SCOTLAND’S independence dreams may have been punctured at Culloden 275 years ago this week but the cause for which the Jacobites stood is as strong now as ever, a historical expert has told the Sunday National.

Scottish historian Professor Murray Pittock, who will be hosting a series of National Trust for Scotland online events on Saturday to mark the anniversary of the last battle on British soil, believes that Jacobitism has become a strong reference point for indy support.

And the NTS trustee believes, too, that Bonnie Prince Charlie could have been throwing his support behind moves for a fully governing Scottish Parliament in a united kingdom.

Pittock, who is also the Bradley Professor of Literature at the University of Glasgow and Pro Vice Principal of the University, said: “Inevitably, as the Jacobites at Culloden were speaking to a multi-kingdom monarchy and to repeal the Act of Union, the Jacobite cause has got a lot of traction as a constitutional issue in an era when the constitution is really important.

“In the memorandum sent by Charles Edward Stuart back in France to Louis XV, he wrote about how his kingdom of Scotland suffered grievously under English occupation.

“He did have a strong sentimental attachment to Scotland and he did actually make a declaration that the Union was null and void when he was in government in Edinburgh in October 1745.

“So he was definitely opposed to the Union, he definitely wanted to rule all three kingdoms and he definitely had a sentimental attachment to Scotland. What the Stuarts wanted to do was to restore the type of monarchy that there had been between 1660 and 1689.

“So there would be three separate kingdoms and one crown and it would have been more like Austro-Hungary than it is the modern UK, and that was not unusual at the time where you also had the United Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania and many other examples.”

READ MORE: Culloden Battlefield is woven into the cultural fabric of Scotland

Culloden’s and the Jacobites’ popularity has been pricked, too, in recent years by the success of the Outlander television series.

Pittock believes that while Outlander has brought a new audience to Jacobitism, there has always been a huge interest in their story anyway.

He said: “Of course the Outlander dimension is important and it has reached 30 million plus sales and so on, but that in itself is a product of the ongoing fascination of Jacobitism.

“The fact that it changed British, and therefore world, history for good is something which influences people’s perception of Scotland all over the world because it became the foundation for a certain interpretation of a romantic Scotland of Highland tartanry. And that’s how people see Scotland internationally.

“Culloden is a very good story anyway and it has a certain degree of global familiarity, particularly in North America.

“It means an awful lot to people across the world who believe – and in some cases are – that they are descended from the soldiers that day at Culloden. To give one example, many of the three battalions of the Frasers of Lovat who fought at Culloden fought in the Canadian Wars and were resettled there.

“So there were very many numbers of Canadian Frasers whose families go back to men who stood at Culloden, and many other examples like that.”

With such feelings of ownership of Jacobitism and Culloden internationally, Pittock is at pains to stress the challenges that the site itself is currently facing.

He added: “There has been enormous development pressure on Culloden in recent years. Obviously Inverness is expanding and the matters came to a head with the Viewhill development. The Viewhill development does lie on the far British right of the front line over which the British cavalry charged so an area that was definitely part of the battle has been developed on.

“But in order to preserve the battlefield the NTS really wants to raise the consciousness of people generally that the area managed by the trust is not the whole battlefield. It is about one-third of the area of the battlefield.

“One of the things which we have to be really aware of in Scotland is that we still don’t regard our own history as worthwhile or precious enough to protect it in law.

“And for a site such as Culloden which is the most visited battle site in the UK, and that, considering it is not exactly accessible for a large amount of the UK, is pretty amazing.

“So we don’t take the global appeal of our history nearly seriously enough. It’s not just a matter for where you build houses or build extensions near Inverness. There is a global interest and a global willingness to support the battlefield.”

THE events will kick off on Saturday with an address from chief of the Gaelic Society Martin Macgregor and a new poem in Gaelic by Maoilios Caimbeul followed by a talk by Count Peter Pininski entitled Charles Edward Stuart – Italian Dandy, Selfish Alcoholic Or Charismatic Prince?

Dr Darren S Layne will also speak on the ideology, optimism and why we still care about the battle.

The afternoon will also explore “Culloden: a place worth protecting”.

Operations Manager for Culloden Raoul Curtis-Machin will present the findings of the Culloden 300 Report on the current threats and how we can better protect the battlefield.

He said: “We look forward to welcoming people from all over the globe as we remember April 16, 1746, and consider how it continues to resonate almost three centuries on.”