Pretender Profile: Bonnie Prince Charlie

There is probably no more famous royal pretender in history than “Bonnie Prince Charlie”, son of the “Old Chevalier” and grandson of King James II of Britain. His story has become the stuff of legend and he has been as unjustly vilified by the Hanoverians as he has been romanticized by Jacobites. However, as with any question of this sort in western monarchy, the cause was more important than personality and for Jacobites it was that cause; royal legitimacy, that was really what was being venerated in song and story. The romantic image of the “Young Pretender” was never meant to be an accurate depiction of the man but rather the symbol of a struggle, an icon to which could be attached various ideals from pristine, divinely ordained monarchy to the struggle against the centralization of power in Britain to Scottish nationalism. In all of that it would be easy for the prince to be lost.

Prince Charles Edward Stuart was born in Rome on December 31, 1720 and grew up in Rome and Bologna. His family life could be tumultuous but it was affectionate and like his father before him he was raised with the expectation of one day restoring the House of Stuart to the British throne. Toward this end he was given military training from an early age and first saw battle at the siege of Gaeta in 1734. He was sent to France in 1744 to lead a French army in an invasion of Britain but the plan fell through. The year before Prince Charles had been named regent by his father to give him the authority to act in his name to pursue the restoration. Plans were constantly being made which seemed more urgent the longer the German House of Hanover consolidated itself on the British throne. Finally, in 1745 the gamble was made and Charles set sail for Scotland, the home of his ancestors and where he could expect the most support.

Unfortunately for him the French fleet that was to accompany him was scattered by bad weather and he was left to fend for himself. Undeterred, he landed in the northern islands and proceeded to Glenfinnan where he rallied the highland clans (which were mostly Jacobite in sympathy regardless of religion) and raised the Stuart royal standard proclaiming his father King. However, not all of Scotland was with him. Some of the highland clans refused to join what seemed a hopeless cause and most of the lowlands were firmly loyal to the House of Hanover. Still, after enlisting the eminent soldier Lord George Murray the Prince marched on Edinburgh, capturing it without a struggle. Later, in a shocking turn of events, his Jacobite army, armed for the most part with swords rather than muskets, surprised and soundly defeated the British army of Sir John Cope at Prestonpans.

Buoyed by this victory Prince Charles, with 6,000 men, marched south into England. He hoped to rally the public to his side (King George II being far from universally popular) but aside from a few hundred English volunteers (mostly Catholic) the population either took the side of the House of Hanover or chose to sit by the sidelines to see which side would win. Prince Charles reached as far south as Derby and George II was making plans to evacuate London and return to his native Germany if the situation deteriorated. However, the government had a man in the Jacobite camp, a double agent, who assured the Scots that George II had tens of thousands of troops converging on their position. Prince Charles, having beaten the odds already in coming so far, wanted to throw caution to the wind and press on. Lord Murray and the highland chieftains, however, overruled him and ordered a retreat back to Scotland. In fact, the situation was not as hopeless as it had seemed but disaster had been averted for King George II and henceforth the winds of fortune would blow in his favor.

Prince Charles was demoralized marching north but his small army of rough warriors was still formidable. At Falkirk in January of 1746 the Jacobites won another stunning victory over the pursuing government forces of General Henry Hawley. Prince Charles wanted to take the initiative and renew the offensive after this victory but was again overruled. The efficient and ruthless Duke of Cumberland, son of George II, took over the pursuit and chased the Jacobite army from pillar to post across Scotland until they made their final stand in the far north at Culloden Moor. The battle was heroic, it was glorious and it was an utter disaster for the Jacobites. Absolutely every advantage was held by Cumberland but with bagpipes wailing and swords held high the Jacobites made one last great ‘highland charge’ and were all but annihilated. Cumberland showed no mercy and the aftermath of the battle was a scene of horrific butchery.

His spirit crushed, Prince Charles fled to the outer islands. Despite a huge bounty placed on his head by George II no one betrayed him and he made his escape with many legends, stories and songs told ever since about his harrowing flight. Picked up by a frigate he was returned to France. Charles had a daughter by a mistress he had met in Scotland during his ill-fated adventure but after the defeat at Culloden he was a broken man in every way, plagued by depression and began to drink heavily. During the Seven Years War (known in America as the French & Indian War) he was summoned to Paris to discuss his participation in a French invasion of Britain. Intoxicated and spiteful he did not react well to the grand promises of the French minister. He had heard it all before and saw what such promises were worth. France would not deal further with him and, as might have been expected, their planned 100,000-man invasion, never came off.

In 1766 his father died and the faithful few Jacobites proclaimed the prince King Charles III. However, this time there was no recognition of his title from the Pope. Most of the major powers in Europe viewed the Jacobite cause as lost and it was no longer in their interests to maintain recognition. In 1772 Charles married a Belgian princess with whom he moved to Italy. She began having an affair with an Italian artist and left the prince in 1780, claiming he had been abusive. The discarded, defeated and dispirited would-be King finally came to the end of his sad life in Rome on January 31, 1788. His remains are today buried in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican alongside his father and brother. Jacobite remnants continued on after his death but for all intents and purposes their struggle had been decided on the cold, damp ground at Culloden and it was the hope represented in the 1745 rising and the romantic image of the young prince come to reclaim the throne of his ancestors that captured public imagination. It is also, for obvious reasons, that image which most prefer to remember rather than the tragic fate of the man himself once known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”.

