A question I am often asked in the Clan Ross Centre is: where were the Rosses at Culloden? The answer is not a romantic one. It tells neither of a clan rushing to the aid of a prince nor of a regiment standing firm for the government. Their story is different — but no less important — because it reveals, in unusual detail, the slow unravelling of a clan.
On 10 November 1746, David Ross, a Shandwick Ross, wrote from Edinburgh to his brother Alexander Ross, then a merchant in Gothenburg. Writing with evident pride, he reported that at Culloden,
“none but Charles Ross & I were all the privat men or officers in the Battle of Culloden of either Lord Loudoun's Regiment or of the Independent Companys.”
At that very moment, likely unknown to him, his brother Alexander and his nephew Andrew MacCulloch were already engaged in a clandestine Swedish-backed mission to locate and extract Prince Charles Edward Stuart from the west coast.
That paradox runs through the Ross experience of 1745.
The Ross Companies
While David and Charles Ross were present with the Government forces at Culloden, the first recorded body of Ross men to take the field in 1745 did so on the Jacobite side with Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie, the son of the Clan Ross chief. Malcolm’s position, however, was already complicated. Earlier in the Rising he had held a commission as an ensign in Lord Loudon’s Regiment, and was taken prisoner following the Government defeat at Prestonpans.
His subsequent attachment to the Jacobite cause was therefore not that of an uncommitted clansman drawn suddenly into rebellion, but of a young man whose prior Government service had already collapsed with the defeat of September 1745.
By mid-October 1745, Government correspondence from Duncan Forbes of Culloden placed Malcolm in the orbit of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, accompanied by some thirty men drawn from Strathoykell and Strathcarron. Their attachment appears to have been personal and kin-based, rallying to him as a Ross rather than reflecting any demonstrable commitment to the Jacobite cause.
This early, kin-based mobilisation stood in sharp contrast to the Government’s approach. In 1745–46, clan chiefs were not called out at the head of their clans, as the Rosses had been in 1715, when some five hundred men were raised. Instead, discrete companies of around one hundred men were requested. Plans were already in place to raise a Government company among the Rosses, intended for service under the Master of Ross, the Laird of Balnagown.
Those plans were briefly derailed when the seventeen-year-old, Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie appeared at the muster at Ardmore, near Edderton, and the assembled men dispersed before the company could be formed.
The disruption was attributed directly to Malcolm himself. Writing to George Ross of Pitkerrie, who was assisting in raising the Independent Companies, Duncan Forbes of Culloden, a kinsman of Malcolm Ross, described the episode in stark terms. He complained that the Rosses concerned had “not, whether from knavery or folly, or a mixture of both, behaved themselves as I expected,” before explaining how the muster had been undone:
“They seem’d very well satisfy’d, found no difficulty in raising the compy… and brought 100 men together; but, upon some difficulty’s raised by Pitcalny’s mad son, they dispers’d.”
Forbes added that he had written to them “as a kindred,” and sent Culcairn to Tain to meet with them, but that all he had obtained in response was
“a promise, that in a fortnight the compy will be brought together.”
The company had been authorised, its officers named—the Master of Ross, William Ross, the new laird of Balnagown, Charles Ross of Inverchassley, and David Ross of Shandwick—and the men assembled. Malcolm Ross’s appearance at the muster then precipitated its dispersal.
The tension underlying these events lay in a sharp break in clan authority. The Master of Ross, William Ross, was not of Clan Ross, but heir through a Lowland family, the Halkhead Rosses, that had effectively purchased the Balnagown inheritance in 1711. William had never lived at the castle, nor even visited the estate, having inherited unexpectedly after the death of his brother Charles.
Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie, by contrast, belonged to the senior Highland line historically associated with the clan’s chiefship. His decision to attach himself to the Jacobites was shaped less by ideology than by the belief that a Stuart restoration might return Balnagown to its former chiefs. That this motive was understood at the time is clear from correspondence between the Rosses of Shandwick:
"young Pitcalnie has gone off with the Earl of Cromartie to join the Pretender, who assured him that when it came to the crown, the other should succeed to the Estate of Balnagown."
The point was clear. Malcolm’s allegiance was tied directly to the recovery of Balnagown, while the Ross tenants were clearly reluctant to join anyone and their allegiance uncertain and divided.
Reluctant Rosses
Writing from Tarlogie near Tain, David Rose described a countryside “in great alarm and panick,” unarmed, divided, and consumed by fear of attack. Until the threat of invasion passed, he insisted, “it is in vain to think of conveneing the men.” Even where local gentlemen exerted themselves, the response was “very cool,” and suspicion ran deep. Some tenants believed that those urging them to muster intended to “make sale of them,” exposing or sacrificing them for their own ends. Rose was explicit that Malcolm Ross’s intervention was not the cause of dispersal: “My footman would have had equal success with [young] Pitcalnie in sending them home.”
