The ultimate walk of shame
Country Life UK|August 23, 2023
Tired, hungry and demoralised, the Highlanders marched from Culloden to Nairn on the eve of the final and fateful confrontation of the Jacobite Rising. Some 300 years later, Joe Gibbs retraces their footsteps and considers what went wrong
Joe Gibbs
The ultimate walk of shame

OFTEN, the veil that separates past from present in the Highlands is barely visible. Old quarrels from distant ages, still burnished, shine brightly through its gossamer thinness. A mere 300 or so intervening years, therefore, are as nothing to the 1,000 participants who attend an occasion such as the annual memorial service for the Battle of Culloden. It is the Highlands’ own Remembrance Day, an event that no other battlefield in Britain can host.

This April, at the cairn on Drumossie Moor, the clans mustered again to lay their wreaths in memory of their dead and of a way of life that perished with them on April 16, 1746. For the last pitched battle on British soil, between Prince Charles Edward Stuart and William, Duke of Cumberland, marked not only the demise of the Jacobite movement, but the end of the old clan system, too.

The service is organised by the Gaelic Society of Inverness. It honours the dead of both sides, although it is principally the Jacobite clans who attend. As the procession of wreathlayers advanced, the society’s chairman Murdo Campbell watched with mild bemusement as an excitable Frenchman stepped forward to salute ‘the real Charles III, Charles Edward Stuart’. Hoping he would not ‘lose my head’ for speaking thus, he stooped to place a tribute to the Royal Écossais, a French regiment that fought for the Jacobites that day.

Loud cheers greeted a wreath brought by a group opposing development around the battlefield. A constant threat of building encroachment haunts the hinterland. Channelling Cumberland, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks plans to march an army of giant pylons through nearby Strathnairn.

Esta historia es de la edición August 23, 2023 de Country Life UK.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

Esta historia es de la edición August 23, 2023 de Country Life UK.

Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.

MÁS HISTORIAS DE COUNTRY LIFE UKVer todo
Tales as old as time
Country Life UK

Tales as old as time

By appointing writers-in-residence to landscape locations, the National Trust is hoping to spark in us a new engagement with our ancient surroundings, finds Richard Smyth

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
Do the active farmer test
Country Life UK

Do the active farmer test

Farming is a profession, not a lifestyle choice’ and, therefore, the Budget is unfair

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin
Country Life UK

Night Thoughts by Howard Hodgkin

Charlotte Mullins comments on Moght Thoughts

time-read
2 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
SOS: save our wild salmon
Country Life UK

SOS: save our wild salmon

Jane Wheatley examines the dire situation facing the king of fish

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
Into the deep
Country Life UK

Into the deep

Beneath the crystal-clear, alien world of water lie the great piscean survivors of the Ice Age. The Lake District is a fish-spotter's paradise, reports John Lewis-Stempel

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
It's alive!
Country Life UK

It's alive!

Living, burping and bubbling fermented masses of flour, yeast and water that spawn countless loaves—Emma Hughes charts the rise and rise) of sourdough starters

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
There's orange gold in them thar fields
Country Life UK

There's orange gold in them thar fields

A kitchen staple that is easily taken for granted, the carrot is actually an incredibly tricky customer to cultivate that could reduce a grown man to tears, says Sarah Todd

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
True blues
Country Life UK

True blues

I HAVE been planting English bluebells. They grow in their millions in the beechwoods that surround us—but not in our own garden. They are, however, a protected species. The law is clear and uncompromising: ‘It is illegal to dig up bluebells or their bulbs from the wild, or to trade or sell wild bluebell bulbs and seeds.’ I have, therefore, had to buy them from a respectable bulb-merchant.

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
Oh so hip
Country Life UK

Oh so hip

Stay the hand that itches to deadhead spent roses and you can enjoy their glittering fruits instead, writes John Hoyland

time-read
4 minutos  |
November 13, 2024
A best kept secret
Country Life UK

A best kept secret

Oft-forgotten Rutland, England's smallest county, is a 'Notswold' haven deserving of more attention, finds Nicola Venning

time-read
3 minutos  |
November 13, 2024