Key dates
- 1688 – James II deposed from the thrones of England and Scotland
- 1692 – Glencoe Massacre
- 1707 – Scotland and England united (Act of Union)
- 1715–1745 – Jacobite Rebellions
- 1706 – Battle of Culloden
Further reading
- Blue Guide to Scotland; Seton Gordon
- Highways and Byways in the Central Highlands; James Boswell
- Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Overview
Mention the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, and many people will think of mountains, rivers, lochs and glens, dotted with romantic castles and populated only by deer, salmon and sheep. But the physical features of this scenery are inextricably entwined with the area’s rich history. The interminable feuds of the clans, isolated and beyond the reach of law and order; the struggles of Highlanders against the English government in the valley of Glencoe and on the fields of Culloden; the adventures and wanderings of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his flight across the sea to Skye; the 19th century Highland Clearances, which dispossessed and dispersed whole communities of poverty-stricken Highlanders, were all strongly shaped by the landscape against which they occurred. Even the social structures and lifestyle of the Highlanders were more dependent on the immediate environment than in any other area of the British Isles.
History
Jacobite Risings
From 1603, the royal house of Stuart ruled both England and Scotland. But in the 1670s and 1680s James II began to follow a pro-Catholic policy, against the wishes of his Protestant subjects. In the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, James was deposed and his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William, Prince of Orange, were given the throne instead.
James tried unsuccessfully to mount a campaign from Scotland to regain the throne but he was heavily defeated. Nonetheless, many Scots, particularly the Highland and Island chiefs, continued to support the king and his heirs. To show discreetly their loyalty to James, when saying the loyal toast to William and Mary, the new King and Queen, they would wave their wine over the water jug, indicating that they were really toasting the health of ‘the king over the water’, that is, over the English Channel in France, where he was in exile. His supporters became known as Jacobites, after the Latin for James, ‘Jacob.’
There were several attempts to put the Catholic Stuarts back on the throne, sometimes with the backing of the French, traditional enemies of England. In 1715 a well organised rebellion in Scotland evaporated when James III failed to arrive in time to lead it.
It was James II’s grandson, Charles Edward Stuart, or Bonnie Prince Charlie the Young Pretender, who made the most determined attempt to wrest back the throne. Aged only 25, and a Catholic, he arrived in 1745 with a skeleton force from France. He was a charismatic and commanding leader and soon charmed the chiefs into supporting him. The rebel army snowballed and for a while Charles became the effective master of Scotland as well as having some success in the north of England. Tactically, Charles should have headed straight for London. Instead, he listened to the advice of his generals and retreated to Scotland to consolidate his position. This gave the English time to assemble a formidable army under the ruthless Duke of Cumberland.
On the battlefield of Culloden, in 1746, Bonnie Prince Charlie faced Cumberland. The Highlanders were massively outnumbered and outgunned, relying on primitive weapons such as the claymore and the dirk, and they were slaughtered by the disciplined English troops with their heavy artillery. Following the battle, Jacobite supporters were ruthlessly hunted down and killed, including women and children. Charles escaped and was sheltered with loyal supporters, eventually making his way to Skye. Despite the massive bounty of £30,000 (today about two million) on his head, no one betrayed him and the reward was never claimed. He ended his years in alcoholic exile in Italy and died without an heir. He was the last of the Stuart line and the Jacobite cause died with him.
Highland Clearances
The history of the Highlands and Islands is coloured by the descriptions of the brutal mass clearances of the inhabitants from their land by the landowners from about 1800. As a result, even today, many Scots remain hostile to the great land owning families and following the introduction of a Scottish parliament it is possible that legislation will place restrictions on the administration of the great estates.
After Culloden (1746), when Highlanders and Islanders were forbidden to own arms or wear tartan, the clan chieftains lost their role in society. They were no longer military commanders and were now merely landowners. Within decades many chiefs found they preferred the easier, more exciting life of the cities, particularly London. The new lifestyle was expensive and they needed more rent from their estates to finance this. The chieftains found that lowland and English sheep farmers would pay far higher rents than their own peasants. As a result the glens were emptied of people and soon populated with cheviot sheep. 1792 became known as the ‘year of the sheep’ as tens of thousands of tenants were evicted. The ruins of their crofts can be seen all over the Highlands and Islands.
