Tell me about Cumberland and Culloden

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Q.� So he was a great soldier

A.� More than a few Scots might disagree with you there - he was know as the Butcher, after ordering the murder of Jacobites fleeing after the battle.

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Q.� Biography, please.

A.� William Augustus was born in London on 15 April, 1721, the third son of King George II and Caroline of Ansbach. He was created Duke of Cumberland in 1726. A professional soldier, he fought in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48), becoming commander of the allied forces in 1745. He was defeated by France's Marshal Maurice de Saxe at the Battle of Fontenoy on 11 May, 1745. That year he was recalled to England to fight the invasion of England of the Jacobite forces under the Young Pretender (Charles Edward Stuart), grandson of the deposed king James II.

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Q.� The battle itself

A.� Culloden, also called Battle of Drummossie, took place on 16 April, 1746, the last engagement of the '45 rebellion, when the Jacobites, under the Young Pretender - also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie - were soundly beaten. Culloden is a tract of moorland lying about 6 miles east of Inverness.� The battle lasted only 40 minutes and about 1,000 of the Young Pretender's army of 5,000 weak and starving Highlanders were killed by the 9,000 Redcoats, who lost only 50 men.

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Q.� Why such as massacre

A.� The Jacobite soldiers could usually depend upon the terrifying Highland Charge: a simple surprise attack, usually from craggy hillside. Culloden was a boggy marshland, useless for that tactic. Each English soldier, instead of attacking the Highlander directly in front of him, bayoneted the exposed side of the man to his right. The Highlanders broke and fled, and some 1,000 more were killed in the following weeks after a devastating order by Cumberland.

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Q.� What order

A.� After the battle Cumberland was asked for orders. He wrote no quarter on the back of a playing card. It was the nine of diamonds - known to this day as the curse of Scotland. This brutality earned him the name Butcher Cumberland.

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Q.� What happened to both the rivals

A.� Bonnie Prince Charlie fled to the north and was spirited away to Europe (click here for a feature on him). Cumberland returned to the European theatre of war. In July, 1747, he lost the Battle of Langfeld to Saxe. During the Seven Years' War (1756-63) he was defeated by the French at the Battle of Hastenbeck in July, 1757. In 1765 the duke was asked by his nephew, King George III, to head a ministry, which he accepted. Cumberland appointed the Marquis of Rockingham as First Lord of the Treasury and died of a brain clot on 31 October the same year.

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Q.� But he's not as well remembered as the Bonnie Prince

A.� No - his actions were hardly heroic. However, a flower was named after him to celebrate his Culloden victory. In England it's called Sweet William. The Scots call it Stinking Billy.

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By Steve Cunningham

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