Jeremy Black MBE is a prolific and respected historian who’s written mostly, but not solely, about 18th century history. This is a large format book in the series of Illustrated History Paperbacks from Sutton Publishing but it isn’t a balmy coffee-table read; it is a dense and detailed account of this key event in British history.

In a sense you have to go back to the Civil Wars to understand the Jacobite Uprising of 1745; taking the long view, as far back as the Reformation. Thus:

The Reformation 1517

In 1517 the monk Martin Luther nailed to a church door in Germany a set of ‘theses’ which attacked the social and theological corruption of the Roman Catholic church. He was the right man in the right place at the right time, for his theological attack crystallised a century or more of opposition to the Catholic church’s elaborate medieval theology, his attack on the church’s corruption (demanding money for ‘indulgences’ – in effect, charging people to get into heaven) attracted social reformers, and the political uproar he caused suited many rulers of German’s numerous little states who seized it as an opportunity to throw off political domination of Catholic emperors and declare their theological and political independence. Within a generation what became known as ‘the Reformation’ spread across Europe, inextricably intertwining politics with theology and creating two armed camps, of Protestants and Catholics.

The Reformation in England and Scotland 1530s and 1540s

The Reformation caused mayhem in England where King Henry VIII seized the opportunity to use the new theology as a pretext to overthrow the authority of the pope and make himself supreme ruler, coincidentally allowing himself to shut down the nation’s rich monasteries and convents and seize their riches.

His successors – Edward, Mary and Elizabeth – managed this turbulent legacy of religious and political dissension as best they could, Elizabeth more or less stabilising the conflicting views of theologians in a media via or compromise position which came to characterise the Church of England.

Scotland underwent its own version of the Reformation which was much more hardline in nature – briefly this meant the Scots rejected the rule of bishops in the church (seeing them as appointees of the king not of God) and adopting Calvin’s version of Protestantism, which emphasised God’s foreknowledge and the idea that all our lives are predestined. (In contrast to the Catholic view that, if you sin you can say confession and be forgiven by a priest or buy ‘indulgences’ or pay for masses to be said to save your soul or generally buy forgiveness and entrance to heaven, Protestants from Luther down emphasise the idea that all of us are irretrievably damned and can do nothing to save ourselves; only the love of God can save us, only his ‘amazing grace’ offers any hope of forgiveness.)

The British Civil Wars 1637-49

When Elizabeth I died she left no heir and Parliament invited King James VI of Scotland to come down and become King James I of England. James had survived the poisonous machinations of the Scottish court of his childhood and so was well-prepared to enter the equally complex web of post-Elizabethan power politics and theological conflict.

However, James brought his son, Charles I, up to be a modern European monarch and to believe in the Divine Right of Kings. This was a mistake for, when Charles I inherited the throne in 1625, his high-handed, aristocratic and dangerously Catholic views alienated a diverse range of his subjects. Businessmen were frustrated that he awarded monopolies on foreign trade to court favourites. Lawyers and politicians were offended by his high-handed way with Parliament, which he eventually suspended for blocking all his plans and laws. And the party of ‘Puritans’ – people from all walks of life who believed that Elizabeth’s Church of England was a sinful compromise with worldly authority – were scandalised when Charles I married a Catholic Queen, Henrietta Maria. Even worse, Charles I allowed her to have a Catholic priest and to attend Mass in Whitehall, which rumour implied that Charles I himself sometimes attended! Meanwhile, he made himself very unpopular by reintroducing the altar rail, images, singing and other ‘Catholic trumpery’ into the Church of England.

In 1637 Charles I made the bad mistake of trying to impose a new, more ‘Anglican’ Prayer Book on the church in Scotland. There was a popular rebellion against the ‘Popish innovations’, a movement quickly seized hold of by dissident aristocrats. Charles I ordered a ramshackle English force to enter Scotland and impose his Prayer Book, but to everyone’s surprise it was defeated by a better organised Scottish army which forced the English back across the border and then marched south and seized Newcastle. Charles I was forced to recall his hated Parliament which, instead of voting him the money he needed to prosecute the war, set about renewing all the demands for political, economic and religious reform which had made him shut it down in the first place. And many Parliamentarians started corresponding on friendly terms with the Scots Presbyterians, with whom they shared Puritan values.

