Post-Culloden Scotland and Jacobite Repression

The defeat of the Jacobite army at Culloden in April 1746 was followed by military occupation, executions, transportation and the pursuit of fugitives. Parliament abolished heritable jurisdictions, restricted traditional Highland dress and strengthened Crown authority over regions associated with the rising.

Forfeited estates were administered by government factors, placing rent collection, eviction and landholding inside a continuing conflict between Hanoverian officials and Jacobite clans. Exiles in France maintained political and family networks while those who remained in Scotland faced surveillance, legal pressure and divided loyalties.

Kidnapped and Catriona use this unsettled aftermath rather than the rising itself. Allan Breck Stewart moves between exile and covert work in Scotland, while the Appin case exposes how clan rivalry, forfeited estates and government policy could shape criminal justice.