Before You Go: Culloden Battlefield, Scotland

April 16th, 1746; 3 miles southeast of Inverness, Scotland. The Jacobites, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, are finally defeated on the bloody battlefield, number 4 on our all-time greatest battlefields: Culloden.

Basic Facts

The Battle of Culloden, according to Tony Pollard, was "part of a civil war and a global war involving France and ireland. It set the scene for huge developments in terms of British power overseas."

• Culloden Moor
• Electric Scotland

Battle Statistics

The battle is said to have lasted little more than an hour; but at the end of it, 1,200 Jacobites under the "Young Pretender" and 300 Hanoverians under the Duke of Cumberland lay dead.

Recent Research and Findings

The BBC has a special on battlefield archaeology; here's their discussion of the wrack and ruin caused by the battles of the House of Stuart. Flora MacDonald was the Scotswoman who smuggled the Young Pretender out of Scotland after the defeat at Culloden.

• BBC: Battlefield Archaeology
• The Flora MacDonald Project

Photographs

Lots of photos of Culloden's monument out there lurking on the Web. Here are a few.

• The Gazetteer of Scotland
• Inverness Stock Photographs

Learning More

When you're in Scotland, be sure to drop by the visitor centre; good reference books on battlefield archaeology focusing on UK battlegrounds are the relatively recent Two Men in a Trench I and II, by Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver, from Oxbow Books.

• Visitor Centre at Culloden Moor
• Two Men in a Trench
• Two Men in a Trench II