King Charles I painted by Sir Anthony van Dyck. It all starts with his ineptitude.

Charles I recalled his most effective minister, the Earl of Strafford, from Ireland to consult on plans, but this in turn gave the rebellious Irish the opportunity to rise up and storm the English settlements in the Pale of Dublin, driving many Protestants into the sea. Exaggerated stories of atrocities played into the hands of Puritan propagandists, who could present the attacks from Ireland and Scotland as part of a coordinated plan to overthrow Protestant rule in England. When Charles I attempted to arrest his leading critics in Parliament – and failed; forewarned, they had fled London – he realised he had stepped over a line. He withdrew with his court and supporters to Oxford, raised his standard, and the countries of England, Ireland and Scotland were plunged into an intertwined and very complicated series of wars.

The Commonwealth 1649-60

Briefly, after three separate wars (in England alone) beside the campaigns in Scotland and Ireland, and a maze of negotiation, Charles I was captured, put on trial and executed in January 1649, his wife and sons, the future Charles II and James II, having long ago fled to France. For 11 long years they languished in exile, hosted by a French king eager to foment rebellion in Britain, hatching innumerable failed plots for their return.

This was to become the pattern of behaviour for the next hundred years of what Black pithily titles The Wars of British Succession.

The Restoration 1660

Oliver Cromwell had risen to the top of the pile in republican Britain and, following Charles I’s execution, led successful military campaigns to quell first the Scots then the Irish. He ruled as ‘Lord Protector’ from 1653 to his death in 1658. His son, Richard, inherited the position, but had none of his father’s skills or connections and within a year the republic crumbled away, and influential soldiers decided the only way to avert anarchy was to restore the monarchy and invite Prince Charles back to become King Charles II.

Surprisingly maybe, Charles II returned a hero to great jubilation and wine flowed in the street. He became infamous for having numerous mistresses, holding drunken parties and gained the nickname ‘the Merry Monarch’. Charles II was careful to put the royal imprimatur on all sorts of organisations, from the Royal Society to the Royal Academy, the Royal Observatory, as well as instituting Derby Day, sailing at Cowes and other popular leisure activities. BBC surveys and the like report that he is one of the best-known and most popular English kings.

On a more serious note, the restored Parliament persecuted many of the leaders of the old Puritan regime, as well as anyone who refused to ‘conform’ to the new, strict Church of England. These ‘non-conformists’ as they became known, were often imprisoned, where many died. Those who could afford to emigrated to America, such as the Quaker William Penn who founded Pennsylvania in America.

King Charles II painted by John Riley. Dissolute and profligate but determined never to go on his ‘wanderings’ again, Charles  II managed Britain’s affairs better than his father.

Stuart kings and the Catholic issue

More serious still were persistent rumours that Charles II had become a Catholic while living in France and was doing secret deals with the French king Louis XIV. Worst of all, Charles II’s younger brother, James, publicly announced he was a Catholic. There was much opposition to this from traditional Anglicans, and it led to the Exclusion Crisis of 1679-81 when Parliament tried to pass a bill excluding James from the succession because of his Catholicism. Charles II eventually overcame the crisis but it was followed by the Rye House Plot of 1683, a conspiracy to assassinate Charles II and Prince James. There was serious, high-level opposition to the notion of England being ruled by a Catholic.

