Sweet William or the Butcher?

by Oates, Jonathan

• ISBN13: 9781844157549
• ISBN10: 1844157547
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-07-19
• Publisher: Pen & Sword

Summary

'Butcher' Cumberland is portrayed as one of the arch villains of British history. His leading role in the bloody defeat of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 and his ruthless pursuit of Bonnie Prince Charlie's fugitive supporters across the Scottish Highlands has generated a reputation for severity that has endured to the present day. He has even been proposed as the most evil Briton of the eighteenth century. But was Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the younger son of George II, really the ogre of popular imagination? Jonathan Oates, in this perceptive investigation of the man and his notorious career, seeks to answer this question. He looks dispassionately at Cumberland's character and at his record as a soldier, in particular at this behaviour towards enemy wounded and prisoners. He analyses the rules of war as they were understood and applied in the eighteenth century. And he watches Cumberland closely through the entire course of the '45 campaign, from the retreat of the rebels across northern England to the Highlands, through Battle of Culloden and on into the bloodstained suppression that followed.

Table of Contents

List of Plates	p. vi
Acknowledgements	p. vii
Introduction	p. ix
The Duke and the Historians	p. 1
The Theory and Practice of the Times	p. 18
Cumberland's Early Life, 1721-1745	p. 33
Jacobitism, Cumberland and the Campaign of the Forty Five, July 1745-April 1746	p. 39
The Battle of Culloden and its Aftermath, 8-18 April 1746	p. 70
Operations around Inverness, April-May 1746	p. 100
Operations around Fort Augustus, May-July 1746	p. 120
Contemporaries, the Duke and the Rebellion	p. 146
Conclusion	p. 158
Notes	p. 164
Bibliography	p. 184
Index	p. 191
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

'Butcher' Cumberland is portrayed as one of the arch villains of British history. His leading role in the bloody defeat of the Jacobite rebellion in 1745 and his ruthless pursuit of Bonnie Prince Charlie's fugitive supporters across the Scottish Highlands has generated a reputation for severity that has endured to the present day. He has even been proposed as the most evil Briton of the eighteenth century. But was Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, the younger son of George II, really the ogre of popular imagination? Jonathan Oates, in this perceptive investigation of the man and his notorious career, seeks to answer this question. He looks dispassionately at Cumberland's character and at his record as a soldier, in particular at this behavior towards enemy wounded and prisoners. He analyses the rules of war as they were understood and applied in the eighteenth century. And he watches Cumberland closely through the entire course of the '45 campaign, from the retreat of the rebels across northern England to the Highlands, through Battle of Culloden and on into the bloodstained suppression that followed. A thorough and impressive work that contributes much to our knowledge of the '45. PROFESSOR JEREMY BLACK