Cinematic Royal: David Niven

It was many years ago that I came across the movie “Bonnie Prince Charlie” starring David Niven in the title role. Unsuspecting innocent that I was, I thought, ‘what a great story for a movie, David Niven is a good actor, oh and look, Jack Hawkins is in it too and he’s been a lot of great movies, this must be a sure winner’. And as I bought it and walked out the store not one clerk was good enough to warn me that I had bought one of the most infamous stinkers in the history of British cinema (which is really saying something). I soon found out that “Bonnie Prince Charlie” is a ponderous, preachy, uneventful film full of actors I could barely understand and with all of the really important stuff happening off-screen. This is a movie about the 1745 uprising that manages to show only about a minute of one actual battle (Prestonpans I think). Even the climactic battle of Culloden is not shown -happens off screen.

Pretty much every character in this movie has no depth to them. Even the really good actors have nothing to work with to make their characters come alive. David Niven is a great actor, I’ve seen him in movies he was superb in, but he is totally miscast here as romantic royal hero. He’s too polite, too soft-spoken and too stiff. More importantly, he smiles too much. Way too much. So, my Dad is sending me to Scotland to launch a rebellion against the House of Hanover -smile. So the King of France didn’t send the troops and all I have is seven grizzled highland chiefs -smile. We’re fighting bloody battles with people being shot, stabbed, bayoneted and cut open with those massive Scottish claymores -smile. I’m on the run for my life with a bunch of bloodthirsty Germans on my trail -smile. It’s too much! Campaigns are being planned, battles fought or at least pondered and matters of life and death are dealt with and all the while Niven’s grinning like an idiot. I don’t know what they were going for but it just looks silly and unrealistic.

Refraining from comments on the overall movie is hard but with Niven’s portrayal of Prince Charles, it is simply impossible to get emotionally involved in his character when all he does is grin and go into the occasional wooden sad mood. It is hard to get emotional about the uprising when we never see battles being fought and it is hard to get too involved in his flight from persecution when we never really see any persecution. There were great cruelties visited on the Scots by the Duke of Cumberland in the aftermath of the ‘45 but all we ever see is occasional Hanoverian rudeness. The movie, is very much, a movie about the idealistic vision of the Bonnie Prince Charlie. Most know he was far from being a saintly, inspirational figure all the time, but even given what the film is and the effort to make the prince as sympathetic as possible the audience simply cannot conjure up much emotion for a character who does not show much emotion himself.

This film was made in the aftermath of World War II and the “bad guys” are pretty much German rather than British, still I doubt many Hanoverian sympathizers will appreciate it. They are portrayed as the enemy and yet are not even given the satisfaction of watching the final Jacobite defeat with the only portion of a battle being shown being, naturally, a Jacobite victory. Die-hard Jacobites may find the film at least tolerable since it is very much from the Stuart point of view but despite the great costumes, stunning locations and so on it is simply a dud of a movie and the portrayal of Prince Charles is so remote and almost other-worldly that one does not feel to have any better understanding of him after watching the movie. Perhaps one day a film will be made that is worthy of the dramatic story of the last Jacobite rising but, unfortunately, this is definitely not it and thankfully the part of Bonnie Prince Charlie will not be the role David Niven is most remembered for.

Last Bow of the Jacobites

Today marks the anniversary of the last battle fought on British soil; the battle of Culloden moor in the north of Scotland in 1746. It was the last battle in the fight to restore the Stuarts to the British throne and is generally remembered as the last charge of the highland clans. It is often forgotten that the 45 Uprising was a fight for the whole of the British Isles and the Jacobite army included men from England, Scotland and Ireland while the Hanoverian army included many foreign mercenaries from Europe. However, the battle does hold a special significance for Scotland, especially given the atrocities that happened afterward and the suppression of Scottish culture that followed. It was the end of the old, traditional system of organization and loyalties of the highland clans. It many ways it was the end of an era, the last of the old and the first of the new when it came to both tactics and politics. Men fought for the Stuarts for personal reasons, men fought for the Hanoverians for political reasons. It was a victory for modernity, for the current form of the parliamentary monarchy and in a way a victory of reason over romance. It was also the end of the Jacobites as a viable group of opposition. When revolution came to North America many former Jacobites fought for King George III against the republican revolutionaries.
I would hope that enough good grace is left in Great Britain to show tolerance and kindness to the vanquished in that last British civil war. With the battle of Culloden the Jacobites were finished and everyone, deep down, knew it. Henry Cardinal York seemingly endorsed the house of Hanover in the person of King George III and so, given all of that, I would ask the modern-day Hanoverians not to be too hard on the modern-day Jacobites and let them keep their vision and their ideals as it is all they have left. Every Jacobite I have ever met supports the British monarchy, they know that the Duke of Bavaria is never going to press his claim and they would rather have any monarchy rather than the nightmarish lie that a British republic would be. They simply want their history and traditions treated with the dignity they deserve for it was very noble ideals and principles that those men who charged across the moor at Culloden were fighting for; legitimate royal authority, loyalty to their rightful king, their ancient traditions and rights and de-centralized over centralized government.
Who can say what would have happened if they had won? I would like to think that the monarchy would be stronger, the succession out of political hands, parliament would understand that they answer to the Crown and the Crown does not answer to them and maybe the Sovereign would veto something once and a while (like the EU agreements that threaten UK independence). Maybe things would have not reached the point of no return with Ireland but of course no one can know that for sure. Just in case it is though, and just out of respect for what those wild highlanders at Culloden were fighting for their memory should be honored.