189. Culloden: Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Last Stand

24:17Or at least the intelligence that that is accruing on the northwest coast of France just arrives with the Jacobite army too late. Is it more contrary winds or what's the problem? Well, it's a bit of contrary winds, but actually sheer scale of preparation. Bearing in mind, they're fighting a major war across the rest of France. You know, this is all logistics, but there's an element of trying to keep intelligence, to break the intelligence through so that Charles knows for certain that they are waiting for them, that there is going to be this invasion force into the southeast of England, which would have been a game changer.

24:47So the game doesn't change frustratingly, even though Charles is the one voice saying, we can do this, we can win this, we're on the verge of something really big. There's panic in London. We can do it, guys. There's a retreat. Now tell us about the retreat. There is some panic going on and a lot of people had left London because they knew full well this is where they're aiming for and didn't want to be around, didn't want to hang around. At the same time, much like the support for the Jacobites, there was also a support, a rallying of defending London as well, which is where you get the March of the Girls to Finchley, this famous painting by Hogarth.

25:19So, for example, they're raising money in the theatres. David Garrick's troupe is raising money to support the defence of London against the Jacobite army and so on. The Garrick Club's on the wrong side again. Yeah, but this Finchley gathering, you've mentioned it twice, the Hogarth painting, for those who haven't seen it. So these are just sort of the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, everybody rallying to London, saying we will fight them. we will protect London. Is that what that's all about? Yes. Well, you get people, actors' companies, forming up into military companies in order to replace trained regular troops to then march north towards Finchley Common, which is a big area of common land, which is where armies traditionally, whether they're advancing to London or from London, amass on this particular place.

26:03And that's where the regular army is going to mass up in order to either advance north or defend London. And that's where George II is intending to go with his equipment and stuff is to actually go to Finchley Common and be with his troops there. So that's why that's significant. And Jacqueline, one of the things that depressed the commanders was perhaps because this army did look so very Scottish, English Jacobites are not flocking to the standard. There is actually, for the last hundred miles towards Derby, almost no one new joins this army and they feel the hostility of the Midlands people around them.

26:37This is not a a liberating army being welcomed on. There are doer faces in all the Midlands towns looking at this bunch of tartan-clad Highlanders as they march onwards. Well, they raise in Manchester, there's a Manchester regiment, and they raise about 300 Englishmen that come from a variety of places, but mainly Lancashire. And Lancashire, of course, is a strong Catholic county, and a lot of Catholics do join, but also Protestants as well. So this is just about the Stuarts being the rightful kings. Yeah, it's as simple as that. But 300 is not a big army. It's still a regiment. It's the same size as some of the clan regiments, but it's not massive.

27:11It's not the full rising they're expecting. What might have put off the English rising is this overt Scottishness, the Highlandness, because even the Manchester regiment wear tartan. Really? So you're starting to see, well, because it becomes the symbol of this army. The tartan is a kind of unifying thing. Regardless of where you come from, you wear the tartan. And that makes them seem to be more overtly highland than they actually are. And you're right, they may well have put off the English rising. But still, even then, even with, you know, they've got one regiment raised, they're still making progress.

27:42Why, when and who is the person who forces the retreat? Because it's certainly, Charlie doesn't want to retreat, does he? Bunny Prince Charlie wants to carry on. Well, it's a show of hands. Is it literally that? Hands up, he wants to go on? No, really? I think the Jacobite Duke of Perth is a gentle soul, was happy to advance with Charles if that's how the vote would go. But in the main, most sources tell you that in fact, everybody says no, they want to go back to Scotland. And one of the reasons they want to go back to Scotland is one of the bits of intelligence they are getting is that there's a second Jacobite army forming in the northeast of Scotland under John Drummond.

28:17And they decide that either we go back, consolidate, pull this army together in Scotland and then advance again in the spring because nobody marches an army around any country during the winter. It's an absolute nightmare trying to move an army around in those conditions. And what is the date they get to Swaxton Bridge? Well, they retreat on the 6th of December. And going back to that bridge, that's the feint. They've already decided they're not going on. They send out an advance party to look like they're advancing. So they get to Swarkston Bridge and that's on the way towards London eventually.

