15. Bonnie Prince Charlie Should Have Never Been Called “Bonnie”
“Bonnie Prince Charlie”, birth name Charles Edward Stuart (1720 – 1788), is one of history’s most highly romanticized figures. A grandson of Britain’s last Catholic monarch, the exiled King James II, Charles was the last serious Stuart Dynasty claimant to the British throne. Stuart supporters, known as Jacobites, frequently rose up in arms against Britain’s new ruling dynasty, the Hanoverians. The last such rebellion in 1745-1746, led by Charles himself as a young man in his mid-twenties, culminated in catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.
Bonnie Prince Charlie’s dramatic escape afterwards cemented him as a romantic figure of heroic failure. However, while thousands eagerly risked and willingly gave their lives for him, Charles probably deserved neither their admiration nor sacrifice. The popular perception of what the prince was actually like is highly inaccurate. The real life Charles Edward Stuart, as opposed to the romanticized Bonnie Prince Charlie, was not a nice guy. He was often a pretty seedy and slimy man. As seen below, he was known for his grace and charm as a youth, but that only masked many dark facets of his personality.
