I'm Bruce Fummey and today I've brought you to the Black Watch monument in Aberfeldy. Now don't switch off, I've got a mate who won't
watch this video because he says the Black Watch were created for ethnic suppression. I've heard other political dogmatics say no, they were pro-government Hanoverian Unionists. I've even heard some crazy Americans come out with a lot of nonsense about it being
offensive to wear Black Watch tartan. Me I'm neither militaristic, Hanoverian or
an ethnic suppressor, but I'd wear Black Watch tartan, and I'll tell you why. Incidentally, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel at the bottom right of this video but it's really not the point today, however I would like to tell you a story. Dogmatic politics ignores people and I want to talk about a person called Farquhar Shaw, and this is just the place to do it. You see, after what some might call Jacobite rebellions in 1689 and 1715, Hanoverian kings of Great Britain
wanted to clamp down in the Highlands. They were seen as lawless and a home to so many of these rebels, so a couple of things happened; on Christmas Day, 1724, General George Wade put in command of George the First's forces in Scotland was given the task of building a network
of forts, and roads to connect them. Now this is one of the Highland
suppression bridges that Wade built. On the 12th of May of the following year, George the First gave an order to raise six independent volunteer Highland companies commanded by his loyalist followers, such as Simon, Lord Lovett, John Campbell of Carrick, Colin Campbell of Skipness and others. These independent volunteers are
what would become the Black Watch. They were raised specifically to keep
order in the Highlands. They were raised with express condition that they weren't to leave the Highlands. Their role was specialist, limited and defined. They paraded for the first time on the other side of the bridge and they impressed. Now my mate might blame Highland clansmen for volunteering to do military service for their chief, yet he wouldn't blame those whose chief was Jacobite, but you may as well blame a blacksmith for shooing horses, a miller
for grinding corn or a cow for giving milk. A stag ruts, it roars in An Dabhir and it stands its ground and Farquhar Shaw volunteered for military service. as it was the custom. Now I've read that Farquhar Shaw's dad had fought for the Jacobite cause at Killiecrankie in 1689 and he was killed at the Jacobite
Rising in 1719. His lands were forfeit to the Campbells, so Farquhar Shaw was landless on Campbell land but with the honour of a Highland gent. He was a crack shot and an expert swordsman and he could forbear hunger cold and pain. He was a real James Bond of the Highlands, a proper double o salt in your porridge. When the Black Watch was converted from independent companies to a regiment, he was recovering from a nasty axe wound that he'd suffered battling cattle thieves, his very duties for which he volunteered. He walked miles over mountain and through bandit infested Highland glen carrying those wounds. He didn't have to, nobody would have blamed him, but he wanted to be with his comrades and do his duty. Now sometimes legends grow arms and
legs. What we do know is that in late 1739, the British Government decided to
reorganize the six Black Watch companies into a Highland Regiment. The command structure will change and it'll now be part of the British Army, but don't worry that you don't read or write
in Gaelic and that you don't even speak English, the details of the document don't matter, just make your mark there and continue serving King George the Second as a regiment of Highlanders here in the Highlands just as he served his father and independent companies. This would
become the 42nd Highland Regiment, but on the 5th of March 1743, Great Britain was bogged down in the War of the Austrian Succession and the War Secretary sent orders to Colonel Hugh, Lord Semple, the Black Watch commander. My Lord, the King, having thought fit to order the Highland Regiment of Foot whereof you are Colonel to go on foreign service, I am commanded by His Majesty to signify to your Lordship it is his pleasure that you caused
the said regiment to be completed with utmost expedition to the numbers born upon their establishment, and to hold themselves in readiness to march to Berwick as soon as they shall receive the orders from Major General Guest where they will find routes for their
proceeding to the neighbourhood of London in order to be reviewed by His Majesty before they embark. I am my Lord yours blah blah blah blah blah Ooft that's going to upset them, best no say anything eh? So Farquhar Shaw and his comrades were told that they were to march to Edinburgh to
take the review of a high ranking officer. That's a bit irregular, but they'll maybe get some Edinburgh Rock and a visit to the castle, why no? When they get to Edinburgh they're told actually, change of plan, the big parades in Berwick upon Tweed. Hmm but they set off to Berwick. Now the commanding officer knew from his 5th of March instructions that they were going for service abroad. Four days after they left Edinburgh, news reports seemed to believe that they were going as far as London. Of course when they got to Berwick, Farquhar and his pals themselves are told that they're to march to London. Now there's murmuring in the ranks of the idea crossing the border, but they're told that they're to be reviewed by the King himself. The crossing may have looked like the River Tweed, but it smelled distinctly like a rat-filled Rubicon. Now maybe it was all just a misunderstanding, maybe the Highlanders knew that they were going abroad, or maybe the officers knew fine well that this was a betrayal of the very men from whom they demanded loyalty. They get to London and on the Tuesday the 14th of May on Finchley Common they're reviewed, not by the King but by the bridge builder, General Wade. The King is neither on this island or indeed in this country. Now they know they've been duped. Where is the King why are they here? How long has this been planned? Where are they sending us? Is this a punishment? What have we done? All sorts of rumours fly. A large contingent come to the conclusion that they're to be sent to the West Indies? Now survival rates mean it's
