Notoriously poor slum in the centre of Glasgow that has now been knocked down. Remains a byword for poverty.
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The Bishops' Wars are a pair of conflicts between England and Scotland between 1639-40. They were primarily caused by the strong Scottish reaction against King Charles I's attempts to reform the Scottish church. The King planned to replace the Scottish Presbyterian system of church government with the Episcopalian or High Anglican system in order to harmonise the two churches of England and Scotland. Furthermore, Charles intended to finance his reforms by re-possessing lands formerly held by the Roman Catholic church in Scotland, which had been sold off at the Reformation (The Act of Revocation). The proposed reforms alienated both landowners and noblemen whose holdings were threatened as well as the general Protestant/Presbyterian population of Scotland. He further infuriated the Scots with the style of his enthronement at St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh where he insisted on a full English style of service. A riot ensued.
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Act of Union between England & Scotland 1707
The Union between Scotland and England may have created the Great Britain we know today - but at the time it was one of the most unpopular political moves ever to have taken place north of the border.
Ordinary Scots were incensed at what they saw as a stitch up designed to line the pockets of the country's most powerful men - and their judgment was absolutely right.
For Scots parliamentarians, the Act of Union in 1707 was a golden opportunity to pull their country out of dire economic poverty while at the same time lining their own pockets with money.
The English had different goals. They wanted to solve the problem of their troublesome northern neighbour once and for all while at the same time ensuring that the so-called union ended up as a takeover rather than a merger. And they got exactly what they wanted.
After the disaster of the Darien adventure, Scotland was the poorest country in Europe - a situation made worse by the English policy of deliberately blocking Scottish trade when it threatened England's own interests.
By the beginning of the 18th century, the two countries had gradually been moving closer to each other for 100 years, with the union of the crowns in 1603 and the short period of union under Cromwell's Commonwealth. But there was still no love lost between them, and still no inevitability they would join to form one nation.
However, the disastrous Darien adventure had taught Scots an important lesson. It made it clear that there had to be come sort of accommodation which would allow the two countries to pursue similar foreign and economic policies, since England could clearly scupper Scottish trade ambitions whenever it wanted.
The first concrete move towards union came when Queen Anne took the thrones of Scotland and England in 1702. The previous year, the English parliament had passed an Act of Settlement passing the crown to the German house of Hanover on the childless Anne's death.
The Scottish parliament was not consulted about the decision, and had also been angered by a war between England and its own traditional ally, France, which was affecting trade. It refused to pass the same act. Anne hoped that a political union between the two countries could solve the problem.
The Queen's Commissioner in Scotland, the Duke of Queensberry, managed to get a bill through the Scottish estates nominating commissioners to begin discussions with the English about union. But it fell flat when the English commissioners refused even to turn up.
A new parliament was elected in Scotland in 1703, but it was more radical than its predecessor, with many members prepared to choose their own Scottish monarch instead of Anne. It passed an Act of Security which allowed Scotland to decide on its own succession. In a further act of defiance against England's war with France, it then passed another act giving it a role in saying whether the monarch declared war or sued for peace.
At the same time, the English were becoming deeply worried about the new nationalist mood in Scotland, which they saw as a resurgence of Jacobitism. They discovered that the French were supporting the Jacobites, and decided to take their own steps to try and force a union.
The English parliament passed draconian legislation known as the Alien Act, which threatened to make all Scots who were not resident in its own territories or serving in its armed forces aliens. It also threatened to take drastic action against exports of linen, coal and cattle from Scotland to England.
The Scots were given a let-out - if they agreed to either accept the Hanoverian succession or enter into serious negotiations about union within 10 months, the proposals would not be enacted.
Scots were furious about the threats, but quickly realised how serious their problems would be if they did not comply. The Scottish Estates again decided to discuss appointing commissioners to discuss union.
The treachery of one of the country's leading nobles, the Duke of Hamilton, was instrumental in what happened next. Hamilton, who had been a virulent anti-unionist, suddenly switched sides after secretly being bribed by the English. His fellow anti-unionists walked out in protest, and a decision was voted through to allow the Queen to appoint the Scottish commissioners who were to meet with the English and discuss union.
