Lupinus Texensis’s Reviews > Road to Culloden Moor > Status Update

"It was fitting that December 6 was to become 'Black Friday' in the Jacobite calendar. The retreat began in freezing conditions. It was symbolic of what had happened that Charles now chose to ride rather than march at the head of his men." And now I skim the rest of the book, on account of it being Too Fucking Depressing.

On November 1, 1745, Charles heads south. THIS is where he really fucked up. If he had just stayed in Scotland. If Murray and Cameron had just gotten through to him. If his handlers in France had just gotten through to him. No Culloden. No forcible transport to the Colonies. No Highland Clearances. Scotland for the Scots. Balmoral my ass.

"The common tactic was to advance within range of the enemy, discharge the guns and then fall to the ground until the enemy had returned fire. Then, while the enemy was reloading they would leap up and charge, yelling their clan motto. This yelling was particularly unnerving to the English troops." I can only picture a bunch of redcoats side-eyeing one another while protesting the Scots' poor manners.

[The Highlanders] were jealous, touchy, temperamental and needed careful handling. They would take almost anything from their chiefs, including being burned out of their homes to raise them for the Jacobite standard, but no one else exercised authority over them without their consent.

Lord George later wrote: "It was told me that all Highlanders were gentlemen, and never to beat them. But I was well acquainted with their tempers. Fear was as necessary as love to restrain the bad and keep them in order. It was what their chiefs did and were not sparing of blows to them that deserved it which they took without grumbling when they had committed an offense."

In 1746 some of the foreign officers who found themselves in Scotland were able to converse with the Highland gentlemen in Latin. They found that those gentlemen were at least as well if not better educated than themselves...They were well-read, good conversationalists, elegant dancers and drank the best, albeit smuggled, claret.

'Mail' meant rent, so 'blackmail' became the name given to the levy of black cattle imposed by Highlanders on other clansmen in return for free passage through their territories. It also came to mean the protection money extorted from Lowlanders who were the frequent victims of their raiding parties.

In 1743, there were actually French soldiers on boats ready to invade England! Damn Protestant winds...