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The Battle of Glenshiel was the largest engagement of the 1719 Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland. A force of over 1,000 Jacobites, including a significant contingent of Spanish troops, attempted to restore James Francis Edward Stuart “The Old Pretender” to the British throne but they were defeated in the Highlands.
Three hundred years after the battle at Glenshiel, a team of archaeologists has uncovered the first historic remains from the battlefield. Led by the National Trust for Scotland (NTS), the team has uncovered large fragments of a coehorn mortar shell and a musket ball. The pieces of ordnance were fired by the British government forces at the Jacobites and the discovery of the mortar shell is of particular historical importance.
The coehorn was a small, squat gun that could fire shells in high arcs onto the Jacobite and Spanish positions. The resulting noise and explosions would have caused disorder and panic among some of the Jacobites although the Spanish famously stood firm. One source even records that the grass and heather were set alight by red-hot fragments. Glenshiel was the first time that this kind of mortar was known to be used on British soil and the discovery confirms the interpretation of a smaller fragment found nearby in 2018.
The team that assembled to discover these finds was a mixture of archaeologists, volunteers and members of the NTS Scotland’s Thistle Camp working holidays scheme. They came together to mark the 300th anniversary of the battle and Glenshiel itself is often described as one of Scotland’s most picturesque battlefield. It remains largely unchanged since 1719 and visitors can still see walls built by the Jacobites to protect them from the government mortar bombardment.
Although the 1719 rebellion is often overlooked, Derek Alexander, head of archaeology at the NTS, explains how the rising had a lasting impact on the Highlands and the Jacobite cause, “The rising fizzled out but it led to General Wade and his building of the road systems and garrisons in locations across the Highlands. It fixed the government’s minds on the clans and the Jacobites. Its failure also meant that there was little appetite for another uprising until Bonnie Prince Charlie and the ’45. It effectively put paid to Jacobite ambitions for 30 years, which is a long time.”
Alexander describes his amazement at the discoveries, “Finds like this are really important. They are tangible remains of historic events, which can be quite rare. When we hold something in our hands that we know came from a single event, 300 years ago – that is incredibly powerful.”
The National Trust for Scotland is a charity that celebrates and protects Scotland’s heritage.