28:51That's a feint. That's a military feint. And in fact, they turn around and they all come back. And in fact, the rest of the army is marching north, going exactly the same way, but backwards through where they came up through Penrith, Carlisle, eventually getting back to Scotland. So that's the significance of that. It is the furthest south they got, but it's a part of the army and it's just a feint. Well, look, with the retreat in motion, it's a good point to take a break. Join us after the break when we find out, actually, is there any way back? Once you've gone back, is there any way back?

29:26Welcome back. So we left the last half with the Jacobite army in retreat. And again, we often look at this with the eyes of hindsight. Historians always regard this as the moment that the Jacobite bottle goes, that their courage fails. And after this, it's just a slow march towards the final terrible battle at Culloden Moor. But that's actually not the case, is it, Jacqueline? There's still fight in the army. There's a sensible strategic reason for them going back to Scotland. There is a new army forming. There's every reason to think the French might send a fleet to Scotland. And in fact, we still have one last victory, don't we?

30:03The Battle of Fulkirk Muir on the 17th of January, 1756, which shows actually what a fast retreat it had been too. Yes, just when you think all is gloom and doom, they actually do return to Scotland successfully. And they do end up fighting a battle in January, which nobody wants to do, by the way. Nobody wants to fight a battle in January for obvious reasons. But it is a success. And it's the same thing as Preston Pans, isn't it? It's another Highland charge which immediately breaks the lines of the Redcoats and they flee. And a much bigger British army. So this is on much bigger scale. You have got the troops that have returned from Flanders.

30:37So you've got the commanders. Proper battle-weary troops. Exactly. These are regular troops, but it's on very strange terrain that they decide to fight on. Again, it's slightly done on the hoof from a British army point of view. They are slightly caught out by a cunning advance by the Jacobite army. And this is the second defeat out of two. And the big difference is you say that this is not rookies who've just come through the mist from Newcastle. This is the absolute crack British army troops. They've won the Battle of and here they are now finally confronting the Jacobites. And again, there's a Jacobite victory.

31:12Well, the letters from General Hawley, the grovelling letters from him, he's just embarrassing to read because he's clearly literally caught with his trousers down because he simply wasn't, I don't know whether he thought that somehow Preston Pans hadn't happened, but he clearly didn't think much of his enemy. And of course, they trip him up as a result. So his grovelling letters to Cumberland, who of course has to be brought back in now, he's disappeared. You know, he's gone off. He's not involved in what's happened since the retreat from Derby, but he's called back in because George II just feels the only person who can sort this out is my son, my second son.

31:47So give us a pen portrait of this man that I was always taught to think of as one of the great sort of stinking figures in history, as one of the brutes and cruel and sort of callous man. Is there truth in that? His parents would refer to the Duke of Cumberland as Prince William Augustus, third and youngest son of George II. So, I mean, the portraits I've seen, Augustus Gloop comes to mind, a portly fellow with a very unfortunate horse underneath him because this is not a small, this is not a tiny man, is it? So, tell us what he was like. Not. I mean, he is the commander of the Allied forces in Flanders.

32:24That's partly through dint of him being the son of a king, of course, and also obviously the elector of Hanover. I mean, he is a military man to his core. Now, how good he is as a military man, it depends on who you read, which book you read. Even in the 18th century, it depends on who you're looking at. But he does have the ear of the king. So in that sense, the commanders are very flattering towards him. But George II simply thinks that the only person you can actually deal with this is my own son, the only person I trust now, because Hawley's made such a mess of it. We need to send my son back.

32:53The thing about the Duke of Cumberland is that he is a Hanoverian to the core. He doesn't seem to have any off switch when it comes to winning. There's no sense of elegant victory, where you might be a little more accommodating towards your enemy or show some mercy. That's not how he rolls. He's a brute. He is a brute. He shoots his prisoners, doesn't he? You know, he's very fair to his own army, but he seems to have no truck whatsoever with somebody who he considers to be a rebel. A rebel is a traitor, simple as that. What we might today call terrorists. He regards these people as somehow beyond the pale and therefore not worthy of following the rules of war or the rules of humanitarian conduct.

33:35Yeah, I mean, they are trying to remove my family from the crown and my job is to get rid of them. So it's as simple as that. So where does he land, Jacqueline? He's been in Flanders. He's been in command. He takes a ship across, presumably, the channel. Does he land in London and ride the way up? Well, he's been in London. And then, of course, he takes command of an army and then marches north as they're advancing towards Derby. So he's already been in England for several months. I mean, the army disbands from or effectively comes back over the October, November. So while Charlie's in Edinburgh, the main army is now coming back from Flanders.

