Between the great Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 lies a smaller, stranger, half-forgotten episode: the rising of 1719, and the battle fought amid the mountains of Glen Shiel in the western Highlands. It is the Jacobite rising that history almost overlooks, notable for the Spanish soldiers who fought in a Scottish glen, for the blowing up of the great castle of Eilean Donan, and for being the only one of the Jacobite battles fought entirely among the high mountains. Small in scale but rich in incident, Glen Shiel is one of the most unusual engagements in the whole Jacobite story.
Quick answer: The Battle of Glen Shiel was fought on June 10, 1719, in the western Highlands, between a small Jacobite force — including Spanish soldiers and Highland clansmen — and a government army. It was the decisive engagement of the little-known Jacobite rising of 1719, which had Spanish backing. The Jacobites and their Spanish allies were defeated, and the rising collapsed. Earlier in the campaign, the government navy had bombarded and destroyed the Jacobite-held Eilean Donan Castle. Glen Shiel was the only Jacobite battle fought in the high mountains.
What was the Jacobite rising of 1719?
The rising of 1719 is the forgotten Jacobite attempt, overshadowed by the larger and more famous risings on either side of it. It came about largely through the involvement of Spain, which at the time was at war with Britain and saw in the Jacobite cause a useful means of striking at its enemy. Spain planned a major invasion of Britain in support of the exiled Stuarts, with a large fleet intended to land in the south of England, while a smaller expedition would raise the Highlands in the north.
The grand Spanish plan came to nothing: the main invasion fleet was scattered and wrecked by storms before it could reach England, as so often happened to invasion attempts in that age. But the smaller northern expedition went ahead. A force of around three hundred Spanish soldiers, together with Jacobite leaders returning from exile, landed in the western Highlands in the spring of 1719 and established themselves in the rugged country around Kintail and Loch Duich, hoping to raise the clans for the Stuart cause. They made the great castle of Eilean Donan, on its island at the meeting of three lochs, one of their bases.
What happened to Eilean Donan Castle?
The episode of Eilean Donan is one of the most dramatic of the whole affair, and it explains why one of Scotland's most iconic castles bears the marks of this obscure rising. The Jacobites used Eilean Donan as a storehouse and garrison, holding it with a small number of Spanish soldiers. When the British government learned of the rising, it despatched Royal Navy warships to the western seaways. In May 1719, government frigates sailed up Loch Alsh and bombarded Eilean Donan Castle, overcoming its small garrison.
Having captured the castle and discovered its store of gunpowder, the government forces used that powder to blow up the fortress, reducing the medieval stronghold to ruins. Eilean Donan would lie a romantic ruin for almost exactly two centuries, until it was rebuilt in the early twentieth century into the world-famous castle seen today — one of the most photographed in all Scotland. Few of the visitors who admire it now realise that its destruction was the work of an all-but-forgotten Jacobite rising backed by Spain. The castle stands in the heart of MacRae country; you can read more in our history of Clan MacRae and Eilean Donan Castle.
What happened at the Battle of Glen Shiel?
With their naval support gone and their castle base destroyed, the Jacobites and their Spanish allies were left to fight on land. They were joined by Highland clansmen — MacRaes, MacKenzies, MacGregors, and others, including the famous Rob Roy MacGregor — though the hoped-for general rising of the clans never materialised. The combined Jacobite and Spanish force, still numbering only around a thousand or so, took up a strong defensive position in the steep mountain pass of Glen Shiel, in the high country of Kintail, to await the government army advancing against them.
The battle, on June 10, 1719, was fought on the precipitous slopes of the glen, unusual terrain for a set-piece engagement. The government force, commanded by General Joseph Wightman and well supplied with mortars, bombarded the Jacobite positions on the hillsides. The high ground caught fire as the heather and bracken were set alight by the explosions, and under the bombardment and the steady government advance the Jacobite line was gradually pushed back up the mountain. The Highlanders and Spaniards fought a stubborn rearguard action but were unable to hold. As night fell, the Jacobite force broke up; the Highlanders melted away into the hills, and the Spanish soldiers, isolated and without hope of escape, surrendered the following day.
Why does the Battle of Glen Shiel matter?
Glen Shiel matters as a fascinating and unusual episode that rounds out the full story of the Jacobite struggle. It shows the international dimension of the Jacobite cause — the involvement of Spain, the presence of foreign soldiers fighting and surrendering in a remote Scottish glen — and it stands as the only Jacobite battle fought entirely in the high mountains, in some of the most spectacular scenery in Scotland. A mountain on the site, one of the peaks of the glen, is known to this day as Sgurr nan Spainteach, the Peak of the Spaniards, a permanent memorial to those who fought there.
The rising of 1719 was a failure, like all the Jacobite attempts, but it forms an essential link in the chain between the Fifteen and the Forty-Five, and its destruction of Eilean Donan left a mark on the Scottish landscape that endures in altered form today. For the full sweep of the Stuart struggle, see our complete guide to the Jacobite battles of Scotland from Killiecrankie to Culloden. Glen Shiel takes its place as one of the most distinctive of all the Scottish battles — the day Spanish soldiers fought and fell in a Highland glen.
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