Battle of Philiphaugh - Battle

Battle

Contemporary accounts give only a broad outline of the battle. Subsequent authors have interpreted this in various ways in an attempt to arrive at a more detailed account.

Montrose himself, many of his officers and some of the cavalry were quartered in the town of Selkirk, with the infantry and the rest of the cavalry encamped on flat ground the other side of the river (the Ettrick Water) at Philiphaugh. Warner puts this just below the junction of the Yarrow Water and the Ettrick Water and hence about 2 miles (3.2 km) away. However, a contemporary description of the Royalist infantry position has them behind on one hand an unpassable ditch, and on the other Dikes and Hedges, and where these were not strong enough, they further fortified them by casting up ditches, and lined their Hedges with Musketeers, hence other interpretations would put the royalists within field enclosures shown on an 18th century map between 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) and 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) from Selkirk.

Leslie had arrived at nearby Melrose the evening before, and advanced up the valley of the Tweed, driving in the Royalist outposts at Sunderland (at the junction of the Ettrick Water with the Tweed, about 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) downstream of Selkirk) without apparently alarming or alerting the main Royalist force. The following morning was misty, and whatever scouting was undertaken by the Royalists failed to reveal the presence of Leslie's forces. Leslie divided his force into two wings, one of which attacked the Royalist position directly, getting to within half a mile before the alarm was raised. The other executed a flanking manoeuvre, probably on the south bank of the Ettrick Water although some interpretations follow a later ballad and say through hilly ground to the north.

Montrose was alerted to Leslie's attack by the sound of gunfire, but arrived on the battlefield to find his forces in considerable confusion. Although the Royalist infantry's strong defensive position enabled them to repel at least two Covenanter attacks, the arrival of Leslie's flanking force ensured their defeat. After Montrose made a brief attempt to restore the situation by charging 2,000 Covenanter dragoons with only 100 cavalry of his own, he was urged by his friends that the Royalist cause in Scotland would die without him. He cut his way out with 30 men, and retreated over the Minchmoor road toward Peebles.

Many of Montrose's Irish foot soldiers from Manus O'Cahan's regiment had been killed in the battle, but after fighting on for some time after the flight of the cavalry about 100 of them surrendered on promise of quarter. Some Presbyterian Ministers who accompanied Leslie persuaded him that this clemency was foolish, and the prisoners and 300 camp followers (many of them women and children) were slaughtered in cold blood.