Antiques: Raise a ‘traitor’ glass to the Pretender

Charles Edward Stuart's attempt at glory began when he arrived from France in August, 1745 and routed government troops at Prestonpans, east of Edinburgh, in September. He captured Carlisle in November but failed to find widespread support in England and retreated back to Scotland the following month.

Then, on April 16, 1746, the flower of the highlands was laid low at Culloden Moor and the great Jacobite dream was over. In just 40 minutes of fighting, the vastly superior army of Prince William, Duke of Cumberland (1721-1765), cut to ribbons the half-starved clansmen. The Young Pretender was reported to have been drinking before the battle and took no part in it. He was whisked away when the first cannon was fired and even his closest supporters had had enough, with the chief of his bodyguard, Lord Elcho (1721-1787), cursing him for "a damned Italian coward".

The defeated Scots suffered fearful reprisals, with hundreds of clansmen massacred, estates ravaged, homes looted and burnt and rebels either transported or hanged. After months on the run, the Prince escaped to France...thanks to one of the most romantic characters in Scottish history, 24 year old Flora MacDonald.

After crisscrossing Scotland and the Outer Hebrides, sleeping rough, while consuming a bottle of brandy a day, he befriended Flora on South Uist. She disguised him as a sewing maid, her part in his escape to Skye immortalised in a Jacobite adaptation of The Skye Boat Song and its famous first verse:

Speed, bonnie boat,

like a bird on the wing,

Onward! the sailors cry,

Carry the lad that's born to be King,

Over the sea to Skye.

Initially he was warmly welcomed home but, distraught at the heavy price Highlanders paid for backing him and unable to convince France to launch a new assault, he became ever more reliant on the bottle and was expelled from France two years later. He took numerous lovers, visited London two or three times, had a daughter, Charlotte, by his mistress, whom he created Duchess of Albany, and died in Rome in 1788, aged 67.

Now a rare collection of six Jacobite "traitor" glasses is expected to fetch tens of thousands of pounds at a two-day Hawleys auction at Beverley Racecourse today and tomorrow (Saturday and Sunday). Supporters used such glasses to toast Bonnie Prince Charlie, even though it was deemed an act of treason after Culloden, punishable by death.

Auctioneer Caroline Hawley says: "These glasses, bearing secret codes and messages of loyalty, are exceptional and there will be global interest in them from museums, collectors and historians as they tell a story of one of the most turbulent and significant times in our history."

The six glasses, offered as one lot, were originally owned by Scottish Jacobite authority Dr Geoffrey Seddon, author of The Jacobites and their Drinking Glasses, and which he sold at auction 17 years ago.

Anything relating to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite cause attracts considerable attention. At Christie's in London in 2000, a trumpet-shaped "Amen" glass, symbol of the Jacobite dream, fetched £34, 500. Amen glasses acquired their name because they contained a verse which ending with the word Amen. This particular example carried four lines of the Jacobite version of the National Anthem, with the king, if course, referring to Bonnie Prince Charlie:

Send Him Victorious

Happy and Glorious

Soon to Reign Over Us

God Save The King.

In the same year, an 1891 painting of Bonnie Prince Charlie bidding farewell to Flora MacDonald fetched £61, 000 at Sotheby's, Glasgow. The painting, by Irish artist George William Joy, was shown on packets and tins of Walker's shortbread. And in 1999, a lost oak armchair in which Bonnie Prince Charlie rested on the way to meet his destiny at Culloden was bought at Sotheby's for £6,900 by a descendant of the original owner.

[email protected]