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Your guide to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite Rebellion, plus 10 facts you might not know
The 1745 Jacobite Rebellion was a turning point in British history. Believing the British throne to be his birthright, Charles Edward Stuart, aka 'Bonnie Prince Charlie', planned to invade Great Britain along with his Jacobite followers and remove the Hanoverian 'usurper' George II. Yet, argues Dr Jacqueline Riding, the reality of the '45 continues to be obscured by fiction and fables...
In June 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, aka 'Bonnie Prince Charlie', had one key aim: regaining the thrones his grandfather, the Roman Catholic convert James VII of Scotland and II of England and Ireland, had lost in 1688–90 to his nephew and son-in-law William of Orange (who reigned as William III). This 'glorious’ revolution' had confirmed a Protestant succession, in a predominantly Protestant Great Britain, which, from 1714, was embodied in the Hanoverian dynasty. Following George I’s accession, several risings in support of the exiled Stuarts occurred, most notably in the years 1715 and 1719. By this stage, on the death of James VII and II in 1701, the chief claimant (or ‘old pretender’) was his only legitimate son James Francis Edward (b1688), who was the father of 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' (b1720). What did the Jacobites want to achieve? “The Stuarts had reigned in Scotland for centuries, and the Jacobites craved the reinstatement of the Stuart male line,” says Christopher Whatley, professor of Scottish history at the University of Dundee. “They championed the claim of the exiled James Francis Edward Stuart, son of the deposed James II and VII, the man after whom the movement was named [Jacobus being derived from the Latin form of James]. “What’s more, many Scots had been antagonised by King William’s imposition of Presbyterianism – a more austere form of Protestantism – as the Church of Scotland. Making James Francis Edward Stuart (the ‘Old Pretender’) king would herald changes to the practice of religion in Scotland.” The Jacobite rebellions were also, says Whatley, a reaction to the union of Scotland and England in 1707. “The later Stuarts were not especially well loved, but the union was even less so,” he says. “Anti-unionism – and Scottish independence – was a strong component of support for Jacobitism in Scotland in the early 18th century.” Did Bonnie Prince Charlie lead the Jacobites? A French invasion of Britain in support of the Stuarts in early 1744 had been abandoned, mainly due to severe weather, leaving Charles, who had arrived in France to lead the invasion, kicking his heels in Paris. Losing patience with the lack of commitment for another invasion attempt by his chief supporter and cousin, Louis XV, and with the greater part of the British Army fighting in Flanders against the French, Charles secretly gathered together arms and a modest war chest and set sail from Brittany, landing a small party at Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides on 23 July 1745. His audacious – or reckless – plan was to gain a foothold in the western Highlands, rally support en route south, meet up with a French invasion force at London and remove the Hanoverian ‘usurper’ George II (reigned 1727–60). And with luck and the element of surprise on his side, for a time it proved almost as straightforward as that. What happened during the Jacobite Rebellion called the '45? After raising the Stuart standard at Glenfinnan on 19 August – the official beginning of the rebellion – the small Jacobite army marched south-east towards the Scottish capital. Edinburgh surrendered on 17 September and four days later Charles achieved an unexpected and resounding victory against Sir John Cope and his British army troops at Prestonpans. The key to their success was the Highland charge: a fast and furious manoeuvre that regular troops had little or no experience of. Read more | 8 places linked to the Jacobite uprisings At the beginning of November the Jacobite army entered England, taking Carlisle after a short, bloodless siege. Having marched through Lancashire gathering further support, by 4 December the Jacobite army, now numbering around 6,000 men and boys, entered Derby, some 120 miles from London. But rather than push on to his ultimate prize, at a council of war the prince was completely outnumbered by his predominantly Scottish commanders and, to his utter dismay, the Jacobite army returned to Scotland. The monarchy with Tracy Borman Member exclusive | In this five-part series, historian Tracy Borman charts the changing fortunes of the monarchy, from the bloody Norman conquest of 1066 through the upheaval of civil war in the 17th century to the reign of Elizabeth II. Watch all episodes now However, the rebellion was far from over. Between January and March 1746, with his army almost doubled in size, Charles and his men secured another victory against the British Army at Falkirk, this time led by General Henry Hawley, and then seized Inverness – the capital of the Highlands. But Charles was in desperate need of money to feed and maintain his troops. On 24 March the Royal Navy captured a French ship carrying the money destined for the Jacobite army. Its loss was a disaster. With dwindling funds and a British army hard on his heels – a well-fed and now tactically prepared force commanded by George II’s son, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland – Charles resolved to fight sooner rather than later, once again against the advice of his Scottish commanders. The defeat of the Jacobite army at Culloden on 16 April 1746, the last battle fought on the British mainland, led to the rolling out of a new British government policy: the attempted extinction of core Stuart support in the Highlands via the systematic dismantling of the ancient social and military culture of the Highland clans, regardless of whether they had joined the rebellion. On the podcast | Scottish clans: everything you wanted to know The wearing of Highland garb, particularly tartan plaid, was banned, and the semi-feudal bond of military service, coupled with the power of the chiefs over their clans, removed. What happened in the aftermath of the Jacobite rebellion? Understandably the British government wanted to stamp out any potential of another rebellion occurring, but the uncompromisingly ruthless and often violent manner in which this was achieved, including the destruction of property and livelihood, executions and transportation, swiftly turned the joy at the rebellion’s termination into sympathy for the rebels and, soon after, disaffection towards the government. The Duke of Cumberland’s enthusiastic leadership in this process won him the soubriquet ‘the butcher’. However, the pacification of the Highlands and the channelling of Highland military prowess into the British Army largely removed any potential for a future rising in the area. Read more | How close were the Jacobite rebellions to returning the Stuarts to power? Did Bonnie Prince Charlie escape after Culloden? Charles had left the field at Culloden, believing his swift return to France would hurry the long-promised French battalions he needed to resurrect the campaign. Others, however, believed he had abandoned his troops to their terrible fate and even abandoned the Stuart cause in order to save his own skin. In the event, Charles spent five months as a fugitive in the western Highlands and islands with Cumberland’s men in relentless pursuit. He eventually escaped to France, with the selfless assistance of the heroic Flora MacDonald, and died in Rome in 1788 by all accounts a drink-befuddled and bitter man. But his legendary alter ego, the ‘Highland laddie’, lived on. Here are 10 facts you might not know about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites… The term Jacobite comes from the Latin for James (ie James VII and II) ‘Jacobus’ ‘Jacobite’ is not to be confused with ‘Jacobean’, which refers to James Stuart’s rule in England as James I. (Jacobean is also often used to describe a style of art, architecture and theatre.) Nor is Jacobite to be mistaken for ‘Jacobin’, the radical political group formed during the French Revolution. As it was treason even to make contact with the exiled Stuarts, let alone visit them, Jacobites established an intricate set of symbols, coded phrases and rituals. For example, the white rose was a symbol of James Francis Edward (his birthday, 10 June, was ‘white rose day’) and after the birth of his sons, Charles (1720) and Henry (1725), the single rose is often represented with two buds. Such symbols were used on items including fans, glassware and snuff boxes, and can also be seen in Jacobite portraiture. The toast to “The little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat” was a reference to William III’s death from injuries sustained during a riding accident. It is said his horse stumbled on a molehill. Perhaps the most famous toast, though, is to “The king over the water”, by raising your glass and then passing it over a bowl of water. Jacobites weren’t all Roman Catholics The ‘senior’ Stuart branch – the male heirs of James VII and II – were Roman Catholic, but many Jacobites were Protestant, whether ‘high church’ Anglican, Episcopalian, nonjuring or dissenting. Whatever their religion, Jacobites considered the exiled Stuarts the true British and Irish monarchs – most believed by divine right – and therefore they could not be removed, as they would see it, at the ‘whim’ of parliaments. Among the Scottish Jacobite army commanders of the 1745 rebellion, James Drummond, Duke of Perth, and his brother Lord John Drummond, were both Scottish Catholics raised in France. But other commanders, such as Lieutenant-General Lord George Murray and the Life Guards commander David Wemyss, Lord Elcho, were Protestant. It is true that religious minorities like British Catholics could expect greater tolerance under a Catholic monarch, but few displayed any interest in joining Charles’s campaign. The most eminent English Catholics, the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, attended court at St James’s Palace at the height of the threatened advance to London in November 1745, in order to publicly demonstrate their support for King George. On the podcast | Jacqueline Riding on the events of the 1745 Jacobite rebellion Jacobites weren’t all Scottish It is true that many members of the Stuart court in exile were Scottish – certainly by 1745 – but there were Irish and English exiles too. It is also true that Scottish Jacobites, whether in exile or not, felt an inherent loyalty to the ancient Stuart – prior to Mary, Queen of Scots ‘Stewart’ – kings of Scotland. The dynasty was founded in Scotland in 1371, inheriting the English crown via James I in 1603. In addition, many Scottish Jacobites saw the return of the Stuarts as the welcome catalyst for the dismantling of the Acts of Union between Scotland and England (creating the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707). Yet the one thing that united all Jacobites was not their nationality or the breaking up of the Union, but, as previously stated, their desire to see the return of the Stuarts to the British and Irish thrones. Jacobites came from all parts of the British Isles and Ireland, and in exile formed a very international network. During the 1745 uprising, Charles’s small inner circle of chief confidants included two Irishmen, his former tutor in Rome, Sir Thomas Sheridan, and the Jacobite army’s adjutant general (senior administrative officer) and quarter-master general (senior supplies officer), Colonel John William O’Sullivan. Their influence over the prince rankled with some of the Scottish commanders, such as Lords George and Elcho, as the Scotsmen believed they, the Irish, had little to lose but their lives. The expectation of a rising of the English and Welsh Jacobites was one of the key reasons why Charles ventured so far into England, believing he could reach London on a wave of residual pro-Stuart feeling and with the armed support of thousands of local recruits. Indeed, supported by a French invasion, the only hope of success in regaining all the Stuarts’ former territories lay in a significant local English rising. Charles Edward Stuart spoke English with a British accent Charles was born and raised in Rome to a Polish mother and a father of mixed European heritage, including Italian and French as well as British, which has led to the assumption that the prince spoke English with some form of foreign accent. In Peter Watkins’ BBC docudrama Culloden (1964), for example, the prince, played by Olivier Espitalier-Noel, speaks with a sort of French/trans-European accent. Lord Elcho’s oft-quoted jibe as the prince left the field at Culloden – “There you go for a damned cowardly Italian”– has fuelled this particular interpretation, although this jibe was likely a later embellishment. Read more | 11 historically inaccurate films you need to watch Although Charles’s father, James Francis Edward, left Britain when he was six-months-old and spent his youth in exile in France (in St Germain-en-Laye, near Paris) he was surrounded by British and Irish courtiers. Indeed, his main role model, his father James VII and II, born at St James’s Palace, London and a mature 55-year-old in 1688, would have obviously spoken English with an English accent. Eyewitnesses during the 1745 uprising described Charles as speaking “the English or broad Scots very well”. One observer, the Edinburgh schoolmaster Andrew Henderson, stated that Charles’s “speech was sly, but very intelligible; his Dialect was more upon the English than the Scottish Accent, seem’d to me pretty like that of the Irish, some of whom I had known”. “Sly” here means soft or low. The Jacobite troops at Culloden were not all Highlanders The misconception that the Jacobite army was composed solely of Highlanders is supported, in part, by the imposing memorial cairn on the battlefield itself, which states: “The graves of the gallant Highlanders who fought for Scotland & Prince Charlie are marked by the names of their clans.” Lowlanders and English alike spoke of the ‘Highlanders’ and the ‘Highland army’, and certainly focused their attention on the sizable Highland element within the Jacobite army as Charles and his men marched through their towns and countryside. Furthermore, in the early stages of the campaign the Jacobite army could have been described as ‘Highland’, as the thousand or so men gathered around the Stuart standard at Glenfinnan came predominantly from the Cameron and MacDonald clans. Read more | Hell at Glencoe: what led to the massacre in the Scottish Highlands? But by the time the army had occupied Edinburgh for almost six weeks, the composition had changed. It now included many Lowland gentlemen, such as Lord Elcho, and Lowland tradesmen. A month later, by the time the Jacobite troops had crossed into England and reached Derby, it was compositionally a very different army to that at Glenfinnan. It now included, along with Lowlanders, an English regiment of about 300 men, known as the Manchester regiment. Fast-forward less than six months, at the battle of Culloden (16 April 1746) about two-thirds of Charles’s troops could be termed Highland Gaels, but there were also Lowlanders, Irishmen, Frenchmen and some Englishmen. The ‘Skye Boat Song’ isn’t entirely Gaelic One of the most famous stories concerning the prince’s five months as a fugitive is his escape by sea, dressed as a maid ‘Betty Burke’, accompanied by Flora MacDonald. Many of us will know the wistful ‘Skye Boat Song’ and its promise of “the lad that’s born to be king” as he is rowed away to Skye from whence, like King Arthur before him, he “will come again”. Its form is a traditional Gaelic rowing song or iorram and the tune is believed to derive from the Gaelic song Cuachan nan Craobh or ‘The Cuckoo in the Grove’. But the lyrics, establishing the association with Bonnie Prince Charlie and the 1745 rebellion, were actually written by an Englishman named Sir Harold Edwin Boulton (1859–1935) of Copped Hall, Totteridge, Hertfordshire, and first published in 1884. Sir Harold, a keen collector and publisher of traditional British songs, also wrote the English words to a well-known traditional Welsh lullaby, ‘All Through the Night’. In 1892, Robert Louis Stevenson, author of the post-Culloden adventure, Kidnapped (1886), wrote his own version of the ‘Skye Boat Song’ with the first line “Sing me a song of a lad that is gone”. In recent years Stevenson’s version (with modifications) has been made famous by the TV series Outlander. The battle of Culloden did not end the Jacobite cause Yes, Culloden was a devastating defeat – the Jacobite army’s first of the entire nine-month campaign – but several thousand men, some of whom had not been present at the battle, gathered at Ruthven 30 miles to the south, and many were willing to continue the fight. But a lack of supplies and, in the short-term, a failure of leadership from both Lord George Murray and Charles, put paid to any thought of a final stand, or a ‘guerrilla’-type campaign. Certainly, the Duke of Cumberland believed that another battle could occur in the months following Culloden. The various acts introduced after the battle, in particular the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act of 1746, in concert with the pacification of the Highlands, made another rising in this region extremely unlikely [the act abolished the traditional judicial rights afforded to a Scottish clan chief]. But the British government and army commanders alike believed that with Charles in France agitating for troops and money to renew his campaign, and while France was still at war with Britain (in Flanders), the Jacobite threat was very much alive. Read more | 7 myths about the battle of Culloden busted It was the peace between Great Britain and France in 1748 that ended the 1745 rebellion, by the terms of which Charles was forcibly removed from French territory. But it is not widely known that the prince, still in his twenties, made a secret visit to London in 1750 to stimulate another rising in England, which later became known as the Elibank plot, during which, it is believed, he converted to the Church of England. In reality, what completely put to bed any hope of a Stuart restoration was the removal of support by France. France had continued to toy with the idea of an invasion of Britain – as ever, a means of destabilising the British state, her trade and her colonial interests – during the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), until major defeats in 1759, including the battle of Quiberon Bay, meant abandoning any such attempt. Charles’s behaviour in the face of yet another crushing disappointment, in particular his drunkenness, disgusted the French and eventually he and his cause