Mutiny: Highland Regiments in Revolt 1743-1804
John Prebble - Mutiny: Highland Regiments in Revolt 1743-1804
Secker & Warburg | 1975 | ISBN: 043638633X | English | 542 pages | PDF | 257.44 MB
Secker & Warburg | 1975 | ISBN: 043638633X | English | 542 pages | PDF | 257.44 MB
Highland soldiers were Britain's first colonial levies. first raised to police their own hills, then expended in imperial wars. The Gaelic people of the 18th century, three percent only of the population none the less supplied the Crown with sixty-five regiments. Contrary to romantic belief, the Highlander was rarely a willing soldier, his songs lament the day he put on the red coat. He was often recruited by threat, sold by the chiefs he trusted. Promises made to him were cynically broken. His pride was outraged by the lash, by contempt for his fierce attachment to his language and his dress. The family he hoped to protect by enlistment was frequently evicted in his absence and replaced by sheep. Mutinies were thus inevitable. This is the first account of them, much of it from archival records quoting the soldiers and their officers. It begins with the revolt of the Black Watch at Finchley in 1743 and ends with the mutiny of the starving Fencibles on Glasgow Green in 1804.