The battle of Culloden lasted less than an hour. The forces involved on both sides were small, even by the standards of the day. And it is arguable that the ultimate fate of the 1745 Jacobite uprising had in fact been sealed ever since the Jacobite retreat from Derby several months before. But for all this, Culloden is a battle with great significance in British history. It was the last pitched battle on the soil of the British Isles to be fought with regular troops on both sides. It came to stand for the final defeat of the Jacobite cause. And it was the last domestic contestation of the Act of Union of 1707, the resolution of which propelled Great Britain to be the dominant world power for the next 150 years. If the battle itself was short, its aftermath was brutal - with the depredations of the Duke of Cumberland followed by a campaign to suppress the clan system and the Highland way of life. And its afterlife in the centuries since has been a fascinating one, pitting British Whig triumphalism against a growing romantic memorialization of the Jacobite cause. On both sides there has long been a tendency to regard the battle as a dramatic clash, between Highlander and Lowlander, Celt and Saxon, Catholic and Protestant, the old and the new. Yet, as this account of the battle and its long cultural afterlife suggests, while viewing Culloden in such a way might be rhetorically compelling, it is not necessarily good history.

The Battle of Culloden has gone down in history as the last major battle fought on British soil: a vicious confrontation between Scottish forces supporting the Stuart claim to the throne and the English Royal Army. But this wasn't just a conflict between the Scots and the English, the battle was also part of a much larger campaign to protect the British Isles from the growing threat of a French invasion. In Trevor Royle's vivid and evocative narrative, we are drawn into the ranks, on both sides, alongside doomed Jacobites fighting fellow Scots dressed in the red coats of the Duke of Cumberland's Royal Army. And we meet the Duke himself, a skilled warrior who would gain notoriety due to the reprisals on Highland clans in the battle's aftermath. Royle also takes us beyond the battle as the men of the Royal Army, galvanized by its success at Culloden, expand dramatically and start to fight campaigns overseas in America and India in order to secure British interests; we see the revolutionary use of fighting techniques first implemented at Culloden; and the creation of professional fighting forces. Culloden changed the course of British history by ending all hope of the Stuarts reclaiming the throne, cementing Hanoverian rule and forming the bedrock for the creation of the British Empire. Royle's lively and provocative history looks afresh at the period and unveils its true significance, not only as the end of a struggle for the throne but the beginning of a new global power.

'Excellent... It is a tremendous tale - one of the most dramatic in our island's history - and O'Keeffe tells it beautifully' The Times Charles Edward Stuart's campaign to seize the British throne ended with one of the quickest defeats in history: on 16 April 1746, at Culloden, his Jacobite army was overpowered in under forty minutes. Its brutal repercussions, however, endured for years, its legacy for centuries. Paul O'Keeffe follows the Jacobite army from initial victories to calamitous defeat. Exploring the battle's aftermath, he chronicles the Jacobite prisoners paying for their treason on block and gibbet while those granted 'the King's mercy' suffered the fate of forced labour on plantations in the colonies. While Stuart's cause eventually acquired an aura of romanticism, the Jacobite Rising remains one of the most bloody and divisive conflicts in British domestic history, which resonates to this day. 'Detailed, vivid - and not for the faint-hearted' Financial Times 'Fascinating, meticulously researched... tremendous' Daily Mail 'Intensely readable... and vividly written' Neal Ascherson, London Review of Books

A team of historians and archaeologists re-examine what happened at the Battle of Culloden between the Scottish Jacobites and Great Britain. In battle at Culloden Moor on April 16, 1746, the Jacobite cause was dealt a mortal blow. The power of the Highland clans was broken. And the image of sword-wielding Highlanders charging into a hail of lead delivered by the red-coated battalions of the Hanoverian army has passed into legend. The battle was a turning point in British history. And yet our perception of this critical episode tends to be confused by mistaken, sometimes partisan, views of the events on the battlefield. So, what really happened at Culloden? In this fascinating and original book, a team of leading historians and archaeologists reconsiders every aspect of the battle. They examine the latest historical and archaeological evidence, question every assumption, and rewrite the story of the campaign in vivid detail. This is the first time that such a distinguished team of experts has focused on a single British battle. The result is a seminal study of the subject, and it is a landmark publication of battlefield archaeology. Praise for Culloden “Culloden is one of the best documented British battles and also one of the most mapped, yet the contributions to this fine volume have succeeded in finding new material.” —Scotts Magazine (UK)

This narrative traces Broad Cove/Culloden from the Loyalists’ arrival until the present century. The hamlet shares with many rocky coastal Nova Scotia settlements the experiences of the fisheries’ heydays and their demise, with all Nova Scotians: the arrival of the Scots and the Irish; effects of national and international events; the Great Depression; recovery and prosperity. Oral and written accounts paint both a colorful and a sensitive picture of Culloden’s past. A 1967 Centennial history enumerates villagers for a century and a 2005 visual history brings them and their world to life.