Why the emphasis on British Army at Culloden? – Letters

It’s a question of history, says a reader

Memorial cairn at the battlefield of Culloden near Inverness (Picture: Getty)

The terminology used by Professor Murray Pittock in his Heritage article “The British Army and the ‘long shadow’ cast by Culloden” (18 May) worries me somewhat. Prof Pittock will be aware that a large proportion of the “British Army” at Culloden was Scots.

So why, for example, does Prof Pittock refer to “the British Army” and “the British Government” in 1746? Was there another army, or another Government in the British Isles with which these institutions were being compared? If not and bearing in mind that “British” is an all-embracing term for people who came from England, Wales – and Scotland – at the time, I am rather concerned about the terms of reference.

Had he been writing about a foreign army or government, then the identification would be justifiable, but it seems out of place in a British context.

For comparative purposes, I would be interested to know how Prof Pittock would deal with another outrage of the Georgian period; namely the Peterloo Massacre in 1819 in which the victims were English. Would he refer to the “British Army” of which the troops involved were yeomanry, as if they were different somehow from the victims, or “the Army”?

The man whose brutality characterised events after Culloden was a first-generation royal of German origin whose family came over with King George I from Hanover. He respected the French military elements of the Jacobite army. He did not regard the Highlanders as regular soldiers, but rebels.

In a similar way, Peterloo resulted in deaths and subsequent imprisonment and a further, similar protest elsewhere in England. The tragedy of both Culloden and Peterloo was that it was our army and our government that were responsible for both.

Peter Hopkins, Morningside Road, Edinburgh

Surrendered!

Those who deplore the cruelty of the Duke of Cumberland after Culloden may be pleased to learn that in September 1757 the Duke was forced to surrender an Anglo-Hanoverian army to the Duc de Richelieu, losing Hanover to the French. Not many people seem to know this, and in fact I found it in a work of naval history, The Command of the Ocean by NAM Rodger.

Unlike Admiral Byng, who had been shot the previous March for losing Minorca, the Duke seems to have got away with it. Wikipedia tells us that he never again held active military command and switched his attentions to politics and horse racing.

Frank Donald, Tantallon Place, Edinburgh

Tiresome tirades

I am becoming increasingly weary of Brian Monteith’s rather weekly tirades against Nicola Sturgeon (Perspective). I accept that it is the role of journalists to hold our political masters to account, but some of his articles have the appearance almost of a personal crusade. It seems just a little hypocritical of him to use the coronavirus to score political points when only a few weeks ago he was accusing Nicola Sturgeon of doing precisely that.

Once the present crisis is over there will be time enough for reviews of how the pandemic was handled. I have no doubt that mistakes will have been made by governments and scientific advisers both north and south of the Border. Whatever the outcome of such reviews, I feel fairly confident that they will not conclude that the SNP government in Scotland got everything wrong while the Tory government in Westminster got everything right.

The truth is that we have been faced with a crisis greater than any of us born post-war have ever experienced. Politicians and scientists alike have often been left floundering in the dark, uncertain about the right way forward. Nevertheless, whatever decisions they have made, I have no doubt that they genuinely believed them to be in the best interests of the people they represent. I sincerely hope that when the opportunity for quiet reflection arises, that it will be carried out in the understanding that we all tried to do our best and not in a spirit of blame and recrimination.

David Hamill, Preston Road, East Linton

Off model

Like John Cameron (Letters, 16 May), I raised my eyebrows when it was announced during the early period of the virus pandemic that computer modelling would be used to guide the government in fighting the virus. My experience of this type of forecasting is based on the results produced by the scientists who believed in the “man-made climate change” theory, and forecast all sorts of climate disasters, which really have not occurred.

For several years, the Met Office used this technique to alert us to unusual weather patterns for the following year but they abandoned it because of extremely poor results. As a scientist myself, I have come across several expert scientists who box themselves in with their own agenda during discussions on tackling problems. I am not saying this has played a part in this case, but their modelling predictions don’t appear to be have been very accurate.

