rest of the Covenanter army begins to slip away in its now familiar rout in the face of Montrose's once more victorous army. Purhaps summing up the battle Argyle can only pull two 1's for its final turn of hand to hand combat, then a 3 and a 4 to try and save the hits against it. 

The Covenanters hand over their last of 18 victory medals, though they did manage to receive 3 for the two Royalist units that were destroyed in the fighting. 

Montrose is now the undesputed master of Scotland, for the time being anyway.  

Baillie's army was the last significant Covenanter force in Scotland. If the Covenanters are to ever defeat him they will now have to look to their sizeable army fighting with the Parliamentarians in the North of England against Charles I for assistance..... will David Leslie be able to check Montrose's seemingly unstoppable progress? 

Conclusions

The test game for the scenario worked well and gave a pretty historical 18:3 victory to the Royalists. Apart from a couple of minor tweaks I am happy with it as it is written. The victory conditions do not need changing and the feeling was the game was fairly even, though Roy and I both had some really forgettable chit draws (I played Ballie and Leslie while Roy ran the other two Covenanter brigades) which certainly didn't help matters.

For future games I do intend to introduce a couple of visual hacks to improve the way the game looks a little:

• Use unit basewidth wide (90 or 130mm in our case) smoke markers if firing or in close combat using black powder weapons.
• Make sure that small units have one less troop base (2 instead of 3) so they are visually easily identifible.

Thanks to D Guy for the scenario grid map from his previous work, to Paul R for painting all the 10mm troops over the past few years and for playing Montrose so well and also to Roy and Lester for coming along on our War of the Three Kingdoms journey.