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."
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.
Photographs
Lots of photos of Culloden's monument out there lurking on the Web. Here are a few.
Learning More
When you're in Scotland, be sure to drop by the visitor centre; a good reference book on battlefield archaeology focusing on UK battlegrounds is the relatively recent Two Men in a Trench, by Tony Pollard and Neil Oliver, from Oxbow Books.
The Battlefield News
A recent story in the Herald (Glasgow) about the Battlefield series and Culloden designates your guide as an expert. Bear in mind, dear reader, that your guide is not an expert in battlefield archaeology, or much of anything, but does like a good site; and that Culloden is a wonderful place to visit and very well worthy of a top five listing in anybody's book.
