For the last 20 years, I've driven hundreds of thousands of miles
in search of the history of these islands.
Now it's time to do something different.
I'm going to turn the engine off and leave the car behind.
Instead, I'm going to walk.
My walks will uncover the richest history from our finest landscapes
in a way that's only possible on foot.
This time I've come to north-west Scotland
where hidden in this dramatic landscape
is a history of protest, bloodshed and rebellion.
In the early 18th century the Scottish Highlands was home
to a series of violent uprisings against the Crown.
It was a time when the Highlanders wanted a different monarch
on the British throne and they might well have succeeded.
I've come here to find out what made the Highlands such a breeding ground
of revolution in the 1700s,
to discover how this unique landscape
shaped the attitudes of its people
and to reveal the great untold story of one of those revolts.
THUNDER
I'm in the region known as Kintail, opposite the Isle of Skye.
In 1719, a battalion of Spanish troops landed here
at Eilean Donan Castle.
Nearly 150 years after the defeat of the famous Spanish Armada,
these men, led by a group of Scottish clan chiefs,
raised an army of clansmen and started an uprising.
Known as Jacobites, their aim was to overthrow
the Protestant King George I
and replace him with the Catholic son of James II,
James Francis Stuart, the Old Pretender.
The uprising culminated in the Battle of Glen Shiel,
immortalised in this famous painting.
I've designed a four-day walk
to reveal the hidden story behind these events.
I'm starting in Shiel Bridge at the mouth of Glen Shiel.
That's a valley, for all the English!
But before I go to the battle site, I'm heading south
along Glen Undalain and over a pass
to reach the site of the earliest known dwelling here.
Heading through the village of Glenelg will give me
fantastic views over the Sound of Sleat to Skye.
From there, I'll take to the water,
sailing via the town of Kyle of Lochalsh
to the stunning Eilean Donan Castle,
where the invading Spanish troops landed on the British mainland.
Then I'll follow the path of the uprising
above the gorgeous Loch Duich.
And on my final day, I'll head up the awe-inspiring Glen Shiel
to the site of the climactic battle.
Heading off from Shiel Bridge, it's clear that it's a challenging route,
a big step up from the average weekend walk.
But by heading off on foot, I'm not just travelling cross-country.
I'm travelling back in time.
These nameless paths are centuries old,
so they provide a real connection with the ancient system of the clans
and the life of Scotland's earlier inhabitants.
The clan system, through which great swathes of Scotland
were governed for hundreds of years,
is inextricably linked with the Highlands.
So much so that great clan chiefs
often wielded more power than the Scottish kings.
So if I'm going to understand
why the Jacobite cause was so powerful around here,
then maybe understanding the clan system is a good place to start.
It's a pretty typical Highland day - breezy and wet.
And my hotel in Glenelg is 11 miles away.
But the landscape makes all the effort worthwhile.
Look at that.
It's one of those extraordinary things about human beings, isn't it?
You see a view like that and your pulse races a bit
and there's that little jump in your stomach
and you want to go, "Wahey!"
And the day just feels that much better.
People are known to have inhabited these glens since 3000 BC,
and they may even have trod the same paths.
But the population would have been tiny.
The climate's harsh and unpredictable
and the dramatic landscape
means there's little land suitable for cultivation.
Even now it's not the easiest place to get around.
Perhaps it's these factors that led to the emergence of the clans.
With that in mind, I've got a lunch date.
I'm heading for the Suardalan Mountain Hut,
an overnight shelter for hikers, where I'm meeting Alistair Moffat,
who's written extensively on Scottish history and the clans.
But right now, I'm more interested
in whether he's managed to get a brew on.
Well, Tony, this'll warm you up, I hope.
Thank you.
And falcha dun failte. Welcome to the Highlands.
Thank you very much.
On a real West Highland day. What's in these? Ham?
Welcome to a ham sandwich. Yeah.
(LAUGHS) Great.
Tell me a bit about the clans, cos everybody talks about them,
but I don't really have a very clear picture of what they are.
The idea of a clan is really all to do with kinship.
It's to do with who you are, what your name is.
"Cloun" is the Gaelic word for children,
and so clan Donald are the children of Donald.
They share a surname and often they share the same piece of land.
How far do they go back?
Well, some of them are very old indeed.
Way back to the Dark Ages. The Campbells, for example.
Indeed, the MacDonalds.
Others are more recent, between 1150 and 1350.
