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Friday, September 3, 2010

The Ghosts of Culloden

 
Sung by Isla Grant 

The Battle of Culloden (April 16, 1746) was the final clash between the  French-supported Jacobites and the Hanoverians in the 1745 Jacobite  Rising. It was the last battle to be fought on mainland Britain.  Culloden brought the Jacobite cause—to restore the House of Stuart  (known as the House of Stewart in Scotland) to the throne of Great  Britain—to a decisive defeat.

The Jacobites—most of them Highland  Scots—supported the claim of Charles Edward Stuart (aka "Bonnie Prince  Charlie" or "The Young Pretender") to the throne; the British army,  under the Duke of Cumberland, younger son of the Hanoverian sovereign,  King George II, supported his father's cause.

The aftermath of  the battle was brutal and earned the victorious general the name  "Butcher" Cumberland. Charles Edward Stuart eventually left Britain and  went to Rome, never to attempt to take the throne again. Civil penalties  were also severe. New laws attacked the Highlanders' clan system, and  even highland dress was outlawed.

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