28 VIII 1773
3 IX 2013
3 IX 2013
FORT GEORGE
A star-shaped fort, still garrisoned, Fort George abutts the coast. Designed by the Adam brothers as part of the enforced pacification of the Highlands, it cost c. £1 billion in today’s money. The travellers were offered a good table of wine. The Fort’s commander, Sir Eyre Coote, praised the virtues of the Arabs he had encountered in the desert.
These now decorative cannon were the shock and awe of their day (for Rumsfield read Cumberland). We walked the lines at evening and wondered if a cannonball could reach as far as Cromarty, over Rosemarkie Bay.
It’s only when we’re here that we’re struck that, for all the conversations on Skye with those who fought for and aided Prince Charles Edward, they bypass – don’t even mention – Culloden, although they pass within a few miles of it. As guests of the British Army, here and shortly afterwards at Fort Augustus, it’s understandable that they reveal no Jacobite sympathies – but Culloden was as much the site of a victory as of a defeat.
Bibliography
Prebble, John; Culloden (1961)
Willis, Clint; The I Hate Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice... Reader: Behind the Bush Cabal's War on America (2004)
FO
GE RT
OR GE
straight lines
of canon-fire
& mown-lawn
“as in England”
These now decorative cannon were the shock and awe of their day (for Rumsfield read Cumberland). We walked the lines at evening and wondered if a cannonball could reach as far as Cromarty, over Rosemarkie Bay.
SEEKING OUT THE FANCIFUL
Cawdor
SKIRTING ROUND THE ACTUAL
Culloden
It’s only when we’re here that we’re struck that, for all the conversations on Skye with those who fought for and aided Prince Charles Edward, they bypass – don’t even mention – Culloden, although they pass within a few miles of it. As guests of the British Army, here and shortly afterwards at Fort Augustus, it’s understandable that they reveal no Jacobite sympathies – but Culloden was as much the site of a victory as of a defeat.
Bibliography
Prebble, John; Culloden (1961)
Willis, Clint; The I Hate Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice... Reader: Behind the Bush Cabal's War on America (2004)