34:10Because, you know, there's that thing, it's a bit that politeness of military war in the 18th century. You stop fighting. Everyone agrees to stop fighting because it's winter and we don't have winter campaigns. So that's when he comes back. So he's been in England for a while. In the very, very good Jacobite Museum on Culloden Moor that the National Trust has set up, you have a very nice set of videos of the different armies manoeuvring around Britain. and you get in that the impression that the Jacobites are very successfully weaving their way around the country, avoiding the government troops and their concentrations.

34:46But yet after Falkirk, they continue to retreat to the Highlands. What's in their minds? Is it that they're now in flight or is it that they think that the Highlands is the place where they'll get support? Consolidation, you know, to connect up the armies. I think it's consolidation. They've also started, they're running out of money. I mean, you've got these various ships that arrive from France, but they've never got enough cash in them and you've got to pay your army you've got to pay people and they're running out and so they end up in the vicinity of Inverness and this is where they have this madcap idea of actually printing money because he's running out of money he can't pay anybody so the army you know if you're not paid you have to find food from somewhere you wander off it's not so madcap it's I mean in the short term it's something that could have worked it could have worked and in fact there's a plate and there's some wonderful printing of these Jacobite notes and are printed in Inverness And they're printed in Inverness.

35:37And the idea is that they're almost like I owe you notes, so that when the restoration occurs, you can cash them in after Charles and his father have arrived in London. That's the idea of them. But they're trying to form and consolidate themselves around Inverness. Meanwhile, after Falkirk, you've now got Cumberland has now come back in to Edinburgh as the commander of the troops in Scotland, King's troops in Scotland. And there is going to be a moment where these two sides face off. He's itching to teach them a lesson. They have some confidence because it's 2-0 so far in the battles. So we are being drawn to the word that people will be familiar with, Culloden.

36:17Now first of all, tell us where is Culloden and why is its geography important as well? Culloden's five miles to the east of Inverness. So its significance is because it's a moor, but it's also close to where the Jacobites have been hunkering down and gathering their troops and trying to replenish and raise money, etc. So that's the convenience of it. That's the significance of it from the Jacobites' point of view. We have an image in our heads of the Highlanders fighting best in sort of mountainous territory with rather like the Afghan Mujahideen sort of sitting up on mountains and then coming running down and ambushing people.

36:51But Culloden's not like that at all. It's as flat as anywhere in the south of England. It's next to the sea. You can see for miles. It's flat and it's moorland. You can see the sea on one side. It's such a beautiful aspect when you're at Culloden. You can't really imagine anything horrible happening there, which of course it did. You've got the sea in front of you and then behind you, you have the slow rising ground. So you do have sort of hills behind you, but it is effectively a flat piece of farmland. And of course, Culloden was owned by a pro-Hanovarian highlander called Duncan Forbes of Culloden.

37:22A very nice house he has that still stands. Very nice house he has. And he was a very brave, but also very sort of staunch highlander, you know, a proud highlander. but pro-Hanovarian. And this is what I mean, the complications of who the Highlanders were supporting. It is different depending on your background and so on. So Culloden, ironically enough, becomes the site of the battle, which is actually owned as part of the lands of a pro-Hanovarian Highlander. So take us to the last 24 hours before the battle. Everyone knows the two sides are getting closer to each other. And there is this clever idea, isn't there, that they're going to surprise the government troops, that they're going to leave in the night and they're going to get the government troops and ambush them at Nairn.

38:08But that plan goes badly wrong, Jacqueline. Tell us about it. That's right. So the British army has been training and acclimatising and waiting for the spring to occur in April. So after all the battles in January and stuff, they've been sort of bedding down in the northeast of Scotland around Aberdeen and they are rested. Cumberland has also introduced a manoeuvre which is supposed to give heart to his troops, the frontline troops that are facing this Highland charge, which is where you take your bayonet and you shove it towards the right of you. And then the person next to you does the same thing.

38:41So you kind of traverse the shield. So people won't see it coming. That's interesting. Most military historians think that that was just a kind of a thing that would help to give courage as opposed to a proper manoeuvre that would make any difference whatsoever. it just makes the front line waiting for this charge to come towards you feel a little bit more confident that they've got the support of the people either side of them. And so it's much more about, you know, a sense to keep the line rather than necessarily a renewed that was going to succeed per se. But anyway, he's trained them in this way.

