The intention is to create a fully transcribed library of all the books or memoirs written by the participants in the 1745-6 Jacobite Rebellion. These books are delivered in a unique format with links to any and all information I have found (including place name resolution using my map of the Jacobite Rebellion). These links are automatically populated by my Historical Timeline software.

All of these books are out of copyright and transcribed (some are only scanned) by me. You are free to do with them whatever you wish. They tell a story of the lives of ordinary people - a people that went on to populate and create great nations such as Canada, Australia, and America among others. In reading their story, you may be reading your own. Also try the NEW List of Rebels database which is now completed from the SHS publication A List of persons concerned in the Rebellion transmitted to the Commissioners of Excise by the several supervisors in Scotland in obedience to a general letter of the 7th May 1746; and a supplementary list with evidences to prove the same. With a preface by the Earl of Rosebery and annotations by Walter MacLeod (1890). This database is in the process of being augmented with data from Arnot and Seton's SHS publication Prisoners of the '45 published in 1928.

Dave Waddell

January 9th, 2010

P.S. I personally want to thank the Scottish History Society (SHS) for bringing so many of these publications to light since 1887. I also want to thank and the for making so much of our rich history available. For help with reading 18th Century texts see our reference page.

Act for a company trading to Africa and the Indies, 26 June 1695
Act of Settlement, 1701
Act of Union, 1707

Edward Linn of the Royal North British Fuziliers.

Donald Mackay of Acmonie, Glen Urquhart – Jacobite volunteer soldier.

Donald Campbell of Airds, Highland officer with the Government army.

A Relic of the "Forty Five" from the diary of James Miller of the Manchester Regiment.

March of the Highland Army from the Day Book of James Stuart.

Coming soon:

Letters to the Laird of Stonywood and A letter to the Right Honourable the E---l of T---q---r (Earl of Traquair).

Extracts from the diary of the reverend John Bisset.

Coming soon are Cordara's History of the expedition, and The Trial of Archibald Stewart Esq; Lord Provost of Edinburgh. Last month I was able to read the, almost impossible to find, A Jacobite Miscellany by Henrietta Tayler produced by the Roxburghe Club in 1948.

Ship's Log of the DuTeillay.

Itinerary of Prince Charles Edward Stuart from his landing in Scotland July 1745 to his departure in September 1746. By Robert Forbes, Walter Biggar Blaikie (WBB). Corrected in W.B. BLAIKIE, The first news that reached Edinburgh of the landing of Prince Charles, 1745, in: SHR 23, 1926, p. 161-170.

Also by WBB is Origins of the 'Forty-Five.

The greatest collection of Jacobite memories in The Lyon in Mourning Volume One,Two, and Three by Robert Forbes.

Also by Robert Forbes is Jacobite Memoirs of the Rebellion of 1745.

The Lockhart papers - Volumes One and Two.

Henry Fielding's pamphlet (published in October 1745 shortly after the government defeat at the Battle of Prestonpans) is called The History of the Present Rebellion In Scotland.

The Memorials of John Murray of Broughton: sometime secretary to Prince Charles.

Narrative by John Mackenzie, LORD MACLEOD eldest son of the Earl of Cromartie.

David, Lord Elcho's A Short Account of the Affairs of Scotland in the years 1744, 1745, and 1746 (with maps [larger download]).

Neil MacEachen's narrative.

James Maxwell of Kirconnell's narrative.

Chevalier de Johnstone's memoirs volume One (I also have Two and Three but they're less relevant to the story dealing with Johnstone's escape to the continent and his subsequent life in Canada).

This is the story of the Highlander's greatest weapon - the basket-hilted broadsword - commonly known as an Andrew Ferrara.

Prince Charlie's Pilot Donald MacLeod - The Faithful Palinurus.

Dalilea manuscript.

The Plundering of Cullen House by the Rebels.

The Siege of Blair Castle by Lord George Murray.

The very difficult to find Young Juba by M. Michell (pseudonym for Michael [Michel, Michele] Vizazi [Vizzosi]- Charles' valet) is in progress.

