Why the Battle of Culloden probably wasn't what you think

on this sport on the 16th of April 1746 the Jacobite Army began the last charge of a doomed campaign this is Culloden Moore and it might be the saddest place I've ever been it maybe lives largest in a particular part of the Scottish psyche because of what was ultimately lost here but maybe not in the way you think welcome to Scotland unplugged and the story of the Battle of Culloden if you read the memorial stone here you'll see it refers to the Highlanders who fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie and for Scotland and you'd be forgiven for thinking it was that clear-cut but the truth is a lot more complicated the people fighting on the Jacobite site weren't just Highlanders they were lowlanders French Italian Irish and yes English just as they were English Irish Welsh Hanoverian Dutch Scottish lowland and Scottish Highland troops in the government Army the two sides arrived at Culloden on the morning of the 16th of April 1746. these blue flags like the one behind me Mark the Jacobite front line with the red flags in front marking the government light as from here that they fired the first cannon shots of the battle the Jacobite site had marched through the night trying to surprise the government troops and Nairn they hadn't eaten or slept for days and some of them had actually wandered off looking for food and shelter on the other side the government Army led by William Augustus Duke of Cumberland was well fed well-rested and well drilled Lord George Murray one of the officers on the Jacobite site was heard saying that they were putting to an end a bad business things must have seemed so much brighter eight months earlier on the 19th of August 1745 Charles Edward Stewart had raised his father James Stewart's Royal Standard Glenn finnen Force had arrived it was big enough to allow him to march on Edinburgh the stewards had lost the Throne of Scotland and England and Ireland for among other things being Catholic and now the house of Hanover were in charge with George II on the throne Charles had been made Prince Regent and given complete authority to act on his father's behalf because he was young dashing probably more of a PR draw probably likely to pick up more support they didn't just want the Throne of Scotland back though they wanted the lot the stewards believed in the divine right of kings that they were put there by God or maybe in this case that they'd be put back there by God their ancestor James the first of England and James VI of Scotland said the state of monarchy as the supremist thing upon Earth for kings are not only God's left tenants upon Earth and set upon God's throne but even by God himself they are called gods that's a bit of a chip for anyone to have on their shoulder Charles arrived in Edinburgh on the 17th of September with 2400 men and here's where he had a stroke of luck he was helped out by the British commander General Sir John cope who had marched to Inverness leaving behind an open goal and by someone unknown letting his army through the city Gates the city was surrounded by walls at the time you can still see the remains of them in some places like grayfriar Cemetery just Marching In would have been a bit of a tall order without help as thought he may have had help from a sympathetic Lord Provost the Army marched through the streets without finding a short the thing is the stewards weren't popular with everyone particularly anyone who'd been a covenanter or related to covenanter during the killing times of the 17th century they weren't so keen on religious freedom when John cope realized it marched in the wrong direction he hurried back south by sea trying to beat the jacobites by landing at Leith realizing it was too late he landed at the bar Charles assembled his army in doddingston Village holding Council in this house which when I turned up was being painted by a man who proudly told me he was English this is the 1722 wagon way just outside pressed and pans and he slowed in on the morning of the 21st of September the two forces met here at the Battle of Preston pans just before 1pm on the 20th of September General cope and his army arrived on the far side of the field behind me they moved around these fields several times during the day trying to work out where the jacobites were coming from Corp expected them to come from the south his trip spent the night in the field on this side of the Wagon Wheel they were so anxious to be ready for battle they didn't even pitch their tents cope was confident he had an army of 2500 troops but his infantry actually lacked experience some of them spent a lot of their time building roads on the other side Charles wanted to attack immediately but his Commander Lord Murray wanted to wait the resulting argument is thought to have driven a serious wedge between the two and had massive ramifications further down the line on the morning of the 21st the drumbeat sounded furiously and the Army gathered up facing to the South unfortunately the jacobites had marched around to the East and were actually coming from that direction Corp tried to turn his army but the jacobites were too fast they formed a line as quickly as they could and charged the Highland charge was their secret weapon and this is where money was the expert the Highlanders would search forward find a volley of shorts from muskets or Epistles then drop the guns and begin the Run screaming and hurling abuse at their enemies They Carried charges Shields sometimes with spikes on them guns