Hamilton's move had a major impact - it effectively meant there would not be hard bargaining on Scotland's behalf, but that Anne was guaranteed the deal she wanted, with the interests of Scots well down the list of priorities.
There was, however, still a final hurdle - the decision to unite the two countries still had to get through the Scottish parliament. The English again used bribery, promising Scots jobs in the new government and handsome pensions if they supported union. It was an offer many felt they could not refuse.
Slowly but surely, the commissioners thrashed out a deal and put a treaty together. It was decided that the newly merged kingdoms would be called Great Britain, and that there would be a single, Hanoverian, Protestant sovereign. There would be one flag, one currency and free trade would be allowed under a single set of customs regulations.
There would, of course, also be a single parliament. It was eventually decided that Scotland should have 45 MPs and England 513 MPs in the new House of Commons. In the Lords, Scotland would have 16 seats and England 196. In other words, the Scots were so few in number as to be virtually unnoticeable.
Scotland did win some concessions during the talks - it managed to keep its own legal system, and the place of the Kirk and the retention of the distinctive Scottish education system were guaranteed.
One of the most important provisions, however, was the Equivalent - the sum of money paid by England to Scotland as compensation for Scots taking a share of the £14 million English national debt.
The cash, which was also used to compensate investors in the Darien scheme, was another bribe, because much of the money, which came to nearly #400,000 in total, went into the pockets of those Scots with the power to influence, or vote directly on, the new union.
When the terms of the deal became known, ordinary Scots were incandescent with rage. There were riots in Glasgow and Edinburgh. In the Estates, however, the mood was very different. The anti unionists realised that they were losing the argument. Too much English money was changing hands, and too many plum jobs in the new Great Britain administration were being offered.
The crunch came on 16 January 1707, when the Estates finally passed the act consenting to the Articles of Union. The vote was decisive: 110 members in favour, only 67 against. Scotland's independence had been voted into the history books.
The Scottish parliament adjourned itself on March 19, and the Act of Union came into existence on May 1 of that year. For many Scots - particularly those who had fought so hard to resist the merger - it was an emotional moment.
On the day the new Great Britain came into effect, the church bells of St Giles in Edinburgh tolled out the tune How Can I Be Sad On My Wedding Day? The Chancellor of Scotland, the Earl of Seafield, made an equally poignant statement, bitterly describing the union as "An end of an auld sang".
Later that century, Scotland's most famous poet, Robert Burns, was to make his own eloquent comment on the way in which Scotland's noblemen allowed their country to be bribed out of existence. "Bought and sold for English gold", he wrote. "Sic a parcel of rogues in a nation."
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Declaration of Arbroath
Every Scot knows that the Declaration of Arbroath was one of the greatest and most important statements of human rights ever written.
But very few people are aware that it had as powerful an influence on the USA as it did on Scotland - and that its magnificent words helped inspire the Americans to become the greatest and most powerful nation on earth.
This historic document was first written in 1320 - six years after Robert the Bruce's historic victory against Edward II at Bannockburn - as a plea to the Pope to stop supporting the English and recognise Scotland's independence.
The appeal worked, but the most profound impact of the declaration of Arbroath came nearly 500 years later when it was used as the basis for the American Declaration of Independence.
The rousing, central words of the American statement of July 4, 1776 that it was breaking its ties with Britain almost exactly mirror the bold sentiments and cry for justice and human rights made in Scotland by the Bruce's nobles and bishops.
The original Declaration of Arbroath tells the Pope that the Scots nobles would even be prepared to cast out their beloved Robert the Bruce as king if he were ever to sell them out to the English.
It famously says: "As long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any condition be brought under English dominion. It is in truth not for glory, nor for riches, nor for honour that we are fighting, but only and alone for freedom, which no good man surrenders but with his life."
America's own independence declaration is similarly lofty in tone, and its own central words ring with exactly same magnificent confidence and respect for the rights of man found at Arbroath.
Its most famous paragraph says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Why should the founding fathers of modern America use as their guiding light a document drawn up on another continent 356 years earlier? Because more than half of them were of recent Scots descent, and knew the importance the Arbroath document had on the old country they hailed from.
Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia, was the son of an Aberdonian. The only clergyman to sign it was the philosopher John Witherspoon, who hailed from St Andrews. And Islay-born Alexander McDougall was the first American imprisoned for speeches in favour of independence.