were abandoned for good. This was followed, in turn, by the papacy. On the death of his father in 1766, Pope Clement XIII did not recognise Charles as the Jacobite king Charles III, de jure king of England, Scotland and Ireland. Indeed, the peaceful accession of a third king George, in 1760, suggested that as an active, political cause, Jacobitism, along with its fundamental aim of a Stuart restoration, was effectively dead. Charles Edward Stuart was not the last of the Stuart claimants On Charles’s death in 1788, his brother, Henry Benedict, became the Jacobite Henry IX of England and I of Scotland. But, as a Roman Catholic cardinal, it was with him that the direct, legitimate line ended on his death in 1807. By this time the beleaguered cardinal, who had witnessed the French Revolution (and lost the financial support of his Bourbon cousin in the process) had begun receiving an annual pension of £4,000 from George III – yes, from the very Hanoverian monarch or, in Jacobite terminology ‘usurper’, that his father and brother had fought so hard, and at such great cost, to remove from the British throne. Henry, unlike his father and brother, did not press his claim. However, the current official Jacobite claimant, according to the Royal Stuart Society, is Franz von Bayern (b1933) of the House of Wittelsbach, a prince of Bavaria, as his name suggests, and the great-grandson of the last king of Bavaria, Ludwig III. Franz von Bayern – or, as Jacobites would call him, Francis II – became the Jacobite de jure king in 1996, and is descended from the youngest daughter of Charles I (Princess Henrietta-Anne) via the House of Savoy and the House of Este. He has no intention of pressing his claim. It’s claimed that Bonnie Prince Charlie has a direct descendant alive today It is claimed that there are direct descendants of Charles Edward Stuart alive today. Therefore, potentially, in the 21st century there are at least two ‘pretenders’ (from the French ‘prétendant’ or claimant) to choose from. It is well known that Charles had an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany (b1753), by his mistress Clementina Walkinshaw. After many desperate years with an increasingly drunken and abusive partner, Clementina left Charles, accompanied by their young daughter. Charles initially refused to recognise Charlotte, who spent years in convents in France, and, it is believed, produced, in turn, three illegitimate children via her relationship with Ferdinand de Rohan, archbishop of Bordeaux. In the meantime, Charles had married (in 1772) Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern, but the marriage was a disaster and was childless. In 1784, a lonely Charles legitimised his daughter Charlotte, who left her children (or so the story goes) with her mother in order to nurse Charles through his final years. Charles eventually died of a stroke in 1788 and his daughter died less than two years later. Charlotte’s children remained unknown to history until the mid-20th century, when research undertaken by the Jacobite historians and siblings Alasdair and Henrietta Tayler apparently revealed the existence of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s grandchildren: Marie Victoire Adelaide (b1779), Charlotte Maximilienne Amélie (b1780) and Charles Edward (b1784). A biography of the self-styled Count Roehanstart (Rohan Stuart, aka Roehenstart) by George Sherburn (published in 1960), based on the subject’s private papers, sets out the extraordinary life of Charles’s secret grandson, who is buried at Dunkeld Cathedral. As Roehanstart had no children, nor, it was believed, did his sisters, there the Stuart direct (albeit illegitimate) line may have ended. But a new claimant, in the guise of Peter Pininski, has recently emerged. He claims to be the descendant of Charlotte’s eldest daughter (see the 2002 book The Stuarts’ Last Secret: The Missing Heirs of Bonnie Prince Charlie). The mystery continues. Bonnie Prince Charlie is buried in Rome Charles died at the Palazzo del Re, located on the Piazza dei Santi Apostoli in Rome, the building where he had been born. The palazzo still exists on the north side of the square and just to the north-east of the forum. Sadly Charles’s birth and death in this building is not acknowledged. Charles was originally buried at Frascati Cathedral (his brother was cardinal-bishop of Frascati) but was eventually reburied (excepting his heart, which is still at Frascati) in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, alongside his brother and father. A modest but elegant marble monument by Antonio Canova, funded, in part, by George IV and unveiled in the south aisle of the main church in 1819, marks the final resting place of the ‘old pretender’ and his sons. Dr Jacqueline Riding is an associate research fellow in the School of Arts, Birkbeck College, University of London, who specialises in 18th- and early 19th-century British history and art. She is the author of Jacobites: A New History of the ’45 Rebellion (Bloomsbury, 2016)
Part fifteen in our 20-part series looking at decisive moments of the last 1,000 years in British history explores explores 1700–1749. The uprising of 1745 enjoyed spectacular early successes yet, as Daniel Szechi reports, it only succeeded in breathing new life into the very regime it aimed to bring to its knees
The most significant watershed in the first half of the 18th century came between July 1745 and April 1746, when the Jacobites launched their last attempt to overthrow Whig control of the British Isles. When the uprising failed, the Jacobite cause was irretrievably damaged and slipped into rapid decline. And with its internal enemy at last vanquished, the Whig regime could turn all its energies to imperial aggrandisement. Out of the Jacobites’ defeat came the epic victories of the Seven Years War, the conquest of the first British Empire and the consolidation of a political order that was to last until the middle of the Victorian era. Yet things hadn’t always looked so rosy for the Whig administration. In fact, it was a British defeat at Fontenoy in modern Belgium on 11 May 1745 that precipitated the rebellion. Prince Charles Edward Stuart (“Bonny Prince Charley”), grandson of James II and VII, had been summoned to France in December 1743 to head a French invasion of southern England scheduled to take place in early 1744. Bad weather, the Royal Navy and English Tory faintheartedness eventually brought that attempt to naught, and the Prince frustratedly idled away his time for the next year. Or so it appeared. In fact, with the help of a syndicate of Irish merchants resident in France, he was secretly preparing a surprise attack on the British Isles. And the news of Fontenoy provided exactly the opening he needed. On 5 July Charles Edward sailed from Nantes with two ships. His plan was to force the Jacobites of the British Isles to live up to their promises by throwing himself into their midst. If enough Jacobites responded and he could expose the weakness, as he believed, of the Whig regime he was sure the French would invade and victory would be his. It was either a bold gambit or a foolhardy gamble, and certainly the odds against success were greatly increased when the Prince encountered a Royal Navy patrol on the way to Scotland and one of his ships was damaged and forced to turn back (with most of his painfully accumulated arms, ammunition and a body of Irish soldiers aboard). Charles Edward thus arrived at Arisaig in Scotland on 25 July accompanied by few more than the famous “Seven men of Moidart”. Once ashore, however, Charles Edward worked wonders. Bluntly told to go home by one appalled Highland chieftain, Charles smoothly countered, “I am come home”. Within three weeks his legendary charm had persuaded two senior clan chieftains to support the rising and other Jacobites were stirring throughout Scotland. As his little army of about 1,500 marched south from Glenfinnan on 19 August it steadily accumulated men. Many were doubtless forced out by their landlords and feudal superiors, but others certainly joined to support the cause Charles Edward represented. 1745 in context The Jacobite rebellion was triggered by grievances at Whig religious indifference, discrimination in Ireland and Scottish economic woes The British Isles on the eve of this momentous struggle was apparently politically stable and in no danger of violent upheaval. But beneath the facade of union and the increasingly visible integration of the Scottish and English economies there was a deep and enduring hostility to the prevailing order. England, Scotland and Ireland had for 30 years been ruled by the Whig party (the party primarily responsible for the revolution of 1688), while their old rivals, the Tories, sourly did what they could to oppose them through conventional politics. A radical element within the Tories’ ranks (the Jacobites), however, went much further and plotted and dreamed of restoring the heirs of James II and VII, the Stuart, Catholic king driven out by the revolution. The Tory party’s first loyalty was to the Church of England, and the Jacobites among them inclined to the exiled Stuart dynasty because they feared the Hanoverian dynasty’s apparent religious indifference was undermining the Anglican hold on society and hence the three kingdoms’ special relationship with God. In Scotland, where the Union had as yet failed to deliver the economic uplift that had been promised in 1707, ongoing political and economic fusion with England remained a bitter source of division and resentment. So, when the Jacobites emerged as the champions of national independence, a wide swathe of Scottish society was immediately drawn to them. In Ireland the Catholic majority was systematically discriminated against economically, socially and legally by the Whig regime, and for two generations thousands of young Irish Catholic men had been slipping away to the continent to serve in the armies of France and Spain. There they openly maintained their allegiance to the Stuarts and did what they could to further the Jacobite cause, while those in Ireland secretly yearned for news of the Stuart “attempt” they hoped would liberate them from Whig oppression. The Jacobite uprising that began in July 1745 came, too, in the midst of Britain’s first major conflict in nearly 20 years. The War of Austrian Succession began in 1740 when Frederick the Great of Prussia invaded Silesia and Britain threw in its lot with the beleaguered empress Maria-Theresa against Frederick’s principal ally: France. And though Britain had done tolerably well in the opening stages of the conflict, by 1745 things had taken a turn for the worse. Maria-Theresa’s armies were hard-pressed by Prussian, French and Spanish attacks, and Britain’s ally, the Netherlands, was flagging and war-weary. Worse still, Britain’s main army, led by George II’s son, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, was defeated at the battle of Fontenoy. This, in many respects, acted as the trigger for the Jacobite rebellion. Marching hard and fast Hard marching and adept manoeuvring soon put the government’s army in Scotland, commanded by Sir John Cope, at a disadvantage it could only retrieve by retreating. Luck and judgement then combined to allow the now 2,500-strong Jacobite army to seize Edinburgh on 17 September and defeat Cope at the battle of Prestonpans on 21 September. In little more than a month the Jacobites had virtually won control of Scotland. The only question was what to do next. Charles Edward had no doubts: he passionately advocated a march on London as hard and fast as the march on Edinburgh. His Scottish senior officers were not so sure, and only agreed when the Prince assured them he had firm pledges of an English Jacobite rising if they would only march into England. The 4,500-man Jacobite army accordingly crossed the border on 8 November and rapidly progressed southwards, as far as Derby by 4 December, capturing Carlisle and Manchester en route and outmanoeuvring two more government armies to put itself in a position where it could strike unmolested at London. But by the time they reached Derby, Charles Edward’s officers were questioning the whole enterprise. Bar a handful of militants recruited in Manchester, the English Jacobites had conspicuously failed to materialise. And Charles Edward’s only solution to the predicament was to urge that the army press on and attack London, a city of approximately 500,000 people. At a council of the senior officers on 5 December the Prince was outvoted by a coterie of officers centred on his most able commander, Lord George Murray. Instead the Jacobite army was to retreat. Ironically, unbeknown to any of those involved, this decision was taken just as financial panic paralysed the City of London and the French army and navy were in the final stages of throwing together the invasion the Jacobites so desperately needed. A hollow victory Regardless, the retreat was conducted with great skill. Murray dodged and feinted his way past the pursuing government armies, and by Christmas 1745 the rebels were back in Scotland, resting and re-equipping in Glasgow. Government pressure on the Jacobites now, however, became relentless. William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, George II’s youngest son and commander in chief of the British army, had been called back from the Netherlands with the best British regiments. All across England and Wales Whig loyalists were raising money, forming volunteer units and enlisting in the army to fight in defence of Protestantism and liberty (as they saw it). The Royal Navy was doing its best to isolate Scotland from the continent, and Scottish Whigs led by the Earl of Loudon were gathering an army of their own in northern Scotland. Even so, the first government attempt to challenge the Jacobites’ control of central Scotland, led by General Henry (“Hangman”) Hawley, was handily defeated by a revitalised, 8,000-strong Jacobite army at Falkirk on 17 January 1746. The victory was, though, a hollow one. The threat to their homes and families posed by Loudon’s army in northern Scotland united a majority of Charles Edward’s officers in demanding a further retreat northwards, which only ended when the tired army reached Inverness on 18 February. The struggle was, however, far from over. For the next two months the Jacobites raided and probed south from Inverness, and Cumberland’s army raided and probed north from Aberdeen. Both sides were gathering their strength for the final crisis. This came when, for the first time, Cumberland succeeded in surprising the Jacobites by marching north in early April while nearly half their army was away from Inverness raiding and recruiting. He consequently caught the Jacobites at a severe disadvantage when he confronted them on Drummossie moor near Culloden house on 16 April. The ensuing battle did not take long. The Jacobites attacked in traditional Highland style (though many of the men in their ranks were in fact Lowlanders), but over ground that did not favour the headlong charge that was its culmination. Cumberland’s carefully deployed infantry and artillery were thus able to use their superior firepower to maximum effect. Within little more than an hour over a third of the 4,000 or so Jacobites on the field were dead or wounded and the rest in flight. Charles Edward was hustled away in tears before the government cavalry could capture him. According to tradition, as he did so, one of his senior officers Lord Elcho, overwhelmed by the death of his friends and the ruin of the Scottish Jacobite cause, shouted after him, “run, you cowardly Italian!” Hardly fair, but a token of what was to come. Charles Edward fled into the Highlands, where he refused to sanction further resistance despite the regrouping of the greater part of his army at Ruthven between 17 and 20 April. Forced to disperse, the Jacobite soldiers went their separate ways, many of them shedding their weapons, uniforms and cause as they journeyed home to face the consequences of defeat. These were dire. For the next few months Cumberland and his subordinates had their men rape, murder and burn their way through the Highlands and Lowland areas believed sympathetic to Jacobitism. This may have been standard military practice for contemporary armies when dealing with rebels, yet it left a legacy of bitterness that was not soon to fade. Harnessed to Westminster’s dream This dark aftermath was the beginning of a new trajectory for the British Isles. With the Jacobites beaten, Britain’s government could turn all three nations’ military energies outwards, and from the mid-1750s onwards Scotland was harnessed to achieving Westminster’s dreams of global empire. Scotland was, too, internally transformed by the events of 1745. The old ties between Highland chieftain and common clansman, and Lowland heritor and tenant farmer, that had been the basis of society for centuries were in decline before the rising. After 1746 that decline became precipitous. Scotland was on track to becoming a class-based society. Ireland, despite its apparent quiescence during the rebellion, was also far from untouched. Many expatriate Irishmen were involved in the French government’s efforts hurriedly to put together an invasion of England. Others slipped through the Royal Navy’s blockade and fought alongside the Scottish Jacobites at Culloden. When it was all over they were left with nowhere to go. As Charles Edward, haunted by bitterness and loss, drank himself to death in exile, the Jacobite cause withered and died with him. Where could Catholic Ireland now look for succour? Ultimately it turned to radical nationalism, something that would have been unthinkable before 1746. Like all the turning points in this series, 1745 irretrievably changed the scope of what was possible in the British Isles, and ultimately left no future generation untouched. History facts: 1700–1749 Just 62 per cent of children survived to the age of 14 in 1745 The average daily consumption of beer, ale, cider and perry per person was 3–5 pints. This accounted for 19-31 per cent of the average daily calorie intake Around 13,000 Scots were in the Jacobite army at some point during the rebellion. That’s 5.2 per cent of the country’s adult male population Key years: other important events in the first half of the 18th century 1707 – The Act of Union. It may have been touted as an alliance of equals but, in reality, the creation of the kingdom of Great Britain saw a small Scots representation grafted onto existing political structures at Westminster and Scottish interests subordinated to English politics. The constitutional fusion was also championed as being certain to deliver an immediate and substantial boost to Scotland’s allegedly ailing economy (its problems may have been more apparent than real), which it singularly failed to do for nearly 50 years. 