Culloden. 16th April 1745
- The Battle of Culloden
- Culloden facts
- On the Battle of Culloden
- An account by eye-witness Donald Mackay
- Jacobite rising
- Jaobites
- See also
britishbattles.com
War: The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745
Date: 16th April 1746
Place: South east of Inverness and a few miles south west of Nairn in Scotland
Combatants: The Highland Army of Prince Charles and the Royal Troops of George II
Generals:
Prince Charles,
Lord George Murray and the Duke of Cumberland.Size of the Armies: 7,000 in the highland army and 8,000 in the royal army.
Winner: the royal troops under the Duke of Cumberland.
British Regiments: Culloden is not a battle honour for British regiments in spite of being a victory.
The regiments present at the battle were: Cobham’s (10th) and Kerr’s (11th) dragoons, Kingston’s Light Dragoons, the Royals (1st), Howard’s Old Buffs (3rd), Barrel’s King’s Own (4th) Wolfe’s (8th), Pulteney’s (13th), Price’s (14th), Bligh’s (20th), Campbell’s Royal Scots Fusiliers (21st), Sempill’s (25th), Blakeney’s (27th), Cholmondeley’s (34th), Fleming’s (36th), Munro’s (37th), Ligonier’s (48th) and Battereau’s (62nd) Foot.
bbc.co.uk/history
Culloden is an evocative place for many people. Not only is it the site of the last full-scale battle to take place on British soil, and the last stand of an ancient royal dynasty which traced its ancestry back to the Dark Age Gaelic Kingdom of Dal Riata and beyond, but it is also the place where the Highland clan culture of Scotland sang its last song.
The Battle of Culloden in 1746 meant, quite simply, the end of an era for Scotland.
Culloden Factsheet
The Battle of Culloden was fought on Drumossie Moor, to the north east of Inverness, on April 16, 1746. It was the last of the great Jacobite risings - popular attempts to reinstate a Stuart monarch on the throne of Britain - and was led by Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender.
The term Jacobite comes from the name ‘Jacobe’, which is Latin for James - a popular Christian name among Stuart kings. Charles was the son of the Old Pretender, James Francis Edward Stuart, and grandson of the deposed James II of England. He landed on the shores of Scotland in July 1745 in an attempt to oust King George II and his Hanoverian line from the throne, which had become the birthright of his family in 1603 when King James VI of Scotland had travelled south to become King James I of England and Ireland.
Charles raised support for his rising amongst the Highland clans which were devoted to the Jacobites, although not all clans were loyal to his cause and many openly supported the Hanoverians. The majority of lowland Scotland is also thought to have opposed the Jacobite rising of ’45, although they did have many supporters there as well as in England and the continent - traditionally in France. Many nobles supported the rising and Lord George Murray and the Duke of Perth joined the Young Pretender’s ranks as lieutenant-generals.
Charles and his gathering army reached Perth on September 4, 1745, where the Young Pretender proclaimed his father, the Old Pretender, to be the rightful King. He took Edinburgh on September 17 and won a decisive victory at Prestonpans on September 21. Carlisle fell on November 15 after a short, five-day siege, and the Jacobites marched on toward London through Lancaster, Preston and Manchester. The army reached Derby on December 4, but turned back to Scotland two days later on the advice of Lord George Murray and several of the Highland Chiefs when it became clear that the much-promised support of the French and the English Jacobites wasn’t forthcoming. It was this retreat, against the wishes of Charles himself, which many historians believe to have been the fatal move which defeated the ’45 rising.
Once back in Scotland Charles was victorious against the government forces at Falkirk on January 17, 1746, and was involved in siege at Stirling Castle. However, morale in the Jacobite camp was wavering and the Jacobites retreated into the Highlands in early February as the Duke of Cumberland advanced with a larger Hanoverian force. Charles then took Inverness from the Earl of Loudoun and raided various others government strongholds in the spring of 1746, as the Duke of Cumberland built and trained an army in Aberdeen.
Charles was advised by his commanders to avoid direct conflict with Cumberland’s army, and to pursue the guerrilla tactics which were so effective in Highland warfare, however, Jacobite funds were running short and desertion in the ranks was becoming more frequent. This was the context in which the two armies met at Culloden Moor on April 16, 1746.
Cumberland made the first move by crossing the River Spey on April 12, with the Jacobites on the other bank retreating without offering any fight. On the night of April 15-16, Charles hoped to gain advantage by a surprise attack on the Hanoverian camp near Nairn. The plan, however, was a failure and the Jacobites retreated to Culloden - a place which Charles was strongly advised not to chose as the site for a battle. When the Hanoverians advanced onto the field the next day many of the Jacobites were exhausted after the night-time raid on Cumberland’s camp.
The Jacobites were outnumbered around 9000 to 6000, and the ground was too marshy to accommodate the Highlanders’ favourite tactic - the headlong charge into the enemy’s ranks. Culloden did, however, lend itself more to Cumberland’s strength in heavy artillery and cavalry. The artillery decimated the clans as they awaited the command to charge. Many clansmen fell simply because the command to charge came too late, as Charles waited for the government troops to advance first, whereas the government troops just kept firing in the light of their highly successful bombardment. When the command did come, the charge itself was disorganised. The Hanoverians stood firm and blasted the Jacobite army into retreat.
