TOMORROW is the 275th anniversary of the first significant battle during the last Jacobite rising.
The Battle of Prestonpans was a triumph for Bonnie Prince Charlie and has been commemorated ever since in myth and art – even making an appearance in the hit TV show Outlander during episode 10 of season two.
It was all over in less than 15 minutes and proved to be a huge morale boost for the Jacobite army who lost fewer than 100 men, killed or wounded.
Although heavily outnumbered, the men who followed the prince, an inexperienced leader, managed to kill hundreds of government troops, with hundreds more taken prisoner as they tried to flee the scene.
Initially called the Battle of Gladsmuir, the conflict took place on September 21, 1745, near Prestonpans in East Lothian.
It followed the landing in Scotland in July of the exiled prince Charles Edward Stuart, who hoped the French would support him once he raised his banner.
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The Jacobite rebellion was launched formally on August 19 at Glenfinnan after Charles had mustered a small army, many of them tenants of Donald Cameron of Lochiel. They may have lacked experience in warfare but so did the estimated 4000 troops under the command of the government’s chief soldier in Scotland Sir John Cope. He also had to deal with poor advice and information from the Secretary of State for Scotland the Marquess of Tweeddale, who did not see the uprising as a serious threat.
Cope first marched to the Corrieyairack Pass between Laggan and Fort Augustus to block the Jacobites, but he was too late and had to withdraw to Inverness, then Aberdeen where he took to the sea to try to reach Edinburgh before Charles.
By the time he landed with his troops at Dunbar on September 17 he was again too late and the scene was set for a clash outside Edinburgh in East Lothian.
The Jacobite army, he knew, were only around 2000 strong and poorly equipped and Cope felt able to take them on even though his cavalry, left behind in Stirling before his march to the Highlands, had rejoined the foot soldiers in poor condition.
Cope selected a good position facing south with boggy land immediately in front, the walls around Preston House on his right and his cannon placed behind an embankment that crossed the site.
However, his prospects were weakened by his infantry’s inexperience and the poor quality of his officers – such as James Gardiner whose regiment had run panicking from a small group of Highlanders a few days previously in what became known as the Canter of Coltbrig.
Cope even had to send a message to Edinburgh Castle, which was still in government hands, asking for replacements for his gunners who were very poorly trained. The messenger got through but the replacements didn’t reach him.
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Although he had craftily placed his troops behind a marsh, unfortunately for Cope a local farmer’s son and Jacobite supporter Robert Anderson knew of a safe route through it and on his advice Lord George Murray, Charles’s Lieutenant General, began moving his troops along it at 4am on September 21. They crept along so stealthily that none of Cope’s 500 watchmen noticed until dawn broke and their enemies were upon them. Cope’s army watched in panic as hundreds of Highlanders poured from the east through the early autumn mist making “wild war cries and with the bloodcurdling skirl of the pipes”, according to one account of the battle.
Cope’s men had time to fire their weapons once only, then fled – despite their commander and his officers trying to force them to stay at gunpoint.
However, their retreat was blocked by the walls of Preston House and the ditch to their south. The mortally wounded Gardiner was abandoned by his dragoon but Cope escaped along with artillery commander Lt Colonel Whiteford, who was spared by Stewart of Invernahyle. Whiteford later returned the favour by gaining a pardon for Stewart after he was captured at Culloden.
Only a fraction of Cope’s men reached Berwick upon Tweed the next day, but he refused to accept responsibility for the defeat.
“I cannot reproach myself; the manner in which the enemy came on was quicker than can be described ... and the cause of our men taking on a destructive panic,” he said.
Others were less generous. Irish veteran William Blakeney, who was in command at Stirling Castle, queried Cope’s strategy.
He said: “It is a maxim in the art of War, not to place Horse on any Wing of an Army near woods ... from whence they may be annoyed by Infantry without being able to offend them.”
Cope got away with it, however. Along with other officers he was tried by court marital, but in typical British establishment manner the ordinary men were blamed and the officers were exonerated on the grounds that the defeat was a result of the “shameful conduct of the private soldiers”.
Nevertheless, it was the last time Cope was put in charge of an army.
In the aftermath of the battle the Jacobites rejoiced. Their victory saw them capturing the Hanoverian supplies which included £5000, ammunition and many muskets. Their good fortune made them generous and, under the orders of Prince Charles, the wounded redcoats and prisoners were treated fairly.
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The reversal of the 1707 Union seemed much more possible, with Charles arguing that invasion of England and the removal of the Hanoverian rulers would ensure it. The rest, as they say, is history.
Today the battlefield site is protected by Historic Scotland and is included in the Inventory of Historic Battlefields in Scotland. A heritage trust has also been established to provide information on the conflict and there are plans for a Living History Centre which would display the Prestonpans Tapestry, a depiction of the famous event.
Key characters of the battle feature in books and songs, notably Sir Walter Scott’s 1817 novel Waverley and the song Hey Johnnie Cope Are Ye Waking Yet, written by a local farmer who visited the battle site shortly after the fighting had finished. The tune was played as the 51st Highland Division landed on Juno Beach in Normandy on June 6, 1944. But that’s another story.
A programme of events, adapted to comply with Covid-19 restrictions, has been planned to mark the 275th anniversary year. It is also 300 years since the prince was born.
https://prestonpans275.org/275th-events/
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