Battle Trust Memory Lane [33]: Redcoat Dragoons canter and fascinate at Prestonpans

Alan Brecks assemble a formidable array of re-enactors to commemorate the Highlanders' Victory in 1745

It was the seventh consecutive year that the Battle Trust has ensured commemoration of Bonnie Prince Charlie's famous victory - with its Alan Breck Regiment of Prestonpans Volunteers taking the lead. It was joined for the seventh time by the Montgomeries from the Czech Republic, Derby's Charles Edwards and the Glenbuckets. Other familiar participants were the Border Clansmen, Stewarts of Appin, Birkbeck's Battery, Battlescar and Pultney's 13th Foot. Totally new, and crowd pleasers extraordinary, were four horsemen from Cobham's Dragoons.



The redcoat dragoons in 1745 were the main cause of Cope's defeat although the redcoat gunners did also flee on the first sight of a Highland charge led by the Camerons. The dragoons simply failed to make any impact whatever and, although Colonel Gardiner personally did make his last but fatal stand with a rump of foot soldiers, the rest of the dragoons fled post haste past Bankton House, up Johnnie Cope's Road to Birsley Brae and to safety at Berwick on Tweed.