Culloden Aftermath: Slaughter in the Highlands - Stories of Scotland Podcast - Episode 49

[Music] hello and welcome to stories of scotland a podcast where we take a wonder through the glenns of scottish history mythology and nature i'm jenny an environmental scientist and i'm annie an archivist and historian last week we looked at the battle of gladden and we are returning again to look at the aftermath of this infamous battle if you haven't already listened it would be worth heading back and catching up now this episode does come with a warning it contains some very graphic accounts of the events and this is the first time i've had to mark an episode as being explicit i do think it's important that we tell the history of the aftermath of culloden in its entirety but there is a trigger warning with this episode we're going to include descriptions of violence murder and rape out of respect for the weight of the topics we're speaking about this week we're not going to have any of our usual humor in this episode but our next episode will be more lighthearted we promise but until then here's a quick recap of where we left off last episode we have two armies the jacobites under the command of bonnie prince charlie the mixed european prince from italy who along with his army of scottish clans scots irish and english soldiers is attempting to reclaim the british crown in the name of the house of stewart many of the jacobite troops are simply fighting because they oppose the act of union which has made them poorer as it has cut off key trading partners in europe a story as old as time on the other side at clardon we had the british government army commanded by the hanoverian king's youngest son the duke of cumberland with his win at claddin he hopes he has squashed the last hope of any stewart rule returning to the british throne and fully remove any competition for his family on the 16th of april 1746 these armies charged into battle at culloden but the war pipes and musket smoke didn't last long in less than an hour from the initial artillery being fired the jacobite forces were defeated and amongst the mayhem prince charles escaped and fled we'll be covering his journey through scotland in the next episode the pride victors of the battle of claddon are the hanoverian army but what they do to the already defeated enemy is truly horrific culloden is one of the most emotive places in the scottish highlands it really isn't about the battle itself but the aftermath that has shaped so much of highland life in the following centuries ultimately the aftermath of culloden is a story of power who can have it and who can't it becomes about power being taken away from the highland folks in far-reaching laws that prevent them from going back to their clan based communities but also in more intricate and subtle oppressions that strip them of the power of their traditions and culture it's a rough journey to look at the aftermath of culloden but it's also very important and it does help us to understand this place for me as someone who grew up in the highlands and has ancestry going back in the highlands it's one of the narratives that i can never forget about this land [Music] we're returning to dramati mur on the 16th of april 1746. the battle of clawden is over the sounds of cannon and war pipes are long gone we're faced with a scene of slaughter about 1500 jacobites have been killed in the battle and their bodies are left on the mirror the jacobite leader bonnie prince charlie has been led away from the battle by his guards to begin with let's talk a little bit about mercy jenny are you familiar with the military phrase to give no quarter surprisingly annie i am if an army is told to give no quarter it means to show no clemency or no mercy at all the victor isn't going to preserve any life or take any prisoners they want the enemy annihilated exactly there was a rumor that the jack by army had been told to give no quarter to the hanoverian troops had they won this is important to remember because the hanoverian troops instead have just won the battle of culladin and they are now being told that had the situation been reversed all of their wounded and surrendered troops would be killed but annie this is just a rumor so how accurate is it because it isn't in any of the archives of the jacobites the leader of the british government army the duke of cumberland told his troops officers and men be aware that the public order of the rebels yesterday was to give us no quarter but it isn't in any other public orders though so where did the juke get this from one of the leaders of the jack by army lord george murray had sent orders through a letter now this letter had been found in the pocket of a highland officer however the statement about giving no quality about giving no mercy at all was actually a crude forgery that had been added onto the letter if you speculate about it it could have easily been added by one of cumberland's officers so cumberland is telling his army that the jacobites would have given them no mercy so the hanoverians decide that the jacobite army also deserves no mercy either but this is based on a forgery a lie and reduces the honor of their enemy because if they're seen as barbarians then why not treat them so the british government army are out for revenge against the jacobite army to completely cut them down yes this is a feeling of the hanoverian army as they approached the wounded jacobites lying abandoned on colladen battlefield of which there were many the british army sat out and hunted the battlefield wounded with contempt and bloodlust we know the weapons that were used at culloden cannon artillery bayonets and muskets they do a tremendous deal of damage to the human body but they don't necessarily kill out right so jack about men with their limbs shattered or bodies maimed lay on colloden mirror surrounded by the sickening stench of death a general named henry hawley led