People who are now known as "name fathers",
you know, the first of that name, began to form these kindred groups.
There are Viking clans. For example MacIver, son of Iver.
MacAuley is Mac-Olaf, the son of Olaf, and so on.
Did the clan own the land?
The idea was that people had common custom and title to it,
the grazing rights and so on.
And that was one of the hugely powerful emotional tugs
that was there for Highlanders.
This is not pretty. But, my God, it's beautiful!
And this prints itself on your soul, a place like this.
The clans that inhabited this dramatic landscape
were much more than family groups sharing a bit of land.
They were hierarchical organisations,
led by all-powerful chiefs charged with running the clan's affairs
for the benefit of all clan members.
Do you think this special way of organising people
was predominantly about the kind of environment they lived in?
Yes, it was. There's no doubt that in a rugged, rugged environment,
an unforgiving landscape like this,
people depended absolutely on each other.
So kinship was vital. And it still is, in a way.
In Gaelic, if a Gaelic speaker greets you and doesn't know you,
he doesn't say what you and I would say,
which is, "Where are you from, Tony?"
He says, "Coes arr Harrhu?" which means, "Who are your people?"
And that's a memory of that.
The Gaelic language, which was brought here from Ireland
in the 4th century AD, resonates in other ways too.
The vast majority of geographic features retain their Gaelic names
and the translation into English reveals the close connection
between the inhabitants and their environment.
So, for instance, that little lake is called Loch Iain Mhic Aonghais.
It's named after a guy called John MacInnis,
who was a local man who tragically drowned there.
And that valley over there is Coire Nan Laogh,
which means the "valley of the cattle".
I'd better watch my step. I don't want this track to be known as
"The Path Where Tony Robinson Fell Over".
I've reached the road coming from Glenelg,
where I'm meeting Noel Fojut,
an expert in Scotland's earliest settlers.
You've got lots of people coming together
to create communal structures.
'He's here to show me a stunning example
'of one of Scotland's earliest buildings.
'A kind of fortress, it pre-dates the arrival of Gaelic
'by several centuries, and is known as a broch.'
Wow! (LAUGHS) I see what you mean.
Now that's a proper broch.
Brochs are almost exclusive to the Highlands and Islands
and are unique to Scotland.
Built around 500 BC, they were the skyscrapers of the Iron Age,
although nobody really knows what they were for.
However, most experts agree they're a kind of defensive fort,
which doubled as a domestic dwelling.
The thing that's so immediately obvious about this
is that you've got two concentric walls.
It's like double-skinned, isn't it?
Yeah, it's a feature of the brochs.
You've got this outer wall which leans in a bit,
a vertical inner wall, and they're tied together
every five foot or so up with levels of flat stones.
What's the point of that?
You can use less stone to build taller, faster.
How much higher than this do you reckon they'd have built?
Three foot or so. Not a lot taller than that, we don't think.
And was there any build inside?
Yeah, that's the thing.
You look at brochs today
and everyone obsesses about the stone construction.
Actually most of the daily life, we think, is going on inside.
It's in a wooden house dropped inside that broch.
A fairly standard 10 metre diameter Iron Age wooden house,
except it's got a rather fancy exterior.
And what would life have been like for the people who lived in here?
Fairly quiet for most of the time but slightly nervous.
They were pretty troubled times up here, we think, in the Iron Age.
What were they threatened by?
I think you're looking at little regions against regions, perhaps.
The people from over in Skye might pop over here
for a bit of smash and grab.
The people living here would have been farmers,
some owning cattle, but all working together to grow oats and barley.
You know what strikes me?
You've got this fantastic aspect here,
you've got a relatively small population,
you've got lots of little communities warring with each other some of the time
and also lots of bits of mutual self-help.
It sounds to me like the clans.
It's quite possibly the start of what becomes the clans.
We think what happens is that there's local co-operation,
so neighbours would generally look out for each other
against people from the next glen or from over the sea in Skye.
And gradually those groups become more formalised.
Initially it's just collaboration.
Later on maybe they merge into the clans.
The idea with the clan was that the clan chief
was the leader of his people more than the owner of the land.
And in Scotland it's quite interesting.
We talk about the King of the Scots,
whereas in England it's the King of England.
It's as if in Scotland it's more a relationship with the people,
whereas in England it's maybe a little bit more about domination.
As I head off towards my overnight in Glenelg,
it's Noel's last point that sticks in my mind.
