April 16th 1746: the Battle of Culloden, the last battle fought on British soil.

April 16th 2025: the ghost of John Roy Stuart, poet, partisan and Colonel of the Jacobite Edinburgh Regiment, returns to Scotland to recall his life, times and final battle.

He tells the story in his own words, translated from Gaelic into English. In his story, John Roy remembers the people whom he met on his journey through life and gives his account of what happened on the fateful day of April 16th 1746. He recalls his great friendship with Lady Christian Macintosh to whom he dedicated a beautiful lament; his encounters with his friend Lord Lovat; his romantic life; his exile and his return to Scotland in 1745. He concludes his story with an account of the Night March on Nairn, the dispute he had on the morning of April 16th with Lord George Murray, the final denouement on Drumossie Moor later the same day, and his escape to France on board the ‘Heureux’ with Prince Charles. “Great are the depths of my sorrow as I mourn for the wounds of my land.”

John Roy tells his story at the Dublin Fox Tavern in Dublin Street, Edinburgh, in The Old Fox's Den, named in honour of Simon Fraser, Lord Lovat, the last man to be tried by his peers in the House of Lords and the last to be publicly beheaded on Tower Hill on April 9th 1747, who was known as The Old Fox.

Words by John Roy Stuart; Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat; William Neill; Christian Souchon; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and Andrew Lang.

About 'John Roy Stuart'. John Roy was a warrior, partisan and poet. Just a dozen of his poems survive - all but one originally composed in Scots Gaelic, less than 1,000 lines in total. Yet they cover many human experiences and emotions:joy, grief, despair, and recovery; hope and fear; and love in its many forms. John Roy was a cosmopolitan figure who travelled widely, for many years living in forced exile. He spoke seven languages, including French, Spanish and Portuguese, as well as English and his native Gaelic. Detailed analysis of historic accounts of the Battle of Culloden indicate a distinct possibility, if not probability, that it was he who led the final Highland Charge into the guns of the enemy on April 16th 1746. His passions, loves, loyalty, integrity, and undoubted courage embody the spirit and - an old-fashioned word, but one which seems appropriate in the case of John Roy - the very soul of the Gaels, making him the worthy Bard of Culloden and perhaps the whole of Scotland.