Bonnie Prince Charlie wore tartan to woo the Scots

Blackleaf

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For many, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ has always symbolised the romantic Scottish rebel, the 'Young Pretender' whose defeat at the bloody Battle of Culloden in 1746 effectively ended the Jacobite Uprising.

But a new exhibition at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival seeks to debunk the “shortbread tin image” of the ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart.

A tartan frock coat said to have belonged to Charles is on display for the first time, and sheds new light on his attempts to fit in with the Scottish clans...

The Scottish Pretender? 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' wore tartan to woo the Scots



A tartan frock coat said to have belonged to Bonnie Prince Charles will be on display for the first time Credit: National Museum of Scotland


Flora Carr
30 July 2017
The Telegraph

For many, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ has always symbolised the romantic Scottish rebel, the 'Young Pretender' whose defeat at the bloody Battle of Culloden in 1746 effectively ended the Jacobite Uprising.

But a new exhibition at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival seeks to debunk the “shortbread tin image” of the ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart.

A tartan frock coat said to have belonged to Charles is on display for the first time, and sheds new light on his attempts to fit in with the Scottish clans.


Bonnie Prince Charlie Entering the Ballroom at Holyroodhouse (John Pettie, 1892)

Charles was born in exile in Rome on New Year's Eve 1720, and spent most of his life in mainland Europe, only returning to his native Scotland for less than 14 months in total. When he finally arrived in 1745, he had to be reminded of Scottish customs.

“The Duke of Perth, a Jacobite supporter, reminded Charles that he should wear tartan because this was the traditional garb of a highland chief,” said David Forsyth, curator of the ‘Bonnie Prince Charles and the Jacobites’ exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland.

The tartan coat is made from silk velvet, linen and wool, and Charles is thought to have worn it in order to look like and impress the local clan chiefs.


The coat is made of silk velvet, linen and wool, and needed 160 hours of conservation work Credit: National Museum of Scotland

“We start the collection by confronting the visitor with the almost shortbread tin image of Charles Edward Stuart, but then very quickly look at the complexity of the Jacobite story,” said Forsyth.

It took 160 hours of careful conservation work to restore the coat, including a cleaning process to bring out the vibrant reds and greens in the tartan. The coat was also missing its buttons, a fact that actually helps link it to the Bonnie Prince.


The Jacobites were decisively defeated by Government forces at the Battle of Culloden on 16th April 1746

“As Charles was running around Scotland after Culloden, he was giving stuff away as keepsakes, so the missing buttons would fit with that,” a museum spokesperson said.

A mysterious family with direct links to the 1745 Jacobite rising, and whose identity can’t be revealed, bequeathed the coat to the museum in 1979.

Interest in the Bonnie Prince has been bolstered by the success of Outlander, the time-travel TV series set during the Jacobite Uprising, and based on the best-selling books by Diana Gabaldon.


The "Outlander effect" should generate interest in the exhibition during Edinburgh Fringe Festival Credit: Ed Miller

The museum has embraced the “Outlander effect”, and invited actor Andrew Gower, who played Charles in the TV series, to a private viewing.

“Outlander brought the story of Charles Edward Stuart and the Jacobites to even wider international audiences. It will certainly drive US visitors to the exhibition,” Forsyth told The Telegraph.

‘Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites’ is the biggest exhibition on the subject in 70 years. There are 350 items in total on display, including paintings, medals, documents and weapons. A third of the items are from private collections, and many have never been seen in Britain, including a golden chalice that once belonged to Charles’s younger brother Henry, a Roman Catholic Cardinal.

Inlaid with 130 diamonds, the York Chalice is on loan from the Vatican Collection and has never left Rome before. The chalice and the tartan coat are both centrepieces of the exhibition, which runs until November 12th.

Tickets for the exhibition are £10 and can be bought on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival website or at the National Museum of Scotland.

The Scottish Pretender? 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' wore tartan to woo the Scots
 
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Curious Cdn

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Feb 22, 2015
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He certainly wooded my clan, all through the alliance between them and the Stuarts was centuries older than that with Charlie.
 

