WHEN I started this series, I intended it to last five weeks, but the more I thought about it, the more Culloden and its aftermath fills my mind with harsh anticipation and no little dread.

I realised that you cannot write about the Jacobite Risings without dealing with the most hideous element of that whole period of history – what happened at Culloden and what happened to Scotland afterwards. Therefore, next week I will describe the ’45 and the following week will end with the history of what was tantamount to genocide.

Last week, we left James Francis Edward Stuart, recognised as King James VIII and III by France and the Papacy among others, stuck in exile after the failure of the 1715 Jacobite Rising, having stepped foot in his “kingdom” of Scotland too late to make any difference to the outcome.

He was shunted around the continent, living in areas controlled by Pope Clement XI who eventually offered him a home in Rome’s Palazzo Muti. He was given an income that allowed him to maintain a court in exile, and he continued to plot to gain the UK throne which, don’t forget, could have been his in 1714 if he had agreed to convert to Protestantism. That he did not do so endeared him to the Pope but made his accession to the throne of Scotland, England and Ireland even more unlikely, especially after the Anglo-French Treaty of 1716 ended France’s support for the Stuarts.

Another Rising was planned, however, this time with Spanish help, after Spain began the War of the Quadruple Alliance. King Philip V wanted Spanish territories in Italy restored to him as well as making a claim to the throne of France and he was prepared to use force to do so.

In 1718, Britain, France, the Holy Roman Empire (Austria) and the United Provinces of the Netherlands went to war against Spain, which had seized Sicily. The Spanish fleet was smashed by the Royal Navy at Cape Passaro after which the exiled Duke of Ormonde, an Irish aristocrat who had fought for William III at the Battle of the Boyne but had turned Jacobite, entered the scene with a daring project which showed how the great powers saw James Stuart – someone around whom they could devise plots against the British. We know that James himself did not come up with the project for another Rising in Scotland and England – that was originally the idea of Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, chief minister of Spain, who brought Ormonde in to take charge of a plan to land 7000 Spanish troops in south-west England. The Duke in turn persuaded his friend Charles XII, the King of Sweden, to back a simultaneous Rising in Scotland with Swedish troops led by General George Keith, the 10th (and last) Earl Marischal. Like Ormonde, Keith had been stripped of his titles and land by an Act of Attainder for treason, two of the many Jacobites that barely legal remedy was used against.

But the bad luck of the Jacobites continued. In November 1718, Charles XII died and Swedish support for the Rising ended. Early in 1719, James went to Spain to join the fleet being assembled by Ormonde for the English part of the Rising. You will recall that the 1708 Rising had been scuppered by James contracting measles, but this time it was the weather which intervened. The fleet set sail in late March, but a storm off Cape Finisterre sent James, Ormonde, and all their ships back to Cadiz. Which was probably just as well, because the Royal Navy was waiting for them, having been tipped of by their spies in Spain.

General Keith had better luck with the weather and got to Scotland with two frigates full of about 300 Spanish soldiers. Landing at Stornoway, they were joined by Jacobite nobles such as John Cameron of Lochiel, the Earl of Seaforth, William Mackenzie, and William Murray, the Marquess of Tullibardine. The force of clansmen and Spaniards quickly moved to the mainland and occupied Eilean Donan Castle.

This is what I meant earlier in the series about changing the face of Scotland – the Royal Navy promptly besieged the castle and blew it to smithereens, so that the present fairytale building is a 20th-century reconstruction.

Keith and the main army had escaped, however, with the Marquess of Tullibardine taking command while his brother, the experienced soldier Lord George Murray – we will meet him later – also came to the fore.

The Rising ended in failure again, this time at the Battle of Glen Shiel on June 10, 1719. The Jacobite army of about 1100 men, including 300 Spanish troops from Galicia, took up position on Sgurr na Ciste Duibhe, a mountain on the north side of the glen. The Government army, which included several companies of “independent Highlanders” whose chiefs had declared for George I, attacked the Jacobite positions with devastating mortar fire. Despite a successful attack by Lord George Murray’s wing, the Jacobites broke in the centre and they turned and fled. Rob Roy MacGregor, no less, rescued the wounded Earl of Seaforth while George Murray was also wounded.

The 1719 Rising was over, and the Jacobite commanders fled the country while the clansmen returned home.

