Kilsyth 1645: Wargame Homework - Facts and Legends

 I am preparing for a Zoom wargame, to take place in a little over 2 weeks - I shall host it and I'll be the umpire, which is a situation I enjoy very much, though the experience of the remote generals is heavily dependant on the technology and the picture-quality at their end!

I once had a solo game which was (sort of) based on the Battle of Kilsyth, which in reality took place on 15th August 1645. The game was interesting and a great deal of fun, and I've had a hankering to try it again, with some changes based on things which I've read subsequently, and on aspects of that first attempt which I'd do slightly differently now.

Kilsyth? Well, you may know a great deal about the battle, maybe not. It took place in Lanarkshire, not far from Glasgow, during one of the Scottish bits of the ECW. It featured the Covenanter army, in which I am very interested, and (of course) James Graham, the Marquis of Montrose. Montrose is a fascinating character - to this day there is still an active society to preserve and enhance his legend; in its way, this is a warning sign - the central personality can get in the way of any kind of impartial study. Trying to get some facts about the campaigns of the Marquis is not unlike trying to find some factual history about Robin Hood. The ghost of Walt Disney never seems far away.

I'm having a great time preparing for my Zoom game - I have a lot of books here, most of them excellent, and there is some good stuff online, but there are some surprises for the amateur student. First of all, we have the first-hand narrative of the General in command of the Covenant troops, William Baillie, which - since he was badly beaten - is bound to be something of an exercise in self-justification, but overall it's not a terrible account. We also have the version of the tale which comes from George Wishart, who was Montrose's personal chaplain, and later his biographer - this is adulatory throughout. This theme goes through all the subsequent secondary works. 

Dame CV Wedgwood (Montrose - 1952) and Nigel Tranter (Montrose: The Captain-General - 1973) are both historical novels, really, written in homage to the handsome, brilliant, tragic hero. The good guys are perfect - brave, and breathtakingly wise and just - and the bad guys are - well, ugly, and evil. Boo. Tranter has Montrose and his chums speaking like the lads from a GA Henty novel, and there is much reference to keen eyes, and frowns upon noble brows.

Vol.2 of SR Gardiner's marvellous History of the Great Civil War is heavily pro-Royalist (which was seen as a patriotic position to take, it goes without saying). Again, the references to Montrose and his short career emphasise that he is a heroic character who can do little wrong, and the sizes of the forces involved are tweaked throughout to polish the legend - Gardiner's numbers for Kilsyth look very unlikely. His estimate of 6000 Foot for the Covenant forces seems far too high, and the statement that all but 100 of them were killed is preposterous.

John Buchan (Montrose - 1928) admits in his foreword that the book is really about his fascination with the central character - it is not primarily a historical record, it is the splendid tale of Montrose's adventures. I have no problem with this - it's an excellent read, but it's as well to be aware of where it is coming from.

And so on. The big discord comes with the modern works of Stuart Reid, of which I am a big fan. Reid is a thorough, nuts and bolts military historian, but he, also, seems a bit partial. Stuart gives the impression of having been irritated by the traditional representation of Montrose as a god-like martyr, and strives to present the flaws as well - maybe he pushes too hard the other way - but this is a good starting place from which to construct my game.

A couple of trivia facts - you may disagree with them - if you do, then it's OK - I'm sure you are right.

* Montrose's campaigns of 1644-45, though regarded as part of the Civil War, were not primarily driven by support for King Charles. Charles eventually saw some advantages for his failing war effort in Montrose's success, but this was opportunist rather than planned. The main drivers were clan-based rivalries of great age - the MacDonalds, the Ogilvies, the Gordons and various others vs the Campbells and the Hamiltons and their allies. The Covenant (and, no doubt, the Presbyterian vs Catholic struggles) gave a context, but this was fundamentally older stuff 

* It is interesting to observe that in my reading of the last week or so I have seen both sides described as "rebels".  Royalists considered that Montrose was fighting against the Covenant "rebels", who were allied with the English Parliamentarian "rebels", but a more logical view is that Montrose was leading a rebellion against the armies of the Scottish Parliament. However you view this, the Campbells vs The Rest thing is always there.

* Montrose himself was a signatory to the Covenant, and fought against King Charles in the Bishops Wars of 1639 and 1640. His change of allegiance had a great deal to do with the fact that his personal standing in Scotland was leapfrogged by the rise of the Marquis of Argyll (Archibald Campbell) - there was ambition and a personal feud in here as well. When Montrose first went to join with the King, Charles was neither interested nor welcoming.

OK - this is rambling on a bit. I now have a decent grasp of the OOBs I'm going to use for my tabletop Kilsyth. These are, I hope, based on fact, but they are also drawn up to give a decent game. The next point of interest is the battlefield itself. There is a good overall description in the Battlefields Trust's section on Kilsyth, but there are a few big holes in our knowledge. Much of what the BT sets out is the reasons we know surprisingly little.

Again, Stuart Reid is a useful source, but there are many things which are not clear. Partly because the battlefield has never been properly examined, and partly because some of it has now been altered by coal and ironstone workings, and by the creation of a man-made lake, Banton Loch, which covers at least part of the centre of the fight. We know where the battle took place (roughly), and there are some definite identifiers in Baillie's account, for example, but there are still arguments about exactly where the armies were, and maybe even about which way they were facing. None of this is a problem, by the way, I will happily set out a battle on my table!

Here a few random photos of the Kilsyth battlefield - not mine, by the way.

I confess to something of a blind spot when it comes to looking at battlefields. I can read a map, I think, and I can understand a toy battle laid out on a table, but place me on the ground and I will struggle; for a start, I am very poor at judging distances! This was brought home to me very forcibly when I spent a day on a guided tour of Eggmühl, a few years ago. I had a great time, but spent the day nodding rather dumbly and trying to relate what I was seeing to the map! 

Having said which, I did get a lot of valuable understanding in preparation for another wargame, a few years ago, when I walked the full width of Marston Moor (in the pouring rain). I may use this approach again - if there's a suitable day next week, I live about 80 minutes' drive from Kilsyth. I could go and have a look at it. Rain is not essential.

Hmmm.

You will hear more of Kilsyth before long. This has just been a little explanation about why I am so busy (and enjoying myself very thoroughly) during the homework phase!