History - The Rough Guide to Scottish Highlands and Islands - page 412

10,000 men, drawn mostly from the Episcopalians of northeast Scotland and from
the Highlands. Mar's rebellion took the government by surprise. They had only 4000
soldiers in Scotland, under the Duke of Argyll, but Mar dithered until he lost the
military advantage. The Battle of Sheriffmuir in November was indecisive, but by the
time the Old Pretender arrived the following month, 6000 veteran Dutch troops had
reinforced Argyll. The rebellion disintegrated rapidly and James slunk back to exile in
France in February 1716.

The Forty-Five
Led by James's dashing son, Charles Edward Stewart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), the
Jacobite uprising of 1745 (known as The Forty-Five), though better known, had even
less chance of success than the 1715 rising. In the intervening thirty years, the
Hanoverians had consolidated their hold on the English throne, Lowland society had
become uniformly loyalist and access into the Highlands for both trade and internal
peacekeeping had been vastly improved by the military roads built by General Wade.
Even among the clans, regiments such as the Black Watch were recruited, which drew
on the Highlanders' military tradition, but formed part of the government's standing
army. Despite a promising start to his campaign, Charles met his match at the Battle of
Culloden , near Inverness, in April 1746, the last set-piece battle on British soil, and the
last time a claymore-wielding Highland charge would be set against organized ranks of
musket-bearing troops, and the last time a Stewart would take up arms in pursuit of
the throne. As with so many of the other critical points in the campaign, the Jacobite
leadership at Culloden was divided and ill-prepared. When it came to the fight, the
Highlanders were in the wrong place, exhausted after a forced overnight march, and
seriously outnumbered and outgunned. They were swept from the field, with over 1500
men killed or wounded compared to Cumberland's 300 or so. After the battle, many of
the wounded Jacobites were slaughtered, an atrocity that earned Cumberland the
nickname “Butcher”.
In the aftermath of the uprising, the wearing of tartan, the bearing of arms and the
playing of bagpipes were all banned. Rebel chiefs lost their land and the Highlands
were placed under military occupation. Most significantly, the government prohibited
the private armies of the chiefs, thereby effectively destroying the clan system. Within a
few years, more Highland regiments were recruited for the British army, and by the end
of the century thousands of Scots were fighting and dying for their Hanoverian king
against Napoleon.

The Highland Clearances
Once the clan chief was forbidden his own army, he had no need of the large tenantry
that had previously been a vital military asset. Conversely, the second half of the
eighteenth century saw the Highland population increase dramatically after the
introduction of the easy-to-grow and nutritious potato. Between 1745 and 1811, the
population of the Outer Hebrides, for example, rose from 13,000 to 24,500. The clan
chiefs adopted different policies to deal with the new situation. Some encouraged
emigration, and as many as 6000 Highlanders left for the Americas between 1800 and
1803 alone. Other landowners saw the economic advantages of developing alternative

1843 1846 1886 1914-18

The Great Disruption: a third
of the Church of Scotland
leave to form the Free Church
of Scotland

Highland potato
famine: 1.7 million
Scots emigrate

Crofters' Holdings
Act grants security of
tenure in the Highlands
and Islands

100,000 Scots
lose their lives in
World War I