39:11He's built up their confidence and stuff like that. And then they eventually arrive at Nairn on the 15th of April. This is where they encamp. So it's the spring, it's April, 15th of April, which happens to be the Duke of Cumberland's 25th birthday. He's only 25. He's only 25. God, he looks older. He's younger than Charles Edward Stewart by a few months. I mean, I really do urge people to look at paintings from the time. This is a man who has not worn his age lightly. I mean, he's 25. Neatly put. But tell us what goes wrong with this night attack, because it's the sort of thing which, again, the whole fate of the country turning on a penny.

39:45Had the night attack worked, it could have ambushed the government troops. The whole of history could have been different. But what actually happens? But also it's important, it's his birthday. I think this is really important because they are a bit pissed. I mean, aren't they all given two gallons of brandy to drink, to celebrate? For Georgians, they're not pissed. Okay, fair point. Okay, but two gallons of brandy each and they weren't pissed? Each regiment, not each person. Each regiment, yeah. That makes more sense. God, they'd be like poisoned and lying on the ground. Okay, that makes more sense.

40:16Yeah, a lot of Georgians are drinking small beer rather than water. So, you know, they've got a light level of inebriation seems to be the sort of norm. Now, basically, he has dished out some booze for his men in celebration of his birthday. But I suspect they also knew that that's exactly what the Jacobites would know. They would know it was his birthday. They would know he would give the little treat to his troops. There's no expectation per se that the battle will occur on the 16th, the following day. It could happen at any time. All the Jacobites could have retrieved elsewhere and there's no battle at all.

40:48So this idea that there was going to be a battle on the 16th of April is not necessarily the case at all. But they're in with the vicinity of each other now. They are now within the area. Yeah, Cullodenmoor to Nairn is about six miles, isn't it, or seven miles? Exactly. So they're within hailing distance of each other now. So the idea is that while they're encamped, and Lord George Murray suggests this, He says they're going to be pissed, you know, because it's the Duke of Cumberland's birthday. While they're in their tents, in their beds, we should night march over. So send the troops over and then kill them in their beds.

41:22Just kill them, just snuff them out. It's a brilliant plan. This is what Clive used to do in India. He used to attack people at night while they were sleeping in their tents. And it always worked. But in this case, it doesn't. Why not? Well, because they leave too late because there's arguments. I mean, the trouble is that the Jacobite army, when they're all united behind Charles and thinking, OK, he seems to know what he's doing. It's OK. The cracks aren't appearing. But the minute there's any dissent or any arguments between the commanders, the splits start appearing and you get a separation between the Scots and the Irish commanders.

41:54They start to separate. So there's divisions. And so, unfortunately, they didn't leave in a timely fashion. Lord George Murray later says he survives the whole thing. He says, if only we'd left when I'd said. By the time we left, it was too late. He's right. And people were exhausted. They were waiting for troops to come back because they were exhausted. You know, they were going off to find food and they were wandering about and stuff. He said, if only they'd all got together and we could have marched in a timely fashion and done exactly what I said we should do. The trouble is we left too late.

42:22And then they don't even get there, do they? They don't get to there. They turn back. Yeah, they get near enough for the scouts, the British Army scouts to spot them. They see them coming along, so they get their heads up, and so they send the reports back to the army, the encamped army at Nairn, and that army then springs to life, forms up, and starts marching towards Culloden. Meanwhile, the Jacobite army is having to go back through the rough terrain, exhausted, even more exhausted than they were before. Because they've been up all night. They've been up all night. I mean, there's descriptions of Charles and his commanders getting to Culloden House, the famous house, Duncan Forbes House, collapsing on the bed, and then almost within minutes feeling they had to get back up again because their scouts say the British Army's on the move.

43:06And we should also say, you know, it is April. It is wet, it is cold, it is snowing that morning. Then even worse, the snow has melted, so it's cluggy ground. So it's wet, sort of sucking your shoes off kind of terrain that they're walking in. And the bog is a bog even now. You can lose your shoe in Cloddenmore even with the National Trusted Charge. I mean, the thing is that obviously the day before, there had been reconnoiter across this terrain to work out which was the best place for the Jacobite army to form up. But that's only if you form up in order. The bottom line is they've walked all the way practically on towards Nairn and then walked all the way back again, barely had any sleep.

