About this Event
When Bonnie Prince Charlie's Jacobite Army arrived in Perth on September 3rd 1745, they were little more than a disorganised rabble of less than two thousand Highlanders with no military experience. By the time they left a week later, they had been transformed into a reasonably disciplined army which a few days later inflicted a decisive defeat on Sir John Cope's British Army at Prestonpans.
How was this metamorphosis achieved? How did the Prince succeed in recruiting his army’s two Lieutenant Generals, Lord George Murray and the Duke of Perth, as well as a number of other leading members of the Perthshire nobility, during his stay? How, in short, did the town of Perth become the unlikely Crucible of the Rising of 1745?
These questions will be addressed by seeing Perth as the Jacobites saw it, in a walking tour starting and ending at the Salutation Inn, where the Prince and his senior officers dined during their stay, and walking up the river path to North Inch where the Jacobite soldiers were encamped and drilled.
The tour will also consider why Prince Charlie and his men received a rather cool reception in Perth by considering what happened when his father James stayed there 30 years earlier during the Rising of 1715, and go back even further to the Gowrie Conspiracy of 1600 when his ancestor James VI was embroiled in the murky affair of the Gowrie Conspiracy, which ended with the deaths of the 3rd Earl of Gowrie and his younger brother Alexander Ruthven.
Join us in "Jacobite Perth: Crucible of a Revolution. A Healthy Walk through History", telling the story of what happened in Perth during a cathartic moment in the history of Perth and the wider history of Scotland and Great Britain.
The guide is Michael Nevin, who served as Chair of the 1745 Association SCIO and is the author of 'Reminiscences of a Jacobite'. Videos of his Jacobite Trilogy, 'Remembering Dunkeld' (2019, 27 mins), 'When Madame de Pompadour met Bonnie Prince Charlie' (2021, 24 mins) and 'John Roy Stuart' (2022, 32 mins), can be seen on YouTube.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Salutation Hotel, 30-34 South Street, Perth, United Kingdom
GBP 10.00
