Projectiles Recovered at Scotland’s Culloden Battlefield

INVERNESS, SCOTLAND—BBC News reports that more than 100 projectiles were recovered during an investigation of an unstudied area of Scotland’s Culloden Battlefield. Fought on April 16, 1746, the Battle of Culloden marked Britain’s final defeat of the Jacobite army led by Charles Edward Stuart, who was also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. Stuart had attempted to place his father, who was the son of the Roman Catholic James II, on the British throne. Yet James II had been deposed in 1688 and his line excluded from English succession under the Act of Settlement of 1701. At the time of the battle, the Jacobite army controlled large parts of Scotland, but had been forced out of England and was running low on supplies. Many of the recently recovered projectiles are made of lead and are thought to have been fired by 150 Irish troops who blocked charging British horsemen, allowing thousands of Jacobites to escape. “A more detailed analysis of the artifacts and their distribution pattern will be required before we can make a definitive statement but at present there are no obvious alternative interpretations,” said Tony Pollard of Glasgow University. For more on battlefield archaeology in Scotland, go to "After the Battle."