Butcher Cumberland
Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland was a privileged military incompetent who presided over several large defeats. His only victory was the controversial Battle of Culloden
Explore the military career of this ruthless and often hapless military commander
“CUMBERLAND POSSESSED A SOLDIERLY SWAGGER, AND AN OBSERVER NOTED HIS ‘OPENNESS OF TEMPER AND CARELESS AIR, WHICH IS QUITE À LA MILITAIRE’. THIS OVERCONFIDENCE WOULD COST HIM DEAR IN HIS FIRST MAJOR COMMAND”
On a bleak moor in northern Scotland two royal cousins met in battle to decide the fate of Britain. Both were fighting for their fathers: Prince Charles Edward Stuart was attempting to reclaim the throne for his exiled father, while Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland was fighting to save the crown of the reigning King George II. There was everything to lose on both sides, and neither man would compromise in what became known as the Battle of Culloden.
Charles is better known to history as the semi-romantic figure ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, but his nemesis at Culloden was infamously nicknamed ‘Butcher Cumberland’. This illstarred Hanoverian became notorious for his relentlessly harsh destruction of the
1745 Jacobite rebellion, but the rest of his military career has been relatively forgotten. What emerges is a ruthless and unpleasant blunderer who presided over a series of large defeats and ruined the reputation of Britain’s army in Europe.
A privileged upbringing
William’s childhood was a startling example of royal privilege. Born at Leicester House, London on 15 April 1721, the prince was the second surviving son of King George II and Queen Caroline of Ansbach. The royal couple despised their eldest son Frederick, Prince of Wales, but their younger son was showered with honours from an early age. William was made a companion knight of the Bath at the age of four, ennobled as the Duke of Cumberland the following year and walked at the head of the knights of the Bath at his parents’ coronation. Cumberland was then made a knight of the Garter, and at the age of only ten he received an annual allowance of £6,000.
By the age of 18 Cumberland was devoting much of his time to hunting and chasing actresses, but he also clamoured for a military career. His father gave him a commission as a colonel in the Coldstream Guards in 1740, but Cumberland initially volunteered to serve in the Royal Navy. His time at sea was short-lived however, and he soon returned to the army. The duke was made a major general at the age of only 21 and saw action within a year at the Battle of Dettingen.
Wounded by grapeshot
Dettingen, fought on 27 June 1743, was an allied victory against the French during the War of the Austrian Succession. It was also the last occasion when a reigning British monarch took command on the battlefield. George II had seen military action as a young man at the Battle of Oudenarde in 1708, where he fought bravely under the command of the
Duke of Marlborough. 35 years later he led a 42,000-strong army of British, Hanoverian and Austrian troops from the Austrian Netherlands to the village of Dettingen by the Main River in Germany. The king faced a French army of 50,000 led by Adrien Maurice, duc de Noailles. When the French cavalry attacked the British infantry George led a mounted counterattack.
Cumberland was noticeably courageous and was seen “riding about animating the men with great bravery and resolution”. He was wounded below the knee by grapeshot, and while his father won the battle the duke was carried from the field. The wound took months to heal and permanently altered Cumberland’s gait. He found walking difficult and preferred riding on horseback, which eventually led to obesity. Nevertheless, Cumberland possessed a soldierly swagger, and an observer noted his “openness of temper and careless air, which is quite à la militaire”. This overconfidence would cost him dear in his first major command.
Fontenoy
In 1745 George II made Cumberland the commander-in-chief of the British overseas army, and he was given Marlborough’s old title of ‘captain-general’. However, Cumberland would not enjoy the same success as his illustrious predecessor in the next campaign against the French.
While based in Brussels Cumberland learned that Marshal Maurice de Saxe was besieging Tournai, and Cumberland marched his allied force of British, Hanoverian and Dutch troops to break the siege by forcing the French into a pitched battle at Fontenoy on 11 May 1745. Cumberland believed his 50,000-strong army would outnumber the French, but he was mistaken. The French outnumbered the allies, and Cumberland learned the hard way how to conduct a battle.
