WAR021 – Highland Clansman 1689-1746

For nearly 60 years the clans of Highland Scotland proved to be an almost constant thorn in the side of a series of British monarchs. Fiercely independent, the clans comprised an agricultural peasantry dominated by a warrior aristocracy. They held most forms of authority in contempt and did not submit to London meekly. Their first loyalty was to the exiled house of Stuart and in a series of rebellions the Highland clans rose against the ruling monarch, although some of these rebellions, like the Battle of Culloden (1745) of the Jacobite Rising, were unsuccessful. The author examines in detail the society that produced these fierce fighters and the tactics they used in battle including the feared ‘Highland Charge’.