There have been several newspaper and magazine articles recently telling us that contrary to popular conception, the Battle of Culloden in 1746 was not a Scottish Vs English affair after all. My guess is that "journalists" have suddenly become aware of the battle and the 1745 Rising thanks to the TV series Outlander. Like most Scottish history, the truth is complicated. Smart Alecs have long impressed themselves by revealing that there were at least three "Scottish" regiments in Hanoverian lines at Culloden. It's also quite likely that there were more clansmen on the Government side during the rebellion than were "out" with Charles Edward Stuart's rebels. But there is something to popular perception of the issues at stake. While Scots might have been divided when it came to the Jacobite Rising, but the English Establishment was not. And it did not make much effort to distinguish between Scottish factions. No Scot could be trusted when it came to dealing with the rebels after their defeat. Ignoring the provisions of the  1707 Treaty of Union which guaranteed the integrity of the Scottish legal system, captured rebels were shipped to England to be dealt with. The punitive laws outlawing Highland dress did not distinguish between loyal and rebel clans. Nor were Government troops bent on burning, raping and murdering their way through the Highlands after Culloden fussy about the loyalties of their victims during the rising. And Highlanders represented a far larger proportion of the Scottish population in those days than they do now. The English Establishment set out to break the pesky Scots once and for all. The English Establishment knew what the war was about.