43:45And then the British army has started moving towards them. And to give a picture of it, there's this bog. There's a few dry stone walls, aren't there, crossing the moor? Yes, it's part of the park walls of Culloden House itself, and then various farmsteads and stuff like that. This is farming land, you know, this is where battles are fought. When you go there today, it's a very moving sight because they have the cairns erected where the different clans gather. And there's the McIntoshes here and McDonald's there. And then on the other side, you've got the straight lines where the Duke of Cumberland is on one wing, Albemarle is on another.

44:17And all these generals are forming up in their red coats with their white epaulets, with their bayonets. And both sides know where each other are. There's absolutely no sense of surprise. It's completely flat ground. And things begin to go wrong from the beginning, don't they? There's one wonderful optimistic charge which breaks one wing. But after that, it's downhill all the way, Jacqueline. Tell us what happens. Well, of course, you know, the Jacobite army isn't in the position it wanted to be in. So even from the get-go, where they're forming up to face the British army, they are in the wrong place from their point of view.

44:49So they're having to improvise. And of course, in the middle of it is this bog. So I think the Jacobites fire first, but the whole thing is done and dusted within an hour. Which is unusual in the 18th century. Battles can go on for much longer. Exactly. And there is a spirited Highland charge. They're held back by some of the commanders to hold them back while the firing is occurring from the British Army side, which softens up the front line, has to be said. Then they're unleashed to do this Highland charge. But then you've got this bogginess that they end up having to run round and all sorts of things.

45:22There is hand-to-hand fighting on the Jacobite right flank, the British Army left flank, and people are killed. Some of the British army commanders are killed or maimed. Bennets against claymores. Exactly. So that's the hand-to-hand fighting going on there. But that falls back quite quickly because there's a third line, second and third line behind the British army then move forwards. Properly lined up in proper British army file firing 18th century mode. Stuff they've got really well settled now. Then the horsemen are sent in who have been breaking down these little walls that are seemingly covering the various flanks, in fact, vulnerable.

45:59You break the wall down, you've suddenly got access to the rear of the Jacobite army and stuff. So there's all sorts of things going on at the same time, which means that eventually, it's fairly clear that there's going to be a route. And that's what happens. So I often wonder in the mythologising of all of this, whether there is an inflation of the number of Bonnie Prince Charlie's supporters who get killed at Culloden. I mean, do we have an idea of how many are killed on his side? Well, it's difficult to pin down how many people on the Jacobite side were actually there. It certainly wasn't the full army, because some of them were still wandering off trying to find food.

46:34So this is the trouble. It was a mad assembling of the army. Then there'd been, even the night before, the Frasers joined the Jacobites. The old fox has been sitting on the... The old fox is Lord Lovett, the clan chief of the Frasers, my in-law's clan, I should say. and they'd been dithering and sitting on the fences. And then they joined the wrong losing side the night before Culloden in a sort of terrible act of self-destruction. So there's some new troops coming in even then, Fraser's. And some of the troops are actually marching along the road towards Culloden and the other troops are fleeing towards Inverness, you know, because the battle's already happened and everything's collapsing.

47:10I think it's hundreds, possibly thousands, and there's certainly on the British army side, it's closer to, let's say, a hundred or several hundred. but obviously killed but also wounded is a bit more. But most of the casualties are certainly on the Jacobite side by sheer dent of what happens, you know, the collapse of the line and then the pursuit by the cavalry, which always happens. This is the route bit of it. If you're running off a battlefield, the battlefield extends as far as the troops get, and the cavalry follow the running figures and just hack them down as they're going along. So you've got bodies lining the road on the way to Inverness And even into the town itself, there's people who describe cavalry charging into the streets, the cobbled streets of Inverness with people running and then just hacking at them.

47:57And there's half a plan, isn't there, for the Jacobites to regroup at Ruthen Barracks? Exactly right. They do. So, in fact, it's not all over. And in fact, Culloden was not seen, it was seen as a great victory for the British army and the Hanoverians. but it was not seen as definitive because you get letters from the Duke of Cumberland saying the very nature of this country is that rebellion will rise up as soon as anything. Hang on a minute, but where's Charlie? I mean, if Charlie's still at large, then it's not over. So where is Charlie? What happens to him in all of this? Well, actually, he's had a horse shot from under him.

