Culloden

[Stratherrick]

Thanks, everyone, for keeping the sentiment of this thread going.

As others have said, a visit to Culloden battlefield site on Drumossie Moor is a must for anybody touring the area around Inverness. I get to go there quite often as it's where my living Scottish relatives are to be found. The exhibition centre has been rebuilt in recent times and is brilliantly evocative of the life and times of the late 18th Century in Scotland.

I agree, the battle and causes fought over at Culloden were more akin to a civil or religious war and, like the Mods, I'd hate to see a good discussion deteriorate into a Scots vs English wrangle, which it was not. My intent was to describe my emotions as I have stood kilted both at the approximate point from where the Frasers charged on the day and where, as the archaelogical evidence shows, some mass graves are located (for UK posters, Time Team did some searching with their underground radar thingy a few years back).

The 360 degree film in the exhibition is pretty darned scary, and it's where I got a lot of my imagery from. We're used to modern movies in glorious Technicolour, but this works best because it's in black and white. As the tension builds to where the charge occurs, it's amazing to feel surrounded and in the thick of the action. If I had been there, I think I'd have been glad to have been going commando as I'd probably have been peeing myself!

Culloden isn't unique, nor was what followed. Brutality on the battlefield has so often translated into shocking acts once the noise has died down. But, coming from stock rooted in the immediate glens and straths, and having slept in a farmhouse still lived in by relatives descended from some that fought that day, though it was rebuilt having been burnt to the ground, it really hits home. Who knows if my direct ancestors wore a version of tartan or a kilt-type outfit.

All I know, and all I look to here, is that my kilt, as I strap it on each time, is in memory of those that suffered. Sure, others who weren't involved also wore similar garb, but all of them had their dignity and culture affected within a short time. Still, the Highland regiments resulted and we all know how we look to them these days!

Slainte

Bruce

[Phil]

It is always poignant being at a spot where many have died and Culloden, particularly, has deep resonances in the Scottish psyche - on both sides. Sadly society was less inclusive in those far off days and the aftermath of Culloden was anything but unique. You only have to consider the fate of native Australian and American peoples or the massacres in India to realise that the British Empire was hardly a beacon of enlightenment and that many Scots took part in the expansion of that empire just as they did at Culloden.

[james a. husky]

"That was one of the things I found so fascinating as an 18th century reinactor. Once you have stood on a field and been on the receiving end of a full musket volly, even without any shot hitting your line, the impact is incredable! I can see how hard it was to stand and take that kind of punishment. We owe a great debt to all those who held the line."

I'm a member of the Lt. Col's Coy, 42nd Rgt of Ft. (as a Reenactor)... 7 Years War (F&I), and the War of the American Rebellion (RevWar). We have the honor and the awsome responsibility to portray and convey what the life of the average soldier was like to the general public.

The quest is to take the romance and fanfare out of the experience and get across the idea that these were real human beings whose sacrifices were driven by a variety of factors, who suffered the same passions and longings that we do as 21st century people.

I've always been told that we had family on both sides at Culloden Moor, and research has taken me back directly to the early 1760's in western Tennessee/Kentucky. A "Daddy John" may have been a realtive guiding the British line at Culloden, but research has yet to make an absolute connection.

Jim aka kiltiemon

[slohairt]

It also reminds us that all historical conflicts and struggles were never as cut and dry or black and white as some would make them seem to be. Indeed as some would desperately like them to be. There is something deep within the human psyche that desires strongly for a cause to be simple and high-minded, for these things stir the heart and are the source of much romantic fable. It's never true of the real situation, however, as every conflict has many layers and many twists and turns. Some of these were even well known at the time, while others were unearthed much later through research.

With the passing of time, it becomes a struggle that never was. A story fit only for a child's book. Unfortunately, there are those who take this to be an exact interpretation of history and use it as some rallying call. We've all seen some newbies who appear on the forum who'd make you think the Jacobite cause was alive and well! They're just waiting for some Bonnie Prince to ask them to take up targe and claymore, sally forth across the ocean, and regain the Scotland of old!

I'm well acquainted with this phenomenon as I come from a land whose ex-pats are often notorious for over-simplifying issues with the passing of time and distance.

The theme I have always taken from the story of Culloden was the folly of a man's ambition and his willingness to drag everyone and everything down with him. Good people were led to believe they were fighting for something for themselves and they paid the ultimate price of his ambition for years to come. Ironically it was the near-destruction of the culture which they were first duped into believing they were defending. Very sad.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

The theme I have always taken from the story of Culloden was the folly of a man's ambition and his willingness to drag everyone and everything down with him. Good people were led to believe they were fighting for something for themselves and they paid the ultimate price of his ambition for years to come. Ironically it was the near-destruction of the culture which they were first duped into believing they were defending. Very sad.

Really? And suppose the Jacobites had won. Would you then consider the Duke of Cumberland a mountebank for having duped his troops into fighting to support his father's claim to the throne?