Cathy Hurst, who is the Principal Officer at the US Consulate General in Edinburgh, explains: "When you read the Declaration of Arbroath and the American Declaration of Independence, you can see the parallels dispersed throughout the text.
"It is very clear in most historians' minds that one document was modelled on the other. In terms of learned opinion on political matters at the time, a lot of the input came from people with experience of Scotland. Scottish influence in the creation of the United States cannot be overstated."
And Simon Newman, Director of the Centre for American Studies at Glasgow University, says: "The Scottish ideas about human rights are likely to have been an incredibly strong force in the minds of some of the founding fathers. When you look at the writings of people like Jefferson, it's clear that they were imbued with these ideas."
Given that Robert the Bruce was still basking in the warm glow of his stunning victory over the English king Edward II at Bannockburn when the Declaration of Arbroath was drawn up, it makes sense to ask just why he needed to ask the Pope to curtail Edward's power.
The reason was simple and straightforward. Bannockburn did not end tensions between Scotland and England - far from it. The Bruce - also known as Robert I - invaded and captured Berwick in 1318, and a series of raids into the north of England inflicted great damage.
However, while Scotland was starting to exert is authority and military muscle against the English, the Pope of the time, John XXII, did not - unlike some of his predecessors - accept that Scotland was an independent nation at all.
This was partly because wily Edward , who did not have the statesmanship or military talents of his father Edward I, asked the Pope to come down on his side. His Holiness did so, giving Edward the formal respect of his position as English king while simply referring to the Bruce was "governing in Scotland."
Robert, whose excommunication after killing his rival John Comyn to seize the Scottish throne in 1306 may also have been a factor in the Pope's decision to rule against him, was furious.
When two Papal envoys turned up at the Abbey of Arbroath where he was staying in 1317, he sent them packing, saying: "Among my barons there are many named Robert Bruce, who share in the government of Scotland. These letters may possibly be addressed to them but they are not addressed to me, who am King of Scotland."
This kind of light-hearted and dismissive response by the Bruce simply angered the Pope, who stoked up the tension further by threatening the whole Scottish nation with excommunication if it did not accept Edward as overlord.
The Bruce and his nobles realised at this stage that matters were getting out of hand, and that something had to be done. So they gathered at Arbroath - one of the most important religious and political centres in Scotland at that time - and put the declaration together.
The aim of the document was to assert in the politest possible terms that Scotland was a free country in its own right and that the Bruce was in place as king of Scots because the people themselves wanted him to rule. It asked the Pope to recognise this fact and give his blessing to Scotland's independence.
The declaration pleaded with the Pontiff not to take the English claim over Scotland seriously. It suggested somewhat threateningly that if the Scots did not win the Pontiff's favour, the wars of independence would continue and the burden of future deaths would fall on the Holy Father's shoulders.
The idea of drawing up sending the declaration proved that the Bruce could be every bit as wily as the English. He knew that if the Pope agreed with the Scots, then Edward would be asked to make peace and if he failed to do so, he could be excommunicated for disobeying the Pope.
After being signed and sealed by 38 Scots nobles, the document was sent on its way. The plan worked. Edward was called to see the Pope but somewhat foolishly refused, leaving the door open for the Pope to accept the Scottish nobles' plea.
Professor Geoffrey Barrow, Emeritus Professor of Scottish history at Edinburgh University and a biographer of the Bruce, says: "The Pope didn't immediately recognise Robert as King, but began to make noises in that direction and eventually finalised the decision in 1324.
It was a very important change of heart. The declaration itself was written in royal Latin with lots of biblical references and that probably impressed him."
At the same time as recognising Scotland's independence, the Pope ordered Edward to stop attacking Robert and his forces and instead to "direct his aggression at the Infidels in the Holy Land" - on other words, to embark on a crusade.
In fact, the English accepted the Pontiff's ruling only churlishly and belatedly. It was not until 1328 that the Treaty of Northampton was signed between the Bruce and Edward II's successor, Edward III. This finally acknowledged the Bruce's complete and unambiguous rule of Scotland, with no subjugation whatsoever to England. Robert had won game, set and match.
