Fight for a Throne: The Jacobite '45 Reconsidered

by Christopher Duffy

The bid of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobites for the throne of Britain has never lost its grip on the popular imagination. In July 1745 he and a tiny group of companions arrived in Scotland. They came unannounced and unsupported, and yet within less than five months Charles was able to lead an army to within marching distance of London and make King George II fear for this throne. Afterwards the Highland Army continued to out-fight the redcoats in every encounter, except its very last. These were not the achievements of a backward-looking cause, and this ground-breaking study is the first to explain exactly why. Almost to the very end the Jacobites had the literal and metaphorical ‘edge’ over their enemies, thanks to the terror-inspiring highland charge, and also, as this book as this book is the first to reveal, to the highly-advanced organisation of their forces in ‘divisions’ – miniature armies that allowed them to out-manoeuvre their enemies on the strategic plane. At the same time Prince Charles made a credible bid for the political and ideological high ground, an appeal based on religious toleration, and a monarchy working in cooperation with an empowered and accountable Parliament. The Prince therefore not only drew on traditional loyalties, but attracted the support of heavyweights of the new ‘Enlightenment’. It all made a telling contrast to the demeaning nature of the Hanoverian government in Britain, which was mired deep in corruption. The Hanoverian politicians in London and Scotland, who had honed their skills in petty advantage, were now all of a sudden called upon to act as strategists, and they failed completely. The prime minister lost the Carlisle to the Jacobites simply because he refused to pay the cost of a courier. These revelations, which show the Jacobite enterprise of 1745 as a potent and modernising force, turn the accepted interpretation of this episode on its head. As an impartial historian Christopher Duffy deals comprehensively with the reasons for ultimate triumph of the Hanoverian cause in 1746. Due credit is given to the Duke of Cumberland. He was an inspirational leader. He had the measure of the strength and weaknesses of the British Army, and he evolved the cautious and systematic kind of war that helped to bring him victory at Culloden on 16 April 1746. Conversely the Jacobites had been dogged even from the start of the Rising by their failure to reconcile two perspectives – that of Prince Charles, who was striving to reclaim the crown for the Stuarts in London, and the narrower visions of the more overtly Scottish party. It led to the contentious turn-around of the Jacobites at Derby, and finally and fatally to the dispersal and exhaustion of the Highland Army before Culloden. These assertions rest on the recent advances by other historians in ‘Jacobite studies’, and the author’s continuing researches in to unexploited primary sources. His documentary finds extend to the autobiography of Lieutenant-General Hawley, Lord George Murray’s explanations of key episodes of the Rising (and his detailed accompanying map of Culloden), the material collected by the restored Whig administration in Edinburgh towards an ‘official’ history of the Rising, the Reverend John Home’s detailed questioning of survivors, and much more. Lastly Duffy returns to his starting point, the enduring appeal of the ’45 to our instincts. He concludes that it comes from the elusive nature of the episode, recognised by tough-minded men of the time as something ‘epick’ and ‘miraculous’ – literally beyond rational explanation, and capable ever since of being re-fashioned according to our imaginings.

Genres: History, Scotland, Nonfiction

597 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2015

About the author

Christopher Duffy (born 1936) is a British military historian. Duffy read history at Balliol College, Oxford, where he graduated in 1961 with the PhD. Afterwards, he taught military history at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and the college of the British General Staff. He was secretary-general of the British Commission for Military History and vice-president of the History Society of Ireland. From 1996 to 2001, he was research professor at the De Montfort University, Leicester. Today he lives and works as a freelance author.

Duffy's special interest is the military history of the European modern age, in particular the history of the German, Prussian and Austrian armed forces. He is most famous for his writings about the Seven Years' War and especially Frederick the Great, which he called self-ironically "a product of the centuries-old British obsession with that most un-British of creatures". Duffy is fluent in six languages and has published some twenty books about military history topics, whereof several were translated into German.

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

There’s no such thing as a definitive history, but this is surely the most comprehensive analysis available of the 1745 rebellion. As history it’s certainly worth five stars, although I have to highlight that, unfortunately, the text is liberally strewn with printing and proof-reading errors. Some of these are easy for me to spot as I’m familiar with the Scottish Highlands, but they might be more confusing to those who aren’t. I’ve therefore listed some at the end of this review, and for me these errors reduced the overall rating to a 4.5. I hope there will be a better proof-reading of future editions.

The book is an update to Christopher Duffy’s 2007 book on the ’45, which I had read and enjoyed immensely. He comments in the introduction that he had considered that book “a serviceable piece of work” but had since found a great deal more original material.

The story of the ’45 is a truly remarkable one. Prince Charles Stuart landed in Scotland with only seven companions. As the author highlights, his one opportunity was that he landed in the only part of 18th century Britain where it was possible to find a ready-made army. Astonishingly, his few thousand Highlanders (later augmented by small numbers of others) came within a whisker of restoring the Stuart monarchy, and might well have done so had his commanders not essentially lost their nerve when victory seemed within their grasp. (They had expected to be supported by a French invasion and assumed they had no chance when this didn’t take place).

The book starts a little slowly with a careful analysis of the level of Jacobite sympathy in Britain at the time. It really gets going though once the campaign starts. There were three significant battles – Prestonpans, Falkirk and Culloden, and many smaller actions, and each is described in impressive detail. Numerous maps guide the reader through each engagement as well as the route of the Jacobite Army. The excellent narrative is complemented by thoughtful analysis. The Hanoverian Army was trained to fight “civilised” enemies who fought the same way it did. In facing the Highlanders, it had to deal with an army that combined modern and primitive ways of warfare, and which posed a unique set of problems. The role of the French government was also presented in a way I hadn’t thought about before.

The author is a professional historian who weighs the evidence dispassionately. I did get the impression though that his heart lay with the Jacobites. Not a problem for me!

This is a serious work of history. If you have an interest in the subject, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.


P.P – Printing errors (some of them) listed below:

p.24 – The text correctly describes Fort Augustus as located at the southern end of Loch Ness, but Map 2C on the same page refers to “Fort Augustus, as seen from Loch Lomond” (which lies about 90 miles to the south)
p.40 – “Prince Charles Edward Stuart was born on 20 December 1745” – enough said!
p.86 – again the text correctly comments that, in travelling east from their starting point at Glenfinnan, the established road would have brought the Jacobite army within reach of the guns of the Hanoverian garrison at Fort William. The author suggests the Jacobites turned north at Annat through Gleann Laragain, “to reach the Great Glen a safe four miles above Fort Augustus”. – this should be four miles above Fort William.
pp 88-89 – this is probably the most glaring error, a map printed across two pages where west and east have been transposed (i.e. the eastern part of the map is on the left-hand page, and vice versa)
p.312 – There is a mention of 3 ceremonial posts in Scotland, described as “The Ross, Ilsay and Snowdoun Heralds”. This should read “The Ross, Islay, and Snawdoun Heralds”
p.406 – a reference to written orders from the Duke of Cumberland to the commander of Hessian troops guarding passes out of the Highlands. The order was that they should not get drawn into the Highlands proper, except that the word is misprinted as “Highlanders” and the order “sich nicht in die Berge zu engagiren” is described as an order “not to become entangled in the Highlanders” (the mind boggles)
p.570 – the Duke of Argyll - “he was drawing revenues from an area of 500,000 square miles and exercised feudal superiority over a wider area still…the whole coming to about 2,500 square miles.” The initial reference should clearly be 500 square miles.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great historian in need of a good editor and proof reader

Could have been so much more