Many of the Highlanders headed for Inverness and were hunted down and killed without mercy by Cumberland’s dragoons. Others, who headed into the mountains, stood a better chance of survival, but the government troops were thorough in their retribution. Many of the legends surrounding Culloden involve the clans’ attempts to return to home and the severity of government’s reaction. The ’45 was over and Bonnie Prince Charlie headed back to the safety of France and a life of obscurity.
geocities.com
It was the greatest ever moment in the history of the Jacobite movement. Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army had victoriously marched down through England, and were poised to strike at London itself. Then, at the very moment of their triumph, the Young Pretender and his forces decided to turn back and retreat to Scotland.
With the capital in panic at the thought of a Jacobite advance, the prince was determined to press on to try and secure the British throne for his father, the exiled would be James VIII. However, his chief lieutenants knew that victory would be no easy matter. As the prince's forces had marched south, they had not secured territory behind them.
Two of the king's most formidable military commanders, General George Wade and the Duke of Cumberland, were in pursuit and London itself had a large militia of loyalist troops ready to take the prince on. The sensible thing to do, it seemed, was to pull back. Charles sullenly agreed and, on December 6, 1745, the retreat started.
On his way north, the Scots fought off an attack at Clifton, in the Lake District and left 400 men to garrison the castle in Carlisle.
On Christmas day, Charles reached Glasgow and found he had huge problems picking up support for his cause. The city was strongly pro-government, and hundreds of its men were fighting on the Hanoverian side against him. Reluctantly - and probably more to get rid of him than anything - Glaswegians did provide Charles with provisions to refit his army, which left 10 days later. By now, Edinburgh had been reclaimed for the king by General Henry Hawley and the Jacobites knew that a showdown was in prospect. Reinforced by the arrival of a further 4000 troops, they finally came face to face with Hawley's forces at Falkirk.
The battle was a disaster for the Hanoverians. They lost ten times as many men as the prince - 400 to 40 - with most of the government forces fleeing the field and leaving behind their artillery and baggage.
Victory at Falkirk, combined with the fact that still more troops and supplies were arriving from France and elsewhere, bolstered the Jacobite army. With government forces continuing to press against him and with the clan chiefs insisting on returning to the Highlands, however, the only way Charles could realistically go was north. He tried and failed to seize Stirling Castle before arriving in Inverness and taking the town on February 18. Fort Augustus succumbed in March, though Fort William held out. By now, there was another problem: the able Duke of Cumberland was in pursuit of the Jacobite forces along with an army of 9000 men. A seasoned and intelligent military strategist - and son of the King - Cumberland would not make the sort of tactical mistake which had allowed the Jacobites to win the battles of Prestonpans and Falkirk.
By April 14, Cumberland was in Nairn, while the prince's army was only 10 miles west at Drummossie. Charles's Quartermaster General, John William O'Sullivan, decided that the best approach was to try and catch the Hanoverian forces by surprise. The Pretender's troops, by then tired out and hungry, marched to Nairn, only to find Cumberland's forces awake - they were celebrating their leaders 25th birthday. The Highlanders were then forced to trudge back to Drummossie, where they arrived, exhausted and demoralised, just after dawn.
Unknown to them, however, word had reached Cumberland that the enemy forces had tried to pounce on him. Knowing full well how tired and hungry the Jacobites were, he decided to attack them when they were at their weakest.
The two sides finally faced each other at Drummossie Moor, better known as Culloden, in a howling, freezing gale, on Wednesday, April 16, 1746. It was, as the prince's general Lord George Murray observed, a hopeless place to fight a Highland battle.
For the first time during the entire campaign, Charles decided to take personal command of his troops. He was outnumbered from the start - his 5000, ill shod, untrained and hungry men stood against nearly double the number of well fed, well equipped Hanoverians. Cumberland positioned his men, who were only about 400 yards away from the Jacobites, in two lines. The first was expected to break when the Highlanders attacked, but the second was carefully laid out three deep to provide massive and continuous firepower.
The battle began with an artillery barrage by the Hanoverian forces. It lasted only a few minutes, but cut down many of the prince's men before they had a chance to charge. When the charge finally came, despite all Cumberland's carefully prepared positions, the fierce Highlanders still managed to break through the Hanoverian left flank. It was not enough to overcome the disadvantages of inferior firepower and sheer weight of numbers.
The battle was over in less than an hour and some 750 of the Jacobites lay dead, while only about 360 Hanoverians had been killed.
Cumberland had proved to be an astute commander during the battle - but the aftermath earned him the notorious nickname of "Butcher" and ensured that his name would be forever tarnished north of the border.
Determined to stamp the king's authority on a rebellious people, he let loose his soldiers in slaughter. The wounded were murdered where they lay and any prisoners were shot. A group of men found in a local barn, for instance, were simply locked in and left to burn to death.
In all, some 450 people, including innocent bystanders and women and children, are reckoned to have been slaughtered after the battle.
Some Jacobites were luckier - if you could call it that.
They were taken to Inverness, where they were put into jail, churches and even ships. There, many died of their wounds or of the cold. The government was determined to make an example of the leaders of the rebellion.
