Synopsis

PUBLISHED TO COINCIDE WITH THE 250TH anniversary of the Battle of Culloden which ended the Stuart dynasty’s final attempt to reclaim the British throne, this book presents for the first time two important new primary sources of evidence - one verbal and one visual.

The journal of John Maclean is the first-hand account of the experiences of an officer of Prince Charles Edward’s army from August 1745, through Prestonpans and the taking of Edinburgh, the march into England to Derby, the withdrawal to Scotland and the final retreat to Drummossie Moor near Inverness, where the author was killed in the Battle of Culloden.

A remarkable series of newly discovered drawings from the Clerk Collection at Penicuik House offers a unique view of the participants on both sides of the ‘Forty-Five: a Rising for some, for others a Rebellion. No other comparable collection of images is known. These sketches were made in part as a factual record, but more so as an exercise in caricature, perhaps as a diversion from the very real dangers and disasters of the time. The result is an insight on the ‘Forty-Five that is both telling and humorous.

Maclean’s Journal is accompanied by an introduction and commentary; and a selection from the Penicuik drawings appears with a discursive essay which sets the new visual evidence in the context of the society and attitudes which produced these whimsical images of Highlanders and Hanoverians.
 

ISBN 1-898410-74-7