The 'Forty-Five'
In December 1743, Charles's father named him Prince Regent, giving him authority to act in his name. Eighteen months later, he led a rising to restore his father to his thrones. Charles raised funds to fit out two ships: the Elisabeth, an old man-of-war of 66 guns, and the Doutelle (le Du Teillay) a small frigate of 16 guns, which successfully landed him and seven companions at Eriskay on 23 July 1745. Charles had hoped for support from a French fleet, but it was badly damaged by storms, and he was left to raise an army in Scotland.
The Jacobite cause was still supported by many Highland clans, both Catholic and Protestant. Charles hoped for a warm welcome from these clans to start an insurgency by Jacobites throughout Britain, and the Highland clans indeed provided him with a warm welcome. Charles raised his father's standard at Glenfinnan and gathered a force large enough to enable him to march on Edinburgh. The city, under the control of the Lord Provost Archibald Stewart, quickly surrendered. On 21 September 1745, he defeated the only government army in Scotland at the Battle of Prestonpans. The government army was led by General Sir John Cope, and their disastrous defence against the Jacobites is immortalised in the song Johnnie Cope. By November, Charles was marching south at the head of approximately 6,000 men. Having taken Carlisle, Charles's army progressed as far as Swarkestone Bridge in Derbyshire. Here, despite the objections of the Prince, the decision was made by his council to return to Scotland, largely because of rumours of a large government force being amassed. The Jacobites marched north once more, winning several more battles. The reports of a government army turned out to have been false, but Charles's retreat gave the English time to muster an actual army. The Jacobites were pursued by King George II's son, the Duke of Cumberland, who caught up with them at the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746.
Ignoring the advice of his best commander, Lord George Murray, Charles chose to fight on flat, open, marshy ground where his forces would be exposed to superior government firepower. Charles commanded his army from a position behind his lines, where he could not see what was happening. Hoping Cumberland's army would attack first, he had his men stand exposed to Hanoverian artillery. Seeing the error in this, he quickly ordered an attack, but the messenger was killed before the order could be delivered. The Jacobite attack, charging into the teeth of musket fire and grapeshot fired from the cannons, was uncoordinated and met with little success.
The Jacobites broke through the bayonets of the redcoats in one place, but they were shot down by a second line of soldiers, and the survivors fled. Cumberland's troops committed numerous atrocities as they hunted for the defeated Jacobite soldiers, earning him the title "the Butcher" from the Highlanders. Murray managed to lead a group of Jacobites to Ruthven, intending to continue the fight. However Charles, believing himself betrayed, had decided to abandon the Jacobite cause. James, the Chevalier de Johnstone, acted as Murray's Aide de Camp during the campaign and, for a brief spell, the Young Pretender's. He gives a first-hand account of these events in his "Memoir of the Rebellion 1745–1746".
Charles's subsequent flight has become the stuff of legend and is commemorated in the popular folk song "The Skye Boat Song" (lyrics 1884, tune traditional) and also the old Irish song Mo Ghile Mear by Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill. Hiding in the moors of Scotland, he travelled about, always barely ahead of the government forces. Though many Highlanders saw Charles, and indeed aided him, none of them betrayed him for the £30,000 reward offered. Assisted by such loyal supporters as the pilot Donald Macleod, a MacGillechaluim of Raasay, Colonel Con O'Neill, a Clanaboy O'Neill Prince of the O'Neill_dynasty and Flora MacDonald, who helped him escape pursuers on the Isle of Skye by taking him in a small boat disguised as her Irish maid, "Betty Burke," he evaded capture and left the country aboard the French frigate L'Heureux, arriving back in France in September. The cause of the Stuarts now lost, the remainder of his life was — with a brief exception — spent in exile.
Read more about this topic: Charles Edward Stuart