“Mild measures will not do,” he wrote to Newcastle.

When leaving the North in July, he said: 

“All the good we have done is but a little blood-letting, which has only weakened the madness, but not at all cured it; and I tremble to fear that this vile spot may still be the ruin of this island and of our family.”

Such was the famous battle of Culloden, fought in 1746, and putting a final end to the hopes of all the Stuarts.  As to Cumberland’s order for “No quarter,” if any apology can be made for such brutality, it must be found in the fact that the Highland chiefs had on their side agreed to spare no captured enemy.

The battle has also left a name commonly given to the nine of diamonds, which is called “the curse of Scotland,” because it is said that on that card Cumberland wrote his bloodthirsty order.

Such, in brief, was the story of Prince Charlie’s gallant attempt to restore the kingdom of his ancestors.  Even when defeated, he would not at once leave Scotland.  A French squadron appeared off the coast near Edinburgh.  It had been sent to bring him troops and a large supply of money, but he turned his back upon it and made his way into the Highlands on foot, closely pursued by English soldiers and Lowland spies.

This part of his career is in reality the most romantic of all.  He was hunted closely, almost as by hounds.  For weeks he had only such sleep as he could snatch during short periods of safety, and there were times when his pursuers came within an inch of capturing him.  But never in his life were his spirits so high.

It was a sort of life that he had never seen before, climbing the mighty rocks, and listening to the thunder of the cataracts, among which he often slept, with only one faithful follower to guard him.  The story of his escape is almost incredible, but he laughed and drank and rolled upon the grass when he was free from care.  He hobnobbed with the most suspicious-looking caterans, with whom he drank the smoky brew of the North, and lived as he might on fish and onions and bacon and wild fowl, with an appetite such as he had never known at the luxurious court of Versailles or St.-Germain.

After the battle of Culloden the prince would have been captured had not a Scottish girl named Flora Macdonald met him, caused him to be dressed in the clothes of her waiting-maid, and thus got him off to the Isle of Skye.

There for a time it was impossible to follow him; and there the two lived almost alone together.  Such a proximity could not fail to stir the romantic feeling of one who was both a youth and a prince.  On the other hand, no thought of love-making seems to have entered Flora’s mind.  If, however, we read Campbell’s narrative very closely we can see that Prince Charles made every advance consistent with a delicate remembrance of her sex and services.