He came from France, wanted to become King of the Scots, led a Scottish army deep into England, failed at Culloden Moor, fled to France with the help of Flora MacDonald, and the Highland way of life was lost forever.

1745
23rd July - lands in Scotland

19th August - Bonnie Prince Charlie's father is proclaimed James the Third of England and the Eighth of Scotland and his son is proclaimed his regent.

17th September - Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite army walk into Edinburgh.

19th September - a small battle between the English and the Jacobites. The battle is over in a few minutes. The English run away.

31st October - Bonnie Prince Charlie and his army set off on the way south to England.

30th November - the Jacobite army has got as far as Derby in the Midlands.
6th December - the Prince's army returns to Scotland.

1746
17th January - a battle between the English and the Jacobites at Falkirk. The Jacobites win the day.

16th April - the Battle of Culloden. Bonnie Prince Charlie loses the battle. Flees to France.

1788
Charles Edward Stuart dies in January in Italy.

In 1745, the King of England and Scotland was a German from Hannover called George. The Highlanders did not like George; they wanted their own king back. Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, came from France to Scotland. He was the grandson of James I's grandson and he wanted to become King of Scotland and England too. As a child he had heard a lot about the Stuart cause, and he was told that one day he might become King Charles the Third of England, Ireland and Scotland.

In the summer of 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie set off for Scotland. He landed in Scotland, on the island of Eriskay, on the 23rd July. The first man the Prince met advised him to go home again, but the Prince answered proudly: "I have come home."

Bonnie Prince Charlie arrived with seven men and no money to speak of. Many Highlanders joined him, although they could hardly agree with one another yet they followed him.
On the 19th August, at Glenfinnan, near Fort William, his army gathered. The Duke of Atholl had come over the mountains with his men, and he raised the royal standard of the Stuarts here. James the Third of England and the Eighth of Scotland was proclaimed king, and Prince Charles Edward as his regent.

The Prince's army set off. It marched to Perth and from there to Edinburgh. On the 17th September the Jacobite army arrived in Edinburgh. The soldiers who were defending the city ran away and Bonnie Prince Charlie walked in. The townspeople were horrified. The Highlanders behaved well and Prince Charles, being a Catholic himself, promised the Presbyterian clergymen religious toleration.
A few days later the Highlander army defeated a small British force at Prestonpans and within a month Scotland was a Jacobite stronghold.

From Holyrood House Prince Charles planned to march south to England. On the 31st October they set off. By the 30th November they had got as far as Derby in the Midlands. Very few English people joined the Prince's army.
Bonnie Prince Charlie was sure he would win. But his advisers, the Scottish chiefs, were worried.
They realized that the English people did not want to have the Stuart king back. It is known that
on a number of occasions English Jacobites had in vain urges the conversion of James or Charles to Anglicanism. You can only speculate as to the support he would have received in a country ruled by an unpopular German-speaking king had he done so.

The English were assembling two other armies with cannons and modern guns, as well as more men than the Prince's army.
On the 6th December 1745 Bonnie Prince Charlie returned to Scotland. He was furiously angry. He raged and stormed, but the chiefs would not change their minds. As long as he lived Princes Charles believed that, if they had gone on, he would have captured London, and the crown of England.

The Highland army marched through wet cold winter weather. On the 17th January 1746, there was a battle at Falkirk. The Highlanders won the day, but the English army was not destroyed, and the Duke of Cumberland was sent to take command of it.
The Prince wanted to stay in Edinburgh, but the chiefs once again wanted to retreat. Their men were hungry, weary and had business to attend to at home. They wanted to go home, and return to fight in the spring. Unwillingly, the Prince went with the Highlanders to Inverness, reaching it on the 18th February.

But the Duke of Cumberland did not want the Highlanders to attack again in the spring. The English army followed the Prince's army up north and on the 15th April, the day of the
Duke's birthday, his army arrived at Nairn. Knowing the English soldiers would be celebrating the Duke's birthday, the Highlanders planned a surprise attack by night. But it did not work. Daylight came when they were still two miles away from the enemy. Any chance of arriving unseen was gone.
Later on that same day, the battle took place.
Prince Charlie had 4,000 soldiers, a few horses and six guns. The men had no food on the day before the battle and no breakfast on the morning of the battle.
The king's army had 6,400 soldiers, 2,400 horses and a lot of guns. They had good clothes and good guns. They slept before the battle and they had a good breakfast.
The Highlanders ran forward across the moor. They had to run a mile and the English soldiers shot them down. Much has been written about the killing field of Culloden. Any advantages the Highlanders enjoyed in earlier battles had been won by a fast attack upon a line unable to use its firepower. Culloden was different. It was firepower alone that decided that outcome, well-disciplined firepower against a clearly visible target.
1,200 Highlanders died and only 50 Englishmen.

With the Battle of Culloden the Stuart cause was lost forever. The Duke of Cumberland and his army stayed in the Highlands, burning houses and killing many people. The Highlanders called him "The Butcher". The Scottish clans were regarded as nothing more then barbarians. The king's soldiers were told to kill as many Jacobites as possible "if not all", and destroy their property.

Bliadna Thearlaich, "Charlie's Year" to the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders, was finished. Despite a huge reward (30,000 pounds) offered for his capture, the Prince was never betrayed.
Around the end of June Bonnie Prince Charlie was on the island of South Uist when a government ship suddenly arrived. A young woman named Flora MacDonald helped him. She dressed him in the clothes of her maid and the two "women" sailed to the Island of Skye. Here they stayed quietly for a few weeks. Then a boat took Bonnie Prince Charlie to France. He lived in Italy until he died in 1786.