Jacobite and Hanoverian Army Gear
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Glasgow Museums has a collection of over 100 items of Jacobite fighting material dating from the mid 17th century to mid 18th century. This collection includes firearms of 5 muskets and 30 pistols and more hand fighting weapons of 10 targes, 29 dirks, 3 Lochaber axes, 45 swords, as well as some impression of uniforms in 2 kilts, 3 sporrans, and 2 pairs of breeches. All of these date from the mid 17th century to mid 18th century. The largest collection of hand fighting weapons perhaps reflects the army’s favoured tactic of charging their foes and butchering them when they got close enough to hit them with swords, daggers and axes. Within this collection are some objects which have a clear relevance to the Jacobite cause or an alleged provenance to Jacobite battles. These objects include 2 swords – one engraved to support King James III, and another said to have been used in the battle of Prestonpans. There is also one musket and a sporran said to have been used and worn at Culloden. The sporran is now on display at the Culloden Visitor Centre. It is possible, in light of documentary evidence about the Jacobite armies, that the present 127 objects that have currently been accounted for could be larger if Glasgow Museum’s collection of European arms - which could have been like those purchased and used at the time of the Jacobite campaigns - are taken into account. The Jacobite army had a distinctive appearance in comparison to the red coated government forces facing it. Glasgow Museums’ collections are able to represent several aspects of the Jacobite army’s appearance and fighting equipment and reflect current debates on these issues. On one hand contemporary accounts of the 18th century armies describe how men were equipped with a variety of arms - from adapted farming pitch forks or scythes to small artillery pieces, and were dressed as lowlanders, highlanders, and noblemen depending on rank and class; some with uncombed hair and some with wigs; and armed with a wide variety of arms which were not made and distributed from one source. These accounts describe an army which had no uniform appearance and had a wide variety of arms sourced from Europe and Scotland, some delivered by way of supplies and some recycled from farming equipment and past conflicts. Indeed, the Marquis of Tweeddale’s letter of 1743, from Glasgow Museum’s collections of Jacobite correspondence, describes a shipment of 15,000 muskets from France being sent to Scotland ahead of the planned campaign. Contemporary accounts of the Jacobite armies also indicate a wider variety of swords, commonly French as well as broadswords, and Lochaber axes. A front rank soldier, usually a high ranking clansmen or soldier, was commonly armed with a musket, a broadsword, targe, two pistols and a dirk. As well as modern arms from France other obsolete arms dating from the 16th century were forced into service.
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