and, pursued by
an army of about nine thousand men under the Duke of Cumberland, son of
George II.

Cumberland was no soldier; he had been soundly beaten by the French
on the famous field of Fontenoy. Yet he had firmness and a sort of
overmastering brutality, which, with disciplined troops and abundant
artillery, were sufficient to win a victory over the untrained
Highlanders.

When the battle came five thousand of these mountaineers went roaring
along the English lines, with the Chevalier himself at their head. For
a moment there was surprise. The Duke of Cumberland had been drinking
so heavily that he could give no verbal orders. One of his officers,
however, is said to have come to him in his tent, where he was trying to
play cards.

"What disposition shall we make of the prisoners?" asked the officer.

The duke tried to reply, but his utterance was very thick.

"No quarter!" he was believed to say.

The officer objected and begged that such an order as that should
be given in writing. The duke rolled over and seized a sheaf of
playing-cards. Pulling one out, he scrawled the necessary order, and
that was taken to the commanders in the field.

The Highlanders could not stand the cannon fire, and the English won.
Then the fury of the common soldiery broke loose upon the country.

There was a reign of fantastic and fiendish brutality. One provost
of the town was violently kicked for a mild remonstrance about the
destruction of the Episcopalian meeting-house; another was condemned
to clean out dirty stables. Men and women were whipped and tortured on
slight suspicion or to extract information. Cumberland frankly professed
his contempt and hatred of the people among whom he found himself, but
he savagely punished robberies committed by private soldiers for their
own profit.

"Mild measures will not do," he wrote to Newcastle.

When leaving the North in July, he said:

"All the good we have done is but a little blood-letting, which has only
weakened the madness, but not at all cured it; and I tremble to fear
that this vile spot may still be the ruin of this island and of our
family."

Such was the famous battle of Culloden, fought in 1746, and putting a
final end to the hopes of all the Stuarts. As to Cumberland's order for
"No quarter," if any apology can be made for such brutality, it must be
found in the fact that the Highland chiefs had on their side agreed to
spare no captured enemy.

The battle has