Bonnie Prince Charlie

‘Prince Charles Edward Stuart’

With a name like Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Mario Stuart, it is little wonder that this legendary Scottish figure is best known by his nickname: Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Throughout his lifetime, Bonnie Prince Charlie was also known as ‘the Young Pretender’ and ‘the Young Chevalier’, or referred to simply as Charles III. He was the elder son of James Francis Edward Stuart, and the Stuart claimant to the throne of Great Britain after 1766.

Bonnie Prince Charlie was born on the 3rd December 1720 and lived until the age of 67, when he died on the 31st January 1788.

He is probably best remembered for his role in the 1745 Jacobite rising, as well as his defeat at The Battle of Culloden in April 1746, which effectively ended the last Jacobite rising.

Bonnie Prince Charlie believed that the thrones of the three kingdoms were his birthright, and had just one aim: to use the Jacobite movement to defeat and remove the Hanoverian 'usurper' George II.

Many of us will be familiar with this Scottish character with his popular moniker, namely for his escape from Scotland after the uprising, which led to his portrayal as a romantic figure of heroic failure.

But there’s really so much more to the young Prince’s story than is captured in the history books. That’s why we are here today to sift through the facts and the fictions and to bring you our top 10 facts about Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Bonnie Prince Charlie was born in, and also died in, Rome.

Charles was born in the Palazzo del Re, in Rome, Italy, on 31 December 1720. 

This is because, after being deposed in 1688, James II and VII went into exile in Europe for the rest of his days, along with his family - including the infant prince, James Francis Stuart. He was welcomed as a guest by his cousin, King Louis XIV of France, and from here the Stuarts established a court in exile.

After the failure of the 1715 rising, Charles’ father, James Francis Edward Stuart, James III and VIII in the Jacobite line, was obliged to leave France, and finally settled in Rome in 1719. He was given a palace by Pope Clement XI, and as a result Bonnie Prince Charlie spent almost all his childhood in Rome and Bologna.

Bonnie Prince Charlie’s mother was  Maria Clementina Sobieska, the granddaughter of John III Sobieski, who is most famous for the victory over the Ottoman Turks in the 1683 Battle of Vienna.

This childhood in Rome was a very privileged one, Charles was brought up Catholic in a loving but riven family. As, according to Jacobite succession, the family were the legitimate heirs to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, the family lived with a sense of pride, and staunchly believed in the divine right of kings.

During his life he spent just 14 months on British soil, in 1745-6, and a brief clandestine return visit in 1750.

So what happened to Bonnie Prince Charlie, and how did he die?

Many years later, Bonnie Prince Charlie, by then a hopeless alcoholic, died in Rome of a stroke on 31 January 1788, aged 67. At first he was buried in Frascati Cathedral near Rome, where at the time his brother Henry Benedict Stuart was bishop. After Henry's death in 1807, both his and Charles's remains were moved to the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, where they were laid to rest next to their father. 

This spot over the three male Stuart’s remains is where the monument to the Royal Stuarts was later erected in 1939. Charles’ mother is also buried in St. Peter's Basilica. But when they removed the prince’s remains from their original resting place in Frascati Cathedral, his heart was left behind, where it is contained in a small urn beneath the floor under a monument.

Bonnie Prince Charlie is played by actor Andrew Gower in the hit TV series, Outlander.

Watch this video to hear Andrew talking about The Jacobite Trail!

Bonnie Prince Charlie spoke English, French and Italian

Because Charles was born and raised in Rome to a Polish mother and a father of mixed European heritage, including Italian and French as well as British, there has often been an assumption that the prince would have spoken English with some form of foreign accent.

But despite spending such a short amount of his life on British soil, Bonnie Prince Charlie is also believed to have spoken with a clear British accent. 

Although his father, James Francis Stuart, left Britain at 6 months old, he would have been influenced by his main role model, his father James VII and II, who was born at St James’s Palace, London and a mature 55-year-old in 1688 when they fled, and would have obviously spoken English with an English accent.

Bonnie Prince Charlie would have grown up surrounded by British and Irish courtiers, and allegedly with a Scottish schoolmaster. 

Eyewitnesses during the 1745 uprising described Charles as speaking “the English or broad Scots very well”.

He also spoke fluent French and Italian, and tried to learn Scots Gaelic during the ‘45 uprising.

The Jacobites were not all Scottish

There is often a misconception that the Jacobite cause was simply a case of the Scots vs the English, but the truth is in fact more complex. In fact, Jacobites came from all parts of the British Isles.

It is true that many members of the Stuart court in exile were Scottish – certainly by 1745 – but there were Irish and English exiles too.

