Jacobite Rising of 1745

Charles Edward Stuart landed in the western Highlands in 1745 and secured enough clan support to raise a Jacobite army. The force captured Edinburgh and defeated a government army at Prestonpans before advancing through England as far as Derby.

The Jacobite leadership withdrew to Scotland when broader English and French support failed to materialise. Government forces under the Duke of Cumberland pursued the army north and defeated it at Culloden in April 1746.

The defeat was followed by executions, forfeitures and measures intended to weaken Highland military and social structures. This context supports Walter Scott’s Waverley, “The Highland Widow” and other fiction about Charles Edward Stuart, clan loyalty and the transformation of post-Culloden Scotland.