Culloden

Great Battles

by Murray Pittock

The battle of Culloden lasted less than an hour. The forces involved on both sides were small, even by the standards of the day. And it is arguable that the ultimate fate of the 1745 Jacobite uprising had in fact been sealed ever since the Jacobite retreat from Derby several months before.

But for all this, Culloden is a battle with great significance in British history. It was the last pitched battle on the soil of the British Isles to be fought with regular troops on both sides. It came to stand for the final defeat of the Jacobite cause. And it was the last domestic contestation of the Act of Union of 1707, the resolution of which propelled Great Britain to be the dominant world power for the next 150 years.
If the battle itself was short, its aftermath was brutal - with the depredations of the Duke of Cumberland followed by a campaign to suppress the clan system and the Highland way of life. And its afterlife in the centuries since has been a fascinating one, pitting British Whig triumphalism against a growing romantic memorialization of the Jacobite cause.

On both sides there has long been a tendency to regard the battle as a dramatic clash, between Highlander and Lowlander, Celt and Saxon, Catholic and Protestant, the old and the new. Yet, as this account of the battle and its long cultural afterlife suggests, while viewing Culloden in such a way might be rhetorically compelling, it is not necessarily good history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Scotland, War

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

Murray G.H. Pittock FRSE is a cultural historian, Bradley Professor of Literature and Pro Vice Principal (Special Projects) at the University of Glasgow.

He was previously Professor of Scottish and Romantic Literature and Deputy Head of Arts at the University of Manchester, the first professor of Scottish Literature at an English university. He has been a visiting fellow at universities worldwide including: New York University (2015), Notre Dame (2014), Charles University, Prague (2010); Trinity College, Dublin (2008); the University of Wales in advanced Welsh and Celtic studies (2002), and Yale (1998, 2000–01).

Reviews

[Cold War Conversations Podcast · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating account of the battle and its aftermath

One for the military historians among you. This account revises some of the pre-conceived idea about this battle to provide a compelling and detailed account of the battle and its aftermath.

This book did get very technical and detailed in places which might put off the more casual reader, but worth persevering with.

Thanks to netgalley for the review copy.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a solid and broadly well argued revisionist account of the Battle of Culloden (1745) and its cultural significance. As much if not more attention is given to the meaning of the event as to what actually happened and why.

It has two faults. In trying to keep to the pagination of the series, Pittock often fails to explain himself on the facts, leaving the general reader sometimes puzzled, in order to concentrate on what appears to be his hobby horse - the use and misuse of the battle by ideologues of all stripes.

The second fault is that the maps are very poor indeed to the point of being useless, An account of any battle requires good visual aids that mark out clearly who was involved and what they did - if the text is not to be nigh on incomprehensible. This fault may be put down to editorial laziness.

The battle itself took only an hour. Pittock explains what happened well enough. In essence, two much more matched armies than legend has it met on ground and terms less attractive to the Jacobites and these were ouflanked by British cavalry.

It is a case where it was possible that the Jacobites might have won but, all in all, unlikely. Their ability to carry on a war was already strategically lost in any case because of errors made by a team of somewhat divided leaders who did not back their chancer Prince at the moment of truth.

Pittock uses battlefield archaeological evidence and much improved historical research in recent years to make mincemeat of the fantasies of British apologists and Scottish nationalists alike of savage but noble tribespeople crushed by overwhelmingly superior modernity.

There are times when you get a sense of Pittock being quite angry at the failure to understand what was actually going on here, to the point where occasionally he can hover on the edge of being tiresome about it. Historiographical contestation is generally less interesting than the facts.

The book should be read only half as the story of the battle with half as a disquisition on memory (a very few pages of academic obscurity here) and on cultural belief and ideological manipulation. It was quite pleasing to see the estimable Foucault quoted at least once.

The take-away from the book is valuable. Rewriting history - any history - to serve contemporary purposes is magical stuff, interesting in its own right but not the story of what actually happened and why. Culloden can be presented as a type case in magical historiography.

Two eighteenth century armies operating within the context of clashing larger scale proto-imperial dynastic states struggled to control through force majeure the destiny of an otherwise potentially viable smaller nation, Scotland. This greater struggle is what matters here in terms of outcome.

The tragedy of Scotland was that it simply did not have the resources, organisational or financial, to sustain itself against a rival nation which was involved in its own existential struggle for survival and at a global level. Ireland was in a far worse state to do so.