This wasn’t prejudice or bigotry. From the street to the pages of leading philosophers, Catholicism was associated with despotism and tyranny. The Catholic Church was known for its terrifying Inquisition, tainted by its association with the Spanish conquistadors wars of extermination in the new World. Long memories harkened back to the rule of ‘Bloody’ Mary Tudor, England’s only Catholic ruler who managed to burn alive 300 Protestant clerics during her short reign (1553-58). On the continent England’s great foe, France, was led by an all-powerful king who used the Catholic church to stifle debate and crush opponents. Since Henry VIII’s time the English had spent 150 years defining themselves as virtuous protestants surrounded by Catholic enemies, not forgetting the rebellious population of John Bull’s other island, Ireland to the west. The idea of allowing one of these tyrants, Papists, heretics, torturers and despots to become king of England alienated the majority of the population.

James II learned nothing from his father’s folly or his brother’s cunning. His Catholic allegiance and personal arrogance led to his overthrow and 80 years of Jacobite unrest.

When Charles II died in 1685 his brother James succeeded him to the throne, becoming James II, with the grudging acquiescence of many Anglican aristocrats, and the overt opposition of many. Almost immediately one of Charles II’s many illegitimate sons, the Duke of Monmouth, led a sizeable rebellion in the West Country, calling on his countrymen to rise up and overthrow the Catholic ‘tyrant’. The powers-that-be rallied round the legitimate ruler and the Monmouth Rebellion was crushed at the Battle of Sedgemoor in July 1685.

But three short years later James, like his father before him, had managed to alienate key numbers of the ruling classes. The decisive moment came when a son was born by his second – Catholic – wife, Mary of Modena, and James let it be known that this heir to the throne would be baptised a Catholic. The powers-that-be decided that something had to be done. James’s sister, Mary, had married the leading European soldier, William Prince of Orange, an impeccably Protestant ruler who was almost permanently at war with his neighbour Catholic France.

The Glorious Revolution 1688

The ‘immortal seven’ formally invited Mary and her husband William to come and adopt the throne. William accepted and sailed to England with an invasion force which landed at Brixham on the south-west coast on 5 November 1688. He marched with is army towards London, while all James’s best generals defected to his side. James was allowed to flee to France – it was infinitely better to pain him as having absconded and in effect abdicated than to create a martyr in battle, let alone – by far the worst option – capture him and hold some kind of grotesque trial. The throne was William’s.

King William III painted by Thomas Murray. He was invited to become king of England by virtue of his mother, Mary, being daughter of Charles I, and his wife, also a Mary, being the daughter of his uncle, James II. And because he was a good Protestant, which he proved by his lifelong war with Catholic France.

He set about quelling James’s supporters in Scotland then moved onto Ireland which had risen up against its English oppressors. Here William won the Battle of Boyne on 1 July 1690 against James leading Irish and French forces, going on to retake Dublin. To this day, the Orangemen in Northern Ireland celebrate the Battle of Boyne every year during the so-called marching season. James returned to France where he, his son and grandson were to spend the next 70 years plotting their return.

Dubious successions to the British crown

From the start the Jacobites were just one among the kaleidoscope of forces, parties and causes swirling round 18th century Europe. The French offered James assistance to invade in 1692, 1696 and 1708. The latter is significant. In 1707 the English government bribed key Scottish nobles to agree to an Act of Union between England and Scotland to create ‘Great Britain’. The Act was very unpopular across most of Scotland and so the French despatched an army to Scotland led by James. However, most of the fleet was intercepted by the Royal Navy, only a handful of ships making it to the Scottish coast where they decided not to bother landing.

In 1702 King William died, his wife having died before him. Parliament had foreseen this and passed an act providing for the succession of Mary’s sister Anne (daughter of the exiled James but raised a good Protestant), herself married to Prince George of Denmark. Despite 17 pregnancies (!) she had no living children and died childless in 1714.

Once again parliament had foreseen this outcome and passed over no fewer than 50 closer relatives (but who were all Catholics) to alight on the Electress Sophia of Hanover, who was a descendant of Charles I. Unfortunately, she had died a few months before Anne and so the crown passed to her son, George, Elector of Hanover, who became George I of Great Britain.

