With banners flying, bagpipes skirling, and drums beating, the Highland host, shaggy and unkempt as their own cattle, with a meagre equipment and a strange assortment of weapons, pushed on towards Perth. The prince rode at their head, and every day he grew in favour with his followers. His frank, manly air and his gallant bearing knit him to them with “hooks of steel,” and their spirits rose with every mile they marched. Opposition melted away before him. Leaving Perth, he marched on Stirling. The castle sent a few ineffective shots towards him as he crossed the Forth and proceeded towards Edinburgh. On the 17th September he was in possession of the Scottish capital without striking a blow.
Forthwith “King James the Eighth” was proclaimed at the Mercat Cross by the heralds in all their finery, and the prince took up his abode in Holyrood Palace, where balls and banquets and other brilliant festivities were held. The time, however, was not suitable for such scenes of gaiety. Cope had embarked his troops at Inverness, and had sailed south for Dunbar, where he had landed his forces. He was now ready to march on Edinburgh, and Charles determined to give him battle at once. On the night of the 20th he led his army along the ridge of high ground towards Inveresk, where he expected to meet the enemy. It was wise to keep to the high ground, for, as one of his captains said, “Even a haggis could charge down hill.” As the troops moved off Charles drew his sword and said, “Gentlemen, I have flung away the scabbard.” At Prestonpans Cope’s army was discovered on the narrow plain between the hills and the sea. A deep morass lay between the two hosts, and Cope prided himself that his position was secure. Both armies slept on the field, and through the night watched each other. The prince lay amongst his men with a bundle of pease-sticks for a pillow.
During the night a local gentleman, who knew every inch of the ground, remembered that a path led from the height through the morass and round the left wing of the enemy. The prince was roused and told the good news, and immediately the order was given to advance. In deep silence the march was commenced, Lochiel leading the way. The stars shone brightly overhead, but as the men advanced the mist gathered and concealed their movements. So, unseen, they threaded the narrow path, their soft brogues making no sound. The path had been left unguarded, and the Highlanders gained the plain, and were beginning to form when the mist lifted and disclosed them to their foes. Cope’s men were taken by surprise. The Highlanders charged furiously, and in six minutes the battle was lost and won. Cope’s army was in flight, and Charles had captured his cannon and baggage and seventeen hundred prisoners.
For six weeks after his victory Charles lay in Edinburgh, holding councils and drilling his troops by day, and dancing gaily by night in the oaken gallery of Holyrood, where his kinswoman, the unhappy Mary Queen of Scots, had held her court. Not until the last days of October did he begin his march on England, in the full expectation that his easy conquest of Scotland would be repeated over the Border. No sign of the expected rising, however, met the invaders as they marched southward. The Highlanders began to desert, and his troops dwindled in number daily. A few recruits joined his standard at Preston, but it was already evident that his dream of an English rising was vain.
Throughout the long, disappointing march the prince was the life and soul of his army. His tact, his endurance, and unfailing good-humour endeared him more and more to his faithful followers. The farther his army marched south the colder was his reception, until by the time he reached Derby it was plain that he had come to the end of his tether. The Duke of Cumberland had an army at Lichfield; there was a second army in his rear; and a third on Finchley Common. The wiser of the Jacobite leaders now advised a retreat to Scotland. Charles, however, had not yet lost hope; all his talk at Derby was about the manner in which he should enter London, whether on foot or on horseback, in the Highland or in the Lowland dress. Lord George Murray pressed upon the prince the absolute necessity of returning to Scotland, and at length Charles was very reluctantly forced to give the order to retreat. Homeward in straggling, sullen groups the Highlanders retraced their steps, with the foe hard at their heels. Charles showed obvious signs of dejection, and constantly lingered behind his men. On the 20th December the Highland army stood once more on Scottish ground.
Eight days later Charles marched to Stirling at the head of the largest army which he had ever commanded. Leaving a small party to watch the castle, he hurried to Falkirk, where he met General Hawley, who was advancing to the relief of Stirling. Here again the young prince was victorious; but hardly had the smoke cleared away from the battlefield before quarrels broke out amongst the Highland leaders, and Charles was forced to retreat. The Highlanders, laden with booty, returned to their homes, and Charles pushed on to Inverness, followed by the Duke of Cumberland with a strong force of Royalist troops. Cumberland encamped at Nairn, nine miles from the moor of Culloden, on which the remains of Charles’s army lay.
They were ill-prepared for battle. The war-chest was empty, food was scarce, and the men were worn out with fatigue and privation. Lord George Murray proposed a night attack on the royal army, and suggested the 15th April as the most suitable date, because it was Cumberland’s birthday, and sure to be an occasion for revelry in the English camp. Charles agreed to the proposal, and the march began; but so fatigued and hungry were his men that no less than fifty halts had to be called in eight miles. At two in the morning, the time fixed for the attack, the Highlanders were still four miles from the English camp. Cumberland’s men had already aroused themselves, and the Jacobite host had to plod back wearily to Culloden once more.
The final hour had come. Cumberland advanced with his 10,000 troops, fresh, ardent, well-fed, and well-equipped, and the battle was decided before it was begun. At a distance of a third of a mile his guns opened fire, making blood-red lanes through the Jacobite regiments. They stood their ground with wonderful courage; but they were obliged to give way, and as dusk settled over the moor the cause of the Stuarts was lost for ever.
Then came the grim sequel. “Butcher” Cumberland took such a cruel vengeance on the defeated foe that he well deserves his nickname. Several Scottish lords were beheaded, and measures were taken to prevent a similar rising in future. The tartan and kilt were proscribed articles of dress, the clan system was broken up, and military roads opened the Highlands to the rapid march of troops.
Meanwhile “bonnie Prince Charlie” was a fugitive, with a price of £30,000 on his head. For months he encountered hairbreadth escapes and perils by land and sea. His life was made up of days of hiding in the heather, and nights of hunger, cold, fatigue, and anxiety in dim mountain caves. Yet, though his whereabouts were known to scores of people who might easily have earned the money and a pardon into the bargain, no one betrayed him, no one revealed his hiding-place. Men and women at the risk of their lives befriended him, and ultimately, by the aid of those whom he had brought to ruin and to the verge of the scaffold, he managed to escape.