The Red Battle of Harlaw

Scotland had been burdened with a weak King followed by a King in captivity. While James I was spending his teenage years as a forced guest in England, his uncle the Duke of Albany had been steadily increasing his power as the de-facto ruler of Scotland. Now he had decided to add the Earldom of Ross to his collection.

This was a huge area of northern Scotland and one man who was particularly unhappy about the scenario was Donald of Islay - The Lord of the Isles and chief of Clan Donald. He had his own claim to Ross and so in 1411, he gathered most of the west coast clans together to do something about it. This great fleet sailed around the north of Scotland and quickly captured Dingwall to prove they were serious.

Somehow, Donald even managed to coerce the local fighting men from his freshly captured territory to join him, swelling his ranks to almost 10,000 men. This vast force began to march further east, planning to capture Aberdeen but they were stopped in their tracks near Inverurie. The Earl of Mar had scraped together around 2000 heavily armoured warriors from up and down the east coast.

The sides seemed imbalanced, but the fighting was fierce. Donald’s lightly armoured Islanders swarmed their enemy, struggling to break through the disciplined ranks of the Lowlanders. Hundreds would be cut down, just to be replaced by a fresh wave of warriors. Eventually, the daylight began to wane and the two sides broke off, neither sure who had gained the upper hand.

During the day’s fighting, the nobility of Aberdeenshire was decimated, with between a quarter and half of the men slain. Their dwindling army camped that night, believing that the next dawn would probably be the last they would ever see, but when they awoke, they were alone on the battlefield.

Donald had disappeared back to the Isles and given up his claim to Ross. He had lost many of his best warriors as well and it seems likely that his new recruits had abandoned the cause after witnessing the previous day’s carnage. Both sides proclaimed victory and the battle became famous across the country.

13 years later, once King James had returned to rule for himself, the Earldom of Ross was officially granted to Donald's son anyway. Maybe if they had just been a bit more patient, Scotland wouldn't have lost so many good men fighting what became known as the Red Battle of Harlaw.

Written by Graeme Johncock