Click on map to open an enlargement of the battle area

Portions extracted from an article by Jean Mackintosh Goldstrom

From an Article in “The Highlander” July/August 2001  

The battle of the North Inch of Perth was the climax of  ten years of bitter feuding between Clan Chattan (pronounced Hattan) and Clan MacPherson which started at the Battle of Invernahaven.  No cruel insult launched this feud, or even the usual incidents of rape, pillage or plunder. The uproar was about something as mundane as unpaid rent.  The feud began when some members of Clan Cameron took up residence on Clan Chattan lands in Lochaber.  They didn’t pay any rent, which was a constant source of aggravation to Clan Chattan as well as Clan Mackintosh, whose chief headed both clans.

Since this took place hundreds of years before the invention of landlord – tenant courts, the Mackintosh chief decided to collect his unpaid rent in the form of Cameron cattle.  However, the Camerons’ contribution of cattle was involuntary, meaning the Mackintosh chief sent a number of his men, probably by night, to remove enough cattle to pay off the back rent owed.

When they discovered their rent had been collected in this unexpected fashion, the Camerons took serious umbrage and gathered some 400 clansmen to look for their cattle.  They also sought out the Mackintosh-Chattan men who now considered the cattle their own.

The Mackintoshes heard about the Cameron plan.  They called their friends, the MacPhersons and the Davidsons, to help them teach the Camerons the rudiments of landlord – tenant relationships.

Eventually, the 400 Camerons squared off against an even larger number of Mackintoshes, MacPhersons and Davidsons.  But before anyone could swing a claymore, a dispute arose on the Mackintosh-MacPherson-Davidson side.  There was no question the Mackintoshes would stand at the center of the battle line.  That was the most important spot, and the Mackintoshes were the most important clan among this group of their friends.  The dispute was over whose men were going to battle on the right-hand side of the Mackintoshes.  The right-hand side was the second-most-honored position after the center.  Where a clan was placed in the line of battle was profoundly important in a land where honor was an important as food.  No one readily gave it up. However, both Cluny of MacPherson and Invernahavon of Davidson demanded the place of honor at the right of the Mackintoshes.

The Chief of Mackintosh had to settle this controversy, which today seems incredibly trivial, but in that era was taken with utter seriousness.  He immediately made a decision, and in practical terms it was the wrong one.  Mackintosh decided in favor of the Davidsons.  What was wrong with that decision was there were far more MacPhersons than both Davidsons and Mackintoshes combined.  The MacPhersons, profoundly offended by the decision, immediately stomped off the battlefield, sat down and declared themselves spectators rather than participants in the coming set-to.

That cleared the battleground, but only for a moment.  The Camerons, now in greater numbers than their enemies, fell upon what was left of the Mackintosh-Chattan-Davidson fighters and proceeded to reduce as many of them as possible to small, bloody shreds. The Davidsons were virtually destroyed losing their Chief and seven of his sons plus a number of fellow clan members.

That night, however, Macintosh sent to the camp of the MacPhersons one of his bards, who treated the sullen clansmen to a poem in which their conduct in retiring from the fight was attributed, not to their sense of honor, but to their cowardice. This so infuriated the MacPhersons that they decided to charge the Camerons, who were by that time exhausted from their nearly complete wipeout of the Mackintoshes and Davidsons.  The MacPhersons had no trouble overwhelming what Camerons remained.

Of course, this being Scotland, it was not the end of the quarrel.  Ten years of bitter squabbling ensued between the MacPhersons and the Davidsons which would be continued at the North Inch of Perth.

Invernahaven Today- The battle reportedly took place in the brown glen in the center of the picture

What was it like for our Clan Davidson members to live in Invernahaven? Click on the photo of the farm house below.

To see a model of a typical farm house click on the photo below.