Cogadh nan Seumasach?

[Neil McRae]

Yes, very interested indeed.

For years I have being trying to research, in my spare time (i.e. not very often!), the fate of MacKinnon's Regiment from the Isle of Skye (the part of Skye where I now live).

The only Skye clan to rise in rebellion, they marched south just too late to fight at Prestonpans, then marched with the Jacobite Army all the way to Derby and back, fought at Falkirk, marched north with the Army to Inverness and then disappear from the history books. I'm sure they weren't present at Culloden (lucky them), but may have been campaigning in Sutherland at the time of that battle. I think they may have made it home safely (only to be placed in great danger again when the fleeing Prince arrived in their midst in July 1746!).

I'm sure the documents regarding their fate are out there somewhere and one day I intend to find them!

You say: "Tha mi a' fuireachd ann an Canada".

[Thrissel]

I checked what T.C. Smout's A History of the Scottish People 1560-1830 says about the religions and it claims (spmewhat to my surprise) in the chapter Highland Society before the '45, p 312:

There were also very wide differences in religion. Few parts of the Highlands, except the heartlands of Clan Campbell in Argyll and Perthshire, enjoyed in the early eighteenth century the ministrations of a properly inducted Presbyterian minister. Some parts, like Barra, Lochaber and parts of Aberdeenshire, were Roman Catholic, converted by missionaries operating secretly in the seventeenth century. [...] Many more areas were Episcopalian, often with Jacobite ministers who had stayed on in the glens after 1690 undisturbed in their livings for years, and succeeded, perhaps, by others installed by fugitive bishops. ¶ Most Highlanders, however, saw priest and minister but seldom : churches were few and parishes immense. They practised their own startling ceremonies of taboo and propitiation, which owed nothing whatsoever to the teaching of Christian pastors.

Later in the book (p 321) he says "Long before 1745 there had been tension in the governing circles of the Highlands between Jacobite clans and Government clans, between Episcopalians and Presbyterians, [...]" - he doesn't mention Catholics at all here, but yet later on (p 434) he mentions

[...] the current [early 18th C] success of Catholic missionaries in winning converts, while the Church of Scotland was still in disarray throughout the north over the breach between Presbyterians and Episcopalians. In 1700 the Catholics were said to have six priest on Skye, there had been a 'serious lanslide to Rome' along the Great Glen, and in 1712 a secret seminary had been set up in the Braes of Glenlivet to teach the sons of the local gentry who could not go abroad for instruction.

[CairistionaNicD]

Neil:

Tracking regiments, as I'm sure you know, is a major pain in the tail, since they got renamed every time a new commander took over. Have you managed to find much on military organization in general? I've found a precious little on organization in Cumberland's army, but most books around this time period focus on the post 1750's reforms and it's hard to find out exactly WHAT was reformed. I'm really interested broadly in the time period right now, so would love references on the military then, too.

Regarding the Gaelic, that's what I get for working from memory (my intro class ended nearly a year ago).

Thrissel:

In broad strokes, that matches my "extrapolation" based on religion in England during this time period. Religion permeated nearly every aspect of daily life, but really wasn't well standardized in rural and poor populations. I know I've read quotes from contemporary ministers and priests who were SHOCKED by the utter lack of religious knowledge in the parishes and church districts. Like to the point of not knowing who Jesus was. Broadly as well, I understood the Catholics to be in the area closest to Ireland, the Episcopalians to the northeast, and the Presbyterians more to the south and concentrated in the cities. Unfortunately, I don't recall where I got that idea from. Also, I'm adding that book you quoted from to my list of things to acquire at some point (here in Canada, it seems I need to buy it to read it when it comes to the Jacobites. Annoying, but not really surprising.)

[Thrissel]

Broadly as well, I understood the Catholics to be in the area closest to Ireland, the Episcopalians to the northeast, and the Presbyterians more to the south and concentrated in the cities. Unfortunately, I don't recall where I got that idea from.

Yes, that's what I thought too and why Smout surprised me.

Also, I'm adding that book you quoted from to my list of things to acquire at some point (here in Canada, it seems I need to buy it to read it when it comes to the Jacobites.)

It's a really good book but given its scope (1560-1830) I'm afraid you won't find there all that much about Jacobitism; also, it's focused a lot more on economic, demographic etc. than on political development (I remember I often felt like he was saying "All right, you know all about the battles and acts of parliament and whatnot but let me show you what people's daily lives were really about"), and unsurprisingly the majority of the text is concerned with the Lowlands.

[Neil McRae]

Stuart Reid has an very good series of paperback handbooks about military structure, tactics, uniforms and weapons in this period. I've got his "Highland Clansman, 1689-1746" (with Angus McBride), which takes a distinctly unromanticised view, and there's a companion volume called "Cumberland's Army: the British Army at Culloden" (which I haven't read). He also published an interesting new account (2007, if I remember right) of the battle of Culloden based partly on the masses of new evidence found by battlefield achaeologists. His is a very revisionist, ie unromanticised, view of the events and his sympathies are definitely with the Government forces!

[CairistionaNicD]

And I just placed my Amazon order yesterday, darn. I'll probably have to get at least one of those books, too, at some point.

Also, thanks for answering a stray question of mine as well. I've wondered if the unromanticized view of Jacobitism was considered revisionist, or if it wasn't fully a "standard narrative" because the heavy bias is a known thing. Nice to know at least one other person thinks the same way.

[Seonaidh]

3sel - yes, the Hapsburgh Empire was very much Roman Catholic - I was mainly thinking of Switzerland when I mentioned "Calvinists". Although whereabouts were the likes of Hussites on the Protestant spectrum?

[Thrissel]

Frankly I've no idea - the movement was crushed before Luther and Calvin were even born, and I'm not "religious" enough to have more than a VERY vague idea about the difference between those latter two teachings. Anyway, I thought you talked specifically about the Culloden period, that's why I butted in. Of course, since 18th century the Hussite movement has been usually perceived by Czech patriots as tendentiously as Jacobitism in Scotland, with focus on the "national" rather than political or religious aspect. "Our brave small Czech nation against the corrupted German Empire..." I guess it sounds familiar, and it's likewise distorted.