U.K. Day 7- Houston Day 109

Facing southwest 

We changed our plans around a bit and ended up heading to Loch Ness today.  It's really beautiful, but in slightly grim, Scottish way.  Most places in this part of Scotland are a bit like that - the sky is darker than in England, the buildings are made out of granite, the hills are bigger than in, say, the Lake District of England.

Facing northeast

There's not much pedestrian access to the waterfront.  We went down to a jetty and walked around as much as we could, then had lunch in the Clansman Hotel overlooking the water and the hills.  No sign of the fabled monster, except for in the gift shop.
On the drive back to Fyvie we saw Culloden, a giant open field where the last hand-to-hand battle was fought in the U.K.  It's the Alamo of Scotland, except that it's not straightforwardly English v Scots, and not so much heroic as just awful.  The guy who won, the Duke of Cumberland, earned himself the nickname "The Butcher".  And it's also a field, not a building, which also means that it's a grave site.
So (as much as I have learned from the visitor centre, Wikipedia and Dad), it was the British government v the Jacobites, who took their name from James I, the first Scottish King of Britain.  The Jacobites wanted to return his descendants to the throne, and the British government didn't, coz they'd deposed the last one for being crap.  The Jacobite cause was at its heart about the divine right of kings, but varied geographically, had really complex associations with church politics and religious freedom, and in its Scottish manifestation had a healthy dose of "how good is Scotland" in there too.  Actually I think for some people it wasn't even about Scotland, but just their clan - Dad says that's very Scottish.
The Whigs (Cumberland's chaps) had many more resources than the Jacobites, so when it came to the crunch there were more of them, and they were better fed, better rested and better prepared.  They knew that their opponents in Scotland would use the Highland Charge, which finished off by fighting at close range with traditional Scottish swords, so they trained really well in how to run a bayonet through someone.  Which, at Culloden in 1746, they did, about a thousand times.  And then to totally crush Jacobitism in Scotland, they went round the country and killed a whole bunch more civilians, and took all their stuff.  Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Jacobite leader, took off "over the sea to Skye" dressed as a woman.

Culloden

Jill's in Edinburgh tonight, so Dad and I have the task of baking a cake to bring to the church lunch on Sunday.  We might also have to watch some television.  Damn.