Inch of Perth
Just which “Inch” is meant in this dance is open to question
for Perth has both a North Inch and a South Inch,
two large meadows beside the River Tay with the downtown area of Perth,
once known as St. Johnstoun,
lying between the two.
The South Inch is now a recreation ground
and it was here that Hussars guarding French prisoners during the Napoleonic War played cricket.
It has been said, thus, that Perth is the birthplace of cricket in Scotland.
The North Inch today contains a golf course and a football ground,
an area where Prince Charles Edward drilled his Highland troops in September of 1745.
The most interesting event to take place on the North Inch occurred in 1396,
an event that was a mixture of unicivilised clan warfare, medieval tournament
and Roman “curia militaris”.
For some years there had been trouble within that confederacy known as Clan Chattan.
The clan was divided into two parts, those of the blood and those who sought protection.
“Of the blood” were the Mackintoshes, the Macphersons, the Shaws,
the Farquharsons, the Cattanachs, the Macphails and the MacCombies.
Those who sought protection or power through alliance
were the Davidsons, the Macqueens, the MacGillivrays and the MacLeans of Dochgarroch.
While some historians may differ,
it is generally supposed that the “Battle of the Clans”,
which took place between Clan Chattan and “Clan Quhele” in an enclosure on the North Inch
before Robert III and Queen Annabella Drummond and the Court,
actually involved two families within Clan Chattan,
the Macphersons “of the blood” and the Davidsons.
“Clan Quhele” may very well be the Davidsons
since the Gaelic MacDhai became MacKay, hence “Quhele”.
This intra-clan combat was held before a crowd of thousands,
at the order of the king,
to settle a dispute between the Macphersons and the Davidsons
in regard to ascendancy and precedence.
Robert ordered that thirty men from each quarreling faction be chosen,
armed with the usual 14th century Highland weapons
and let justice or might solve the difficulties.
When, at the end of the battle, the king’s heralds declared the Macphersons the victors,
the statistics read like a football score, Chattan 29, Quhele 19,
which meant that only nineteen of the Macphersons lay slaughtered on the field
while twenty-nine Davidsons had been killed.
The thirtieth Davidson escaped by climbing over the enclosure wall,
swimming to the far side of the Tay and running for his life.
It is not indicated at what point in the battle this sole, and farsighted, Davidson survivor
had had enough and took to his heels.
In the following century such family disputes began to be taken before the court of the Lord Lyon
for more judicious settlement.
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)