Seven men and a prince
On 19 July 1745, a small French frigate anchored off the island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides, and a young man of twenty-four stepped ashore on the white sand beach of Coilleag a' Phrionnsa — the Prince's Strand. He was Charles Edward Stuart, known to history as Bonnie Prince Charlie, grandson of the exiled King James VII and II. He had come to reclaim the British throne for the Stuart dynasty. He brought with him exactly seven companions.
The enterprise was, by any rational assessment, madness. Charles had arrived without the French army he had promised. He had no money to speak of, no artillery, and no supply chain. The Highland chiefs, upon whom he depended, had made it clear that they would not rise without French troops. When Charles landed on the Scottish mainland at Borrodale on Loch nan Uamh, he was met by MacDonald of Boisdale, who bluntly told him to go home. Charles reportedly replied: "I am come home, sir."
What followed defied all military logic. Charles's charisma, his absolute conviction in his cause, and the deep reservoir of Stuart loyalty in the Highlands combined to produce a rising that no one — least of all the British government — had expected. Cameron of Lochiel, the most influential chief in the western Highlands, initially refused to join but was persuaded by a personal meeting with the prince. Lochiel's commitment brought other clans with him. Within a month, Charles would raise the Royal Standard at Glenfinnan and begin a campaign that would take him to within 125 miles of London.
The beach on Eriskay where Charles first touched Scottish soil is still there — a crescent of white sand on the western shore of a small Hebridean island. The sea pink that is said to have grown from seeds Charles carried from France still blooms there. It is one of the most romantic and melancholy places in Scotland — the spot where the last great adventure of the Stuart cause began, and where the chain of events that led to Culloden, the Clearances, and the end of the Highland way of life was set in motion.