2
"A watery thicket of golden reeds"
In
July, 1544, Lovat and the Frasers headed home through Glen Gloy, accompanied
by Macintoshes and Grants. Fraser parted company with Huntly and the others,
who headed across the Spean valley. Lovat took the direct and shortest
route to Beauly through the Great Glen, by way of Loch Lochy and Loch
Oich. He dispatched some men under Iain Cleirich, who may have been a
cleric, to scout for danger, knowing the MacDonalds had recently headed
west. Although Iain and his men did not return, Lovat continued to head
northeast for home.
John of Moidart, with a company of five hundred MacDonalds and Camerons,
had rounded on his westward course to camp his men on the lower slopes
of Ben Tigh, a secure vantage point over the northern side of the glen.
On the 15th of July, a hot and sunny morning, they rested, and ate oatmeal
mixed with water from a small lochan nearby. Perhaps the more hungry among
them drew blood from nearby cattle to make their cold oats more hearty.
Then each man drove a notched stick into the soft, peaty soil, a common
practice among Highland warriors; afterward, the unclaimed sticks would
leave a grim accounting of the dead. The MacDonalds then waited.
Lovat's company of Highlanders, which included at least three hundred
Frasers and a respectable number of Grants, approached the north end of
Loch Lochy in order to cross the swampy meadow there and turn northeast
for Beauly. With them was Lovat's nephew, Ranald Gallda. Lovat had earlier
instructed his own son, Hugh, the Master of Lovat, newly returned from
his studies in Paris, to stay home. As Lovat and his men rounded the end
of the loch, Moidart's men swept across the burn that cuts the brae at
the foot of Ben Tigh.
© Susan King 2003
