“Sir Thomas Sheridan, Jacobite military secretary. Suffering advanced debility and loss of memory. Former military engagement, 56 years ago. Sir John MacDonald, Jacobite captain of cavalry. Aged, frequently intoxicated, described as ‘a man of the most limited capacities.’ John William O’Sullivan, Jacobite quartermaster general. Described as ‘an Irishman whose vanity is superseded only by his lack of wisdom.’ Prince Charles Edward Stuart, Jacobite commander in chief. Former military experience: 10 days at a siege at the age of 13.”
I’d had this movie in my Netflix queue even before I started this little research, but knowning even a little bit about where I supposedly came from made watching this all the more intriguing.
Even if I had no familial relation to the events taking place on screen, this is still a very powerful, sobering, and well-done production.
Shot as if a television news crew was on the field of battle in 1746, this mockumentary clearly reflects the fact that it was made in 1964 and seems to take an almost perverse joy in breaking what must then have been societal taboos against showing the insanity of war, including depictions of rapes and executions. Throughout the film, the spectre of Vietnam is never far from the mind.
According to teh Internets, Clan MacLaren fought on the losing side with the rest of the Highland Scots in the Appin regiment under Lord George Murray, who was described in the film as England’s finest general of the 18th century.
The Appin Regiment, or the “Stewarts of Appin” consisted of 250 men at the time of the battle and was led by Charles Stuart of Ardsheal. According to Wikipedia, “The regiment suffered from desertion. During the campaign it suffered 90 killed, 65 wounded.”
The reprisals against the Highland clans after the battle were brutal, and appeared to have been a contributing cause in driving many Highland Scots out of Scotland and into strange locales like Canada, the current, U.S., and Australia. After the battle, MacLaren Clan chief Donald MacLaren remained a fugitive until the amnesty of 1757. (My first Lowrey ancestor appears to have arrived in the present U.S. by at least 1767.)
A film well worth watching. I’m going to have to go and find a good book on the subject now.
A Lowland Lowrey 