48:30All sorts of things have gone on. Even though he's not at the front of the army, he is in the thick of it and he gets mud splattered all over him whenever the great shot and the kind of cannon fire and all that kind of thing, the shells land. So he's in the thick of it. And eventually it's fairly clear that once the Jacobite front line has broken up and people are starting to flee, it's fairly clear. You just can't control an army once it started doing that. So it's all up for now. So he says he insisted on standing still and other people say this too. Someone grabs the reins of his horse and drags him off the battlefield because if he goes, then the whole cause is done.

49:04That's it. As long as he's alive, there's still something. Yeah. The trouble is, though, he then escapes with a few 100 or maybe 50 people, escort him off the battlefield. They end up wandering around. The rest of them have been told by, I think it must have been Lord George Murray, tells them to meet at that barracks. Reuvenglades, which still stands. If you go up the A9, you can see it on the right. Exactly. Several thousand Jacobite soldiers gather 30 miles south of Culloden at the barracks. And they wait for Charlie to come and he doesn't. That's right. And he doesn't come and eventually there's a signal sent to say just every man for himself.

49:38So from the minute of the defeat, Butcher Cumberland shows himself at his true self. No prisoners are left alive, are they? They slaughter the prisoners. Anyone wounded on the battlefield is berneted. There's absolutely no mercy shown to any of the Highlanders from that moment. Well, prisoners are taken, but parts of the British army do return to the battlefield. and you do get examples of people being killed on the battlefield here just wounded. So in other words, wounded people are not being taken. There's a barn at the back of Culloden where the Jacobites have put a lot of their wounded and all that lot are berneted within an hour of the defeat.

50:16Yes, this is where the butcher element comes in. This is definitely where it comes in. There is a print which shows a bullock or a bull, you know, a kind of calf, standing on his hind legs holding an axe, you know, who's a butcher's axe. and it's got the star of the Order of the Garter on it. And this is the butcher. And that starts the ball rolling back in London in regard to this nickname, the butcher. That's how they instigated. And they talk about him becoming a freeman of one of the guilds in London. And they say, well, let it be the butcher, the butcher's guild. So that's where that starts.

50:47Okay, but big question. I mean, all of this horror is going on. Where's Charlie? Where is Charlie? So, I mean, there is a lovely story, a romantic story. Is it a true story about a young woman called Flora MacDonald, who is his salvation. Tell us about that story. The myth and the reality, I suppose, or are they the same in this case? Well, she meets him for two days out of five months. Okay. But we should say who she is. She's stepdaughter, fiance of two officers in George's army. I mean, she's kind of star-crossed in that respect because she shouldn't be on his side. She should be the person who's shopping him to the authorities, but she doesn't.

51:23What does she do instead? She supports him, partly because of the human thing about a person who's been hunted. That 30 ,000 still hanging over his head, that bounty is still hanging over his head. So there is that thing about Highland hospitality and stuff. She's also fearful about her own clan chief, the Macdonald clan chief, because he's kept out of it. He kept out of the 45. So she's quite ambivalent about what to do when she's asked to help Charlie. And how she helps him though, she does agree in the end, is that she pretends that Charles is her maid, an Irish maid called Betty Burke. And so Charles, who's five foot 10, which is very tall, five foot 11, five foot 10 in his stocking feet is then dressed as a woman in a full gown, a mop cap, the whole shebang.

52:08And this Betty Burke, who's Charlie, escorts his mistress, Flora MacDonald, and she takes him on a boat. This is the famous Skyboat song. Over the Sea to Sky. Over the sea to Skye But dressed the whole time initially as a woman Song doesn't mention that by the way Song doesn't mention the cross-dressing No, she gets into a safer place dressed as a woman But this is only two days out of five months of him being a fugitive So he has a terrible time But weirdly enough, he starts off moaning about the midges And moaning about what terrible food he's been given and stuff like that Well if you've been to Skye, I mean the midges, he has a coin to be honest They are awful on Sky.

52:50But eventually, people describe him as having a lovely auburn beard and his hair, and he's wearing the full kit. Oh, he is pretty. He's an unusual Irish maid. Betty's got a beard. Not wearing the dress anymore. But after the five months, he starts to get you because he knows how to shoot. He's a crack huntsman. You know, he knows how to ride. He's used to being out in terrain hunting and stuff like that. So he almost comes into his own curiously. And he ends up dressed in plaid, almost like a Highland chief. That's what he looks like with his wonderful red hair, his auburn hair and stuff. And he starts to sort of slip into the life, as it were.