1713 – War of Succession. The Peace of Utrecht brought the War of Spanish Succession (1702–13) to a close. This was a highly successful war for Britain in which France was defeated and forced to sue for peace. During the negotiations, however, French diplomats exploited British differences with their allies to extract relatively favourable terms. Britain nonetheless gained substantial imperial possessions and commercial concessions, though it alienated many of its wartime partners in the process. 1714 – The death of Anne. Queen Anne, the last of the Protestant Stuarts in the main line of descent from James VI and I, died on 1 August and was succeeded by Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, the nearest (ostensible) Protestant by collateral descent. The transition from the Stuart to the Guelph dynasty was initially peaceful, and only marred by many Tories’ coolness towards George I, whom they regarded with suspicion because of his religious indifference and the fact he was foreign. 1715 – Jacobite uprising. Inspired by messianic visions of their own righteousness (not to mention consequent likelihood of success) and political hysteria, Jacobite forces rebelled in Scotland, subsequently provoking a rising in northern England. Though much larger in numbers than the 1745 uprising, the rebellion was poorly directed and relatively easily defeated by government forces. The Jacobite army disintegrated in February 1716 in a storm of mutual recrimination that hindered further Jacobite risings for the next 30 years. 1716 – Anglo-French pact. The British and French negotiated an alliance, so revolutionising international relations in Europe. Born of a pragmatic need for international stability on the part of Philippe, Duke of Orléans and Regent of France, and George I at a time when their authority was being challenged by domestic enemies, the alliance was highly successful. For nearly 20 years Britain and France successfully cooperated in maintaining relative peace across the continent. 1720 – Stocks crash. Stimulated by excitement over the rise of French stocks and seduced by fanciful reports of great returns, investors poured huge amounts of money into the South Sea Company in Britain. The bursting of this bubble ruined a few speculators and caused serious losses to many more. As a result, British economic expansion was retarded for over a decade, and the Whig regime was nearly fatally compromised. 1721 – Walpole to the rescue. Sir Robert Walpole saved the Whig party and its hold on power by deflecting public outrage and Parliamentary investigation of the South Sea Bubble away from malefactors within the Whig party and the royal household towards the Jacobite “Atterbury Plot”. As a result, he was able to elevate himself to premier minister and fasten an iron grip on the Whig party. 1736 – Scots lynch army captain. Troops under the command of Captain John Porteous fired on an Edinburgh crowd protesting about the execution of a smuggler. Porteous was convicted of murder, but then reprieved by Government order. Fearing he would be pardoned, a mob broke into the city gaol and lynched him, for which the city was heavily fined by Parliament. Anger in Scotland at this punishment resulted in a crisis in the Scottish Whig party and a surge in support for the Jacobites. 1739 – Mass starvation in Ireland. The bliain an áir (great frost) struck Ireland in December, killing thousands and destroying stored winter food supplies. This was followed by a cold drought and the failure of the harvest in 1740, precipitating mass starvation. It is estimated that, by the time the crisis came to an end in 1741, a higher proportion of the population had died or fled overseas than as a result of the potato famine of the 1840s. More turning points in British history Read next: 1776: The Year of American Independence Go back: 1662: Restoration tragedy Daniel Szechi is a graduate of the University of Sheffield and St Antony’s College, Oxford and is now professor of Early Modern British history at the University of Manchester. His most recent book is 1715. The Great Jacobite Rebellion (Yale University Press, 2006) Further reading: Culloden and the ‘45 by Jeremy Black (Sutton Publishing, 2000); Charles Edward Stuart. A Tragedy in Many Acts by Frank McLynn (Routledge, 1988); The Jacobites. Britain and Europe 1688–1788 by Daniel Szechi (Manchester University Press, 1994) This article was first published in the June 2007 issue of BBC History Magazine
Outlander: the real history that inspired the time-slip drama
The historical drama series Outlander, based on a series of novels by Diana Gabaldon, has become a TV phenomenon and – despite its fictional narrative – much of the story is rooted in historical fact. Here, Madeleine Pelling and Rosie Waine explore the real 18th-century events portrayed, and the artefacts that help bring history to life on screen…
The hit TV show Outlander follows its characters from the battlefields of the Second World War to the Jacobite risings of the 18th-century and colonial North Carolina on the eve of the American Revolution. Based on a series of novels by Diana Gabaldon, the drama uses a time-slip narrative – in which its protagonist Claire (played by Caitriona Balfe) moves initially between the 1940s and the 1740s – to play fast and loose with history. But far from inaccurate, the show is deeply interested in the ways we experience and imagine the past. Merging elements of fact and fantasy, it explores many ‘what ifs’ of Scottish history by touching on key events and featuring recognisable historical figures. Here, we take a closer look at some of the real events featured in the drama, and separate fact from fiction… <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/04/sam-heughan-as-jamie-fraser-grant-o-rourke-as-rupert-mackenzie-graham-mctavish-as-dougal-mackenzie-episode-105-c6fb28a.jpg" width="1800" height="1200" alt="Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan), Rupert Mackenzie (Grant O'Rourke) and Dougal Mackenzie (Graham McTavish) in Outlander" title="Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan), Rupert Mackenzie (Grant O'Rourke) and Dougal Mackenzie (Graham McTavish) in Outlander. The show is deeply interested in the ways we experience and imagine the past, say Pelling and Waine. (Image by Outlander/Starz)" /> The Jacobite Risings The word ‘Jacobite’ features prominently in the early seasons of Outlander. But what does it mean? Jacobitism emerged in Britain in the wake of the forced abdication of King James II and VII, resulting from the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688–9. James and his descendants lived in permanent exile in Europe, relying on the financial support and hospitality of foreign powers. The crown passed to James’s daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, which eventually lead to the succession of the Hanoverian dynasty to the British throne in 1714 and the complete exclusion of the House of Stuart. Supporters of the exiled Stuarts became known as ‘Jacobites’, derived from ‘Jacobus’, the Latin name for James. While Jacobitism was an international movement, drawing supporters from across Britain and Europe, the military effort to restore the Stuarts was concentrated in Scotland. In Outlander, the show’s heroine, Claire, a Second World War battlefield nurse, slips through time to find herself in the Highlands of Scotland in 1743 amid the early stirrings of the final Jacobite rising. As she settles into 18th-century life, she begins to hear whispers of support for King James’s son, James Francis Edward Stuart, and his grandson, Charles Edward Stuart (popularly known in Scotland as Bonnie Prince Charlie). <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/04/GettyImages-176563816-29ca67b.jpg" width="5164" height="6224" alt="A portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, popularly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. (Photo by National Galleries Of Scotland/Getty Images)" title="A portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, popularly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. (Photo by National Galleries Of Scotland/Getty Images)" /> Recalling her history lessons, Claire realises that events have been set in motion that will eventually culminate in the devastating defeat of the Jacobites by the forces of the Hanoverian Prince William, Duke of Cumberland, at the battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746. With the knowledge that the Jacobite cause is doomed to failure, Claire and her 18th-century husband, Jamie Fraser (played by Sam Heughan), set out to change the course of history. Their efforts take them to the hearths of Scottish lairds, the drawing rooms of English aristocrats and even across the channel to the French court, where they attempt to dissuade King Louis XV from financially backing Charles Edward Stuart’s campaign. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/04/outlander-press-kit-claire-randall-fraser-caitriona-balfe-jamie-fraser-sam-heughan-3--d6c254a.jpg" width="1800" height="1200" alt="Claire and Jamie Fraser in Outlander" title="In Outlander, Claire and Jamie Fraser travel to the French court, where they attempt to dissuade King Louis XV from financially backing Charles Edward Stuart’s campaign. (Image by Outlander/Starz)" /> Outlander S1–5 is available on Amazon Prime Video – you can sign up for Amazon Prime here with a 30-day free trial. Looking for something else to watch? Explore our full round-up of the best historical TV and film available to stream right now, or the new history TV and radio airing in the UK this month. Throughout the show, Outlander evokes a world of Jacobite intrigue that operated just below the surface of 18th-century society: from wine glasses decorated with the Jacobite white rose and secret meetings drumming up grassroots support for the exiled Stuarts, to seditious communications cleverly concealed within the pages of sheet music. While Outlander’s interpretation of Jacobitism owes much to the romantic reimagining of later, 19th-century authors such as Sir Walter Scott, the show portrays the dangers and divisive nature of the Jacobite cause in 18th-century Scotland. Outlander also explores the pressures faced by the heads of Highland clans in openly declaring their allegiances during the final rising of 1745–6. The question of whether to fight for the Hanoverian King George II or to stand on the side of the exiled James Francis Edward Stuart was a weighty one. The penalties associated with Jacobite treason were severe: execution, loss of property, and the social and financial ruin of one’s family. In the months following the defeat of the Jacobite army at the battle of Culloden, 3,472 Jacobites were arrested, 120 sentenced to death, and more than 900 transported to America and the Caribbean. Despite the danger, there were those who attempted to play both sides of the conflict for their own benefit, such as the infamous ‘Old Fox’, Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat. Portrayed in Outlander by Clive Russell, Lord Lovat was a notoriously cunning double-dealer, who frequently changed his allegiances to suit his own interests. In the final Jacobite rising of 1745–6, he refused to personally commit himself to the Jacobite fight, but sent his son, Simon, Master of Lovat, and a regiment of Fraser clansmen to join Charles Edward Stuart. He later claimed that he had taken no part in his son’s actions, in a last-ditch attempt to cement his support for the Hanoverian dynasty. His last deception proved to be his undoing, and he was executed for high treason at Tower Hill in London on 9 April 1747. Flora MacDonald: a real Claire Fraser? From King Louis XV and Bonnie Prince Charlie to George Washington, the storyline of Outlander routinely references the lives and deeds of real historical figures. While the show’s take on history is sometimes fantastical, its plotlines resonate with the personal experiences of real past individuals. One of the most prominent figures in this period in Scottish history is Flora MacDonald, whose life bears many similarities to Gabaldon’s characters. Despite her family’s outward support of the British government during the 1745–6 rising, MacDonald aided Charles Edward Stuart in escaping capture after the Jacobite defeat at Culloden. MacDonald had been visiting the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides when the Stuart pretender arrived there with a handful of supporters, fleeing the aftermath of the battle and being hunted by the forces of the Duke of Cumberland. Risking her life, MacDonald organised passes for the group and sailed with Charles, disguised as a maid named Betty Burke, to the Isle of Skye. The escape became a celebrated moment in Scottish history and was commemorated in ‘Skye Boat Song’ – a popular ballad that was later reworked as Outlander’s theme tune. MacDonald was later caught and imprisoned at the Tower of London for her role in Charles’s escape, before eventually being freed under the Act of Indemnity of 1747. Following her time in captivity, she married AllanMacDonald, a captain in the British Army. The pair emigrated to North Carolina, mirroring the location of Jamie and Claire Fraser’s eventual settlement in a later series of Outlander. The journey to the Americas It was not uncommon for Scottish people to journey to America in the 18th-century, with North Carolina becoming a popular destination. Scottish-born Gabriel Johnston served as governor of the state from 1734 until 1752, with the first large influx of Scottish immigrants arriving in 1739. By the early 1770s, over 4,000 Scottish men, women and children were settled along the Cape Fear River. Read more about the real Highlanders of North Carolina Life on the frontier was tough. It also brought Scottish colonists into contact with new communities and saw their proximity to, and implication in, the violent systems of empire. As depicted in Outlander, many of the estates granted to settlers in North Carolina relied on the forced labour of enslaved people brought from Africa and the West Indies to produce cotton and tobacco. By the end of the 18th century, the US census recorded 133,296 enslaved individuals held in the state. The region also witnessed a turbulent relationship between white settlers and local Native American tribes. In 1763, George III issued a Royal Proclamation that prohibited Anglo-American colonists from settling land acquired from the French after the Seven Years’ War, during which time the British fought against the French and their Native American allies. The Proclamation drew strong criticism by Anglo-Americans who felt that they were being controlled by a distant British monarch. As Outlander explores, calls for revolution soon followed. Much like Jamie Fraser, Flora MacDonald’s husband, Allan MacDonald, was responsible for raising a local British-loyal militia in 1775. A few months into the American War of Independence, he was captured and taken prisoner. Flora was evicted from their home. The pair eventually made their way back to Scotland, where Flora died in 1790. Read more: What was the Regulator movement that features in S5 of Outlander? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/04/ols5-092119-3327-a-1200x1800-1f813a7.jpg" width="1200" height="1800" alt="Flora MacDonald’s husband, Allan MacDonald, was responsible for raising a local British-loyal militia, much like Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) in S5 of Outlander. (Image by Starz/Outlander)" title="Flora MacDonald’s husband, Allan MacDonald, was responsible for raising a local British-loyal militia, much like Jamie Fraser (Sam Heughan) in S5 of Outlander. (Image by Starz/Outlander)" /> Materialising the past From weaponry and clothing to medical equipment and paintings, Outlander uses props and costumes to present a tangible historical world. But the show is not simply interested in showing the past onscreen. It’s also interested in the spaces and ways in which we tell our histories. Museums and archives appear throughout. When Claire escapes the aftermath of the battle of Culloden and returns to the 20th century, she visits a fictional museum built near the battlefield. Perusing the objects on display, many of which she has already experienced in the 18th century, she complains to a fellow visitor that the museum has misinterpreted events to present Bonnie Prince Charlie as a tragic, romantic hero. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2021/04/gower-canteen1-ce1aa6b.jpg" width="1024" height="711" alt="Outlander's Andrew Gower, who played Charles Edward Stuart, photographed with a silver canteen that once belonged to his historical counterpart. (Image courtesy of Neil Hanna)" title="Outlander's Andrew Gower, who played Charles Edward Stuart, photographed with a silver canteen that once belonged to his historical counterpart. (Image courtesy of Neil Hanna)" /> The show’s investment in museums and the power of their collections to reanimate the past goes beyond the plot itself. Location filming took place at a reconstructed 1700s township at the Highland Folk Museum in Newtonmore in 2014. Cast member Andrew Gower visited the ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites’ exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in 2017, where he was given a tour of objects associated with the real-life historical figures depicted in the show. Gower, who played Charles Edward Stuart in the second and third seasons of Outlander, was especially drawn to a silver canteen that once belonged to his historical counterpart. The canteen, which consists of a wine taster, spoons, a corkscrew and nutmeg grater, travelled with Charles Edward Stuart during the 1745–6 rising. It fell into the hands of the Duke of Cumberland when Charles was forced to abandon his baggage train in the retreat from Culloden. Replicated by the show as a prop, the canteen appears onscreen in a scene depicting a council of war held on the edge of the battlefield. The real canteen is now back on permanent display at the National Museum of Scotland, where it can be viewed alongside other historical objects associated with the Jacobite cause. Dr Madeleine Pelling is an art historian at the University of York. She specialises in 18th-century Britain and its depictions onscreen. Dr Rosie Waine is the William Grant Foundation Research Fellow at National Museums Scotland, specialising in late 18th and early 19th-century Highland dress and Jacobite material culture For more content like this, check out the best historical movies of all time as chosen by historians and ranked by you, history TV and film to stream tonight, and our picks of the new history TV and radio released in the UK this week
Your guide to the battle of Culloden – plus 7 myths busted
Discover everything you need to know about the 1746 battle of Culloden, the last ever battle to be fought on British soil and the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising...
