The Battle of Langside MDLXVIII (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WHY THE REGENT'S TROOPS WERE DRAWN UP ON 'THE MOOR OF GLASGOW.' JT will be instructive to consider the question?Why were the Regent's troops drawn up outside the Gallowgate Port on the morning of the thirteenth ? as the editor of Nau's Memoirs? following probably an anonymous narrative printed with Nau's Memoirs, and the Herries's Memoirs, assumes that the Regent had known that it was the Queen's intention to march along the south side of the Clyde to Dumbarton, and that, accordingly, he drew his troops directly out of the city to Langside. As soon as Murray knew of the intention of Mary's troops to march, he led his own, in the dawn of the morning of the thirteenth, ' into the open ' fields before the town.'2 Glasgow, at this period, consisted only of the High Street, Rottenrow, Drygate, Gallowgate, Trongate, Saltmarket, Bridgegate, andStockwell.1 The population did not exceed 7000.2 Gallowgate did not extend far eastward. The east or Gallowgate Port was situated between the present Saracen Street and St. Mungo Street. It was by this port that the Regent emerged into the open fields or ' Moor of Glasgow, ' where he remained in battle array for some hours. The position commanded a view of Rutherglen; and it was no doubt at or near that part of the Queen's march where her forces were first seen by him. Earlier intelligence by scout of the march would have been useless to Murray, as Mary's army, as a matter of tactics, for the purpose of deceiving him, could have crossed and recrossed the Clyde several times. 1 Preface, cxc. 2 Buchanan, vol. ii. p. 535. Why did the Regent, instead of drawing up his army outside the Gallowgate Port, not advance directly on Langside ? He had considerable information about the strength, composition, and movements of the forces of his opp...