Some - among then Lord Lovat, who had not even been involved at the battle at Culloden - were tried and executed. Others were imprisoned for life.
For Bonnie Prince Charlie, however, there was to be no such ignominy.
The flower of the Stewarts had fled the battlefield of Culloden before the fighting had even finished. The hero of the Jacobite rising had become the most wanted man in Britain, with a price on his head that the English imagined would be too large for Scots to turn down.
The fight for the Stewart cause was over forever. The question now was whether the Prince would escape.
The rise and fall of Bonnie Prince Charlie is one of the most remarkable and romantic stories in Scottish history.
But the truth is that the Prince was an arrogant and badly advised loser whose attempt to seize the British throne brought more than a century of misery and poverty to the Highlands.
After Charles' defeat at Culloden, the British authorities were determined to clamp down on the trouble the Highland clans had caused. They embarked on a policy of repression so brutal and vengeful it is remembered with anger and bitterness in Scotland to this day.
One of their first acts after the battle was to try to catch the Prince himself, who had eluded them by slipping away from the battlefield while the fighting was still going on. However, he remained too clever for them. Charles fled the mainland and made for the Hebrides, outwitting both a massive military cordon and a reward of £30,000 which had been offered to anyone prepared to betray him.
One of the most romantic stories surrounding
the
Prince was his journey
from South Uist to Skye in June 1746. With the islands full of troops
looking for him, a plot was hatched to smuggle him from the Hebrides
under the noses of the Hanoverian forces.A local, Edinburgh educated woman called Flora MacDonald was persuaded to help provide the decoy. The Prince was dressed in a blue and white frock and given the name of Betty Burke, with the cover story that he was Flora's Irish serving maid.
The plot worked - the pair were very nearly seized by troops during their journey, but managed to escape without further incident. After landing in Skye, Charles said goodbye to Flora and made his way to the nearby island of Raasay.
He then went back to the mainland, moving from Moidart to the even more remote Knoydart and living rough in the outdoors and in bothies.
As summer wore on, the authorities realised they had been outwitted and the hunt for him was gradually scaled down.
The French had sent various rescue missions to try to find Charles and get him out of Scotland.
On September 19, they were finally successful. Charles emerged from hiding and boarded the frigate L'Heureux at Arisaig. It was the end of his adventure and of the Stewart threat to the British throne.
While Charles was on his way back to France, then on to exile in Rome, the British forces in the Highlands were busy. Immediately after the Hanoverian victory at Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland - by now bearing the nickname Butcher for his indiscriminate slaughter of the wounded and innocents after the battle - was determined to capitalise on his success and teach the unruly Highlanders a lesson they would never forget.
Cumberland quickly consolidated his position by bringing thousands of British soldiers north. They were allowed to pillage the Highland Glens, raping the women and putting houses to the torch.
The clan chiefs who had backed the Jacobite cause had their castles burned to the ground and their estates seized. Cattle were plundered and taken south, many of them bought by traders from Yorkshire. The plan was clear, to strip as much wealth as possible from the Highlands in the hope that the residents would starve and freeze to death.
Even this however was not enough for some supporters of the Hanoverian cause. In London, parliament debated sterilising all women who had supported the Jacobites. Another suggestion offered was to clear the clans out and replace them with immigrants from the south. These suggestions were not acted on, but the law deliberately changed to suppress the Highland way of life.
Highland dress was banned except that worn by regiments of the British army serving abroad, and anyone found wearing tartan illegally could be executed.
The Hanoverians consolidated their grip on the north by extending their military presence. Field Marshal Wade's road system, originally built to open up the Highland's, was extended and military barracks constructed at places such as Fort George, near Inverness.
Back in France, Charles received anything but a hero's welcome. He was banished to Italy two years after his return and, in 1750, secretly made his way back to London, where he is said to have proclaimed himself a Protestant and had a relationship with a woman he had first met in Scotland called Clementina Walkenshaw, whose sister was housekeeper to the Dowager Princess of Wales. She bore him a daughter, Charlotte. By this time, however, the Prince had lost his charm and become a violent brutish oaf. He beat Clementina so much that she eventually fled from him and, in 1772, he married the teenage Princess Louise of Stolberg. It was an ill fated match - by this time Charles was over 50 and a complete drunkard. He beat her too, and eight years after marrying him, she ran off with a poet. Charles then invited his daughter Charlotte to share his home and made her the Duchess of Albany. He finally died in Rome in 1788, with the last rite performed by his brother Henry, the Cardinal Duke of York. In his will, he left most of his money to Charlotte - the Scots who had laid their lives on the line for him and the cause he represented didn't receive a penny.
The Young Pretender's later life may have been wretched and unworthy, but at least he had money and status. The Highlanders he had used for his futile Jacobite campaign, then abandoned to their fate, faced only hostility and misery from a merciless Hanoverian regime.
With their old bonds to the land and the clan system of rule broken, many opted to leave Scotland altogether. They sailed for the New World, settling in places such as North Carolina and working the land in order to make a living.
As more and more Highlanders learned about the opportunities available to them in America, the numbers crossing the Atlantic swelled. It was the start of a mass emigration, which was eventually to lead to Scots becoming a powerful force in the establishment and development of the USA. Those who decided to take to the seas for a new life in the colonies included Flora MacDonald, who went with her husband Allan and two of their sons.