King George I painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller

The rebellion of 1715

The following year, while George was still settling in, there was a major and co-ordinated Jacobite uprising. James II had died in 1701 handing on his claim to the throne to his son (the one whose birth prompted the Glorious Revolution back in 1688) James Francis Edward. The Earl of Mar led an uprising in the Highlands which secured the north of Scotland; the government in England made pre-emptive arrests of Jacobite leaders which prevented an uprising in central England, and sent troops to Bristol, Southampton, Plymouth and Oxford to deter rebels; but Jacobite forces rallied in Northumberland and initially won battles. Only slowly did British forces in Scotland and the North of England win back the initiative and by the time James Edward Stuart arrived from France it was too late. After decisive government victories he sailed back to France to brood and plot like his father and his uncle before him.

The Spanish invasion 1719

From Charles II’s escape through to the last days of Bonny Prince Charlie (for well over 100 years), France was the bolthole and main supporter of the Jacobite cause. The exception which proves the rule was a single attempt by Spanish forces to land in Scotland and raise the Jacobites in March 1719. As usual, the same ‘Protestant wind’ which had wrought havoc on the Armada of 1588 was on hand to damage and disperse the Spanish fleet. Most were too damaged and dispersed to continue, but a small contingent of 300 Spanish got through to form the nucleus of a Jacobite force which fought the Hanoverian army at the Battle of Glenshiel. They were thrashed, the Spanish surrendering, the Highlanders melting away to their mountain homes to scheme and plot anew.

The Atterbury invasion Plot 1722

Jacobites continued to hold high office in Georgian England. The country itself was badly divided between Tories (the party of country and Church of England) and Whigs (mercantilists and soldiers, anti-Catholic, anti-Stuart defenders of the Hanoverian succession). There was a tendency for anybody grumbling about the state of the country to be labelled a Jacobite, as well as a tendency for drunks, rioters and trouble makers to drunkenly call for the restoration of the ‘true king’. For several generations Jacobitism was a permanent part of the political landscape, used by all sides as excuse, rallying cry, fig leaf or threat.

The Atterbury plot was a conspiracy led by Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester along with other leading Jacobites, the accusation being that they were planning to support a French-backed invasion in 1722. Government spies revealed the plot which led to the ringleaders being thrown into the Tower or fleeing, as so often, to France, the Old Enemy. Only one relatively minor figure was found guilty of treason and hanged, drawn and quartered.

The 1744 invasion

From the time of the British Civil Wars onwards, most of these events can only be fully understood in the context of the never-ending conflicts in Europe. The nations of Europe were almost permanently at war, in a bewilderingly complex maze of alliance and counter-alliance. Many of the wars were disputes about who had the right to succeed to contested thrones (The War of Spanish Succession 1701-14, the War of Austrian Succession 1740-48). In the latter Britain was at war with France’s ally Spain and it was only a matter of time before France and Britain went to war (again), which they did in 1744. This prompted the French to consider a quick knockout invasion of Britain and King Louis XV ordered his ministers to draw up an attack to be launched from Dunkirk. They contacted James II’s son, James Francis Edward Stuart (the ‘Old Pretender’ as he became known) and planned to make a lightning invasion on the south coast, march on London and restore James to the throne, thus securing Britain as a Catholic client state for France. The French government chose to believe Jacobite claims that a large part of the population and leading nobles would rise up for their ‘rightful king’.

The French gathered forces of around 10,000 and embarked them in February 1744. But once again bad weather played the decisive role and in fierce storms 12 French transport ships were sunk, seven going down with all hands, the others were badly damaged and limped back to Dunkirk. The main French fleet was also badly mauled whereas the British ships had stayed in harbour and escaped the worst of the storms. The French – as so often – called off the invasion and the troops were packed off to umpteen other battlefields on land. Needless to say, the Old Pretender and his Jacobite followers were bitterly disappointed.

