The clans and the 1745 rising

The clans and the ‘45
Yet the ’45 was a far greater threat to the relatively new British union state. Charles Edward Stuart’s strategy relied on the aggressive use of rapidly moving armies to strike at the centres of political and financial power in Edinburgh and London.

A merkland was a unit of land value for the purposes of taxation. Given the number of merklands held by Breadalbane in these areas, this would have produced 321 men.Opponents of the Jacobites emphasized the brutality of the recruitment process. There is no doubt that the threat of violence was responsible for ‘forcing’ some but by no means all men into service. Yet clans loyal to the government used similar tactics. On 14 February 1746 William Sutherland, seventeenth earl of Sutherland ordered the officers of his independent companies (military units of 60 to 100 men) to burn the houses and slaughter the cattle of his Rogart tenants if they did not supply thirty recruits.The men of Deshoir and Lochtay are ordered to be at the Port of Kenmore with their best arms and accoutrements against 12 of the Clock, Tuesday – a man out of each merkland, under pain of rebellion.’

The clans’ military development
The military forces used by the Jacobite and government clans were not obsolete relics, relying only on close quarter fighting and broadswords. After the battle of Culloden the British retrieved 2,320 muskets but only 190 broadswords. This ratio gives an indication of the reliance on firepower on both sides.Clans were as adaptable in war as in social organisation, economics and culture. A British government report from 1744 welcomed the support of the Munros, noting that their military effectiveness involved rotating men into the Scots regiments in the service of the Netherlands. The men received training in drill, discipline and weaponry. Once back in their own localities these former soldiers enabled the Munros to fight in a combination of ways, including as a musket-based regiment.The chief of the Frasers, Simon Fraser of Lovat had a similar strategy.
The ‘45: success, invasion and retreat
Making excellent use of the roads built by the British army across Highlands, the Jacobites arrived in Perth on 4 September 1745. Edinburgh fell on 17 September. Matters went from bad to worse for the government when on 21 September around 2,000 Jacobites destroyed a 2,400 strong British army at the Battle of Prestonpans.

The campaign in the north: Jacobite Lowlanders and Hanoverian Highlanders
In the north of Scotland, too, the Jacobites continued to outfight the government. A skirmish at Inverurie outside Aberdeen on 23 December 1745 confirmed their regional superiority. This northern branch of the campaign demonstrates the need to avoid simplistic assumptions about Highland support for Jacobitism and Lowland loyalty to the British government. Under the command of Lord Lewis Gordon, much of the Stuart forces were composed of recruits from the Episcopalian north east Lowlands.By contrast, the British government army in the north was comprised mainly of independent companies raised among the Munros, the Grants, the Macdonalds of Sleat and Macleods of Dunvegan. The government troops were led by an officer with strong kin links in the Highlands, John Campbell, fourth earl of Loudoun. If there was a distinct ‘Highland army’ active in the ‘45, there is a good case for arguing it was on the government side.
Further Reading
Francis Mary Hendry, ‘45 Rising; The Diary of Euphemia Grant, Scotland 1745-1746 (Southam, 2001)
Murray Pittock, The Myth of the Jacobite Clans (Edinburgh, 2009)
Stuart Reid, 1745: A Military History of the Last Jacobite Rising_ (Staplehurst, 2000)
The Scottish Highland Clans: Origins, Decline and Transformation

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