Eyewitness to History

By Kimberley Jordan Reeman

When I came into this Country, it was my only view to do all in my power for your good and safety. This I will always do as long as life is in me. But alas! I see with grief, I can at present do little for you this side the water, for the only thing that now can be done, is to defend your selves.
Charles Edward Stuart, April 1746, after Culloden

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1746, 11 a.m. A raw morning, with a bitter north wind scything up from the Moray Firth, bringing heavy showers of rain and sleet. Two armies, some fourteen thousand men, although perhaps only three thousand will engage, are manoeuvring two and a half miles apart on this sloping, boggy ground six miles from Inverness, which adjoins Drummossie Moor and climbs from the elegant parks of Culloden House, owned by Duncan Forbes, the Lord President of the Court of Session.

The Jacobite army, under the command of the Pretender, Charles Edward Stuart, who even in these final, fateful hours radiates the charisma and optimism of his ancestor Mary, Queen of Scots, stumbles into some order of battle with a confusion and disorganization that reflects the rifts, quarrels and indecision of its generals. The British army, under the command of William Augustus, H.R.H the Duke of Cumberland, the charmless, corpulent third son of George II, deploys with a silent purpose that moves a French officer to remark to Charles that ‘he feared the day already lost, for he had never seen men advance in so calm and regular a manner’.

Charles Edward Stuart - Public Domain Image

The onslaught of sleet assaults them all: princes and peasants, volunteers and conscripts, the criminals and the idealists, the men of noble blood and the butchers, gardeners, apprentices; and the veterans recalled from Flanders and the War of the Austrian Succession, professional killers whose service is for life, and whose ages range from seventeen to fifty-four.

The Jacobites stand ankle-deep in water, with empty bellies, sleet beating on their backs: volatile, exhausted, ill-fed. Many have deserted because there is little food and less pay: because their fields are lying unsown; because they fear for their families; because they sense the animosity and dissension among their leaders, who cannot agree on anything from the ground on which to fight what they know will be their final battle to the order of precedence to be accorded to the clans. Some have deserted because prescience has warned them that their cause is lost, and they have foreseen their deaths.

They are not all Highlanders, although there are many Gaelic-speaking clansmen, conscripted and threatened into service by chieftains or landlords. There are also Lowland Scots, many conscripted; volunteers; deserters from the Scottish militia regiments of the British army or enlisted from among those prisoners taken after Charles’s victory at Prestonpans. Two infantry battalions and a squadron of cavalry are French, as well as artillerymen, engineers and volunteers: these are the ‘Wild Geese’, the Irish Brigade of the French army, whose red coats among the coarse homespun of the clansmen are clearly visible across the moor, as are the blue coats of the Royal Écossais, a Scottish unit of the French army raised in 1744.

The wind is now northeasterly. Five hundred yards away, across ground laced with streams and springs, drystone walls and scattered cottages, the standards and colours of the British regiments snap and billow, blowing forward: the wind is at this army’s back, and the smoke of battle will blind the enemy. Many of these officers are Scots, many Anglo-Irish: the 1st, 21st and 25th Foot are Scots regiments, as are the Gaelic-speaking Argyllshire Militia, the Duke of Kingston’s Light Horse, and the regulars of Loudon’s 64th Highlanders. There are many here who wear Highland dress, many for whom the ranting slogans and skirling pipes of the rebel clans are echoes of a culture shared.

The Battle of Culloden, oil on canvas, David Morier, 1746

The sleet stops abruptly: the sky is torn with blue. A little after one o’clock, the Pretender’s artillery opens with irregular fire. The royal artillery, carefully sited, responds with a devastating, sustained barrage aimed at the massed ranks of the Jacobite army. Mud spatters the mounted Charles’s face: behind him a groom is decapitated. The roundshot is followed by canister, sweeping the field with a hailstorm of grape and reaping a terrible harvest. Blinded by the smoke and by unbearable rage and anguish, eight clan regiments break into the charge. At a range of fifty yards, the hardened veterans of the British front-line regiments, Barrell’s, Munro’s, and the Scots Fusiliers, open fire with muskets, inflicting carnage. The shock of the Jacobite charge splits Barrell’s and engulfs it: of four hundred and thirty-eight officers and men, both English and Scots, seventeen are killed and one hundred and eight wounded, many grievously: the colonel of Barrell’s, Robert Rich, falls with a severed hand and serious head wounds; others are dismembered. The naked courage of the Highlanders imprints itself so forcibly upon the mind of a young aide de camp to Cumberland that in Quebec on September 13, 1759, that man, now Major-General James Wolfe, will unleash its fury himself against the forces of the Marquis de Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham.

Of Wednesday, April 16, 1746, no man could know, as he shivered in the prelude to battle, that no British regiment would ever bear Culloden among its honours, or that its very name would become synonymous with infamy. No man, neither prince nor apprentice, could perceive that he was ‘only a mote of dust, and of as much consequence’ in the affairs of nations, and that Culloden was only a footnote, albeit scrawled in blood, across the vast canvas of the eighteenth century, a microcosm in which the hereditary enemies, Britain and France, grappled for supremacy. A turbulent century, which sees America’s bloody and protracted struggle for independence, the insurrection and revolution which will convulse France, and the tragic repercussions, for a people and a culture, which haunt Scotland still.