Still the Jacobites would not give up. In 1721, after the economic disaster of the South Sea Bubble, ruined many people and made the Whig Government hugely unpopular, a group of English Jacobites led by Bishop Francis Atterbury, plotted another invasion from Spain, but the Atterbury Plot, as it is known, was discovered and the 1722 Rising, as it would have been called, never happened. The next invasion that had the aim of putting James on the throne was planned 22 years later and it is important to put the events of 1744 to 1746 into European context. By 1744, France was at war with Britain again, this time in the Austrian War of Succession. A great invasion of England was planned by the French for early 1744, with one aim being to regain the throne for James Stuart, who was represented by his 23-year-old son Charles Edward Stuart, named by James as his Prince Regent, and better known to us as Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The National:

Very few figures in Scottish history have achieved the level of global fame that Charles enjoys. He is seen as the epitome of the romantic hero, and while he actually failed quite spectacularly in his greatest challenge, his story remains irresistible to this day.

It is a mystery that only one serious film has been made about his life and although David Niven had a good stab at the role of the prince, the rest of the film was pedestrian. Still, the story of Charles and Flora MacDonald alone would surely make a top movie and there was talk of one a few years ago.

The Prince was born on December 31, 1720, in Rome to James and his wife Maria Clementina Sobieski, the granddaughter of the great Polish King John Sobieski III, hailed as the saviour of Christendom for his victory over the Ottoman empire at the Battle of Vienna in 1683.

Charles was raised to believe utterly that he would one day be king of Scotland, England and Ireland, and the boy who would become known as the Young Chevalier was both well-educated and manly in the then sense of that word – he was taught to be a soldier and leader and could ride, shoot pistols and fight with various types of sword.

He was also taught the Stuart mantra of the Divine Right of Kings, but appears to have had a much better grasp of the realpolitik of the age – that he would have to do deals with people to reign over the United Kingdom.

We have to address the issue of the Prince’s religion, for his Roman Catholicism was feared by both the Presbyterians of Scotland and the adherents of the Church of England – by far the majority religions in their respective countries.

In several pronouncements, the Prince made it clear that, like his ancestor Mary Queen of Scots, he wanted tolerance and freedom of religion for all, and while clearly he wanted the throne of the UK for his father, he would give Scotland back its own parliament and dissolve the Act of Union just as James had promised in 1714.

We have many descriptions of Charles, of both his appearance and demeanour, and as always in these cases, the writers betrayed their bias.

These excerpts come from letters written at the time. Andrew Henderson wrote: “He was a slender young Man, about five feet ten inches high, of a ruddy complexion, high-nosed, large rolling brown Eyes, long visage: his chin was pointed and Mouth small, in Proportion to his Features: his Hair was red, but at that Time he wore a pale Peruke. His Speech was shy, but very intelligible; his Dialect was more upon the English than the Scottish Accent.”

His secretary, John Murray of Broughton, wrote of Charles in 1742: “Tall, above the common stature; his limbs are cast in the most exact mould; his complexion has in it somewhat of uncommon delicacy. All his features are perfectly regular and well-tumed; and his eyes the finest I ever saw. But which shines most in him and renders him, without exception, the most surprisingly handsome person of the age, is the dignity that accompanies every gesture.”

Bonnie he was, but sadly for him, Charles had much the same luck as his father. In January, 1744, King Louis XV of France declared war on Britain, although considerable fighting had already taken place – the Battle of Dettingen in June 1743 had seen King George II become the last crowned king of the UK to lead his army on the field.

Louis paid for a large French invasion force of about 12,000 troops and a fleet to ferry them over to England. Incredible as it may seem to us now, such a force would have been larger than any that could be put into the field by George II’s government which had no standing army to speak of.

The plan was to attack London and, with the supposed help of Jacobites, put Charles on the throne, so that, as Regent, he could make England, Scotland and Ireland allies of the French instead of their constant enemies. The Stuart curse struck again – the ships had gathered at Dunkirk in February, 1744, and the army embarked and was on it way to the Essex coast when a massive storm blew up, sinking a dozen ships and sending the rest fleeing back to Dunkirk.

The remaining troops were grateful to be back on land and were promptly marched off to fight in Flanders. The 1744 invasion thus never took place, but it paved the way for the Jacobite Rising of 1745-46.

That Rising would be was different in one major respect in that it was actually led by a member of the Stuart royal family – the pedants will no doubt argue that Charles and his father were not royal because they were never crowned, but France, the Papacy and, most importantly, clan chiefs and many Scottish nobles accorded them royal status.

There was another difference between the ’45 and the other risings in that the immediate support from France was conditional on success being achieved, although Charles was given two French ships to take him to Scotland.

What happened at the start of the ’45 was truly remarkable. Given what had occurred in 1744, Jacobites in Scotland and England had been aware for some time that Charles would come to Britain and raise his father’s standard, the only question being where and when.

The answer came soon enough Bonnie Prince Charlie set sail for Scotland in July 1745.