The battle of Culloden of 1746 was the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising – an attempt to reinstate a Stuart monarch on the throne of Britain – and is today considered one of the most significant clashes in British history. It saw a Hanoverian government army led by the Duke of Cumberland, son of King George II, go head-to-head with the forces of 'Bonnie Prince Charlie', in a battle that lasted less than an hour. Here's your guide to the historic battle – from seven common myths about Culloden to an exploration of the battlefield... Battle of Culloden: a quick guide Battle of Culloden: mythbusting The Culloden battlefield: everything you need to know The battle of Culloden: a brief guide Where: Northern Scotland When: 16 April 1746 Combatants: British Government vs Jacobites Outcome: Decisive victory for the British Army Culloden was the last battle fought on British soil. Prince Charles Edward, grandson of the deposed Roman Catholic Stuart king, James II and VII, raised the standard of rebellion in 1745. Supported by clansmen from the Scottish Highlands, he marched on London to regain the British throne. At Derby, he was forced to retreat to avoid being caught between two armies. In April 1746, overtaken by a British army twice their strength, the Highlanders gave battle on Culloden Moor near Inverness. Mercilessly cannonaded, they charged headlong, but met resolute British infantry and were then routed by cavalry. They lost 1,000 men killed; the British 50. Cumberland’s brutality after the battle earned him the nickname of ‘The Butcher’, but the legend that has grown up around ‘Bonnie’ Prince Charlie cannot disguise the fact that even in Scotland there were more in arms against him than for him. Discover more famous battles that changed the course of British history Battle of Culloden: separating fact from fiction In the centuries since it was fought, compelling but often misleading myths have come to surround the 1746 battle of Culloden, the last ever battle to be fought on British soil. Historian Murray Pittock busts seven common myths about the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising… The battle of Culloden was a dynastic conflict between the Stuarts and the Hanoverians – MYTH Culloden is often seen as the final defeat of the Stuart dynasty’s doomed attempts to regain the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland, which they had lost in 1688–91. In fact, the Scottish Jacobites who fought in Culloden and earlier risings were strongly motivated by opposition to the Union of 1707 (The Acts of Union, passed by the English and Scottish Parliaments in 1707, led to the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain on 1 May of that year). In the days of Charles I and James VII and II, no more than 3,000 fought with the Marquis of Montrose (royalists) and Viscount Dundee (Jacobites) to defend or restore the Stuart king. 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Scottish history In 1715, some 22,000 fought for the Jacobites, and in 1745 about 11-12,000 Scots were still prepared to take up arms. The big upward shift in Jacobite support came as a result of wide opposition to the Union of 1707, and Jacobite recruitment stressed this. The battle of Culloden was fought between a modern army and the Highland clans – MYTH The description of the Jacobite forces as a ‘Highland army’ was an allusion to the patriotic qualities of northern Scotland rather than a description of the background of its soldiers. The Jacobite army at Culloden was organised along regimental lines, with the regiments normally named after their commanders, as was still the case in the British army at the time. They were drilled using a mixture of French and British tactics and they had a large amount of artillery (much reduced at Culloden, owing to transport difficulties). The battle of Culloden had to be fought because the Jacobite army needed to protect Inverness, its last major supply depot. As it was, supplies were low. Charles’s army was too large and too conventionally organised to fight a guerilla war, and would have broken up if this had been attempted. Nor was it a ‘clan’ army: many of its units were from the Scottish lowlands, as well as Irish and Scottish soldiers in the French service, and some English volunteers (including a soap boiler from Herefordshire). Indeed, at Culloden some of the most effective units were not Highland ones: the Forfarshire Regiment held its shape and retired in good order; most of the men made it home safely to Angus. And some of the bravest actions of the battle were carried out by Lord Lewis Gordon’s brigade from Aberdeen and Banff, Lord John Drummond’s Royal Scots in the French service and Viscount Strathallan’s Perthshire Horse. Army orders were given in English, not Gaelic. The battle of Culloden was fought between Catholics and Protestants – MYTH Statistically, the most likely recruit for the Jacobite army was from the north east of Scotland and an adherent of the Scottish Episcopal Church, which was roughly equivalent to the Church of England. Episcopalians supported the Stuarts because they believed that if they were restored, Presbyterianism would be disestablished in Scotland. Most of the Highlanders who fought for the Stuarts were Episcopalian too. Though there were a number of Catholics, these were a minority of the army, and a small minority once the Scottish and Irish troops in the French service are excluded. The battle of Culloden was a victory of muskets over swords – MYTH This is one of the foundational myths of the battle, and accounts for why the clash has such importance in British history. From the 1740s onwards, the conflict has been presented as the inevitable victory of modern Britain over backward Scotland. Although we think (wrongly) of the Jacobites as Highlanders rather than Lowlanders (thanks to the creation of these categories in the 19th century), in the 18th century Scots in general were typically depicted wearing the kilt in political cartoons and satires. So initially Culloden was seen as a victory over all “rebellious Scots” (as the National Anthem put it, in a verse now no longer sung). 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites In fact, the Jacobite army at Culloden was heavily armed with French and Spanish muskets, as well as captured British ‘Brown Bess’ Land Pattern muskets. The diameter of the musket ball is slightly smaller in the French and Spanish guns, so it is easy to tell these apart (Brown Bess was 19mm with a 17.5mm ball and French/Spanish patterns were 17.5mm with a 16.5mm ball). It appears that the Jacobites fired many rounds at close quarters with the British front line (one British officer had six musket balls through his coat alone) to dislodge the British from flanking positions, and likewise to slow down the British cavalry advance in the final stages of the battle. Because British cavalry and dragoons (mounted infantry) typically used swords rather than guns as they attacked, the battle can be more accurately described as a victory for British swords over Jacobite muskets than the other way round. The battle of Culloden was fought on a badly chosen site, and this was the fault of Charles Edward Stuart and his Irish officers – MYTH Three sites were scouted in the 48 hours leading up to the battle. The first was at Dalcross Castle, which John Sullivan, the Irish adjutant and quartermaster general, rejected, because the distance across the ravine would have been too small to protect the Jacobite army from British musket fire from the other side. The second was on the south side of the Nairn, chosen by Lord George Murray. This was poor ground, did not protect the road to Inverness and was vulnerable to British mortar fire from the other side of the river. It is clear that this site was a prelude to retreat and the dissolution of the army, because it was not an effective battle site. The third site was about 1km east of where the battle was eventually fought, and John Sullivan drew up the army there on 15 April. It was on higher and less boggy ground than the final battlefield, and both wings of the army could see each other, which they could not in the next day’s sleet and rain. No one ‘chose’ the site of the battle on Drummossie Moor as a preference: it was the line closest to headquarters at Culloden House which could defend the road to Inverness. Many of those soldiers who were asleep after the failed night attack on the 15th had retreated to the grounds of Culloden House, and there was little time to form them up as the British Army approached on the morning of the battle. The battle of Culloden was fought to end a British civil war – MYTH The Jacobite army was constructed and paid on the lines of the pre-Union Scottish army. Its officers described themselves as fighting the English, and French officers serving with the Jacobites saw matters in this light also, describing the conflict in Scotland vs England terms, as did many in England. Although many Scots fought against the Jacobites (though many less than joined them, and there were more deserters from the British Army to the Jacobites than vice versa), this was equally true in the wars of Wallace and Bruce, and in the American and Irish wars of independence. 8 of Britain’s best battlefields The battle of Culloden was a defeat for Scottish nationalism – MYTH The Jacobite leadership was not ‘nationalist’ in the modern sense. The Stuarts wished to be restored to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland and to be kings in London, but the Britain they and their supporters conceived was very different from the one that developed in the 18th century. Instead, there would have been a more confederal multi-kingdom monarchy, with capitals and parliaments in Edinburgh and Dublin (Dublin still had a parliament at this time, of course). A Stuart Scotland would probably have been ‘independent’ and have had its own army, but would likely not have had much room to pursue a separate foreign policy from London. In this sense, it would have been in a position close to that enjoyed by the British Empire’s dominions, such as Canada and Australia, in the 19th century. Murray Pittock is one of the leading scholars of Jacobitism and Romanticism. He is the author of Great Battles: Culloden (Oxford University Press, 2016) History explorer: the historic Culloden battlefield Julian Humphrys visits Culloden's evocative battlefield and a fort that was built to subdue the highlands after the battle If battles really are, as Winston Churchill once said, “the punctuation marks of history”, then Culloden has to be one of its full stops. For the brief but bloody battle fought on this bleak moorland on a bitterly cold day in April 1746 marked the end of Jacobite ambitions of reclaiming the British crown for the Stuarts. Since the 1930s much of this evocative battlefield has been in the care of the National Trust for Scotland and in recent years much has been done to restore the site to the way it was at the time. Culloden battlefield: audio guide Download our exclusive audio guide Flags mark the positions of the two armies, and you get a good sense of how the uneven and in places boggy ground affected the fighting. Hand-held audio-visual guides available from the splendid new visitor centre use GPS to determine your position on the battlefield before delivering the relevant information. Enter the visitor centre and, unless your eye is caught by one of the costumed interpreters who put on daily living history presentations here, the first exhibit you’ll probably see are the splendidly-named Great Pipes of Baleshare. According to family history the pipes were played at Culloden not, as you’d expect, by one of Prince Charlie’s highlanders but by a piper in the government army – a reminder that Culloden was not just a simple battle between English and Scots. French and Irish fought for the Jacobites while thousands of Scots, highlanders as well as lowlanders, fought on the government side. The centre’s displays tell the story of the build-up to the battle and conclude with a 360‑degree film that puts you at the centre of the fighting. I finished my day by making the short drive up the road to Fort George, one of the finest 18th‑century fortifications in Europe. It occupies a spectacular position, on a promontory jutting out into the Moray Firth, and was built after Culloden as part of a concerted government effort to ensure that the highland clans could never again rise up in support of the exiled Stuarts. By the time it was completed in 1769 the Jacobite threat had evaporated but the fort continued in use as a recruiting and training base and still functions today as a working army barracks. Visiting Culloden: what to look out for Culloden battlefield Although a road was built across the battlefield in 1835, attempts have been made by the National Trust for Scotland to restore the parts of the site in their care to how they would have appeared to participants in the battle. Archaeological investigations, including the use of metal detectors to recover musket balls and other battlefield debris, have pinpointed the spots where the heaviest fighting took place. It seems that the Jacobites were using muskets in greater numbers than was first thought, while the recovery of heavy iron shell fragments shows that the government army fired mortars in a bid to halt the onrushing Jacobites. Visitor Centre Interactive ‘character stations’ tell the story of individuals who witnessed or were involved in the battle, while an animated ‘battle table’ shows how events on the day unfolded. The 200 exhibits on display include a sword seized from Bonnie Prince Charlie’s baggage. Research had shown that the previous visitor centre actually stood where part of the government army had been drawn up, so the new building has been built in a less conspicuous spot a little further away from the action. Its roof offers an excellent viewpoint from which to take in the battlefield. Clan Graves Headstones bearing the names of the clans who fought in the battle mark where the Jacobite dead, of which there were over a thousand, were buried by local people. Many were identified by their clan badge, a plant sprig worn in their bonnet. The exact site of the graves of the government dead is still unknown. Memorial Cairn This 20-foot-high memorial cairn was erected by Duncan Forbes in 1881. Forbes was the owner of Culloden House (now a luxury hotel), which had been in the hands of his family since the 17th century, and was the descendant of a key figure on the government side in 1746. Well of the Dead The stone marks the place where Alexander MacGillivray of Dunmaglass fell leading Clan Chattan. Cumberland Stone Traditionally this marks the spot where the Duke of Cumberland, the commander of the government army, directed the battle. Leanach Cottage This heather-thatched cottage sits on the Culloden battle site and has been restored several times since the clash. Culwhiniac Enclosure Wall The National Trust for Scotland have rebuilt this section of wall to mark the approximate position of the Culwhiniac Enclosure on the right flank of the Jacobite line. The Argyll militia tore down part of the wall to enable government cavalry to pass through and threaten the Jacobite rear, and then fired on the retreating Jacobites as they passed by. Fort George This is one of Europe’s finest 18th‑century fortifications. Walk the extensive ramparts and enjoy the spectacular views of the Moray Firth (don’t forget to look out for dolphins) and visit the Highlanders’ Regimental Museum (see above). You can also explore recreated 18th and 19th‑century barrack rooms, inspect the fort’s ammunition magazine and priceless collection of 18th‑century weaponry, and visit the garrison chapel with its flags, galleries, and triple-decker pulpit. Highlanders’ Regimental Museum Housed in one of the fort’s 18th-century buildings, the museum tells the story of the historic regiments that make up today’s highlanders. It displays items from regiments such as the Queen’s Own Highlanders, the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders, and the Lovat Scouts. Travel information: Culloden battlefield and visitor centre are off the B9006, eight miles east of Inverness. Fort George is ten miles north of the battlefield, also off the B9006. Julian Humphrys is a British military history expert and author
10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Scottish history
Who was the first king of Scotland? What language did people in Ancient Scotland speak? And has Scotland really never been conquered? Dr William Knox from the University of St Andrews investigates...