The ’45

The next year the Old Pretender’s son (and so James II’s grandson), Charles Edward Stuart, aged just 24 and recently appointed Prince Regent by his father, decided to take matters into his own hands. He commissioned two ships and sailed to Scotland. As usual he hoped for French support and as usual the French fleet was mauled by storms and never showed up. So Charles Stuart, or Bonny Prince Charlie as he became known to posterity, landed at Eriskay on 23 July 1745 with just seven companions. They roused the Highland chiefs and marched on Edinburgh whose governor quickly surrendered. On 21 September 1745 the Jacobites defeated the only government army in Scotland at the Battle of Prestonpans. His growing army crossed the border into England, took Carlisle and marched south through England unopposed, reaching as far as Derby, just 120 miles from London.

Prince Charles Edward Stuart (‘Bonny Prince Charlie’) painted by Antonio David

Here they hesitated. The English Jacobites had failed to rise up in the numbers promised. And where was the French army they had been promised? And reports reached them of a major Hanoverian army being assembled and heading towards them. Against the Bonny Prince’s desperate pleading, his army commanders decided to withdraw, a decision taken on ‘Black Friday’, 6 December 1745.

Pressing on was not really an option for the Jacobites not so much because of the military situation, however misrepresented at Derby, but because of the breakdown of confidence in the prince among his commanders… [Charles] lost support because of a breakdown of confidence arising from the failure of his promises over the English Jacobites and the French. The Scots understandably considered themselves tricked, led into a more risky situation than they had envisaged and that a long way from home. (p.116)

In fact the French did try to mount an invasion: King Louis XV expressly ordered it and his General Richelieu made extensive plans, gathered soldiers and ships, but they were defeated by delays in gathering materiel, terrible weather in the Channel (as usual) and the ever-present threat of the Royal Navy, which managed to stage attacks on some of the shipping gathered at Dunkirk and Brest. And then the French heard the news that Charlie and the Jacobites were retreating to Scotland, and all bets were off.

So the Jacobite army withdrew into Scotland, losing adherents along the way, in terrible winter weather. They won a further battle at Falkirk and took Inverness without a fight. Although back in Scotland they still presented a real threat and rumours of a French invasion kept Hanoverian troops in the south to protect London; and all the while the situation in the ongoing War of Austrian Succession on the Continent deteriorated as the French took parts of the Austrian Netherlands now undefended by British troops who’d been withdrawn to protect against the rebellion and/or threat of invasion (Antwerp, Mons, Charleroi). (Black emphasises that all of the Jacobite uprisings, and the Hanoverian response, must be seen in the broader context of the European war of the time – although this does have the effect of making it a much more confusing, or demanding, story.)

Both sides hunkered down for the snowy Highland winter, the Hanoverian army under King George II’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, spending the time training in modern military manoeuvres with the fairly newfangled bayonet fixed to the end of their muskets, at their base in Aberdeen, while the rebels holed up in Inverness. The French continued their half-hearted support and made several attempts to send money, troops and supplies, but all of them were intercepted by the Navy or loyalist land forces, leaving Prince Charlie with dwindling money and food, encouraging a trickle of desertions. Also the prince was unwell for most of the winter, a condition which brought out the worst, most indecisive aspect of his character. But it was lack of funds and food which forced the Jacobites to seek a confrontation with Cumberland rather than eke out a prolonged insurgency, which some pessimistic commentators had thought might become ‘tedious and lasting’ (Lord Albemarle) and maybe even drag on for years.

Thus a determined Cumberland marched west from Aberdeen in April, fording the river Spey where the Jacobites missed the opportunity to halt him. On the night of 15 April, which was his 25th birthday, Cumberland rested his troops at Nairn, and Charles conceived the idea of leading his forces on a surprise dawn attack. The Jacobites marched in three columns across what turned out to be marshy heath, in fog, obstructed by walls and dykes, so that the forces became hopelessly separated and delayed and never got within striking distance of Cumberland’s forces. Just before dawn they abandoned the night attack and marched back the way they’d come, towards Culloden House, where they regathered, tired, demoralised and disorganised. It was a terrible preparation for what turned out to be the decisive battle of the whole campaign and, indeed, of the whole Jacobite cause.

