Charles Edward’s paranoia was not limited to Murray. It seems that the Scots’ reprehensible behaviour towards his ancestor Charles I had made a deep impression on him. Until his experience in the heather in 1746, he always tended to regard the Scots as potential traitors. What is interesting about this view is not its lack of rationality – for after all as a matter of historical record the prince was entitled to some uneasiness – but that Charles should have fastened on this as the key Scottish characteristic, ignoring the heroism and sacrifice they had already displayed on his behalf.
Matters in the Jacobite camp were already at a highly unsatisfactory pass when, on 8 April, Cumberland at last marched out from Aberdeen, making straight for the Jacobite jugular at Inverness. The weather had improved and the duke’s food supplies were assured. Cumberland was always a plodder, but his preparations had been painstaking. At least his men would fight with full bellies.
As the Jacobites admitted, Cumberland’s advance caught them unprepared.43 It was a case of ‘cry wolf’. The Hanoverian advance had been so often reported and then denied that it was at first hard to accept that this time Cumberland really was on the move. This rapid progress punctured the bubble of much Jacobite vainglory. Certain adherents of the House of Stuart in Aberdeenshire had boasted that Cumberland could not move an inch through their country without their knowing it. Yet the duke was at Old Meldrum, heading for Banff, before these Jacobite worthies dashed off a message for the prince.44
When the news sank in, the prince’s superficial reaction was contentment that the issue would soon be decided.45 But the orders issued to the scattered regiments indicate a certain alarm, like that of a sleepwalker awaking on the edge of a precipice. The truth was that in the strategic vacuum that persisted from early March, none of the Jacobite commanders had worked out a contingency plan in case the army was still dispersed when Cumberland advanced in earnest.46 And now here he was, marching faster than expected. By the 11th he was in Cullen. Still the complacent Jacobites did not fully awake to the danger. Lord Nairne enquired lackadaisically of John Roy Stewart if the summons back to Inverness was really urgent, as he did not want to weary his Athollmen with an unnecessary forced march.47
It was imperative to get the widespread regiments back in one body at Inverness. Lochiel and Keppoch were still in the vicinity of Fort William, unable to accept the implications of the failed siege. They were now ordered back with all speed: ‘The Prince would rather have you in three days with five hundred men than with a thousand three days after.’48 There were anxieties that the Camerons would not leave their country exposed to reprisals from Fort William; but Charles Edward reckoned that without their chieftains, the men would have to follow. It is instructive, though, that even at this stage the prince should be trying to make use of his now much-tarnished image. ‘Those that love me will follow me, those that will not will stay behind,’ is a pure attempt at charismatic leadership.49
Beneath the brave words there was confusion and some apprehension. Sheridan’s dispatch to Perth on 9 April begins jauntily but ends on a note of something close to despair: ‘As to Cumberland’s movements, he [the prince] thinks there is no great reason to be alarmed. He is making all the haste he can to gather his men in order to fight him … he hopes his men will not abandon him at such a critical juncture.’50
The key question about the events in the week leading up to Culloden is why Charles Edward did not dispute the passage of the Spey. This was the obvious place to stand and fight Cumberland. The Spey’s width and fast-flowing currents made it a perfect place for a defence. When Cumberland approached its banks, Lord John Drummond and John Roy Stewart had 2,000 men on hand. The two men were breakfasting at the minister’s house at Speymouth when a messenger rushed in with the news that the far side of the river was a ‘vermine of Red Quites [redcoats]’.51 Drummond and Stewart rode to the top of a hill and at first claimed only to see muck heaps. When they could no longer deny the truth, the order to retreat was given. First, however, there was a show of bravado. Cumberland reported seeing the rebels ‘making a formidable appearance’.52 Then, after firing a few shots and burning their magazines, they were gone.
Why was Jacobite resistance so feeble? There are several answers to this. The most fundamental is the misguided Jacobite strategy pursued in March. The string of successes achieved then was remarkable, but what in the end did it really amount to? The real threat was always from Cumberland and it is in that sector that the Jacobites should have concentrated all their efforts.