Flora had been arrested for her part in helping Charles and taken to London, but she had been freed under the terms of a general amnesty and returned to Skye three years later. She went to America in 1774, where ironically her family helped fight for the Hanoverian King George III against rebels who were staging the first battles in what would ultimately become the successful American struggle against the British Crown for independence.
After this, Flora returned to her native Skye, where she finally died in March 1790. During her lifetime, her fame had spread and thousands of people attended her funeral. She was buried in a sheet which Charles Edward Stewart had slept in during that fateful Jacobite campaign years before.
Flora MacDonald had played only a small part in a campaign which changed the face of Scotland forever.
But in death, she maintained her reputation and dignity - which is more than can be said for the man she risked everything to save, and whose vanity and desire for the throne almost destroyed the Highlands.
highlanderweb.co.uk
"What cutting and slicing there was" - a previously unpublished account of the Battle of Culloden by eye-witness Donald Mackay of Acmonie, Glen Urquhart, translated from the Gaelic.
The writer was transported to the West Indies for his part in the uprising, but later returned to the Highlands.
"Friends, I am now an old man and it is a long, long time since the year of Charles. But if you want a story, I shall tell you about the battle of Culloden. At that time I was a young and strong man. I had not left home and worked the croft with my father and brother. News came to our glen that Duke William and the red soldiers were approaching Inverness and that Prince Charles and the Highlanders were preparing to fight against them. No sooner had we got the news than my father, brother, myself and quite a number of others from the glen left to go to the aid of the Prince.
We went through the town of Inverness and reached Drumashie where we found the Highland army in battle formation on the hill. They put us in the Glengarry regiment where we had many relatives and friends. When we reached the army a great shout of joy went up, welcoming us. Prince Charles himself, riding a white horse, was moving around among the Highland army. He was a fine fellow, a true prince.
There has not been seen, and there will never be seen again in the Highlands, a prince of his equal.
The morning was cold and stormy as we stood on the battlefield - snow and rain blowing against us. Before long we saw the red soldiers, in battle formation, in front of us and although the day was wild and wet we could see the red coats of the soldiers and the blue tartan of the Campbells in our presence.The battle began and the pellets came at us like hail-stones. The big guns were thundering and causing frightful break up among us, but we ran forward and - oh dear!, oh dear! - what cutting and slicing there was and many the brave deeds performed by the Gaels. I saw Iain Mor MacGilliosa (Big Iain Gillies) cutting down the English as if he was cutting corn and Iain Breac Shiosallach (Freckled Iain Chisholm) killing them as though they were flies. But the English were numerous and we were few and a large number of our friends fell. The dead lay on all sides and the cries of pain of the wounded rang in our ears. You could see a riderless horse running and jumping as if mad.
When I saw that the battle was lost, I thought it best to leave and make for home. I said this to my brother who was near me and we made in the direction of Inverness as quickly as we could. When we reached Culcabock we stopped, feeling faint with hunger. I had some oatcakes in my bag and we got a drink of milk from an old lady who was beside the road. "How did the day go? she asked. Badly for the Prince," we replied, and left in haste.
We went through the river near the islands above the town of Inverness and arrived home during the night. My father arrived safely in the morning and boundless was my mother's joy at having us back home safe and well."
From Wikipedia
The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in the British Isles occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at restoring James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by Parliament during the Glorious Revolution. The series of conflicts takes its name from Jacobus, the Latin form of James.
The major Jacobite Risings were called the Jacobite Rebellions by the new governments. The "First Jacobite Rebellion" and "Second Jacobite Rebellion" were known respectively as "The Fifteen" and "The Forty-Five", after the years in which they occurred (1715 and 1745).
Although each Jacobite Rising has unique features, they all formed part of a larger series of military campaigns by Jacobites attempting to restore the Stuart kings to the thrones of England and Scotland (and after 1707, Great Britain) after James VII of Scotland and II of England was deposed in 1688 and the thrones claimed by his daughter Mary II jointly with her husband, the Dutch born William of Orange. The risings continued, and even intensified, after the House of Hanover succeeded to the British Throne in 1714. They continued until the last Jacobite Rebellion ("the Forty-Five"), led by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), was soundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, forever ending any realistic hope of a Stuart restoration.
ourworld.compuserve.com
The Jacobites, and 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' in particular, are often seen in a romantic light. Here I attempt a more objective view.
After the death of Charles II (he of the 'Restoration', Nell Gwynne etc.) his brother, James VII of Scotland and II of England managed to make himself so unpopular by his absolutist behaviour and his open support for Roman Catholicism that the English parliament invited James's son-in-law, William of Orange (aka 'King Billy'), to become King of England.
Catholicism was the religion of England's traditional enemies, France and Spain, and therefore regarded as unpatriotic in England. England had its own religion which had as its head the English monarch. To subscribe to any other religion was therefore suspect. James VII, as a Roman Catholic, was therefore in a contradictory position. In Scotland, which had had close links with France in the past, the abhorrence of Catholicism was, at least in theory, of a more spiritual nature.
The head of the Roman church (the Pope) was regarded as a servant of Satan by protestant zealots. This may all seem a rather odd way for Christians to look at things but it was about par for the course then. Sadly there are residual echoes of it all to be heard to this day.
