Fielding off developers Why the fight to save Scotland’s battlefields has only just begun

The secrets of Culloden are about to be unlocked by new laser scanning technology, marking the 275th anniversary of the Jacobites’ last stand against government forces – but has the battle to protect the iconic site and others from developers just begun?

WHEN did it really end? Was it when the adjutant general said “all is lost, seize the prince and take him off”? Was it when Butcher Cumberland ordered the final cavalry charge? Was it when the prince, sheltering under a tree, heard the cheers of Cumberland’s soldiers?

Or was it worse than that: was the Battle of Culloden over before it began?

What the records show is that there was probably little chance of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s raggedy army ever succeeding.

The night before the battle, they were led on a doomed march towards Cumberland’s camp then back again. They were exhausted. There was barely any food to eat. They were outnumbered and outgunned by the government forces.

And to top it all, the Jacobites chose the wrong place to fight: boggy, open moorland where Cumberland’s better armed force would have the advantage.

And even when the fighting on the field was over, the battle went on for days, weeks, years. Anyone who supported the Jacobites was regarded as outside the law.

The wounded who were lying on the battlefield were shot or run through with a bayonet, or beaten to death. The dragoons pursued the fleeing clansmen on the road to Inverness and killed pretty much anyone they saw: men, women, children. And there was looting. And burning.

Then a different kind of battle started. The government was determined to stop the Jacobites ever rising again and tried to do it by de-Gaelicising Scotland even to the point of banning the kilt. They also executed or banished hundreds of people who had been associated with the cause. Culloden was the end of the Stuart dynasty’s claims to the British throne, but it also marked the beginning of the end of traditional Highland society.

The questions about the battle lingered too, and still linger. What actually happened during the last stand of the Jacobites against the government forces? Where exactly did the fighting happen and how did it spread? How exactly did the two sides face up to each other on that day in April 1746?

The National Trust for Scotland, which is