The Battle of Culloden (; ) was the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745. On 16 April 1746, the Jacobite army of Charles Edward Stuart was decisively defeated by a British government force under Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, on Drummossie Moor near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. It was the last pitched battle fought on British soil.
Charles was the eldest son of James Stuart, the exiled Stuart claimant to the British throne. Believing there was support for a Stuart restoration in both Scotland and England, he landed in Scotland in July 1745: raising an army of Scots Jacobite supporters, he took Edinburgh by September, and defeated a British government force at Prestonpans. The government recalled 12,000 troops from the Continent to deal with the rising: a Jacobite invasion of England reached as far as Derby before turning back, having attracted relatively few English recruits.
The Jacobites, with limited French military support, attempted to consolidate their control of Scotland, where, by early 1746, they were opposed by a substantial government army. A hollow Jacobite victory at Falkirk failed to change the strategic situation: with supplies and pay running short and with the government troops resupplied and reorganised under the Duke of Cumberland, son of British monarch George II, the Jacobite leadership had few options left other than to stand and fight. The two armies eventually met at Culloden, on terrain that gave Cumberland's larger, well-rested force the advantage. The battle lasted only an hour, with the Jacobites suffering a bloody defeat; between 1,500 and 2,000 Jacobites were killed or wounded, while about 300 government soldiers were killed or wounded. While perhaps 5,000 – 6,000 Jacobites remained in arms in Scotland, the leadership took the decision to disperse, effectively ending the rising.
Culloden and its aftermath continue to arouse strong feelings. The University of Glasgow awarded the Duke of Cumberland an honorary doctorate, but many modern commentators allege that the aftermath of the battle and subsequent crackdown on Jacobite sympathisers were brutal, earning Cumberland the sobriquet "Butcher". Efforts were subsequently made to further integrate the Scottish Highlands into the Kingdom of Great Britain; civil penalties were introduced to undermine the Scottish clan system, which had provided the Jacobites with the means to rapidly mobilise an army.
Background
Queen Anne, the last monarch of the House of Stuart, died in 1714, with no surviving children. Under the terms of the Act of Settlement 1701, she was succeeded by her second cousin George I of the House of Hanover, who was a descendant of the Stuarts through his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, a daughter of James VI and I. Many, however, particularly in Scotland and Ireland, continued to support the claim to the throne of Anne's exiled half-brother, James, who was excluded from the succession under the Act of Settlement for his Roman Catholicism.
On 23 July 1745 James's son Charles Edward Stuart landed on Eriskay in the Western Isles in an attempt to reclaim the throne for his father and was accompanied only by the "Seven Men of Moidart". Most of his Scottish supporters advised he return to France, but his persuasion of Donald Cameron of Lochiel to back him encouraged others to commit, and the rebellion was launched, with the raising of the Jacobite standard at Glenfinnan on 19 August. The Jacobite army entered Edinburgh on 17 September. James was proclaimed King of Scotland the next day and Charles his regent. Attracting more recruits, the Jacobites comprehensively defeated a government force at the Battle of Prestonpans on 21 September. The London government now recalled the Duke of Cumberland, the King's younger son and commander of the British army in Flanders, along with 12,000 troops.
The Prince's Council, a committee formed of 15 to 20 senior leaders, met on 30 and 31 October to discuss plans to invade England. The Scots wanted to consolidate their position; they were willing to assist an English rising or French landing but not on their own. For Charles, the main prize was England;. He argued that removing the Hanoverians would guarantee an independent Scotland and assured the Scots that the French were planning to land in southern England and that thousands of English supporters would join him once across the border.