 Bonnie Prince Charlie or Charles Edward Stuart
Born in 1720 Charles Edward Stuart was the grandson of King James II of England (James VII of Scotland) who had been deposed in 1688 in favour of William of Orange and Mary . Charles’ father James Edward Stuart had led a campaign to return the crown to the Stuart Dynasty in 1715, but the Old Pretender was defeated by the new Hanoverian King of England , Scotland and Ireland George I.
The two dynasties were backed by powerful religious factions, the Stuarts were Catholic of Scottish descent and the Hanoverians German Protestants. Charles Stuart was brought up in Rome and was regarded as Prince Regent by his Jacobite supporters and the Young Pretender by his enemies.
Aged 25, Charles sailed for Scotland with a small force intent on regaining the crown of England and Scotland. He landed at Glenfinnan on 19th August 1745, where he raised the Stuart standard and began to gather support from local Jacobite clan chiefs. A monument stands on this spot today and on 19th August, clan groups gather here each year. Bonnie Prince Charlie
As news spread throughout the Scottish Highlands of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his ambition to regain the English and Scottish thrones and restore the Scottish Stuart Dynasty, support for Charles increased. Bonnie Prince Charlie marched his army to Edinburgh , where the government forces quickly surrendered. On 21st September 1745, the government army garrison marched to meet the Jacobites just outside Edinburgh, where they were routed in the Battle of Prestonpans.
At Edinburgh, Charles set up his court at the Palace of Holyroodhouse and sent out messengers to France to engage them in an invasion of Britain, while support came in from the Scottish Lowlands and Ireland. With an army of around 6,000 men, the Jacobites marched on London , hoping to gain further Jacobite support in England, which they did at Manchester . Bonnie Prince Charlie’s forces marched as far south as Derby, just 200 km from a panicked London.
But Derby was as far as they got, the French invasion Charles had hoped for never materialised. At the same time seasoned government troops were brought back from the continent, which under the formidable General Wade and the King George’s son, the Duke of Cumberland, were closing in on the Jacobites.
To avoid being surrounded the Jacobites made a tactical retreat back to Scotland, pursued by the two armies of Wade and Cumberland. At Carlisle Castle, the Manchester Regiment held the retreat, buying their comrades valuable time and enabling them to withdraw to Inverness.
But it was here on the moors of Culloden that the government troops finally caught up with the Jacobites on 16th April 1746, a date that haunts the memories of the Highlands. At the Battle of Culloden, the tired and hopelessly outnumbered Jacobite army made their last Highland Charge against the better-equipped government troops and were ruthlessly cut down, the survivors butchered on the field.
Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped Culloden and his subsequent flight has formed part of highland legend, immortalised in the Skye Boat Song, as Charles, dressed as a lady’s maid to Flora Macdonald, fled to France, via a boat trip from Skye .
The Highlander’s faired much worse, they were removed from the lands they had lived on for centuries and transported to the new colonies in America and Australia and they were not allowed to display their traditional tartan or speak Scots Gaelic. In short their way of life was eradicated and the Jacobite cause was lost forever.
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