The peasants were not driven from Scotland but were moved to miserable plots on rocky coastlines where they had to scrape a miserable living from tiny smallholdings and fishing. Because there were no trees on the coast, they had to carry with them the roof timbers from their old cottages to construct their crofts.
The peasants on the estates of the Countess of Sutherland suffered particularly badly. Her factor, or manager, Patrick Sellar was especially cruel. He ordered all peasants to leave the land on one day in May 1814, but even before this date he harried the peasants, setting fire to the grazing so their cattle starved, and torching tenants’ cottages so they lost their precious roof beams. A cat that ran out from the flames was thrown back into the fire. For days, crowds of Lady Sutherland’s peasant tenants slept on the open hillsides watching the cottages burn. In much of Scotland the Sutherland name is still synonymous with the barbaric practices of land clearance.
Arts
Painting and Sculpture
Sir Edwin Landseer’s work is closely associated with the Highlands. He was the favourite painter of Queen Victoria and is best known for his closely observed animal studies, often depicting deer and stags against Highland scenery such as ‘the monarch of the glen’. Landseer’s most famous work, however, is not a painting but the sculptures of lions, which he modelled for the base of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square.
Literature
Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell undertook a tour of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland in 1773 and recorded their impressions and experiences in Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands and Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides. Johnson’s is quite heavily topographical in nature for, as Boswell remarked, ‘He always said he was not come to Scotland to see fine places, of which there were enough in England; but wild objects, mountains, waterfalls, peculiar manners; in short, things which he had not seen before.’ Boswell’s journal is the more entertaining, largely because he had the eccentric Johnson as a subject. It has lots of entertaining anecdotes.
Lifestyle
Diet
Most of the tenant farmers in the Highlands and Islands were desperately poor, even before the Clearances. The chief crop was barley, which was the staple food. Oats (described in Dr Johnson’s dictionary as ‘A grain which in England is given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people’) went to make Scottish ales and scones. In the Islands, potatoes, the staple crop of the Irish, were grown only as a delicacy to be eaten by the laird’s family. Part of the problem was that the system of rotating crops, which had radically altered the English countryside and had brought about an agrarian revolution, increasing the quality and quantity of crops available in England, was still unpractised in Scotland. Therefore, the land was easily exhausted. Some crofters also kept goats for milk and cheese and a few sheep for wool to make their homespun clothes.
Living conditions
Dr Johnson left a description of the ‘first Highland hut that I had seen.’ The croft was ‘constructed with loose stones […] and […] placed where the wind cannot act upon it with violence, because it has no cement, and where the water will run easily away, because it has no floor but the naked ground.’ The walls were about six feet high and for a roof ‘such rafters as can be procured are raised […] and covered with heath which makes a strong and warm thatch, kept from flying off by ropes of twisted heath of which the ends […] are held firm by the weight of a large stone.’ The only light came from the doorway and from a hole in the thatch through which smoke from the fire escaped.
The harsh winters made life difficult. Captain Burt, an English officer, wrote in 1735 that the country people ‘are in Winter often confined to their Glens by swollen Rivers, Snow or Ice.’ They had no diversions to amuse them, but sat ‘brooding in the smoke over the fire till their legs and thighs are scorched to an extraordinary degree, and many have sore eyes and some are quite blind.’
Dress
The word ‘tartan’ was first recorded in 1471, although the Romans had described the Scots as wearing ‘chequered’ clothes. By the 16th century when clan territories were well defined, it seems that different tartan designs were associated with particular clans as a means of identification in battle.
The kilt was found in many early societies, including Ancient Egypt. A description of the dress of ordinary Highlanders exists from the early 18th century. The English visitor commented, however, that it looked ‘far from acceptable to the eye.’ A piece of tartan was ‘set in folds and girt round the waist, to make a short petticoat that reaches half way down the thigh, and the rest is brought over the shoulders,’ where it was fastened by a pin. He wrote that this was ‘called a quelt’ adding that ‘for the most part, they wear the petticoat so very short, that in a windy day, going up a hill or stooping, the indecency of it is plainly discovered.’ After Culloden, the wearing of Highland dress (and the use of bagpipes) was forbidden by parliament.