In his book, Scottish History For Dummies, Knox explores the story of Scotland and its place within the historical narratives of Britain, Europe and the rest of the world. Here, writing for HistoryExtra, he reveals 10 surprising facts about Scottish history... There is no genetically pure or original Scot There is no common ancestral or genetic heritage that links the peoples of Scotland. The country was a patchwork quilt of various peoples grouped together in tribes who certainly never thought of themselves as Scottish. They owed allegiance only to their kith and kin, but in the campaigns against Roman imperialism they built federations that laid the basis of kingdoms. Ancient Scotland was made up of four separate groups: Angles, Britons, Picts and Gaels (or Scoti), who each spoke a different language. Latin became the common language of the whole country only after the Christianisation of Scotland in the 6th century AD. No, the Celts weren't primitive hooligans with terrible table manners... Kenneth McAlpin (810–858) was not, as is popularly claimed, the first king of Scotland What McAlpin did was in 842 take advantage of the Picts who had been severely weakened militarily by punitive Viking raids, and unite the kingdom of the Gaels with that of Pictavia. But while he ruled over the whole of Scotland north of the river Forth, large parts of the country were still in the hands of the Vikings in the north and Islands, and in the south the Anglo-Saxons ruled. But McAlpin was referred to as king of the Picts – a title conferred on him at his coronation on Moot Hill at Scone, Perthshire, in 843 AD. It was not until the reign of Donald II (889–900) that the monarch became known as the ri Alban (king of Alba). McAlpin’s achievement was to create a long-lasting dynasty that gradually extended the territorial borders of Scotland both north and south, but it was not until 1469 that what we know as Scotland today was established. Listen | Professor Tom Devine explores one of the most traumatic moments in Scottish history and explain how a number of misconceptions still exist around the Highland Clearances William the Lion (1165–1214) was not, as his name suggests, a strong and fearless king Although he was on the throne longer than any other Scottish monarch, with the exception of James VI and I, never was a king so humiliated as William. Captured by the English, he gained his release only by signing the treaty of Falaise in December 1174. By the terms of the treaty he only ruled Scotland with the permission of the English crown. The treaty lasted 15 years and was repealed when the Scots agreed to pay a hefty sum of money. But the humiliation didn’t end there, as in 1209 he was again forced to pay homage to John I. Therefore, his contribution was to heraldry rather than statecraft; he put the lion rampant on the Scottish flag. Scottish history: 9 steps from Union to Referendum View oEmbed on the source website William Wallace was not the only patriotic leader of the resistance to the English occupation of Scotland Equally important was Andrew de Moray. In the winter of 1297 he escaped from an English prison and immediately began to organise the resistance in the north of Scotland against English rule. By the end of the year his forces were in control of Morayshire and had taken possession of the principal castles of the region, including Elgin and Inverness. De Moray’s success in the north was matched by Wallace’s in the south. After the defeat of the English at Stirling Bridge in September 1297 de Moray was mentioned along with Wallace in letters as ‘the leaders of the army and of the realm of Scotland’. However, victory came at a price: de Moray was wounded at Stirling and died two months later. Some historians have argued that too much of the credit for this has gone to Wallace, and that the successful campaign of 1297 owed more to de Moray than it did to his more celebrated contemporary. 7 myths about the battle of Culloden busted 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites The Scots never won a battle when they were favourites At Flodden Field in 1513 the largest Scottish army ever assembled to invade England was annihilated by a much smaller English army that inflicted 10,000 causalities on the Scots in just two hours. Again at Solway Moss in 1542 a Scottish force of 15,000 men was defeated by 3,000 English soldiers – and 1,200 Scots were taken prisoner. The defeat was so demoralising that James V took to his bed and died of shame. When the Scots were the underdogs they did best. At the battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297 a vastly outnumbered Scottish army inflicted a devastating defeat on the English. Just 17 years later at Bannockburn an English army three times that of the Scots was decimated by the forces of Robert the Bruce. In 1745 the rag tag army of the Young Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, walked through Scotland and in to England as far as Derby where it inexplicably turned face and marched home with London within its grasp. When was the last battle between England and Scotland? The proud boast that Scotland has never been conquered is nonsense This view is part of the folklore of the Scottish people handed down from one generation to the next. There are of course a few grains of truth contained in the assertion: the Romans were frustrated in their attempts to conquer Caledonia and so resorted to building walls to keep the warring tribes from attacking them. Likewise Edward I, the hammer of the Scots, occupied large swathes of Scottish territory, but that only sparked a resistance that ended with the defeat of Edward II at Bannockburn in 1314. The patriotic Scottish boast regarding national prowess begins to look more than a little threadbare when we take account of the Cromwellian occupation of Scotland in the 1650s: Cromwell’s New Model Army inflicted a crushing defeat on the Scots at Dunbar in 1650, and followed it up with another at Worcester a year later – 2,000 Scots were killed and more than 10,000 were taken prisoner, including almost all the Scottish leaders. Scotland was incorporated into 'the free state and Commonwealth of England', with 29 out of 31 shires and 44 of the 58 royal burghs assenting to what was known as the ‘Tender of Union’. Under the terms of the Cromwellian union, the Scots were given 30 seats (half of them held by English officers) in the Westminster parliament. With General George Monck in charge, the conquest of Scotland was complete, and it was only Cromwell’s death in 1658 and the political chaos that followed it that allowed Scotland to regain its sovereignty. Scotland on the brink: the nation's final years of independence Why did Scotland join the 1707 Union with England? Flora MacDonald (who became famous for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to France after he was beaten at the battle of Culloden, the final confrontation of the 1745 Jacobite Rising) died a Unionist and Hanoverian Flora MacDonald was and is a Scottish icon ever associated with the romantic but essentially doomed attempt by the Stuart dynasty to reclaim the throne of Great Britain in 1745. After the adventure collapsed following defeat at Culloden in 1746, Charles Stuart took refuge on the island of Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. Dressed as Flora’s Irish maid, Betty Burke, Charles made his escape. MacDonald was arrested for her part in the escape and spent some time in the Tower of London, but it was only temporary. Under the amnesty of 1747 she was released from captivity as a prisoner on parole, and lived with Lady Primrose in London. She became a celebrity, and among the many fashionable people who visited her was Frederick Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II. At the age of 28 Flora married Allan MacDonald of Kingsburgh and moved to the Isle of Skye. Difficult economic times saw the couple emigrate to North Carolina in 1774. When the American Wars of Independence broke out in 1776, her husband and five sons fought not on the side of the rebels but for George III’s royal British army! This gives some credence to MacDonald’s claim that she had helped Charles Stuart out of compassion rather than politics. Her husband was taken prisoner and she left for Scotland. He joined her two years later, and the family took up residence on Skye once more where she died in 1790 a British patriot. Listen | Historian Sir John Elliott explore the long histories of Scottish and Catalan nationalism. He considers some of the key similarities and differences between the two The Labour Party was not a wholly working-class party in Scotland Although working people constitute the largest section of society north of the border, they were not always supporters of Labour. Most workers in Scotland in the late 19th and early 20th centuries voted Liberal and it was only after the First World War that the vote went to Labour. However, it was never hegemonic, as the religious divisions in Scotland ensured there was always a sizeable Protestant working-class Unionist (a party that merged with the Conservatives in 1965) vote. The party itself in Scotland was an alliance of skilled male workers and the middle classes –as such it preached against class-based politics, such as those advocated by the far left. A study of the social backgrounds of inter-war Labour MPs found that around 45 per cent of them were from non-manual backgrounds; a social trend that was to intensify after 1945. 7 facts about Robert Burns, Scotland's national bard Sectarianism was not just a west coast phenomenon Most people would identify Catholic and Protestant rivalry with Glasgow and its satellite towns. But the bitterest conflicts in the 20th century took place not in Glasgow, but in middle-class Edinburgh in the 1930s. Led by rabble-rouser John Cormack, leader of the Protestant Action Society, Catholics faced harassment and violence. Employers were pressurised into sacking Catholic employees, priests were spat on in the streets, and Sunday congregations were subject to verbal and physical assault. On top of this, huge demonstrations were held to disrupt important events in the Catholic Church’s calendar. The high water mark was the riot of 1935, when Cormack led a mob of 20,000 Protestants baying for blood against the Eucharist Congress that was taking place at the Catholic priory in Morningside. The activism was rewarded with seats on the Edinburgh Town Council; indeed, Protestant Action in the municipal elections of 1936 won 31.97 per cent of the Edinburgh vote, pushed Labour into third place and returned nine councillors. But the popularity of Cormack and Protestant Action was short-lived, as the outbreak of war in 1939 pushed sectarianism on to the sidelines of politics in Edinburgh. In spite of this, Cormack held his seat on the Town Council until his death in the 1960s. Did the Scottish mass-murdering cannibal Sawney Bean actually exist? Hell at Glencoe: what led to the massacre in the Scottish Highlands? Outside of Canada, the central belt of Scotland was the highest recipient of American inward investment anywhere in the world between 1945 and 1970 This little strip of land in the middle of Scotland saw the influx of giant American corporations such as IBM, Timex, National Cash Registers, Caterpillar and many more besides. Why did they come? For three good reasons: firstly, it opened up British and European markets; secondly, there existed a highly skilled and educated pool of workers earning historically relatively low wages; and, thirdly, there were no linguistic barriers, as English was the common tongue. William Knox is a senior lecturer at the Institute of Scottish Historical Research, University of St Andrews. He is the author of seven books and more than 30 articles covering the past 300 years of Scottish history, including Scottish History For Dummies (published by Wiley, July 2014) To read more about Scottish history, click here. This article was first published by HistoryExtra in 2014
Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Forty-five rebellion: why did it fail?
Bonnie Prince Charlie's rebellion of 1745 may have been short-lived and ultimately unsuccessful, but the exiled Stuart prince remains a Scottish hero. Here Jonny Wilkes explores the Jacobite rising...
Bonnie Prince Charlie convened a council of war on 5 December 1745 with no doubt in his mind of its purpose: to plan the next advance in his magnificent invasion of England. He had reason to be brimming with such confidence. His army marched across the border from Scotland less than a month earlier and, still undefeated, had already reached Derby – some 110 miles from London and from Charles’s birthright, the throne of the United Kingdom. So what he did not expect at the meeting in Exeter House was his military advisers’ recommendation for a full retreat. The advisers – led by commander of the Jacobite forces Lord George Murray, no less – argued that with two Redcoat armies behind them and another in front, a single engagement risked crippling their ranks and cutting off an escape. 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites History Explorer: The Jacobite uprisings Where history happened: The Jacobites Charles couldn’t hide his astonishment and dismay. True, promises of assistance by the French or English Jacobites had not materialised, but his warriors had high morale and were well positioned. As he saw the whole rebellion as a leap of faith from the beginning, he did not understand why they should stop now. Charles adjourned the council to rally and cajole men to his cause. This proved fruitless and, after a final, unsuccessful plea that evening – “You ruin, abandon and betray me if you do not march on” – he grudgingly acquiesced. This was treachery and cowardice. To advance meant possible glory, while withdrawal only led to defeat. The next morning, a furious Charles and his army turned back the way they came, back to Scotland and, as it turned out, their ultimate doom. To die or conquer Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie, or the ‘Young Pretender’) grew up believing he should be king one day. Since his grandfather James II of England and VII of Scotland had been deposed in 1688, a group known as the Jacobites aimed to restore the Stuart dynasty. While several risings in the late 17th and early 18th centuries failed to bring James and his son James Francis Edward, the ‘Old Pretender’, back from exile, Charles remained zealous in his claim. In 1744, he intended to lead an invasion organised by Britain’s old enemy, the French, only for a vicious storm to scatter the fleet. Did you know? Multilingual Charles could speak Italian, French, English and Latin – but not Gaelic. Frustrated that the invasion had to be cancelled – especially at a time when much of the British Army were fighting on the continent – Charles decided to launch his own. With only two ships and a small store of broadswords and muskets, the 24-year-old set sail for the west coast of Scotland, where he anticipated gathering enough Jacobite followers to build an army. Things got off to a less-than-auspicious start. By the time he landed at Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides in late July 1745, the ship carrying the bulk of the men and supplies had turned back to France after being damaged during an attack from a Royal Navy warship. Charles set foot on Scotland, for the first time in his life, leading a rebellion of a just dozen men. Potentially just as disheartening, he discovered that he may not find the level of support he desperately needed when a Highlander told him to go home. An undeterred Charles replied: “I am come home, sir”. In a nutshell Who were the Jacobites? Their name taken from the Latin word for ‘James’, the Jacobites spent decades attempting to restore King James II of England and Ireland and VII of Scotland, along with his Stuart descendants. After reigning for three years, the unpopular Roman Catholic king – Bonnie Prince Charlie’s grandfather – had been deposed and sent into exile during the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688. His Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange (the most powerful man in the Netherlands) took power. The passing of the 1701 Act of Settlement then forbade Catholics from succeeding, meaning the stronger claim of James’s son (James Francis Edward, the Old Pretender) was overlooked and, in 1714, the Elector of Hanover, George, became king. Not all Jacobites were Roman Catholics – support derived from a belief in the divine right of kings, hope for greater religious toleration or a desire to break the new Union between England and Scotland, while others used the movement to settle scores. They launched several campaigns from strongholds in Scotland and Ireland, but with no success. The closest Jacobites got proved to be Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion. Charles – young, charismatic and headstrong – used his powers of persuasion to band together enough Highlanders to convince other clan chiefs to come and pledge loyalty. It required an anxious two-hour wait before anyone showed up at the gathering at Glenfinnan on 19 August, but the sound of bagpipes across the glen late in the day eventually let him know the arrival of the Camerons and MacDonalds. His rebellion – the Forty-Five – officially began with the raising of the Jacobite standard (a red flag with a white square in the middle). Having assembled around 1,200 men, Charles made his way towards Edinburgh as more continued to join the march. In Perth, he wrote to his father: “It has pleased God to prosper me hitherto even beyond my expectation, I have got together about 1,300 (and am promised more) brave and determined men who are resolved to die or conquer with me.” Along the way, he met Lord George Murray and appointed the able military commander as lieutenant-general of the army, which actually numbered closer to 2,400 by the time they approached the Scottish capital. Rabble and brutes Edinburgh surrendered without bloodshed on 17 September. Although the castle never fell to the Jacobites, vast multitudes cheered as Charles, dressed in plaid tartan, paraded through the city streets on his way to take up residence at Holyroodhouse. There, he proclaimed his father as James VIII of Scotland. The Bonnie backstory The Young Pretender's early years With the exception of the Forty-Five, Charles Edward Stuart lived in exile. Born 31 December 1720, he spent a privileged youth with his mother and father James, the Old Pretender, in Rome, courtesy of the Pope. On top of a thorough education, Charles would have been relentlessly told that the thrones of Scotland, England and Ireland were his birth right and the usurpation of his grandfather was an ungodly wrong for him to put right. To that end, he received training in the art of war, first witnessing battle at the age of 13. The handsome and headstrong Young Pretender became a Jacobite figurehead – his portraits being used as a propaganda tool – who could inspire or cajole people to support him, which he used to great effect in Scotland initially. Anyone questioning Charles’s strength on the basis that he had yet to face substantial opposition were instantly silenced four days after he entered Edinburgh, when Murray routed the British army encamped nearby. Before the Battle of Prestonpans on 21 September, General Sir John Cope announced to his Redcoats: “Gentlemen, you are just now to engage with a parcel of rabble, a parcel of brutes. Being a small number of Scots Highlands, you can expect no booty from such a poor despicable pack.” By circling around the enemy under cover of darkness and attacking from the rear, however, Murray won the day in under 15 minutes. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2020/04/36b.GettyImages-173275353-37a09a2.jpg" width="1024" height="782" alt="Painting: 'A Lost Cause'" title="'A Lost Cause: The Flight of James II after the Battle of the Boyne, 1690'. The battle formed part of the Williamite War in Ireland, in which James II tried to win back the Three Kingdoms from his nephew and son in law, William III. (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)" /> Key to the victory was the Highland Charge. Jacobites fired their muskets once (dropping them to the ground), hurtled towards the enemy, slashing with claymores and using their targe (shield) to protect them from bayonets. It was quick, frightening and devastatingly effective. Charles became the most powerful man in Scotland – but he knew that to seize the crown, he must seize England. As many advisers wanted to stay put and consolidate their position, while waiting for the French assistance Charles promised, the decision to invade came down to a single vote. “You our Countrymen and Fellow-Subjects… will cheerfully join Issue with us, and share in the Glory of restoring our King, and in setting our Country free,” declared an ever-optimistic Charles in a widely distributed letter on the eve of invasion. Charlie's legacy Scotland's romantic hero To this day, Bonnie Prince Charlie enjoys national icon status in Scotland, despite spending just a year there in a rebellion that caused the deaths of many Highlanders and Lowlanders alike. What certainly improved his legacy (much like with William Wallace) would have been the brutality that fell on Scotland after 1746 – as attention turned from his failings to the oppressiveness of those from south of the border. So while romanticised poems and folksongs, particularly of his cross-dressing escape, made him a tragic hero, his youthful and handsome image became a symbol for those seeking freedom from British tyranny, as well as Catholics and Jacobites, who continued to toast the ‘king over the water’. The Victorian era witnessed a resurgence in interest for Bonnie Prince Charlie, establishing him as a romantic legend. Even now, he makes headlines. A few years ago his most famous portrait (as seen on all kinds of tourist knickknacks) was revealed to be of his brother Henry, which led to the discovery of another portrait, painted by prominent Scottish artist Allan Ramsay. On 8 November, Charles crossed the border with 5,000 men and 500 cavalry and headed west. Carlisle surrendered after an almost bloodless short siege, bolstering supplies of muskets, gunpowder and horses, then the Jacobites continued south, easily taking Preston and Manchester. Their speed kept them ahead of the larger force of Field Marshal George Wade. Apart from the 300-strong Manchester Regiment, though, Charles struggled to gain mass support from English Jacobites. With no sign of the French either, Charles’s chiefs began to lose optimism until it became a problem they could no longer ignore at the council of war in Derby. Did you know? Henry Benedict Stuart – Charles’s brother – ended up receiving a £4,000 annual pension from the Hanoverian King George III. If the decision had gone Charles’s way, his army would have faced their sternest test, as not only Wade pursued them. Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (and son of George II) had been recalled from the continent to put down this rebellion. To face just one Redcoat force in battle, regardless of the result, may have severely hindered any other action, let alone an attack on London. Further progress required assistance from France or a rising of Jacobites, which Charles could not guarantee. Retreat may have allowed the Jacobites to regroup. Charles only saw it as a betrayal. From then on, he distanced himself from military minds in his army, with disastrous consequences. Rapid retreat As with the advance, the retreat wasted no time; the army had reached Glasgow by 26 December. The only presence Charles left in England was a token garrison of 400 men at Carlisle, which Cumberland overpowered almost immediately. Back in Scotland, it looked as though Murray’s caution paid off when, on 17 January 1746, a re-provisioned force of 8,000 thumped General Henry Hawley’s British army at the Battle of Falkirk Muir. They killed an estimated 350 soldiers and captured 300 more, losing just 50 of their own. Dismantling the clans After Culloden With the battle won – leaving Bonnie Prince Charlie’s rebellion in tatters – what remained for the Duke of Cumberland was the eradication of possible future uprisings. He wasted no time and showed no mercy. His dragoons went on the rampage straight from the battlefield, indiscriminately cutting down the wounded or fleeing Jacobites and murdering innocent men, women and children they encountered on the road. Homes were burned, property and livestock plundered, and Jacobite supporters imprisoned. Those not executed (the majority without trial) faced transportation or the humiliation of being drafted into the ranks of the Redcoats. For the bloodshed of these atrocities (which some historians have regarded as ethnic cleansing) Cumberland earned the sobriquet ‘The Butcher’. Attempts to pacify the population intensified with attacks on Scottish culture, especially in the wilder Highlands, in order to integrate the land with the rest of the kingdom. Carrying weapons and the wearing of traditional dress, such as tartan plaid, were banned. With another law, the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act of 1746, the government aimed to dismantle the clan system itself by abolishing the judicial rights of landowners. This significantly weakened the authority of the clan chiefs. With social and military structures broken down, the Jacobites could not organise another rebellion – yet that did not stop some from hoping Bonnie Prince Charlie would return one day. In truth, the clan system had been in decline before 1746, but the emphatic victory at Culloden had given the British government the opportunity to speed up its destruction and boost military presence. The suppression of Scotland would also later lead to the ‘Highland Clearances’ of the 18th and 19th centuries, when people were forcibly evicted from the homes, by any means, to clear the land for sheep farming, leading to mass depopulation. Yet if this victory could have reignited the rebellion, the Jacobites failed to take advantage. They continued their march north, halting for a futile and draining siege of Stirling Castle. Cumberland then took over command from Hawley, preparing for one last decisive battle. Although Irish and Scottish troops in the employ of France finally arrived, Charles’s ranks thinned as Highlanders abandoned the cause. Supplies similarly became an issue – especially after the Royal Navy captured a French ship carrying money intended for the Jacobites. As Charles’s army of fewer than 5,000 men diminished in Inverness, Cumberland spent six weeks in Aberdeen training a force of nearly 9,000 men, including many Lowlanders. Ignoring counsel to adopt guerrilla tactics and avoid this well-equipped, well-rested army, Charles took personal command for the first time and marched out to confront Cumberland on a desolate moorland at Culloden. Did you know? After the Duke of Cumberland captured the Jacobite garrison at Carlisle, he imprisoned them with no food or water. They licked the walls of the cells for moisture. On the day before battle, Murray persuaded Charles to attempt a night attack on the Redcoats’ camp. Cumberland’s soldiers had been given brandy to celebrate his 25th birthday, making them a soft target. The attack never happened, though. The trek took so long that the Jacobites had not reached the camp as dawn neared, forcing them to turn around and trudge all the way back. On the morning of 16 April, they were exhausted, hungry and thoroughly demoralised. Secret weapon Rain and sleet hammered down into the remaining Jacobite faces as they stood on an open battlefield that suited the enemy’s artillery far better than their Highland Charge. At around 1pm, three-pounder guns began battering their lines. Yet Charles, waiting for Cumberland to make the first move, kept his men standing still for perhaps as long as 20 minutes before ordering the charge. Over the sea to Skye Charlie's flight Bonnie Prince Charlie fled Culloden Moor on 16 April 1746, knowing it marked the end of his rebellion. He later wrote to his chiefs: “I can at present do little for you on this side of the water… the only thing that can now be done is to defend yourselves”. However, it would take a dangerous (and now legendary) five months on the run across the Highlands to reach the safety of France. Ceaselessly hunted and narrowly escaping the clutches of the militia, he relied on people to feed, clothe and hide him and his small band of supporters, sometimes in caves. No-one betrayed him for the gigantic £30,000 reward for his capture. By the end of June, he had taken refuge in the Outer Hebrides but, with soldiers everywhere, he needed to reach Skye. A young woman named Flora MacDonald sailed there, with Charles in a blue and white dress disguised as her Irish spinning maid, Betty Burke. The voyage has been immortalised by the folk ditty The Skye Boat Song and Flora, who spent a few months in the Tower of London, became a Jacobite heroine. Charles eventually escaped aboard a French ship sent to rescue him and never returned to Scotland. A drunk, bitter man by the time of his death in 1788, his Forty-Five and fabled flight nonetheless ensured the legend of Bonnie Prince Charlie would live on forever. Even when the attack came, it proved ineffective. The Highlanders in the centre had to veer right around a patch of marshy ground, causing them to squeeze against their own flank and break into one small section of Cumberland’s front line. The left flank became bogged down, slowing their advance to a mere crawl. The Redcoats had been instructed in a tactic to cope with claymore-wielding Highlanders. Rather than thrust bayonets at the man directly in front, they instead aimed for the exposed chest of the man to the right and trusted their comrade to protect them. At the very least, this was a psychological boost. In their minds, they had been given the secret weapon to quell the feared Highlanders. Did you know? Flora MacDonald, who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie escape to Skye, moved to North Carolina, where her husband fought in the American Revolutionary War – for the British. The Jacobites were forced back by relentless musket fire and ferocious hand-to-hand fighting. Then, when Cumberland’s dragoons broke through walls on the right flank, Charles’s army became broken and routed. Culloden, the last pitched battle on British soil, turned into a rout in less than an hour, claiming between 1,500-2,000 Jacobite lives and sparking a brutal period of suppression for the people of Scotland. By then, Bonnie Prince Charlie had already fled the battlefield, fully aware that the Forty-Five was over and left asking what could have been if he had not turned back at Derby. Read Jacobites: A New History of the '45 Rebellion by Jacqueline Riding (Bloomsbury, 2016) This article was first published in the August 2017 edition of BBC History Revealed
From haunted castles to cursed, crumbling manor houses, Britain is home to hundreds of ruins steeped in spooky and supernatural history. Here, David Hamilton, author of Wild Ruins, explores eight of the most intriguing…
Ruthven Barracks (Badenoch, Scotland) With the distant backdrop of the Cairngorms and amid spectacular scenery, Ruthven is a must-see for anyone travelling through Scotland. During the early 18th century the British government was a nervous one. It had just quelled (in 1715) the first of what would be two Jacobite uprisings, and it sought to subdue the unruly clans of the Highlands. Situated on the main Perth to Inverness road, with a crossing of the river Spey, Ruthven was strategically placed for the building of an army outpost and in 1719 Ruthven Barracks was built on the site of a 13th-century castle. Read more: 10 facts about Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites Scottish history: 9 steps from Union to Referendum 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Scottish history <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2016/07/Bonnie-2-0ff53f8.jpg" width="800" height="800" alt="Prince Charles Edward Stuart, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, by William Mosman, 1750. Oil on canvas. (Photo by National Galleries Of Scotland/Getty Images)" title="Prince Charles Edward Stuart, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, by William Mosman, 1750. Oil on canvas. (Photo by National Galleries Of Scotland/Getty Images)" /> In 1745 its defences were put to the test when it was attacked by John William O’Sullivan and his group of 300 Jacobites. The barracks successfully warded off the attack with only 12 redcoats. Accounts of the day claim they suffered only one casualty, who received a fatal gunshot to the head after leaning too far over the ramparts. The Jacobite army returned the following year, and the ruins we see today are the result of the damage they inflicted. Before the barracks were built, there is a tale of a dark figure who arrived at the former castle one night in the 14th century. He challenged Alexander Stewart, known as the ‘Wolf of Badenoch’, to a game of chess (or cards depending on sources). By morning the shadowy figure was gone and all the men of the castle lay outside its walls blackened and dead having been struck by lightning. The Wolf remained unharmed, although all the nails in his boots had been removed. Reculver Towers (Herne Bay, Kent) To the Greeks, the Isle of Thanet (or Ynys Thanatos) was a dark place where, legend had it, unmanned boats took the souls of the dead across the water. The river Wantsum, which once separated the isle from mainland Kent, is long gone; it silted up and the last ship sailed through the channel in 1672. Today much of the land is marsh land and makes for an important habitat for local wildlife. In its heyday the Wantsum would have been an important shipping channel. Such was its importance to the Romans that they built forts at Richborough in the south and Reculver in the north to protect passing vessels. You can still see remnants of the Reculver fort, underneath the large 12th-century towers of the ruined St Mary’s Church. Read more: 10 facts about the Romans The island fortress fallacy (subscription) 9 of Britain’s best castles The original church dates from AD 669 and would have been constructed almost entirely from pillaged stone from the Roman fort. Much of the church and the fort slipped in the sea over the centuries and today large sea defences have been built to protect the sites and the shoreline. Today the Thanet coastal path (Ramsgate and Herne Bay via Margate) runs past the site. Hampton Gay (Cherwell Valley, Oxfordshire) On Christmas Eve 1874, the packed London to Birkenhead train derailed at Shipton-on-Chirwell, Oxfordshire, sending 34 people to their death and injuring many more. Local residents, hearing what must have been horrifying sounds, were first on the scene to help. Among those coming to the aid of the stricken train was Sir Randolph Churchill from nearby Blenheim Palace, where he was celebrating the christening of his son Winston. Read more: 10 things you might not know about Blenheim Palace Why Churchill’s reputation is still on the line (subscription) <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2016/07/Blenheim-2-4702ab7.jpg" width="800" height="800" alt="Blenheim Palace in a c1880 print from ‘A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland’, edited by Reverend FO Morris, Volume I, William Mackenzie, London. