Few of the battles over the last 1,000 years, not just in Scotland or the Highlands itself, but within the rest of Britain, have left such a bitter legacy as the Battle of Culloden on April 16, 1746.
Not even the horrific slaughter of the First World War, which claimed countless thousands of Scots, has the same sort of impact in the Highlands today - despite the encounter a short distance from Inverness 250 years ago barely matching a day's killing, for example, on the Western Front during the Somme offensive of 1916.
The answer lies not in the battle itself, but in the conduct of the British Crown and its troops in the days, weeks and months following, when the last vestiges of rebellion and an ancient clan system disappeared in an orgy of systematic destruction.
There is a belief - a mistaken belief - by many that the war waged by Prince Charles Edward Stuart was some kind of bloody liberation campaign to free the Scots from the grip of England, but that was certainly not the case. It was in essence a civil war, the driving force the restoration of the Stuart family to the throne.
The Duke of Cumberland's army consisted not only of English troops, but Scottish clans, too, who had more desire to settle old scores than see a Prince they had little in common with restored to kingship.
The battle itself was the culmination of a campaign which began with the landing of Bonnie Prince Charlie in the Hebrides on July 23, 1745. His army never experienced defeat until Culloden, almost 10 months later. Perhaps that, too, does much to explain the attocities commited by the government forces.
The Prince had about 5,000 men and Cumberland's forces numbered around 9,000. The Duke also had superiority when it came to artillery, which he used to great effect and which opened up the battle.
A one-sided, one-hour artillery dual was followed by what could best be described as a confusion of blunders on the Prince's side, with his clansmen eager to make contact with the enemy and only able to do so in a completely ineffective manner. There was no shortage of courage shown in the face of almost impossible odds as they charged. The whole affair was over in some 25 minutes. Around 1,000 were killed or wounded while the Duke's army suffered some 310 casualties, including four officers killed and 14 wounded. Such a complete victory seemed only to fuel the bloody revenge, which followed almost immediately.
Retribution
Some of the stories of the attrocities committed by Cumberland's troops have no doubt been exaggerated, not only in the telling of them at the time, but in subsequent years. However, allowing for that, the body of evidence that exists, and the following is only a tiny sample, is fairly comprehensive.Bishop Robert Forbes, for example, made it his business to collect that evidence.
In 1748 he received a narrative written by Mr Francis Stewart, son of Bailie John Stewart of Inverness, who was 19 or 20 years of age at the time. It is worth quoting in fair detail, because it certainly gives an insight into the climate of fear which must have enveloped the area.
Mr Stewart writes, "It is a fact undeniable, and known almost to everybody, that upon Friday, the 18th of April, which was the 2nd day after the battle, a party was regularly detached to put to death all the wounded men that were found in and about the field of battle. That such men were accordingly put to death is also undeniable, for it is declared by creditable people who were eye-witnesses to that most miserable and bloody scene."
"I myself was told by William Rose, who was then greeve to my Lord President, that 12 wounded men were carried out of his house and shot in a hollow, which is within very short distance of the place of action. William Rose's wife told this fact to creditable people, from whom I had it more circumstantially.
"She said that the party came to her house, and told the wounded men to get up, that they might bring them to surgeons to get their wounds dress't. Upon which, she said, the poor men, whom she thought in so miserable a way that it was impossible they could stir, made a shift to get up; and she said they went along with the party with an air of cheerfulness and joy, being full of the thought that their wounds were to be dressed.
"But, she said, when the party had brought them the length of the hollow above mentioned, which is a very short distance from the house, she being then within the house, heard the firing of several guns, and coming out immediately to know the cause, saw all those brought out of her house, under the pretence of being carried to surgeons, were dead men."
The narrative carries on to tell of another party, under the command of a Colonel Cockeen, sent out to bring in the Lady McIntosh, a prisoner in her house at Moy. The Colonel found it ''impossible to restrain the barbarity of his party'' who spared neither sex nor age. Lady McIntosh counted more than 14 bodies between Moy and Inverness, men, women and children...
Mr Stewart also tells of the burning of a house near the battlefield containing 18 wounded men. This was apparently confirmed to Mr Stewart by a Mrs Taylor, a wright's wife at Inverness, who went to look for the body of a brother-in-law who had been killed.
Then he tells of the "very honest old gentleman, of the name of McLeod" pursued by two cavalrymen from near the battlefield to a hill near Inverness. When he couldn't run any longer, he went down on his knees and begged for his life. But he was shot through the head. The incident was witnessed by several inhabitants of Inverness.
Other inhabitants told of other acts of murder committed by Cumberland's men in Inverness - a "poor man shot by a soldier at the door of one Widow McLean, who lives in Bridge Street" and the "monstrous act committed in the house of one Widow Davidson in the afternoon after the action".
He relates, "A gentleman, falling sick in town, took a room at her house, being a retired place. He was in a violent fever the day of the action, and unable to make his escape when he was told the Prince and his army were defeat. Several soldiers coming up in the afternoon to this Widow Davidson's, the maid of the house told them there was a rebell above stairs, upon which they went immediately, rushed into the room wherein the poor gentleman lay, and cut his throat from ear to ear. This I was told by an honest woman, a neighbour of Mrs Davidson's, who went to the room and saw the gentleman after his throat was cut."
Mr Stewart goes on to describe the treatment of prisoners in the towns jail "so monstrous that I am certain there are few, if any, histories can parallel the like of it." Each received half a pound of meal a day, but not enough water to swallow it.
"I myself have gone often by the prison at that melancholy time, when I heard the prisoners crying for watter in the most pitifull manner. Many died at that time of their wounds, that were never dressed nor look't to, in the utmost agony."
The Rev James Hay, writing to Bishop Forbes in May 1749, records a catalogue of atrocities, including one dragoon who followed two "low countrymen" into a house and hacked them to death with his broad sword. "The maid heard their lamentable cries, and when he came out he was all blood. Poor men! they had no arms."
The Rev Hay goes on to describe the state of the prisoners, who were stripped when taken, with no regard paid to the "cryes of the wounded, or to the groans of the dying. No surgeon allow'd to apply proper remedies for their care or recovery, and when any of these were in the same unhappy circumstances their instruments were taken from them that they might give no relief. It was reckon'd highly crimenal and very dangerous to give them anything, even water."
He tells of the "prisoners' nurse", Anna McKaye, who brought comfort and help to the prisoners despite the danger. When a Mr Nairn escaped, she was taken to "the guard among a house full of sogars, and the orders were that she should not be allowed to sitt or ly down, and in that condition she was kept for three days and nights."
There was Murdoch McRaw, taken prisoner at Fort Augustus, who had nothing to do with the Prince. But within an hour of being sent to Inverness, he was hanged at the "Cross on the Apple Tree", his naked body left hanging for two days and a night and whipped for amusement.
The Rev Hay tells of Eavan McKay, jailed while delivering letters to Inverness. The letters were in French, and when he refused to tell who had written them or who they were for, was tied to a stake and given 500 lashes. Some days later he received 500 more, but still refused to speak After further harsh treatment he died. His father, reduced to begging in the street, was too afraid to claim his son and he was carried to his grave by two or three beggars. Even in death, one of Cumberland's soldiers thrust a bayonet several times into the body to "try (so he said) if the rebell was dead".
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