The 1745 rebellion might best - my view not Pittock's - be seen as the last act in a complex struggle between nations and religions that started somewhere back in the distant past, not 1640 but with the Protestant Reformation and some might say with Edward I.

What it was not was a struggle between barbarian Highlanders and Whig modernisers. Even if Scots were divided amongst themselves, with many prepared to back the Hanoverians (so long as they were winning at least), Pittock is persuasive that the Jacobite army was a Scottish army.

What we are seeing are just different visions of what Scotland should be. There would be country English Tories who would have had the Stewart vision just as there were Edinburgh and Lothian interests already tied to the financial system centred on London.

This Scottish army, with scarcely any English Jacobite support of consequence in the event, contained Irish elements and was backed by the French (which rather justified English engagement). It faced something recognisably British rather than English, a true imperial force.

Once defeated, the British engaged in undoubted atrocities (though one suspects Pittock might err a little in favour of the victims here when there is some gap in the data) and were an occupation force for some considerable time.

One senses modern liberal Scottish outrage at British actions - an outrage shared by many Englishman at the time as news came through - but he cannot have his cake and eat it. This was early modern warfare in the boondocks and some ethnic cleansing was going to be likely.

Being English, the English came to take Butcher Cumberland to task for this, ruined his reputation eventually through silence and contempt as much as protest and then did what the English always do well when they are discomfitted by the sight of the sausages being made - moved on.

Pittock does an excellent job of taking us through the false construction of meanings around Culloden, especially the attempt to class the Jacobites not as simply the weaker professional army of the period but as some sort of analogue of the Pathan or Algonquian.

The twists and turns of false meaning are fascinating but I, for one, will never take Peter Watkins' film 'Culloden' (1964) seriously again and I will be constructively cautious as the National Trust of Scotland attempts with difficulty to keep ahead of fast-moving scholarship.

Where does this lead us? Pillock is persuasive that a simple tale of barbarism versus modernity and of inevitability is absurd. It was quite possible if unlikely that the chancer Charles Edward might have created a very different sort of United Kingdom. Some might still regret this.

However, he did not. Counter-factuals are absurd. Despite a tendency to argue this away somewhat, the British won for a reason. They would eventually have won (assuming Charles Edward did not seize and hold London) even if they had been defeated at Culloden.

The British were simply (ultimately) financially, materially, in morale terms, organisationally and culturally ahead of the game by the 1740s. They were probably always ahead of the game. Invasion from Europe was the real threat and the Celtic zones offered a war on two fronts.

If Cumberland was brutal - unjustifiable from a humanitarian point of view - this had its logic in the need to crush military resistance in Scotland to ensure the transfer of troops back to Europe in order to maintain the alliance against France, the real invasion threat.

The crushing of the '45 at Culloden and the occupation by the British (not the English but a militarised ruling caste linked to trade finance) might be said to have enabled the end of the early modern period and the construction of empire.

Nothing happens clearly on set dates. Empire certainly was a process emerging out of dynasticism that centred itself on trade and piracy only in the Elizabethan era and Ireland was never quite tamed but Culloden can be argued to be the cusp of the change.

Pittock certainly argues for the centrality of the battle as a pivotal point in world history and I think he is persuasive. Mid-eighteenth century Americans, for example, seized on the victory as a very good thing indeed for them and for their aspirations to be protected from the French.

What is left in the air is how the facts affect the current national question. The British are probably at the end of their tether now as an imperial power but clearly sentiment in England and outside the cities is still for a unified Kingdom outside European entanglements.

We have to remember that the British elite were not unhappy to be ruled by a Dutchman or a German so long as such dynasts could guarantee their rights and privileges. The Scottish elite in the Lowlands too struggled to swing the 1707 Act of Union in their own class interest.

It is the rights and privileges of the elite that matter. Brexit was a shock because our elite had recast itself into Europeanism because Europeanism protected its rights and privileges. In many ways Brexit was a revolt of the English. Culloden simply does not matter today in this English context.

However, in Scotland it clearly does matter not only in its absurd mythic quality but perhaps also in this revisionist version of Pittock's. Pittock is offering a model in which Scotland tried and failed to overturn the 1707 decision by armed force. It was the Scottish equivalent of Brexit and failed.

The primary nationalist narrative is that Scotland can be free within the EU - which is really just substituting the British with the Europeans. The British nationalist story is a vague mystical idea centred on the Crown and the military little different from the eightenth century model.