were fairly Advanced but they couldn't be fired quickly and combat often ended up close up personal the shields could be used to fend off swords or BNS sometimes in the same hand they'd hold a knife or a dirk and use it to rake across their enemy then hack with a sword or an ax in the other hand the horsemen in Cope's Army there were 600 of them were spooked by the charge and turned back towards the town that left the red coat infantry as setting Ducks after putting up a fight for as long as they could their line was shattered and they fled back across this wagon way scattering the jacobites had won their first battle easily and Charles returned to Edinburgh taking government gold recovered from a nearby house with him he held Court in Hollywood Palace until October but he never took Edinburgh Castle which is just at the other end of the royal mile it was and still is a military base and would have been garrisoned with government trips we met close for comfort the Jacobite Army camped out in Hollywood Park just beyond the line of fire but there was no resting what a lot of the jacobites really wanted was the unwinding of the active Union between the Scottish and English parliaments that was kind of a non-negotiable to say they all wanted the same things would be to oversimplify it in fact they wanted some quite different things despite the stewards being Catholic for example only 25 percent of the forces thought to have actually been Catholic some of them would have been fighting for loyalty to the stewards but some would have been there because they've been told to by Clan Chiefs Charles was determined to get to London in October the French had landed money weapons and an Envoy suggesting they were giving their backing but there were concerns some of the Scots were worried about Charlie's autocratic Style they were also concerned that he was unduly influenced by some of his Irish officers they established a Prince's Council but that went down like a lead balloon eventually Mr Divine Right persuaded them that they needed to invade England in November 6 000 jacobites marched South no doubt bolstered by captured gold Carlisle was the first to surrender on the 10th by the 21st they'd reached penrath then Preston then Manchester they got as far as swartston bridge near Darby but things weren't going quite as expected Charles thought the English jacobits would naturally rally to his cause why wouldn't they but that support didn't materialize and neither did the French support he'd promised Charles was angry but admitted that he hadn't heard anything from any English Jacobite since leaving France not something he'd fessed up to before people started to lose Faith he'd laid them down the Garden Path how could they trust him they left Derbyshire on the 6th of December they met the front line of the government force on cleft and myrrh on the 18th but won the resulting Skirmish and carried on marching North they rested up in Glasgow over Christmas then marched for Sterling where they tried to take the castle but the British artillery was too strong to allow them to get anywhere near close enough the Government tried to relieve the castle and that resulted in a victory for the jacobites at the Battle of Falkirk Muir it's thought they could have pressed on South again but there were reports of desertion that were born out of proportion and with the wrong intelligence they chose to retreat North to what they thought with safety Enter Prince William Augustus Duke of Cumberland and favorite son of the king Cumberland had been fighting in the Austrian war of succession and was recalled to put down the Rebellion he marched his own Army North and put them into training a lot of it was based on bayonet technique on April the 16th the two armies reached collod and myrrh the night before had been cumberland's birthday and to celebrate and to keep himself in the good books he'd allowed his army to rest up and given them some booze when word got back to the jacobites Charles thought he could use this to their advantage and ordered a night March I said at the beginning that the Jacobite Army weren't all Highlanders some of them were from the Irish brigades or the French echo says well-drilled professional soldiers but they weren't used to the terrain there's some evidence to say the Highlanders could have made the night Marsh to nirn but they had to keep doubling back and waiting tactically this was the wrong place to fight supposedly there was a standoff between John O'Sullivan one of Charles's Irish commanders and Lord George Murray O'Sullivan held just a wee bit more sway over the prince he'd chosen the ground and money didn't approve it's Marty ground the Highland charge was an infamous thing but it worked best and confined spaces or downhill where speed had the advantage over Firepower here the ground was open and on one side it wasn't much more than a bog it was also suggested that the walls on the right should be pulled down they gave too much of a chance for snipers or anyone who wanted to hide behind there the two sides faced each other Charles ordered his men to stand and wait for the Duke of cumberland's advance but that didn't happen Lord buddy a British officer rode forward to inspect the Jacobite guns and someone let off the first cannon fire the British artillery responded the jacobites had guns but their supplies were a mess in some cases they didn't even have the right ammunition the government pounded them with cannonballs the Jacobite Frontline were exposed waiting Charles had given orders to say