Science
Thomas Telford (1757–1834) was the Scottish civil engineer responsible for many of Britain’s bridges and canals. He was a farm boy from Dumfriesshire, who was entirely self-taught. His best known works are the Menai Bridge linking the Isle of Anglesey with the rest of Wales and the Caledonian Canal, started in 1805, which links the Atlantic with the North Sea. Telford estimated that the canal would cost £350,000 and take seven years. However, it proved to be too shallow and so took three times as long to complete, and eventually cost £1,300,000. The canal is 60 miles long and joins four lochs including Loch Ness, with a total of 29 locks. It was finally completed in 1834, although the first steamship reached Fort William from Inverness in 1822. It was heavily used in the 19th century, particularly by sailing boats who wanted to avoid the difficult passage around Scotland’s north coast. Today it is used more by pleasure craft. Neptune’s Staircase, a series of eight locks near Fort William, is the most dramatic part of the Caledonian Canal.
Blair Castle
Blair Castle dates back to 1269. It now provides a unique insight into the history of Highland aristocratic life up until the present day. The Castle and 19 generations of the family have been at the centre of Scottish political and social life and the history of both is closely entwined with the nation’s past.
Family History
Blair Castle is the ancestral home of the Earls (and later the Dukes) of Atholl who are heads of the Stewarts and Murray of Atholl family. Family members still live in parts of the Castle. The family motto derives from the 1st Earl who was sent to subdue the troublesome Macdonalds (of Skye) by the king who ordered him to ‘Furth fortune and fill the fetters’ which could be translated as ‘Get the chains on them and the future’s yours.’ He did, it was and the phrase became the family motto.
During the Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 the family was divided. The 1st Duke and his second son supported the English government, but his eldest son, William, and his youngest son, George, supported Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite cause. As a result of his treason, William was stripped of his title and died imprisoned in the Tower of London. In his place, the second son, James became 2nd Duke when his father died. George besieged Blair Castle in an attempt to force his brother to take up the Jacobite cause, but he failed to capture it and later died in exile in Holland.
Queen Victoria stayed at Blair for a three-week holiday in 1844 and in gratitude she granted the 6th Duke and his descendants the right to maintain a private army. Today the Atholl Highlanders are the only private army remaining in Europe, although their duties are largely ceremonial.
The Castle
Blair Castle dates back to 1269. When the Earl of Atholl returned from the Crusades, he found that his lands had been occupied in his absence by a squatter called John Cumming. Cumming had started building a tower on the land. Atholl complained to the king and managed to retrieve his lands, but Cumming’s tower, the oldest and tallest part of Blair Castle, still stands. The castle has been added to over the years.
In the mid-eighteenth century, following the ’45 rebellion when the 2nd Duke’s brother, who was on the side of the English, sent several cannonballs through the roof, the castle was remodelled as a classical Georgian mansion with the turrets and battlements removed, in keeping with contemporary taste. In the late nineteenth century the 7th Duke attempted to restore the castle’s mediæval appearance and put back turrets and crenellations. He also installed modern conveniences including telephones, gas and bathrooms. However, despite such attempts at modernisation, the kitchen remained three floors below the dining room, which was at the opposite end of the house.
Arts
The Castle’s paintings include works by the Scottish painters Landseer, Raeburn and Ramsay as well as Lely and Zoffany in the Drawing Room. It has several interesting collections of decorative arts and of artefacts. In the entrance hall there is a superb decorative display of weapons including muskets, swords and daggers. Also notable are Charles I’s Mortlake tapestries which were sold following his execution, and the China Room with over 1,700 pieces including Coalport and Dresden and a fine display of lace made by Lady Evelyn Murray, youngest daughter of the 7th Duke, who died in 1940.
Pitlochry and Killiecrankie
Pitlochry, the geographical centre of Scotland, is a small town, which found fame after Queen Victoria described it as one of the finest resorts in Europe. It is surrounded by the pine-forested hills of the central Highlands, just below Loch Faskally. The route to or from Blair Castle takes you along the Garry river, past Killicrankie Pass and a steep wooded gorge known as Soldier’s Leap. The last wolf in Perthshire was killed near here in 1680.
