By Hamish MacPherson
BACK IN THE DAY
1746, Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie, The Young Pretender) (1720 - 1788) being sheltered, after his defeat at Culloden, by highlanders who are on their knees before him. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). THERE were 269 years and five months between the two greatest chances to break the Union. Had Prince Charles Edward Stuart and the Jacobites won the Battle of Culloden, then he might have listened to those many advisers who had urged him to stay in Edinburgh the previous year and proclaim the end of the Union. The Duke of Cumberland (below) and the Hanoverian government army won the day, however, and the Union survived, strengthened by the many Scots who sided with the government and set the scene for the establishment and growth of the British Empire, in which many Scots played a huge part. The next opportunity to end the Union was on September 18, 2014.