He is the “bonnie prince” of popular legend, celebrated in many songs and poems. Visit Scotland today, and you’ll find his green tartan-clad image everywhere, from T-shirts to shortbread tins, and his name on menu items from French Toast to Beef Wellington. You can even order a Bonnie Prince Charlie at the bar and enjoy a Scotch-based cocktail.

Yet, the beloved Prince lived most of his life outside of Scotland.

Quite the Looker

Prince Charles Edward Stuart was given the nickname of bonnie—the Scots word for pretty—for his boyish good looks. He was also known as “the Young Pretender” and “the Young Chevalier,” but those didn’t quite stick. The populace does love a handsome prince, after all.

He was the grandson of King James VII. Raised in exile in Rome, his desire for military success and belief in his family’s right to the throne led him to plan an invasion of England. And it was perhaps his charm and good looks that helped him sway the Highlanders to join him.

He landed in Scotland in 1745, raised an army and eventually advanced into England. But he and his troops were forced to retreat, and Charles was eventually stopped at the tragic Battle of Culloden in 1746. After Culloden, Flora MacDonald, a young Jacobite heroine, helped him escape over the sea to Skye, as the romantic “The Skye Boat Song” goes, when government troops were hunting him.

The tale of his escape is cemented into Scottish folklore, contemporary literature and entertainment.

Renewed Interest in the Prince

Some have claimed that we are living in the golden age of historical fiction—a sub-genre that sets an imagined story within the setting of a true event. Readers are increasingly drawn to these immersive and engaging stories as a way to learn about historical events, figures, and cultures. Among the most successful historical fantasy novels of recent times is Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series about a fictional tale of time travel and romance that begins in the era of the Jacobite Risings. So popular, in fact, the novels were made into a television series that is not in its seventh season.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, played by actor Andrew Gower, becomes a central figure, but not without some controversy. The showrunners decided to portray him as an ineffectual leader who ultimately led the Highlanders to their doom. Whichever way you land on this interpretation, one thing is certain: his legacy in Scotland is inescapable. 

Walk With Charlie in Edinburgh and Beyond

To walk in the footsteps of Charles, Edinburgh is a very good start. Two months after landing in the Outer Hebrides with just a handful of supporters to begin his campaign, he’d amassed sufficient Highland clansmen to be able to occupy Edinburgh and declare his father, James, the rightful king. It’s said that 60,000 cheering people lined the Royal Mile to welcome him. His men couldn’t capture Edinburgh Castle from government troops. Still, he set up court in Holyrood Palace and won his first significant victory over Hanoverian troops at the Battle of Preston Pans.

From the sublime to the tragic, you can visit the site of his demise on the battlefield of Culloden from the port of Invergordon. On the battlefield, stone cairns commemorate where the various clans fought and fell. Nearby is Urquhart Castle, destroyed by its own garrison to prevent the Prince’s forces from capturing it. Many glens and other places in the vicinity have associations with Bonnie Prince Charlie and Culloden’s grim aftermath.

Like Edinburgh, Portree and Skye are also very important to the story. Flora MacDonald helped the prince flee to Skye in a small boat—the prince was disguised as a maid named Betty Burke. On arrival on Skye, they hid overnight in a cottage and then made their way to Portree, where the Prince took a boat to the island of Raasay, eventually to be picked taken to France.