40 Fun Facts About Battle of Culloden

The Battle of Culloden was fought on a moor about five miles east of which Scottish city?

Inverness held most of the Jacobites' dwindling supplies, so their commanders chose to stand and fight outside it rather than abandon the town and watch the army fall apart.

Roughly how long did the fighting at the Battle of Culloden last before the Jacobite army broke and fled?

Under an hour was all it took: the Jacobite charge stalled in boggy ground and close-range cannon fire, ending a rising that had begun the previous summer.

Which Hebridean woman helped Prince Charles flee after Culloden by disguising him as her Irish maid?

Flora MacDonald was locked in the Tower of London for it, then freed under a 1747 amnesty; she later emigrated to North Carolina.

Which English city was the furthest south the Jacobite army marched in 1745 before turning back for Scotland?

Derby was reached on 4 December 1745, and with no sign of English reinforcements or a French landing, the Jacobite council there voted to retreat.

Which TV drama adapted from Diana Gabaldon's novels sends its Highland hero Jamie Fraser to fight at Culloden?

Outlander has Jamie kill his enemy Jack Randall on the battlefield, then survive his own wounds and be spared execution.

What grim nickname did the Duke of Cumberland's opponents give him after his army's brutality following Culloden?

The Butcher was a taunt from his Tory opponents, first recorded in the City of London; by 1868 he was so reviled that his statue in Cavendish Square was removed.

Which BBC science-fiction series set a 1966 story just after Culloden, introducing the Highland piper Jamie McCrimmon?

Doctor Who meant to call the serial Culloden, but the BBC had recently aired a docudrama of that name, so it became The Highlanders.

Culloden, fought in April 1746, usually holds which distinction in United Kingdom military history?

Last pitched battle on British soil is its usual billing, and the defeat ended Jacobitism as a serious force in British politics.

Culloden ended the Stuart threat and secured the British throne for which royal house, reigning since 1714?

Hanover was a German electorate whose ruler had inherited the British crown, and the Duke of Cumberland who won the battle was the reigning king's son.

Which composer wrote the oratorio Judas Maccabaeus as a compliment to the Duke of Cumberland after Culloden?

George Frideric Handel composed it within months of the battle, and after its London premiere in April 1747 it became one of his most popular oratorios.

A famous boat song recalls Prince Charles's escape after Culloden from Benbecula to which Hebridean island?

Skye owes the song to Sir Harold Boulton, who published the English words in 1884 for a tune Anne Campbell MacLeod had heard in the 1870s.

At which September 1745 battle did the Jacobites scatter Sir John Cope's government army in under 20 minutes?

Prestonpans left the Jacobites in control of much of Scotland, and the win helped Charles persuade his colleagues to invade England.

Three months before Culloden, the Jacobites drove back Henry Hawley's government army at which battle?

Falkirk Muir was fought in failing light and heavy snow, and Hawley was soon replaced in command by the Duke of Cumberland.

Where in the western Highlands did Prince Charles raise his standard in August 1745 to launch the Jacobite rising?

Glenfinnan lies at the head of Loch Shiel, where a monument tower topped by a lone Highlander now honours the clansmen who rallied to the standard.

Which Jacobite commander argued that the open moor at Culloden favoured the government army and proposed steeper ground?

Lord George Murray wanted a steeply sloping site near Daviot Castle instead, but fellow officers rejected it; he died in Dutch exile in 1760.

Which elderly Fraser clan chief, convicted of treason after Culloden, was the last man beheaded in Britain?

Lord Lovat went to the block on Tower Hill in April 1747, moments after an overcrowded timber stand collapsed and killed several spectators.

Which liqueur's makers claim its recipe was Prince Charles's gift to Captain John MacKinnon after Culloden?

Drambuie's origin story is a family legend that historians dispute as a tale concocted to boost sales; the MacKinnon family owned the brand for 100 years.

What nickname was given to the British Army's standard musket, carried by government infantry at Culloden?

Brown Bess fired a slightly larger ball than the French muskets many Jacobites carried, which helps archaeologists tell which side fired the shot they dig up.

Which officer who fought under Cumberland at Culloden later died capturing Quebec from the French in 1759?

James Wolfe was 19 at Culloden, and a famous anecdote has him refusing an order to shoot a wounded Jacobite officer after the battle.

Which spirit was issued to the government regiments on the eve of Culloden for the Duke of Cumberland's birthday?

