WILLIAM AUGUS'TUS, DUKE or Cratere LA ( 1721-65). An English commander. Ile was the third son of King George II., and was born in London, April 26 115), 1721. He became Duke of Cumberland in 1726. Ile was intended by his father for the navy, and in 17-10 Sa w some service in the Channel under Sir John Norris, but in the same year he became colonel of the Coldstream Guards and theneeforTh devoted him self to a military career. He. fought with dis tinction at Dettingen in 1743, and, made com mander-in-chief of the British land forces in 1745, was defeated in that year by Marshal Saxe at Fontenoy (q.v.). The British troops were now recalled to meet the invasion of the Young Pretender, and in November. 1745, the Duke was placed at the head of an army of some 9000 men to operate against the Highland forces which were then in the north of England. These he drove across the border. After the defeat of General Hawley at Falkirk (January, 1746), the Duke once more assumed command. took Stirling and Perth, and on April 27 (16) crushed the Highlanders at Culloden (q.v.). Ile followed up his victory by sending detachments of soldiery throughout the country to hunt down the fugi tives, and, though he does not seem to have been guilty of the relentless cruelty with which he was charged and which gained him the name of Butcher among the conquered inhabitants, he doubtless did pursue a course of extreme severity.
It was his desire to render all future uprisings impossible by wiping out the entire elan sys tem. In 1747 he eommanded in Flanders and was defeated for a second time by :Marshal Saxe at LafTeld, July 2d, becoming in consequence ex tremely unpopular at home. Ten years later he was placed at the head of an army of 40,000 men, composed largely of Hanoverians and Hessians, intended to cooperate with Frederick II. of Prus sia against the French. On July 26, 1757, he was defeated by Alarshal D'Estrees at Hastenbeek, and on September 8th he signed the convention of Kloster Zeven by which he agreed to disband his army, thus leaving Hanover to the French. The English Government repudiated these terms. and the Duke thereupon retired to private life. Ile died October 31, 1765.