Duncan Forbes was born on 10 November 1685, in Culloden House, near Inverness, second son of Duncan Forbes, 3rd laird of Culloden, and Mary Innes. His elder brother, John (1673-1734) was 12 years older. Forbes attended the local grammar school and then matriculated at Marischal College in Aberdeen in 1699. His brother John inherited the Culloden Estate when their father died in 1704. Forbes briefly attended the University of Edinburgh in 1705, then received his law degree from Leyden University in the Netherlands. He returned to Scotland in 1707 and in married Mary Rose in 1708. They had one surviving child, John Forbes (1710-1772.) Upon his brother John’s death in 1734, Forbes inherited the Culloden Estate as the 5th laird.

After the passage of the 1707 Acts of Union, John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar, was appointed as the British Secretary of State. Upon the death of Queen Anne in 1714, the new King George I removed him from office. Frustrated by this deprivation of his government offices, Mar raised the banner for “King James 3rd and 8th” at Braemar on September 6, 1715, thus inciting the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. Even though Mar claimed the support of James Francis Edward Stuart, son of the deposed James II and VII, he did not receive official approval until October 3, 1715. On October 22, Mar officially received his commission from James appointing him commander of the Jacobite army. Many Scots rallied to his side.

Forbes and his brother raised independent companies to support the British government and fortified Culloden and Kilvarock. They joined forces with Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, and forced Inverness to surrender to them just before the Jacobite defeat at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. As a reward, Forbes was made Depute-Advocate in March 1716. This required him to prosecute Jacobite prisoners being held in Carlisle, contrary to the accepted practice they be tried in the counties where the actions were alleged to have taken place. Forbes regarded this as unjust and apparently collected money for the support of Scottish prisoners in Carlisle.

In 1721, Forbes represented Ayr Burghs as a Member of Parliament (MP.) Then in 1722, he was elected for Inverness Burghs, a seat he held until 1737 when he resigned. Forbes was appointed as Lord President of the Court of Session, becoming the senior legal officer in Scotland. He held this position until his death in 1747.

After the defeat of James Stuart to claim the British throne, the cause of Jacobitism found a new face in his son, Charles Edward Stuart (1720 –1788). Stuart was born in 1720 in one of the Pope’s residences in Rome as the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart and Maria Clementina Sobieska, granddaughter of the Polish king Jan III Sobieski. As the grandson of James II and VII, he was popularly known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie,” although he was never recognized as a legitimate prince by the established British monarchy.

In 1743, King Louis XV of France and his uncle, King Philip V of Spain, agreed to co-operate in an invasion of Great Britain and restore the Catholic Stuart monarchy. (Harding, Richard. 2013. The Emergence of Britain's Global Naval Supremacy: The War of 1739–1748. Boydell Press.) While the French later abandoned this effort, “the young Pretender would not drop his intentions of trying his fortune in Scotland; and though his means of success were very different from what were originally intended.” (Forbes, Duncan. Culloden Papers: Comprising an Extensive and Interesting Correspondence from the Year 1625 to 1748. 1815. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies.) In 1745, “with only seven adherents, £4,000 in money, and 2,000 stand of arms, he landed on the 25th of July in a remote and lonely bay of the West Highlands; where collecting 2,000 men, he hastened his March to the south.” (Ibid.) This sparked off a renewed effort to re-establish the Stuart monarchy in Great Britain.

Duncan Forbes of Culloden, Lord President of the Court of Sessions, had many frequent correspondents. One was Norman (or Normand) MacLeod of MacLeod (1705–1772), who was the Member of Parliament for Inverness-shire between 1741 and 1754 and 22nd chief of the Clan MacLeod. (Dewar, Peter Beauclerk. 2001. Burke's landed gentry of Great Britain: together with members of the titled and non-titled contemporary establishment. London: Burke's Peerage & Gentry UK Limited.)

On August 3, 1745, MacLeod alerted the Lord President of Stuart’s invasion: “To my no small surprise, it is certain that the Pretended Prince of Wales is come on the Coast of South Uist and Barra, and has since been hovering on parts of the Coast of the main Land that lies betwixt the point of Airdnamurchan and Glenelg ; he has but one ship, of which he is aboard ; she mounts about 16 or 18 Guns. He has about thirty Irish or French Officers with him, and one Sheridan, who is called his Governor.” He assured Forbes that “Sir Alex. Macdonald and I, not only gave no sort of Countenance to these people, but we used all the interest we had with our Neighbours to follow the same prudent method; and I am persuaded we have done it with that success, that not one man of any consequence benorth the Grampians will give any sort of assistance to this mad rebellious attempt.” (Forbes, Duncan. Letter No. CCXLVI, Culloden Papers: Comprising an Extensive and Interesting Correspondence from the Year 1625 to 1748. 1815. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies.)