The villain of this particular piece was O’Sullivan. In March he went on a tour of inspection of the Spey and pronounced it indefensible, given Jacobite resources.53 Because the river was fordable at several places, the clansmen would need to be at the Spey in force. But such numbers could not live off the country for long – they had no tents to sleep in and no reserves in the magazines. So concluded O’Sullivan. But his analysis missed several points. First, a concentration of all the forces already on Speyside would have been sufficient to fight a holding action until the main Jacobite army came up. There were a number of fords so that Cumberland’s numbers would tell. On the other hand, their zigzag shape meant that the Hanoverians would take heavy casualties in trying to force passage.54
But any defence along these lines was vitiated by two things. Despite Lord John Drummond’s plea for concentration of force on Speyside, the Athollmen and most of the Edinburgh regiment were away in Grant country, trying to ‘force out’ the neutral Grants. They were still there when Cumberland’s army arrived.55 The other point was that Perth and Drummond needed artillery to conduct a riverside defence against Cumberland’s field-pieces. But the prince point-blank refused to release his cannon for this purpose.56
There can be no doubt that a delaying action with artillery would have inflicted considerable, even conceivably unacceptable, losses on the Hanoverian attackers. This would have given the prince the option either to support Perth and Drummond in divisional force and so provoke a decisive battle on very dangerous ground, or to slow the Hanoverians down considerably and so give the Jacobites the chance to bring their army up to full strength.
How can we explain the prince’s failure to take his chances at the Spey? Various answers have been suggested: Perth’s orders not to risk a general engagement, uncertainty about what would constitute such a risk, Jacobite desire to avoid casualties. The most likely answer is the absence of effective command. The absence of Lord George Murray was crucial, for he would surely not have let such an opportunity go. And only Lord George had the seniority and prestige to overrule O’Sullivan. Once again we may ask, why was Lord George in Atholl country, and Lochiel in Cameron country, pursuing narrow clan or family interests at such a crucial juncture? It was surely obvious that Cumberland would sooner or later make exactly the move he did make. Certainly it was not really open to clan leaders to use O’Sullivan’s argument that the army could not live off the land, since during the altercation at Falkirk they had repeatedly assured the prince that this was possible.
The other potential answer was that Hay of Restalrig’s incompetence was even more pervasive and significant than has been realised, that the prince did intend to move his army across to contest the Spey passage, but that commissariat problems prevented this. But if such had been Charles Edward’s intention, he should have had his various regiments within easy call, not scattered to the Scottish winds.
The more one looks at the crucial decision not to fight at the Spey, the more it looks like another of Charles Edward’s self-destructive acts, inexplicable in rational terms.57 There is no evidence here of the ‘blind optimism’ and pigheaded confidence the prince’s detractors usually impute to him at this stage of the campaign. It seems too as if Charles Edward’s unconscious wish to be rid of the stress of an army that had betrayed him had combined with the real demoralisation in Jacobite ranks.
Whatever mystery attaches to the failure to dispute the crossing of the Spey, there was nothing
mysterious about the sequel. Charles Edward now faced the prospect of a battle without many of his best regiments. Cluny MacPherson’s men were in Badenoch; Cromarty, Mackinnon and Barisdale were still in vain pursuit of Lord Reay and the money from the Prince Charles. Only about half the Camerons were accompanying Lochiel back from Achnacarry. Keppoch’s and Clanranald’s were much reduced in numbers. Other absentees included the Lovat Frasers and many of the MacGregors and Mackenzies.58 Out of a possible muster of 7–8,000, only 5,000 were present at the fatal field of Culloden on 16 April.
To give the absentees time to join the main army, the Jacobites tried to find ways to delay Cumberland. After crossing the Spey the duke quickly advanced through Elgin and Alves.59 The task of holding Cumberland up fell to Perth’s regiment and to Clanranald’s and the Appin Stewarts, who had earlier been based at Elgin.60 On the road to Nairn on the 14th these men, assisted by about seventy of Fitzjames’s cavalry, performed valiantly, incidentally exposing the absurdity of Sheridan’s earlier jibe at the courage of Perth’s regiment. Perth would not have been able to buy time for Charles Edward by this manoeuvre unless his men were singularly intrepid.61 First they tried to cut off Cumberland’s advance guard. Cumberland blocked this move with a cavalry screen provided by General Bland.62 A running cavalry skirmish developed, with the two sides exchanging shots. On the far side of Nairn, Bland pursued the Jacobites hotly for two miles before Cumberland recalled him.63 The Hanoverian camp was then pitched at Nairn.