The new treaty was sealed - as was so often the case in those days - with a marriage between Robert's son David, who became David II of Scotland, and Edward's sister Joanna.
By now, the Bruce's work was over. He had established Scotland's freedom, led his country into a golden era of justice and relative prosperity, and was well-loved by his subjects. He was plagued by ill health in his later years and died at Cardross in present day Dunbartonshire.
Although dead, however, the Bruce had not yet made his last journey. His body was taken east and buried in Dunfermline Abbey, but his heart was removed on his own instructions, embalmed and taken on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
Why did this happen? Bruce is said to have always wanted to go on a crusade and in this rather bizarre way, he finally managed it. Bruce's favourite knight, Sir James Douglas, was chosen for the honour of carrying the relic, but was killed in combat by Moorish cavalry in present day Spain.
Amazingly, the heart is said to have survived the return journey to Scotland - it was brought back along with Douglas's body by Sir William Keith of Galston - and was buried at Melrose Abbey. The story would appear to be true, because in 1921 a small lead casket containing a heart was found under the chapter house floor.
Three years ago, a team from Historic Scotland once again removed the lead container from the ground to check its condition, which was found to be remarkably good. This time the heart itself was not examined, and it was buried again at Melrose Abbey in June last year.
How do we know that the historic relic inside really belongs to the Bruce? Well, no-one else's heart is ever reported to have been buried in Melrose, and the legend has survived for centuries. As one of the members of the Historic Scotland investigating team, Richard Welander, puts it: "We can say that it is reasonable to assume that it is."
Even today, then, the presence of Scotland's greatest ever warrior king is real, and the legacy he left us can be witnessed today
Just, in fact, as it can in the archives of the United States of America.
Meanwhile...
- 1315 Italian immigrants develop the silk industry in Lyons, France
- 1317 Salic Law is adopted in France, excluding women from succession to the throne
- 1323 Thomas Aquinas is canonized
- 1325 The development of No Theatre begins in Japan
- 1327 The Great Fire of Munich
- 1328 The sawmill is invented
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This is a quick timeline of ancient Scotland that helps you gives you an over view of the way Scotland was formed and a sense of the the history of Scotland before the first millenium.
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Bonnie Prince Charlie - Part 1
After the Act of Union was signed in 1707, Scotland and England finally started to put aside their fears of each other and enjoy a period of growth and prosperity.
However, the issue of who should sit on the throne of both countries had still not been settled, with many Scots still believing that the true heir to the throne was James Francis Stewart - the Old Pretender.
James's attempts to seize back the throne in 1715 had been almost farcical and had come to nothing, but support for the Jacobite cause never went away.
It simmered for years until, finally, it exploded in an extraordinary adventure of reckless and romantic folly which brought the government to its knees and very nearly succeeded in capturing the throne.
This time, it was not the Old Pretender who was to try and take the British crown, but his son Prince Charles Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stewart - or Bonnie Prince Charlie for short.
Throughout his childhood in exile in Rome, the dashing, sporty Young Pretender had grown more and more determined to win the throne for his father.
Hic chance finally came in 1744, when Britain and France were fighting with each other in the Battle of the Austrian Succession, with the French keen to try and destabilise the British by helping the Stewart cause.
The French prepared to launch an invasion to help Charles seize the throne, but - in keeping with many Jacobean adventures - it turned to disaster. The fleet was destroyed in a storm while harboured at Dunkirk, forcing the French to abandon their plan.
Charles, however, had other ideas. If the French could or would not assist, then he would launch an invasion on his own. He pawned his mother's dowry - the famous Sobieski rubies - for #4000 and used the cash to buy a stock of weapons for his cause.
After a tricky sea crossing - the other ship making the journey with him was attacked by the British and had to return to France - he finally landed at the Isle of Eriskay in the Hebrides in July 1745 along with a tiny force of seven men.
Two days later, Charles - who had never been in Scotland before - sailed for the mainland to begin his campaign to win the crown back. He landed at Arisaig and assumed that, as in the case of his father's rising 30 years before, the Highland clans would rally to his cause.
To a point, he was right, although he must have been disappointed when he saw that - at the beginning, at least - they were hardly flocking to fight for him. On 19 August, when he raised his standard at Glenfinnan, only 150 men - all from the clan Ranald - joined him in the first three hours.