practically a death sentence, and for those so closely tied to these mountains of Scotland, a death preceded by hell on earth. Three days later, on the Friday, they're told to prepare to march to the ships at Greenwich on Saturday morning. That's it! More than a hundred decide there's no way that they are going to the West Indies. Once more they gather and Finchley Common, this time at midnight. At 1 a.m. they head north, back to the Highlands that they were
never supposed to leave in the first place. After 90 miles in two days they're discovered in a wood in Northamptonshire. They're quickly surrounded by overwhelming force and
told to surrender. They refuse, unless they receive unconditional pardons. They've been dragged out of the Highlands, they suspect to the West Indies, they've been denied the supplies, clothing and equipment that they were promised, most haven't even been given weapons and carry their own swords. They'd rather make a stand here than die on a tropical island of disease. Express messages are sent back and forth but no pardons offered and so the Highlanders line up to
make their last stand in the woods. Wow they're not kidding. A British officer comes to parley. On the Monday morning, the Black Watch soldiers agree to hand in their arms, believing that all will be pardoned and they march back to the Tower of London. The regiment embarked for fighting in Flanders and the mutineers remained in the Tower. Now their pardons weren't nearly as full and free as you might think. There were life banishments to tropical islands, yes some were sent to the very West Indies they sought to avoid, and three, well there had to be an example made. Early in the morning of the 19th of July the mutineers were made to stand in a semi circle in an open square in the Tower of London, two corporals and a private were marched out, made to kneel and saw their last dawn just before a firing squad shot them dead. Corporal Samuel MacPherson, Corporal
Malcolm MacPherson and private Farquhar Shaw, the Highland hero, who withstood all sorts of hardships to keep order for the Crown, who'd travelled over cold moors and slept
out with his wounds to get to muster, finally received his reward. When I typed Farquhar Shaw into Google, and the two million three hundred and sixty thousand results, the top one was the British Museum, the listing for Farquhar Shaw read, Details individual; British; male, Life dates, blank to 1743, Biography,
Highland soldier; shot for desertion 1743, nothing else. Hardly a fitting epitaph
for the James Bond of the Highlands. There are however two memorials to Farquhar Shaw. You see, not many people were executed in the Tower of London, Tower Hill was the place of execution. A few were spared that public humiliation,
typically wives of Henry the Eighth, and so in the Tower of London there's a plaque to commemorate people executed there; Anne Boleyn, Jane Boleyn, Lady Jane Grey, Catherine Howard, Margaret Poole, Countess of Salisbury, Robert Devereaux, second Earl of Essex, William, Lord Hastings, Corporal Malcolm McPherson, Corporal Samuel MacPherson and Private Farquhar Shaw But Farquhar Shaw has a better memorial than that, and it's this one, because when this monument to the Black Watch was unveiled in 1887 across the river from the park where they'd first paraded 150 years earlier. The original Black Watch soldier was made in the likeness of Farquhar Shaw. Perthshire is Black Watch country. When I grew up in my granny's house, there was a picture of a Black Watch soldier on the wall. It was a soldier from the Great War in 1914 with his medals on his chest and that kilt, so disdained by some Americans around his waist I always remember that picture. My gran passed away and my aunts passed and now that picture hangs on my wall. I even know the name of the
soldier, Sergeant Harry Sharp, my grandad, another thing I remember is the first Iraq war. I remember the night it broke out with shock and awe, there must have been so many Iraqis killed and yeah it all seemed so distant and then some U.S servicemen were killed, now their lives were no more or less important because they were on our side. Then I heard the news that a British soldier had been killed, oh that's not so good but when they said it was a Black Watch soldier, I stopped still, he's one of us. Now I paid attention. He died on Monday the 24th of March 1991. I can even tell you his name, Corporal Barry Steven, I remember his name because I remember him from church when we were young. It's not that one life's more important than
another, it's just that this is Black Watch country. The Black Watch, created for ethnic suppression, pro-Hanoverian unionist, whatever epithets that you want to throw don't really mean anything. To me politics changes, history twists and turns, but there are real people and they're connected by an invisible thread that runs from Farquhar Shaw, through Harry Sharp and on to Barry Steven, and on and on. I for one am proud of the Black Watch tartan that hangs from the waist of my grandfather as he hangs on my wall. Now there will be a link to my video on the Tranent massacre on the screen now. You should watch it because not everyone agreed to volunteer. Tha mi an dochas bum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.
