Capture of Eilean Donan Castle | |||||||
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Part of the Jacobite rising of 1719 | |||||||
Eilean Donan Castle | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
British Government | Jacobites Spain | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Chester Boyle | Unknown | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
1 ship of the line 2 frigates | 50 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
12 killed and wounded | 7 killed and wounded 43 captured [1] | ||||||
The Capture of Eilean Donan Castle was a land-based naval engagement that took place in 1719 during the British Jacobite rising of that year, and the War of the Quadruple Alliance. A British naval reconnaissance force of three ships attacked the castle of Eilean Donan on the west coast of Scotland, which was held by Spanish troops. After a naval bombardment, the British government forces stormed the castle, and the defenders surrendered. The castle was subsequently destroyed with gunpowder.
The capture of Eilean Donan was a military action of the 1719 Jacobite Rising, a Spanish-backed attempt to restore James Stuart to the throne of Great Britain. [2] It was led by British Jacobite exiles George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, the Marquess of Tullibardine and the Earl of Seaforth, chief of Clan Mackenzie.
On 11 April 1719, the British Jacobites landed near Loch Alsh with 300 Spanish marines and set up base in Eilean Donan; this was Mackenzie territory and selected to maximise potential recruits. Although 500 Mackenzies joined Seaforth, the British Jacobites had more arms and ammunition than they could use, they therefore stored the surplus in Eilean Donan with a garrison of 40-50 Spanish marines while the main force of about 1,000 marched on Inverness. [3]
At the beginning of May, the Royal Navy sent five ships to the area for reconnaissance: two patrolling off Skye and three around Loch Alsh, adjacent to Loch Duich. Early in the morning on Sunday 10 May, these latter three, the fifty-gun HMS Worcester, the forty-four-gun HMS Enterprise, the twenty-gun HMS Flamborough, anchored off Eilean Donan on the north side of Loch Duich. [4]
Their first move was to send a boat ashore under a flag of truce to negotiate, but when the Spanish soldiers in the castle fired at the boat, it was recalled and all three ships opened fire on the castle for an hour or more. They then shifted anchorage and waited, the wind blowing a fresh gale. [1]
The next morning (11 May), acting on intelligence from a Spanish deserter, the commanding officer, Captain Chester Boyle of the Worcester, sent the Enterprise up the loch to capture a house being used to store gunpowder but, according to the naval logs, the rebels on the shore set fire to the house as the ship approached. Meanwhile, the other two ships continued to bombard the castle at intervals while they prepared a landing party. [1] [5]
In the evening, under the cover of an intense cannonade, the ships' boats went ashore surrounding the castle on all sides and after scaling the walls captured the place against little resistance. The government forces had captured "an Irishman, a captain, a Spanish lieutenant, a sergeant, one Scots rebel and thirty-nine Spanish soldiers, 343 barrels of powder and 52 barrels of musquet shot".
The Government troops then "burnt several barns etc where they had a quantity of corn for the use of their camp". [1] [2] The naval force spent the next two days demolishing the castle (it took twenty-seven barrels of gunpowder). The Spanish prisoners were put on board Flamborough and taken away to Leith and then Edinburgh. [2] [6]
The rising ended with the defeat of the Jacobites with the remaining Spanish troops on 10 June at the Battle of Glen Shiel. [7]
Eilean Donan would stand in ruins for over 200 years until 1919 when it was rebuilt, restored and finished in 1932 by John MacRae-Gilstrap.
Ross is an area of Scotland. It was first recorded in the tenth century as a province, at which time it was under Norwegian overlordship. It was claimed by the Scottish crown in 1098, and from the 12th century Ross was an earldom. From 1661 there was a county of Ross, also known as Ross-shire, covering most but not all of the province, in particular excluding Cromartyshire. Cromartyshire was subsequently merged with the county of Ross in 1889 to form the county of Ross and Cromarty. The area is now part of the Highland council area.
Eilean Donan is a small tidal island situated at the confluence of three sea lochs in the western Highlands of Scotland, about 1 kilometre from the village of Dornie. It is connected to the mainland by a footbridge that was installed early in the 20th century and is dominated by a picturesque castle that frequently appears in photographs, film and television. The island's original castle was built in the thirteenth century; it became a stronghold of the Clan Mackenzie and their allies, the Clan MacRae. In response to the Mackenzies' involvement in the Jacobite rebellions early in the 18th century, government ships destroyed the castle in 1719. The present-day castle is Lieutenant-Colonel John Macrae-Gilstrap's 20th-century reconstruction of the old castle.