Curious Cdn

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Feb 22, 2015
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How does it feel to be on the losing side?

Oh, we won, big time. We were banished to places like Canada where we were given opportunities that we would never have had in Scotland. The Scots have thrived in North America ... not so much in Scotland.

I have some friends whose Scots forbearers were banished to what the English thought was a pestilent island full of cannibals that turned out to be... Barbados!

Not bad, eh? Exiled to paradise!
 

Blackleaf

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Oh, we won, big time.

No, you didn't. You lost. At Culloden in 1746.
We were banished to places like Canada where we were given opportunities that we would never have had in Scotland.

Like what?
The Scots have thrived in North America ... not so much in Scotland.

The Scots have thrived ever since they entered into union with England in 1707.

I have some friends whose Scots forbearers were banished to what the English thought was a pestilent island full of cannibals that turned out to be... Barbados!

Barbados was nothing more than a pestilent island full of cannibals, albeit with a bit of sunshine.

Not bad, eh? Exiled to paradise!

What's paradisic about living on a diseased-ridden island full of cannibals and working as slave labour?
 

Curious Cdn

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Feb 22, 2015
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No, you didn't. You lost. At Culloden in 1746.

Like what?


The Scots have thrived ever since they entered into union with England in 1707.



Barbados was nothing more than a pestilent island full of cannibals, albeit with a bit of sunshine.



What's paradisic about living on a diseased-ridden island full of cannibals and working as slave labour?

No disease or cannibals in Barbados, just poorly educated magistrates in England.They became planters and did rather well.

The Scots have thrived in their Union with the Saxons so well that half of them want the hell out.
 

Blackleaf

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No disease or cannibals in Barbados

Come off it. The people of the Caribbean were rabid cannibals, so much so that the Spanish even called the people "Caribes" - cannibals.

just poorly educated magistrates in England.They became planters and did rather well.
Most of them were slave labourers.

The Scots have thrived in their Union with the Saxons
Yes, they have. Scotland, a poor, impoverished place before union, became rich and wealthy after union, getting access to England's burgeoning money-creating empire. All those statues to the great Scottish empire-builders in Edinburgh is one proof of that.

so well that half of them want the hell out.
I still suspect the ungrateful bastards would still gladly accept the annual £10 billion annual English subsidy which goes to Scotland and all their lovely freebies like free medical prescriptions, free care for the elderly, free university tuition, free hospital car parking, all things which are denied to the English yet it's the English who pay for them.
 

Curious Cdn

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I still suspect the ungrateful bastards would still gladly accept the annual £10 billion annual English subsidy which goes to Scotland and all their lovely freebies like free medical prescriptions, free care for the elderly, free university tuition, free hospital car parking, all things which are denied to the English yet it's the English who pay for them.

I guess that they haven't done so well in your union after all if they need a subsidy from England.
 

Blackleaf

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I still suspect the ungrateful bastards would still gladly accept the annual £10 billion annual English subsidy which goes to Scotland and all their lovely freebies like free medical prescriptions, free care for the elderly, free university tuition, free hospital car parking, all things which are denied to the English yet it's the English who pay for them.

I guess that they haven't done so well in your union after all if they need a subsidy from England.

Do they need it or are they just greedy?

Scots get £1,500 more per head of public spending than the English even though Scotland is richer than most of the nine English regions (I think the only two English regions richer than Scotland are the South East and London). And yet the wealthy Scots have more public spending than poorer regions of England like the North West.
 

DaSleeper

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May 27, 2007
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Northern Ontario,
For many, ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ has always symbolised the romantic Scottish rebel, the 'Young Pretender' whose defeat at the bloody Battle of Culloden in 1746 effectively ended the Jacobite Uprising.

But a new exhibition at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival seeks to debunk the “shortbread tin image” of the ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’, Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart.

A tartan frock coat said to have belonged to Charles is on display for the first time, and sheds new light on his attempts to fit in with the Scottish clans...



The Scottish Pretender? 'Bonnie Prince Charlie' wore tartan to woo the Scots



<trimmed for brevity>



Troudeau did the same thing to woo the mooslims....









Absolute hypocrisy