1651 – Battle of Inverkeithing

Monument to Sir Hector MacLean of Duart

‘Many a white-headed champion fell into rank around your banner, and many a handsome youth was mangled under horses’ hooves…’ ‘Song to Sir Hector’, Eachan Bacach

The execution of King Charles I changed the whole course of the Civil war. The Scots recognized his successor. Cromwell pushed North destroying Leslie’s army on the 3rd of September 1650. The Scots still had hold of Scotland north of the forth.

On the 20th of July 1651 The Royalists and Oliver Cromwell’s troops battled resulting in five hundred of the followers of the Laird of Maclean being slain.

In the heat of the conflict, seven brothers of the clan sacrificed their lives in defence of their leader, Sir Hector Maclean. Being hard pressed by the enemy, he was supported and covered from their attacks by these intrepid men; and as one brother fell, another came up in succession to cover for him, crying ‘Another for Hector’. The seven were tradi tionally Hector’s foster-brothers. But he too was killed in the battle, which was fought in 1648.