Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 42, 2009



The Battle of Culloden (Blàr Chùil Lodair) (16 April 1746) was the final clash between the French-supported Jacobites and the Hanoverian British Government in the 1745 Jacobite Rising. Culloden dealt the Jacobite cause—to restore the House of Stuart to the throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain—a decisive defeat. It was the last battle ever to be fought on British soil.

The Jacobites, largely Highland Scots, supported the claim of James Francis Edward Stuart (the "Old Pretender") to the throne. The government army, under the Duke of Cumberland, younger son of the Hanoverian sovereign, King George II, supported his father's cause. It too included Highland Scots, as well as Scottish Lowlanders and English troops.

The aftermath of the battle was brutal and earned the victorious general the nickname "Butcher" Cumberland. Charles Edward Stuart eventually left Britain and went to Rome, never to attempt to take the throne again. Civil penalties were severe with new laws that attacked the Highlanders' clan system.