Computer modelling appears to work very satisfactory in other areas of work such as the financial world, but I do not think scientists will be involved in the latter part of the modelling process!

(Dr) Gordon Cochrane, Dargai Terrace, Dunblane

Eyes on Nicola

The First Minister at her daily press briefing proudly announces she will publish a “route map” out of lockdown tomorrow. We therefore can all look forward to reading a further government paper following on from the “grown-up conversation” paper published very nearly four weeks ago. It is clear that paper has not informed or assisted the public in any way whatsoever and it is now very obvious it was a purely political stunt to pre-empt anything that was to be announced by the UK government. The First Minister has overseen in these last four weeks the wholly inadequate testing regime, poor PPE provision, the Nike Edinburgh conference cover-up and shameful number of deaths in Scottish care homes.

It has become so obvious that she does not have both “eyes on the ball” because one eye is permanently cocked towards what the Prime Minister is doing south of the Border. The situation in Scotland needs her full attention to solve the issues here although listening to her daily press conferences, the scrutiny to which she has been subjected by the predominantly Scottish press has been woeful.

Richard Allison, Braehead Loan, Edinburgh

Just do it?

Brian Wilson writes about the Nike conference in Edinburgh where Covid 19 was identified (Perspective, 16 May). It is certainly very fishy that it was not made public.

However, if the Scottish Government had used it as a reason for imposing a lockdown before that imposed from Westminster, would Mr Wilson not have been in the vanguard of those blaming them for threatening our liberty and risking our commerce.

As we now know, to our sorrow, such an action would have been sound.

My own flippant feeling would have been that if Boris was against a prolonged lockdown, it must have been a good idea. The difference between Boris and Winston was that Churchill at least knew who the enemy was.

Iain WD Forde, Main Street, Scotlandwell; Kinross-shire

Stay supportive

When we eventually come out of lockdown let’s continue to follow the Scottish Government guidelines . Although we all crave a holiday in the sun, let’s support Scottish business on the High Street and hospitality industry by staying home, buying local and enjoying the pleasures in our own back yard .

Bill Marr, Woodburn Road, Ceres

Trunk on power?

So Fraser Grant (Letters, 19 May) thinks a future saving of £9 million could be achieved by disbanding the Scottish Office?

An even greater, more immediate saving could be made by doing away with the white elephant that sits at the bottom of the Royal Mile – and I don’t mean Holyrood Palace!

Lindsay Laird, Dovecot Lade, Peebles

Frère play

Lucinda Cameron’s excellent reflections on the bravery displayed by the 51st Highland Division in the forlorn last days of the “forgotten Dunkirk” (“Pipers urged to play for ‘forgotten Dunkirk’ ”, 18 May) reminded me of a speech made in 1942 by Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French in Britain.

As a Franco-Scot I know how difficult de Gaulle could be and his mixed feelings towards ‘Les Anglais’ makes these sentiments all the more remarkable:

“I can tell you that the comradeship in arms experienced on the battlefield of Abbeville in May and June 1940 between the French armoured division which I had the honour to command and the valiant 51st Highland Division under General Fortune played its part in the decision which I took to continue fighting on the side of the Allies unto the end, no matter what the course of events.”

(Rev Dr) John Cameron, Howard Place, St Andrews

Love Serb style

Regarding the problem of couples living together without any legal framework (“Where there’s a will there’s a way to avoid emotional and financial upheaval after bereavement” (Friends of the Scotsman, 18 May), Serbia makes no distinction between couples who are married and those who are not. A “common law marriage”; is regarded as a “love union”.

“Despite those two people never made public their relationship in terms of getting married, in Serbian law all rules set for the married couple are applicable to unmarried ones living together. That means if those two people decide to end their cohabitation, all assets acquired during their living together are considered common property and they are not in separate ownership of the person that earned it.” (Law Office Serbia).

I don’t know how unusual this is but it does seem sensible.

Steuart Campbell, Dovecot Loan, Edinburgh

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