9
Here is another story about the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden, when the Jacobites under Bonny Prince Charlie were defeated in their attempt to overthrow King George II. According to many tellers of this tale, the events described in it really happened.
After the battle, the victorious Duke of Cumberland decided to go to the house where Bonny Prince Charlie had stayed on the day before the battle, and to sleep in the Prince’s bed. This would show who now held power in the land. A large mansion on the outskirts of Inverness was where this took place, and here the story unfolds.
To tell the whole story it is necessary to go back to the night before the battle, to a room where the Prince and his generals were playing cards.
A sharp breeze had picked up wandering sea spray and was blowing it inland and onto the moorland around the house. Somewhere not too far off, an owl hooted. Folks called his hooting the song of silence, because it was a signal that the big eyes of the night predator had detected food. This was likely to be a mouse, a vole or a poor wee garden warbler. Every little creature stopped and stiffened, hoping and praying the talons of the old owl would not sink into their vulnerable necks, hence the silence that followed his call.
Prince Charlie peered from a window on the first floor into the darkness and listened. ‘It’s quiet out there,’ he said softly. The horizon bristled with young tree-tops like tiny pyramids, prompting him to add, ‘If only they were soldiers.’ He’d been informed by his advisers that many Highlanders would come to swell the numbers of his army. A great force of strong men would arrive on Culloden Moor, that was a certainty, and would chase the Duke of Cumberland back across the border. Charlie thought that he’d be flying his banner as he marched into Edinburgh next week, as soon as they’d won the war in Scotland.
One of his trusted generals called to him, ‘Come away, Sire, from the window. There are unseen enemies who’d put a hole in you with a fair-aimed gun filled with lead. See, we have a pack of cards, let’s play awhile.’
No matter how much his trusty advisors encouraged him, his heart felt heavy-laden. Ever since an earlier attempt on his life back in Crieff, when he’d been rushed out of the Drummond Arms and into Ferntower House, he’d felt a sense of foreboding, and it could not be shaken off. He was no fool; he’d seen the mountainous terrain where the battle would be fought and seen how many Highlanders and others who were faithful followers of his cause would make up his army. He knew that a fight against the mighty Duke’s well-fed, well-equipped troops would be no pushover. Oh, his men had plenty of heart, but stamina in war comes from decent meals. His men hadn’t eaten for days, or slept either. But next day’s battle would decide once and for all what path Scotland would travel.
‘Sire, I say again, will you partake of a quiet game of cards?’
The Prince smiled and said, pointing to the solitary candle lit in the centre of the table, ‘Indeed, but what of this light? It’s barely a flicker. I can hardly see your faces, let alone a card.’
‘It will help to while away the hours, Sire,’ answered his General, sitting astride a wobbly-legged chair. ‘Who will be able to find sleep this night?’
‘Who indeed, my friend? Now deal my hand, and if tomorrow I lose, tonight I shall win.’
The Prince seemed cheerful, but he was deliberately hiding the inner turmoil of his heavy heart.
A gentle spotting of rain tip-tapped on the window. The Prince had had a grand run of pontoon – seven, eight, nine, ten, jack and queen, all cards in the same suit. Everyone laid their cards down; the Prince, raising an eyebrow, smiled and said, ‘I will see you all.’ He leaned over to spread his cards on the table, but one slipped from his grasp and fell into the darkness below the table. ‘Oh my! Don’t anyone say a word,’ he ordered, ‘until I have retrieved my card.’ He looked for the card under the table, but it was nowhere to be seen. Lifting the table they all searched for it by the flickering candlelight, but it had gone.
‘Well, that is a pity, because without it I cannot win this hand.’ He dismissed the card players, saying it was very late. All should have a night’s sleep and be refreshed for the battle.
One of his generals, Hector MacKay, a faithful Irish follower of the Stuart cause, was a very superstitious man. Although he said nothing at the time, the night’s card game left him deeply fearful about the oncoming battle. The card that had been lost was the nine of diamonds, and nine was an ominous number in his part of Ireland – a signal of doom.
As we know from history, the fight was indeed lost. Prince Charles Edward Stuart escaped and fled to France. Culloden Moor, where the fallen Highlanders and others who had rallied to the Stuart flag found their graves, was to be the final battlefield on British soil. The date was 16 April 1745.
But as I said at the beginning of this story, to the victor goes the spoils. In Cumberland’s case, his desire was to lodge in the same houses as his foe. The night after Charlie had escaped, the Duke slept peacefully in the bed the Prince had occupied before the battle. The next morning he assembled all his troops to give them their orders. He summoned his generals. ‘From this day forward, I will not tolerate any wearing of the tartan. Everyone must learn to speak the King’s English. And most important, I command that you take enough men, go forth and kill every Highlander you meet – the old, women and children – spare no one. Set fire to the land; torch every house you see. Once and for all, the clans must be dispersed.’
A general named David Bowles Prentice stepped forward and said, ‘It is a bold thing you ask of us, Sir, but I will not carry out such a dire order unless you write it down and sign it.’
Cumberland was in no mood to be disobeyed. ‘Mr Prentice, you will do as I say!’
Prentice was, however, a soldier of the King, and there were rules which had to be observed. He repeated his request, adding that in the service of the King, protocol must be adhered to.
‘Oh, very well, get me a pen and paper,’ ordered Cumberland. But there was nothing left in the house, not even a cup or saucer. Even the bed had been stripped and was gone. The house had been ransacked; the looters had left it bare.
He shouted at his waiting generals to forget about written orders and to get on with it. He was tired of Scotland and wanted to go home. But they, like Prentice, said that they would do the job, but only once they had it in writing. In a fit of temper the Duke hurled away his chair and thumped his boot hard on the floor. This disturbed a square of carpet, revealing something underneath. He bent down and retrieved the lost nine of diamonds. ‘This will do,’ he shouted. And there on the card he scribbled the order, ‘Kill them! Signed by his hand, Duke of Cumberland, second son of his Royal Majesty.’
From that day to this, the nine of diamonds has been referred to as ‘The Curse of Scotland’.