Mémoire d'un Écossais by Donald "The Gentle Lochiel" Cameron, XIX Chief of Clan Cameron,
April 1747.

From the French periodical Revue rétrospective Volume 3 Jul-Déc 1885 is the letters sent by the marquis d’Eguilles, sometimes known as the French Ambassador - Correspondance inédite du marquis d’Eguilles. He was arrested after the Battle of Culloden and was under parole first in Inverness then Carlisle and finally returning home via Berwick, Newcastle, and Flessingue in Holland with a prisoner exchange in May 1747. He sorely missed his family and friends and wrote prolifically about the rebellion and the conditions afterwards.

A compleat history of the rebellion, From its first Rise, in 1745, To its total Suppression at the glorious Battle of Culloden, in April, 1746 by James Ray of Whitehaven.

THE JACOBITE REBELLIONS (1689-1746) by J. PRINGLE THOMSON, M.A.

Dougal Graham (b. 1724 d. July 20, 1779), Glasgow's Skellat Bellman, travelled with Prince Charles' army and was the first to publish an account (advertised in the Glasgow Courant of September 29, 1746) at great risk to himself. His collected works in two volumes (One and Two) contain An Impartial Account of the Rise, Progress, and Extinction of the late Rebellion. This work is in meter and was published in at least twenty editions between 1746 and 1828. Sir Walter Scott put a lot of worth on Dougal's work and thought of editing it for the Bannatyne Club. This is the Ninth Edition dated 1812. Regrettably, there may be no copies of the all important 1st Edition (or the 2nd) left in existence.

Andrew Henderson, The Edinburgh History of the late Rebellion, 4th edition (1752).

Coming soon, Historical Papers Relating to the Jacobite Period 1699-1750. Edited By COLONEL JAMES ALLARDYCE Volumes One and Two.

This is the transcription of the 1802 John Home The History of the Rebellion in 1745.

James Dennistoun Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange Knt., engraver and of his brother Andrew Lumisden Volume One and Two.

Jacobite correspondence of the Atholl family: during the rebellion, M.DCC.XLV-M.DCC.XLVI.

Important events leading up to the forty-five were:

• The Elopement of Princess Sobieska to marry the Old Chevalier.
• The Siege of Edinburgh Castle in 1689. Also recounted in this edition of Siege of Edinburgh Castle of 1689 by the Ballantyne Club.
• Most important were the Darien Scheme, the Porteus Riots, the Malt Tax, the Glencoe Massacre, and the Union of the Crowns (and Acts of Union 1707). All of these events, and more, can be read in THE JACOBITE REBELLIONS (1689-1746) by J. PRINGLE THOMSON.
• The Darién Scheme run by the Company of Scotland and set up by Bank of England founder William Paterson on 26 June 1695.

Although not a memoir, Scotland's Road of Romance paints an excellent picture of the Highlands and the places involved in the '45, so I have included it.

Coming soon will be all of the transcribed reports from the London Gazette, and the Caledonian Mercury, over the period of the 1745-6 rebellion. Here is the London Gazette Extraordinary of April 23, 1746 first announcing the defeat at Culloden and officially from the London Gazette of April 26, 1746.

The Scots magazine, Volume 8 March 1746

William Shenstone's (English poet, gardener and collector b.1714 d.1763 ) ballad of Jemmy Dawson.

Bonnie Prince Charlie in Cumberland - J.A. Wheatley (1903)

The Book of the Old Edinburgh Club Volume II from 1909 contains three interesting articles:

Edinburgh at the time of the Occupation of Prince Charles

... the Cannonball House

... the Flodden Wall and its pullout map.

The Ascanius Blog contains all of the versions available online of Ascanius; or, theYoung Adventurer - Book One and Book Two and Alexis; or, the Young Adventurer. Finally, the 64-page pamphlet that started it all in December 1746 Ascanius; or, the Young Adventurer marked G. Smith.

A Tale of Fontenoy by G. A. Henty.

Waverley, or ‘tis sixty years since by Sir Walter Scott.

The Moon Endureth by John Buchan.