King or President? A Stirling Mystery from the American War of Independence. UPDATE!

Major Arthur Forbes and his wobbly memorial

Let me start with a joke….what’s Stirling’s most popular tourist attraction? The Old Town Cemetery…..as people are dying to get in! Ok yes its very poor and yes its even older. But the cemetery and the esplanade are our only 24/7 attraction and certainly this must be Britain’s most beautiful cemetery setting.

In my humble opinion it is also the most important cemetery in Scotland, it combines so much of our journey from a fiercely independent kingdom resisting Edward I, II, Henry VIII and Cromwell to a crucial element of a slave trading world superpower who would throw everything against the Nazis and with our allies, triumph. It charts our journey from Catholicism to Presbyterianism, through the Reformation and the Killing Times and the Romance of Bonnie Prince Charlie to the East India Company and Mad Mitch. But also tales and grave robbing and street fighting, D-Day Veterans and victims of German U-boats.

Because of this history it is rammed full of amazing biographies, it is authenticate and tangible, a place for us to celebrate our history and ancestors and to welcome visitors. You can watch the sunrise and the sunset and explore everything from the War Wolf to the Rough Wooing and so very much more. Today I want to focus on one very brave individual who chose a King over a President.

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Republic or Monarchy?

My story concerns the North Carolina Highlanders, Scottish settlers to the British colony in what would become The United States of America. Many of them were former Jacobites, including Flora MacDonald, driven to exile for their loyalty to the Stuart line. It was of course Flora who ensured that Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped the British Army’s clutches after Culloden. Famously these Highlander’s preferred a crown to a republic and came out against Washington. In North Carolina Flora helped summon the clans, their failed resistance may have included the last ever Highland Charge. Some 1000 loyalists were ambushed at Moore’s Creek Bridge 27th February 1776 and eventually deported back to Scotland and never properly compensated for their lost property in America. It is often remarked that they were failed by both the Stuarts and Hanoverians.

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Major Arthur Forbes

In the northern edge of Stirling’s medieval section of Old Town Cemetery stands a 19th century monument to a century of military service by the Forbes family. Deaths in Canada, Australia and Burma. The first line commemorates Major Arthur Forbes of His Majesty’s North Carolina Highlanders. Major Forbes died at 78 in 1831, meaning he would’ve in his early 20s at Moore’s Creek Bridge. And here begins our mysteries. Was he there? He certainly could not have been a Jacobite veteran, was he perhaps born of Jacobites and raised on tales of the Prince o’er the water? Was he a Major in this army or is it a later rank? Was he sent from Scotland to fight or did he respond to Flora’s call and was exiled to his parents home? Did he serve in Stirling Castle…did he fight elsewhere? More questions than answers I’m afraid. More seriously however, his memorial wobbles in the wind and is in danger of falling over. His family built and still own the memorial and are still responsible for it but they have been gone from Stirling for over a century.

A Plan of Action

It will cost £400 to fix Major Forbes’ memorial, someone who chose to be Scottish rather than American and to follow a King rather than a President. Whatever we think of that decision he was loyal to it. If 80 of us contribute £5 each we can fix it….what do you think?

UPDATE…WE RAISED £400 BY 6PM ON FRIDAY!

THANKS VERY MUCH…WATCH THIS SPACE FOR UPDATES!

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