The citadel of Inverness, built in 1657 by Oliver Cromwell, and called
Oliver's Fort, stood on the east bank of the river Ness, and was a
regular pentagon, with bastions, ramparts, and a moat; the standard of
the Protectorate, with the word "Emmanuel" inscribed upon it, had
formerly been displayed upon its ramparts. It was calculated to hold two
thousand men, and was washed on one side by the river. As a fortress it
had many inconveniencies; approaches to it were easy, and the town
afforded a quarter for an enemy's army. In 1662 it had been partly
dismantled by Charles the Second, because it was the relic of
usurpation, and constituted a check upon the adjacent Highlanders, who
were then considered loyal.[203] It is said by one who saw it after the
Restoration to have been a very superb work, and it was one of the
regular places for the deposition of arms at the time of the Rebellion
of 1715. Subsequently it was much augmented and enlarged, and bore,
until its destruction after the battle of Culloden, the name of Fort
George, an appellation now transferred to its modern successor on the
promontory of Ardesseil.
It was against this important fortress that Lord Lovat now marched with
as much zeal and intrepidity as if he had been fighting in the cause of
that family for whom his ancestors had suffered. He proceeded straight
to Inverness, and placing himself on the west side of the town
despatched a party of troops to prevent any supply of arms or provisions
from approaching the castle by the Firth. Forbes of Culloden lay to the
east, and the Grants, to the number of eight hundred, to the south side
of the town. Sir John Mackenzie finding himself thus invested on all
sides, took advantage of a spring tide that came up to the town and made
the river navigable, to escape with all his troops; and Lord Lovat
immediately gained possession of the citadel. The fame of this
inglorious triumph has, however, been divided between Lovat and Hugh
Rose of Kilravock,[204] whose brother, in pursuing the Jacobite guard to
the Tolbooth, was shot through the body. But whoever really deserved
the laurel, Lord Lovat profited largely by his dishonest exertions in a
cause which he began life by disliking, and ended by abjuring.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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