The Battle of Culloden was the decisive battle of the Jacobite rising of 1745 and the last pitched battle fought on British soil. The battle saw the Jacobite cause suffer a crushing defeat, forcing Prince Charles Edward Stuart to go into exile in France for the rest of his life.
The defeat at Fontenoy had left Britain dangerously exposed to French invasion. In 1745, Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), who claimed the English and Scottish thrones through his grandfather James II (who had been deposed by William III), landed in Scotland with French support to raise a revolt aimed at restoring the Stuart dynasty. Meeting with great initial success, Charles led his supporters (Jacobites) as far south as Derby in England before turning back to Scotland. At Culloden Moor, east of Inverness, the Jacobite army was brought to bay by a superior force under the Duke of Cumberland. Charles' allies, the Scottish Highland chieftains, had counseled a tactical retreat, but he ingored them. Poor morale, shortage of provisions, desertions, and an inequality of arms between the Highlanders' swords and the government soldiers' muskets and bayonets meant that, for all the bravery of the Jacobite army, the battle turned into slaughter. Cumberland had trained his soldiers well; they had spent the summer perfecting their new bayonet drill and the use of the broadsword. Within an hour the Jacobite center and right collapsed and Charles' army fled; worse losses were prevented only by a vigorous rearguard screening action by two squadrons of cavalry. With the defeat at Culloden, the Jacobite cause collapsed and five months later Charles fled to France, disguised as a lady's maid.