Battle of Culloden

It was a decision which eventually turned out to be a disaster, because it led to their bloody and inglorious defeat at Culloden - the last military battle ever to be fought on British soil.

With the capital in panic at the thought of a Jacobite advance, the prince was determined to press on to try and secure the British throne for his father, the exiled would be James VIII. However, his chief lieutenants knew that victory would be no easy matter. As the prince's forces had marched south, they had not secured territory behind them.
Two of the king's most formidable military commanders, General George Wade and the Duke of Cumberland, were in pursuit and London itself had a large militia of loyalist troops ready to take the prince on. The sensible thing to do, it seemed, was to pull back. Charles sullenly agreed and, on December 6, 1745, the retreat started.

On his way north, the Scots fought off an attack at Clifton, in the Lake District and left 400 men to garrison the castle in Carlisle.
On Christmas day, Charles reached Glasgow and found he had huge problems picking up support for his cause. The city was strongly pro-government, and hundreds of its men were fighting on the Hanoverian side against him. Reluctantly - and probably more to get rid of him than anything - Glaswegians did provide Charles with provisions to refit his army, which left 10 days later. By now, Edinburgh had been reclaimed for the king by General Henry Hawley and the Jacobites knew that a showdown was in prospect. Reinforced by the arrival of a further 4000 troops, they finally came face to face with Hawley's forces at Falkirk.
The battle was a disaster for the Hanoverians. They lost ten times as many men as the prince - 400 to 40 - with most of the government forces fleeing the field and leaving behind their artillery and baggage.
Victory at Falkirk, combined with the fact that still more troops and supplies were arriving from France and elsewhere, bolstered the Jacobite army. With government forces continuing to press against him and with the clan chiefs insisting on returning to the Highlands, however, the only way Charles could realistically go was north. He tried and failed to seize Stirling Castle before arriving in Inverness and taking the town on February 18. Fort Augustus succumbed in March, though Fort William held out. By now, there was another problem: the able Duke of Cumberland was in pursuit of the Jacobite forces along with an army of 9000 men. A seasoned and intelligent military strategist - and son of the King - Cumberland would not make the sort of tactical mistake which had allowed the Jacobites to win the battles of Prestonpans and Falkirk.
By April 14, Cumberland was in Nairn, while the prince's army was only 10 miles west at Drummossie. Charles's Quartermaster General, John William O'Sullivan, decided that the best approach was to try and catch the Hanoverian forces by surprise. The Pretender's troops, by then tired out and hungry, marched to Nairn, only to find Cumberland's forces awake - they were celebrating their leaders 25th birthday. The Highlanders were then forced to trudge back to Drummossie, where they arrived, exhausted and demoralised, just after dawn.
Unknown to them, however, word had reached Cumberland that the enemy forces had tried to pounce on him. Knowing full well how tired and hungry the Jacobites were, he decided to attack them when they were at their weakest.
The two sides finally faced each other at Drummossie Moor, better known as Culloden, in a howling, freezing gale, on Wednesday, April 16, 1746. It was, as the prince's general Lord George Murray observed, a hopeless place to fight a Highland battle.
For the first time during the entire campaign, Charles decided to take personal command of his troops. He was outnumbered from the start - his 5000, ill shod, untrained and hungry men stood against nearly double the number of well fed, well equipped Hanoverians. Cumberland positioned his men, who were only about 400 yards away from the Jacobites, in two lines. The first was expected to break when the Highlanders attacked, but the second was carefully laid out three deep to provide massive and continuous firepower.

The battle began with an artillery barrage by the Hanoverian forces. It lasted only a few minutes, but cut down many of the prince's men before they had a chance to charge. When the charge finally came, despite all Cumberland's carefully prepared positions, the fierce Highlanders still managed to break through the Hanoverian left flank. It was not enough to overcome the disadvantages of inferior firepower and sheer weight of numbers.
The battle was over in less than an hour and some 750 of the Jacobites lay dead, while only about 360 Hanoverians had been killed.
Cumberland had proved to be an astute commander during the
battle - but the aftermath earned him the notorious nickname of "Butcher" and ensured that his name would be forever tarnished north of the border.
Determined to stamp the king's authority on a rebellious people, he let loose his soldiers in slaughter. The wounded were murdered where they lay and any prisoners were shot. A group of men found in a local barn, for instance, were simply locked in and left to burn to death.
In all, some 450 people, including innocent bystanders and women and children, are reckoned to have been slaughtered after the battle.
Some Jacobites were luckier - if you could call it that.
They were taken to Inverness, where they were put into jail, churches and even ships. There, many died of their wounds or of the cold. The government was determined to make an example of the leaders of the rebellion.
Some - among then Lord Lovat, who had not even been involved at the battle at Culloden - were tried and executed. Others were imprisoned for life.

For Bonnie Prince Charlie, however, there was to be no such ignominy.
The flower of the Stewarts had fled the battlefield of Culloden before the fighting had even finished. The hero of the Jacobite rising had become the most wanted man in Britain, with a price on his head that the English imagined would be too large for Scots to turn down.