The Battle of Culloden

On 16 April 1746 the Duke of Cumberland finally, after nearly 6 months of stalking his enemy, brought Bonny Prince Charlie and the Jacobites to battle on the bleak upland moor of Culloden. Charlie insisted on this as the battle site despite the objections of his most experienced general, Lord George Murray. With superior numbers (around 9,000 to possibly 5,000), the firepower of its muskets and its disciplined use of bayonets in close formation, the Hanoverian army massacred the Scots. Black quotes eye-witnesses extensively who all testify to the slaughter. It was all over in half an hour. Black emphasises that Culloden was unusual for an 18th century battle, in its brevity and completeness and makes an interesting comparison with Clive’s victory at Plassey in 1757, another victory of well-drilled infantry using muskets and bayonets against numerically superior, but less disciplined opponents. Around 2,000 Jacobites were killed and over 500 taken prisoner, against 44 Hanoverians killed and 250 wounded.

Cumberland ordered that no quarter was to be given. All the Scots wounded were executed on the battlefield (there is an old story that Cumberland came across a wounded Jacobite and ordered the nearest officer – who turned out to be James Wolfe, later to gain immortality at Quebec – to finish him off. Gentlemanly Wolfe refused, so Cumberland turned to a common soldier who finished the Jacobite off without compunction.) There were stories that many camp followers i.e women and children who had accompanied the Jacobite army, were also killed. In the days and weeks that followed Hanoverian forces tracked down and killed straggler Jacobites, burnt all the surrounding hovels, amid accusations of indiscriminate rape and murder, and then further afield rounded up all suspected Jacobites to send to mass trials and execution. This was how Cumberland – only just 25 years-old -earned his nickname of ‘the Butcher’.

William Augustus Duke of Cumberland, the ‘Butcher’ of Culloden, by Sir Joshua Reynolds

As news spread, rejoicing was widespread across England, with church bells rung, bonfires lit and parties in the street. Wikipedia tells us that a thanksgiving service was held at St Paul’s Cathedral, that included the first performance of Handel’s oratorio Judas Maccabaeus, composed especially for Cumberland, which contains the anthem ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’.

About 4,000 surviving Jacobites regrouped at Ruthven but Charlie refused to join them and said it was every man for himself. He spent months hiding among peasants and conspirators across the Highlands, who eventually smuggled him to the coast where he was picked up by a French ship on 20 September. This story is retold in songs and ballads and novels as a glamorous and heroic exploit, but abandoning his men to their – generally dire – fates doesn’t strike me as that heroic.

And so it was back, once again, to France, to spend the rest of his life trying to persuade the French king to launch another invasion, while his descent into alcoholism and his taking a disreputable mistress alienated many of his followers in Scotland and England.

The legacy of Culloden

Defeat in battle left a lasting legacy in the Highlands. Apart from the many clan leaders who died, many more were arrested and sent for trial in Scotland or London. Lords and clan chiefs who had supported the Jacobite rebellion were stripped of their estates which were then sold and the profits used to boost trade and agriculture in Scotland. The wearing of tartan or the kilt were banned. Leaders of the Church were compelled to take an oath of allegiance to the reigning Hanoverian dynasty; any who refused were dismissed. Several acts of Parliament sought to end the extensive traditional rights and powers clan chiefs had over their tenants and members. Many small settlements were depopulated after the revenge of the Hanoverian army, forcing many Highlanders to emigrate, mostly to the North American colonies. And many of the men, with their warrior tradition, enlisted (ironically) in the British Army, where they formed the core of regiments which went on to become some of Britain’s most successful and feared fighting units.

Black’s treatment

If you are in a hurry to get the basic sequence of events and to understand the basic context, I’d advise you to read the Wikipedia articles about Culloden, which link off to articles about Jacobitism, about the Old and Young Pretender and, if you wish, the context of the European wars against which the various invasion attempts are set.

