Battle of Philiphaugh, The [Child 202]

DESCRIPTION: Sir David [Leslie] comes to Philiphaugh with 3000 Scots. They find a man to lead them to Montrose's army. The man, concerned by Leslie's small numbers, reveals why he hates Montrose and reveals how to defeat him. The defeat duly takes place
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1803 (Scott)
KEYWORDS: battle hate
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sept 13, 1645 - Battle of Philiphaugh
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Child 202, "The Battle of Philiphaugh" (1 text)
Bronson 202, comments only
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishBallads, pp. 525-526, "The Battle of Philiphaugh" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Michael Brander, _Scottish and Border Battles and Ballads_, 1975 (page references to the 1993 Barnes & Noble edition), pp. 653-155, "The Battle of Philiphaugh" (1 text)
Roud #4016
NOTES [178 words]: The Battle of Philiphaugh saw a royalist force under Montrose defeated by Scottish Covenanters led by David Leslie. This was almost the only time Montrose was defeated in battle (Leslie's forces, hidden by a mist, surprised Montrose).
This was hailed as a great victory for the Covenanters, even though Montrose's was outnumbered (by an even larger factor than usual, since the best of his MacDonald allies had deserted him, according to Oliver Thomson, The Great Feud: The Campbells & the MacDonalds, Sutton, 2000, p. 75), ill-supplied, and surprised. Still, Montrose had won a half dozen battles against equally long odds in the preceding year. so any victory against him was treated as a triumph.
In fact, Montrose was only slightly worse off than if he had won another of his unlikely victories; his armies always disintrigrated win orlose. But it took only one battle to ruin his reputation as invincible. From that time on, King Charles I's position in Scotland deteriorated rapidly, and of course the situation in England was very bad for other reasons. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.2
File: C202

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