The first references to a King of the Scots appear around 900 AD,
after the Picts and Gaels united their kingdoms.
Scotland then remained an independent nation for 800 years.
For the last 300 of those years the rulers were Stuarts.
And given the importance that the clan system placed on loyalty to a chief,
it's no surprise the clans supported the Stuarts so passionately.
I've reached my destination for the day, the village of Glenelg.
Tomorrow I'm going to find out
how the Spanish got involved in the 1719 uprising,
but before that I want to check a different kind of Highland spirit.
(SPLUTTERS)
LAUGHTER
It's the second day of my Jacobite Walk in the Scottish Highlands.
I'm in the village of Glenelg, opposite the Isle of Skye.
The Stuart kings had ruled Scotland since the 14th century,
and by inheriting the English crown in 1603,
they'd become rulers of Britain.
But that all came to an end in the tumultuous events of 1688.
That's when William and Mary, who were Protestant,
took the throne of Britain, ousting the Catholic Stuart, James II.
James failed to regain his throne by force and died in 1701.
The same year, the English parliament passed an act
disqualifying his son, James Francis Stuart,
or indeed any Catholic, from inheriting the throne.
So when Queen Anne died in 1714, James Francis, the Old Pretender,
along with 56 other legitimate claimants to the throne,
were cast aside in favour of...
George I, a German who couldn't even speak English,
but was a Protestant.
His coronation was the spark that lit the Jacobite fuse.
It gave the great European powers the perfect excuse to interfere
in British affairs for a whole generation.
Thousands of men, predominantly from these glens,
rallied to the Old Pretender's cause in Autumn 1715.
With the secret backing of France, they marched south to take Edinburgh
and invade northern England.
But a series of defeats, culminating in the Battle of Sherrifmuir
in November 1715, ensured the rebellion was stamped out.
Leading Jacobites fled to France, but the British government knew
that the Stuarts hadn't given up hope of reclaiming the throne.
That lingering threat would leave a physical mark on the Highlands.
To us, this tiny little village with its shop and its post office
is just about as sleepy as things can get.
And yet to George I's supporters,
this was a hotbed of traitors and turncoats,
a base camp for rebels who wanted to depose their King.
And if you don't believe me, take a look at the barracks they built.
Unlikely though it seems, the British government
built this huge barracks for 240 men when the population of the village
would have been little more than 100.
Victoria, hello.
Hello.
How very nice to meet you.
I'm meeting Dr Victoria Henshaw, to try and find out
what King George's government was so worried about.
This is an extraordinary building, isn't it?
It's virtually as big as the village. Why was it built?
The Jacobites had risen in 1715. They'd been joined by the French.
And the effect of that shocked the government
and the people of Britain.
And by building fortified barracks in Scotland,
you could have soldiers on the ground to react more quickly
to Jacobite problems.
Who would they have been, the blokes who were living in this garrison?
They were Scottish.
They were drawn from the loyal clans, placed here to keep an eye
on the disloyal clans, and it's very much
a Scotland self-governing Scotland,
but at the command of the government in London.
It would have been hard for them just to get the basics to live on,
wouldn't it?
Yes. You'd have to co-operate a lot with the locals,
and source your food locally.
The locals who didn't like you!
Yes! Well, a lot of it would have to be shipped in,
and there were letters of complaint from the soldiers from the 1740s
because they didn't have enough food, the chimneys smoked, the roof leaked.
They weren't especially happy being posted here.
And the size of this place must have been a huge statement of power?
The area here is very close to the Isle of Skye,
which was a hotbed of rebellion. You have the Mackenzies to the North,
big supporters of the Stuart cause,
so this area here is geographically very important.
And it's a statement to the locals.
"Here is the British Army, we're here, we're present."
I've arranged to be picked up by boat
from the Glenelg Ferry terminal, but it won't arrive for a few hours.
So I'm going to use the time to pop six miles down the coast
to Sandaig Bay.
It's a place I've never seen, but feel I know it intimately,
thanks to the writings of Gavin Maxwell.
Born into the Scottish aristocracy,
but a product of an English public school, Maxwell was a troubled soul.
He tried his hand at soldiering, exploring, and shark fishing
before discovering his true vocation in life, as a writer.
In Ring of Bright Water, Maxwell recounted his experience
of living in a cottage at Sandaig Bay with a succession of otters.
And the lyricism and magic of his writing made the book
an international best seller.
You have to walk through a forestry plantation to reach the bay,
but it's worth all the effort.