It could be argued that Scotland can be 'free' and sustain itself without the EU or it could be argued conversely that the English, Scots and Irish could be jointly and severally free of the old imperial elites and become associates in a new form of 'Britishness' outside the alien European Union.

The story of Culloden in the future is thus ambiguous because it can be a story of the restoration of Scotland as a nation yet might also raise questions about the imperial project's usefulness now and the potential for rethinking the 'United Kingdom' altogether.

Whatever the answer, despite this sterling work of Pittock, we can be sure of one thing - the myth-making and false claims around Culloden and its meaning will continue because ideologues will steal anything to hand in order to present their case.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

In parts quite good, but in others, just awful. Notably bad is the overly dense and almost incoherent chapter on “ the battle that made Britain”, which drowns in over-blown language, grammatical turgidity and rhetorical flights that mask shallow or incomplete thoughts. Orwell would have had a field day editing it.
It is notable that the author takes delight in knocking down straw men - notably the hitherto almost unnoticed " myth” of Highlander animalistic sexual profligacy and the often mentioned “ sexual” aspects of the bare dead highlanders’ thigh portrayed in Moriers’ painting of Culloden really make me wonder about the author. It's a bare leg-patterned after lots of classical figures-lots. Actually, I've seen battlefield dead in the same pose. How one can make implicit reference to some purported homoerotic interpretation of a bayoneted corpse is beyond my ken. This is vacuous critical analysis on hyperdrive.
Theres’ lots and lots of very “modern” references- including praise and half praise of a number of modern works- mostly friends and colleagues of the author and myself. Fifty years from now this little volume will stand as a monument to all the buzz words that haunt the AMA conferences- ‘peripheries and centers’, feminist protoarchy, pseudo-nationalisms and even much hand wringing over the “ potential misuse” of the Clan graves as markers of etho-nationalist, racially charged pseudo/chauvinism etc. etc.. Overt Marxism must really be dead, since the class warfare thesis ( poor Jacobites versus rich Whigs) is the one theory of political action not mentioned in this book.
Sadly, or laughably perhaps, the authors’ much derided book on “ The Myth of the Jacobite Clans” is mentioned no less than eleven times, including one gem in which Pittock says his bold claims regarding the Jacobite army- that it was in fact practically a modern European field army using muskets and cannon instead of claymores to supply victory ‘ has been proven by field archaeology.
Anyone who has even a minor understanding of warfare knows that battlefield victories are brought on by what Lidell Hart referred to as “ firepower” or as Clausewitz would say, “Schwerpunktlichkeit” - that is , the ability of combat soldiers to neutralize their opponents via " killing power" - weaponry. To conclude that the Jacobite army, because it carried muskets, did not rely upon claymores is just stupid- otherwise, why did the clans charge at all? Also, if the Jacobite musketry was so proficient, why did the dragoons break through at all? The dragoons advanced through a very narrow front- a ten foot hole in the wall, across a Scottish bog- just after it rained! Their top speed was at best ten m.p.h., or a fat pony trot. If 450-700 Jacobite musketeers had been in any way competent, they would easily have decimated the dragoons at a range of seventy feet. 450-700 shots every forty-five seconds at 70 feet range on a narrow (10 feet) front should produce at least 2,800 shots in total and the average of 3.5-4% casualties (horses are bigger) means about 80-100 casualties, not 12! So the Jacobites probably didn’t fire more than a volley or two and neither did their artillery- thus, Stuart Reid, who has actually been a soldier, was right.

[Michelle Halber · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book, especially when discussing the events leading up to and after the battle at Culloden. However, unless one is a military or English historian, the details become too involved for the causal reader.

This book appears to be part of a series of books resisting and helping the modern reader learn about famous historic battles. The concept of this series is an interesting one, and I suspect there will be interest in the books. This book contained photographic pictures of the battlefield to give the reader an understanding of the terrain, as well as reproductions of some of the maps used during the battle, and diagrams of troops' movements.

As the goal of the series is to re-visit battles, I am not sure how to solve the real problem of this book -- the battle descriptions and recalling are just too specific and long. There are pages devoted to the various military weapons used in the battle (without any illustrations of how they actually looked). There are some descriptions of several of the military leaders, but there is no explanation when talking about formations and with the terminology.

