Read Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) Online
Authors: Frank McLynn
What was Charles Edward’s demeanour in the face of looming disaster? His overt stance was one of cheerful optimism: ‘HRH looks upon what has happened at Fort William as a flea bite and would not have anybody cast down upon it.’
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He rationalised the rash dispersal of his army on the grounds that this made it easier for his men to live off the land.
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And to demonstrate his unconcern the prince gave a number of balls at Inverness at which he danced himself, in contrast to his behaviour in Edinburgh in October.
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According to his own account vouchsafed to O’Heguerty in the 1750s, he took this action purely to bolster morale.
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He made a point of appearing in better spirits than ever.
But the difference between his actions in Edinburgh and now in Inverness was an important pointer to his state of mind. Contact with women in Charles Edward’s case always meant touching the chords of failure. The measures he trod with the fine ladies of Inverness
were
not so much a question of fiddling while Rome burned as an unconscious admission that his cause was now hopeless.
The pattern of self-destructive signs and pointers was not confined to the ballrooms of Inverness. For the first time there is a scintilla of harshness in the prince’s reactions to the sullen recalcitrance of Scottish Whig sympathisers, more of a tendency to condone burnings and draconian treatment through military execution of a foot-dragging population.
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The refusal to reinforce Lord George Murray at Blair is also instructive. If the prince did not agree with the strategy of forcing Cumberland to withdraw from Aberdeen, what exactly did he propose as an alternative? The answer seems to be, nothing.
The prince was unwise in his differential treatment of Scots and Irish officers. The favouritism shown to Irish cronies had long been resented by the Highlanders. There was particular pique about the fact that those chosen to go to Versailles as envoys were always the tame Irishmen (Kelly, Warren) who could be relied on to present the prince’s version of events.
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This was the moment when the prince should have jettisoned his sycophantic henchmen and used all his considerable charm to conciliate the clan officers. So far from doing this, he actually ordered his Irish favourites to shoot Lord George Murray if he showed any signs of defection to the enemy during a battle.
Charles Edward’s paranoia was not limited to Murray. It seems that the Scots’ reprehensible behaviour towards his ancestor Charles I had made a deep impression on him. Until his experience in the heather in 1746, he always tended to regard the Scots as potential traitors. What is interesting about this view is not its lack of rationality – for after all as a matter of historical record the prince was entitled to some uneasiness – but that Charles should have fastened on this as the key Scottish characteristic, ignoring the heroism and sacrifice they had already displayed on his behalf.
Matters in the Jacobite camp were already at a highly unsatisfactory pass when, on 8 April, Cumberland at last marched out from Aberdeen, making straight for the Jacobite jugular at Inverness. The weather had improved and the duke’s food supplies were assured. Cumberland was always a plodder, but his preparations had been painstaking. At least his men would fight with full bellies.
As the Jacobites admitted, Cumberland’s advance caught them unprepared.
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It was a case of ‘cry wolf’. The Hanoverian advance had been so often reported and then denied that it was at first hard
to
accept that this time Cumberland really was on the move. This rapid progress punctured the bubble of much Jacobite vainglory. Certain adherents of the House of Stuart in Aberdeenshire had boasted that Cumberland could not move an inch through their country without their knowing it. Yet the duke was at Old Meldrum, heading for Banff, before these Jacobite worthies dashed off a message for the prince.
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When the news sank in, the prince’s superficial reaction was contentment that the issue would soon be decided.
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But the orders issued to the scattered regiments indicate a certain alarm, like that of a sleepwalker awaking on the edge of a precipice. The truth was that in the strategic vacuum that persisted from early March, none of the Jacobite commanders had worked out a contingency plan in case the army was still dispersed when Cumberland advanced in earnest.
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And now here he was, marching faster than expected. By the 11th he was in Cullen. Still the complacent Jacobites did not fully awake to the danger. Lord Nairne enquired lackadaisically of John Roy Stewart if the summons back to Inverness was really urgent, as he did not want to weary his Athollmen with an unnecessary forced march.