53:26But the whole time being a fugitive, you know, he's running away from people who want to either capture him or kill him. But she gets him to Skye. He makes it to Portree. And then from there, they get a boat to Rossi, don't they? The island of Rossi. That's right. But then that continues the whole escapade around hopping from island to island, back to the mainland, back to the island. And eventually off to France. Eventually, yeah. Yes, yes. But were they in love and did they do it? I mean, I'm sorry, but you're just skirting around. We ought to know. Just want to know because that's one of the great love stories.

53:59It's known, they hardly knew each other. It's a story of highland hospitality, not a love story. Just wanted to clarify because, you know, in the film version in my head, there was a great love affair and a great deal of daring do involved. But as you were. I mean, she is arrested for her part in that. and she's taken to the Tower of London, which isn't quite as bad. If you've been to the Tower of London, you know it's not quite as bad as that sounds. But she's under house arrest, but eventually becomes this great heroine and painted by loads of portrait painters and stuff like that, and very much a star and a Jacobite heroine.

54:29But she does survive the encounter. But others are not so lucky as body Prince Charlie. He makes his escape to Rase and off to the continent. But meanwhile, there is blood and retribution across the Highland. The Highland clans are sequestered, the tartan is banned, the pipes are banned, the redcoats are let loose on all the villages, people are baroneted, and Butcher Cumberland is forever known after this as one of the cruelest of all English commanders. new English forts spring up across the Highlands like Fort George. And this is what, in a sense, will prime us for the rest of this series, because at this point, all sort of options for Highlanders and many Scots are reduced by this defeat.

55:15And many Scots will now be looking to the wider horizons, whether it's emigration to America, whether it's a new career in the Caribbean, or particularly a new career in India. And we will see in the episodes that come that many of those who fought at Culloden will meet again. Just to give a little hint of that, the man who trains Robert Clive, who gives him the military knowledge that allows Clive to win Plassey, is Stringer Lawrence, who was on the government side in Culloden. And the French commander that he's facing in Pondicherry had also been in the Jacobite rebellion on Bonnie Prince Charlie's side.

55:59So this is a crucial turning point in Scots history and one which will lead us on to the rest of our series of Scotland and Empire. Yeah, and then you've done a wonderful job of actually showing how this is part of a much, much bigger picture. We're so grateful. The historian Jacqueline Riding, author of Jacobites, A New History of the 45 Rebellion, but more recently, Hogarth, Life in Progress. And you've heard Hogarth mentioned by Jacqueline a couple of times during these two podcasts. And she also runs something very exciting. She was telling me about it. It's like a Jacobite support group, Jacobite Studies Trust, where anybody who's interested in this period of history can join.

56:37Is there anybody, anybody, Jacqueline? Yes. So there'll be details on the website for the Jacobite Studies Trust. But we have these regular seminars where interested folk can listen to somebody just talking about their most recent research. and people who know a lot more than I do about Scottish, Irish elements of Jacobitism. Some wonderful stuff is being done in recent scholarship and so on. And yes, it's a community we're trying to expand. So all welcome. We should end, as we mentioned, Jacqueline's fantastic book on Hogarth with the fact that Hogarth is very much around at this time. And he makes a famous painting of the old fox, Lord Lovett, who had joined the Jacobite army on the last night before Culloden.

57:16and immediately then is arrested. And there's a famous story that Hogarth tells about Lord Lovett going off from the Tower of London for execution along with other Jacobites. And as he's been taken through the crowd to the place of execution, a woman jeers at him, you're going to have your head cut off, you ugly old Scottish dog. And he replies with perfect composure, I believe I shall, you ugly old English bitch. Starring words on which to end this podcast. Jacqueline, thank you very much indeed. Till the next time we meet, it is goodbye from me, Anita Arnon. And goodbye from me, William Durrumpel.

57:59The Volkswagen Beetle started out as Hitler's dream car. It wound up as a beloved hippie icon and the best-selling car of all time. How did that happen? I'm Jacob Goldstein. And I'm Robert Smith. On Business History, we tell the surprising stories behind the inventions and entrepreneurs that shaped our economy. And the story of the beetle is truly surprising. It has so much in it. He says you should be able to mount machine guns on it. Sure. Not for the family vacation, but, you know, for other things, other plans. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. And for full video episodes, search Business History Podcast on YouTube.