page_title: Battle of Prestonpans
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Prestonpans / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: cartoon of General John Cope after Battle of Prestonpans, 1745. Original title: "A Race from Preston Pans to Berwick"
context_page_description: The Battle of Prestonpans, also known as the Battle of Gladsmuir, was fought on 21 September 1745, near Prestonpans, in East Lothian; it was the first significant engagement of the Jacobite rising of 1745, which is generally viewed as a subsidiary conflict of the War of the Austrian Succession.
  Jacobite forces led by the Stuart exile Charles Edward Stuart defeated a government army under Sir John Cope, whose inexperienced troops broke in the face of a Highland charge. The battle lasted less than thirty minutes and was a huge boost to Jacobite morale. A heavily mythologised version of the story entered art and legend.
context_section_description: Several hours after the battle, Cope wrote to Tweeddale, disclaiming responsibility for the defeat; "I cannot reproach myself; the manner in which the enemy came on was quicker than can be described...and the cause of our men taking on a destructive panic..." Some observers were more critical; in a letter of 18 October, William Blakeney, an experienced Irish veteran in command at Stirling Castle, questioned Cope's dispositions, pointing out that 'it is a maxim in the art of War, not to place Horse on any Wing of an Army near woods..., from whence they may be annoyed by Infantry without being able to offend them.'
  Cope, Fowke and Lascelles were later tried by a court-martial; all three were exonerated, with the Court deciding defeat was due to the 'shameful conduct of the private soldiers' but Cope never held a senior command again. As Governor of Gibraltar, Fowke was court-martialled again in 1756 and this time dismissed from the army, although he was reinstated in 1761.
  The Battle of Killiecrankie in 1689 showed that even experienced troops struggled with the ferocity of the Highland charge, a lesson reinforced at Prestonpans and Falkirk Muir in January 1746. Its weakness was that if the initial charge failed, the Highlanders were not equipped to hold their ground; by the time of Culloden in April, Cumberland's troops had been drilled in countering this tactic and inflicted heavy losses on the Scots as a result.
  Victory meant the rebellion was now taken more seriously; in mid-October, two French ships arrived at Montrose, bringing money, weapons and an envoy, the Marquis d'Eguilles. The Duke of Cumberland and 12,000 troops were recalled from Flanders, including 6,000 German mercenaries who arrived in Berwick-upon-Tweed a few days after Cope. These were immediately available, having been captured at Tournai in June, then released on condition they did not fight against the French.
  The argument prior to the battle between Prince Charles and Lord Murray was the first episode in an increasingly fractious relationship and the Jacobite Council spent the next six weeks arguing strategy. Reversing the 1707 Union was a significant factor in Scottish Jacobite support; this now appeared possible, and Charles and his exile advisors argued that only the removal of the Hanoverian regime could ensure the end of the Union, and that meant an invasion of England. The Scots eventually agreed after Charles assured them of substantial English and French support; they left Edinburgh on 4 November, entering England on 8 November; and government forces under General Handasyde retook Edinburgh on the 14th.
  On the march south, the Council met daily to discuss strategy, and at Derby on 5 December, its members overwhelmingly counselled retreat, the only significant dissenter being Charles. There was no sign of the promised French landing, and despite the large crowds that turned out to see them, only Manchester provided a significant number of recruits; Preston, a Jacobite stronghold in 1715, supplied three. News of another French supply convoy arriving in Montrose seemed to validate the original preference for remaining in Scotland, and the Jacobites turned north the next day. The rising ended with defeat at Culloden in April 1746.
caption: Contemporary depiction of Cope's arrival in Berwick
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