The British and Dutch advanced against the French. The duke led from the front, but French musket fire inflicted great casualties on the allied infantry, and Cumberland was forced to retreat. There were approximately 10,000-12,000 allied casualties at Fontenoy, but Cumberland had managed to achieve an orderly retreat, and contemporaries praised him for rallying the troops. Nevertheless, it was a serious defeat, and the victorious Saxe proceeded to capture many towns in Belgium.
The chief lesson that Cumberland learned from Fontenoy was how effective sustained cannon fire and musketry could be on advancing infantry. It was a hard experience that he would soon inflict on others. While Cumberland was reeling from his defeat in Belgium he learned that Prince Charles Edward Stuart had landed in Scotland and begun a rebellion to overthrow the Hanoverian dynasty. Cumberland’s hour had come.
The ‘45
Charles Edward Stuart was a mortal enemy of Cumberland, and both men owed their positions and circumstances in 1745 to the political fallout of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in 1688. Charles was the grandson of the Catholic James II of England and VII of Scotland, who had been overthrown by the Protestant William of Orange from his British thrones. James had set up a court in exile, and his ‘Jacobite’ followers became committed to restoring the Stuarts to power. The Stuarts actually continued to rule Britain and Ireland through James’s Protestant daughters Mary II and Anne I, but when Anne died in 1714 the British parliament chose her Protestant relative George, Elector of Hanover to succeed to the throne.
George was Cumberland’s grandfather and the first Hanoverian king of Great Britain, but his reign was threatened by Jacobite uprisings in Scotland. The northern kingdom became the base for Jacobite operations due its hostility towards the 1707 political union with England and its deep ancestral ties to the Stuart dynasty. James II had died in 1701, but his heir, James Francis Edward Stuart, became the figurehead for the Jacobite rebellions. The most serious Jacobite rising was thwarted in 1715, but James continued to head an exiled court in Rome for decades. His son Charles was an enthusiastic supporter of military action and became determined to place his father on the throne in 1745.
Although Charles had covert French support, he landed in Scotland with only seven followers. Nevertheless, word spread of his arrival, and when Charles raised his standard at Glenfinnan on 19 August 1745 he managed to recruit 1,000 supporters to march on Edinburgh. During this time Cumberland was still commanding 34,000 British troops on the continent, and there were calls to send these soldiers home to deal with the Jacobite threat. However, Cumberland believed that the 3,850 soldiers in Scotland under the command of Lieutenant General Sir John Cope would “put a stop immediately to this affair”. There were also 6,000 troops in England in case the Jacobites decided to march south.
Events in Scotland went disastrously for the government. Cope failed to intercept Charles and the ‘Young Pretender’ entered Edinburgh on 17 September 1745. Charles then proclaimed his father ‘James VIII of Scotland’ and declared himself regent. Meanwhile, the Jacobite army had grown to 2,300-2,500 men, and on 21 September Charles defeated Cope at the Battle of Prestonpans. 300 government soldiers were killed and another 1,500 taken prisoner while Cope fled south in defeat and disgrace.
Prestonpans was a shocking defeat and a dismayed Cumberland wrote from the continent, “I hope that Great Britain is not to be conquered by a rabble.” The British cabinet ordered Cumberland to send six infantry battalions and nine dragoon squadrons from Belgium. The duke himself requested to return: “It would be the last mortification to me when so much is at stake at home and brought to the decision of arms, to be out of the way of doing my duty.”
“EVENTS IN SCOTLAND WENT DISASTROUSLY FOR THE GOVERNMENT. COPE FAILED TO INTERCEPT CHARLES AND THE ‘YOUNG PRETENDER’ ENTERED EDINBURGH”
Crisis at Derby
Cumberland arrived in England on 19 October to a situation that had further deteriorated. 10,000 government troops commanded by
Field Marshal George Wade had been deployed to intercept Charles’s army before it marched into England. However, while Wade was in Northumberland the Jacobites slipped through his net by capturing Carlisle and travelling south through Cumbria.