There are two types of history books: ones which simply tell you what happened; and ones which assume  that the reader more or less knows what happened and so are more concerned to present their theories and interpretations about the events, to refute other historians’ opinions, to challenge the accepted wisdom about this or that aspect, and so on. If you don’t even know what the received opinion is, or weren’t aware that this or that theory dominates the field, a lot of this effort is wasted on the casual reader.

This book is one of the latter: it assumes you’re already familiar with a lot of this history and the general background of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion; it goes through the events in broad chronological order but heavily loaded with the arguments Black is making, which I often found hard to follow.

It suffers from another major drawback, which is that Black proceeds by quoting extensively from contemporary letters, diaries, journals, reports, memos and so on. Entire pages are tessalations of quotes. I think the purpose is to convey the confusion, the misreports, the rumours, and panics and misunderstandings which clouded the view of contemporaries, and I can see that Black is committed to the worthy goal of accurately reporting what was known at the time from primary sources, and of placing as much of these sources as is practical before the reader.

This is very useful in his short account of the battle itself, where he quotes extensively from eye-witness accounts. I also understand that the broader aim of Black’s book is to show that the Jacobite Rebellion wasn’t pre-ordained to fail, that it scored numerous successes and could have survived in other forms (as a purely Scottish phenomenon, as a lasting insurgency) if not for a sequence of bad luck and poor decisions – and that Black uses the conflicting and confused testimony of major players at the time to emphasise the contingency of events.

But for me this was too much detail. What the British envoy to Venice wrote to the ambassador to Russia about the latest rumours of French or Austrian or Spanish plans in the spring of 1724 requires several levels of knowledge, knowledge of the key players, what was at stake, what their long term plans were, and all to be compared to what actually happened, in order to be of value to the reader, to be understood. While I was struggling to remember who Henry Pelham was and what his relationship was to the Earl of Newcastle and so grasp the context of his letter which is quoted at length, or to remember which side Colonel Cuthbert Ellison was on, or wonder if I was meant to remember Welbore Ellis and why he was writing to Lord Hartington (and who Lord Hartington was) I was missing the much bigger and more obvious developments.

I found this method of relating the events almost entirely through contemporary accounts just too demanding for a beginner; the reader ends up unable to see the wood for the trees. I think this book is better suited to readers already familiar with the story, as a prompt to review it in a new light.

The Seven Years War 1756-63

Amazingly, Culloden wasn’t the end of the Jacobite story. In fact British fears of a further French invasion revived in 1747 and were only allayed by the conclusion of the War of Austrian Succession in 1748, at which point France no longer had an incentive to threaten Britain with invasion or play the Jacobite card. Nevertheless, in 1751 and 1752 Alexander Murray of Elibank developed a conspiracy to kidnap George II and his family, and smuggle them to France, replacing them with the Bonny Prince. The plot was revealed and Murray fled into exile.

Meanwhile, the broader impact of The ’45, as it came to be known, had been to withdraw British troops from the Continent, allowing the French to capture Brussels and thus sowing disagreement in the anti-French alliance. Further afield, it made the British hesitate to follow up the capture of Louisburg in Canada, an enterprise which would have to wait ten years until the outbreak of the Seven Years War in 1756.

Charlie lived on and the two books I’ve just read about the Seven Years War (1759 by Frank McLynn and Battle for Empire by Tom Pocock) show that the Jacobite cause was still a bogeyman which enemies within and without could scare the British government with, one among the many tools the French monarchy could consider deploying in its never-ending duel with Britain.

In fact, right from the start of the Seven Years War (1756) the French government revived the invasion plans of 1744 and went to the extent of building hundreds of flat-bottomed barges to ferry an army of up to 100,000 soldiers across from Dunkirk to the South Coast. McLynn’s book is threaded through with detailed descriptions of the prolonged but ultimately abortive negotiations with the Bonny Prince to put him at the head of the invasion or, more cannily, to send him back to Scotland to raise the Highlands while the French attacked in the south.

