The battle of Culloden
Martin Marguiles reviews a history of the battle of Culloden, which takes a look at the people and places involved in the last major battle fought on British soil
Edited by Dr Katy Jack reviews@historyscotland.com
BOOKREVIEWS
Culloden: Scotland’s Last Battle and the Forging of the British Empire
Trevor Royle
Pegasus Books, 2016
422 pages
Hardback, £22.00
ISBN: 9781681772363
The recent U.S. political scene has produced the neologism ‘alternative facts’: a euphemism for gross inaccuracies. Trevor Royle’s book is replete with them. Some are consequential. They begin early on. At page four Royle tells us that the duke of Perth, who shared operational command of the Jacobite Army with George Murray, was ‘Episcopalian’. No, Perth was Catholic, and it matters. It is why he let Murray upstage him: he knew that, if he assumed a more prominent role, his religion would be a propaganda boon for the government side.