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It was imperative to get the widespread regiments back in one body at Inverness. Lochiel and Keppoch were still in the vicinity of Fort William, unable to accept the implications of the failed siege. They were now ordered back with all speed: ‘The Prince would rather have you in three days with five hundred men than with a thousand three days after.’
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There were anxieties that the Camerons would not leave their country exposed to reprisals from Fort William; but Charles Edward reckoned that without their chieftains, the men would have to follow. It is instructive, though, that even at this stage the prince should be trying to make use of his now much-tarnished image. ‘Those that love me will follow me, those that will not will stay behind,’ is a pure attempt at charismatic leadership.
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Beneath the brave words there was confusion and some apprehension. Sheridan’s dispatch to Perth on 9 April begins jauntily but ends on a note of something close to despair: ‘As to Cumberland’s movements, he [the prince] thinks there is no great reason to be alarmed. He is making all the haste he can to gather his men in order to fight him … he hopes his men will not abandon him at such a critical juncture.’
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The key question about the events in the week leading up to Culloden is why Charles Edward did not dispute the passage of the Spey. This was the obvious place to stand and fight Cumberland.
The
Spey’s width and fast-flowing currents made it a perfect place for a defence. When Cumberland approached its banks, Lord John Drummond and John Roy Stewart had 2,000 men on hand. The two men were breakfasting at the minister’s house at Speymouth when a messenger rushed in with the news that the far side of the river was a ‘vermine of Red Quites [redcoats]’.
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Drummond and Stewart rode to the top of a hill and at first claimed only to see muck heaps. When they could no longer deny the truth, the order to retreat was given. First, however, there was a show of bravado. Cumberland reported seeing the rebels ‘making a formidable appearance’.
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Then, after firing a few shots and burning their magazines, they were gone.
Why was Jacobite resistance so feeble? There are several answers to this. The most fundamental is the misguided Jacobite strategy pursued in March. The string of successes achieved then was remarkable, but what in the end did it really amount to? The real threat was always from Cumberland and it is in that sector that the Jacobites should have concentrated all their efforts.
The villain of this particular piece was O’Sullivan. In March he went on a tour of inspection of the Spey and pronounced it indefensible, given Jacobite resources.
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Because the river was fordable at several places, the clansmen would need to be at the Spey in force. But such numbers could not live off the country for long – they had no tents to sleep in and no reserves in the magazines. So concluded O’Sullivan. But his analysis missed several points. First, a concentration of all the forces already on Speyside would have been sufficient to fight a holding action until the main Jacobite army came up. There were a number of fords so that Cumberland’s numbers would tell. On the other hand, their zigzag shape meant that the Hanoverians would take heavy casualties in trying to force passage.
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But any defence along these lines was vitiated by two things. Despite Lord John Drummond’s plea for concentration of force on Speyside, the Athollmen and most of the Edinburgh regiment were away in Grant country, trying to ‘force out’ the neutral Grants. They were still there when Cumberland’s army arrived.
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The other point was that Perth and Drummond needed artillery to conduct a riverside defence against Cumberland’s field-pieces. But the prince point-blank refused to release his cannon for this purpose.
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There can be no doubt that a delaying action with artillery would have inflicted considerable, even conceivably unacceptable, losses on the Hanoverian attackers. This would have given the prince the option either to support Perth and Drummond in divisional force and so provoke a decisive battle on very dangerous ground, or to
slow
the Hanoverians down considerably and so give the Jacobites the chance to bring their army up to full strength.
