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Old 27th April 2024, 06:35 PM   #2
Jim McDougall
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Route 66
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What a great piece Lee! and its so exciting to be reading or watching historical features while having an iconic weapon in hand!
No doubt this is a cut down hanger blade of British infantry form c.1740s-50s repurposed as a Highland dirk with the scabbard date having some clan significance perhaps?
After the tragic Battle of Culloden (1746) there were only 193 Highland swords recovered from the battlefield by Hanoverian forces. This was remarkable as there were some 1000 men of the 5000 Jacobite forces killed, and with such numbers, you would expect many more blades on the field.

It has seemed likely that as the Jacobites (there were also English and some French men among the forces, just as some Highlanders with Hanoverians), were clansmen mostly, and often closely related. The Highland broadswords were virtually sacred to the Highlanders and were even blessed by priests before the battle. It is likely many of these heirlooms were carried away by Jacobites as they removed from the field, powerfully outnumbered.

This is well, as to see the travesty and disgrace the recovered swords suffered as they were unceremoniously dismounted and made into a hideous fence at Twickenham, many years later dismantled and the blades into private holding.

After the '45, Highland weapons were proscribed, and the exceptions were dirks, which were allowed for utilitarian purposes. Many heirloom blades were cut down into dirks, while remarkable numbers of intact broadswords survived either in thatched roofs or many abroad in France etc.

As this example has clearly a British hanger blade (perhaps even a cutlass) it still falls into the category of an exempt Highland weapon, thus still given the honor afforded the clan broadswords in its traditional mounts.

'slainte'!!! with a good drink of Drambuie!
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