Certainly this book removed a great deal of the myth and legend surrounding Culloden, and provided an unbiased look at the causes and effects of the battle. However, the bulk of the book became a military history report which a causal reader would get lost in.

Reviewed in pre-publication with thanks to the publisher and NetGalley.

[Daniel Woodworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not just a history of the battle, a history of the time surrounding the battle--particularly the aftermath. The author really drives home his point that the popular perception of the '45 as a battle between primitive Scots armed with edged weapons and the modern British army is flawed, only gaining acceptance because it fit with the narratives both sides wanted to push after the battle: in reality, the Jacobite army was a modern army that was betrayed not by its lack of modern weapons, but by its lack of cavalry. In general, perceptions of the battle have, he argues, fluctuated with what's politically convenient: Scottish-patriot Jacobites against the English originally, then after the rise of Scottish nationalism, a simple civil war. How history records the gaelic nature--or lack thereof--and equipage of the Jacobite army are primarily tools in this view.

The account of the battle and campaign is fascinating. The points that immediately support his thesis and challenge my long-held views on the battle and campaign are also interesting. However, where the book starts to digress into speculation, presented as analysis, about the esoteric motives behind remembering the battle, it starts to drag--badly. It would be a much better book if the author contented himself with what he knows, and shortened it by a chapter or two.

[J.J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Professor Pittock is obviously very knowledgable on the subject and there is a great deal of information in this book. But thereby hangs the problem. The information is poorly presented consequently the thread of the narrative becomes too tangled. The situation isn't helped by the poor quality of the figures which are illegible. The only figure that is legible doesn't have a legend.

[Susan Amper · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of Culloden until I read Diana Gabaldon's OUTLANDER series. The battle plays such an outsized role in the stories, I wanted to know more. And this is a great book for getting that information. A real picture comes into focus of what was at risk for the Scots and the suffering they endured for long after.

[James Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This study of Culloden is a forensic examination of the fighting which occurred on Drumossie Muir just to the east of Inverness on 16 April 1746 and the manner in which the outcome has been used to justify the political objectives of later generations of Britons. Pittock takes care to ensure that he represent’s the Prince’s army as what it was - a well-armed Scottish army - rather than what others want it to be - an army of tartan-swathed, sword wielding Gaelic savages. He goes to length to show that once the initial Jacobite attack was found wanting, the advantage moved to the British army and the day was Cumberland’s.

Pittock goes on to examine the implementation of the British occupation of Scotland, showing how the officers who learned their savage trade there was go on to perform similar deeds in the Americas. He also strips away the distortions place on the Jacobites by subsequent Historians who were determined to portray the defeated Jacobite army as made up entirely of men from Gaelic clans, when he shows the truth was very different.

This is a very important book which does much to demythologise the battle of Culloden, and place its events and outcome in a rigorously argued historical context.

[Jason Goodrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well researched but hard going.

[Tom Houston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative on the last battle fought on British soil. Slightly dry in places but a good read.

[Kilian Metcalf]

Review based on an ARC provided by Netgalley.

I was part of the great unwashed who believed Culloden was a battle between hordes of poorly trained highlanders up against well-drilled and well-equipped British soldiers. I had an excuse for this that doesn't involve novels. I watch an episode of the television show You Are There, which portrayed important historical events as if they were actually happening and being reported by Walter Cronkite on site interviewing participants. It was riveting, and though I must have watched several episodes it is the Battle of Culloden I remember best.

This book was a revelation to me, especially the second half. Pittock described the effect of the battle on the attitude of the British and the Scottish people for years to come. He uses examples of art to show how public opinion was formed, not by historical accounts, but by sentimental and inaccurate paintings.

This was a fascinating account of the battle and its aftermath that changed my thinking about this important battle.

[James Lunny · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. The campaign leading up to battle was brief and lacking depth. The description of the battle was confusing, not helped by poor, basic maps. Better and more maps showing the campaign and battle would help the reader immeasurably. The post battle chapters were better but went on for too long about the legacy of the battle (2 chapters on campaign and battle, 3 on aftermath and legacy). The book is more about dismantling the myths of Culloden than the campaign and battle, hence the disappointment. The book is more like a thesis, making it hard, sometimes laborious to read.

[Meghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Culloden and the Jacobites have always been something and a time period I found interesting. This book did get very technical and detailed in places. So, that made for a bit of a slow go at points, but overall a great look at the battle.

**I received a copy from Netgalley and the publisher in exchange for a review**