But Charlie had learned from the ’45 that it was all or nothing – either he led a major invasion force against England, or nothing – he refused to be used as a figurehead for sideshows in Scotland let alone (in later plans) Ireland, and he flatly refused to be put at the head of one scheme which aimed to send him on a cock-and-bull mission to Canada! Given his obstinacy, in 1759 France’s invasion plans went ahead without him and, in the event, were foiled by brilliant victories by the Royal Navy at the Battle of Lagos and then the Battle of Quiberon Bay.

In 1766 the Old Pretender died. The Pope had recognised him as King James III of Britain, but didn’t extend the same recognition to young Charlie, realising his faltering legitimacy. Charlie lived on in Italy with his wife, Princess Louise of Stolberg-Gedern. Between them they failed to do the only task a monarch has which is to produce a male heir. He had an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte (b.1753) by his long-time mistress, Clementina Walkinshaw, legitimised her in law and gave her a title, the Duchess of Albany, but even among the most rigorous legitimists this didn’t entitle her to the crown. At Charlie’s death in 1788 the Jacobite legacy expired. With exquisite timing the very next year saw the start of the French Revolution and the beginning of a whole new era of French threats against Britain.

Right or wrong

Who was right? It depends on your point of view. For Scots their nation was betrayed by the Act of Union and their traditional culture decimated by the Highland Clearances and savage repression which followed Culloden. Scottish nationalists remember it to this day. For the Irish the Battle of the Boyne in 1692 remains one of many bones of contention, not least because it is commemorated every summer by Northern Irish Orangemen who march in celebration of King William’s victory.

For the English, who have forgotten most of their history, it probably all seems long ago and irrelevant.

For the objective reader, I can understand the motives of both sides. Charlie’s story is extraordinarily romantic, from the landing with just seven companions to the final weeks fleeing across the Highlands in disguise and helped by loyal supporters. But I can understand why the Hanoverian dynasty and its Whig supporters acted as they did. England had been invaded or threatened with invasion in the 1690s, 1701, 1708, 1715, 1722, 1744 and 1745, the last one being the most serious attempt to overthrow the lawful monarch, change the religion of the entire country, and rewrite foreign policy to suit our oldest enemy (France), probably abandoning our foreign colonies and business interests in the process. I can see why George II’s forces acted as they did, not only to defeat this invasion attempt but to put an end once and for all to the hotbed of Jacobitism/treason which had allowed it to fester on. As Cumberland’s aide-de-camp, Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Yorke wrote to his father from the Hanoverian army as it approached the retreating Jacobites:

The thing must be put an end to so effectually now, that it will never be able to break out again; otherwise you may depend on having it again in a very short time. (quoted p.146)

I can understand, but not condone it.

Out-of-the-way words

• philabeg – the modern short kilt
• spontoon – a half-pike, a type of European pole-arm that came into being alongside the pike

Credit

Culloden and the ’45 by Jeremy Black was published by Alan Sutton Publishing in 1990. All quotes and references are to the 1993 paperback edition.

Related links

• Culloden and the ’45 on Amazon
• Jeremy Black’s website
• Battle of Culloden Wikipedia article
• National Trust for Scotland’s Culloden webpages
• The Jacobite website

Other blog posts about Empire

• Artist and Empire @ Tate Britain (2016)
• Unfinished Empire by John Darwin (2012)
• Civilisation: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson (2011)
• Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire by Niall Ferguson (2004)
• 1759: The Year Britain Became Master of the World by Frank McLynn (2004)
• Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Niall Ferguson (2003)
• King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild (1999)
• Battle For Empire: The Very First World War by Tom Pocock (1998)
• The Scramble For Africa by Thomas Pakenham (1991)
• The Boer War 1899-1902 by Thomas Pakenham (1979)
• Reviews of Rudyard Kipling’s imperialist writing