In such conditions, persuasion was useless, for “none can pretend to bring them out but by violence and force, for all the Countries are frightened & debauched.” The failure, he concluded, lay not in Jacobite sympathy, but in the spread of what he termed “Modern Principles”—the erosion of inherited obligation and the refusal to act on authority alone.
A letter from Duncan Forbes of Culloden to William Baillie, written on 30 October 1745, sets out with unusual candour both the pull of kinship and the Government’s readiness to override it by threat.
For let them have what hankering they think fit after what they may look upon as the heir male of their kindred, if they are not themselves jacobits, which I have been assured they are not, I should think it would be easie to create in them an aversion to the courses of this young man, & to lead them to oppose rather than forward them; considering especially, that it is impossible that their present master can look with indifference on their conduct at this juncture, or abstain from rewarding & punishing accordingly.
Mobilisation, in other words, was to be secured through landlord discipline if necessary.
At roughly the same moment that Forbes was reporting the dispersal to his correspondents, Alexander Ross of Pitcalnie wrote directly to the principal tenants and possessors of the Balnagown estate. His letter is striking both for its emotional intensity and for the authority he still believed he could exercise.
My son’s folly in returning you to your own houses has created me no little sorrow and affliction. It is confidently reported by such as want to see the ruin of my person that I support you in this folly, by sending messages not to comply in forming yourselves into a company under the command of the Master of Ross.
My own innocence, and the conviction of the falsehood of these aspersions after the strictest examination, will exculpate me from these calumnies. It is hard that I should suffer for my son’s folly—and yours.
I therefore earnestly beg and entreat you, if you have any regard for me, to use your influence with the people and procure their compliance to form themselves into a company for the Master of Ross. In the meantime, I desire you to come here, that I may reason with you, and I hope convince you to do your duty to your King, your Country, and your master.
I shall take your refusal as the greatest indignity you can offer me, and if so, it shall be the last favour I ever ask of any of you. If it be in my power, I shall resent it—though my indignation be of little consequence compared with that of your master, and your being rendered contemptible.
Intreating your compliance, I am your friend to serve you,
Alex. Ross
The letter is revealing on several levels. Pitcalnie explicitly repudiated his son’s actions, condemned the dispersal as “folly,” and aligned himself publicly with the Government interest. At the same time, his tone betrays how fragile his authority had become. Appeals to kinship sit uneasily beside threats of resentment and disgrace, and the insistence that refusal would be “remembered” suggests that obedience could no longer be assumed.
At the same moment, Malcolm himself was no longer present in Ross. In a letter to the Lord President dated 9 November 1745, Alexander Ross of Pitcalnie recorded sending a messenger into Lord Lovat’s lands to retrieve his son, confirming that Malcolm had returned to Lovat’s orbit. It is far from clear how many men Malcolm ultimately persuaded to join him, or precisely what methods he used.
In the days that followed, Duncan Forbes of Culloden widened his efforts, writing not only to the Ross tenants but also directly to Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie.
The pattern continued. On 10 November 1745, a group of Ross gentlemen wrote collectively to the Lord President, professing loyalty to the Government and assuring him of their determination to raise the expected men. Yet the letter again deferred action. Because a market was imminent, they explained, the people “will not willingly goe till that mercant be over.”
Only in the week following did they “hope the men will be at Inverness,” promising an appearance sufficient to “atone for their being so long of coming up.” The language was loyal, but the effect was delay. Even at this late stage, mobilisation was postponed in favour of economic necessity.
The Ross Company in the Field
The Ross Company finally assembled at Inverness in early January 1746, its mobilisation complete only after months of delay. Its active service proved brief. On the night of 16–17 February, the company was present during the confused government movement later known as the Route of Moy. Acting on faulty intelligence, James Campbell, Earl of Loudoun attempted a night march against the Jacobite headquarters at Moy. The advance collapsed almost immediately in darkness and alarm, and the column withdrew in disorder. The Rosses took no effective part in the episode, becoming separated and lost in the confusion rather than engaged in combat.
Two days later, on 18 February, Loudoun abandoned Inverness Castle altogether. Maintaining the appearance of resistance, he withdrew the bulk of his force across the Kessock ferry, leaving behind only a reduced garrison to hold the castle. Among those left were the Ross and Grant companies, isolated and exposed.
The position was untenable. Inverness Castle surrendered shortly thereafter without resistance, and the garrison — officers included — was taken prisoner of war. The Ross company, raised with such difficulty in early January, thus saw scarcely a month of active service before its capture.
Malcolm Ross and the Jacobite Following
We last glimpse the Ross men in November, operating within Lord Lovat’s lands. From that point, the record thins markedly. No surviving account traces their movements in detail, nor is there evidence that they continued to operate as a distinct body during the winter that followed.
