Battle of Rullion Green

Infobox Military Conflict
conflict=Battle of Rullion Green
partof=Scottish Covenanter Wars


caption1=
date=November 28, 1666
place=Pentland Hills, Lothian, Scotland
result=Government victory
combatant1=Scottish Royal Army
combatant2=Covenanter rebels
commander1=Tam Dalyell of the Binns
commander2=James Wallace
strength1=2600
strength2=900
casualties1=light
casualties2=50+ killed

The Battle of Rullion Green was fought on 28 November 1666 on the southern lip of the Pentland Hills to the south-west of Edinburgh. A small army of Covenanter rebels was intercepted by government forces commanded by Tam Dalyell of the Binns and routed. Although the rebels had come from Galloway, Ayrshire and other parts of western Scotland, the location of the battle was to give the whole episode the name of the Pentland Rising.

Bishops and Covenants

In November 1638 the bishops, reintroduced into the Scottish church with skill and care by James VI, were formally expelled by the General Assembly meeting in Glasgow. The Church was then established on a full Presbyterian basis along the lines once envisaged by Andrew Melville; and so it remained for over twenty years.

After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 both the Covenants of 1638 and that of 1643 were declared illegal and Episcopacy was re-established. Opposition to this move was most intense in the south-west of Scotland, an area particularly strong in its Covenanter sympathies, and the home of the more extreme Whig version. Some 300 ministers, about a third of the total establishment, refused to accept the new order, and either left their parishes voluntarily, or were forced out by the authorities. This was bad enough; what was worse was that the bulk of these vacancies occurred in the south-west: in the synod of Galloway only 3 out of 37 ministers were left, and in the synod of Glasgow and Ayr, the largest in the church, only 35 of 130 ministers remained in their parishes.

This was a big enough problem. It was compounded by an alarming new development. People began to abandon the official church and took to hearing their old pastors preach at large open-air meetings known as conventicles. By 1663 this movement had grown to alarming proportions, causing the Privy Council, the executive authority in Scotland, to send Sir James Turner, a professional soldier, to the west in September, charged with stamping out the conventicle movement. But the forces Turner was allowed were just enough to cause anger, not enough to deal with the results. In addition the authorities continued to issue proclamations and edicts against the rebel congregations. In December 1665 conventicles were declared to be "seminaries of separation and rebellion", and all who arttended them were declared to be traitors.

Incident at Dalry

The general situation, already tense, was made even more so by the outbreak of the Dutch War in 1665. A long-time trading partner of Scotland, Calvinist Holland had given refuge to many dissident ministers. Now it was rumoured that the Dutch intended to aid the Covenanter underground in a possible rising against the government. In February 1666 the Scots bishops, meeting in convocation, sent an alarming report to the king;

"If the warre with...Holland goe on it will be necessary to provide for the peace and security of this kingdome, for at prsent we may possibly prevent domestike disorder and insurrections, but the least commotion in England or Ireland, or encouragement from forraigners, would certainly engage us in a new rebellion."

In March 1666 Turner was again sent westwards, this time with only 120 footguards. Additional troops were being mustered by Sir William Drummond and Tam Dalyell, a grizzled old soldier, a veteran of the Civil Wars, who had spent many years in the service of the Tsar of Russia. Even so, the forces in the west were badly overstretched. Sensing the hostility of the local people, Turner's nervous soldiers tended to react with even greater brutality. The west was a powder keg: it only needed a spark to set off an explosion. It came at the small village of Dalry, in the valley of the River Ken, on Tuesday 13 November. Soldiers abusing a local farmer were attacked and taken prisoner by a small group of Covenanters. Word spread and more men gathered, riding on Dumfries, where Turner himself was taken prisoner. This brought in even more recruits, and thus the Pentland Rising was born.

March on Edinburgh

When news of the rising reached Edinburgh the Council ordered Dalyell west with all available troops. While he mustered his forces, the rebels entered Tarbolton on 19 November, with Turner in tow. Here they were joined by recruits from Ayrshire and Clydesdale. The march continued on to Ayr, where they met Colonel James Wallace, the most important recruit to date. Wallace was an experienced soldier, who had served with the army in Ireland and had fought for the Covenanters at Kilsyth and Dunbar. He at once took command, introducing some much needed discipline into the rag taggle army. Officers of horse and foot were appointed, and the men organised into proper formations.

Dalyell finall left Glasgow on 23 November, looking for the trail of the Whigs. With still no news from the west the Council in Edinburgh was close to panic, issuing proclamations against the 'insurgents at Dumfries and the western shyres' and authorising fresh mobilisations in various parts of Scotland. Wallace was aware that Dalyell was close behind and, not yet ready to risk an engagement with professional troops, he continued his march. The weather throughout was terrible, and the plight of the wretched Whig army is described by James Kirkton;

"...in the most tempestuous rainy evening they sett foreward toward Moorkirk of Kyle, through a miserable deep moore, so that they came not to their quarters till two houres within night. The poor souldiers were drouckt with rain as if they had been dragged through a river; their foot were forced, wet as they were, to lodge in a church without any meat, and very little fire to drie them."

