Echoes of Culloden

Another back road supplied another opportunity for reflecting on the past. Forsaking the Trans-Canada at Sutherlands River, we took NS 245 to the ‘Highland Heart’ of Nova Scotia. Just across the border between Pictou and Antigonish counties we came to Knoydart and spotted an imposing gate and interpretive panel drawing attention to a monument in honour of three men—a MacPherson and two MacDonalds—who fought on the losing side in the Battle of Culloden, April 16, 1746.

The battle transpired 273 years ago on a faraway Scottish moor and produced a disastrous result for Scots Highlanders, but Culloden retains great resonance—even reverence—for people of Highland heritage who care about their history. There is a place called Culloden in Ontario, another in Prince Edward Island. In Nova Scotia’s Digby County the village of Culloden is situated on the margin of Culloden Cove.

The Knoydart monument, a stone column about ten feet high commands a fine view from Knoydart Point over Northumberland Strait, the low profile of Prince Edward Island visible on the far horizon. The 1746 battle was the culmination of an intensive effort by supporters of Charles Stuart—“Bonnie Prince Charlie”—to restore the Stuarts as kings of Scotland.

The monument, built by Ronald St. John MacDonald, a great-great-grandson of one of the men it honours and one-time dean of the Dalhousie University law school, contains rocks taken from the Culloden battlefield. The battle veterans are buried nearby in unmarked graves.

On the east face of the Knoydart monument—aimed more or less in the direction of the mythic Scottish moor—Dean MacDonald installed a tablet honouring his ancestor and the other men of Culloden. It ends with lines that make up in fervour what they may lack in subtlety.

Let them tear our bleeding bosoms

Let them drain our dearest veins

In our hearts is Charlie, Charlie

While a drop of blood remains

Culloden was a catastrophe for the Highlanders. The English victors were ungenerous in victory, clan customs, language and dress widely suppressed. Combined with the infamous clearances in which Scottish lairds evicted their poor crofters in favour of sheep, the suppression led to the great emigration of the later 1700s and early 1800s.

I have something in common with the Dalhousie dean: I too have relatives who fought on the losing side at Culloden, men in my 5Xgreat-grandfather’s generation, all of them Livingstones—men affiliated with the Argyll Stewarts of Appin. Jan and I have visited Culloden, seen the spot where the ancestors fought and died, studied the list of kinsmen who perished. One of my long-ago uncles was the last in a string of men who carried and protected the Stewart battle banner. One by one the flag-bearers fell until, the battle ended, the Livingstone took the banner out of harm’s way. You can see it today in the national museum in Edinburgh, ancient blood stains and all.

The significance of Culloden was impressed upon me by my great-uncle, Harrison Livingstone, who cared quite a bit about family history. My first book, Remembered in Bronze and Stone, is dedicated in his memory. When that book was published I made it clear to my publisher that I wished to be identified as author by my full name, Alan Livingstone MacLeod. Google “Alan MacLeod” and you will see any number of people by that name, but try the full name and you will find only one.

Along Highways 245 and 337 in Pictou and Antigonish counties there are communities named for the places in Scotland the Scots pioneers departed in order to make a life in New Scotland: Lismore, Knoydart, Moydart, Morar.

A few miles down the road from Knoydart the traveler finds Livingstone Cove. It is there about the turn of the nineteenth century that my Livingstone ancestors landed in the new world. A commemorative tablet advises the visitor that Malcolm Livingstone and sons made a living from farming, fishing and lobstering.

I took a photo of Livingstone Cove from the side of the road leading down to the community wharf where the small fleet of Cape Island lobster boats is moored. In the foreground of the picture is a group of red flowers. The English forces at Culloden were led by an English prince, William of Cumberland. English gardeners are fond of another red flower they call Sweet William in his honour. In parts of Highland Scotland and in other places where Highland Scots settled after the famous battle the same flower is less reverently known as Stinking Billy.