In any case, when William of Orange accepted the invitation from the English parliament and set foot on English soil (November 1688), James did not attempt to fight for his crown. He fled the country instead. William became William III of England, ruling jointly with his wife, Mary, who as James's daughter, conferred a somewhat dubious legitimacy to their supplanting of the English king.
In Scotland it took until April 1689 for a Convention of the Estates to decide that James had forfeited the Scottish crown and recognize William as William II of Scotland. The Convention had received letters from both James and William stating their positions. William's showed a political understanding completely absent from James's enraged and threatening letter. As mentioned above, the fact that Scotland and England were separate countries with a common monarch created political tensions which were not resolved until decades after the political union of the two countries in 1707.
1689....The term 'Jacobite' became the name for those who supported James VII after his deposition. The most famous Jacobite rebellion took place in 1745 when Charles Edward Stewart (aka 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' and the 'Young Pretender'), James VII's grandson, led his Jacobite army to ultimate disaster at the Battle of Culloden (near Inverness, in the North of Scotland) in 1746. After that Jacobite hopes of another 'Restoration' were effectively dead but the campaign had lasted on and off from 1689 to 1746, nearly sixty years.
The first Jacobite rebellion in Scotland occured in 1689, after the Scottish Convention had accepted William III as king. John Graham, Viscount Dundee (aka 'Bonnie Dundee') withdrew from the convention in protest and raised a small army based on the cavalry group of which he was commander. His spectacular victory against the Williamite army at Killiecrankie was won at the cost of his own life. He was killed at the moment of victory. Thereafter the rebellion was fought to a standstill at Dunkeld by a regiment of the religously fanatical Cameronians. Ironically, Colonel Cleland, their commander, died at the moment of their victory.
When James died in 1701 (before the union of the Scottish and English parliaments), his son James Francis Stewart (aka the 'Old Pretender'), became the legitimate king of Scotland (James VIII) in the eyes of the Jacobites. In 1707 that union took place and in the following year the Old Pretender attempted to assert his claim as king of both Scotland and England. The important prize was the throne of England since England was a much richer and more powerful country than Scotland but the Jacobites hoped to attain that goal by gaining Scottish support first. Given the unpopularity of the Union in Scotland it allowed the Jacobites to portray themselves as nationalists whatever the reality. In practice, although the Union was unpopular, most lowland Scots were unwilling to resist it by force.
This meant the Jacobites mainly having to use the highland clans as an army against the forces of the now British government. The willingness of the Jacobites to use force to destroy the Union was simply because, over most of the period discussed, that held out the only real hope the Jacobites had of succeeding. It became an increasingly desperate hope.
1708....Seeking to capitalize on popular Scots' discontent at the recent Union of the Parliaments, the Old Pretender set out from France in 1708, his expedition sponsored by Louis XIV. The French king involved himself for the usual reason which led France to involve itself in Scottish affairs, namely to distract the English (now the British) from their fighting with the French. The Duke of Marlborough had been giving the French a bad time in Flanders and a Jacobite rising in Scotland might have taken some of the heat off. In the event the expedition was a fiasco.
James did not even land in Scotland. Having anchored off the Fife coast, the French naval commander of the expedition refused to put James ashore when a superior English naval force appeared, and the Jacobite expedition returned, after a detour round Ireland(!), to France. English politicians of the time, who naturally dominated the now British parliament, had scant interest in Scotland, and it was virtually defenceless. If James had landed with his force of 5,000 infantry it is just possible that he might have regained his Scottish kingdom.
It was in the aftermath of this abortive rebellion that the barbaric 'Act for Improving the Union of the Two Kingdoms' (commonly referred to as the 'Treason Act') was passed. This brought Scotland's previously comparitively humane law of treason into line with the severe English one.
1715....The next Jacobite military attempt to regain the British throne was in 1715. It was perhaps the best chance the Jacobites ever had of restoring the exiled Stewart dynasty to the British throne. The Union with England was more unpopular than ever in Scotland and in England too there was deep discontent with the non-English-speaking King George and the authoritarian Whig party which had taken over political power since the king's accession. The rebellion was bungled, however. Queen Anne had died in August 1714. She was the daughter of James VII, and the last Stewart monarch to rule in Britain (as it turned out). In 1701 the English had passed the Act of Settlement which decreed that on Anne's death the English throne would pass to Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and her heirs since Queen Anne had no surviving issue. Sophia was grand-daughter of James VI but there was little enthusiasm for the House of Hanover. With the Union of the Parliaments the English had ensured that the House of Hanover would succeed in Scotland too and the Jacobite rebellion in 1715 was an attempt, originated by the Earl of Mar, to capitalize on discontent at the Union in general and the accession of George I (Sophia's son) in particular.
What actually provoked the rebellion was the eclipse of Mar's political career on George 1's accession. The Whig party had convinced the king that Mar had Jacobite sympathies and the king had conspicuously snubbed Mar when he had appeared at court. In reality Mar was only interested in being in government, any government, with the power that gave him. He was prepared to change allegiance if that was necessary to maintain his power. He had been a supporter of the Treaty of Union and had helped ensure the easy transition of the monarchy to the House of Hanover in the person of George I. Rejected by George, his only hope of a political future was by switching his support to the exiled House of Stewart, the Jacobites. (His reputation for changing sides when it suited him earned him the sobriquet 'Bobbing John'.)
