It is commonly said that if Prince Charles Edward Stuart had spent a night in every house which he is reputed to have stayed in, he would have spent several years in this country rather than just one. Those who wish to find out where he did go can now be satisfied. The author, who has previously written two similar, and well received, volumes on Wallace and Bruce, has travelled by motorcycle over every mile of Charles’s route, visiting 79 sites from Stornoway to Derby. The resulting book shows both his enthusiasm for his subject and the care which he has taken, for instance in describing the way to reach the more problematical sites, in pointing out those which are on private property, and in drawing attention to popular errors (such as that on “Cannonball House” in Edinburgh, the object in question is not a cannonball from 1745 but a marker showing the maximum height of the local water supply). It must be admitted that not every detail of his own can be depended on: for example, the Duke of Cumberland certainly did not blow up Invergarry House with dynamite. While his account of the events of the Rising is informative, he admits in the foreword that he has not attempted to explain its background, for which he refers readers to a short (perhaps too short) bibliography.
Several useful, but not very detailed, maps show both the Prince’s itinerary and the location of each site featured. Fervent Hanoverians can console themselves with the thought that Cumberland made a point, whenever possible, of staying in the same places that Charles had. The accounts of the principal battles are accompanied by rather schematic sketchmaps. The full‐page illustrations, taken from nineteenth‐century prints, are not well enough reproduced to do them full justice, but the numerous line drawings of particular sites are better. This moderately priced and popularly written guidebook can be recommended both to readers wishing to learn about a period of our history which attracts perennial interest, and to travellers in Scotland and Northern England who like to know the historical significance of the places through which they pass.