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)" title="Blenheim Palace in a c1880 print from ‘A Series of Picturesque Views of Seats of the Noblemen and Gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland’, edited by Reverend FO Morris, Volume I, William Mackenzie, London. (Photo by The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)" /> Not all the locals were forthcoming, however. Story has it that when the injured passengers called on Hampton Gay Manor for shelter, they were turned away into the night. It was said that when the household refused to help, a curse was put upon it. Some 13 years later, when a fire gutted the interior of the house, causing the roof to collapse, it was seen as a sign the curse had come to fruition. Many cast doubt on the story, however, claiming the house did indeed offer help. All that now stands of the once grand manor house is a gutted shell hidden behind a clump of deciduous trees in a village outside of Oxford. Magpie mine (Peak District National Park) Magpie mine dates from the mid-18th century, a boom time for the lead industry. South of the village of Sheldon, within the Peak District National Park, it was built to exploit the Bole Vein, a rich vein of lead running underneath the Derbyshire countryside. Despite its position, Magpie was so beset with problems throughout its working life that it was thought to be cursed. In reality its bad luck can be explained by the fact that it was not alone in seeking to make a profit from the Bole Vein. Neighbouring Maypitt also laid claim to the vein and a fierce rivalry developed between the two mines. The dispute could not be settled in the courts and things escalated when explosives used in Magpie mine had a knock-on effect in the neighbouring shaft injuring one of the Maypitt workers. In a cold act of revenge, Maypitt workers lit fires in underground shafts to smoke out Magpie workers. The Magpie miners were not ones to be bullied, however, and they retaliated by lighting yet more underground fires. This resulted in the death of three Maypitt workers who suffered smoke inhalation. Nowadays the mine is a far more peaceful place to visit: its ruins are a short stroll from the nearest road or can be taken in as part of a longer walk in the area. Candleston Castle (Bridgend, south Wales) A short walk from Ogmore Castle in the Vale of Glamorgan, another perhaps more sorrowful castle stands overgrown and hidden in the woods. Slowly being reclaimed by nature, Candleston Castle is the crumbling ruin of a 14th-century fortified manor house. It is situated on the edge of the Merthyr Mawr National Nature Reserve, the second-highest reserve of sand dunes in Europe. The dunes are a rare and important habitat for nesting birds and insects, and their sheer size makes for a unique afternoon out for the family. Read more: The last Welsh Prince of Wales (subscription) Britain’s 7 most amazing ruins England and Wales: best of enemies? (subscription) <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2016/07/Welsh-prince-2-5c11df3.jpg" width="801" height="801" alt="Charles VI of France (1380–1422) and his court. Charles sealed a treaty with Owain Glyndˆwr in July 1404, sending troops to help the Welsh cause. However, despite marching through south Wales, Charles’s troops headed home without engaging the English in a major battle. (Photo by Getty Images)" title="Charles VI of France (1380–1422) and his court. Charles sealed a treaty with Owain Glyndˆwr in July 1404, sending troops to help the Welsh cause. However, despite marching through south Wales, Charles’s troops headed home without engaging the English in a major battle. (Photo by Getty Images)" /> The castle hasn’t always been such a bleak site, however – at one time it would have been at the centre of where the thriving village of Treganlaw (Welsh for ‘the town of a hundred hands’) once stood. The castle’s demise began when the village and all its farmland disappeared underneath the dunes following a series of violent storms. Myths and legends have built up around the vanishing village, with stories of the villagers appearing in ghostly form in search of their lost homes. Thetford Warren Lodge (Thetford, Norfolk) Rabbits were a rare sight in medieval England and were prized for both their meat and their fur. Commercial warrens, such as the one at Thetford, were lucrative businesses, and landlords set on protecting their assets constructed large defensive lodges. With its metre-thick walls and its box-shaped structure, the building appears as if a celestial dice has been tossed into the Norfolk countryside. It stands in woodlands planted by the forestry commission, and yet rather than seeming manmade, the area feels wild and untouched. Read more: 10 facts about the Black Death Podcast: Medieval bodies 10 medieval dates you need to know Local tales tell of two ghostly apparitions defending the ruined lodge. The first – and most sinister – is that of a faceless man thought to be the victim of the gamekeeper’s gun or an escaped leper from the nearby colony. The second has a much more Monty Python feel about it: many have claimed to have seen a large, ghostly white rabbit with wild red eyes standing guard over the Lodge. Legend has it that anyone who gazes into the eyes of this overgrown phantom will have very little time left in this world! Hermitage Castle (Newcastleton, Scottish Borders) Positioned on the historically contested border between Scotland and England, Hermitage Castle rises up in the landscape like a huge block of brutalist medieval architecture. Described by historical author George MacDonald Fraser as “the guardhouse of the bloodiest valley in Britain”, the ruin also has the reputation of being one of the most haunted castles in Britain. A former resident, the loathed William de Soulis, was a deeply unpleasant man who practised black magic, kidnapped local children and even stabbed a dinner guest in the back. It is said that the soul of De Soulis, along with his supernatural aid – an evil goblin assassin known as Robin Redcap – are forever trapped within the walls of the castle. Those living nearby say they have heard at night the screams of the ‘bad lord’s’ victims! St Mary’s Church (East Somerton, Norfolk) In a county with an abundance of ruined churches, the 15th-century St Mary’s in East Somerton stands out from the pack. In its heyday it must have been an awe-inspiring church, as even today the sheer size of the place is staggering. Built in the Gothic Perpendicular style, the church would have had a similar look to Gloucester Cathedral or King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, albeit on a smaller scale. Having fallen into disuse in the 17th century, it now lies hidden among the trees and despite its size you have to be practically inside the church’s perimeter before it becomes apparent. It has an otherworldly, almost fairytale, feel to it, which is further enhanced by a large oak tree that has taken root inside the church ruins. If you are to visit just one ruined church in Norfolk, it should undoubtedly be St Mary’s. David Hamilton is the author of Wild Ruins, a guidebook to Britain’s ruins that details how to visit and gain access to 300 hidden historical spots. This article was first published by History Extra in 2016
From the Isles of Scilly to the Scottish Highlands, Britain is dotted with hundreds of battlefields. Julian Humphrys of the Battlefields Trust picks eight of the best to visit
Nearly everyone in Britain lives within half an hour’s drive of a battlefield. Some, like Hastings, Bannockburn and Bosworth, are familiar to many of us, whereas others are relatively unknown. Yet the battles fought on them all played their part in shaping the way that we live today, and that makes them worth studying – and preserving. To get a feel for a battle you really need to walk the ground on which it was fought, and this has influenced the choices I’ve made here. While the battles needed to have been important ones, I was also looking for battlefields across Britain that can be visited, studied and experienced, and I think that these eight are excellent examples of that. Hastings (East Sussex), 14 October 1066 William of Normandy considered himself the heir to the English crown, so when he heard of Harold Godwinson’s accession to the English throne in early 1066 he resolved to take it by force. On 28 September he landed with his army at Pevensey, forcing Harold, who had just defeated a Norwegian invasion at Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, to march south to face him. On 14 October Harold’s army took up a strong defensive position on Senlac Ridge (in present-day Battle), with its flanks protected by steep slopes and marshy ground. While the English fought on foot in closely packed ranks, William’s army was made up of both mounted knights and foot soldiers. The first Norman attacks were repelled with heavy losses and at one stage it was rumoured that William had been killed, but in the end the English were worn down by a combination of shock action and archery. The English line broke and Harold was hacked to death. The centre of the action is marked by the remains of Battle Abbey, founded at William’s express command to atone for the slaughter of the conquest. There is today an interpretation centre in the grounds and you’ll soon be able to climb the gatehouse for a bird’s-eye-view of the area. Alternative sites for the battle have occasionally been suggested, but so far none of the evidence behind such claims has stood up to closer scrutiny. In 2013 Time Team famously suggested that the battle was fought where a mini-roundabout now stands, but omitted to point out that this was less than 200 metres from the Abbey high altar! To find out more, visit english-heritage.org.uk Towton (North Yorkshire), 29 March 1461 Fought just outside Tadcaster, the battle of Towton saw the crushing defeat of the Lancastrian forces of Henry VI and the establishment of the Yorkist Edward IV as king of England. The battle began with an exchange of archery in a blinding blizzard. With the wind behind them, the Yorkists came off better, prompting the Lancastrians to move forward and attack. The Lancastrians had the advantage of numbers, but with Edward fighting in the thick of the action the Yorkist line held until the arrival of reinforcements tipped the balance in their favour. Thousands of Lancastrians were cut down in the merciless pursuit that followed, while others drowned as they struggled to escape across the Cock Beck, which is said to have run red with blood. Contemporary claims that 28,000 died that day were undoubtedly an exaggeration, but Towton was almost certainly one of the bloodiest battles on English soil. There’s today a clearly marked trail around much of the battlefield, with boards displaying information about the battle and those involved in it. If you’re in the village of Towton it’s worth walking down the track that was once the London Road. Many of the Lancastrians fled this way and it was said that where it met the Cock Beck so many dead were piled up that they formed a bridge of bodies across the water. To find out more, visit www.towton.org.uk <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/Towton20summer-0d1c550.jpg" width="2400" height="1800" alt="Lord Dacre's Cross. The memorial to the 1461 battle is named after one of the Lancastrians who was killed there. (Photo by Julian Humphrys)" title="Lord Dacre's Cross. The memorial to the 1461 battle is named after one of the Lancastrians who was killed there. (Photo by Julian Humphrys)" /> Flodden (Northumberland), 9 September 1513 When Henry VIII invaded France in 1513, Louis XII asked his [Louis'] Scottish ally James IV to create a diversion by invading England. James obliged, crossing the Tweed and capturing a string of English castles. The Earl of Surrey raised an English force to confront him and after a brief period of negotiation and manoeuvring the two armies met outside Branxton village with the Scots deployed on a steep hill. James hoped to force the English to attack him but, goaded by Surrey’s artillery, his men moved forward. Those on the left managed to push back their English opponents but most of James’s men became disorganised as they struggled down the slope with their long, unwieldy pikes. As they floundered in the boggy ground at the foot of the hill they were cut to pieces by Surrey’s men with their deadly bills. A surprise attack upon the highlanders on the right completed the English victory. More than 5,000 Scots fell, including James IV – the last British monarch to die in battle. There is today good footpath access across the battlefield and some excellent information panels. As you make your way down the steep slopes of Branxton Hill to the wet ground at the bottom it’s easy to see why things turned out as they did. Don’t miss the exhibition on the battle in nearby Etal castle. To find out more, visit flodden1513.com <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/Memorial20cross20at20Flodden20Field-89155a1.jpg" width="1000" height="800" alt="Memorial cross at Flodden Field, site of the 1513 battle of Flodden. (Photo by English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" title="Memorial cross at Flodden Field, site of the 1513 battle of Flodden. (Photo by English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)" /> Pinkie (East Lothian), 10 September 1547 Pinkie deserves to be better known. It was the last major battle fought between Scotland and England before the Union of the Crowns in 1603, and with 40,000 troops involved it was also the largest ever fought in Scotland. The battle was part of the ‘Rough Wooing’ – the unsuccessful English attempt to force the Scots to agree to a marriage between the infant Mary, Queen of Scots and Henry VIII’s son Edward. In September 1547 the Duke of Somerset invaded Scotland with 18,000 men supported by a fleet in the Firth of Forth. He found the road to Edinburgh blocked at the river Esk by a large Scottish army under the Earl of Arran. As the English moved forward Arran suddenly switched to the attack and led his pikemen across the Esk. This advance was halted, at some cost, by a desperate English cavalry charge. The Scots then came under heavy fire from not only artillery, archers and mounted handgunners, but also the ships in the Firth of Forth. Eventually they broke and ran and more than 6,000 were cut down by the English cavalry in the ensuing pursuit. Despite some urban development to the north and the intrusion of both a railway and the A1 dual carriageway, most of the battlefield today survives intact. A two-kilometre walking trail has recently been established along with four information panels about the battle. To find out more, visit musselburghheritage.org.uk Montgomery (Powys), 18 September 1644 Montgomery was the biggest battle fought in Wales during the civil wars and a major victory for parliament. Yet it’s virtually unknown today. In September 1644 the parliamentarians gained control of Montgomery Castle when Lord Herbert, a rather lukewarm royalist who seems to have been mainly concerned with protecting his library, surrendered it to them. Determined to recapture the castle, the royalists surrounded it with about 4,500 men under Lord Byron but on 17 September a parliamentarian relief force under Sir John Meldrum arrived to the north. Leaving some of his troops to guard the siege works they’d thrown up around the castle, Byron moved to face them. When on the next day some of the parliamentarian cavalry rode off to forage, Byron spotted his opportunity and ordered an attack. The remaining parliamentarian cavalry were driven back and Byron’s foot gained ground as well. But eventually the royalists ran out of steam. Checked by a determined stand by some of the roundhead foot, threatened in the rear by the castle garrison that had overwhelmed the royalists in their trenches and possibly counter-attacked by the returning parliamentarian foragers, Byron’s men broke. Around 500 were killed and 1,500 captured, and parliament gained the initiative in North Wales. Montgomery is today an enjoyable battlefield to visit. A footpath from the nearby Offa’s Dyke leads to what is thought to be the centre of the action and it’s also well worth making the climb up to Montgomery Castle. It’s now a ruin, having been slighted (rendered indefensible) after the civil war, but the views from its ramparts are superb. To find out more, visit cadw.gov.wales Naseby (Northamptonshire), 14 June 1645 Naseby was the decisive battle of the Civil War in England. After it, parliament’s victory was only a matter of time. Although both sides deployed in the same way with their infantry in the centre and their cavalry on both flanks, Sir Thomas Fairfax’s parliamentarian New Model Army enjoyed an advantage in numbers of about three to two. Despite this, Prince Rupert’s royalists began well. Their infantry pushed back their parliamentarian opponents and their cavalry on their right defeated most of the roundheads opposing them. But the parliamentarian cavalry on the right under Oliver Cromwell drove back their enemies and were then able to fall on the exposed royalist infantry in the centre. Despite a long fighting retreat the royalist army was all but destroyed. There are today relatively few footpaths to give the visitor access to the ground itself, and much of the viewing has to be done by looking over hedges and by walking on roads, but the Naseby Battlefield Project has created an excellent battlefield trail. This covers the key parts of the approach, the battle itself and the royalist retreat, and is supported by a number of information panels and also some viewing platforms. To find out more, visit naseby.com Sedgemoor (Somerset), 5–6 July 1685 In June 1685, James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, landed in Dorset in a bid to wrest the crown from the catholic James II. On 5 July his army was in Bridgwater while Lord Feversham’s royal army was camped three miles away outside Westonzoyland, protected by a ditch called the Bussex Rhyne. Knowing his men would stand no chance against Feversham’s regulars in a pitched battle, Monmouth decided to risk all in a night attack from an unexpected direction. Although royalist patrols were operating in the area and Sedgemoor was criss-crossed with ditches and dykes, Monmouth’s men got to within a mile of Feversham’s position before the alarm was raised. Monmouth ordered his cavalry forward but they missed the crossing across the Bussex Rhyne and scattered. The rebel infantry halted at the Rhyne and a firefight developed which continued through the night. At dawn Feversham’s army crossed the Rhyne and routed the rebels. Many were killed in the pursuit that followed, while others were sentenced to death or transportation, and Monmouth himself was later captured and executed. Although the layout of the drains and ditches has been altered since 1685 and the Bussex Rhyne has vanished, the character of this extremely atmospheric battlefield remains unchanged and it’s easy to lose your way, as Monmouth’s cavalry did, while crossing the moor. To find out more, visit battlefieldstrust.com <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2018/01/Westonzoyland20Church20-d642eb5.jpg" width="1600" height="2400" alt="Westonzoyland Church, which was used to house rebel prisoners following the battle and afterwards had to be cleaned and fumigated. (Image by Steven May/Alamy Stock Photo)" title="Westonzoyland Church, which was used to house rebel prisoners following the battle and afterwards had to be cleaned and fumigated. (Image by Steven May/Alamy Stock Photo)" /> Culloden (Highland), 16 April 1746 The brief but bloody battle fought on this bleak moorland in April 1746 marked the end of Jacobite ambitions of reclaiming the British crown for the Stuarts. The previous July, Charles Edward Stuart (or Bonnie Prince Charlie) had landed in the Outer Hebrides in a French-backed bid to claim the British throne for his father. He cobbled together an army and got as far as Derby before falling back to the Highlands. A government force under the Duke of Cumberland was sent after him and finally the two armies faced each other just outside Inverness. The battle began with an exchange of artillery fire. Cumberland’s gunners proved more effective and Jacobite casualties began to mount as their leaders dithered over whether to attack. Eventually the Jacobites set off across the moor. Many never reached their goal. Those who did discovered that unlike previous occasions when government troops had fled before the dreaded highland charge, these redcoats were prepared to fight it out. Eventually the outnumbered Jacobites wavered, then fled, leaving Cumberland to conduct a brutal pursuit. Culloden today has a superb visitor centre but the battlefield itself is the real star of the show. Much of it is cared for by the National Trust for Scotland and a lot has been done to restore this evocative site to the way it was at the time. Flags mark the positions of the two armies, and you get a good sense of how the uneven and in places boggy ground affected the fighting. Headstones bearing the names of the clans who fought in the battle mark where the Jacobite dead are buried. To find out more, visit nts.org.uk Julian Humphrys is development manager at the Battlefields Trust, the UK charity dedicated to the protection and promotion of Britain’s historic battlefields. To find out more, visit www.battlefieldstrust.com You can also follow Julian on Twitter @GeneralJules This article was first published on History Extra in July 2016
History Explorer: The Jacobite uprisings
Professor Christopher Whatley and Charlotte Hodgman explore Ruthven Barracks in Badenoch, Scotland – a Highland fort built to suppress Jacobite rebellions in the 18th century
