Wellington’s Highland Warriors: From the Black Watch Mutiny to the Battle of Waterloo

The kilted regiments of the British Army have a long, romanticised and often factually dubious history. From their inception as the Black Watch – a local militia designed to introduce some measure of English law to the clannish highlands – to the Battle of Waterloo by the Gordons, the Highland regiments established a reputation for fearlessness in battle and reliability as soldiers which expanded beyond all proportion to their actual numbers.
 
In this new book, Stuart Reid takes a look at the history of the Highland regiments, debunking some of the myths surrounding them – notably the image contemporaries and historians alike had of the Black Watch Mutiny of 1473 – and illustrates how the units operated, again with clarity and no romantic embellishments. Recruitment is covered, and revealed not to be the Clannish call-to-arms the politicians imagined, but a recruitment drive which relied on the influence of many Scotch lords and saw the soldiers extracting conditions from their new recruiting officers previously unheard of.