On 23rd July 1745 Prince Charles Edward Stuart, son of James ‘The Old Pretender’ landed on the Isle of Eriskay off the west coast of Scotland. This was the start of the ‘Forty-Five’ Jacobite Rebellion. The following events culminated in the last major battle to be fought on British soil… Culloden.
| 1688 | Nov | ‘The Glorious Revolution‘. Following the invasion from Holland by William of Orange, James II, the Catholic King of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, flees to France. | |
| 1689 | 27 July | Battle of Killliekrankie. Supporters of James II, the Jacobites, led by Viscount Dundee defeat a Protestant Covenanter army. | |
| 21 Aug | Jacobites attempt a rising at Dunkeld, Scotland. | ||
| 1690 | 1 July | William of Orange defeats James II and his Jacobite supporters at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland. | |
| 1691 | 12 July | Irish Jacobites defeated at the Battle of Aughrim. | |
| Aug | William of Orange offers a pardon to all Jacobites in the Scottish Highlands who swear allegiance by year-end. | ||
| 1692 | Jan | King William III issues an order to discipline the Highland Scots. | |
| 13 Feb | The Glencoe Massacre. After the MacDonald chief was late talking his oath to King William, members of the Campbell clan killed 38 members of the MacDonald clan at Glencoe. | ||
| 1696 | Feb | A Jacobite plot to murder King William III was uncovered. | |
| March | Jacobite invasion scare. | ||
| 1701 | 12 June | Act of Settlement passed by Parliament, ensured that if William III and Princess Anne (later Queen Anne) should die without heirs, the succession to the throne should pass to Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James I, and to her heirs, if they were Protestants. The house of Hanover, which ruled Great Britain from 1714, owes its claim to this act. | |
| 6 Sept | Death of the deposed James II. Louis XIV of France recognises his son as James III, later known as the ‘Old Pretender’. | ||
| 1708 | 23 March | A French naval squadron attempted unsuccessfully to land the Old Pretender on the Firth of Forth near Edinburgh. | |
| 1715 | 6 Sept | Start of ‘the Fifteen’. Following the accession of King George I, a Jacobite rebellion started in Braemar in Scotland. | |
| 13 Nov | The Scottish Jacobites were defeated at the Battle of Sheriffmuir. | ||
| 14 Nov | A Scottish and English Jacobite force was defeated near Preston in northwest England. | ||
| 22 Dec | The Old Pretender lands at Peterhead in northeast Scotland, joining Jacobites at Perth before returning to France on 4 Feb 1716. | ||
| 1722 | 24 Sept | The Atterbury Plot. The Bishop of Rochester, Francis Atterbury, a Jacobite leader was arrested and later exiled. | |
| 1745 | 23 July | Start of the ‘Forty-Five’. Prince Charles Edward, son of James and also known as the ‘Young Pretender’ , landed on Eriskay Island off the west coast of Scotland. | |
| 19 Aug | With support from some of the Catholic MacDonalds, Charles ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ was able to gather his men at Glenfinnan. There the standard was raised and his father was proclaimed King James III and VIII. | ||
| 11 Sept | Jacobites capture Edinburgh. | ||
| 21 Sept | Jacobites defeat a British force at the Batlle of Prestonpans and move south into England. | ||
| 4 Dec | Jacobites reach Derby, just 150 miles from London. Due to lack of support Lord George Murray and the other chiefs advise Charles to return to Scotland and wait for French help. | ||
| 18 Dec | Arguably the last ‘battle’ to take place on English soil, the Clifton Moor Skirmish saw the retreating Jacobites meet the Duke of Cumberland’s forces at Clifton in Penrith. Twelve Jacobites and fourteen of the Duke’s men were killed, with the English being buried in the Clifton churchyard and the Scots under an oak tree (known locally as the Rebel Tree), where a plaque still remains. | ||
| 1746 | 17 Jan | Back in Scotland the Jacobites fail to capture Stirling Castle, but then defeat General Henry Hawley’s army at the Battle of Falkirk Muir. | |
| 18 Feb | Withdrawing ever further north, the Jacobites capture Inverness. They stay there for 2 months. Meanwhile a government army, led by the king’s younger son, Prince William Duke of Cumberland, was catching them up. | ||
| 16 April | Against the advice of his chiefs, Charles lined up the Jacobite army – hungry and tired – on the flat moor of Culloden. It was to be the last major battle fought on British soil. In less than an hour Cumberland’s cannon destroyed the military threat of Jacobitism. | ||
| 20 Sept | Charles fled Culloden Moor with a reward of £30,000 on his head and after many adventures, he eventually escaped on a ship to France. | ||
| 1766 | 1st Jan | Death of the Old Pretender. | |
| 1788 | 31 Jan | Death of the Young Pretender. | |
| 1807 | 13 July | Death of Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, younger brother of the Young Pretender and the last Stuart in the male line. | |