This article was first published in the October 2015 issue of BBC History Magazine Perched high on a hill in the Spey valley, surrounded by mountains, Ruthven was once one of four infantry barracks built across the Highlands in an attempt by George I to put down further Scottish rebellions in the wake of the great Jacobite uprising of 1715. The strategic position of the fortification, lying as it does at an important junction of military roads from Perth, Fort Augustus and Inverness, meant that Ruthven was a key stronghold for the British Army – and a target for rebelling Scots. But, despite being completed in 1721, Ruthven didn’t see its first military action until 1745, when a 300-strong Jacobite force attempted to besiege the barracks. (Remarkably, it took just 14 Redcoats to repel the attack, with the loss of just one man.) Although now ruined – little of the interior structure, and no visible flooring or roofing remains – the layout of Ruthven is still virtually as it was when it was first built. Once they have climbed the steep path to the barracks, visitors can see where the government soldiers stationed there would have slept – 10 men to a barrack-room and two to a bed – walk the small parade ground once used for drilling, and view the spot where the horses were stabled. Craving power The Jacobite rebellions against the crown were ultimately triggered by the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688, when the Dutch prince William of Orange seized the English and Scottish thrones from the Stuart king James II and VII to become William III and II. “The Stuarts had reigned in Scotland for centuries, and the Jacobites craved the reinstatement of the Stuart male line,” says Christopher Whatley, professor of Scottish history at the University of Dundee. “They championed the claim of the exiled James Francis Edward Stuart, son of the deposed James II and VII, the man after whom the movement was named [Jacobus being derived from the Latin form of James]. “What’s more, many Scots had been antagonised by King William’s imposition of Presbyterianism – a more austere form of Protestantism – as the Church of Scotland. Making James Francis Edward Stuart (the ‘Old Pretender’) king would herald changes to the practice of religion in Scotland.” The Jacobite rebellions were also, says Whatley, a reaction to the union of Scotland and England in 1707. “The later Stuarts were not especially well loved, but the union was even less so,” he says. “Anti-unionism – and Scottish independence – was a strong component of support for Jacobitism in Scotland in the early 18th century.” Yet Jacobitism was not a purely Scottish phenomenon. There were thousands of Jacobites in Ireland, too, many of whom were fired by a desire to return their country to Catholicism, and to free it from what they regarded as the shackles of Westminster political control. English Jacobites were less militant than their Scottish counterparts, although there were substantial numbers of Jacobite sympathisers south of the border. The rumbles of discontent and scattered episodes of unrest that had marked William’s reign in Scotland came to a head in September 1715 when John Erskine, Earl of Mar raised the standard for the Old Pretender at Braemar, recognising him as James VIII of Scotland and James III of England. Thousands of Jacobites flocked to the uprising, and there was great alarm in the corridors of power in London. Yet Mar was unable to capitalise on this momentum. With his army failing to inflict defeat on an outnumbered government force at the battle of Sheriffmuir in Perthshire on 13 November, his supporters began to lose faith in their chances of victory, and retreated north. Victory turns sour But all was not lost for the Jacobites. While Mar’s army was fighting at Sheriffmuir, an expeditionary force from the Highlands had joined with Jacobites from northern England. The resulting battle of Preston, fought on 12 November, ended in a Jacobite victory. However, triumph soon turned sour when, after finding themselves trapped in Preston with no artillery or supplies, the Jacobite troops were forced to surrender. Many fled, while as many as 1,500 were taken prisoner. Around 40 were later executed, with the remainder transported to the American colonies. “What the Jacobites needed was external support, from a friendly power like Sweden or Spain, which could provide funds, ammunition and soldiers,” say Whatley. “But in 1715, French king Louis XIV – who had been an enthusiastic supporter of James II and VII – died, so French backing was no longer guaranteed for that year’s uprising. Add to that Mar’s inadequate leadership and the strength and organisation of government forces, and you can see what the Jacobites were up against.” Further uprisings were planned between 1715 and 1745, with English Jacobites – attempting to capitalise on the fact that Britain and France were on opposing sides in the War of Austrian Succession – seeking to join forces with the French. Spanish troops landed in north-west Scotland in 1719, but were quickly defeated. Louis XIV’s successor, Louis XV, authorised an invasion of England, but in yet another stroke of bad luck, a terrible storm wrecked the French fleet. Unwilling to admit defeat, plans for another attempted restoration were soon laid, headed by the charismatic Charles Edward Stuart, (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ or the ‘Young Pretender’), son of James Francis Edward Stuart. “Bonnie Prince Charlie’s arrival on Scotland’s north-west coast in 1745 – albeit with just one ship and a small force of men – revived the flagging Jacobite cause in Scotland,” says Whatley. “He was an attractive figurehead who knew what cards to play to the greatest effect – championing the breaking of the union, and offering assurances about religion. He eventually persuaded Jacobite leaders in Scotland to support another rising, promising that they would be joined by English forces.” Inspired by Charles’s confidence, the reinvigorated Jacobite army went head to head with British forces at Prestonpans in East Lothian, where, on 21 September 1745, they achieved their greatest victory. With most of the British Army in France fighting the War of Austrian Succession, Jacobite forces allegedly took fewer than 15 minutes to win the battle. Hundreds of government soldiers were killed or injured. The rest fled or were taken prisoner. It seemed as if the Jacobites’ luck was turning. Buoyed by their success, the victorious Jacobite army marched south into Manchester and on to Derby. But the promised English boost to the campaign failed to materialise. The would-be king had deceived his followers. With just 200 additional men joining them in England, a decision was made to abandon plans to march on London and the Jacobite army retreated to Falkirk where it fought, and won, another battle against British forces. Yet, instead of proving a bright new dawn, this victory was to be a prelude to disaster. Says Whatley: “The British government felt it had to crush the Jacobite insurgents once and for all, and the last of the major confrontations took place on 16 April 1746. On boggy Culloden Moor, the exhausted, disheartened – and ill-led – Jacobite army was defeated by troops under the Duke of Cumberland in under an hour.” Some 1,500 Jacobites died during the battle, with the survivors scattering into the Highlands. A large body gathered at Ruthven (which had fallen to the rebel forces in February 1746) the day afterwards, willing to fight on, and awaiting further instruction. But instead of urging his troops onwards, Charles sent instructions for “every man [to] seek his own safety in the best way he can”. With their cause apparently lost, the men set fire to Ruthven and fled. Thus began Charles’s lengthy flight through the heather to avoid being captured. “The aftermath of Culloden was brutal and bloody,” says Whatley. “The British government was determined to make an example not only of the rebels, but also Highland communities they suspected of harbouring Jacobites or providing Jacobite soldiers. The punitive force directed against these communities, and against the Jacobites themselves, has been described by at least one historian as genocide, a charge that is not without foundation.” But, as Whatley explains, anti-Jacobitism wasn’t purely an English sentiment. “Many Lowland Scots saw the actions of the Highland army as a threat to civil society. They feared the Jacobites would challenge the restored Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The revolution of 1688–89 had established constitutional monarchy in Britain, and made clear the Williamite state’s opposition to Catholic absolutism. At least some of those who put their lives on the line in opposition to the Jacobites, or who resisted them in towns and villages or from kirk pulpits, did so in the belief that they were defending certain important liberties. These included the right to own property, to be free from arbitrary government intervention, and the right to determine what religion they should adhere to. “There was a perception that Jacobitism was about the re-establishment of hereditary monarchy, with kings believing they derived their authority from God. Seen in the light of such threats – real and imagined – it is perhaps easier to understand the determination to defeat the Jacobites. “There is still much debate about why the Jacobites failed,” concludes Whatley. “There is no single reason: often it was just sheer bad luck. Jacobite commanders often disagreed over their aims, while other times they were hamstrung by the loss of strong military leaders such as John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee (Bonnie Dundee), at the battle of Killiecrankie in July 1689. Over-optimism – even delusion – about their chances of success played its part too.” Jacobites: Five more places to explore Edinburgh Castle, Edinburgh Where the Jacobites laid siege In 1715, Jacobite forces tried unsuccessfully to lay siege to the castle, attempting to break in at night by scaling the north-facing cliffs. A second – also failed – attempt was made during the 1745–46 rising, under Bonnie Prince Charlie. During this attack, the Jacobites captured Holyrood Palace at the far end of the Royal Mile, but failed to take the castle. edinburghcastle.gov.uk Culloden battlefield, Inverness Where the final battle was lost The battle of Culloden was a bitter defeat for Jacobite forces. The battlefield, which can still be visited today, features a 20-foot memorial cairn (mound of stones), while headstones on both sides of the road through the battlefield bear the names of dead clan members. You’ll find information on the battle at the visitor centre. nts.org.uk/Culloden/Home Aughrim battlefield, Galway Where more than 7,000 died in battle The battle of Aughrim, in July 1691, was one of the bloodiest battles ever fought on Irish soil and one that effectively put an end to the Jacobites in Ireland. It was fought between the forces of William III and II and James II and VII. Although William emerged victorious, some 7,000 lives were lost in the fight. The Battle of Aughrim Interpretative Centre overlooks the battlefield. discoverireland.com Brixham Port, Torbay Where William of Orange first invaded Dutch prince William of Orange and 14,000 troops landed at Brixham, Torbay on 5 November 1688 where he was welcomed by many in south-west England. After marching to London, William and his wife, Mary, were crowned at Westminster Abbey on 11 April 1689. A statue of William stands at the spot where he allegedly first set foot on English soil. brixham.uk.com Prestonpans battlefield, East Lothian Where Bonnie Prince Charlie won Much of the battlefield at Prestonpans –where Bonnie Prince Charlie led Jacobite forces to victory in 1745 – still survives and can be seen from the top of a viewing mound at Meadowmill. battleofprestonpans1745.org Historical advisor: Professor Christopher Whatley, author of Scottish Society, 1707–1830: Beyond Jacobitism, Towards Industrialisation (MUP, 2000) Words: Charlotte Hodgman Visit: Ruthven, Kingussie, PH21 1NR historic-scotland.gov.uk
Scottish history: 9 steps from Union to Referendum
Dr Sean Lang charts the history of the Union from 1707 to the present day...
1707: Act of Union passed by Scottish and English Parliaments King James VI and I had hoped to create a united kingdom of Great Britain, but the idea found no support in either of his parliaments. After Charles II was crowned in Edinburgh Cromwell led a successful invasion and under the 1651 Tender of Union, reinforced in 1657 by an Act of Union, Scotland was subsumed into Cromwell’s English Republic. However, the two kingdoms separated again at the Restoration in 1660. The 1707 Union was put forward in response to Scottish bankruptcy after the Darien fiasco [an unsuccessful attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by establishing a colony called Caledonia on the Isthmus of Panama on the Gulf of Darién in the late 1690s] and English fears that Scotland might restore the Stuarts rather than accept a Protestant Hanoverian succession. 1746: Battle of Culloden – British government forces crush the largely Highland army of the Jacobite claimant, Prince Charles Edward Stuart The “45” Jacobite Rising was a Scottish civil war: Jacobite support in the lowlands was minimal, and almost non-existent in England (the real focus of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s interest). Most Scots opposed the Jacobite rising, and many served in the Duke of Cumberland’s army that defeated the Jacobites at Culloden Moor. After the battle, the British engaged in the systematic eradication of traditional highland culture, though they eventually adopted an anglicised form of it for Highland regiments within the British army. 1856: The rebuilt Balmoral Castle opens as a royal residence for Queen Victoria and Prince Albert Building on the huge popularity of the Waverley novels of Sir Walter Scott, the royal couple spearheaded a Victorian craze for Scottish traditional culture, virtually inventing much of it in the process. Much of the current paraphernalia of clan tartans, dress kilts and the ubiquitous playing of bagpipes in fact dates no further back than the 19th century. This romanticised image of the Scots, epitomised in Queen Victoria’s highland servant, John Brown, came to dominate English perceptions of Scotland and would eventually be rejected by the later nationalist movement. 1885: Creation of the Scottish Office and revival of the post of Secretary for Scotland (promoted in 1926 to secretary of state with a seat in cabinet) This was part of a wave of administrative reorganisation that also saw the creation of County Councils and attempts to introduce Home Rule for Ireland; it was not part of a move to introduce anything similar for Scotland, which was still treated essentially as a large, if distinctive, region of the United Kingdom. The post of Secretary for Scotland had existed in the early 18th century but had lapsed after Culloden. Even though it quickly became standard practice, whichever party was in power, to appoint a Scot to the Scottish Office, it was still usual, including among non-English Britons, to speak of “England” when referring to the whole of the United Kingdom. 1967 Winifred (‘Winnie’) Ewing wins the Hamilton by-election for the SNP In an unexpected victory for a small fringe party that few at the time took seriously, Winnie Ewing overturned the previous Labour majority and began a surge of popularity for the Scottish nationalists. Although Labour soon retook the seat, she herself remained active in politics, first as an MP and later as MEP for the Highlands and Islands. In 1999 she presided at the opening of the new Scottish Parliament. Although the SNP’s fortunes fluctuated, and it remained on the political fringe within the United Kingdom as a whole, by the 1970s it had emerged as a rival to Labour within Scotland and retained a small but permanent (and vociferous) presence in Parliament. 1979 Referendum: Scots vote against devolution The 1973 Kilbrandon Report on the make-up of the United Kingdom had considered but rejected a federal structure, but recommended devolution for Wales and Scotland. The issue was put to both electorates but failed to attract enough support. In Scotland, where the proposed powers of the devolved assembly were greater than in Wales, the Yes campaign won a majority but fell well short of the threshold of 40 per cent of the possible electorate required for establishing a Scottish assembly. Many assumed, wrongly, that the referendum had disposed of the issue for the foreseeable future. 1988 Mrs Thatcher addresses the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland Mrs Thatcher’s economic policies had sharply divided opinion in Scotland just as they had in the rest of the United Kingdom. Her ‘Sermon on the Mound’ address to the General Assembly, in which she appeared to be preaching to them the theological basis for capitalism (in a 1980 television interview she had already put the Good Samaritan forward as an example of the practical usefulness of making a bit of money), quickly came to symbolise a gulf in understanding and attitudes that had opened up between even moderate conservative opinion in Scotland and the Conservative Party in England. Scottish alienation from the Tories was hugely strengthened by the Thatcher government’s decision to pilot the deeply unpopular Community Charge, or Poll Tax, in Scotland before introducing it across the rest of the United Kingdom. 1999 Opening of the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh After the symbolic return to Scotland in 1996 of the Stone of Scone and strong support for a Scottish parliament shown in a referendum held the following year, the Queen travelled to Edinburgh in 1999 to open a Scottish Parliament, the first to have sat since 1707. It was largely the work of the Labour Scottish Secretary, Donald Dewar, who then became the first holder of the post of Scottish First Minister. Labour hoped and expected, naively, as we can say with hindsight, that the granting of a Parliament, with considerable devolved powers though still under Westminster’s supervision, would take the sting out of their SNP rivals. 2011 SNP wins an outright majority in the Scottish Parliament election In 2011, to general surprise, the SNP, which had been governing in co-operation with the Scottish Conservatives, won 69 seats, a gain of 23, taking it well over the 65 necessary for an absolute majority. Alex Salmond continued as First Minister, though he now began to claim greater authority to himself and his administration. He renamed the Scottish Executive the ‘Scottish Government’, and began negotiations with the prime minister, David Cameron, for a referendum on full independence. The 2012 Edinburgh Agreement laid down the terms, binding all parties to accept the verdict of a straight-majority referendum, with only one question on the ballot paper rather than Salmond’s preferred option of the offer of increased devolution, ‘Devo Max’, as an alternative to either the status quo or independence. Dr Sean Lang is a senior lecturer in history at Anglia Ruskin University whose research interests include the development of British constitutional identity from the 16th century onwards. This article was first published by History Extra in September 2014