THE GHOSTS OF CULLODEN
Analysis of Scotland‟s history, culture and character would not be complete without considering the battle of Culloden Moor, one of Scotland and Great Britain‟s pivotal moments. The Jacobite army of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the majority consisting of Catholic and Episcopalian Highland Scots, retreated in the face of a government Hanoverian army under William, Duke of Cumberland. The “Bonnie Prince Charlie” had led a successful campaign as far south as Derby in an effort to regain the Scottish and English crown in the name of his deposed Stuart predecessors; but misinformation about a larger government counter attack convinced Charles‟ commanders to demand a retreat back to Scotland. Charles finally turned his roughly 6,000 and decreasing Jacobite force to face Cumberlands nearly7,000 on the open Culloden Moor;
and after a failed night attack on the government camp, both sides drew up battle lines on the sixteenth of April, 1746. After suffering through superior government artillery fire, the exhausted and poorly equipped highlanders attempted a “Highland charge” at Cumberland‟s lines,
only to be cut to pieces by musket fire and the new British tactic of bayoneting the exposed opponent on the right.
As Duke William released his light cavalry on the retreating Jacobites, the Bonnie Prince fled into hiding in the heather, then on to a boat for Europe. Those fleeing Jacobites not killed by Cumberland‟s dragoons found little quarte rafter the battle, as the remainder were hunted into the highlands, imprisoned, executed, or shipped to the corners of the British Empire. As many clan chieftains swore new fealty to George II, the clan system on which their society operated was systematically decommissioned, while the chiefs and landholders were encouraged to replace many of their tenants with sheep.
Many of the tartan colors and patterns that Charles‟ Jacobite highlanders adopted were outlawed, as were certain “rebellious” bagpipe tunes. The wild Gaelic north ceased to exist, and the last major uprising against the ruling British government was crushed. Traditional western culture remembers this last battle on British soil as the end of Scotland‟s long history of fighting for its independence, with the hero of the kilted Scottish clansman buried in Culloden‟s bloody soil.
In a way, this rings true; but the political facts state that Charles Stuart sought the throne of England, and by implication that of Scotland as well, not Scottish independence. The prince traced his ancestry and right to rule back to James Stuart VI of Scotland, who assumed the throne of England in 1601 and issued the Union of the Crowns two years later to permanently join the royal authority of both kingdoms.
Stuart authority ended in 1688 when the “Glorious Revolution” deposed the Catholic James II in favor of the Protestant William of Orange. Under the following reign of
Queen Anne, the Scottish Parliament built upon their English counterparts‟ Union of
Scotland Act and passed the Act of Union in 1707.
Meant to alleviate the financial crises Scotland faced at that time, the act erased the political frontier between Scotland and England, combining the two entities and bringing them under one monarch and one parliament. The political boundary that had separated Scotland from her British neighbors, the same boundary over which the Scottish and English crowns had developed a cultural and political history of rivalry, disappeared, at least on paper. The last remnants of the political border between the two kingdoms, the same border that had formed the pretense for the Scottish Wars of Independence, dissolved under the consent of Scotland‟s own government; but the cultural, economic and religious borders remained. James II‟s deposition rested heavily on his unwillingness to convert from Catholicism, causing serious problems between his Protestant subjects and within his position as head of the Church of England. In Scotland, the line of contestation between Catholicism and the Church of Scotland formed a new border, between the Presbyterian south and mixed Catholic-Episcopalian North.
If you are interested in the Carruthers who fought at Cullodeen, please follow this link: https://clancarruthers228187931.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/kings-own-scottish-regiment-carruthers-fought-at-culloden-clan-carruthers-ccis/
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He was assigned to be on the Battleship U.S.S. Shaw
On 9 October 1918, while escorting Aquitania, Shaw’s rudder jammed just as she was completing the right leg of a zigzag, leaving her headed directly towards the transport. A moment later, Aquitania struck Shaw, cutting off 90 feet of the destroyer’s bow, mangling her bridge and setting her on fire. Shaw
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