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Main article: The 'Forty-Five'
In December 1743, Charles' father named him Prince Regent, giving him full authority to act in his name. Eighteen months later he led a rising to restore his father to his thrones. Charles raised funds to fit out two ships; the
Elisabeth, an old man-of-war of sixty-six guns and a small frigate of sixteen guns named the
Doutelle (le
Du Teillay) which successfully landed him with seven companions at
Eriskay on
July 23, 1745. Charles had hoped for support from a French fleet, but this was badly damaged by storms, and he was left to raise an army in Scotland.
The
Jacobite cause was still supported by many
Highland clans, both
Catholic and
Protestant, and the Catholic Charles hoped for a warm welcome from these clans to start an insurgency by Jacobites throughout Britain, but there was no immediate response. Charles raised his father's standard at
Glenfinnan and there raised a large enough force to enable him to march on the city of
Edinburgh, which quickly surrendered. On
21 September 1745 he defeated the only government army in Scotland at the
Battle of Prestonpans, and by November was marching south at the head of around 6,000 men. Having taken
Carlisle, Charles' army progressed as far as
Derby. Here, despite the objections of the Prince, the decision was taken by his council to return to Scotland, largely because of the almost complete lack of the support from English Jacobites that Charles had promised. By now he was pursued by the
King George II's son, the
Duke of Cumberland, who caught up with him at the
Battle of Culloden on
16 April 1746.
Ignoring the advice of his best commander, Lord George Murray, Charles chose to fight on flat, open, marshy ground where his forces would be exposed to superior British firepower. Charles commanded his army from a position behind his lines, where he could not see what was happening. Hoping that Cumberland's army would attack first, he had his men stand exposed to Hanoverian artillery for twenty minutes before finally ordering an attack. The Jacobite attack, charging into the teeth of murderous musket fire and
grapeshot fired from the cannons, was uncoordinated and met little success. Only in one place did a group of Jacobites break through the bayonets of the redcoats, but they were shot down by a second line of soldiers, and the survivors fled. Cumberland's troops committed numerous atrocities as they hunted for the defeated Jacobite soldiers, earning him the title "the Butcher" from the Highlanders. Lord Murray managed to lead a group of Jacobites to Ruthven, intending to continue the fight. However Charles, believing himself betrayed, had decided to abandon the Jacobite cause.
Bonnie Prince Charlie's subsequent flight has become the stuff of legend, and is commemorated in the popular folk song "
The Skye Boat Song" (lyrics 1884, tune traditional) and also the old Irish song
Bímse Buan ar Buairt Gach Ló by Seán Clárach. Assisted by loyal supporters such as
Flora MacDonald who helped him escape pursuers on the
Isle of Skye by taking him in a small boat disguised as her Irish maid, "Betty Burke", he evaded capture and left the country aboard the French frigate
L'Heureux, arriving back in France in September. The cause of the Stuarts being lost, the remainder of his life was — with a brief exception — spent in exile.
