How Bonnie Prince Charlie Got His Butt Kicked in 40 Minutes and Ruined Plaid for Everyone

On April 16, 1746, the Battle of Culloden brought the Jacobite Rising to its brutal conclusion in a mere forty minutes—making it quite possibly the most consequential hour-skipping event in British history until the invention of the DVR. The Duke of Cumberland's government forces faced off against Bonnie Prince Charlie's exhausted, starving Highlanders on Drummossie Moor near Inverness. The Jacobites had just completed a botched night march intended to surprise the enemy, only to trudge back to their positions having accomplished nothing except extreme fatigue. When battle commenced around 1 PM, many Highland warriors were literally off searching for food. What followed was less a battle and more a catastrophic mismatch. Cumberland's artillery tore through the Highland lines for fifteen minutes before the clans even charged. When they finally did, the government forces employed a clever bayonet technique: instead of stabbing the man directly in front of you (whose shield would block you), each soldier stabbed diagonally at his neighbor's opponent. This innovation proved devastatingly effective against the traditional Highland charge. The whole affair was over by 2 PM. Between 1,500 and 2,000 Jacobites lay dead; Cumberland lost perhaps 50 men. But the real horror came afterward, when Cumberland earned his nickname "Butcher" by ordering the systematic slaughter of wounded Jacobites and the brutal suppression of Highland culture itself. The British government subsequently banned tartan, bagpipes, and the clan system. Bonnie Prince Charlie fled, eventually escaping to France, never to return. The last serious attempt to restore the Stuart monarchy ended not with a bang, but with a very brief, very bloody whimper on a cold Scottish moor.