Professor Keith McLay: Decision at Derby, 5 December 1745: A Study in Generalship

Saturday 29 April, 1.30 - 2.30pm, OS.0.19, Mabb Lovell court lecture room, Old Sessions House

Traditional interpretations of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s and the Jacobites’ decision to retreat from Derby on 5 December 1745, which signalled the beginning of the end of the Jacobite rebellion, have focused upon the military realities. While it is certainly true that if the Jacobites had pressed onwards to London, they faced considerable opposition from the three columns of the British army converging on the anticipated route, military defeat cannot be considered inevitable especially in light of the success the Jacobite army had had to date in the campaign. It is important to recognise that the decision at Derby was informed by other contexts and realities ranging from the national to the international and reached by a fractious and politically divided War Council. A broader assessment of the decision to retreat sheds light therefore upon Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Generalship both positively and negatively.

Professor Keith McLay is the Provost, Learning and Teaching at the University of Derby. He is an early modern military and naval historian of Britain and Europe who has published on war and warfare from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries.

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