Battle of Prestonpans - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The battles of Prestonpans , also known under the name of battles of Gladsmuir , is the first significant combat of the second rebellion jacobite. It takes place with Prestonpans, in the Midlothian, in Scotland, the September 21st 1745. The army jacobite of Jacques François Stuart, ordered by his/her son, Charles Edouard Stuart demolishes the army hanovrienne George II under the orders of Sir John Cope.

The road of Prestonpans

At the summer 1745, the prince Charles Edouard Stuart, commonly called " Bonnie Prince Charlie" , a campaign organizes to seize the Scotland, in order to take again what he regards as his throne. With the support of Donald Cameron de Lochiel, the chief of the Cameron clan, an army made up from approximately 2.000 of its partisans Scot constitutes and goes on Glenfinnan then Edinburgh.

The answer of Hanovriens

Sir John Cope, the general ordering the governmental forces in Scotland, receives the order to break the revolt. It joins together its troops, but the large majority of its recruits do not have any real experience, and it is obstructed by a multitude of hitch, in particular the disease of the commander of its Cavalerie. Despite everything, the officers hanovriens seem persuaded that the rebels will never dare to tackle an army at the same time cash of the infantry and cavalry. During their walk, they affirm with people of the country that there will be no battle.

The army of Charles seizes Edinburgh without combat or almost the September 16th; Cope, on the basis of Aberdeen in boat, is able too late to face them.

The battle

The September 20th, the forces of Cope meet the avant-garde jacobite. Cope decides to hold the ground and to attack the army jacobite. It lays out its army behind a ditch, the murc of the park which surrounds Preston House protecting its right side. The lieutenant-general of Charles, Lord George Murray, knows the sector well, and, during the night, it moves its army from one side to another of the ditch, far towards the left of the army of Cope. On her side, Cope lets be consumed fires and moves her troops during the night, while Highlanders advance, protected by the darkness.

In the crack, at the dawn of the September 21st 1745, the dragons of Cope see the spectacle of a load of 1.400 Highlanders accompanied by the savage cry war of the Highlands.

The inexperienced troops of Cope flee, in spite of Cope and her officers, who try to force them to charge under the threat with the gun. The army of Cope is overflowed on her left by Jacobites, but the ditch and the wall of the park block their retirement now. The battle is finished in five minutes with hundreds of killed or wounded soldiers hanovriens and 1500 captured. Highlanders, for their part, have to deplore the loss only of one killed or wounded combatant hundred. Jacobites grant to wounded and to the prisoners the best possible care.

Cope exonerated by the martial court

In spite of the panic of its soldiers, without experiment of fire, and the humiliating fact that Cope personally announced its crushing demolished with the commander of the garrison of North Berwick, the frequent charges affirming that Cope had fled itself, seem quite false. Cope and its officers were exonerated by the martial court.

The report of meeting of the court is published in 1749. What emerges from these pages is not without dout not the portrait of a military engineering, but an energetic and conscientious officer, who weighed his decisions maturely and anticipated - with a practically obsessional attention of the detail - all the possibilities, except one: that its men panic and flee.

The battle in art and the legend

The image which the public keeps of the battle, in general, and of the Cope general, in particular, was influenced by the popular songs of Adam Skirving, a farmer of the surroundings. This last did not see itself the battle, but he visited the battle field shortly after. Skirving wrote two songs, Johnnie Cope and Tranent Muir ; the first is very known: it insults there Cope in a short text, involving and especially historically inaccurate. While the troops of Cope flee, remains to him on the spot, which is as false as to affirm as he would have slept the night of front. Years after, the poet Robert Burns wrote on the subject, but with less success than Skirving.

" Tranent Muir" , the second text, is a description long and visually violent battle; several of the described events are historically exact. Myrie and Gardiner, mentioned in the worms seven and eight, in fact died during the battle. Lieutenant Smith, described in the worms nine as fleeing the battle, terrified, Skirving in duel caused after the publication of the song.

Continuations of the second rebellion jacobite

The battle particularly goes up moral partisans of the Stuart S, which see many recruits enlarging their rows. The victory appears side of the jacobites, but the situation will change, the following year, with the Bataille of Culloden, close to Inverness.

External bonds

Charts of the battle to the national bookstore of Scotland
'' Ascanius, or the Young adventurer ''

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