The prince, who had spent the 14th at Culloden House, was convinced that next day would see the decisive battle. He did not go to bed on the night of the 14th, but spent the time drawing up battle plans.64 The army meanwhile lay out of doors on the hill above Culloden House. An elaborate set of orders was worked out by the prince and Lord George. All deserters were to be shot, there was to be no stripping or looting the slain until the battle was over; ‘the highlanders are all to be in kilts and nobody to throw away their guns.’65 Putting a brave face on it, he told his officers he had no intention of making contingency plans in the event of defeat. Here he undoubtedly overdid the gallery touch but, to be fair to him, all his officers shared his belief in the invincibility of their clansmen.66
Next day the Jacobite army was drawn up in much the same order as on the day of the battle itself (the 16th), except that on the 15th the lines were a little closer to Culloden House. But there was no sign of Cumberland. He chose to spend his twenty-fifth birthday, 15 April, resting in Nairn. This was a bad omen. It meant that Charles Edward had already read his opponent wrongly. He had assured his officers that the temptation to seek a victory on his birthday would be too much for Cumberland.67
The tired and hungry clansmen stood all day with just a biscuit each at midday, waiting for Cumberland to come.68 Lochiel’s Camerons suffered particularly, for they had arrived at Inverness only on the evening of the 14th, after a fifty-mile march from Fort William. The prince tried to lift their spirits by riding along the lines with words of encouragement. He was dressed in a tartan jacket and buff waistcoat, trying hard to get across the morale-raising point that he was the true heir apparent to the Scottish throne.69 In the late afternoon the men were dismissed.
The choice of Drummossie Moor as the battlefield was the prince’s own, for at last he intended to command his troops in person. It was bitterly attacked by Lord George Murray and the clan chiefs as unsuitable ground for their men to act on. Acting on the ‘professional’ counsel of O’Sullivan, who advised him that his left wing would be protected by a morass, Charles Edward insisted on drawing up his men on this strip of open moorland one mile to the south-east of Culloden House. He turned down Lord George’s far better battlefield – a stretch of rough and open ground near Dalcross Castle, where Cumberland would not be able to make full use of his cannon. The prince was playing into Cumberland’s hands, giving him exactly the sort of terrain he would have prayed for, rejecting the ground that favoured the Highlanders.
Having turned down his lieutenant-general’s choice of battleground, the prince felt bound to support him in the wrangle that now broke out over who should have the right wing. The MacDonalds claimed this as their time-honoured right in clan armies. But Lord George Murray insisted that he must have the Athollmen with him on the right. The prince settled the argument in Murray’s favour.
This was not the only problem that beset the 5,000 or so troops actually available to the prince. The Glengarry men were still smarting at the loss of Angus Og at Falkirk. The Macleans, deprived of the leadership of Sir Hector, were disputing over the military command of the clan. And above all other issues loomed that of commissariat. Hay of Restalrig protested to his critics that he had assembled a granary of corn in Inverness. He denied indignantly that he had not seen fit to convert it into bread, but was forced to admit he had not provided the waggons to bring the bread from Inverness to Culloden House.