How can we explain the prince’s failure to take his chances at the Spey? Various answers have been suggested: Perth’s orders not to risk a general engagement, uncertainty about what would constitute such a risk, Jacobite desire to avoid casualties. The most likely answer is the absence of effective command. The absence of Lord George Murray was crucial, for he would surely not have let such an opportunity go. And only Lord George had the seniority and prestige to overrule O’Sullivan. Once again we may ask, why was Lord George in Atholl country, and Lochiel in Cameron country, pursuing narrow clan or family interests at such a crucial juncture? It was surely obvious that Cumberland would sooner or later make exactly the move he did make. Certainly it was not really open to clan leaders to use O’Sullivan’s argument that the army could not live off the land, since during the altercation at Falkirk they had repeatedly assured the prince that this was possible.
The other potential answer was that Hay of Restalrig’s incompetence was even more pervasive and significant than has been realised, that the prince did intend to move his army across to contest the Spey passage, but that commissariat problems prevented this. But if such had been Charles Edward’s intention, he should have had his various regiments within easy call, not scattered to the Scottish winds.
The more one looks at the crucial decision not to fight at the Spey, the more it looks like another of Charles Edward’s self-destructive acts, inexplicable in rational terms.
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There is no evidence here of the ‘blind optimism’ and pigheaded confidence the prince’s detractors usually impute to him at this stage of the campaign. It seems too as if Charles Edward’s unconscious wish to be rid of the stress of an army that had betrayed him had combined with the real demoralisation in Jacobite ranks.
Whatever mystery attaches to the failure to dispute the crossing of the Spey, there was nothing mysterious about the sequel. Charles Edward now faced the prospect of a battle without many of his best regiments. Cluny MacPherson’s men were in Badenoch; Cromarty, Mackinnon and Barisdale were still in vain pursuit of Lord Reay and the money from the
Prince Charles
. Only about half the Camerons were accompanying Lochiel back from Achnacarry. Keppoch’s and Clanranald’s were much reduced in numbers. Other absentees included the Lovat Frasers and many of the MacGregors and Mackenzies.
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Out of a possible muster of 7–8,000, only 5,000 were present at the fatal field of Culloden on 16 April.
To give the absentees time to join the main army, the Jacobites tried to find ways to delay Cumberland. After crossing the Spey the duke quickly advanced through Elgin and Alves.
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The task of holding Cumberland up fell to Perth’s regiment and to Clanranald’s and the Appin Stewarts, who had earlier been based at Elgin.
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On the road to Nairn on the 14th these men, assisted by about seventy of Fitzjames’s cavalry, performed valiantly, incidentally exposing the absurdity of Sheridan’s earlier jibe at the courage of Perth’s regiment. Perth would not have been able to buy time for Charles Edward by this manoeuvre unless his men were singularly intrepid.
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First they tried to cut off Cumberland’s advance guard. Cumberland blocked this move with a cavalry screen provided by General Bland.
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A running cavalry skirmish developed, with the two sides exchanging shots. On the far side of Nairn, Bland pursued the Jacobites hotly for two miles before Cumberland recalled him.
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The Hanoverian camp was then pitched at Nairn.
The prince, who had spent the 14th at Culloden House, was convinced that next day would see the decisive battle. He did not go to bed on the night of the 14th, but spent the time drawing up battle plans.
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The army meanwhile lay out of doors on the hill above Culloden House. An elaborate set of orders was worked out by the prince and Lord George. All deserters were to be shot, there was to be no stripping or looting the slain until the battle was over; ‘the highlanders are all to be in kilts and nobody to throw away their guns.’
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Putting a brave face on it, he told his officers he had no intention of making contingency plans in the event of defeat. Here he undoubtedly overdid the gallery touch but, to be fair to him, all his officers shared his belief in the invincibility of their clansmen.
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Next day the Jacobite army was drawn up in much the same order as on the day of the battle itself (the 16th), except that on the 15th the lines were a little closer to Culloden House. But there was no sign of Cumberland. He chose to spend his twenty-fifth birthday, 15 April, resting in Nairn. This was a bad omen. It meant that Charles Edward had already read his opponent wrongly. He had assured his officers that the temptation to seek a victory on his birthday would be too much for Cumberland.
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