In fact the Earl of Mar started the rebellion without the knowledge of the exiled Stewart court. The Jacobite standard was raised on 6 September 1715 in the north-east Highlands. There was wide support for the rebellion and the Jacobite forces initially vastly outnumbered the British government forces. If swift and vigorous action had been taken by the Earl of Mar then success would have been virtually certain. Unfortunately for the Jacobite cause, Mar was an administrator, not a soldier, and not given to taking advice from others. The corrupt and odious British political system, run by Whig extremists, was ready to be overthrown but Mar was not the man to do it. He moved south to capture Perth on 14 September but did not capitalize on this success. The Duke of Argyll, commander of the government forces in Scotland, had a much smaller number of men than Mar alone. Another Jacobite army in the south also wasted time and instead of attacking Argyll, marched into England with the intention of raising Lancashire. Their hopes dashed, they surrendered to government forces at Preston on 14 November 1715.
The day before, at Sheriffmuir, Mar had finally taken on Argyll. The Duke, unlike Mar, was an experienced soldier and, though his troops were outnumbered four to one, the Battle of Sheriffmuir was inconclusive. It was a strategic disaster for Mar, however. He had failed to seize the moment. He was not the only one. The exiled Stewart 'king', James VIII, did not land in Scotland until 22 December by which time the government had regained the initiative. The Duke of Argyll had received reinforcements of battle-hardened Dutch troops. On 4 February 1716 James admitted defeat and returned to France.
1719....Jacobite plans for regaining the British throne continued. By 1719 they had managed to enlist the help of the Spanish for another military expedition. The precise reasons for the Spanish support were born out of complex European power politics. Surprisingly England's old enemy, France, and Britain (which in the main pursued the old English policies) had come to a peace settlement in 1713, which ended the 'War of the Spanish Succession'. Amongst other things the treaty required the 'Old Pretender' to move his exiled court from France.
The Jacobites had therefore to cast about for support elsewhere. Spain had also signed a peace treaty with Britain but did not respect the provisions which excluded Spanish influence in Italy. By 1718 Spain had seized the Italian islands of Sicily and Sardinia and planned to invade the mainland in the south. This was a direct challenge to Austria which had inherited Spain's Italian lands but it was also a challenge to Britain which was a guarantor of the Peace of Utrecht. The Royal Navy promptly smashed the Spanish navy near Messina. The Spanish knew that Britain's George I was involved in an expensive naval campaign in the Baltic (financed by Britain although it was in pursuance of aims associated with his Hanoverian territories) so they declared war on Britain. For Spain, as previously for France, the Jacobites were useful pawns in a war against Britain. Consequently the Jacobite Duke of Ormonde was invited to Madrid for talks about an invasion of England.
This invasion was undoubtedly regarded by the Spanish as a merely a diversionary tactic to distract the British from the Mediterranean theatre of operations. This possibly made it easier for Ormonde to persuade the Spanish that there should be a two-pronged invasion of Britain, taking in Scotland as well as England.
There were delays in mounting the expedition, giving the British ample time to prepare militarily, so that when the expedition set sail from Cadiz in March 1719 with a mere 5,000 soldiers it had virtually no chance of success. In the event, before the fleet of twenty-nine ships reached Corunna, where the Duke of Ormonde was to join it, it was substantially destroyed in a storm. The British heaved a sigh of relief believing an attempted invasion in 1719 now impossible. They were wrong. The Spanish still wanted a distraction for the British. They recognized that there was no chance of success before the start, but the main force was defeated by the weather again and did not reach England.
A tiny diversionary force of two frigates and just over three hundred Spanish infantrymen which was to have distracted British forces from the target of the main expedition, England, reached Scotland. This force was joined by a group of Jacobite exiles from France. Squabbling soon broke out among the leadership. When they received the news that the main force would not reach England there was argument for and against returning to Spain, the logical thing to do given that their small force was now meaningless. The faction which was for fighting anyway won the day. There was little support from the clans, though the famous Rob Roy Macgregor appeared with a handful of men. In all about a thousand or so men made up the Jacobite army which faced a British government force of about the same size, which had marched down from Inverness to meet them.
On June 10th they fought in Glenshiel, where the Jacobites had erected rough defences. In a forewarning of what was to happen 27 years later at Culloden the government force brought artillery to bear on the enemy before routing them. The Jacobite clansmen disappeared into the Highlands; the Spaniards surrendered. The farcical 1719 'invasion' was over.
In the years following, the exiled Jacobite court engaged in plotting and planning which became increasingly divorced from reality. The court had been comprehensively infiltrated by British spies but Jacobite security arrangements were so laughably amateurish that the spies were scarcely needed. Correspondence between Jacobite sympathisers in England and on the mainland of Europe was often sent through the ordinary postal service.
The British government was known to open letters and even had a deciphering department to break such rudimentary codes as were used by conspirators. Scare stories of possible Jacobite invasions were not so much real as Whig propaganda to divert public attention from their own corrupt regime. It is a common enough ploy for governments to exaggerate the threat from a supposed enemy for domestic consumption. Support for the Jacobite cause in England went into terminal decline, its only real expression being verbal protest against the corrupt and repressive government. More support remained for the cause in Scotland but more as a philosophy than as a hope for a restoration of the Stewart monarchy. Even here the Jacobites failed to capitalise on the great unpopularity of the London based Whig government.
