The Battle of Sheriffmuir (Scottish Gaelic: Blàr Sliabh an t-Siorraim, [pl̪ˠaɾ ˈʃʎiəv əɲ ˈtʲʰirˠəm]) was an engagement in 1715 at the height of the Jacobite rising in Scotland.

[3] Sheriffmuir is a remote elevated plateau of moorland lying between Stirling and Auchterarder on the north fringe of the Ochil Hills.

John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar, standard-bearer for the Jacobite cause in Scotland, mustered Highland chiefs, and, on 6 September, declared James Francis Edward Stuart (the "Old Pretender") as King of Scots.

Following unsuccessful skirmishes against John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll (based at Stirling), Mar was eventually persuaded to lead his full army south, on 10 November.

Argyll, reinforced and invigorated, soon advanced north, while the Jacobite army fled to Montrose, and the Pretender returned to France.

The whole body of his adherents in the south had fallen into the hands of generals Willis and Carpenter at Preston, and Inverness, with all the adjacent country, had been recovered to the government, through the exertions of pro-government clans including the Earl of Sutherland, Fraser Lord Lovat, the Rosses, the Munros and the Forbeses.

The song was written when Burns toured the Highlands in 1787 and was first published in the Scots Musical Museum, appearing in volume III, 1790.

One of the shepherds believes that "the red-coat lads wi' black cockades" routed the rebels, painting a fearful picture of how they managed to "hough the Clans like nine-pin kyles".