Charles Edward Stuart
Charles Edward Stuart landed in the Hebrides in 1745 with seven men and reached within 130 miles of London. He was born in Rome in 1720, the grandson of James II, and was raised in a court in exile that had been waiting fifty years for a restoration. He came to Scotland in July 1745 without the French troops he had been promised, and was told by the first chief he met to go home; his reply, that he had come home, is the one line of his that everyone knows. The Highland army he raised took Edinburgh in September, destroyed a government force at Prestonpans in about fifteen minutes, and crossed into England in November. At Derby on 5 December his council voted to turn back. The English Jacobites had not risen, French landings had not come, and three armies were converging; Charles argued against it and was overruled, and the retreat is the moment the rising ended even though it continued for four months. Culloden on 16 April 1746 took about an hour: a Highland charge into massed artillery and musketry across boggy ground, some 1,500 dead against fifty. He spent five months as a fugitive in the Highlands and islands with a price of £30,000 on his head that nobody claimed, and was rowed to Skye disguised as an Irish maid. He escaped to France and spent forty-two years drinking. The reprisals in the Highlands, the proscription of tartan and the dismantling of the clan system followed.
- Lived: 1720 CE – 1788 CE
- Nationality: Scottish
- Roles: military_leader, leader