the execution squads around dramossy murr to kill the wounded he ordered his men to bayonet any jacobites find alive rather than incur the expanse of musket powder that's how much their lives meant to them i feel this says so much about the hanoverian army that they can have an enemy defeated and still approach the wounded on the battlefield probably men slipping in and out of consciousness and choose an execution method that is based on cost efficiency for me this seems like a very symbolic foreshadowing of the atrocities that are to be committed on the highlands in the decades to come when i imagine the blood-soaked heather of clawden battlefield i think of these bayonets on wounded men as much as i think of those who died in combat an officer in the british army reported on this bud lust the moor was covered with blood and our men were killing the enemy dabbling their feet in the blood and splashing it about on one another our men looked more like butchers than christian soldiers it's just it's horrendous to imagine men splashing blood on each other like it's a game like it's an amusement i find this heartbreaking because the battle of claddin really divided scotland as a nation to the point that there would be family members on each side just in different armies with the inhumanity of the aftermath something is severed and you still feel it when you visit cladding even after 275 years the earth just feels sorrowful and you can tell that something really dark happened here and yet general hawley's efforts weren't complete because the government burial parties reported that many wounded jacobites remained on colloden murr when night set in slowly and painfully bleeding to death in the aftermath of culloden the men of the jacobite army were treated as sub-human the propaganda of the british government hanoverians completely dehumanized the highlanders within the jacobite army they were described as uncouth savages hungry wolves and bear arse banditi by dehumanizing the highlanders in this way the british government perhaps are trying to justify the brutalities that happen in the aftermath of culloden this is how they give grinds for the oppression of the gaels and highland folks with treatment that would otherwise be seen as completely morally depraved disgraceful and shameful they viewed the highlanders as lesser people sub-humans and treated them as so from those bleeding on the battlefield and through into the summer of 1746 hanoverian troops set to work and desolated the lives and the culture of the gales and highlanders we know a lot about what happened after culloden because a man named robert forbes risked everything to go around collecting first-hand accounts from witnesses who had seen this brutality in action he put this together in a collection called the lion in mourning jacobite memoirs the waxing crescent moon shone down on the gloaming twilight of the 16th of april some of the wounded highlanders around the battlefield are stripped by beggars warriors are left in blood and heather languishing in agony some managed to get themselves to sanctuaries bothers or shelters or nearby villages anywhere that they could hide let's briefly follow the story of one such soldier john fraser who was also known as john mciver had fought with the jacobites in the lovett regiment john fraser took a musket ball to his knee during the initial highland charge at culloden and fell wounded he couldn't retreat or escape when it was obvious that the jacobites had lost he was discovered by a rival clan campbell who had fought for the british government army they merrily robbed him and stripped him leaving him alive but severely wounded their clan rivalry and orders from cumberland enabled them to humiliate him under the cover of night he managed to drag himself down from dermate mirror towards the shelter of culloden house here he was given a little food and water but was in a miserable condition with his undressed wounds this sanctuary did not last long we know that 18 jacobite soldiers were found by the hanoverian burial parties in the shelter of claddon house three days after the battle ended john fraser or mackyver was amongst them these 18 men were bound with ropes and forced into a cart perhaps they imagined they would be taken away as prisoners however the cart stopped abruptly by a stone wall here they were put before a firing squad who told them to prepare for death many of the jacobite soldiers bowed their heads in prayer they were shot down from a range of two meters robert forbes writes that after the firing squad the soldiers were ordered to bash about the heads of anyone who showed any sign of life to beat their brains out john fraser was still breathing so a hand variant soldier struck him on the head with his musket breaking john's cheek nose and piercing his eye shockingly our john survived this second shooting and following beating and crawled out naked and bloody surrounded by the bodies of his fallen comrades he was spotted by a young noble lord boyd who was out riding on his horse after discovering that jon had fought in the jacobite army boyd should have reported him to the hanoverians but instead he took pity on the wounded soldier lord boyd offered him aid even offering him his own money john fraser refused the money but he did ask lord boyd to either take him to a nearby mill where he knew he would be safe hidden and could recover or to ask his servant to put an end to his miserable life lord boyd was shocked by the request yet also sick of the death that surrounded him and saw no need for any more blood spill he asked his servant to carry jon to safety inside the mill john hid under a kiln for three months as he recovered from his wounds when he came out of hiding local people saw him as a living reminder of the brutalities of culloden john fraser survived and his story is a dismal but an exceptional one when we look at the days after kaladin it's the attitude of the