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The Battle of Culloden

A pencil, pen and ink and watercolour drawing of Sandby’s watercolour of the field of the Battle of Culloden, showing the view between the lines of troops and the charge of the Jacobites from the right. Figures with guns silhouetted in the foregroun

A Sketch of the Field of Battle at Culloden ©

The Duke of Cumberland returned from the Continent to suppress the Jacobite rising on 19 October 1745. Apart from a skirmish with the Jacobite rearguard at Clifton in Cumbria on 18 December, he was unable to engage Prince Charles Edward until 16 April 1746 when the two armies met at Culloden Moor to the east of Inverness. The brief battle was a decisive victory for government forces and Jacobite hopes of unseating the Hanoverian dynasty were shattered. Prince Charles was forced to escape into the Highlands, where he hid for several months before being smuggled back to France.