Wallace entered Lanark on 26 November, where the army grew to some 1100 men, the greatest strength it ever attained. Thereafter it was weakened by desertions, as men steadily left for home, defeated by the weather. At Lanark the Covenants were renewed and Wallace and his colleagues decided to put fresh pressure on the Council by continuing the march to Edinburgh. By the morning of 28 November the were at Colinton to the west of the city; but with no fresh recruits, Wallace risked being caught between a hostile capital and Dalyell. Rather than continue the hopeless eastern march, he decided to pull off to the south, hoping to escape back to Ayrshire through the Pentlands. Crossing the Glencorse Burn by Flotterstone, Wallace then halted for a rest on the southern side of the Pentlands at a place called Rullion Green, the site of an old market. It was now about noon.

Rullion Green

Dalyell had reached Currie the same morning, where he crossed the Water of Leith. By then he had discovered that the rebels were retreating through the Pentlands. At Currie he was well placed to cut them off. Following the valley of the Kenleith Burn, he hurried to the south-east, entering the Pentlands between Bell's Hill and Harbour Hill, continuing south of Castlelaw Hill on to Rullion Green. His advance party—led by the brother of the Earl of Airlie—caught sight of the Whigs at noon, at that point reduced to about 900 men. A contemporary writer described the equipment of Wallace's motley army in verse:

:"Some had halberds, some had durks,":"Some had crooked swords like Turks;":"Some had slings and some had flails":"Knit with eels and oxen tails.":"Some had spears and some had pikes",:"Some had spades which delvy and dykes";:"Some had guns with rusty ratches",:"Some had fiery peats for matches.":"Some had pistils without marrows";:"Some the coulter of a plough".:"Some had syths such for to hough;":"And some with a Lochaber exe":"Resolved to gi'e Dalziel his packs."

With an experienced soldier's eye, Wallace arranged his men to fight in a defensive position on the lower reaches of nearby Turnhouse Hill, opposite Castlelaw Hill, north-west of the low lying ground at Rullion Green. This was a good place to make a stand, forcing the enemy to make a steep ascent to reach him. On the southern shoulder of this hill he placed his right wing, a party of Galloway horse under Sir John Maclellan of Barscob. The remainder of the horse was placed on the left wing of the northern shoulder under Joseph Learmont, while he himself commanded the infantry in the centre. In this position they were approached by a party of troopers, riding in advance of Dalyell's main force. In a brief engagement the government's soldiers were driven back.

Reports of the skirmish were carried back to Dalyell, who sent forward more cavalry units under Lieutenant-General William Drummond in support. Drummond decided to attempt nothing further until Dalyell arrived with the infantry. Dalyell and the rest of the army finally drew up at 4 o' clock in the afternoon, by which time it was starting to get dark. Not wanting to waste any more time Dalyell ordered his whole force across the burn, and drew them up at the foot of Turnhouse Hill. On the right he placed the Life Guards and Rothes' Horse, as well as Drummond's troopers. On the left was his own as well as Hamilton's, Atholl's and Airle's horse. The infantry were in the centre. Altogether he had 2000 foot and 600 horse, far superior in every way to the desperate Whig rebels.

Dalyell began by detaching a body of his horse with infantry support to attack Learmont. Wallace sent forward a small party to parry the thrust. The two sides met in a furious hand-to-hand clash. But as the slope of the hill favoured the rebels, the government soldiers were forced to give way. Dalyell continued to attack from his right, intending to force the rebels down towards the low ground, and then finish them with his left. A second attack was duly launched against Learmont, with no more success than before. Dalyell immediately ordered a third assault, which this time succeeded in beating back both Learmont and Wallace. Wallace tried to strengthen his left by detaching some troops from the right; but Dalyell immediately took advantage of this by ordering a general advance. His left, so far unengaged, threw itself on Wallace's weakened right. Unable to make a stand the Whigs collapsed, protected from pursuit only by the thickening darkness of the winter night. Fifty men were left dead on the field, and many more were lost in the Pentland bogs.

Aftermath

Inevitably the failure of the Pentland Rising was immediately followed by a phase of intense repression. Torture was used to extract confessions, and there were hangings in Edinburgh and a number of locations in western Scotland. Within a remarkably short space of time, though, the political mood began to change. In London, John Maitland, Earl of Lauderdale, the Secretary of State for Scotland, moved the focus away from those who had participated in the rebellion towards the conduct of the Privy Council in bringing it about. It was decided that the previous policy towards religious dissent had been too harsh: a number of leading men lost their positions, including James Sharp, Archbishop of St. Andrews; and in 1669 the First Indulgence was introduced, which went some way towards meeting Presbyterian objections against the official church.

There could, of course, be no form of indulgence towards James Wallace. Fortunately for him he managed to escape to Holland. The Dutch government resisted all attempts to extradite him. He died in 1678, a respected member of the émigré community, and an elder of the Scottish Church in Rotterdam.

References

PRIMARY
* Kirkton, James, "A History of the Church of Scotland", ed. R. Stewart, 1992.
* Turner, Sir James, "Memoirs of His own Life and Times, 1632-1670", 1829.
* Wallace, James, "Narrative of the Rising Suppressed at Pentland", in "Memoirs of William Veitch and George Bryson", ed. T. McCrie, 1825.SECONDARY
* Cowan, I. B. "The Scottish Covenanters, 1660-1688," 1976.
* Donaldson, G., "Scotland from James V to James VII", 1965.
* Mathieson, W. L., "Politics and Religion-A Study in Scottish History from the Reformation to the Revolution", 1902.
* Terry, C. S. "The Pentland Rising and Rullion Green", 1905.

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