By January, however, Malcolm Ross had joined the regiment under George Mackenzie, Earl of Cromartie, which is known to have taken part in the Battle of Falkirk and thereafter retreated north with the main Jacobite army. It is within Cromartie’s command, during this withdrawal, that Malcolm is next reported.
In February 1746, a deposition by James Logie placed Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie in Aberdeen, “in a highland habit, broadsword, and white cockade,” in the company of men “deemed rebels, with whom he stayed.”
On 8 March 1746, the minister of Alness noted that “Young Pitcalnie called yesterday at Foulis,” a brief entry made while Cromartie’s officers were quartered there and Jacobite parties were marching and counter-marching through the countryside.
Government intelligence from mid-March reflects the same pattern. Reports describe efforts to intercept “Young Ross of Pitcalnie” in Strathcarron, characterising him as “attempting to raise the Rosses.”
When Cromartie’s force moved into Sutherland later in March, contemporary observers reported the burning of houses in the vicinity of Dornoch. In an account dated at Aberdeen on 29 March 1746, it was noted that “sundry houses” were seen burning several miles above the town—actions attributed by the writer to Ross of Pitcalnie, undertaken “in order to force the Country Men to take up Arms.”
As elsewhere, the record names the leader but leaves the composition of the following body unstated.
In mid-April, urgent orders reached Cromartie’s force to return south to Inverness as the Jacobite army concentrated for a final engagement. Malcolm was among those marching south toward the Littleferry crossing when the column was surprised and broken up by local militia on 15 April 1746 at the Battle of Littleferry.
Capture and Aftermath
Most of Cromartie’s force was taken prisoner; a smaller number, including Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie, escaped. The destruction of the column at Littleferry meant that neither Malcolm nor the Ross men associated with his following were present when the Jacobite army was defeated at Culloden two days later.
Among the prisoners taken in Sutherland, only one man—Alexander Fraser—is explicitly recorded as having served in “Pitcalnie’s Rebel Company.” No other prisoner is unambiguously identified in the lists as belonging to a distinct Ross contingent under Malcolm’s command. This does not imply that his earlier following had been fictitious or exaggerated; once the Jacobite forces crossed into Sutherland, they appear to have presumed themselves secure, and locally raised men were likely—formally or informally—allowed to return home as immediate objectives stalled. The captives taken at Littleferry may therefore represent only a residual fragment of a far more fluid and interrupted body.
Among those listed as having served under Cromartie, some were imprisoned or exiled, while others appear later in Government rolls. The same men who had recently been “with the Rebels” were thus absorbed into Government service within weeks, their earlier allegiance overlooked or set aside.
Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie did not escape the consequences of defeat. Within months of Culloden, he was formally attainted for treason, his name included among those legally condemned for adherence to the Jacobite cause. Malcolm’s attainder fixed his status decisively: not as a failed recruiter or marginal adventurer, but as a rebel stripped of legal protection, inheritance, and future within Britain.
He fled into exile and entered foreign service, dying in France around 1762 while serving as an officer in Ogilvy’s Regiment. Whatever the limits of his authority in practice, the state imposed upon him the full consequences of rebellion.
Where Were the Rosses at Culloden?
In the end, the answer to the question “Where were the Rosses at Culloden?” is a fractured one. A small number of Ross gentlemen—most notably David Ross of Shandwick and Charles Ross—stood with the Government forces on the battlefield itself. Others, tied to Malcolm Ross of Pitcalnie, never reached it: their small Jacobite following was scattered or captured at Littleferry on 15 April 1746, the day before Culloden.
The great majority of Ross clansmen were absent from the field because the Ross Company, though eventually raised, had already been taken prisoner with the fall of Inverness weeks earlier. As a result, no Ross body was present in action on the day of the battle.
That outcome reflects more than misfortune. The long delay in embodiment, the reluctance evident at musters, and the company’s limited and cautious deployment before its capture all suggest that confidence in the Rosses as an active fighting force was limited. By 1746, authority within the clan was too fractured, and obligation too uncertain, to sustain confidence in their service.
That fragmentation had its roots in the loss of the Balnagown estate after 1711. With the clan heartlands detached from the line traditionally associated with the chiefship, authority became plural and contested. Cadet branches held land and influence comparable to Pitcalnie’s, while nominal headship passed to a laird who neither lived among the tenantry nor embodied the older bonds of lordship.
The result in 1745–46 was not rebellion or staunch loyalty, but hesitation. Obedience was negotiated rather than assumed; service delayed rather than refused; allegiance shaped by circumstance, self-preservation, and calculation rather than unquestioned duty. Men still rallied to kin and names in limited ways, but the feudal ties that had once bound clansmen to their chief had already splintered—eroded by “Modern Principles,” fear of coercion, market necessity, and the realities of absentee or contested lordship. By the time of Culloden, the authority of the clan chief had become largely symbolic: retaining social weight and historical resonance, but little capacity to compel action in practice. Culloden did not cause that unravelling; it merely laid it bare.