History
In 1564 Mary Queen of Scots was travelling beside the Garry river to Blair Castle to take part in a great deer drive. When she reached the ferryman’s house at the pass, she rested and, inspired by the beauty of the views, called for her harp. Unfortunately, the difficult journey had ruined some of the harp strings, and the local harper was sent for to repair the damage. From then on, his house was known as the ‘Tigh nan Teud’ the House of the Harp Strings, and it still stands on the old main road.
The only way to cross the Garry for many years was by ferry. In the 18th century eighteen people lost their lives when the ferryboat overturned as it was crossing the flooded river. The only person saved was the boatman whose wife caught him by a boathook. The first bridge was built in 1770 after this disaster.
The Battle of Killicrankie took place in 1689 when the Jacobite Highland clans, who supported the exiled James II’s claims to the thrones of England and Scotland, won a brilliant victory against the English government troops. 2,000 English troops were killed and 500 taken prisoner, a remarkable victory considering that the Highlanders were outnumbered two to one. However, the leader of the Jacobites, Viscount Dundee, was mortally wounded through his breastplate in the heat of the battle. As he lay dying on the ground he asked one of his officers ‘How fares the fight?’ He was told, ‘The day goes well for the King, but I am sorry for your lordship.’ Dundee then whispered his last words, ‘It matters less for me, seeing the day goes well for my master.’ Dundee’s breastplate and helmet are displayed at Blair Castle.
During the Battle of Killicrankie, some Highlanders pursued an English soldier towards the Garry River. He reached the narrowest point of the river, and to escape, flung himself across the gorge to safety. The gorge was about 17 feet wide and became known as Soldier’s Leap. To discourage people trying to emulate this dangerous feat, the gap has since been widened.
Fort William
The town is neither very attractive, nor particularly historic, serving mainly as a base for touring and walking. However, it lies in the shadow of Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain, and there is some spectacular scenery.
History
A stone fort was built here during the reign of William and Mary, and the spot was briefly known as Maryburgh, in the Queen’s honour. During the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 it held out against the Jacobites. Dr. Johnson, on his visit, wrote that the place had been built with the purpose of subduing ‘savage clans and raving barbarians.’ The fort was destroyed in the 19th century when the railway was constructed. With the arrival of the railway came tourism. Queen Victoria visited the town in 1847, arriving by the royal yacht, before staying nearby at Loch Laggan. It was joined to Inverness by the Caledonian Canal, which was completed in 1837.
Ben Nevis (4,406’) is visible from the town. It is humpbacked, without a distinctive peak, and owing to the wet climate, is often hidden in mist. An annual race is held on the mountain. Although not a difficult climb, the weather changes quickly in the area and local advice should be taken before any attempt.
Glencoe
Glencoe’s fame comes from the notorious massacre, which, unlike the usual feuding between clans, was the result of politics. Its name conjures up betrayal and genocide and the forbidding atmosphere of the Glen adds to the poignancy of the story.
History
Following the exile of the Catholic James II and the succession of the Protestant William and Mary to the thrones of England and Scotland, the English government decided to force certain Highland chiefs to sign an oath of allegiance to the new King and Queen by 1st January 1692. The chiefs agreed. One minor chieftain, MacIan of Glencoe, a member of the great MacDonald clan, went to Inverlochy, near Fort William, to make his oath. When he arrived there, however, he was told that there was no one there who was empowered to hear it and that he would have to go to Inveraray instead. In the depths of winter he set off on the difficult journey, finally arriving five days late. On arrival he found that the sheriff who was to take the oath had not yet arrived, but when he did he accepted MacIan’s oath.
However, MacIan’s late arrival gave the Dalrymple of Stair, the senior government minister in Scotland, a pretext for action. He hated the MacDonalds, who were seen as lawless brigands and extreme supporters of the former Catholic regime. Dalrymple gave instructions to a Campbell chieftain, Campbell of Glenlyon, that he was ‘hereby ordered to fall upon the rebels the MacDonalds of Glencoe and put all to the sword under seventy.’
