Talk:Siege of Stirling Castle (1746)

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Policy of references

If there's a point you disagree with, then I'm happy to discuss it - I've been pretty good on that. I'm not going to revisit the question of references or respond to generalised comments on whether something is low quality or whatever. We've done that already.

I've now been through several A list reviews (both ways) and I'm confident I'm in compliance. One of the reasons I rewrote this article is because Wikipedia definitely stipulates that reliance on a single source is wrong - which is a characteristic of many articles on Scotland I've looked at.

Robinvp11 (talk) 19:14, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Hey, I am perfectly happy for you to add additional sources to the article which I agree will improve it. However, there is certain content from before that I do not think needs to be removed, as they provide good detail to the particulars of the siege. For example: "The siege works on Gowan Hill fell chiefly on the Irish Picquets, who suffered daily casualties from snipers and bombs from the coehorn mortars" and "The Jacobite guns were soon dismounted and in less than half an hour the Jacobites were obliged to abandon their battery altogether as "no one could approach it without meeting certain destruction". One of the Jacobite cannon barrels was found afterwards to have been hit no less than nine times, with some gouges in it being "of surprising depth". These are important details which are important to include to prevent the article becoming just another generic short description that you find on tourist websites.QuintusPetillius (talk) 19:28, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Protestant Jacobites

@User:Robinvp11, even if as you say 90% of Jacobites were Protestant (I would like to see some verifiable evidence for this figure), that fact will not be known to the majority of readers of this article. Wikipedia articles are supposed to be written to be readable to people who are completely unfamiliar with the subject.QuintusPetillius (talk) 18:13, 12 March 2019 (UTC)

@User:QuintusPetillius Read the article on the 1745 Jacobite Army (done by Sviek, with additions from me); which has a number of detailed references on that point. Or the article on the 1745 Rising. Or the article on Jacobitism. If you don't think they do, please mention it on the article TP and I'll ensure its answered.

Wikipedia articles are written to be readable to people who are completely unfamiliar with the subject. Totally agree, couldn't have put it better myself; I'm glad to find another editor who agrees articles are written for users, not to show how much detail the editor knows.

That's why I removed qualifiers that add complexity without value; what historians call 'don't look at the elephant' questions. As a newcomer; 'Presbyterian; what is that? why would Presbyterians complain? Why am I being told this?' and then 'Protestant Jacobite' - why, what other kinds of Jacobite are there? Why does it matter?' These may be relevant to understanding Jacobitism as a movement but not in an article on the Siege of Stirling Castle.

Robinvp11 (talk) 11:18, 14 March 2019 (UTC)

Afternoon gents! @User:QuintusPetillius I can confirm that the article on the Jacobite Army does cover the religious issue in some detail. There aren't many breakdowns of the Jacobite rank and file by religion, but one good source is a list in the State Papers of the prisoners taken at Carlisle and dated 26 October 1746. There were 170 of them of whom 116 were members of the Church of Scotland, 38 Anglicans, 13 Catholics, and one Quaker (there was another one at Culloden too, surprisingly). This is despite the fact the Carlisle garrison included the Manchester Regiment, which had an unusually high proportion of Catholics amongst its number, and a number of men from Lally's regiment of the Irish Brigade. A few regiments might have been largely Catholic - I'm guessing Glengarry's, probably - and a number of officers such as James Crichton of Auchingoul but even in the latter's case his men seem to have been mostly fishermen and the like from Aberdeen, which was very much an Episcopalian area.

I'd hope that being able to refer the reader to the appropriate 'background' articles would free up space for a blow by blow account of the siege itself...from a personal perspective I think it is still hard to disentangle exactly why the siege happened and who decided to continue with it, as most Jacobite memoirs gloss over the issue or bit (or just point the finger at a supposed 'optimistic report' given by Mirabelle de Gordon). Svejk74 (talk) 15:34, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Let me give it some thought - I'm not entirely clear myself as to exactly what the Jacobites intended, apart from we've got to do something (more common in military decisions than people think ie 1944 and Market Garden). One often overlooked point about siege warfare is the frequency with which it led to battles like Falkirk - but its hard to decipher to what extent that was a conscious factor. It will involve a lot of digging.

Robinvp11 (talk) 18:08, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Ok, so just to clarify there is no actual source which specifically says that 90% of the Jacobites were Protestant QuintusPetillius (talk) 22:27, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

Just in case anyone else is reading this, the figures from Carlisle show 13 Catholics out of a total of 170, ie Protestant is 92%. While members of different churches, the Church of Scotland and Anglicans are all Protestants; I've noticed elsewhere that many people, including some editors, seem confused on this point.

Robinvp11 (talk) 09:29, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

@User:QuintusPetillius The % doesn't appear anywhere in the article but there are plenty of sources confirming the split between Catholics and Protestants; ISSUES AND MOTIVES IN THE JACOBITE RISING OF 1745 F. J. McLynn The Eighteenth Century Vol. 23, No. 2 (Spring 1982) states in 1745, Scots Catholics were 16500 out of a population of 1.5 million (I believe that's around 1%). Probably higher in the Jacobite army but if its as much as 10%, I'd be surprised.

Why don't you research it and let us know? That would be really useful. Let me know if you get stuck.

Robinvp11 (talk) 11:36, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps we can look at this another way. The particular subject under discussion is John Cameron, who is mentioned because he was alongside the church when it blew up.

Cameron was one of three churchmen recorded as accompanying Lochiel's regiment. This seems to have been unique, or at least unusual. One, Alexander Cameron of Strathglass, was a Jesuit. A second, Duncan Cameron of Fortingall, appears to have been the regiment's Episcopalian chaplain.

Lastly we have John, identified as a Presbyterian minister.

Perhaps we could phrase the sentence in question "John Cameron, Presbyterian minister to Lochiel's regiment, was passing the church in a carriage" as I'm sure this would have been the distinction Duffy was actually trying to make when including the detail - that Cameron was a chaplain of Lochiel's regiment but not the Catholic one (Alexander). Does that work for everyone? Svejk74 (talk) 01:12, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that does seem to make more sense to me.QuintusPetillius (talk) 11:41, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

I'm not clear why Cameron being a Presbyterian minister is significant and I think it simply raises more questions but I can live with it.

Robinvp11 (talk) 11:30, 18 March 2019 (UTC)

It's not really significant as far as the siege goes; I think it was just mentioned by Duffy to distinguish him from the two other chaplains called Cameron in the same regiment. Svejk74 (talk) 10:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

Mirabel de Gordon

I've never seen this man's first name printed anywhere but his death notice in the Mercure de France (where he's styled as "Ingenieur en Chef") confirms it was Loüis-Antoine-Alexandre-François. Most seem to have assumed he was a total fraud as to nobility as well as his artillery skills, but wasn't it the case that you had to be ennobled to be above a certain officer rank in the French army? Svejk74 (talk) 10:37, 19 March 2019 (UTC)

I've seen it stated somewhere this was a nom de guerre, which makes sense; both French and British militaries established special schools for engineers and gunners, where rank was purely meritocratic (see my article on Vauban), so I suspect incompetent, yes, fraud - not sure.

FWIW, I've updated the profile for Blakeney.

Robinvp11 (talk) 09:14, 21 March 2019 (UTC)