Brandy went out at two gallons per regiment, and the Jacobites hoped the celebration would leave the camp less vigilant against a surprise attack.

The night before Culloden, the Jacobites abandoned a surprise march on the government camp beside which coastal town?

Nairn was never reached: an hour before dawn the column was still short of the river crossing, so the attack was called off and the exhausted men walked back.

By what other name is the boggy ground where the Battle of Culloden was fought in 1746 also known?

Drummossie Moor was chosen by the Jacobite adjutant-general, and heavy snow and rain on the morning of the battle soaked its already wet ground.

Under what alias did Prince Charles travel when disguised as an Irish maid during his escape after Culloden?

Betty Burke was so unconvincing that one host told Charles to take the disguise off, as it simply made him more conspicuous.

Besides Bonnie Prince Charlie, by which title is Charles Edward Stuart, the Jacobite leader at Culloden, also known?

The Young Pretender was Charles III to his Jacobite followers, though he never reigned; his exiled father was known as the Old one.

Charles Edward Stuart, the prince beaten at Culloden, was born and later died in which European capital?

Rome hosted the exiled Stuart court in the Palazzo Muti, a residence the Pope had given his father, and Charles died there of a stroke in 1788.

How large a reward for Prince Charles went unclaimed during his five months as a fugitive after Culloden?

£30,000 was a fortune in 1746, yet none of the many Highlanders who helped him during his escape betrayed him for it.

After Culloden, the Dress Act banned Highland men from wearing the kilt unless they did what?

Joined the army is the exemption: the kilt stayed legal in the Highland regiments, and the ban itself was not repealed until 1782.

What name is given to the round strapped shield that Highland swordsmen carried into battle at Culloden?

Targe shields were banned by the Disarming Act after Culloden, and many were destroyed or put to other uses.

As the Jacobites charged at Culloden, government gunners switched to which close-range ammunition?

Canister shot needed no careful aiming, so the guns' rate of fire rose dramatically just as the Highlanders came into range.

Which British fashion designer named his Autumn/Winter 2006 collection The Widows of Culloden?

Alexander McQueen used his own family tartan throughout, and closed the show with a ghostly illusion of Kate Moss inside a glass pyramid.

Which director made the 1964 BBC docudrama Culloden, shot like modern TV war reporting with amateur actors?

Peter Watkins cast local Highland people as the Jacobite army, many of them direct descendants of men killed on the moor.

At which Highland barracks did Jacobite survivors gather after Culloden, only to be told to disperse?

Ruthven was where the survivors, still eager to fight on, received Charles's order to disperse; they destroyed the barracks before they left.

An Act passed after Culloden stripped Scottish clan chiefs of which hereditary power over their tenants?

Judging them in court had given chiefs a large measure of control over their tenants; owners of the abolished rights were compensated, though Jacobites were excluded.

Anne Mackintosh raised Jacobite troops while her husband served the government, earning a nickname with which army rank?

Colonel Anne was 22 when she raised several hundred men of Clan Chattan for the prince, though a male clan chief commanded them in the field.

Jacobite gold landed just after Culloden is rumoured still to be hidden beside which loch in Lochaber?

Loch Arkaig received six caskets of money that reached Scotland just after the defeat, and it is said the gold was never all recovered.

Which painter in the Duke of Cumberland's pay made An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745, a famous image of Culloden?

David Morier may have been at the battle himself; the old story that he used Jacobite prisoners as his models is now disputed as a 19th-century legend.

Which huge fortress was built on the Moray Firth after Culloden to control the Highlands and has never been attacked?

Fort George was commissioned in 1747 on a spit of land at Ardersier, and it has remained in continuous use as a garrison.

Which garden flower is popularly said to be named after the Duke of Cumberland, the victor of Culloden?

Sweet William cannot really be his tribute: the flower's name was already in a garden catalogue in 1596, more than a century before the duke was born.

What do the stones that Duncan Forbes placed on Culloden battlefield in 1881 mark?

Mass graves of the clans were marked 135 years after the battle, in the same year that Forbes built the 20-foot memorial cairn.

Henry Benedict Stuart, younger brother of Prince Charles, rose to which high rank in the Catholic Church?

Cardinal was a rank rather than a priestly order, so Charles still hoped Henry would marry for political advantage, and was dismayed when he was ordained a priest in 1748.