Culloden

General Eyre Massey, portrait by Robert Hunter (Circa 1803)

The Duke of Cumberland's army, including Blakeney's Inniskillings to the rear left in the third line, faced 'The Young Pretender's' Jacobite Army on Culloden Muir east of Inverness, Scotland. Remembering the reverses at Falkirk Muir, Cumberland addressed his army saying

'Now I don't suppose there are any men here who are disinclined to fight, but if there be, I beg them in God's name to go, for I would rather face the Highlanders with a thousand resolute men at my back than with ten thousand half-hearted'.

The Duke of Cumberland decisively defeated the Jacobite forces and thereby ended attempts to overthrow the House of Hanover and seize the English throne for the Stuarts.

The Inniskillings in their reserve position were not committed during the battle but when the grenadiers were involved in the pursuit, the Lieutenant of Grenadiers, Eyre Massey, came to the attention of the Duke of Cumberland through his leadership and gallant conduct. He was soon promoted to Captain-Lieutenant, later commanding the Inniskillings in Martinique in 1762, and by 1800 was a General and Colonel of the Inniskillings when he was elevated to the Irish peerage as the 1st Baron Clarina.