Click on map to open an enlargement of the battle area

The Perth Gazette Headlines

CLANS FIGHT TO THE DEATH ON PERTH'S NORTH INCH!

Major clearing-up operations are underway this morning on Perth's North Inch, following yesterday's unprecedented spectacle. Public interest had been aroused by the erection in recent days of substantial timber seating. No one could have anticipated the barbarity of the battle, which saw two Gaelic clans literally fight to the death. Amongst those cheering on the combatants was King Robert III, who had ordered the clans to fight in public on the North Inch at Perth. The battle was intended to bring the long-standing dispute between the two Highland clans to a decisive conclusion.

BLOODY SEPTEMBER 1396

The 60 warriors wore no body armour but had a leather targe (shield) for protection. They fought with swords, dirks (daggers), axes and crossbows with three arrows. As the signal was given, they all loosed their arrows and flung themselves at one another in fierce bouts of hand-to-hand fighting. By the end of the battle only 11 Chattan clansmen were still on their feet. The one surviving member of Clan Kay escaped by plunging into the River Tay.

Jousting and tournaments are common events in England, but this is the first of its kind in Scotland. King Robert III hopes that yesterday's battle, a parody of a medieval tournament, will break the fighting spirit of the clans and bring peace to the glens.

This make believe newspaper account really tells it all. However the real truth is a little harder to obtain. See one possible scenario below:

Extracted from an article by Jean Mackintosh Goldstrom

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

One of the strangest conflicts in Scotland’s conflict-crowded history was the Battle of North Inch in 1396 – a battle that would have been almost comic if not for the very real loss of life involved.

Everyone involved became weary of the dispute; not weary enough to end it, of course, but weary enough to ask King Robert III to intervene.  King Robert III, being the sort of sovereign who made sure his own interests ranked first in any dispute he settled, came up with an ingenious solution.  Each of the two clans, Davidson and MacPherson, were to send 30 of their best warriors into a battle-to-the-death.  The place was a beautiful, level field (an “inch” in Gaelic) called North Inch in Perth.  This move made King Robert III the first and last king in Scots history to have a battle-to-the-death staged for his amusement.

Historians, however, have theorized there may have been more than amusement in Robert’s planning.  The trouble-someness of the two clans would be greatly reduced. He is believed to have thought, if their main warriors were permanently removed from action.

Because the Battle of North Inch was recorded rather sketchily, six clans are said to have taken part in it, all claiming they were the winners.  But the majority of historic references indicate those who took part in this combat were the MacPhersons and Clan Chattan, of whom the Davidsons of Invernahaven were a part.

The conflict was set for the Monday before Michaelmas, October 23.  As to weapons, some historians say only the broadsword was used, but others say that bows, battle-axes and daggers were also permitted.  This view would be supported by the following account of the event.

Royal carpenters had been busy building a grandstand from which the king, his queen, Annabella Drummond, Scots nobles and a number of foreign dignitaries could view the proceedings.  On the selected day, the king and queen led a procession to the grandstand.  Following them were the nobility and honored foreign guests.  With the grandstands jammed with the upper classes, the commoners packed the sidelines behind barriers designed to keep them off the field of battle.

The combatants – the MacPhersons and the clan Chattan-Davidsons – marched in; each preceded by their pipes and drummers and armed with their swords, targes, bows and arrows, knives and battle-axes.  Each side glared at the other until something happened. 

Exactly what happened depends on which historian’s account is read.  Some say one of the MacPhersons became sick.  Others say the MacPherson in question wasn’t sick but stricken with a bout of common sense – he slipped through the crowd, plunged into the Tay and swam away, pursued in vain by thousands of screaming spectators.  One historian, Sir Robert Gordan, described it this way:  “At their entry into the field, Clan Chattan lacked one of their number, who was privily stolen away, not willing to be a partaker of so dear a bargain.”

What to do, what to do?  That was the question to which no answer seemed obvious.  Somebody proposed one of the Davidson men should retire.  Nobody liked that idea.  For want of another, the King was about ready to break up the assembly when a man stepped forward and spoke.

This man was described by a historian as “diminutive and crooked, but fierce, named Henry Wynd, a burgher of Perth, a smith,” known to readers of Sir Walter Scott as “Hal o’ the Wynd, and an armorer by trade.”  He was also known as Henry Gow or Smith.

This man is said to have leapt the barriers onto the field and addressed the crowd:  “Here am I.  Will anyone fee me to engage with these hirelings in this stage play?  For half a mark will I try the game, provided, if I escape alive, I have my board of one of you as long as I live.  Greater love, as it is said, hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.  What, then, shall be my reward, who stake my life for the foes of commonwealth and realm?”

An excited buzz of conversation likely broke out in the upper class grandstand as well as among the commons standing around the barriers.  Knowing the crowd was wild for entertainment, the king and nobles agreed to the demand of “Gow Crom,” or “Crooked Smith,” as he was commonly known.

News that the blood letting was on again was likely greeted with a huge cheer from the presumably entertainment-starved crowd.  The battle began.

The smith shot the first arrow into the Davidsons and immediately killed one of them.  According to one historian, “After showers of arrows had been discharged on both sides, the combatants, with fury in their looks, and revenge in their hearts, rushed upon one another, and a terrific scene ensued, which appalled the heart of many a valorous knight who witnessed the bloody tragedy.  The violent thrusts of the daggers and the tremendous gashes inflicted by the two-handed swords and battle-axes, hastened the work of butchery and death.

“Heads were cloven asunder, limbs were lopped from the trunk.  The meadow was soon flooded with blood, and covered with dead and wounded men.”   The crowd loved it, of course.

But after Henry Wynd had killed his man, he supposedly either sat down or drew aside. The MacPherson battle leader noticed this and asked Wynd why he stopped when he was doing such a good job of slaying the opposition.

To this Wynd replied, probably airily, “Because I have fulfilled my bargain, and earned my wages.”

The MacPherson leader showed himself to be a motivator of men by observing, “The man who keeps no reckoning of his good deeds, without reckoning shall be repaid.”  The comment inspired Wynd to leap into action again and take the lives of several more opponents.

Finally, the MacPhersons were declared the winners.  Some 29 Davidsons and 19 MacPhersons were dead with the remaining MacPhersons severely wounded.  Only Henry Wynd escaped without serious injury, his excellent swordsmanship clearly contributing to the day’s victory.

Did he receive his promised payment?  History does not record this detail, but it is hard to imagine Henry Wynd being cheated out of whatever he considered his just desserts.  Clan Chattan leadership, however, knew a good man when they saw one.  They adopted Henry Wynd (or Gow or Smith) into their clan.  As the progenitor of the Gow or Smith branch of the clan, his name remains an honored one today.

And for several years following the Battle of North Inch, things remained quiet in the Highlands, at least relatively quiet for the Highlands.

The site of the "Clan Battle" is a large public park today

A new monument is also present on the edge of the field.

A related painting is also in Perth. It is called the "Battle of the Clans Chattan and Kay on the North Inch, Perth". For more information on this painting please click on the picture below.