In February 1692, soldiers arrived in Glencoe, under the captain Campbell of Glenlyon, (who was related to the MacDonalds despite an ancient rivalry between the two clans). They visited the MacDonalds who reluctantly offered them hospitality and entertained them for several days. Then on the snowy morning of 6 February, MacIan, his wife, two of his sons and 38 of his clan were surprised as they slept by Campbell’s soldiers who slaughtered them with swords. Neither women nor children were spared. The massacre would have been much greater had a cut-off party arrived in time to prevent other clan members fleeing the Glen through the snow-covered passes. From this time the nine of diamonds has been called ‘The curse of Scotland’ in reference to the nine lozenges displayed on the coat of arms of the Dalrymples of Stair.
Unsurprisingly, the incident created a backlash against the government who had handed its enemies a golden propaganda opportunity. Even the king was reviled for his part in signing the order for the attack. Today the name of Campbell still bears the stain of the treacherous act with which it is still associated.
Skye excursion
Skye, the largest of the Inner Hebrides, is about fifty miles long and, at its narrowest point, only four miles wide. It displays its turbulent geological past in its volcanic plateaux in the North, its deep sea lochs, jagged peaks of the Cuillin mountains, peat bogs and limestone grasslands. The coastline is particularly dramatic. Ruined castles, crofts abandoned during the Clearances (see History), and small fishing villages give the island a remote and changeless atmosphere. Its strongest historical associations are with Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite cause.
History
Two great families dominate Skye’s history, the MacLeods and the MacDonalds and for many centuries they were bitter enemies. The MacLeods live at Dunvegan Castle in the NW of the island and the MacDonalds at Duntulm Castle in the far NE. In the east of the island is a place known as the Loch of Heads after a grisly tale of one of their encounters. A group of MacDonalds decapitated some MacLeods after they defeated them in battle. To celebrate they rolled the heads down a hill and into the Loch. As the heads fell down the hill they could be heard crying out ‘Almost! We almost won today!’ The hill is still known as Almost Hill.
The romantic tale of Flora MacDonald and Bonnie Prince Charlie is celebrated in the famous ‘Skye Boat Song.’ Whilst the Prince was hiding from the English after Culloden, he met the young woman, Flora Macdonald on the nearby Isle of Uist and she agreed to take him back to her family home on the Isle of Skye. She disguised him in women’s clothes as her maid, Betty Bure. However, he did not make a convincing servant and one of Flora’s other servants complained that ‘I have never seen such a tall impudent jaud in all my life. See what long strides she takes.’ The Prince was very ill and was nursed by him, before arranging for a ship to take him back to the mainland where he finally found a way back to France. Flora was soon arrested and taken to the Tower of London, but she was freed in an amnesty of 1747. When she died in 1790 she was buried at Kilmuir in the north of Skye, wrapped in a sheet from the bed of Charles.
Route to Mallaig (for the Skye Ferry)
Not far outside Fort William you will pass on the right Neptune’s Staircase, a flight of eight locks designed by Thomas Telford (see Science), which forms the most spectacular part of the Caledonian Canal.
Beside Loch Shiel on the left hand side of the road stands the Glenfinnan Monument. The 20m (65’) high column commemorates those who supported Bonnie Prince Charlie in the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion. The Prince first raised his standard in Glenfinnan.
Just before Mallaig, you will pass through Morar, an area renowned for its white sands and for Loch Morar, the deepest loch in Scotland with a depth of 1,080 feet. It is famous for its monster, over forty feet long, called the Morag, which appears only before the death of a member of the family of MacDonell of Morar.
Portree
Portree is the town where Bonnie Prince Charlie finally said farewell to Flora MacDonald. Johnson and Boswell stayed there in September 1773, but they found little to interest them. Boswell described the town as having nothing but a huddle of ‘black houses,’ an old gaol on the hillside and a set of gallows on a small wooded hill near the harbour where the last hanging on the island had taken place in 1742. They saw two ships that were ‘waiting to dispeople Skye, by carrying the natives to America.’ He described this as a ‘melancholy sight’. This slow depopulation of the island was not the result of land clearance for sheep-farming – that was mainly in the next century – instead the emigration had been going on for over a hundred years and was due to the poverty-stricken Islanders seeking a better life abroad.