Clan Mackenzie is a Scottish clan, traditionally associated with Kintail and lands in Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Traditional genealogies trace the ancestors of the Mackenzie chiefs to the 12th century. However, the earliest Mackenzie chief recorded by contemporary evidence is Alexander Mackenzie of Kintail who died some time after 1471. Traditionally, during the Wars of Scottish Independence, the Mackenzies supported Robert the Bruce, but feuded with the Earls of Ross in the latter part of the 14th century. During the 15th and 16th-centuries the Mackenzies feuded with the neighboring clans of Munro and MacDonald. In the 17th century the Mackenzie chief was made Earl of Seaforth in the peerage of Scotland. During the Scottish Civil War of the 17th century the Mackenzies largely supported the Royalists. During the Jacobite rising of 1715 the chief and clan of Mackenzie supported the Jacobite cause. However, during the Jacobite rising of 1745 the clan was divided with the chief, Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose, supporting the British-Hanoverian Government and his relative, George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, supporting the Jacobites.
Loch Shiel is a freshwater loch situated 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Fort William in the Highland council area of Scotland. At 28 kilometres long it is the 4th longest loch in Scotland, and is the longest to have retained a natural outflow without any regulation of its water level, being 120 m (393 ft) deep. Its nature changes considerably along its length, being deep and enclosed by mountains in the north east and shallow surrounded by bog and rough pasture in the south west, from which end the 4 km River Shiel drains to the sea in Loch Moidart near Castle Tioram.
The Battle of Glen Shiel took place on 10 June 1719 in the Scottish Highlands, during the Jacobite rising of 1719. A Jacobite army composed of Highland levies and Spanish marines was defeated by British government troops.
Loch Duich is a sea loch situated on the western coast of Scotland, in the Highlands.
Clan Matheson is a Highland Scottish clan.
Kintail is a mountainous area sitting at the head of Loch Duich in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland, located in the Highland Council area.
Ardelve is a village in Highland, Scotland, on Loch Alsh. It overlooks the Eilean Donan Castle, which is in Dornie, also on Loch Alsh, to the east of Skye. A caravan park, several guest houses, a bakery, and pizzeria are located within Ardelve.
HMS Worcester was a 50-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched at Southampton on 31 May 1698.
Glen Shiel is a glen in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland.
Shiel Bridge is a hamlet on the south east shore of Loch Duich at the foot of Glen Shiel, in the Lochalsh area of the Scottish Highlands. It is in the council area of Highland.
The Battle of Glen Affric took place in 1721 in Glen Affric, in the Scottish Highlands. It was fought between Government backed forces of the Clan Ross against rebel the forces of the Clan Mackenzie and their allies the Clan Macrae.
Lieutenant Colonel John MacRae-Gilstrap was a British army officer and a senior figure of the Clan Macrae. He contested a rival claim to the chiefship of the clan, and in 1912 he purchased and subsequently restored the Macrae stronghold of Eilean Donan Castle on Loch Duich in the west of Scotland.
HMS Flamborough was a Royal Navy post ship, launched in 1707 with 24 guns. She was the first Royal Navy vessel to be stationed in South Carolina, holding that position from 1719 to 1721. She was rebuilt as a considerably larger 20-gun vessel in 1727, and was employed during the following decade off Ireland and later on the Jamaica station. After a period in New York she returned to the Carolinas in 1739, patrolling the coast and playing a minor role in the War of Jenkins' Ear. She returned to England in 1745. After undergoing a major repair she was recommissioned under Captain Jervis Porter in April 1746, and served in the North Sea for the following two years. She was sold out of naval service in 1749.
Lochalsh is a district of mainland Scotland that is currently part of the Highland council area. The Lochalsh district covers all of the mainland either side of Loch Alsh - and of Loch Duich - between Loch Carron and Loch Hourn, ie. from Stromeferry in the north on Loch Carron down to Corran on Loch Hourn and as (south-)west as Kintail. It was sometimes more narrowly defined as just being the hilly peninsula that lies between Loch Carron and Loch Alsh. The main settlement is Kyle of Lochalsh, located at the entrance to Loch Alsh, opposite the village of Kyleakin on the adjacent island of Skye. A ferry used to connect the two settlements but was replaced by the Skye Bridge in 1995.
The Jacobite Rising of 1719 was a failed attempt to restore the exiled James Francis Edward Stuart to the throne of Great Britain. Part of a series of Jacobite risings between 1689 and 1745, it was supported by Spain, then at war with Britain during the War of the Quadruple Alliance.
The Murchison family of Loch Alsh, Ross-shire, Scotland were a minor Scottish clan, and a sept of the larger Clan Mackenzie. In modern times the Murchison surname is still considered a sept of the Clan Mackenzie by the Clan Mackenzie Society of Scotland & the UK.
Events from the year 1719 in Scotland.
George Mackay, 3rd Lord Reay (1678–1748), was a Scottish noble and chief of the Clan Mackay, a Scottish clan of the Scottish Highlands. During his life the Glorious Revolution took place which directly affected his family and estate, and during his chiefdom he served the British-Hanoverian Government during the Jacobite rising of 1715 and the Jacobite rising of 1745.