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About Kimberley:
Kimberley Jordan Reeman was born in Toronto, graduating from the University of Toronto with a Bachelor of Arts (hons.) in English literature in 1976. She worked in Canadian radio and publishing before marrying the author Douglas Reeman in 1985, and until his death in 2017 was his editor, muse and literary partner, while pursuing her own career as a novelist.

About Douglas (Alexander Kent)
Douglas Reeman was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, England in 1924. With the outbreak of war, and despite belonging to an army family, he joined the Royal Navy without hesitation at the age of sixteen. In June of 1968 To Glory We Steer was published under the pen name Alexander Kent. Douglas Reeman died in January of 2017. Today, the exploits of Richard and Adam Bolitho feature in twenty-eight Alexander Kent novels.

Kim’s Website/Blog: https://www.douglasreeman.com/onward/

Buy Coronach on Amazon (Universal Link) : http://author.to/Coronach

Douglas’s Website  https://www.douglasreeman.com/

Scotland and the Second Jacobite Uprising

by Christy Nicholas

Many a tale has been set in Scotland. Some truly tragic and romantic events have taken place in this isolated corner of the UK, with strong personalities, implacable egos, and cruel masters. The Jacobite Risings were full of such stories, but none so tragic as the Battle of Culloden during the Second Jacobite Rising of 1746.

In 1707, the Act of Union brought England and Scotland together as one economic and political unit, allowing greater trade, and replacing Scottish systems of currency, taxation, and laws.

This move was unpopular in Scotland, of course, and the Jacobites rose again, under James VII’s son, James Frances Edward Stuart, aka “The Old Pretender”. He had lived in exile most of his life, and attempted several failed invasions, most notably in 1715. It was ruined by a failure of coordinated risings in Wales and Devon, lack of leadership, bad timing, and bad luck. By the time James finally landed in Scotland, he was told it was hopeless, and so he fled back to the relative safety of France. If you would like a glimpse into what life may have been like, watch the movie Rob Roy, starring Liam Neeson. Rob Roy was an historical character, though the stories of him are mixed. Some show him as a cattle-thieving rogue; others as a national hero, standing up to the oppressive evil English landlord. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle. The real Rob Roy lived near Balquhidder, and there is a small cemetery there, where is grave is situated.

In 1745, James I’s son, Charles Edward Stuart, tried again to reclaim the Scottish crown. He was ”The Young Pretender”, or Bonnie Prince Charlie. The nickname Charlie most likely came, not from a diminutive of the name Charles, but from the Gaelic for Charles – Teàrlach. This rising was more successful, and he won some important battles, such as Prestonpans. Several clans joined the movement, albeit some very reluctantly. While he was successful at first, and managed to secure a good chunk of Scotland, he became greedy, and tried moving south into England. This overextended his resources, and many of his allies changed their minds. The rising ended with a horrible defeat by the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden. Charles fled to exile again, never to return.

If you ever visit Culloden field, please take the time to explore the visitor center. It has very poignant presentations on this time, this battle, and the events leading up to it. It is very moving, even if you have not a drop of Scottish blood.

The loss at Culloden broke the Highlanders and the Jacobites. What followed was a horrible part of British history – the Highland Clearances. In order to remove the teeth of the Scottish clans, the English outlawed Highland dress, custom, language – and capriciously stole from, killed, arrested, and transported thousands of Highlanders. These transportees ended up in Canada and America, often as indentured servants. Crofts were burned, cattle were slaughtered, valuables were stolen, and women were raped. Much of the land that was “cleared” of troublesome Highlanders was used for sheep, to support the budding wool trade in England.

Imagine living on a small farm. Life is hard, but peaceful. You tend your crops, your cattle or flock, and have enough to support your small family. There are, perhaps, four families within ten miles, also crofters. Your husband has gone off to a neighboring farm to help them with a building. Then the soldiers come – they slaughter the cows you rely on for your milk, run your sheep off, trample your crops, perhaps even salting the ground. They tear the door off its hinges, and violate you and your daughters. They leave, taking anything they think might be valuable… and you have no one you can complain to, for they are the Crown’s troops. You must either find a way to survive, leave, or perish. It was a very dark time, though many have managed to remain to this day.

This is an excerpt from my newly published ebook called Stunning, Strange and Secret, a Guide to Hidden Scotland. It contains some myth and history, tips and tricks to planning your own trip, and lots of hidden gems and photographs. It is available in several formats. Please visit my author page on Facebook.

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Christy Nicholas, also known as Green Dragon, has her hands in many crafts, including digital art, beaded jewelry, writing, and photography. In real life, she's a CPA, but having grown up with art all around her (her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother are/were all artists), it sort of infected her, as it were. She loves to draw and to create things. She says it's more of an obsession than a hobby. She likes looking up into the sky and seeing a beautiful sunset, or seeing a fragrant blossom or a dramatic seaside. She takes a picture or creates a piece of jewelry as her way of sharing this serenity, this joy, this beauty with others. Sometimes this sharing requires explanation – and thus she writes. Combine this love of beauty with a bit of financial sense and you get an art business. She does local art and craft shows, as well as sending her art to various science fiction conventions throughout the country and abroad.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/tirgearr.publishing/?fref=ts