The British knew that there was no possibility of an effective Jacobite invasion without substantial financial backing from a foreign power, which in practice meant France or Spain, and while Britain was at peace with these two countries this would not be forthcoming.
1745....While, as far as foreign powers were concerned, in time of war the Jacobite cause was a useful stick with which to irritate and distract Britain, this cut both ways. If Britain was not at war she was able to maintain a large standing army at home, well able to resist a few thousand troops which was as many as the Jacobites could be expected to muster. If the Jacobites were to hope for a successful invasion of Britain they therefore required Britain to be at war, since she traditionally denuded her home forces in order to wage war abroad, trusting to the navy to repel invaders. Years passed and it wasn't until the late 1730s that war began to rear its ugly head. For reasons of European politics Britain and France were gradually sliding into open conflict until in 1743, with a change in the French government, there came a radical change in policy towards Britain. France was well aware of the benefits which came from being at peace with Britain, after all they had experienced these since 1716.
The problem was that the king of Britain was also Elector of Hanover and he conducted Britain's European policy more with Hanover in mind than Britain, often at the expense of France. The solution to the French was a restoration of the Stewart dynasty to the British throne. Not only would Britain's European policy no longer be driven by anti-French Hanoverian considerations but the suitably grateful Stewarts would adopt a pro-French stance. An invasion of Britain was planned to restore the Stewarts early in 1744 and it was a serious force which was assembled: 10,000 French troops of the regular army.
Prince Charles Edward Stewart,'Bonnie Prince Charlie', the Jacobite 'Prince of Wales', was secretly summoned to France to embark with the invasion fleet and act as Regent for his father. With a cunning political plan, amongst other things reassuring the British that the French invasion was a short-term mission merely to restore the Stewarts, the French would probably have achieved their objective if they could have got their seasoned troops across the English Channel. After all, the British Whig government was unpopular and the king was from a foreign dynasty. Not for the first time in the history of the Jacobites, though, delays in invasion plans allowed British spies in Europe to discover details of what the French intended. Not for the first time either did the weather play a hand. As the invasion fleet was about to sail in February 1744 a gale blew up which dispersed the warships which were to protect the ships transporting the troops. The transports were themselves damaged in Dunkirk harbour. The initiative had been lost and the British had the chance to bring reinforcements over from Holland.
The French King, Louis XV, got cold feet. He had never been confident of the success of the invasion plan. It is at this point that the 23 year old Prince Charles Edward Stewart,'Bonnie Prince Charlie', comes into his own. There are two main schools of thought about Prince Charlie, one pro, the other con. To some he was a noble and romantic hero who initiated a glorious, if unsuccessful, adventure. To others he was an egotistical personality, rash, vain and irresponsible. Both views have elements of truth about them but real life is too complex to be summed up so superficially. His brief period of glory was followed by a long period of embittered and drink-sodden exile. Let us examine only the brief period of glory.
It used to be thought that Prince Charlie was entirely responsible for instigating the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. It certainly would not have happened without him but the French government played a significant part which they were very successful in covering up later. In late 1744 Charles was introduced to a group of Franco-Irish privateers who operated out of northern French ports. They had Jacobite connections e.g. Antoine Walsh was the son of Philip Walsh whose ship had taken James II to France after his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne. Philip became rich through building naval ships and in the slave trade. Antoine also engaged in the slave trade and added privateering to his accomplishments. Privateering was the practice of privately owned and operated ships sanctioned by their government attacking the ships of hostile nations. Great fortunes were made this way. In addition to their Jacobite sympathies a landing in Scotland was appealling to the group of privateers since it would distract the British navy into decreasing their ability to protect British merchant shipping. In other words, commercial advantage encouraged political loyalty. The French government's involvement was even more cynical: the sacrifice of Scots for French advantage in Europe. After the failure of the rebellion they naturally did not wish to broadcast this and Charles was happy to be portrayed as solitary hero.
The 1745 rebellion did not start well. Charles had only been able to put together a small expedition with only two ships, one a light frigate, the "Du Teillay", the other a much larger French naval vessel of 64 guns, the "Elisabeth", chartered from the government. These two ships set sail from the Loire on 22 June 1745. On 9 July they encountered the British 54 gun HMS 'Lion' which damaged Charles' larger ship so badly it had to return to France. Since it was carrying most of the arms and ammunition for the Prince's force this was a severe blow. Nevertheless he continued on to Scotland, landing on the island of Eriskay on 23 July 1745 at what is still known as Cladach a'Phrionnsa (the Prince's beach). Charles' first meeting, with Alexander Macdonald of Boisdale, in South Uist was a shock. He told the Prince that he could expect no support for his rebellion and advised him to go home. Charles supposedly replied "I am come home, sir." It was almost the shortest of visits since his entourage were soon quarrelling. They had heard of the arrest by the government of the chief of the Macleans of Mull as a Jacobite plotter. Only Antoine Walsh and Charles argued that the rebellion should continue.
