THE MACPHERSONS ARRIVE TOO LATE

      Cluny's Regiment of Badenochmen was not present at the Battle of Culloden (also known as Drummossie) Moor. Cluny himself had been serving at the Jacobite headquarters when the order to muster at Culloden was given on 12th April. He immediately sent an 'express' to Badenoch which was not received until the 14th. Despite the two days it took to reach them the regiment reformed and departed Kingussie 600 strong by noon on the 15th and met Cluny about an hour's march from the battlefield around noon on the fatal 16th. They had marched all night and had foregone breakfast to get there. Cluny, knowing that his men would not fight well on empty stomachs, allowed them to halt and prepare breakfast. For this they earned the sobriquet of 'Clann Mhuirich a Bhrochain -- Macphersons of the Porridge.' Although they arrived too late to participate in the battle they did perform an important and dangerous task by providing cover for the survivors as they were retreating to Ruthven where they had been ordered to rendezvous.

      The Macphersons performed another important task that day -- rescuing the Prince's personal effects which were being transported in a baggage wagon. Among the contents were his silver service, bed linens and the Medusa-headed targe shown in the photo above. This handsome article had been crafted in Edinburgh and presented to the Prince after the Battle of Prestonpans. It remained in the possession of the Cluny family until it was sold at auction along with the other contents of Cluny Castle in 1943. It is now on display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

      The Macpherson Regiment arrived back at Ruthven in two sections on 18th and 19th of April where they found many of the Jacobite nobility and four thousand clansmen who survived the battle already there. Among them was Lord George Murray who wrote a bitter and pessimistic letter to the Prince who had fled to Fort Augustus where the western clan survivors had rallied. The letter reiterated the views of his officers on the lack of promised French support and the resignation of his commission, although he accepted no responsibility for the debacle at Culloden.

      A letter from the Prince received by Cluny on 17th April suggests that he was giving some thought of mounting a defence in the vicinity of Fort Augustus but a second message which reached Ruthven on the 19th ended any such plan. It read:-- "Let everyone seek the means of escape as well as he can." As a result, Lord George dismissed the army and dispersal of the Jacobite force at Ruthven began. The Macpherson regiment melted away as most of the Badenoch men simply went home. The Rising was over or so it would seem.

      James Johnstone, the son of an Edinburgh merchant who served in the Rising as an aide-de-camp of Lord George but had charged with the MacDonells at Culloden was among those at Ruthven after the battle. Many years later he wrote 'A Memoir of the 'Forty-Five' under the name of 'The Chevalier de Johnstone'. His 'Memoir' is his recollection of what had transpired there:-- "The clan of Macpherson of Clunie, consisting of 500 very brave men, beside many other Highlanders who had not been able to reach Inverness before the battle, joined us at Ruthven. Our numbers increased every moment, and I am thoroughly convinced that, in the course of a couple of days, we should have had a more powerful army than ever, capable of re-establishing without delay the state of our affairs and of avenging the barbarous cruelties of the Duke of Cumberland. But the Prince was inexorable and immovable in his resolution of abandoning his enterprise, and terminating in this inglorious manner an expedition, the rapid progress of which had fixed the attention of all Europe." The original manuscript of this 'Memoir' can be viewed under the glass in the desk at the bottom of this panel.