Another 1000 men - Macleods, MacDonalds and Camerons - finally also arrived, and the march south began. Confident of the support of the Scottish people, Charles felt sure that he could drive George II from the throne.
Certainly he got off to a good start. Sir John Cope, who was the Commander in Chief of government forces north of the border, didn't even know the Prince was in Scotland until just before the raising of the standard and he had only just over 1000 men to fight with.
Cope and the government's first reaction was to dither, which left Charles's new and enthusiastic Jacobite army able to press south - ironically, on new government roads which had been recently built by General Wade - through Inverness-shire and on southwards to Perth.
When Charles arrived in Perth on September 4, he picked up even more support. By now, he had about 2000 men on his side, and had appointed the capable Lord George Murray, the younger brother of the Duke of Atholl, as the effective commander of his military operations.
With his spirits high, Charles pressed on for Edinburgh. It surrendered without any resistance save for the castle which remained in government hands. Panicked British officials fled south to Berwick. Piece by piece, all of Scotland was falling under the Young Pretender's control.
By now, however, Cope had finally managed to locate Charles's army. After marching north to Inverness to stock up on arms and ammunition, he sailed down to coast from Dundee to Dunbar and caught up with the Prince at Prestonpans.
When the battle between the two sides took place on September 21, both armies were able to field about 2300 men. The Jacobites took advantage of the early morning mist to surprise their foes. When they attacked, they caught Cope and his troops virtually unawares and a rout followed. The whole battle is said to have only lasted for about 10 minutes.
If Cope - who was court martialled for his failure, though he was later acquitted - had been successful at Prestonpans, then the whole Jacobite revolt could have been extinguished there and then.
As it was, victory gave the Prince and his army complete control of Scotland. The result was that Charles became and even more popular figure than before, with hundreds more people rushing to sign up to the cause. By November, he had a total force of well over 5000 men.
In London, the government realised the seriousness of the threat. England's traditional ally, Holland, sent 6000 troops to fight for the Hanoverian cause and British soldiers were recalled from fighting on the Continent. General Wade was recalled to active service and another capable and promising military leader, the Duke of Cumberland, called from Holland.
Scotland belonged to the Young Pretender, but it wasn't enough for him. He saw his father as the legitimate claimant to both the English and Scottish crowns, and so he wanted control of England too.
Marching across the border was a risky undertaking, and Lord George Murray warned him against it. But Charles was adamant. As Wade's army marched north and reached Newcastle, the Jacobite troops went south.
Carlisle fell on 15 November. The prince then tried to dismiss Murray, but his Highland troops refused to serve under anyone else, so he was reinstated. Charles then continued to move south, with Penrith and Lancaster being taken 10 days later. By the end of the month Manchester had fallen, and on December 4, he had reached as far south as Derby.
Charles had made his advance into England at breakneck speed and, unsurprisingly, London was in panic. Shops shut down, the Bank of England worried that people might try to withdraw money, and rumours even floated around that King George had put together emergency plans to flee back to his native Hanover.
However, in the Jacobite camp, things had not gone quite as well as it appeared. The relationship between Charles and George Murray was still mistrustful and difficult and - contrary to expectations - the English had not rallied behind the Prince's cause. By the time he reached Derby, only about 200 English soldiers, mainly from Manchester, had bothered to sign up.
A massive, critically important decision now had to be made. Should the prince and his army push on and try and take London, or pull back towards the relative safety of Scotland?
Charles wanted to go on, but Murray took the view that this was too risky. Wade was at Wetherby in Yorkshire and heading south, Cumberland was much closer, at Lichfield in Staffordshire. However you looked at it, the enemy was closing in.
Murray argued that the odds of marching on the capital were just too great, and that Charles should retreat while the going was good. The Highland chiefs, who were impatient for a return, took the same view.
The Prince was furious. He eventually consented to turn back, but swore that in future he would take no more advice from those around him.
It was a pledge which he kept - and one which was, ultimately, to lead him to disaster.
next... the march north to Scotland disaster at Culloden
Meanwhile...