hanoverian soldiers that we see again and again that it's easier to kill their enemies than to take any prisoners or to give any pretense of justice or any mercy at all their approach to the survivors of culloden was one of no mercy and it extended more broadly to local highlanders this has been by far the darkest episode we've made but unfortunately the brutality continues you see the british government army weren't content with just destroying the jack by army they wanted to wreck and ravage the highlands so that highlanders could never rebel and threaten their power again and so in the summer of 1746 after cladding history witnesses cold-blooded and violent atrocities against the gaels and highland people the duke of cumberland the man whose officers committed these offences was known as sweet william by his supporters he was named as commander-in-chief of forces in scotland in july 1746 many believe the dainty star-shaped flower sweet william is named in his honour however his opponents would call him the butcher a name that is still used for him to this day highlanders themselves named a plant after him a poisonous wheat called the stinking willy which we know as ragwort [Music] the summer of 1746 was dreadful for the people of the highlands because of the actions of the duke of cumberland's forces cumberland's troops set about their cruel work to control the highlands from ever rising up against the british government again let's start with one of his subordinates major lockhart major lockhart was marching his troops out of fort william on the west coast into the territory of the grants of glen morriston on the road they saw two old men and one of their sons were working in a field quietly tending to their crops at this time of year they would maybe have been weeding this crop or tending to their cattle these three men were highland farmers working away and assuming that they were in no danger without hesitation lockhart's men shot them with no warning or reason then going further than this cold-flooded murder the troops decided to make these three farmers a symbol of the inferiority of highlanders and so they took their bodies and carried them to the nearby settlement where they hung them up by their feet on makeshift gallows the names of these murdered farmers were hugh fraser james fraser and john mcdonald james fraser was about 18 years old lockhart then decided to claim the cows belonging to grant of dundragon and told dundragon that they were going to take them as their own old man and dragon had been offered protection with a letter of indemnity and had been assured safety in his land he took this letter to the soldiers requesting his right to live a quiet undisturbed life with his cattle grant and the dragon had not fought at culloden and he was no jacobite and he had been offered immunity the cattle were taken nevertheless and because the cows took a long time to herd lockhart decided to humiliate dundragon the british troops stripped him naked tied him up and whipped him as he took him to view the corpses of the men killed earlier strung up by their feet grant of dundragon's wife was also taunted and humiliated as the troops robbed her of her clothes and stole the rings off her fingers as she tried to resist the troops stealing her rings they threatened to cut off her fingers lockhart got caught up in the killing frenzy and almost hung up grant of dundragon and his wife but one of the officers in his militia captain grant stepped up and intervened instead the british government soldiers looted the home of grant of dundragon of everything valuable and set it alight until it burnt to the ground their method of oppressing the highland folks was to leave them with nothing but trauma and pain it's despicable whole clarkens villages were burnt to ashes livestock stolen slaughtered or chased away it's suspected that many of the crimes against the people of the highlands by the british government troops under cumberland were never reported well i suppose when it's the troops of the government in charge who are the ones shooting looting and murdering you there's not really much hope in reporting the savage treatment that you're being subjected to one of the most difficult horrendous reports i've had was that of the woman isabelle mcdonald it describes that at the point where the river doe meets the river marviston in a dark waterfall isabelle macdonald was raped repeatedly by a group of soldiers i've not really got much information about isabel macdonald as a person she was simply described as a gentle woman which means that she would have been respected in her area she was married and of child bathing age a gallic speaker who probably wouldn't have spoken much english the main language of the british government troops she could have been any woman and and my heart just breaks for what she must have gone through her husband alexander mcdonald was forced to hide high in the heather and watch on as the violent attack took place in what must have been agony because the troops were so casual about killing men he would be shot if he was seen isabelle mcdonald wasn't the only woman to be forced to suffer this brutality catherine mcdonald in noidart was pregnant she was described in the records as being big with child catherine was raped and left on the ground as if for dad so many other women went through this who we don't have names for and so much of it was unreported when i was reading through the counts i had such a mixture of emotions there were tears in my eyes and i was furious i recognized these places spoken about and i hate to imagine what these people went through elspith macphail in gasque gave birth to a child the sunday before the battle she had a son she named him alexander a dragoon that's one of the mounted infantry troops picked up alexander by the lag and threw him about there's descriptions of wounded people being burnt alive when their homes were sat ablaze