George II now appointed Cumberland as commander-in-chief. Despite his defeat at Fontenoy he was popular with the troops, and his appointment led them to “leap and skip about like wild things that the Duke was to command them”. By November Cumberland was based at Lichfield, but the Jacobites were advancing steadily south via Preston and Manchester, and on 4 December Charles arrived in Derby.
For the Hanoverians this was the most serious moment of the rebellion. Derby was only 210 kilometres (130 miles) north of
London and Cumberland was forced to move 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of the capital to block the Jacobites’ path. However, Charles had overstretched himself. He commanded 5,000 men, but Cumberland’s force alone numbered at least 9,000 as well as a further 10,000 government troops distributed in different parts of England. Although Charles fervently objected, his subordinates decided the best strategy was to return to Scotland to consolidate their strength.
This decision was ultimately a fatal blow to the Jacobites, and from the moment they left Derby their cause was doomed. Cumberland vengefully pursued the Jacobites and told Marshal Wade of his fear that “these villains may escape back and unpunished to our eternal shame.” Nevertheless, Wade failed to intercept Charles, and it was left to Cumberland to pursue the Jacobites. He rode north at a fast pace that covered 50 kilometres (30 miles) a day, and by 11 December he was in Macclesfield.
At Macclesfield Cumberland showed the first signs of becoming ‘the Butcher’. Jacobite stragglers were imprisoned, but he encouraged the local population to kill any they found:
“They have so many of our prisoners in their hands I did not care to put them to death. But I have encouraged the country people to do it as they may fall in their way.”
Cumberland’s harsh attitude towards the Jacobites increased after Macclesfield, and it is highly arguable that his mercilessness was rooted in the threat he personally felt from Charles towards his family’s rule over Britain. The Hanoverians had only ruled Britain for 31 years compared to the Stuarts who had ruled England for 111 years and 343 years in Scotland. The Hanoveri§an hold on the crown
was tenuous, and Cumberland probably felt that only he stood between the Jacobites and national ruin. This fear would have bloody consequences in Scotland.
The Jacobite heartland
To compound Cumberland’s problems, he received news near Lancaster that a French invasion to support Charles was imminent, and he was recalled to London. But these orders were soon countermanded, and he continued pursuing the Jacobites, declaring he “would follow them to the furthest part of Scotland”.
Between 18-21 December 1745 Cumberland skirmished with straggling Jacobites in Cumbria and oversaw the surrender of their garrison at Carlisle. The Jacobites finally left England, with Charles now focusing on consolidating his position in Scotland. He was initially successful, and the Jacobites won a victory against government troops led by Lieutenant General Henry Hawley at the Battle of Falkirk Muir on 17 January 1746.
Cumberland was soon despatched to take control and arrived in Edinburgh on 30 January. There he held court at the royal family’s official Scottish residence at Holyrood Palace. Prince Charles had held court there only three months earlier, and Cumberland’s residency was a highly political move to re-establish the Hanoverian dynasty’s rule over Scotland. At Holyrood Cumberland addressed his army and stated that he wished them to “crush the insolence of a set of thieves and plunderers who have learned from their fathers to disturb every government they have lived under”. He also demanded that his troops “drive them [the Jacobites] off the face of the earth”.
Cumberland departed Edinburgh for Stirling while the Jacobites captured Inverness on 17 February. This was a shock, as Cumberland initially believed it would only be a short campaign. He subsequently headquartered his forces in Aberdeen from 27 February and remained there until 8 April to prepare his army for crossing the River Spey into the Highlands.
While based at Aberdeen Cumberland sent out threatening proclamations to the Jacobites speaking of “military executions” if they would not surrender. He justified his threats in a letter to the duke of Newcastle, stating, “Don’t imagine that threatening military execution and many other things are pleasing to me but nothing will go down without in this part of the world.”
