when you see the battle of colloden
people inevitably that it was the
place that the jacobite cause finally
died the last jacobite hurrah
but that
isn't strictly true
if you're interested in the people
places and events and scottish history
then click the subscribe button at the
bottom right of the screen in the
meantime
let me tell you a story
my guess is that if you're watching this
you've heard about the battler colon
but i thought i'd give a two sentence
summary just in case you clicked
expecting to see funny pictures of cats
[Music]
the stewart monarchs of scotland england
and ireland
but mainly scotland
had been ousted and scotland and england
had been merged into one country now in
an attempt to unravel both these naughty
balls of string the jacobite supporters
of james stewart had risen up against
the new monarchs now the hanavarians on
several occasions
the son of the exiled would-be monarch
had landed in the highlands raised an
army and taken them to within spitting
distance of london before a double agent
persuaded them to turn back and all
climaxed on dramossy moore with a last
pitched battle in a british civil war
unless you count the rammy and urhus at
christmas
lee said soon as me ended
with defeated the battle of culloden you
might think that that was the end of it
indeed as the title suggests cologne is
normally seen as the last hara of the
jacobite cause
but i recently met with a renowned jack
about historian murray pittick and he's
the author of the book colloden if you
want to understand the battle you should
definitely get his book
anyway murray opened my eyes to
something that i hadn't thought of and
he revealed what was the last hurrah of
the jacobites
as you drive down the a9 from inverness
to perth just outside can you see you'll
see the ruins of raven barracks
now the barracks had been a power base
from which the british army had subdued
the highlands the jacobites had
attempted to take it on the way south to
derby and they'd succeeded on the way
back north
after the disaster a colloden highland
klansmen gathered here with intention of
continuing the fight when they sent a
message to bonnie prince charlie the
response they got was
every man for himself
now you might think that this was
murray's revelation and the real end to
jacobitism but no i already knew about
that
there followed gory executions and then
inhumane and barbaric suppression of the
highlands state sanctioned murder arson
and theft
but six years after cologne there was a
plot by english jacobites let me repeat
that
by english jacobites to restore the
stewards to the throne
this ella bank plot is what i'd
envisaged as the last giraffe for the
jacobite cause
but murray pittek changed my view
in fact murray caused me to reassess
quite a few things in our conversation
we talked for over an hour and if you're
a patreon member then you can see our
conversation the patreon page if you're
not already a patreon member then when
this video is finished you can come back
and click the white tab up there to sign
up
i'll leave a link in the description as
well
but for the benefit of the non-patrons
i'm going to share just one of the
insights that murray gave
now i previously made a video called
what they don't say about the battle of
culloden
i'm going to leave a link to that video
at the end so please watch it
in it i explained how the 1745 jacobi
uprising was one part of the wider
european indeed global struggle which
involved the european powers fighting
the war of the spanish succession
the war of the quadruple alliance and
the war of the austrian succession
you might even have heard of the war of
jenkins ear
because he hasn't
[Music]
when the last of those conflicts ended
in 1748
nobody was really happy with the terms
so hoping that this time they would get
what they wanted
or the very least get back what they
lost the one part is realign their
allegiances
so the prussians took the side of the
british and the austrians and the
russians allied with france
and it all started over again
the british and the french started
fighting with each other in north
america now our north american cousins
will call this the french indian war
then on august 29 1756
the prussians invaded saxony starting
the seven years war
obviously didn't call it the seven years
war at that point that would have been
silly i mean what have you got the dates
wrong
it'd be like when the english and the
french went to war in the 14th century
they called that the hundred years war
and then it ended up lasting 116 years
the guy that named that must have felt
pretty stupid
anyway for the first three years or so
the whole thing was a bit of a stalemate
then a guy called william pitt took
control on the british side
basically the strategy was to blockade
the french ports capture friendships at
sea and send british troops to fight the
french and the colonies and this worked
pretty well
cutting off french trade damaged their
economy which made it difficult to fund
their war efforts
it also meant that loads of french
sailors had been captured which made it
damn near impossible for the french to
fill battleship crews to regain control
or break out french pores i'll be honest
the french were in a bit of a fix
in december 1758 a guy called the duke
of society became the french foreign
minister and he came up with a cunning
wheeze
you see the british were a naval power
and had sent what land forces they had
to the colonies
on the home front they called up militia
who were led by a guy called captain
mannering based in warmington on sea
should explain that for the benefit of
the internationals
don't tell him
okay
the point is that the french could just
land forces in great britain and if they
could do that they were pretty confident
that they could win the war and this
became the main french strategy and they