they even mentioned a woman during childbirth burning alive in her home the men women and children of the highlands were brutalized they were stripped of any useful clothing they had and left with rags their livestock were either stolen or driven away or slaughtered the folks of the highland were left with nothing many without shelter robbed of their livelihoods and their futures and left to beg i i really want to give you some kind of words of hope here um but i'm not sure i can quite muster them these were tragic and violent times many people murdered raped and enduring a great trauma and dreadful persecutions but the gaels and highlanders they endured they kept their culture they held onto it i have so much respect for people who are able to keep hold of their culture something so precious after experiencing such violence against their whole community and it's because of these people that endured this and managed to take this treasure with them their languages and cultures and traditions of the highlands these still live on and they are the lifeblood of this place no amount of persecution from cumberland's troops made people forget who they are for me that is that is very special [Music] in the months and years after cologne the british government tried to decimate the structures of highland culture and society the clan chiefs were stripped of their legal powers and jacobite estates were seized by the crown the government understood the power of the land it became forbidden for clansmen to bear weapons and the kilt and tartan were banned from being worn the gaelic language already outlawed became deeply suppressed english became the only language of power whereas gaelic was silenced the butchery of the traditional gaelic ways of life left many rural communities in crisis with increasingly unstable and bleak futures the colossal persecutions of gaelic happened in classrooms over a century after colladen where english was established as the language of education and the educated gaelic the native language of the gales the folks of the highlands was pushed into the privacy of the home in school in the highlands i remember being taught about the battle of culloden and empathy for those men who died but i was still taught this in english and garlic is something that i later had to learn as an adult before i became interested in scottish history i had this misconception that culloden was just another battle that we lost to the english but cladding was so much more than that its repercussions still ripple through all of scotland to this day 275 years on i grew up on a kind of half croft in noon noon is only about 10 miles away from culladen battlefield and so i saw this place and all of its kind of multi-layered meanings to the people that live here enough to be able to internalize these complex narratives of the battlefield well as much of these narratives that a child or a teenager could understand i left the highlands age 17 um but this this place has always really suckled at my identity moving back to the highlands was really strange for me aged about 27 and i still feel kind of simultaneously too close to the trauma of the highlands yet strangely alienated from the culture there's this persistent shame that comes from not having native gaelic as though i was born with two tongues and swallowed one and i have to pay for evening classes to get the gallic one back the desolate battlefield is the artery connecting people to the heritage of the highlands it's the final punctuation on the highland way of life so much of highland history is divided with the words before colladen and after i really want to emphasize that the highlands have a future beyond all of this i think it's quite easy to see clad in battlefield as a site of dark tourism because people go there to remember the tragedies and deaths of 1746 and we shared the stories of trauma that happened across the highlands because it's important to remember that this whole region was dreadfully persecuted after culloden however this whole land isn't just a place for remembering tragedy it's a place for people to live and dream and to visit and enjoy and a place where we want to have a future a good future and a happy future that's remembering and respecting the past but also making something that's bright and beautiful and happy for the next generation to honor the people of the highlands who came before us and who 275 years ago went through torment to be able to just stay in this place i want to look forward to make this a place where people can have a real future now justice for the highlands means opportunities for people here for young folks to be able to stay here to have the chance to get a good job and affordable housing just these really basic things that mean people can make lives here yeah and i think as someone who has moved up here and is working and making life up here i think that it's definitely moving in the right direction but it's so so important for people that do come up like me with these uh misconceptions and misunderstandings of the past to learn and to educate ourselves and and respect the land that we live and work upon and so we would like to thank you all for listening and remembering the people of the highlands in the aftermath of culloden and for sharing our hopes that the highlands become a place where there's as much of a bright future as there is a tragic past we'd like to thank everyone who's supported us in making this podcast especially our patreons we'll do some shout outs for new members in the next episode which is less heartbreaking and we'll follow bonnie prince charlie as he escaped from the battle of killardin and the path that he took slander island [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Stories of Scotland

Views: 24,241

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Id: WWn5mLmUiyU

Length: 30min 26sec (1826 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 30 2021