[slohairt]

Really? And suppose the Jacobites had won. Would you then consider the Duke of Cumberland a mountebank for having duped his troops into fighting to support his father's claim to the throne?

I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you creating a 'what-if' version of history? Suppose the Stuarts had succeeded in reclaiming the throne of Great Britain. The former king flees to the Continent and his son comes back much later, makes a celebrated landing in Wales (or maybe Cornwall) and rallies the Welsh to his father's standard. The Welsh eagerly take up arms, some believing their culture or way of life will be protected in the newly restored regime, or at least no longer subject to increased Anglicisation or maginalisation. When the Duke is later defeated and flees, these same Welsh are mercilessly put down, laws are created to prohibit many of their cultural trappings, and the Anglicisation and marginalisation of their society is 'stepped up a notch'. So, would I then say the Duke duped these Welshmen and used them to further his own ends? Yes.

The truth is, this Anglicisation and marginalisation of Highland culture had started long before 1707. Some Highlanders may have thought (and were likely led to believe) that this would perhaps be halted. We know that probably wouldn't have been the case, but certainly it wouldn't have taken the drastic downturn it did after Culloden.

[Bigkahuna]

"That was one of the things I found so fascinating as an 18th century reinactor. Once you have stood on a field and been on the receiving end of a full musket volly, even without any shot hitting your line, the impact is incredable! I can see how hard it was to stand and take that kind of punishment. We owe a great debt to all those who held the line."

I'm a member of the Lt. Col's Coy, 42nd Rgt of Ft. (as a Reenactor)... 7 Years War (F&I), and the War of the American Rebellion (RevWar). We have the honor and the awsome responsibility to portray and convey what the life of the average soldier was like to the general public.

The quest is to take the romance and fanfare out of the experience and get across the idea that these were real human beings whose sacrifices were driven by a variety of factors, who suffered the same passions and longings that we do as 21st century people.

I've always been told that we had family on both sides at Culloden Moor, and research has taken me back directly to the early 1760's in western Tennessee/Kentucky. A "Daddy John" may have been a realtive guiding the British line at Culloden, but research has yet to make an absolute connection.

Jim aka kiltiemon

Welcome Jim from a former Grenadier.

[Jack Daw]

According to my great-grandfather (who died in 1934) as told to my great uncle, my line of McIntyres are here because an ancestor was transported for having been a Jacobite at Culloden. I haven't been able to prove that yet through my genealogical research, but when I visited Culloden in 2003 and 2008 and stood where the Appin Stewarts stood, it made me wonder what it was like that day.

[MacMillan of Rathdown]

I'm not sure what you're asking. Are you creating a 'what-if' version of history? Suppose the Stuarts had succeeded in reclaiming the throne of Great Britain. The former king flees to the Continent and his son comes back much later, makes a celebrated landing in Wales (or maybe Cornwall) and rallies the Welsh to his father's standard. The Welsh eagerly take up arms, some believing their culture or way of life will be protected in the newly restored regime, or at least no longer subject to increased Anglicisation or maginalisation. When the Duke is later defeated and flees, these same Welsh are mercilessly put down, laws are created to prohibit many of their cultural trappings, and the Anglicisation and marginalisation of their society is 'stepped up a notch'. So, would I then say the Duke duped these Welshmen and used them to further his own ends? Yes.

I think you've missed the point-- it's not about "what if", but rather your stated position that due to the alleged vanity of one man-- presumably you mean Prince Charles or his father, the de jure King James-- the Scots (and some English and Irish as well) were duped into going to war. It seems to me that the suggestion that those who are defeated in any conflict are dupes is a rather, indeed extremely, cynical attitude as it either ignores or fails to take into consideration the deeply held convictions of those who rallied to the flag on both sides of the conflict. Their loyalty-- Hanovarian or Jacobite-- was a matter of genuine personal conviction, not the result of some confidence trick concocted in London or Paris.

The truth is, this Anglicisation and marginalisation of Highland culture had started long before 1707. Some Highlanders may have thought (and were likely led to believe) that this would perhaps be halted. We know that probably wouldn't have been the case, but certainly it wouldn't have taken the drastic downturn it did after Culloden.

I agree that with or without Culloden the traditional way of life in the 18th century Highlands was doomed to be dragged into the modern era, and that it was a process that had its roots firmly planted in the 16th century. In my opinion the Highland people of the 18th century could not have survived as they were simply because time had passed them by, leaving in its wake the inevitability of profound cultural change.

[Lachlan09]

I was led to believe the Government army saw off the Jacobite attacks and had them on the run all in well less than an hour.

John Prebble, in his definitive work, “Culloden”, opined that what the Government troops saw arrayed in front of them that morning was the last feudal army in Britain. He also suggested that the average Redcoat looking toward the Jacobite lines must have harboured a similar level of feelings of kinship and empathy to those of a 19th Century British redcoat facing a Zulu impi.