Dunvegan
Dunvegan in the NW corner of Skye has been the seat of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod since the 13th century and is the island’s main tourist attraction. It is a dramatic fortress built on a rocky outcrop and has been continuously inhabited for 700 years by the same family.
History
In 1266, following a long campaign, Norway agreed to cede the Hebrides to Scotland. Around then, Leod, first of the MacLeod chiefs, married the heiress of Dunvegan’s owners who were descended from the Norsemen who had invaded the Hebrides in the 8th century. He is believed to have built the earliest part of the castle, the sea-gate and the curtain wall. The massive keep was built by the 3rd chief in the 14th century, and the tall Fairy Tower in the early 16th century. The narrow, dark dungeon, barely big enough for two men, can still be seen today and is a relic of the region’s turbulent past.
Until the 17th century it was only possible to access the castle by boat as it was surrounded by water on three sides and by rocky moorland on the fourth. It was an almost impregnable fortress, which withstood pirate raids and attacks from rival clans. In 1748 the then chief built a flight of steps on the landward side.
In 1935, Flora MacLeod succeeded to the chieftainship, the first woman to do so.
Family Legends
The Macleod’s of Dunvegan have several romantic stories attached to them. The most famous is the legend of the Fairy Flag. The flag is believed by all MacLeods to have magic powers. It is supposed to have been handed to the MacLeods to ensure victory during a clash of the clans at Fairy Bridge nearby. The flag, when waved, will grant the family three wishes or save them from three mortal dangers. It has already been used twice in battle in 1490 and in 1580 and both times it brought victory. The next, and final, time it is waved it will crumble into nothing and vanish. Should a MacLeod wave the flag frivolously, the heir to the MacLeods will die. The flag is on display at the castle and is thought to have been of Syrian origin; possibly a saint’s garment, perhaps brought back from the Crusades.
The Dunvegan Lullaby is associated with the Fairy Flag. The wife of a 15th century chieftain, Surly John, gave birth to a baby boy. A fairy came looking for him to give him her blessing, and found him, took him on her knee and sang the Dunvegan Lullaby to send him to sleep, and after wrapping him in the Fairy Flag, put him back in his cradle. The boy’s nurse watched all this and remembered the words and music of the lullaby after the fairy had left. Thereafter, singing the song invariably soothed the baby. From that day only nurses who knew the fairy’s song were appointed as nurses to the MacLeod heirs.
Arts
The house is quite simply furnished but there are some interesting objects, besides the fairy flag. Rory Mor’s horn (he was a 17th century chief) is on display. It is a giant ox horn decorated with Celtic designs in silver. Each chief, to pass the test of manhood has to drink a half gallon of claret from it in a single swallow ‘without setting down or falling down’. There is also the Dunvegan Cup, made of wood, and mounted with filigree silver work and precious stones. It is said to have belonged to Niall of the Black Knees, King of Ulster in the 10th century and was probably brought to Dunvegan in the 15th century by an Irish Chief, Shane O’Neill as a gift.
Dunvegan has various literary associations. Sir Walter Scott was an enthusiastic visitor in 1814 and was inspired by the place to write one of his best known poems, ‘The Lord of the Isles.’ Johnson and Boswell also enjoyed the MacLeod’s generous hospitality on their tour of the Western Isles in 1773; their thank you letters are still at the castle.
Eilean Donan
The castle is dramatically situated at the end of a small causeway at the confluence of three lochs, Loch Druich, Loch Long and Loch Aish. Its main interest is the picturesque setting, but there are a couple of rooms on view which show Jacobite, Mackenzie and Macrae relics.
History
Built on the site of a stone-age fort, it dates back to the 13th century when it was constructed as a deterrent to Viking raiders. The Mackenzie chiefs, the Earls of Seaforth, later held it. Eilean Donan achieved the distinction of being garrisoned by Spanish soldiers during the Jacobite rebellions and of later being destroyed by canon from an English battleship in an attempt to root out Jacobitism. It stood in ruin for nearly 200 years before it was rebuilt this century.
