But neither Charles nor George Murray possessed that at the time. ItвЂ™s always easy to deride or blame people for wrong decisions when you have the benefit of hindsight. But even thinking this, I cannot paint Lord George Murray as the villain of the piece.

IвЂ™ve stated in a previous blog that the prince wanted to carry on, and my reasons for believing that if he had, he had a very good chance of regaining the crown for his father. But it was at this council meeting that the whole issue exploded, resulting in the retreat of the army, just 120 miles from London, to Scotland and ultimate catastrophic defeat on Culloden Moor the following April. ItвЂ™s often thought that this is where everything went wrong, but in fairness the chiefs and Lord George had already manifestly demonstrated their unease about this invasion of England, which had been deepened by the lack of active support from the English. The Marquis DвЂ™Eguilles, sent as an envoy from King Louis XVДЄt this point Prince Charles called another council meeting, to discuss the strategy for carrying on to London. Reluctantly the clan chiefs agreed to continue south, raising some 300 recruits on arriving in Manchester before continuing to Derby. When they raised this in the council meetings, Prince Charles brought forward the Marquis DвЂ™Eguilles, sent by Louis XV and promising French support. The Jacobites continued southward, but were not encouraged by the singular lack of any significant English support.

Prince Charles asked Lord George to withdraw his resignation, and Perth accepted a demotion, which now made Lord George the sole commander of the army. James Stuart, father of Bonnie Prince CharlieД¬harles had asked the Duke of Perth to negotiate because heвЂ™d played a huge part in laying siege to the city, but as the clan leaders had faith only in Lord George as their military leader, his resignation was catastrophic. In truth this was highly unlikely, but fear of Popery was prevalent in the UK and anything that hinted of it would be exploited by the enemy. The Duke of Perth was a Catholic, and allowing him to accept the surrender of the first English town conquered would give a massive propaganda boost to the Hanoverians, whose chief argument against the restoration of the Stuarts was that King James would force Protestant Britain to become Roman Catholic and bow to the Pope. If this sounds at first to be a case of resentment at another leader being favoured over him, it wasnвЂ™t. He did this because Prince Charles allowed the other army commander, the Duke of Perth to negotiate the surrender of Carlisle. The army had hardly crossed into England before Lord George resigned his commission as Lieutenant-General.

In my last post I dealt with the first part of the вЂ™45 and Lord George MurrayвЂ™s part in it, along with the split in the leadership caused by the incompatible personalities of Lord George and Prince Charles.

Clan lord tide and time