January 17, 2007

Gratuitous Historickal Posting - Scots Wha Hey! Division

Charlie.jpg

Today is the anniversary of the Second Battle of Falkirk, fought in 1746, in which the Jacobites under Bonnie Prince Charlie successfully drove off a Hanovarian army under Lieutenant General Henry Hawley. George II's army lost about 350 men killed, wounded and missing and another 300 captured, while the Scots lost about 120 dead and wounded.

It was the last major Stuart victory in the '45 rising and Charles' forces would be utterly and finally crushed a couple months later at the Battle of Culloden.

As a Scot, I can go along with the romance that has grown up around the '45 with benign tolerance, but I also have strong Unionist convictions. Further, my sympathies for Charles and his bunch are lessoned even more by the facts that a) he wasn't interested in reclaiming just the old Scottish crown, but also in putting himself on the throne of Great Britain itself; and b) the Rising was really nothing more than French trouble-making, costly to the Crown and a death-warrant for the poor saps foolish enough to get caught up in it.

Incidently, I whole-heartedly agree with Tony Blair that current talk of Scottish "independence" is completely insane. (Yips! to the Maximum Leader for the link.)

Posted by Robert at January 17, 2007 01:38 PM | TrackBack
Comments

California "independence" however...

Posted by: Hucbald at January 17, 2007 05:10 PM