12. The man known to history as Bonnie Prince Charlie
The elder of James Edward’s two sons, Charles Edward was destined to spend most of his life as an exile. Charles was a firm believer in the divine right of kings, as well as in his family’s claim to be the rightful heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Charles’ grandfather had been James the II and VII, and in the view of the young prince the removal of his grandfather from the throne and the installation of William and Mary as monarch’s was an affront to the laws of god and divine intercession. Charles was a Catholic, having spent his youth being educated in the Papal States while his father was in exile under the patronage of the popes, and his connection with Catholicism is one reason that the Jacobite Cause remained linked with the Catholic religion long after it vanished from the British political scene. In fact the majority of the Jacobite supporters were members of Protestant sects, half were Episcopalian alone.
Prince Charles was an observer in the Mediterranean conflicts when France began planning its 1744 invasion of Britain, during which it was to rely on Jacobite support, and he joined the expedition to command French troops following the landings. When that expedition was thwarted due to the Channel storms which wrecked the invasion fleet, the haughty young prince connected himself with another, smaller invasion of Scotland, which if successful in gaining popular support would be supplanted by another French invasion force. Named Prince Regent by his father in 1743, which gave Charles the authority to act on James Edward’s behalf in all matters, Charles moved to assemble a force to return to the Scottish Highlands and rally the Jacobite factions to remove the usurper Hanoverians and restore the rightful king as ordained by God to the throne.