And there were Jacobite sympathisers in England, although unfortunately for Bonnie Prince Charlie this did not translate into significant military or overt political support in the 1745 uprising.

And not everyone across Scotland was a supporter of the Stuart cause, there was considerable opposition to the Jacobites within Scotland. 

Glasgow in particular famously remained loyal to the Hanoverians, who were by now on the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, and Edinburgh Castle was held by a government garrison throughout.

This division is sometimes simplified to Highlanders and Lowlanders but there was strong Jacobite support in Lowland Aberdeenshire, Perthshire and Fife, and indeed many Highlanders fought on the government side.

It is true that many Scottish Jacobites saw the return of the Stuarts as the only way to dismantle the Acts of Union between Scotland and England. 

Many, if not most, supporters of the Jacobite cause saw the return of the Stuarts as a vehicle for achieving other goals rather than being a good thing in itself.

Nor were they all Catholic

It was also not a matter of Protestant v Catholic in Scotland. It is well known that the male heirs of James II and VII were Roman Catholic, but did you know that the great majority of the Jacobites were Protestants?

It is true that religious minorities like British Catholics could expect greater tolerance under a Catholic monarch, and therefore they were natural Jacobites, but not all displayed any interest in joining Charles’s campaign. 

High profile English Catholics, the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk, attended court at St James’s Palace at the height of the threatened advance to London in November 1745, in order to publicly demonstrate their support for King George.

And among the Scottish Jacobite army commanders of the 1745 rebellion, there were many Scottish Catholic leaders, such as James Drummond, Duke of Perth, and his brother Lord John Drummond. But most of the other commanders, such as Lieutenant-General Lord George Murray and the Life Guards commander David Wemyss, Lord Elcho, were Protestant.

The Jacobite cause did not really end until some years after the Battle of Culloden

It is true that the Battle of Culloden in 1746 was a crushing defeat for the Bonnie Prince; after nine successful months of campaigning, the first major defeat hit the Jacobite army hard. But the perception that this was instantly the end of war is false.

Several thousand men, including some of those who had not even been present at the battle, were willing to continue the fight. They gathered 30 miles south of the battle site at Ruthven, but a lack of supplies and poor leadership from Bonnie Prince Charlie put paid to the thought of making a final stand.

The Duke of Cumberland certainly seemed to believe that another battle was imminent in the months after the Battle of Culloden, and this is why various acts were introduced to make such a rising more difficult for the remaining Jacobites.

The pacification of the highlands may have made another rising less likely, but with Charles in France agitating for troops and money to renew the war, the Jacobite threat was very much still alive.

The thing that finally finished the 1745 rising, was the peace reached between Great Britain and France in 1748, with one of the terms being that Charles was to be removed from French territory.

It was not widely known, but in 1750 Bonnie Prince Charlie a secret visit to London to try and stimulate another uprising. This plan became known as the Elibank plot, and this was when Charles converted to the Church of England.

Without French support though, there was little hope for the Stuart cause. Charles’ behaviour during the Seven Years War of 1756-63 was disappointing to the French, particularly his drunkenness, and after the Royal Navy prevented a French invasion attempt in 1759 by winning the battle of Quiberon Bay, the French abandoned him and his cause for good.

At around the same time a new pope, Pope Clement XIII, was elected and he did not recognise Charles as the Jacobite King. And in 1760, the third King George peacefully ascended to the throne, which suggests that Jacobitism as an active political cause was effectively dead.

Bonnie Prince Charlie was not the last of the Stuart claimants to the throne

After Charles’s death in 1788, his brother, Henry Benedict, became the Jacobite Henry IX of England and I of Scotland. But, unlike his brother and father, Henry did not press his claim. With him the direct, legitimate line ended upon his death in 1807. 

In fact, Henry was considered little threat by George III, the latest in the line of ‘usurpers’ Henry’s family had fought so hard to remove from the British throne. So small a threat in fact that George took pity on the destitute Henry and paid him an annual pension of £4,000.

The classic ‘Skye Boat Song’ was written about Bonnie Prince Charlie’s escape

"The Skye Boat Song" is a well known 19th-century Scottish song, but did you know that it was written to commemorate the journey of Bonnie Prince Charlie from Benbecula to the Isle of Skye, as he evaded capture by Hanoverian troops after his defeat at the Battle of Culloden?

The original lyrics were composed by Sir Harold Boulton, 2nd Baronet, in the 1870s, but alternative lyrics were rewritten in 1885 by  Robert Louis Stevenson. Famous versions have been sung by  Paul Robeson, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart, Roger Whittaker, and Tori Amos.