The Lord President immediately notified the British government of this invasion through his correspondence with John Hay, 4th Marquess of Tweeddale, who served as the Secretary of State for Scotland. Forbes wrote to Tweeddale on August 8, 1745, from Edinburgh: “I have resolved to make my Journey to the North Country earlier this Season than usual; as my presence there may be of more Service to the public than it can be of here, should the Report, which I look upon as highly improbable, have any foundation in Truth.” (Forbes, Duncan. Letter No. CCXLVII, Culloden Papers: Comprising an Extensive and Interesting Correspondence from the Year 1625 to 1748. 1815. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies.)

On August 17, Normand MacLeod of MacLeod notified the Lord President of Stuart’s intent to raise his father's standard in order to gather more support: “He sets up his standard Monday ; and as I am pretty sure of information from thence you shall know it. The Place, Glenfinnon, which is the outlet from Moydart and Arisack to Lochaber.” (Forbes, Duncan. Letter No. CCLII., Culloden Papers: Comprising an Extensive and Interesting Correspondence from the Year 1625 to 1748. 1815. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies.) In fact, Stuart did rally a large force at Glenfinnan on August 19, 1745, and led his troops eastward to Invergarry Castle.

Field Marshal John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, proposed that the British Government recruit additional Highlanders into the army. In his memo to the Ministry in August 1745, he suggested “to grant a number of blank Commissions, to be distributed among the well-affected Clanns, as the Lord President of the Session, shall think proper.” Accordingly, the Marquis of Tweedale informed the Lord President of this plan on September 4: “This I heartily seconded; as I know your Lordship will make a right use of this mark of his Majesty's confidence.” (No.CCLXV, Culloden Papers.)

The Lord President agreed and raised twenty independent companies from among those clans who remained loyal. However, “when he had raised the companies and provided them with officers, he found himself without arms to equip them or money to pay them.” (Murray, Charles de Bois. 1936. Duncan Forbes of Culloden. London: International Publishing Company.)

Stuart was aware of the Lord President’s efforts and directed a kidnapping plot. On September 23, he issued a warrant to James Fraser of Foyers: “We now judge it necessary hereby to empower you to seize upon the person of the above-named Duncan Forbes, and when you have so seized and apprehended him, to carry him prisoner to us at Edinburgh, or where we shall happen to be for the time, for the doing of which this shall be your warrant.” (Warrand, Duncan, Editor. 1929, More Cullden Papers, Volume IV. Inverness: Robert Carruthers & Sons.)

On October 15 Fraser and about 200 Frasers from the Stratherrick lands of Fraser attacked Culloden House. Their plan for capturing Forbes failed, “owing to the spirited reception which this body of men met with from the artillery and small arms of the garrison which defended the castle under Mr. Forbes's own direction.” (Culloden Papers. Introduction.)

Stuart decided to move his main force north and the Lord President found himself with only 2,000 fresh recruits in the path of the Jacobite army of about 4,000. He retreated to the Isle of Skye and left Inverness to the rebels. Murray informed Pitsligo, still at Banff on February 19, of the latest Jacobite success: “His Royal Highness’ Army took possession of the Town of Inverness yesterday, the troops that were in the Town haveing ferryed over to Rosshire.” Stuart then commandeered Forbes’s Culloden House.

King George II gave command of the British Army to his youngest son, 24-year-old Prince William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (1721 –1765). Cumberland moved his troops toward the Jacobite army encamped on the Culloden estate. A British horse division circled right of the Jacobite infantry and formed in the rear of it. “It was the Jacobites who fired first, almost certainly in response to the threat that had suddenly developed in their rear.” (Maxwell of Kirkconnell, James. 1841. Narrative of Charles Prince of Wales’ Expedition to Scotland in the Year 1745. Glasgow: Maitland Club.)

By that time, the Jacobite command structure had broken down “largely because the officers were all out in front and dropping fast.” (Black, Jeremy. 1990. Culloden and the ’45. Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd.) One of the Jacobite commanders rode up to Stuart’s guard to warn him of an impending defeat: “yu see all is going to pot. Yu can be of no great succor, so before a general deroute wch will soon be, Seize upon the Prince & take him off.” (Tayler, Alistair and Henrietta. 1938. 1745 and After. Edinburgh: T. Nelson and Sons, Ltd.) Stuart eventually heeded the advice and fled. In all, the battle lasted no more than twenty-five minutes.

After the British Government victory in Culloden in April, Forbes returned home to find his house looted and all his cattle stolen. While he supported severe penalties for the leaders, Forbes counselled that 'Unnecessary Severitys create Pity.' He opposed the 1746 Dress Act banning Highland attire except when worn in military service, arguing it was unnecessary and enforcement of the 1716 Disarming Act was more important. This advice was largely ignored.

Forbes himself was financially ruined by the Rising, due to the damage done to his estate and because he was never reimbursed for the monies spent on behalf of the government. He died on 10 December 1747 and was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard, near to his brother John. A statue of him by Louis-François Roubiliac was erected in the Parliament House, Edinburgh by the Faculty of Advocates in 1752.

Images:
Top: Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of Sessions, National Galleries of Scotland
Middle: Statue of Duncan Forbes of Culloden by Louis-François Roubiliac, Parliament House, Edinburg
Bottom: Battle of Culloden Memorial Cairn raised in 1881 by Duncan Forbes, 10th laird of Culloden