Cumberland’s men were also training to resist the tactics of Charles’s troops. The famous ‘Highland charge’ of the Highlander Jacobites had been largely responsible for the government defeats at Prestonpans and Falkirk Muir, and Cumberland was determined that his troops would now stand firm.
The Highland charge was a simple, swift infantry advance that used shields and broadswords to slam into ranked riflemen. It was an old medieval tactic but was surprisingly effective in 1745 thanks to the determination and fierce courage of the Highlanders in Charles’s army. Cumberland’s troops practised the tactic of pointing their bayonets to the right
rather than straight ahead at their opponents. The idea was that the angled bayonet thrust would stab the unshielded side of the Jacobite attacker, but the manoeuvre required great nerve. Each government infantryman had to trust his life to the man to the left of him, and time would soon prove whether this unusual tactic would work.
Culloden: birth of ‘the Butcher’
On 8 April 1746 Cumberland’s army finally left Aberdeen and joined forces with the prohanoverian troops of the Earl of Albemarle.
The duke then received information that the Jacobites were preparing to fight him from Inverness. However, when the government army was camping near Nairn, the Jacobites attempted to surprise them during Cumberland’s 25th birthday celebrations on the night of 15 April. However, Charles’s men took so long to cross Drumossie Moor from Culloden House that dawn broke before an attack could be made.
On 16 April Cumberland’s army marched onto the boggy ground of Drumossie Moor for the final showdown with Charles’s tired and demoralised followers. The opposing sides were unequal: the Jacobites only numbered around 5,000 men and had waited for Cumberland all day without food or shelter. The once-proud force that had marched all the way to Derby was now making a reluctant last stand that only Charles appeared to relish.
In contrast, the government troops numbered at least 9,000 men and had enjoyed a day’s rest thanks to Cumberland’s birthday. Also, contrary to popular belief, the battle would not be a simple fight between English Hanoverians and Scottish Jacobites. Around three quarters of Charles’s army were Highlanders, but there were also 300 English Jacobites and Irish soldiers in French service. More strikingly, Cumberland’s force contained four battalions of Scottish soldiers from the Highlands and Lowlands, and several clans fought in regiments commanded by English officers. In essence both Cumberland and Charles were presiding over something close to a Scottish civil war over the matter of who ruled Britain.
Before the fighting started Cumberland urged his troops to stand firm and “parry the enemy in the manner you have been directed”. Moments later a Jacobite cannonball almost killed his aide-de-camp and the battle began. The fight at Culloden lasted less than an hour, but it was bitterly fought. After withstanding a government artillery barrage for half an hour the Jacobites deployed a Highland charge but ran into murderous grapeshot fire. Cumberland was positioned on the right wing, and the Highlanders came within 90 metres (300 feet) of his line before retreating.
The Jacobites who reached the government lines then engaged in fierce hand-to-hand fighting, but Cumberland’s new bayonet technique prevailed over the Scottish
“THE ONCE-PROUD FORCE THAT HAD MARCHED ALL THE WAY TO DERBY WAS NOW MAKING A RELUCTANT LAST STAND THAT ONLY CHARLES APPEARED TO RELISH”
broadsword. Such was the bloodshed that one government soldier recalled, “There was not one bayonet which was not bloodied or bent.” On the Jacobite left flank the men of Clan Macdonald faltered in their charge, and they became so frustrated that the clansmen (in Cumberland’s words), “threw stones for at least a minute before their total rout began”.
It was the rout of the now-defeated Jacobites that sealed Cumberland’s bloody reputation. Between 1,500 Jacobites and 240-400 government troops had become casualties, but Cumberland gave orders for no mercy towards wounded or fleeing enemy soldiers. One government soldier, Will Aiken, described how “it was a ghastly sight to see some dead tumbling and wallowing in their blood. Crying for mercy, we followed and slew them for three miles [4.8 kilometres] till the dragoons were quite glutted with gore.”
All wounded Jacobites were killed where they lay on the battlefield, and by way of justification the government troops were told to “take notice that the public orders of the rebels yesterday was to give us no quarter.”