With so many question marks against his army, it is not surprising to find the prince on the 15th developing an obsessive interest in a night march to surprise Cumberland. He was described as ‘cajoling’ the chiefs to fall in with a scheme for a dawn attack on Cumberland’s camp at Balbair on the outskirts of Nairn.70 At first the prince made little progress with his advocacy. The clan chiefs refused to consider the idea until reinforcements arrived. Lord George spent the time arguing for another battlefield which Brigadier Walter Stapleton and Colonel Ker of Graden had reconnoitred, on the south side of the river Nairn.71 This was eminently suitable terrain for the Highlanders. But neither now nor later would the prince entertain any scheme that smacked of withdrawal in face of Cumberland.72
The arrival of Keppoch from Lochaber late on the afternoon of the 15th, plus reports from spies that all was quiet in the enemy camp, changed the aspect of affairs.73 A shift in attitude to the night march proposal became perceptible. The prince immediately called a council, his first since Crieff. At first there were still many solid objections to the proposal. Its feasibility was questioned: surely Cumberland’s patrols would spot the oncoming Jacobites and alert the duke? And did they really have sufficient numbers for the enterprise? If the attack failed, it would be difficult to rally the clansmen in the dark. The retreat would be a shambles. They would have to carry off the wounded with cavalrymen on their heels. All in all, the prospect of a fatiguing march, a do-or-die assault and then possibly a twenty-mile retreat seemed daunting.74
The prince hit back at his critics. He asked them whether they could really doubt the outcome of a furious hand-to-hand engagement, clansman versus regular, in a situation where Hanoverian gunnery could not be brought to bear. And he adduced one of his favourite fantasies. Since, he alleged, there were large numbers of secret Jacobite sympathisers among Cumberland’s rankers, the confusion of darkness would make it possible for them to sabotage the duke’s efforts. At the very least, in pitch blackness their half-heartedness could not be detected.75
At this Perth and Lord John Drummond declared themselves in favour, provided the night march could be accomplished by 2 a.m. They pointed out that, if successful, the Jacobites could solve their food supply problems by pillaging Cumberland’s stores.76 The leader of the Mackintoshes supported the prince by claiming that their clansmen could lead the Jacobites across the moor all the way, shunning houses. This route, across Culraich Moor, also gave them the means of a secure withdrawal in case of repulse. Besides, the enemy would not dare to follow them until daylight, so, provided the attack was launched between 1 and 2 a.m., they would be safe. By dawn the retreating clansmen would have reached Culraich and the hilly ground on the south side of the river, where they could not easily be pursued.77
Lord George Murray then intervened to ask if the prince was still determined to fight on Drummossie Moor instead of crossing the Nairn to the Ker/Stapleton battlefield and waiting for the rest of the Highlanders to arrive. The prince said that the supply situation gave them no choice. If they did not engage the enemy by the afternoon of the 16th at the latest, th
e clansmen would have dropped in their tracks through starvation.
Regarding Drummossie Moor as a suicidal field of battle – for they could foresee the consequences if Cumberland’s artillery got on to such easy terrain – Lord George and Lochiel reluctantly agreed to the night attack.78 Since the prince would not agree to wait for his other units, anything was better than fighting on the open moor.
The final plan was elaborated. After encircling the town of Nairn, Lord George and the first Jacobite wave would attack Cumberland’s camp on the east and north, in the rear. Murray intended to cross the river Nairn about two miles short of the town, march along the south bank to avoid Hanoverian outposts, then recross the river a mile farther on. From there he would fall upon the flank and rear of the English cavalry. The remaining two-thirds of the army were to keep to the north bank of the Nairn almost until they came to the camp. Then they would turn to branch off to the left, in a line extending to the sea, and launch a simultaneous attack on the infantry. This second wave, from the south and west, would consist mainly of Perth’s and the Irish troops.79 The prince would then support Perth’s frontal attack with the reserve.80
It was an ingenious plan. No muskets would be used; the attack would be made with broadswords. The clansmen would fall silently on their sleeping foe, slashing guy-ropes, overturning tents, cutting into the human bulges within.81 But there were still those who insisted that leaving Culloden at dusk and travelling eight miles across difficult moorland would not leave enough time for an attack before daybreak. Lord George Murray solved this objection peremptorily by saying that he would answer for the scheme’s feasibility.82
Things began to go badly wrong before ever the columns set out on the night march. At 7 p.m. the clansmen, who were resting without tents on a dry hill near Culloden House, cold, hungry and dispirited, began to stream off in large numbers towards Inverness in search of food.83 It proved impossible for their officers to recall them. The clansmen defied their superiors to shoot them, remarking that if they were to die, it were better by gunshot than from starvation.84 When the prince learned this, he gave immediate orders to march. A good general would have abandoned the attempt at this point.
Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) Page 32