- 1720 The first yacht club is established at Cork, Ireland
- 1740 Frederick the Great introduces freedom of religion and freedom of the press in Prussia
- 1744 Mount Cotopaxi in South America, erupts
- 1745 The Quadrille becomes a fashionable dance in France
- 1740 James Thomson, poet, writes "Rule Britannia"
- 1744 The world's first golf club - The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers - is founded
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Bonnie Prince Charlie - Derby to Culloden
It was the greatest ever moment in the history of the Jacobite movement. Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army had victoriously marched down through England, and were poised to strike at London itself.
But at the very moment of their triumph, the Young Pretender and his forces decided to turn back and retreat to Scotland.
It was a decision which eventually turned out to be a disaster, because it led to their bloody and inglorious defeat at Culloden - the last military battle ever to be fought on British soil.
With the capital in panic at the thought of a Jacobite advance, the Prince was determined to press on try and secure the British throne for his father, the exiled would-be James VIII.
However, his chief lieutenants knew that victory would be no easy matter. As the prince's forces had marched south, they had not secured territory behind them. Two of the king's most formidable military commanders, General George Wade and the Duke of Cumberland, were in pursuit and London itself had a large militia of loyalist troops ready to take the Prince on.
The sensible thing to do, it seemed, was to pull back, Charles sullenly agreed, and on 6 December 1745, the retreat started, On his way north, he fought off an attack at Clifton in the Lake District and left 400 men to garrison the castle in Carlisle. On Christmas Day, he reached Glasgow.
Once he arrived, however, Charles had huge problems picking up support for his cause. The city was strongly pro-government, and hundreds of its men were fighting on the Hanoverian side against him.
Reluctantly - and probably more to get rid of him than anything - Glaswegians did provide Charles with provisions to refit his army, and they left 10 days later.
By now, Edinburgh had been reclaimed for the king by General Henry Hawley, and the Jacobites knew a showdown was in prospect. Reinforced by the arrival of a further 4000 troops, they finally came face to face with Hawley's forces at Falkirk.
The battle was a disaster for the Hanoverians. They lost ten times as many man as the prince - 400 to 40 - with most of the government forces fleeing the field and leaving behind their artillery and baggage. Victory at Falkirk, combined with the fact that still more troops and supplies were arriving from France and elsewhere, bolstered the Jacobite army further.
With government forces continuing to press against him and with the clan chiefs insisting on returning to the Highlands, however, the only way Charles could realistically go was north.
He tried and failed to seize Stirling Castle before arriving in Inverness and taking the town on February 18. Fort Augustus succumbed in March, though Fort William held out and did not surrender at all.
By now, there was another problem: the able Duke of Cumberland was in pursuit of the Jacobite forces along with an army of 9000 men. A seasoned and intelligent military strategist who was the son of the King, Cumberland would not make the sort of tactical mistakes which had allowed the Jacobites to win the battles of Prestonpans and Falkirk.
By April 14, Cumberland was in Nairn while the Prince's army was only ten miles west at Drummossie. Charles's Quartermaster General, Colonel John William O'Sullivan, decided that the best approach was to try and catch the Hanoverian forces by surprise.
The Pretender's troops, by then tired out and hungry, marched to Nairn, only to learn by hearing a drumbeat that Cumberland's forces were clearly awake - they were celebrating their leader's 25th birthday. The Highlanders were then forced to trudge back to Drummossie, where they arrived, exhausted and demoralised, just after dawn.
Unknown to them, however, word had reached Cumberland that the enemy forces had tried to pounce on him. Knowing full well how tired and hungry the Jacobites were, he decided to attack them when they were at their weakest. He set off just behind them, preparing for the inevitable battle later in the day.
The two sides finally faced each other at Drummossie Moor - also called Culloden - in a howling, freezing gale at lunchtime that same day - Wednesday 16 April 1746. The position of the Prince's army on the west of the desolate battlefield meant they had to charge up a gently rising slope. It was, as the Prince's general Lord George Murray observed, a hopeless place to fight a Highland battle.
For the first time during the entire campaign, Charles decided to take personal command of his troops. He was outnumbered from the start - his 5000, ill shod, untrained and hungry men stood against nearly double the number of well fed, well equipped Hanoverians.
Cumberland had studied his enemy carefully. He knew the way they would fight, and arranged his army in positions which would ensure his troops struck with maximum impact.
