The battle itself was fought on flat marshy moorland, part of the
Culloden estate, and less than two miles from the house. Here an army of some
4,500 Jacobites, tired, hungry and ill-equipped met a Government force of 9,000
strong, well fed and rested troops under the command of the Duke of Cumberland,
George His younger son.
This was the last battle pitched by a foreign force fought on
British soil, and was over in less than an hour. Out gunned and out fought by
the better trained troops of the Government army, the Jacobites were utterly
defeated.
They lost some 1,500 men during the battle and in the atrocities
that followed which so shamed the Government, that even today, no British
Regiment bears Culloden as a battle honour. This compares with 30 dead for
Cumberland's army.
The
site has been restored to something approaching its state on that fateful day,
April 16, 1746 and on a still Spring day, it still speaks eloquently but
silently of the clansmen who died for the Jacobite cause. The site is now owned
in perpetuity for the nation by the National Trust for Scotland. This 180-acre
piece of boggy ground has become a place of pilgrimage for the many millions of
Scots, both in Scotland as well as those scattered abroad.
Culloden House therefore stands out as a symbol, both of
Scotland's past, and her present. Its name and situation are redolent of a
turbulent and romantic history; its present that of a welcoming Scotland,
welcoming to her sons and daughters making the pilgrimage back home, providing
the finest of modern accommodation within a superbly historic setting.
