Did Alasdair Mac Colla invent the Highland Charge?

I’ve blogged about the Highland Charge before and so it was with keen interest that I read David Stevenson’s case that the tactic was invented by Alasdair.  Stevenson, a financial journalist by trade is author of Highland Warrior a biography of Alasdair, of Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates and a fair bit more.

To briefly summarise his case:

Mac Colla originated the Highland charge at the battle of the Laney fought in Ireland in February 1642 as this seems to be the first recorded incidence of it we have.  The tactic was enabled by the adoption of the musket, sword and targe as standard equipment. The abandonment of Cotun and Mail armour also resulted in a swifter closing speed.  The inspiration came from the traditional tactic of sword and targe armed Kern but substituted a volley from  the more effective musket for the less deadly shower of darts.

I find this interesting and think Stevenson could well be right.  The impact of a Gaelic charge was a serious matter.  Mountjoy, Elizabeth the First’s most successful general noted “When it comes to hand-strokes the Irish will usually prevail”.  That said the Irish tended to separate out their shot from their targeteers not least because the latter were drawn from the traditional military class.  Many of the Irish shot, better shots than the English says Mountjoy, were not drawn from the military classes and so were not all trained swordsmen. They therefore could have carried out the effective volley required but not the superior swordsmanship needed upon contact, nor for that matter did they carry targes.

Although the ‘New Scots’ Highland soldiers who fought alongside the Irish were dual armed we find them shooting with their bows or charging fiercely with two handed swords depending on the tactical situation.  I cannot think of a single incidence during the Nine Years War of the combined shooting and assault required by the Highland charge .  

I can note that some of the McDonnell’s of the Route are recorded as carrying targes in the time of Shane O’Neill.  It was a targe that saved Sorley Buidhe (Blonde Charles) McDonnald from being brained by a Galloglaich axe.

All of which suggests that the tactic was an innovation and one that might well lie with Alasdair Mac Colla of Clan Donald.

Better to be hanged in Cheshire…

A proverbial saying in 16^th century Cheshire was “Better to be hanged in Cheshire than to die in Ireland".  No doubt it was heartfelt for Irish service in Elizabeth’s army was notoriously hard, inadequate clothing and hunger were to be expected, pay seldom left the Captain’s purse, loot was non-existent, disease devastated whole armies and the terrain and climate were unforgiving, if you survived all that there were the Irish.

Apart from some, mostly impoverished, members of the gentry and nobility no Englishman wanted to fight in Ireland. The putative soldier was ‘volunteered’ by his social superiors at home and he didn’t like it. Most attempted to desert before embarkation although a variety of measures were taken to prevent this including removing the conscript’s clothes-naked men could not blend into a crowd and escape.

A further chance of escape presented once the conscripts reached Dublin and received their arms and uniforms, the cost would be deducted from pay on an ongoing basis, each shot fired would accrue to the debit side of the conscript’s account. He could of course sell his arms to a middleman who would sell in turn to the Irish.  That might raise the passage money home.

As a last resort, the conscript could actually desert to the Irish and sign on for a higher rate of pay with some Irish Captain and hope to survive until he could afford passage on one of the many English and Scots vessels bringing gunpowder to the Earl of Tyrone.  The language barrier meant that the best chance of doing so was to befriend the many Irish soldiers in his company and leave when they did.

Failing all that the conscript would find himself fighting in the most costly war in both money and men ever fought by the Tudor state.