that he and only he was in command but unlike his clan Chiefs he wouldn't ride forward and Lead his army people were killed maimed disemboweled Charles ordered Lachlan McLachlan to ride forward and order the advance but when he did he was decapitated when the order finally got out and the front line Advanced it was right into musket fire and grape shot smaller balls fired from canisters with cannons that cut through flesh and Bone when they reached this point they fired one volley with their muskets and pistols the ones that worked dropped them and began their final run it's hard to picture what that must have been like charging towards those red flags that aren't actually that far away but through a hill of lead musket fire seeing your friends cut down beside you and knowing you just had to keep on going when they reached the government bayonets Cumberland had a surprise waiting for them he trained his man not to attack the man in front who was blocked by a targe but to go for the man to the right and catch him off guard a wedge of jacobites cut through the front line and there was a second line waiting for them Sir Robert Rich a government officer lost a hand trying to hold on to his standard but the jacobites were surrounded on three sides now Lord George's horse bolted dragging him right through the government lines somehow he got away with it but he had to run back to join his own men those that could eventually run but the walls O'Sullivan had refused to tear down had been torn down by government troops to allow their Cavalry to cross and threaten the rear of the Jacobite Force when some of the jacobites inevitably retreated they were waiting for them with muskets it was wholesale Slaughter 1500 to 2 000 jacobites were killed or injured as opposed to around 300 on behind a video Insight Cumberland marched his troops forward to the Jacobite line where I'm standing now then cut them loose giving them carte blanche to do what they wanted a hundred or so people not just men were killed on the road back to Inverness it was said that Charles had ordered No Quarter to be given to the government side though this is thought to have been based on a forgery Cumberland used it to his full advantage and his troops scored the battlefield looking for dying men and killing them this place is a battlefield but it's also a war grave as marked out by the Stones the men in the front line those that survived scattered and ran the second line left the battlefield with Charles and headed north money led a grip to Rothman intending to fight but Charles got the wrong end of this deck assumed he'd been betrayed and abandoned the cause he head out on the Moors then slowly made his way back to the Hebrides aided by loyal Highlanders none of whom turned them in despite the thirty thousand pound reward others didn't fare so well in the weeks that followed a further thousand jacobites were hunted down and killed by William Augustus who earned himself the title Butcher of Cumberland the following year the act of prescription was passed the wearing of Celts in Tartan was banned in most Highland counties unless you were a clan Chief female or in the British army 35 years later when it was finally allowed again most people had lost interest teaching in gallic was also banned as was the playing of bagpipes the way of life and the clan system were essentially gone and the Chiefs who'd once been responsible for the people on their land now saw them as being in the way between the 18th and 19th centuries it's estimated that 70 000 people were forced from the land to make way for sheep which were more profitable it's a dark period in Scottish history but it's also the reason so many people throughout the world have Scottish roots and so many of you out there watching this are in different places Bonnie Prince Charlie lived out his days in a bit of denial eventually becoming an alcoholic and dying in Rome he's become a sort of symbol of the Glorious art of Scottish failure anyone who's ever seen us play football knows all about that and the thumbnail of my last video I posed a question hero or zero it's worth noting that he was never known as Bonnie Prince Charlie in his lifetime but either the young Chevalier or the young Pretender depending what side you buttered your bread on he was bold I'll give him that he wasn't someone that listened to advice even when it was good regardless of the cost as job qualifications go boldness and divine right aren't the best combo it doesn't really Stack Up in 2023 it has shifted a lot of shortbread though I said at the beginning that I wanted to go to collodion for years and it's taken a week while to sink in it definitely doesn't disappoint if you get the chance to go there you should and if you do go you'll find a lot of the real heroes are still there [Music] foreign 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Channel: Scotland Unplugged

Views: 142,307

Keywords: Scotland, History, Scotland history tours, Thoughty2, scottish history, things to do in Scotland, Scottish travel, Hoof GP’s Brother, Hoof GP, Edinburgh, historic landmarks, Scottish scenery, Culloden, Outlander, Outlander History, Charles Edward Stuart, Stuarts, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Butcher Cumberland, Real Outlander, Hanoverian, Redcoats, Battle, Culloden Battlefield, Jacobite, 1745, 1746, Battle of Culloden, Battle of Prestonpans, Swarkstone Bridge, Highlands, Inverness, The '45

Id: mw39IuE4jwM

Length: 18min 48sec (1128 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 15 2023