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Bonnie Prince Charlie Narrowly Escaped Assassination In Scotland In 1745, Musket Ball Hole Reveals

maximus otter

Recovering policeman
Joined
Aug 9, 2001
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It was a legend about an assassination attempt on Bonnie Prince Charlie that had been passed down over centuries, but had never been proven.

Now, a team of volunteers working in Bannockburn House have unearthed a musket ball hole that proves an attempt was made on the life of the Young Pretender during the Jacobite Rising of 1745 - after speaking to an 89-year-old man whose aunt worked as a housekeeper at the property.

Musket-ball.jpg


The house’s oral history traditions claimed that a musketball was fired at the prince through the window of the bedroom where he was sleeping and and lodged itself in the wall at the head of the bed.

However, this could never be proved, until a team of volunteers finally found the hole left by the musket ball under a secret panel in April.

The revelation has been announced by historians on the 279th anniversary of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s arrival on Scottish soil, to try to regain the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland on behalf of his father, James Stuart.

In January 1746, the prince took ill and convalesced at Bannockburn House at the behest of Sir Hugh Paterson, 3rd Baronet of Bannockburn, when the Jacobite army laid siege of Stirling Castle. During his time there, the Prince also met Sir Hugh’s niece, Clementina Walkinshaw, and the pair had a daughter, Charlotte, Duchess of Albany.

The bedroom where he stayed, located on the first floor’s west wing, is adorned with a delicate plaster frieze of mermaids and has multiple layers of ancient wooden panelling.

Trust volunteers Anne Monaghan and Anna Morrison, who had been searching for the hole, but did not know where to begin, arranged a visit with an 89-year-old Edinburgh resident, whose aunt was housekeeper for the last owner-in-residence, who provided the crucial lead.

https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-a...at-bannockburn-house-finally-answered-4712441

maximus otter
 
Am sitting in bed trying to work out the logistical possibility of shooting someone who is lying down, sleeping through a window of an upstairs room... You'd have to get above your target, surely? How tall was this potential assassin?
 
Am sitting in bed trying to work out the logistical possibility of shooting someone who is lying down, sleeping through a window of an upstairs room... You'd have to get above your target, surely? How tall was this potential assassin?

The gunman was an ancestor of Max.
 
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Actually, thinking about it, if they've found the bullet (musket) hole, then they ought to be able to work out the trajectory... if it turns out to have been a drunken idiot messing about in the room, where does that leave the legend?

I just can't see how anyone from outside a house would even attempt to shoot a sleeping person... Easier to wait until they wake up and stand up, surely? And even so, in an upstairs room, from the ground? With a musket?

Someone tell me how plausible this would be, please!
 
But they missed. Max never misses. It's practically a T shirt slogan.

:bpals:

Back to the reported attempted assassination:

a) Perhaps there’s been confusion over the different US/UK interpretation of “First floor.”

b) lf the UK usage has been followed, the suspect could well have used a trellis / tree / ornamental stonework to access a 1st-floor window.

c) Everyone’s throwing the word “musket” around; he might have been armed with a pistol or pistols instead. That, combined with a precarious perch and crappy 18th century quality control, might account for his poor aim.

d) The whole tale might be cobblers, starting with a hole in a panel and losing nothing in the retelling.

maximus otter
 
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Perhaps the 'assassin' merely fired-off a shot as a kind of forlorn protest, knowing all the while that there was little hope of hitting BPC.
 
Actually, thinking about it, if they've found the bullet (musket) hole, then they ought to be able to work out the trajectory... if it turns out to have been a drunken idiot messing about in the room, where does that leave the legend?

I just can't see how anyone from outside a house would even attempt to shoot a sleeping person... Easier to wait until they wake up and stand up, surely? And even so, in an upstairs room, from the ground? With a musket?

Someone tell me how plausible this would be, please!

:bpals:

Back to the reported attempted assassination:

a) Perhaps there’s been confusion over the different US/UK interpretation of “First floor.”

b) lf the UK usage has been followed, the suspect could well have used a trellis / tree / ornamental stonework to access a 1st-floor window.

c) Everyone’s throwing the word “musket” around; he might have been armed with a pistol or pistols instead. That, combined with a precarious perch and crappy 18th century quality control, might account for his poor aim.

d) The whole tale might be cobblers, starting with a hole in a panel at losing nothing in the retelling.

maximus otter
I expect the writer got the details of where the bedroom was from the historians involved with the house. I feel sure they could be relied upon to know the difference between the 1st and ground floor. If it was the Scotsman writer, I wouldn't be so sure..

I agree they probably climbed a tree or something. Fairly sure trees existed in 1745. :)
 
I expect the writer got the details of where the bedroom was from the historians involved with the house. I feel sure they could be relied upon to know the difference between the 1st and ground floor. If it was the Scotsman writer, I wouldn't be so sure..

I agree they probably climbed a tree or something. Fairly sure trees existed in 1745. :)
The trees may not have been tall enough because everything was shorter back then.
 
