News of his intention had, however, reached the Dowager Lady Mackintosh, who lived in Inverness and did not share her son's Hanoverian sympathies. Summoning a fifteen-year-old Mackintosh clans-man named Lauchlan. she instructed him 'to try if he could get past Lord Loudon's men, and to make all the haste he could to Moy to warn the Prince of what was intended against him'. Successfully dodging Lord Loudon's patrols, young Lauchlan Mackintosh immediately set out for Moy, arriving there in time to get the Prince out of bed and warn him of the enemy's approach. Leaving the house 'with his bonnet above his nightcap and his shoes down in the heels', Charles now made his way down to the side of the loch with some of his men, while Colonel Anne was observed 'in her smock-petticoat, running through the close, speaking loudly and expressing her anxiety about the Prince's safety' - 'running about like a madwoman in her shift', O'Sullivan called it.

Meanwhile, madwoman or not, she had, with great presence of mind, sent the blacksmith of Moy, one Donald Fraser, and four others to take up a position 'upon a muir, at some distance from Moy, towards Inverness, and their await the approach of Lord Loudon's men'. On the appearance of the enemy's advance guard, who seem to have been led by the renegade MacLeod of MacLeod, 'the Blacksmith', we learn, 'fired his piece, and the other four followed his example', at the same time shouting at the top of their voices the war cries of the Camerons, MacDonalds. Mackintoshes and a number of other clans, 'which so far imposed on Lord Loudon and his command, (a pretty considerable one) and struck them with such panic that instantly they beat a retreat, and made their way back to Inverness, imagining the Prince's whole army to be at their heels'. This ingenious stratagem, which won for Colonel Anne the additional title of The Heroine, came to be known, appropriately enough, as the Rout of Moy. The only casualty was MacLeod's hereditary piper Macrimmon ('reputed the best of his business in all Scotland' and almost certainly Jacobite in sympathy), who fell mortally wounded at the blacksmith's first discharge. Before leaving Skye. Macrimmon. who possessed the second sight, had composed a prophetic lament. Chu til rile tuille (I'll return no more): MacLeod shall come back, But Macrimmon shall never.

Earlier that evening in Inverness, a friend, who likewise possessed the second sight, had remarked on meeting Macrimmon that his body seemed suddenly to shrink to the stature of a small child.

Lord Loudon's own account of the engagement at Moy throws an interesting light on that nobleman's character and military capability: We marched on to the heights above the watter of Nairn, when to my infinite mortification I saw and heard, about a mile to my left, a running fire from the whole detachment. They saw. or imagined they saw, five Men on which they had made the Fire. Hut the Consequence on the Main Body was very bad. for it threw us into the greatest confusion. I got my own Regiment, at the head of which I was. in the Front, saved from falling out of the Road. All faced to where they saw the Fire. They were ten men deep and all presented, and a good many droping shots. one of which killed a Piper at my Foot whilst I was forming them. The rest fell all back out of the Road to the Right a considerable way, in the utmost confusion, and it was a great while before 1 could get them brought up and formed. and the Panick still so great that it was with the greatest difficulty when the Party came in. which they did in twos and threes, that 1 could. standing before the Muzzles of their pieces, prevent them firing on them, and when I came to count the corps (if 1 may call Independent Companies by that name) I found I had lost the Five Companys in the Rear, of whom, after all the search I could make. I could hear nothing. After remaining an Hour on the ground and finding that I had lost one third of my Men in a Body, besides those who had left the Companys that remained with me, and finding then the whole country was alarmed, I thought it improper, especially in the condition the men were, to march on to a superior Force, who must be prepared to receive me, and concluded that the best thing left for me to do, was to march back to town, which I accordingly did.

Their experiences at the hands of the blacksmith of Moy had sadly demoralized Lord Loudon's men. Next morning two hundred of them deserted and. after consultation with MacLeod and Lord President Forbes. their noble commander decided that his wisest course would be to withdraw with his men across the ferry at Kessock to Ross and Cromarty and there, in relatively friendly territory, await the arrival of Cumberland's great army. His withdrawal was further accelerated by the appearance before Inverness on the morning of I 8 February of the Prince's advance guard. At this he and his force left headlong for the Kessock ferry, where they were cannonaded by the Jacobites and still more of his men deserted. A Jacobite force of Frasers and others was immediately sent over the ferry after them. Meanwhile Charles, 'having got up betwixt two and three thousand men', had taken possession of Inverness without a shot being fired. On 20 February the small Hanoverian garrison of the castle also capitulated and the castle itself was demolished.

Cumberland's reaction on learning of these events was one of exasperation and bewildered incomprehension. I am really quite at a loss to explain all the contradictions I meet here from morning to night, for I am assured by people who should know the hills the best, that there are no places between the Blair of Athol and Inverness where 500 men can subsist in a body, yet Lord Loudoun has been driven across the Firth with 2,000 men which he said he had, and expecting a junction of 1,500 more, by that party of the rebels alone which marched from Blair with the Pretender's son, and which I could never make, by the best account I had, above 600 men.…But I am now in a country so much our enemy that there is hardly any intelligence to be got, and, whenever we do procure any, it is the business of the country to have it contradicted to me that I may be always kept in an uncertainty what I am to believe.

On 19 February Charles had established himself some five miles outside Inverness at Culloden House, the home of the Lord President, Duncan Forbes, who had left hurriedly the day before with Lord Loudon. He was joined two days later by Lord George Murray and Duke William of Atholl.

- Extract from Fitroy Maclean, 'Bonnie Prince Charlie'