British Army rolled out blanket occupation following Culloden
More than 400 army camps and nearly 12,000 soldiers flooded into Scotland following the last battle of the uprising, writes Alison Campsie
Amap illustrating more than 400 British Army camps set up across Scotland following the Battle of Culloden has been published for the first time.
The document has been drawn up following analysis of 270-year-old handwritten cantonment records held in the library at Edinburgh Castle.
More than 11,600 British Army soldiers were stationed in Scotland following Culloden to suppress the uprising and its supporters, according to research by Stennis Historical Society, which is based in Edinburgh.
Soldiers were also charged with enforcing laws designed to dismantle the Highland way of life, according to the papers.
Army posts were to be “occupied by the regular forces in the Highlands, to put the Laws in Execution for disarming the Highlanders, suppressing the Dress and for preventing Depredations,” a passage in the cantonment records said.
The map shows how the camps, which were recorded between 1746 and 1755, stretched from Orkney in the Northern Isles to the Scottish Borders.
Author and historian Stuart Mchardy, who encouraged the society to research the papers, said he had been “blown away” by the results of the study.
He said: “I came across the document around 20 years ago and there is only one handwritten copy. It is a unique thing.
“What is makes clear is that Scotland was under blanket British Army occupation for the seven to 10 years after Culloden.
“The standard story is that after Culloden the Jacobite cause was kaput. It wasn’t. There is new evidence coming to light that there was a definite readiness to rise again.
“The reason that it didn’t go ahead was that they didn’t get the go-ahead from Charlie (Prince Charles Edward Stuart) or his father. They just weren’t interested in Scotland any more.”
Mr Mchardy pointed to the 1752 Elibank Plot to kill or kidnap King George II and St James’s Palace and restore the Stuart line to the British throne.
The plan never went ahead given the doubts of some of the key players but Mr Mchardy said the plan showed that Jacobitisim endured.
Varying vastly in size, the camp at Edinburgh housed a battalion, which was usually between 780 and 1,180 men, with records showing multiple, smaller clusters of forces through the rest of the country.
A post at Achtriachtan in Glencoe, for example, was manned by just one corporal and five privates.
Similar camps are listed at locations including Knoydart, Arisaig, Glen Spean and Loch Leven with soldiers listed in Perthshire, Aberdeen and the surrounding Shire, the Moray Coast, The Cairngorms and down through the Central Belt to Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders.
David Kennedy, society secretary, led the production of the map.
He said: “We are very pleased that we have managed to get this information out of these records. This stuff has never been published before.
“I was personally surprised by the figures. I think most of us in the society were.”
The society is further researching ‘Situation Reports’ held in the castle library, which detail day-to-day movements and activities of soldiers.
They include capturing British Army deserters and Jacobite rebels, who are usually described as thieves, or chasing Catholic priests for holding Mass.
Translating place names listed in the records had, at times, been challenging given they were written down in phonetic Gaelic, Mr Kennedy, a Gaelic speaker, said.
He added: “I was able to work out how a non-gaelic speaker might write down a Gaelic place name. Without that knowledge of the language, I don’t think we could have gone to the extent we did with our research.”
The findings will be exhibited during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the Edinburgh Yes Hub, 31 Lasswade Road, Edinburgh EH16, from 6 to 27 August.