The song gives an account of how Bonnie Prince Charlie, disguised as a serving maid, escaped in a small boat after his unsuccessful Jacobite rising of 1745, with the aid of Flora MacDonald.

The Skye Boat Song was not only extremely popular in its day, from its first recording by Tom Bryce on April 29, 1899, but  became a standard among Scottish folk and dance musicians ever since. It was even more widely known from the 1960s onwards after the aforementioned celebrities produced covers, and it has remained popular in mainstream music genres.

Skye Boat Song Lyrics

The original chorus lyrics went as follows:

“Speed, bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,

Onward! the sailors cry;

Carry the lad that's born to be king

Over the sea to Skye.”

The popularity of The Skye Boat Song is likely to be one of the contributing factors to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s reputation as a romanticized Scottish hero.

The level of interest in Bonnie Prince Charlie has also been boosted by the hit TV series, Outlander, for which The Skye Boat Song, performed below by Ella Roberts, is the theme tune.

As a result of the Jacobite Rising of 1745, the wearing of tartan and kilts was banned in Scotland

As a consequence of the failed 1745 rebellion against the crown, The Dress Act 1746 was brought into force. 

This happened on the 1 August 1746, and the law stated “no man or boy within that part of Britain called Scotland, shall wear or put on the clothes commonly called Highland clothes (that is to say) the Plaid, Philabeg, or little Kilt, Trowse, Shoulder-belts, or any part whatever of what peculiarly belongs to the Highland Garb”.

So despite the fact that not all Highland clans were even Jacobite supporters, but just because Bonnie Prince Charlie had found his most effective supporters from within the Scottish clans, a series of disarming acts were brought in by the government. They aimed to dismantle the Highland way of life and bring any and all clans under government control.

The culture of the Gaels was seen as a danger to the nation’s stability that needed to be broken up and the Gaels absorbed by Lowland culture.

An exemption allowed the kilt to be worn in the army, continuing the tradition established by the Black Watch regiment.

The law was eventually repealed in 1782, but by this time, kilts and tartans were never really ordinary Highland wear again.

Charles was not always such a ‘Bonnie’ Prince

Whilst it appears to be true that Bonnie Prince Charlie as a young man was handsome, athletic, musical and fluent in multiple languages, we have reason to believe that he wasn’t always so lovely.

Prince Charles Edward Stuart was first given his nickname on Tuesday 17th September 1745, the day he entered Edinburgh.

Ever the showman, whilst he held a review of his forces, he allowed the gathering crowd quite a close view. He is reported to have been tall and handsome on his fine horse, and to have been wearing a tartan short coat, red velvet trousers and military boots.

Local women adored him, the crowds cheered and he was received with a real hero’s welcome. 

But it would appear that these qualities that found him so adored faded in his later life. Sketches produced of Charles in later life show a bitter and disappointed man compared to the earlier hype.

He lived for another 42 years after the battle of Culloden of 1746 but was never able to muster sufficient support for a further attempt to claim the throne. Whether the fact that he no longer lived up to his famous nickname had anything to do with this seems unlikely, but nonetheless he was definitely never quite so Bonnie again after his defeat and subsequent years in hiding.

The same could be said for his personality. The failure of the ‘45 led him to alcoholism and he is known to have beaten his wife and girlfriends in this period of his life.

It is believed that there is a direct descendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie still alive today.

There is a belief that there are descendents of Charles Edward Stuart alive today. In 1753, Bonnie Prince Charlie had an illegitimate daughter by his mistress Clementina Walkinshaw. 

The child was called Charlotte Stuart, and although Charles initially refused to acknowledge her after her mother took her away from him when their relationship soured, he did eventually legitimise her in 1784. Prior to this, during their estrangement, Charlotte spent years in convents in France and produced three illegitimate children of her own.

Charlotte died only 2 years later than her father in 1790, and her children remained unknown until the mid-twentieth century. This is when historians of Jacobitism carried out research which allowed them to discover the existence of them, and their children, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s grandchildren.

Recently a man called Peter Pininski has come forward claiming to be the descendant of Charlotte’s eldest daughter, Marie Victoire Adelaide, and his claim appears to be legitimate.

This text has been edit and approved by our academic and historical advisor, Professor Daniel Szechi.

Professor Szechi is the author of The Jacobites: Britain and Europe, 1688–1788 and holds the following positions:

Emeritus Professor in Early Modern History, University of Manchester

Honorary Professor of History, University of Aberdeen

Emeritus Professor of History, Auburn University, Alabama