Cumberland positioned his men, who were only about 400 yards away from the Jacobites, in two lines. The first was expected to break when the Highlanders attacked, but the second was carefully laid out three deep to provide massive and continuous firepower.
The battle began with an artillery barrage by the Hanoverian forces. It lasted only a few minutes but cut down many of the Prince's men before they had a chance to charge. To make matters worse, the wind was blowing in viciously from the north east, meaning that the Pretender's men were being blinded by their own and their opponents' gunsmoke.
When the charge finally came, the Highlanders did manage to break through the Hanoverian left flank. But it was not enough: the prince's army could not overcome the disadvantages of inferior firepower and sheer weight of numbers.
The battle was over in less than an hour. When it had finished, some 750 of the Jacobites lay dead, while only about 360 Hanoverians had been killed. There was no doubt that Culloden had been an uncompromising victory for the forces of King and government.
Cumberland had proved to be an astute commander during the battle: it was afterwards that he indulged in behaviour which earned him the notorious nickname of "Butcher" and ensured that his name would be forever tarnished north of the border.
Cumberland was determined that for the Jacobites, defeat in battle should not be the end of the matter - he wanted to ensure that the King's authority should be stamped on the region and on people he and his army regarded as little more than savages.
As a result, he ensured that the slaughter did not stop along with the firing. The wounded were murdered where they lay on the battlefield, and those Highlanders found hiding were brought back to the moor where they were shot.
Others died in even more gruesome ways. A group of men found in a local barn, for instance, were simply locked in and left to burn to death, their screams ignored, as the building was torched and razed to the ground. In all, some 450 people, including innocent bystanders and women and children, are reckoned to have been slaughtered by the Hanoverians after the battle.
Some Jacobites were luckier - if you could call it that. They were taken to Inverness, where they were put into the jail, churches and even ships. There, many died of their wounds or of the cold.
The government was determined to make an example of the leaders of the rebellion. Some - among them Lord Lovat, who had not even been involved at the battle at Culloden - were tried and executed. Others were imprisoned for life.
For Bonnie Prince Charlie, however, there was to be no such ignominy. The flower of the Stewarts had fled the battlefield at Drummossie Moor before the fighting had even finished.
The hero of the Jacobite rising had become the most wanted man in Britain. The fight for the Stewart cause was over forever. The question now was whether he would himself evade capture.
Meanwhile...
- 1746 College of New Jersey - later Princeton - is founded
- 1746 Francisco de Goya, the Spanish painter, is born
- 1746 Jean-Etienne Guettard draws the first geological map of France
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Bonnie Prince Charlie - After Culloden
The Incredible rise and fall of Bonnie Prince Charlie is one of the most remarkable and romantic stories in Scottish history.
But the truth is that the Prince was an arrogant and badly advised loser whose attempt to seize the British throne brought more than a century of misery and poverty to the Highlands.
After Charles's defeat at Culloden, the British authorities were determined to clamp down on the trouble the Highland clans had caused. They embarked on a policy of repression so brutal and vengeful that it is remembered with anger and bitterness in Scotland to this day.
One of their first acts after the battle was to try and catch the Prince himself, who had eluded them by slipping away from the battlefield while the fighting was still going on.
However, he remained too clever for them. Charles fled the mainland and made for the Hebrides, outwitting both a massive military cordon and a reward of £30,000 which had been offered to anyone prepared to betray him.
One of the most romantic stories surrounding the Prince was his journey from South Uist to Skye in June 1746. With the islands full of troops looking for him, a plot was hatched to smuggle him from the Hebrides under the noses of the Hanoverian forces.
A local, Edinburgh-educated woman called Flora MacDonald was persuaded to help provide the decoy. The Prince was dressed in a blue and white frock and given the name of Betty Burke, with the cover story that he was Flora's Irish serving maid.
The plot worked - the pair were very nearly seized by troops during their journey, but managed to escape without further incident. After landing in Skye, Charles said goodbye to Flora and made his way to the nearby island of Raasay.
Charles then made his way back to the mainland, moving from Moidart to the even more remote Knoydart and living rough in the outdoors and in bothies. As the summer wore on, the authorities realised they had been outwitted and the hunt for him was gradually scaled down.