Culloden
Culloden is perhaps the most evocative of Scotland’s many battlefields. The Battle of Culloden, between Bonnie Prince Charlie and the British government’s army was the last major battle to be fought on British land.
It ended the hopes of any restoration of the Stuart line to the throne and led to the end of the Highland way of life. The site has been restored to its original topography and has much of historical and military interest.
History
On 16 April 1746 the Young Pretender and his Jacobite Highland army faced the superior forces of the Duke of Cumberland at Culloden Moor. The Prince’s army consisted of around 5,000 men who were poorly armed, starving and tired after an all-night march. Cumberland had over 9,000 men equipped with superior arms. At 1 o’clock on a bleak snowy afternoon, the Highlanders opened fire on the government troops who quickly gained the upper hand. In desperation the Highlanders attempted to charge the government line but their attack faltered and, ‘torn apart by musketry,’ they were forced to retreat. The battle lasted only 40 minutes and over 1,000 Jacobite Highlanders lost their lives.
Cumberland gave orders that the wounded were to be massacred and for days after the battle, search parties hunted down and killed wounded clansmen who had dragged themselves into the surrounding woods and hills. Cumberland’s cavalry also killed off the spectators (!) who had come out from Inverness to watch. The Duke soon came to be known as ‘Butcher Cumberland’.
Inverness
Known as the capital of the Highlands it is the headquarters of the Highland region and an important road and rail hub. Although it is important for administration, commerce and industry the town has important historic roots. The River Ness running from Loch Ness divides the town.
History
St Columba, the Irish saint who founded the abbey of Iona near Mull, is said to have visited Inverness in around 565 AD. Shakespeare placed the murder of Duncan at Macbeth’s 11th century castle at Auld Castle Hill. This castle was destroyed by Duncan’s avenger, Malcolm Canmore.
Inverness has had a turbulent history over the centuries. Not only was it often occupied by the English, but it also suffered from the savagery of the Highlanders, perhaps because its inhabitants did not consider themselves to be Highlanders as they spoke English, not Gaelic, and also because it was relatively wealthy and worth plundering. In the 17th century the chief of one clan threatened to sack the town if the inhabitants did not pay him a large sum of money, plus a scarlet suit with lace on it. Scottish kings also used Inverness as a base from which to try to control the clans.
The town was used as a winter residence by the local gentry and nobility as a refuge from the harsh winters of the hills. A few elegant town houses remain today, including Abertarff House near Fraser Street, which was the town house of the Lovats. It was known for its trade in salmon, herrings and cod as well as for its shipbuilding industry, which was thriving in the 13th century. The Caledonian Canal, completed in 1843, runs from here to Fort William.
Loch Ness
The famous loch is 24 miles long, about a mile wide and up to 700 feet deep. It is fed by eight rivers, but has only one outlet via the river Ness. It never freezes. The Loch Ness Monster has brought the area world fame. Since the construction of the A82 road in the 1930s, sightings have been frequent and various serious scientific expeditions have been mounted but no conclusive evidence has been produced.
History
Stories about Nessie go back to the 7th century, when St Columba’s biographer gave an account of the saint’s visit to Loch Ness in 565 AD. On his way to convert King Brude of the Picts, he came across the inhabitants burying the body of a man who had just been badly mauled by the monster whilst swimming in the river Ness. Columba then ordered one of his companions to swim to the opposite side. As the man leapt into the water the monster, who had been lying at the bottom, rushed out, made a terrible roar and charged after the swimmer. St Columba ‘raised his holy hand…and, invoking the name of God, formed the saving sign of the cross in the air, and commanded the ferocious monster to leave the man’ and go back, which it did in terror. The inhabitants were impressed by the saint’s powers and immediately converted to Christianity.
Several other of the deepest Highland lochs are said to harbour monsters and common to all of them is the distinctive hump. The monster of Loch Morar (near Mallaig on the road to Skye) is known as the Mhorag (pronounced Vorag) and appears only before a death in the family of MacDonell of Morar.