In a message dated 12/11/99 1:23:42 AM Central Standard Time, peter@teviot.demon.co.uk writes: << Hello, Can anyone tell me if Sir William Maxwell and his wife Katherine Douglas were Jacobite sympathisers. They lived at Springkell in south east Dumfriesshire during the middle period of the 18th century. Regards, -- Peter Kinghorn Northumberland >> The "45" was, like every war fought for power and money. It was very common for landed people, (people who owned property), to hedge their bets and put the eldest son on one side, and the younger on the other. This meant that lands could be protected, and after the conflicts the relative on the winning side could then pardon the relative on the loosing side. It was business as usual for the wealthy, same as it is today. Very little has changed about the "art" of war except the price of the weapons, oh and the officers are able to stay further in the rear with the gear. It very often depended on which army marched through your town, or past your croft or village which side of the war you were on. There really was little or no choice. It is the same today. If you live in EvilVille, and the people of Perfectville decide to bring perfection to your "Ville", and you do not fight them you will be jailed, and if you go to fight with them and bring perfection to your village you will shot as a traitor, so there is still really no choice which side you fight on. The fact that your average soldier does not want to be in combat and never did is reflected in the high penalty for desertion, or for running when you have a force of 30,000 bearing down on a force of 300, the only sane thing to do is run, but people still stand and die. Having stood ground like an idiot when 18 and 19 and thinking it was pure guts and glory, I now fully understand why the military drafts kids and not old farts like me, because if both sides did that I really doubt there would be a war, well not till at least the late morning after we got rid of the moans and groans of getting up and having breakfast. Having seen the glory of combat I can fully understand the reluctance of loosing everything generations had worked for so some rich guy could live in a big hoose in London. As romantic as the pictures are of The Charges, The Thin Red Line, Ticondaroga, New Orleans, India and the Cyber Pass, we forget most of the soldiers died of infections that took days or weeks to kill them and they were in absolute agony. Wooops another rant. What you have to understand is my absolute shock when I found out there were any Scots who fought for the king at Culloden. Dave