It's just perfect, isn't it?
Although Maxwell's cottage burnt down in 1967,
Sandaig Bay remains much as it did when he was here.
There are a few changes. A memorial marks the resting place
of one of his otters.
And a boulder marks the spot where Maxwell's cottage stood
and his ashes are buried.
But it's only on reaching the beach that you are truly transported
to the world so lovingly detailed in his book.
'The landscape and seascape that lay below me
'was of such beauty that I had no room for it all at once.'
'Into this bright, watery landscape Mij moved and took possession
'with a delight that communicated itself as clearly
'as any articulate speech could have done.
'He seemed so absolute a part of his surroundings that I wondered
'how they ever could have seemed to me complete before his arrival.'
We're going to be out of here in less than two minutes. Over.
By the time I get back to Glenelg, the boat's arrived to pick me up.
Hello, Barry.
Hi, Tony. Pleased to meet you.
And nice to meet you too.
I'm heading up through the Kylerhea straits
to the town of Kyle of Lochalsh, and then on to Eilean Donan Castle
to pick up the story of the 1719 Jacobite Rebellion.
What's the weather going to be like?
It's going to be wet and windy.
Hmm, that's great(!)
It might be cold, but it's worth staying on deck as we catch sight
of a pair of Atlantic seals.
It's swimming towards us, isn't it? Come on!
I love it when it sticks its bum in the air and goes under!
Waiting for me on the quay at Kyle of Lochalsh
is Professor Daniel Szechi...
Daniel.
Nice to meet you, Tony.
And you.
..a specialist in Jacobite History.
If we'd been here in April 1719,
we'd have seen a Jacobite invasion force sailing past Skye,
heading for the mainland.
I'm hoping Daniel can tell me what triggered those dramatic events.
It's a Spanish Revenge.
The British had destroyed the Spanish Fleet off the coast of Sicily,
and now it was payback time.
Backing a Jacobite rebellion was a perfect way for the Spanish
to hit back at George I's Britain.
And the force that sailed through here in April 1719
consisted of 300 crack Spanish Mountain Troops,
as well as a retinue of returning Jacobite leaders.
The numbers of troops that the Spanish could supply,
could land in the British Isles, were not huge,
but they were enough to act as the hardcore of an army of Jacobites.
The Scots Commanders hoped that the arrival of Spanish troops
would act as a recruiting drum among the clans.
If men flocked again to the Jacobite standard, the rebellion was on.
But this was just part of the plan.
The Scottish end of things was intended purely as a diversion
to draw the British Army north into Scotland.
Meantime the Duke of Ormonde and 5,000 men would land
in the south-west, arm every Jacobite they could find and march on London.
On the 13th April 1719, the Spanish Mountain troops
and their Scottish comrades landed here, Eilean Donan Castle.
Based in the midst of a Jacobite heartland,
they were ready to start the uprising.
When the Jacobite leaders arrived here,
their confidence must have been sky high.
They'd evaded the Royal Navy's patrols, they'd successfully landed
here, they were among friends and they'd got the support
of a major foreign power. What could possibly go wrong?!
I'm halfway through my walk in the Scottish Highlands of Kintail.
Having landed at Eilean Donan castle, I'm following the route
of the Spanish troops and Scots Jacobites
who came here in April 1719.
Their plan is to oust the Hanoverian king, George I,
and replace him with James Stuart,
who they're going to put on the throne as James III.
But this is the calm before the storm,
as the Jacobite commanders over there are just about to find out.
To discover more about what happened here at Eilean Donan castle,
I'm meeting Alex Mackay,
the castle's somewhat eccentrically-dressed historian.
Hello, Alex.
Hello, Sir. Welcome to Eilean Donan castle.
Thank you. Is this Jacobite, this costume?
Well, it's as close as I can get. It's a bit mix and match,
a modern kilt. But the frock-coat, very much 18th century in style.
How about this castle? Isn't it great?
Well, thank you very much. You're seeing it at its best.
At sunrise, it always looks spectacular.
Would this castle have looked like this during the uprising?
Oh, absolutely. We know exactly what it looked like
because it was surveyed by the government in 1714
and those plans still survive.
And it looks very much as you see it today, apart from the bridge.
So this would have been an island fortress?
Absolutely. It's part of its defensive mechanism.
The rebels landed here because they knew this was Mackenzie territory,
known Jacobite sympathizers.
And for one of the returning exiles, it was a homecoming.
