John Prebble

This is the story of ordinary men and women involved in the Jacobite Rising of 1745, who were described on the gaol registers and regimental rosters of the time as 'Common Men'. The detail comes from regimental Order Books and manuals, from the letters and memoirs of soldiers and officers, and the personal stories of the victims themselves. Culloden is the story not of a Prince, but of a people.

In the aftermath of the battle of Culloden, the Highlanders suffered at the hands of their own clan chiefs. John Prebble recounts how the Highlanders were deserted and then betrayed into famine and poverty. While their chiefs grew rich on meat and wool, the people died of cholera and starvation or, evicted from the glens to make way for sheep, were forced to emigrate to foreign lands.