Battle of Auldearn
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| Scottish Civil War |
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| Tippermuir – Aberdeen – Inverlochy – Auldearn – Alford – Kilsyth – Philiphaugh – Dunbar – Worcester |
The Battle of Auldearn, an engagement of the Scottish Civil War, took place on May 9, 1645, near the village of Auldearn in Nairnshire.
After plundering Dundee on 4 April, the Royalist forces under the Marquis of Montrose retreated into the Highlands to escape Major-General Baillie's pursuing Covenanters. Baillie divided his forces. During May, his second-in-command, Colonel John Hurry, drew Montrose into country unfriendly to him near Nairn.
Hurry, with 3,500 Covenanter infantry and 400 horse, attempted to double back on himself, at night in thick mist, in an attempt to catch Montrose in a surprise attack. But Hurry's soldiers, discharging their muskets to clear damp powder, allegedly alerted Montrose's sentries to the impending attack.
The village of Auldearn ran linearly along a roughly north-south road. Montrose deployed 500 of MacColla's Irishmen and Gordon clansmen on a low hill to the north-east of the village. They had the royal standard with them in the hope that Hurry would mistake MacColla's position for the main body, which Montrose actually concealed behind a ridge to the south. This included a troop of 250 horse commanded by Lord Gordon. The Covenanters began marching up the slope towards MacColla. Unwilling to remain on the defensive, the Irishmen attacked prematurely, charging down the slope into the Covenanters.
Hurry's regiments held their ground and drove the Irish back. Realising the danger that Hurry could overwhelm MacColla, Montrose ordered Gordon to lead his cavalry in a charge against the Covenanter right flank. Captain Drummond, of the Moray horse regiment, in his haste to get his men to face about, ordered them to wheel in the wrong direction, pushing them into their own infantry. Gordon's cavalry hit the disordered Covenanter lines and routed their cavalry. Montrose's main force attacked the right flank while MacColla's men rallied and pushed forward in the center. Estimates suggest 1,500 Covenanters died in the battle and rout.
Back at Inverness Colonel Hurry court-martialled and shot Captain Drummond, the officer who had given the faulty order, then retreated with the remnants of his army to join Baillie at Cromar.
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