This castle was the home of William Mackenzie, the Earl of Seaforth.
He was one of the three commanders in charge and he knew it was a strong
and defensible structure for the storing of gunpowder.
Did you say three commanders?
Three commanders. This is common in the Jacobite world, lots of chiefs.
Sounds like a recipe for trouble.
Absolutely. It's a recipe for disaster in all forms of politics.
Disastrous events quickly overtook the Jacobites.
Soon after arriving, they had news that the main invasion fleet
of 5,000 men, like the Spanish Armada 130 years earlier,
had been destroyed in a huge storm in the Bay of Biscay.
With their own ships long gone, the men here were now on their own.
They all started arguing amongst one another. Should we press on?
Should we abandon the cause?
What should we do? And everybody was arguing with each other.
Who were these three commanders? Can you paint me a picture of them?
Yes, indeed.
Earl Marischal Keith, a dedicated loyal and honourable soldier,
an aristocrat in his own right.
Tuillibardine, somewhat of a gadfly, a spendthrift and a bit incompetent,
and a Gaelic Chief, the Earl of Seaforth, William Mackenzie.
So what shut them up?
The arrival of three English warships,
dropped anchor in the bay over there.
The three ships that appeared in early May were Navy Frigates -
the Worcester, the Flamborough and the Enterprise.
With over 100 cannon between them,
they represented a significant threat.
Up you come, Tony.
Wow, that's some view.
We've come up to the battlements to understand the situation
facing the Jacobites on 10th May 1719.
There was only about 40 Jacobites in the castle at this time.
The vast bulk of the Spanish force and Jacobite Army had now moved away
from the castle out of gunfire range.
So what did the guys in the ships do?
They asked for the surrender.
The castle, well, put up a bit of resistance.
And with that the warships began opening fire.
CANNON FIRE
This is the sort of thing they were using.
This is the smallest one, believe it or not.
This is an iron cannonball dug out of the walls during restoration.
How did the guys in the castle respond to all the cannon?
There was very little they could do.
There was no real cannon to fire back.
It ended with the small Jacobite garrison surrendering the castle
to the English Captain. He came ashore with his party,
They found a large volume of gunpowder,
which they used to destroy this castle.
Eilean Donan would stand in ruins for over 200 years
until its restoration in the last century.
But its destruction didn't signal the end of the 1719 Rebellion.
Safe on shore, the remaining Spanish troops and Jacobite exiles
decided to fight on.
I'm following their route east, above Loch Duich,
towards Glen Shiel.
Their intention was to reach Inverness and defeat the garrison
there, which they hoped would inspire a wider rising.
Imagine the Jacobite Commanders walking up this way in May 1719.
They'd heard that the main Jacobite landings in the south of England
weren't going to happen after all.
They'd just watched their castle being blown up
by the Royal Navy down there.
It's a wonder that they decided to carry on at all, but they did.
And when they put out the call to raise the clans,
the people responded.
The spirit of defiance must have run very deep indeed.
To find out more about the Scots involved in the 1719 uprising,
I'm heading for Clachan Duich, an ancient clan burial ground,
six miles beyond Eilean Donan.
Inside the church ruins is a memorial which commemorates
the men who fell at the Battle of Sherrifmuir,
fighting for William Mackenzie, the 5th Earl of Seaforth.
And is this Earl of Seaforth the same one as took part
in the 1719 uprising?
Exactly, yes.
What kind of bloke was he?
He was actually quite a fascinating character.
On the one hand, he was a commander of Highland tribesmen
with a great retinue of ghillies and bards and pipers.
On the other hand, he was brought up at the Jacobite Court
in St Germain, so he was a very sophisticated European.
When Seaforth landed, who responded to his call?
He himself raised 200 men and his cousin,
Sir John Mackenzie of Cowl, raised another 200 men.
That's not very many, is it, compared with 1715?
It's not.
However you have to remember that this was an impromptu landing here
after an Armada which had gone wrong.
So, in fact, it was still quite a decisive number of people.
In some ways it's not surprising that hundreds rather than thousands
answered the call.
This graveyard was a reminder that many men had lost their lives
in an uprising just four years before.
Equally discouraging was the news that the General Wightman's
British troops were marching down to intercept the rebels.
The mood must have been dark indeed.
So when they set off from here, what do you think their chances were
of getting some sort of rebellion up and running?
In some ways, bad.