Growing paranoia led to the "Du Teillay" sailing for the safety of the sea lochs of the mainland. Charles set foot on the mainland at Loch nan Uamh on 25 July. Meetings with other important clansmen were as discouraging as that with Alexander Macdonald had been. They were Jacobite supporters but also realists. They knew the likelihood of success was negligible and that failure would spell disaster for their clans. Charles refused to listen to any advice and gradually assembled a few local supporters. He secured the support of Cameron of Lochiel, who had also been pessimistic about the outcome of the rebellion, by sneering that Lochiel could stay at home and learn of the Prince's fate in a news sheet. Lochiel's support and the men he could put in the field were vital if the rebellion was to proceed. Charles sent letters and messengers from his HQ at Borrodale summoning support and he decided on Glenfinnan as the place where he would first assemble his army. On Monday 19 August the Jacobite standard was raised there. Of the approximately 1200 men who gathered at Glenfinnan about 700 were Lochiel's Camerons. All the same, Lochiel's faith in the rebellion can perhaps be judged by the fact that he sought and received a promise from Charles that he would not suffer financially if the rising did not succeed.
If the rebellion had not started well the fact that it began to flourish was largely the fault of the British government. With their customary disregard for Scotland they had left the country inadequately defended. Even the locally raised troops in the Highlands, the Black Watch, told originally that they would only serve in their own land, had been marched down to England in 1743. This was in spite of (perhaps because of) the known plans for a French invasion in 1744 (see above). In addition, Clan Campbell, traditionally militarily strong and allied to the government, had been very much weakened as a military force because of structural changes the Clan chief had made. As a result Charles was able to march from Glenfinnan to Edinburgh, taking Perth on the way, virtually unopposed.
A government force under General Cope had marched north but avoided engagement believing the Jacobite force to be larger than was the case. He had received very little support in Scotland because of the London-based government's great unpopularity. After marching to Inverness to get supplies, he marched to Aberdeen from where his force sailed down the coast to land ahead of the Jacobites, who were at Edinburgh, at Dunbar.
On 21 September 1745 General Cope's force was routed by the Jacobites at the so-called Battle of Prestonpans. This engagement lasted no more than 15 minutes before the government forces lost their nerve and ran away. Incidentally, the small forces on either side at the battle (approx.2,500 men) indicate what a small-scale uprising, despite its great fame, the '45 really was. Be that as it may, Charles was now, however temporarily, master of Scotland. The government in London had expected the rising to fizzle out at the first show of force. Now they began to take it more seriously.
Despite the reluctance of major figures to support him and despite the lack of willing volunteers (attempts to raise a regiment in Edinburgh had failed), Charles managed to muster a force of about 5,000 for his invasion of England. His officers, including his most experienced general, Lord George Murray, advised against it but Charles was adamant that he would receive massive support in England. In the event he was wrong. His force got all the way to Derby without any more than about 200 Englishmen joining his cause. By that time the cause was lost. The Prince was keen to continue the march to London where there was some panic but the British military held firm and, with the return from Europe of troops, vastly outnumbered Charles' force. Three government forces, two bigger than his own, now faced him. He reluctantly agreed to retreat to Scotland.
The march back began on 6 December 1745. At Charles' insistence a garrison of about 400 were left behind when the Jacobites passed through Carlisle. They subsequently received harsh treatment at the hands of King George II's 25 year old third son, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland ('Butcher' Cumberland): the officers were hanged and the men transported to the West Indies.
On Christmas Day the Jacobite army entered Glasgow and stayed for 10 days while the strongly pro-government city was reluctantly forced to refit it. Though time was running out the Jacobites had still not been defeated and they won another battle at Falkirk on 17 January against a government force led by the brutal General Henry Hawley. Hawley blamed his men for the defeat and executed about 60 men for cowardice. The Jacobites continued north pursued by a force led by the Duke of Cumberland who was a seasoned soldier, having had experience in the War of the Austrian Succession. As Scotland became increasingly lost to Charles he needed funds from elsewhere to keep his troops in the field. France, which had given little help, sent a ship with £12,000 in gold. Crucially it was captured by (Scottish) forces loyal to the government.
The end came for the Jacobite cause on Wednesday 16 April 1746 at Drummossie Moor near Inverness. The Prince mistrusted his most able general, Lord George Murray, and rejected his advice as to where to establish the Jacobite base. Instead he was persuaded to choose an open moor which was military insanity. For the first time Charles took personal charge of his force. In less than an hour the fresh, well-fed government force, which outnumbered the tired half-starved Jacobites two to one, defeated them for the first and last time.
The key to their success was the effectiveness of their artillery, which they had in abundance, and used to pulverize the Jacobites who were not ordered to charge by their commanders until many had been killed or wounded. Jacobite artillery was virtually non-existent and ineffective. Charles fled the field before the battle was over and spent months in hiding in the Highlands before escaping to France.
Origins of the '45 - Free Scottish Academic Press books to download
See also
Reasons for the union
The Scottish Enlightenment
Significant Scots 1 - Gazette
Some significant Scots II - Gazette
A summary of Scotland - Gazette
The Thistle Knights - Anatomy. Section E
A grand alliance 08-02-07 Scottish news
Small scale democracy 19-02-07 Scottish news