Historical account of the Macdonnells of Antrim

COLLA MACDONNELL AND HIS DESCENDANTS.
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of cannon. We had then about 80 horse ; the battle being fairly pitched, it continued for a long
space, and the enemy behaved themselves far better than they did at St. Johnston. Yet we lost
not that day above 4, but the enemy were altogether cut off, unless some few that hid themselves
in the city. The riches of that town, and the riches they got before, hath made all our soldiers
cavaliers. This battle being ended, only our manner of gowing down to battle, and how each com-
manded, I omit till it be drawn, and set down in a more ample manner ; now tending only brevity of
our proceedings, for if I should write the whole truth, all that hath been done by our army, would
be accounted most miraculous, which I protest I will but show in the least manner I can, leaving the
rest to the report of the enemy themselves. (129)
" After this battle we marched towards the highlands again, so far as to Castle Blaire, where I
was sent to Ardamuragh (Ardnamurchan) with a party to relieve the castle of Migary (Mingarrie)
and the castle of Laughaline ; Migary having a leaguer about it, which was raised two or three days
before I could come to them, (130) at which time the captain of Clanronald, with all his men joined
in love. But he made his escape from prison disguised
in his sister's clothes, and joined the insurgents of 1 715.
He was among the attainted, and his property, worth
about ^7°° P er annum, with his title, were forfeited to
the crown. See Wishart's Memoirs 0/ Montrose, pp. 85,
86, note.
(129) Themselves. — After the victory of Tippermuir
and plunder of Perth, Montrose crossed the Dee at a
place called Crathes, fifteen miles above Aberdeen, and
marched his little army down the north bank of that river,
on the 1 2th of September. The battle near the latter
city took place between " the Crab-stane and the Justice-
milns," m its immediate vicinity. The Irish here, as at
Tippermuir, appear to have had some of the hottest work
on their hands. To make up for deficiency in cavalry,
the stoutest of the Irish, under the command of captain
Mortimer, were intermingled with the horsemen — a curi-
ous stratagem, and one which certainly implied a very
decided reliance on the part of Montrose in the steadi-
ness and gallantry of these Antrim soldiers. On the
commencement of the battle, the covenanters were able
to seize a cluster of cottages and garden- walls, "and from
this post they were speedily dislodged by a body of Irish
musqueteers, who drove a troop of lancers before them
like a flock of sheep." From a very strong position that
had been seized by the stout commander, Burley, he was
driven headlong with his five hundred men, mainly by
the dashing gallantry of captain Mortimer and his Irish
regiment, who, by this time we suspect, had laid their
muskets aside and taken to their skeins. Sir William
Forbes of Craigievar dashed his troop against Alaster
MacColl, but the latter ordered his men to fall back on
either side until Craigievar's cavalry thundered between,
when the troop was literally annihilated, "as if it had
charged down the crater of a volcano." (See Napier's
Memoirs of Montrose, vol. ii. , p. 456. ) Colonel James Mac-
donnell reserved the details of this battle and the plans
thereof for the book he intended to write, and which he
did afterwards write at Rome. (See p. 76, supra.)
Captain John Mortimer, who distinguished himself at this
battle near Aberdeen, and indeed throughout the whole
course of the war, was one of the officers who led the
Irish from the western side of the Bann into Antrim,
across the ford at Portnaw, on the morning of the 2nd of
January, 1641. (See p. 63, supra.) He appears to have
attached himself closely to Montrose, accompanying him
into exile after the battle of Philiphaugh. On returning
with Montrose again to Scotland, Mortimer was taken
prisoner in a skirmish near the castle of Dunbeath, in
1650, and soon afterwards executed. (See Wishart's
Memoirs of Montrose, pp. 376, 491,) Mortimer had
probably come from Connaught, there being then several
families of Macdonnells in that province who continued
to hold a friendly intercourse with their kinsmen in An-
trim, and by this means, perhaps, Mortimer had been
drawn hither. The poet Spenser supposed that the Mac-
namaras of the West had been originally Anglo-Norman
Mortimers (see O'Daly, Tribes of Ireland, p. 78, note);
but, more probably, the Mortimers of the seventeenth
century had been originally Macnamaras.
(130) Come to them. — This siege of Mingarry castle, in
which Alaster M'Coll had left a strong garrison, was un-
dertaken by Argyle ostensibly to release the three Pres-
byterian ministers already named, but really to get
possession again of this and the adjoining stronghold of
Lochaline, both of which were essential to Argyle's
defence of his own territories. He could not be induced
to relinguish his hold of the three prisoners, Alaster's
father and two brothers, even to save the preachers, but
when remonstrated with by the church authorities, Argyle
replied that he would liberate them with the high hand,
and invited commissioners from the General Assembly to
go with him to the siege of Mingany, that they might
witness his efforts in this matter. Accordingly three
commissioners "ar sent with the marqueis," as it is
written in the Kirkton MSS., "who willinglie took upone
thame the iomey, hopeing weel to bring the faithful man
of God James Hamilton (the other two, Weir and Watson
having died), home with thame. But their hope was
disappointed." (See Reid's History of the Presbyterian
Church, vol. i., pp. 443, 534). When the Campbells
heard of the advance of colonel James Macdonnell to the
west coast, they abandoned the sieges of both Mingarry
and Lochaline, and had got themselves out of his way two
days before he could reach Ardnamurchan. Napier, (vol.
ii., p. 462) errs in stating that Alaster MacColl headed