The claim of “no quarter” from the
Jacobites could not be accurately verified, but Cumberland used it to completely stamp out the rebellion. He deliberately rode into Inverness with his sword still covered in blood, and subsequent patrols hunted down any Jacobite fugitives. Around 70 Jacobites were possibly killed in this pursuit and around 3,470 rebel soldiers and supporters were taken prisoner. Their fate was not to be envied. Although many prisoners were released, 120 were executed, 88 died in prison, 936 were transported to the colonies and 222 were simply “banished”. Cumberland’s wrath also extended to his own men and he executed 36 deserters.
The duke remained in Scotland until July 1746 to, in his words, “pursue and hunt out these vermin amongst their lurking holes.” The government hunt for Jacobites was a reign of terror, with rebels being summarily shot and many properties destroyed, irrespective of whether their occupants were Jacobites or not. However, Charles himself escaped capture, fled
“HE DELIBERATELY RODE INTO INVERNESS WITH HIS SWORD STILL COVERED IN BLOOD”
to France and went into permanent exile with his cause in ruins.
Official reaction to the government victory was ecstatic. Parliament issued a vote of thanks, and the composer George Frideric Handel composed See, the Conquering Hero Comes! in his honour. The duke was also made a freeman of the London Butcher’s Company, but this appointment was ironically taken up by Jacobite sympathisers to dub him ‘the Butcher’. The name stuck and was appropriate, given the cruel nature of his Scottish campaign. This infamy would irreparably sour what would be Cumberland’s only battlefield victory.
Martial humiliation
The remainder of Cumberland’s military career was a series of disastrous humiliations. He returned to command British forces in the Netherlands in 1747 but was once again defeated by Marshal de Saxe in a five-hour battle at Lauffeld on 2 July 1747. Cumberland not only ignored advice during the battle but was almost taken prisoner by Irish soldiers in the French army. Cumberland was forced to the negotiating table, and he returned to Britain empty-handed.
Cumberland’s harshness increased on his return to Britain, and Horace Walpole remarked on his “very tyrannic behaviour to the army”. The duke imposed draconian laws on the British army, including making any refusal to obey orders a capital offence. This act, along with an ill-fated political career, made the duke of Cumberland very unpopular, but when the Seven Years’ War broke out in 1756 he was appointed the commander of the Hanoverian Army of Observation.
Tasked with defending his ancestral homeland of Hanover against French attack, Cumberland commanded around 40,000 British, Hanoverian and Hessian soldiers. However, he was comprehensively defeated at the Battle of Hastenbeck on 26 July 1757. A French army under Louis Charles d’estrées attacked Cumberland in his centre, drew in his reserves and ultimately inflicted a defeat, although both sides initially thought they had lost the battle.
“CUMBERLAND NOT ONLY IGNORED ADVICE DURING THE BATTLE BUT WAS ALMOST TAKEN PRISONER BY IRISH SOLDIERS IN THE FRENCH ARMY”
Cumberland retreated north to Stade and was forced to agree to the Convention of Klosterzeven. Under the convention’s terms Hanover was forced to withdraw from the war and its territory was partially occupied by the French. George II repudiated its terms and Cumberland returned to London in disgrace. Upon seeing his son, the king remarked he had “ruined his country and his army, and had hurt, or lost, his own reputation”.
With such a public humiliation Cumberland resigned all his military commissions and never commanded an army again. In 1760 he suffered a stroke and died five years later in 1765 aged only 44. Cumberland had never fully recovered from his Dettingen wound and subsequent obesity, and he died unmarried and largely unloved by the public.
Cumberland lived in an outwardly gilded but violent world, and his brutality was by no means exceptional compared with other commanders of the time. However, he does stand out as a general marked out for his incompetence. Cumberland’s only notable battlefield victory was at Culloden, and even that was a highly controversial engagement. The rest of his career was ultimately a series of failures on the continent, and he is an arresting reminder that royal lineage and privilege will never guarantee military talent.