Wonder Woman of the Week: Lady Anne Mackintosh
- Dec 1, 2021
- 2 min read
Our Wonder Woman this week is not someone most would associate with badassitude at first glance, but this heroine has become a mythological figure in Early Modern Scottish history thanks to her role in the Jacobite Uprising. To properly tell the tale of Lady Mackintosh, there is some necessary prerequisite learning. During the height of the Protestant Reformation, the Protestant English were eager to keep their monarch Protestant, so when Scottish Catholic rulers inherited the Throne of England, the Protestant lords of England were not happy. In response, they instead named a Protestant as heir to the throne causing the Scottish lords- whose representative was supposed to be king of a unified Anglo-Scottish Great Britain- to rebel in what would be called the Jacobite Uprisings. That's where our heroine enters the tale.
Lady Anne Mackintosh was married to a Scottish lord aligned with the Scottish claimant to the throne who rose up to support the Jacobite Uprising. During the early phases of the conflict, Lady Mackintosh successfully organized levies to take up arms and join the rebellion to form a unit frequently referred to as "Colonel Anne's Regiment." Women were ill-permitted from leading troops in open battle however, so leadership of Anne's regiment went to the head of an allied clan. The regiment left the Mackintosh property to join the Scottish claimant's forces at camp. While the claimant was visiting Lady Mackintosh without the support of his army, Lady Mackintosh caught word that the English were on their way to capture the prince- forcing her to act quick. She assembled the few warriors she had and met the English army at night with the sounds of banging pots and pans and intense shouting in an attempt to convince the English forces the entire Jacobite army was ready for battle- and it worked. The English troops fled to avoid a battle at night, and Lady Anne saved the Scottish prince.
The Jacobite cause however was short-lived. In the decisive Battle of Culloden, English forces and Scottish lords loyal to their cause crushed the Jacobite forces and ended any hope of a Scottish king on the Throne of England. The English however had massive respect for Lady Mackintosh though. Following the defeat at Culloden, the British Royal Family invited Lady Anne to a ball in an attempt to establish peace and show their respect for the only woman who defeated the British Army without a fight in the war. At one point, British Prince William asked Lady Mackintosh to dance at the ball to an anti-Jacobite song. In response, Lady Anne replied she would only do so if the prince also danced with her to a *pro*Jacobite song- to which the prince agreed. The English respected Lady Mackintosh so much that they allowed her to be the sole guard to her husband while he was under house arrest following the rebellion, and she received no punishment after an incident in which she assaulted a British soldier attempting to whip a Scottish woman for aiding Jacobite rebels during the Uprising.
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