I'm still not convinced. From all I've ever read about eighteenth century firearms (which, admittedly isn't a lot), they weren't terribly accurate anyway. So we've got our assassin, possibly up a tree which is fortuitously close enough to BPCs bedroom to allow him to see inside - and yet he chooses to open fire when BPC is lying down? In a bed that likely has a footer as well as a header, thus rendering anyone in it totally invisible to anyone not actually suspended over his head? Unless BPC was sitting up in bed, which I can just about buy, and this person who is somehow magically level with the first floor with a not-terribly-accurate firearm and a direct line of sight into the room decides to fire -all the while knowing that being up the tree means that they won't stand a hope in hell of escaping...

A hot air balloon, a sniper rifle sent through from the twenty first century and an assassin from the Discworld's Assassin's Guild is more believable, quite honestly.
 
c) Everyone’s throwing the word “musket” around; he might have been armed with a pistol or pistols instead. That, combined with a precarious perch and crappy 18th century quality control, might account for his poor aim.

maximus otter

Some expert they had on the telly talking about said that based on the size of the hole it obviously came from a Brown Bess musket. This makes it sound like the hole is sharp and clear as in a cartoon of Tom or Wile E Coyote having gone through a wall. It isn't. So possibly someone saying more than the evidence can show.
 
I'm still not convinced. From all I've ever read about eighteenth century firearms (which, admittedly isn't a lot), they weren't terribly accurate anyway. So we've got our assassin, possibly up a tree which is fortuitously close enough to BPCs bedroom to allow him to see inside - and yet he chooses to open fire when BPC is lying down? In a bed that likely has a footer as well as a header, thus rendering anyone in it totally invisible to anyone not actually suspended over his head? Unless BPC was sitting up in bed, which I can just about buy, and this person who is somehow magically level with the first floor with a not-terribly-accurate firearm and a direct line of sight into the room decides to fire -all the while knowing that being up the tree means that they won't stand a hope in hell of escaping...

A hot air balloon, a sniper rifle sent through from the twenty first century and an assassin from the Discworld's Assassin's Guild is more believable, quite honestly.
Yes but can we attach much intelligence/forethought etc to a would be assassin? Surely it might simply have been a case of "I'm gonna kill BPC cos I hate him. Oh look he's asleep so now's my chance. Oh bugger I missed, I'm off"
 
I can believe someone stood on a ladder and took a shot at someone sleeping, before making a quick getaway. However even if the bullet had made a nice little hole, would the wood not have undergone some warping or similar in 200 years? If there is no bullet lodged in the hole, I doubt this proves anything.
 
I can believe someone stood on a ladder and took a shot at someone sleeping, before making a quick getaway. However even if the bullet had made a nice little hole, would the wood not have undergone some warping or similar in 200 years? If there is no bullet lodged in the hole, I doubt this proves anything.
And surely they can trace the trajectory? I've seen CSI, they do something with a pin and a bit of string - please tell me that's possible? Although from what I've seen of muskets, they basically just point and hope, so maybe not...

I'm still team 'someone mucking about in the room, gun goes off and they have to think of an excuse for the hole. What about the glass in the window? Any records of all the window glass having to be replaced? Or did the bullet (from the man up the ladder/tree) come through somewhere else? Or any records of someone being detained for an assassination attempt? You're not going to tell me he got down from that ladder/tree undetected and ran away into the night...?
 
It was the secret service agent whose job it was to protect BPC who was lying under the bed. He was unfamiliar with the new issue musket he had and it went off. This was an emarrassment to the secret service who invented the story of a lone musketeer on a ladder or near by grassy knoll no book repositories being nearby.

An alternative is that as BPC had an Italian background he had angered the Mafia who tried to assassinate him.
 
I'm still thinking about Prince Charlie looking through the 1st, 2nd & 3rd-floor windows and seeing only the legs and chest and head of the extremely tall assassin.
 
I'm still thinking about Prince Charlie looking through the 1st, 2nd & 3rd-floor windows and seeing only the legs and chest and head of the extremely tall assassin.
...and running up to the loft shouting 'quick, quick, I can see his face! Someone, get a sketch done so we can identify him, when he runs away on his very very long legs!'
 
I can believe someone stood on a ladder and took a shot at someone sleeping, before making a quick getaway. However even if the bullet had made a nice little hole, would the wood not have undergone some warping or similar in 200 years? If there is no bullet lodged in the hole, I doubt this proves anything.

There does seem to be what looks like lead...
 
isn't that Salem's Lot?

Don't remind me. :D
 
Musket ball would make a big hole but surely that would vary according the the distance it was fired from. I think I heard and saw tested somewhere that a BB musket could fire a tallow candle through a barn door. A pistol would be a better choice surely? Nice that someone thought "That's a mess. I'll stick a bit of ply over it."
 
And surely they can trace the trajectory? I've seen CSI, they do something with a pin and a bit of string - please tell me that's possible?

You’d need two fixed points, i.e. holes made by the bullet’s passage. Here we just have (a) The large “bullet” hole in the wall; and, (b) The window through which it presumably came.

maximus otter
 
You’d need two fixed points, i.e. holes made by the bullet’s passage. Here we just have (a) The large “bullet” hole in the wall; and, (b) The window through which it presumably came.

maximus otter
Oh that's disappointing. CSI has, once again, misled me.
 
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