11.08
On this date in 1745 Charles Edward Stuart invaded England with an army of 5000 that would later participate in the Battle of Culloden (April 16, 1746). Born on December 31, 1720 and commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or The Young Pretender, he was the second Jacobite pretender to the throne of Great Britain. This claim was as the eldest son of James Francis Edward Stuart, himself the son of King James II. Charles is perhaps best known as the instigator of the unsuccessful Jacobite Uprising of 1745, in which he led an insurrection to restore an absolute monarchy in Britain, which ended in defeat at the Battle of Culloden that effectively ended the Jacobite cause. Charles’s flight from Scotland after the uprising has rendered him a romantic figure of heroic failure in later representations. In 1759 he was involved in a French plan to invade the British Isles which was abandoned following British naval victories. He died on January 31, 1788 and is buried at St. Peters Basilica in Rome, Italy.