However, in terms of numbers, they weren't much less
than General Wightman's Hanoverian troops.
So in many ways, it could have gone either way.
I'm sure that the Jacobites camped near here
would have sung songs to raise their spirits.
And as I end the day after the eight-mile walk from Eilean Donan
to my Shiel Bridge hotel, I find that some of those rebel songs
are still popular today.
# Will ye no come back again?
# Better loved ye canna be
# Will ye no come back again? #
Will Ye No Come Back Again is a lament,
immortalizing the wish of Highlanders
for Bonnie Prince Charlie to return from exile in Europe.
It's just one example of the Jacobite songs
that are still sung today.
Folk song has always been political to some degree or another.
We still have tunes and songs that are existing from that time.
There are old manuscripts, there's unbroken folk memory,
folk traditions that's been passed down,
we're absolutely certain that we're playing some of the same tunes
and songs that they heard.
There's something about this music that at one time reflected
an anti-English feeling, is that true now?
It's... there are facets of the music that can express that, yeah.
I prefer to think of it as pro-Scottish,
rather than anti anything else.
And I would like to think that as a country, we're maturing a bit now
and we've gone through that process and we're coming out the other side
as a mature and healthy nation.
Scots are proud of their own tradition, their own heritage,
and this music is a very important part of that.
I've almost reached the climax of my journey charting the story
of the 1719 Rebellion.
Tomorrow, I'll find out what happened at the Battle of Glen Shiel
and how the Jacobites left their mark on Scotland.
It's the final day of my journey to find out why the Highlands
were such a breeding ground for Jacobite support,
and how this region has shaped the character of the people living here.
Having come full circle,
I'm now heading up Glen Shiel to my final destination,
the battle site where the fortunes of the 1719 Rebellion were decided.
When the Jacobites passed this way in early June 1719,
they knew that the Inverness Garrison,
under its dynamic commander General Wightman, was just a few days away.
If they were to beat Wightman's force and get the rebellion
up and running, it was imperative they head up the Glen
and pick the best possible positions from which to fight.
The path I'm on has reached a farm, Achnagart,
but it's not clear where the path goes from here.
Hello?
Hello, anybody there?
Anybody around? Ah!
Hello.
Hello. I'm sorry to disturb you.
I'm looking for the Glen Shiel battle site
and I'm totally confused.
I had a path and it's just kind of disappeared.
Yes, well that happens.
The track originally would have come round
and across onto the other side of the river.
But to get up onto the battle site now,
you'll have to go up the main road.
Are you familiar with the site?
Yes, I know where it is.
I've been up there and a number of years ago,
my uncle found some musket balls up there.
Have you still got them?
Yes, I've still got them.
Can I have a look?
I'll show them to you.
I'd love to see them.
Well, I think I've found the right person.
Here we are.
Is this them?
This is them.
They were in the bank of the river.
Probably some people from the battle sheltered there
and probably left their musket balls behind.
Yeah, because they haven't been fired, have they?
No, no, they haven't been fired.
That's a fantastic find, that.
I certainly came to the right person.
Thank you.
So which is the best way to go would you say?
Just round the front, across the bridge and over onto the main road.
Well, very nice to meet you. Thank you very much. That's great.
At last I've got my hands on some physical evidence of the battle.
The last stretch just flies by.
It's just over a mile from the farm to my final destination.
And the battleground is easy to find.
It sits at a choke point in the Glen
that creates a natural killing ground.
You can see why the Jacobites chose this spot
to meet the government troops.
It's the narrowest part of the Glen.
You've got a ridge there, another one there.
It's easy to throw up a really robust defence with just a few men.
This could have been the Scottish version of Thermoplyae,
with the noble 300 holding back George's Hanoverian troops,
rather than the Persians.
Tony!
An old friend from the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology in Glasgow,
Dr Tony Pollard, has surveyed this site extensively.
Shall we take the high ground?
OK.
So I've asked him to give me a guided tour.
Not a bad spot this, Tone.
It is lovely, isn't it? It sounds strange to say it
but I think it's the most beautiful battlefield in Britain,
if you can say such a thing about such a terrible place.
But also pretty impregnable.
It is. It's ideal for the Jacobites.
Let's not forget their retreat west is blocked
because of the Royal Navy in the loch.
Of course.
So they've either got to fight their way out or make a stand,
and they decide to make a stand.
Wightman had 1,100 troops at his disposal,
including 120 mounted Dragoons.