The French had sent various rescue missions to try and find Charles and get him out of Scotland. Finally, on September 19, they were successful. Charles emerged from hiding and boarded the frigate L'Heureux at Arisaig. It was the end of his adventure and of the Stewart threat to the British throne.
While Charles was on his way back to France and then on the exile in Rome, the British forces in the Highlands were busy. Immediately after the Hanoverian victory at Culloden, the Duke of Cumberland - by now bearing the nickname Butcher for his indiscriminate slaughter of the wounded and the innocent after the battle - was determined to capitalise on his success and teach the unruly Highlanders a lesson they would never forget.
Cumberland quickly consolidated his position by bringing thousands of British soldiers north. They were allowed to pillage the Highland glens, raping the women and putting houses to the torch.
The clan chiefs who had backed the Jacobite cause had their castles burned to the ground and their estates seized. Cattle were plundered and taken south, many of them bought up by traders from Yorkshire. The plan was clear - to strip as much wealth as possible from the Highlands, in the hope that the residents would starve and freeze to death.
Even this, however, was not enough for some supporters of the Hanoverian cause. In London, parliament debated sterilising all women who had supported the Jacobites. Another suggestion offered was to clear the clans out totally and replace them with immigrants from the south.
These suggestions were not acted on, but the law was deliberately changed to suppress the Highland way of life. Highland dress was banned except that worn by regiments of the British army serving abroad, and anyone found wearing tartan illegally could be slaughtered.
The Hanoverians also consolidated their grip on the north by extending their military presence. Field Marshal Wade's road system, originally built to open up the Highlands, was extended and military barracks constructed at places like Fort George near Inverness.
Back in France, Charles received anything but a hero's welcome. He was banished to Italy two years after his return, and in 1750 secretly made his way back to London, where he is said to have proclaimed himself a Protestant and had a relationship with a woman he had first met in Scotland called Clementina Walkenshaw, whose sister was housekeeper to the Dowager Princess of Wales. She bore him a daughter, Charlotte.
By this time, however, the Prince had lost his charm and become a violent, brutish oaf. He beat Clementina so much that she eventually fled from him, and in 1772 he married the teenage Princess Louise of Stolberg.
It was an ill fated match, since by this time Charles was over 50 and had degenerated into a complete drunkard. He beat her, too, and eight years after marrying him, she ran off with a poet.
After this, Charles invited his daughter Charlotte to share his home and made her the Duchess of Albany. He finally died in Rome in 1788, with the last rites performed by his brother Henry, the Cardinal Duke of York. In his will, he left most of his money to Charlotte - the Scots who had laid their lives on the line for him and the cause he represented didn't receive a penny.
The Young Pretender's later life may have been wretched and unworthy, but at least he had money and status. The Highlanders he had used for his futile Jacobite campaign and then abandoned to their fate faced only hostility and utter misery from a merciless Hanoverian regime.
With their old bonds to the land and the clan system of rule broken, many opted to leave Scotland and Britain altogether. They sailed for the New World, settling in places such as North Carolina and working the land in order to make a living.
As more and more Highlanders learned about the opportunities available to them in America, so the numbers crossing the Atlantic swelled. It was the start of a mass emigration which was eventually to lead to Scots becoming a powerful force in the establishment and development of the USA.
Those who decided to take to the seas for a new life in the colonies included Flora MacDonald, who went with her husband Allan and two of their sons.
Flora had been arrested for her part in helping Charles and taken to London, but she had been freed under the terms of a general amnesty and returned to Skye three years later.
She went to America in 1774, where ironically her family helped to fight for the Hanoverian King, George III, against rebels who were staging the first battles in what would ultimately become the successful American struggle against the British Crown for independence.
After this, Flora returned to her native Skye, where she finally died in March 1790. During her lifetime, her fame had spread, and thousands of people attended her funeral. She was buried in a sheet which Charles Edward Stewart had slept in during that fateful Jacobite campaign years before.
Flora MacDonald had played only a small part in a campaign which changed the face of Scotland forever. But in death, she maintained her reputation and her dignity - which is more than can be said for the man she risked everything to save, and whose vanity and desire for the throne almost destroyed the Highlands.
Meanwhile...
- 1790 Construction of the Forth Clyde Canal
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