Before the Battle of Sheriffmuir, the Earl of Mar ordered the destruction of the villages of Auchterarder, Blackford and Dunning to deny the advancing government army under Argyll shelter and supplies during the winter campaign. The burning of Auchterarder was an act of deliberate devastation that turned local opinion against the Jacobite cause. It demonstrated Mar's strategic bankruptcy — he was destroying the Scottish countryside he was supposedly fighting to liberate.
Hundreds of civilians rendered homeless in winter
Aubrey generates in-depth historical research for any location in Britain — drawing on Domesday records, scheduled monuments, Victorian OS maps, geological data and archaeological archives to tell the full story of a place.
Research a location near Perthshire