The Jacobite force had about the same number of men,
including one famous name.
Rob Roy. He keeps popping up in Jacobite history,
he's a bit of a lad.
We know he was at the Battle of Sherrifmuir in 1715.
He was actually guarding one of the river crossings for the Jacobites.
Here he seems to have played quite an active role
and seems to have done his best, but by this time he's a pretty old man.
I always think of him as this magnificent hero.
He's like everyone in these stories. He's not a hero or a villain.
The Jacobites arrived on June 9th
and immediately prepared their defences.
A barricade was built across the narrowest part of the Glen,
blocking the road.
Highlanders under Tullibardine's brother Lord George Murray
occupied a knoll on the south side of the valley.
While the Earl of Seaforth's men
took up positions on the mountain slopes to the north.
With Rob Roy's MacGregors held in reserve, the Spanish troops
dug in on the central hill overlooking the barricade.
Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Don Nicholas de Bolano y Castro,
they constructed protective stone works on the mountainside,
and they built them so well they're still visible today.
This is one of the original barricades
that the Spanish built here in 1719.
Well, it does look like to me like job done and dusted.
It's hard to imagine how anyone coming this way
could possibly win against people in these positions.
On paper you would think so.
But one thing in the Government army's favour
was a particular type of weapon.
Now wait until you see this.
What do you think that is?
Presumably it's some sort of mini cannon.
It is. It's a mortar.
You know that old Pink Panther idea of the Clouseau bomb,
the cartoon bomb, with the fuse and ball.
That's what they fire.
And as the fuse burns down in the air it explodes on the target
and sends horrible big shivers of steel, shrapnel in to the enemy.
So an incredibly powerful weapon
and it appears to have been used here really very well.
On 10th June 1719,
while the Old Pretender was celebrating his birthday in Madrid,
Wightman attacked the Jacobites in Glen Shiel.
Using the mortars to bombard them, Wightman's forces first attacked
Murray's position to their left and then Seaforth's to their right.
BOMBS AND BATTLE CRIES
The mortar bombs reputedly set the heather alight,
forcing the Highlanders to retreat.
Murray's men fall back behind this big knoll here
and they've left the battlefield really.
Seaforth, and the Mackenzies,
and the other Highlanders across the hill slope on the north side
start retiring back this way, and your old friend...
Rob Roy.
Exactly. He is called in to reinforce that defence.
But the problem is that before he can get there it's quite clear
that all has gone to pot up there,
and that side is streaming off the field.
But you've still got the Spanish here?
Yeah. They are the last men standing.
So what Whiteman does
is he turns his dreadful mortars onto this position.
He dismounts his dragoons and gets them,
around 120 men, to on foot charge up this hill.
So they come up and eventually the Spanish are pushed back.
They retire up this ridgeline and across the top.
With the retreat of the Spanish,
the battle and the 1719 uprising were over.
The Jacobites had been defeated,
with around 50 men dying in the battle.
The Highlanders dispersed into the mountains
and the Jacobite leaders fled back into exile.
The Spanish troops were forced to surrender,
and were eventually repatriated several months later.
On hearing news of the defeat, the Old Pretender retired to Italy.
It was nearly 30 years before his son, Bonnie Prince Charlie,
known as the Young Pretender,
made one final effort to reclaim the throne.
The 1745 Rebellion was the most successful of all the uprisings.
The Young Pretender's men got as far south as Derby,
but under pressure the rebels fell apart.
The coupe de grace comes in April of 1746 at Culloden Moor.
And we get that infamous battle where the Jacobite cause
is murdered in the heather.
After the failure of the 1745,
the government cracked down on the Highlanders.
Many prisoners were executed,
and laws were passed to break the Clan system.
Wearing tartan was made illegal until 1782 and Highland culture
was forced underground until well into the 19th Century.
But in 1822, George IV
enthusiastically adopted Highland dress
during a Royal visit to Scotland.
And the growing popularity of Sir Walter Scott's novels
meant Highland culture was once again acceptable.
Maybe the Jacobites were an anachronism.
Maybe they were just a bunch of romantics,
who wanted to cling onto the Highland way of doing things,
whereas the progressive way, the modern way forward
was to be part of the United Kingdom,
and be ruled over by the English monarch.
And yet today, in and around Scotland,
more people want to leave the UK
and break away from the government in London than ever before.
So perhaps the spirit of the Jacobites is still with us.
If you want to follow in my footsteps
you can download a copy of my walk from: