The Catholic Jacobite Cause
James II's exile by the Protestant William and Mary of Orange following the revolution of 1688 sparked the birth of the Catholic Jacobite movement to restore the Catholic Stuarts to the English throne. James II's son, Charles Edward Stuart, was born in Rome in 1720 and carried on the Jacobite struggle.
In 1744, without the backing from Louis XV of France that had been promised to him, Charles Edward Stuart pawned his jewels and borrowed money to buy arms and landed in Scotland - where he roused the Catholic Scottish chieftains and entered Edinburgh in triumph.
He then crossed into England where he found no Catholic rising to join him. At Derby, Charles was advised to turn back -- which he did -- with the English forces, led by the king's son, the Duke Cumberland, in hot pursuit.
The final confrontation took place at Culloden Moor. Charles fled, disguising himself as a serving wench to a Highland girl, Flora MacDonald -- one of many who helped the fugitive prince -- and he finally arrived back in France where he lived off the legend of his youth -- the Bonnie Prince Charlie -- until he died in 1788.
Charles Edward Stuart's brother, a Roman Catholic cardinal, paid no attention to the remaining Jacobite exiles who now called him Henry IX of England. By then, France was heading towards a revolution of its own that would depose the monarchy altogether and execute its unpopular king and queen and their children.
Nevertheless, the romance of the incredible adventures of Bonnie Prince Charlie continued to grow over the generations -- among both Protestants and Catholics -- to the extent that in 1819 George IV raised a monument in Frascati Cathedral to the Stuart exiles.
In 1744, without the backing from Louis XV of France that had been promised to him, Charles Edward Stuart pawned his jewels and borrowed money to buy arms and landed in Scotland - where he roused the Catholic Scottish chieftains and entered Edinburgh in triumph.
He then crossed into England where he found no Catholic rising to join him. At Derby, Charles was advised to turn back -- which he did -- with the English forces, led by the king's son, the Duke Cumberland, in hot pursuit.
The final confrontation took place at Culloden Moor. Charles fled, disguising himself as a serving wench to a Highland girl, Flora MacDonald -- one of many who helped the fugitive prince -- and he finally arrived back in France where he lived off the legend of his youth -- the Bonnie Prince Charlie -- until he died in 1788.
Charles Edward Stuart's brother, a Roman Catholic cardinal, paid no attention to the remaining Jacobite exiles who now called him Henry IX of England. By then, France was heading towards a revolution of its own that would depose the monarchy altogether and execute its unpopular king and queen and their children.
Nevertheless, the romance of the incredible adventures of Bonnie Prince Charlie continued to grow over the generations -- among both Protestants and Catholics -- to the extent that in 1819 George IV raised a monument in Frascati Cathedral to the Stuart exiles.
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