The 'most rebellious' Scottish town central to the Jacobite cause

Montrose in Angus became pivotal to events in the 1745 Jacobite rising given the deep harbour and pool of men ready to lend their support to Prince Charles Edward Stuart.

It is the most 'rebellious' Angus town where Jacobites sat at the heart of the '45 action.

While the Jacobite cause is forever linked to the Highlands and its clans, it has been said the strongest support that Prince Charles Edward Stuart ever received came from the North East, with Angus and the neighbouring Mearns a bedrock of loyalty during the 1745 rising.

Among that bedrock, the town of Montrose was where that loyalty held the firmest. In one Jacobite account, Montrose was referred to as a place where the “men of the highest wisdom in Scotland” could be found.

Montrose in Angus became a key logistical centre for the Jacobites during the 1745 Rising led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart, with the harbour receiving ships loaded with fighters and supplies from France. Picture: Getty | Getty

The town provided military and logistical force, with soldiers mustering on the open beach where the golf links now lie and French ships arriving in the harbour loaded with munitions and gold. As the rising deepened, Montrose became known to naval top brass as that most “rebellious Jacobite town”.

Prince Charles Edward Stuart, or Bonnie Prince Charlie, found deep loyalty to the Jacobite cause in Montrose and the surrounding countryside. PIC: CC | CC

At the peak of activity, the navy's HM Hazard came under relentless fire in the harbour, with the boat and cannons then seized by the Jacobites, who had been heating up coals in the street to launch at the ship as the captain prepared his surrender.

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Montrose, which had the only harbour in a 150-mile stretch that was navigable during low water, became a key position for the Jacobite forces supporting Bonnie Prince Charlie's campaign to have the Stuart line returned to the British throne.

The Old Pretender, his father and the son of the deposed King James VII, fled to France from Montrose Harbour following the failed 1715 rising, which aimed to place him on the throne.

A flat gunpowder horn said to have been used at Culloden by Jacobite Francis Findlay, of Ferryden. PIC: AngusAlive | AngusAlive

Thirty years later, as the ‘45 campaign was launched, Montrose again served as a key centre for the cause.

Professor Chris Duffy, the late scholar and author of The ‘45, The Untold Story of The Jacobite Rising, wrote: “Montrose was of the first importance to the cause of the Prince, for he had a large and active following there and it was the main port of ingress for supplies and reinforcements from France.”

As the rising unfolded, men and supplies arrived in Montrose from France at rapid pace, with 800 men from the Ecossais Royal, Lord John Drummond’s own French regiment, and piquets from six French Irish regiments.

A bombshell found in a cellar in Market Street, Montrose, dating from the time of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. PIC: AngusAlive | AngusAlive

Many local soldiers served with the Forfarshire regiment, led by 20-year-old David, Lord Ogilvy, heir to the House of Airlie, which still holds Cortachy Castle and Airlie Castle in the Angus Glens in its fold.

Those who signed up came from Ogilvy lands across Angus and the glens, with the muster roll of more than 800 men loaded with journeymen , weavers, ploughmen and workmen who signed up to their laird’s call.

While politics varied in Montrose, it is said townsmen were united in their interest in smuggling, Jacobitism and Episcopalianism. Around half of worshippers locally refused to pledge allegiance to George I in the early 1700s given their strong support for the Stuart cause.

Montrose soldiers included William Jamieson, a reedmaker of the town; gardener William Baird and ropemaker Andrew Beattie, who later escaped from his imprisonment by British forces.

William Cargill, a brewer or tobacconist, was captured and transported overseas for his role in the rising alongside David Gouck, 26, a servant in the town. Two Montrose wigmakers, John Low, 18 ,and Alexander Smith, 26, turned King’s Evidence following their capture and were discharged.

A sporran worn at Culloden by David Mitchell of Lethnot, a sergeant in the Jacobite army who survived the 1745 Rising. PIC: AngusAlive | AngusAlive

The youngest Montrose soldier was John Wilson, 14, a servant to Dr Crosby at St Cyrus. It is thought he died during the campaign, but his fate is not truly known.

In the weeks following the Jacobite victory at Prestonpans, when the buoyant leadership started to plan their invasion of England, the French landed some particularly valuable consignments of gold, arms artillery and specialist personnel at Montrose and Stonehaven in October 1745.

The following month, as Jacobite troops continued to push south, the HM Hazard was dispatched to protect “the good people of Montrose” and anchored at Ferryden on November 16, 1745, with Jacobite canons seized.

On being alerted to the Hazard's arrival, Captain David Ferrier, an “energetic” officer in Ogilvy’s Regiment and the Jacobite deputy governor of nearby Brechin, marched to Montrose.

On arrival, he incarcerated Excise Supervisor Cumming before proceeding to the water’s edge, his piper by his side, “where we dared the master and crew of Hazard sloop to come on shore”, an account of the incident said.

With the arrival of a second French ship on November 24, the stand-off broke.

The following morning, the French raised two batteries on the Ferryden side while Ferrier, risking fire from the Hazard, retrieved their canons and installed them in a battery on Horloge Hill, near the site of what is now Hill Street.

By 10am the following morning, the Jacobites had “torn to pieces and destroyed all her rigging and rendered her incapable of making any successful resistance”, Prof Duffy wrote.

As Captain Hill dispatched a lieutenant to the northern shore to gather information, he was received by a party of about 50 Jacobite men who showed him a “stove with coals going to be set on fire, and declared that it was his intention to heat red hot ball to set the sloop on fire and sink her”.

The captain surrendered with the ship seized by Jacobites. It went on to enjoy a new life as Le Prince Charles Stuart, which returned to Dunkirk and then later dispatched back to Scotland by King Louis XV of France.

On board were gold coins to the value of £13,000 - around £1.5m in today's money - with the fortune disappearing after the ship ran aground in the Kyle of Tongue on March 25, 1746.

Such was the importance of Montrose to the Jacobite campaign, that the Duke of Cumberland, on January 11, 1746, enquired if it was possible to land a small force in the town “and so cut the rebels off from their communication with France, which would be one of the effective and speediest ways of destroying them”.

READ MORE: The lost children of the 1745 Jacobite rising

Ultimately, there was no need for such a force after the Jacobite council of war convened at Crieff on February 2. There, it was decided to retreat forces to the Highlands and bring all three columns of the army together near Inverness. Prince Charles wanted to keep Montrose open as long as possible, but it was abandoned by Jacobites on February 8.

Separate research from the Stennis Historical Society shows the British Army set up a cantonment camp in the town in February 1746 in a bid to contain any Jacobite activity. It retained a long-term presence in this most rebellious town.

Emma Gilliland, Museums and Galleries Collections lead at ANGUSAlive, said Jacobite feeling remained in the town long after the ‘45 had concluded in defeat at Culloden.

She said: “There is a report on February 24, 1748 about a number of people gathered on the streets wearing the white cockade in their hair and their hats. It was claimed as a disturbance of the peace - and that a riot was committed.”