set about building large transport ships
to take a force of i've seen numbers of
up to a hundred thousand mentioned
you see just 14 years earlier when the
jacobites fought over this place they
had nearly taken london with what
started as a land in force of just seven
guys
so in february 1759 bonnie prince
charlie was called to paris for a secret
meeting where the french explained their
strategy
ultimately it would be a pincer movement
of invasion from the south and a landing
in the clyde estuary to raise a jack
about force in scotland and when britain
was defeated the stewards would be put
back on the throne
they tell me that bonnie prince charlie
turned up late and drunk but for a job
interviews
less than optimal but what the french
wanted wasn't the figurehead
but the fighting men
in 1745 jacobite troops were desperately
seeking french help to march in london
14 years later
it was the other way round
the french continued their preparations
it was in june that they decided in the
smaller land in scotland where the duke
de gea would raise the jacobite troops
and by mid-summer 1759 in ports all
along the atlantic coast there were
hundreds of transport ships and around
50 000 troops ready to make sale
but the british blockade and french
porch continued
and the number of french semen that had
been captured by the british royal navy
in the atlantic and elsewhere meant that
the french navy was almost 40 percent
under capacity
then in july the british struck a
further blow when the raid in the
normandy port of la harv damaged or
destroyed part of the french fleet
anchored there
the french realized they were going to
have to adjust their plan
and a council of war in paris they
decided that the scottish landing would
come first and once they'd gained that
jack about support
then they would send a force to the
south coast of england
after that in august the french navy
lost the battle of lagos off the
portuguese coast
okay
so just scotland then
now the obvious port from which to
launch the invasion was breast in
brittany but a typhoid epidemic had
killed four thousand troops there so the
troops were assembled down the brittany
coast at vang in the sheltered gulf of
morbid of kiberon bay
if a french squadron could just break
out from the british blockade at brest
to head down that coast they could
collect 17 000 troops there to make a
land in
on our shores
in early november gale force winds
struck the atlantic seaboard which sent
all but the most rugged british ships
back to their ports on the 14th in
november the french squadron sailed out
of breast
they were sighted at various points by
up to four different british ships which
had stayed in the area despite the
weather
but these were relatively small vessels
and the french ships initially gave
chase before turning around in the gale
to head down the coast to their intended
destination
fighting against that wind it was the
19th of november before the french ships
were slowing down off belial with plans
to reach dock at dawn
and that's when a squadron of british
ships hoved into view
realizing that this wasn't the main
british fleet the french ships could
chase again although as their vanguard
chased the british squadron the rear
guard saw masts approaching from the
distant west
the french stopped their pursuit and
were in a bit of disarray as it became
clear that the masts were in fact the
main british fleet
what do they do
retreat to the safety of labyrinthine
coastal rocks and reefs
or do they fight a larger force in storm
tossed open waters
deciding that discretion was the better
part of valor and knowing that it would
be madness for british to follow them
into wars they didn't know the french
headed for the security of a defensive
position in qibla bay
it was the next morning by the time the
british arrived and did something not
only unexpected
but downright dangerous
admiral hawk gave the order for chase
full sail with the first seven ships in
line of breath despite weather wave and
murderous waters by mid-afternoon the
french admiral was rounding the rocky
cabernet peninsula as he heard cannon
fire behind them the british were
starting to overtake the rear of the
french fleet and engulf them
by 4 pm the friendship for me dab
wasn't so formidable and it surrendered
it had been taken by the british ship
resolution and it wasn't even new year
another friendship tasi tried to turn
but it forgot to close the lower
gunports as the water flowed into the
lower decks the ship capsized leaving
most of the crew dead
the superb also capsized and healers
surrendered the wind changed the
friendships
all managed to get in each other's way
somehow in hawke's daring pursuit had
paid off
several ships were wrecked some
including the flagship of vice admiral
confla were grounded and the crew set
fire to them rather than have them
fallen in british hands and a few
managed to limp away to other french
ports
but by the time the sun set on the 20th
of november 1759 the british had won the
most decisive victory of the seven years
war thus they would create canada
and large parts of the americas would
become british
at least for a few years
britain would become the dominant global
colonial power and the french would
reorganize its military in particular
its artillery corps from which would
emerge an officer
called napoleon
bonaparte
prussia emerged from the war
strengthened and it would later lead the
unification of germany but most
importantly
for us
in november 1759
13 and a half years after the battle of
cologne the last jacobite hurrah had
finally been roared
the stewards
weren't coming back
for more information about how colloden
fitted into the wider european picture
why not watch my video what they don't
say about colloden it's coming up on
screen now in the meantime
jamie and doc is going to be a llama
alive
cheering rasta