Glenfinnan Monument ***

Region: Fort William, Ben Nevis & Lochaber

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Description:

The Glenfinnan Monument stands at the head of Loch Shiel and was erected in 1815 by Alexander MacDonald of Glenaladale as a tribute to the loyal Jacobites who rallied behind Bonnie Prince Charlie in his attempt to regain the British crown for the Stuarts in the 1745 uprising. 

Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his Standard at Glenfinnan on 19^th August 1745 with the loyal support of Highland chiefs and clans of MacDonalds (including Clanranald, Morar and Keppoch) and Camerons of Lochiel and the ‘Seven Men of Moidart’.  The raising of the Standard marked support for the declaration  of 1743 proclaiming  Charles’s father as James VIII as the King of Scotland, England and Ireland and Charles Edward Stuart as his prince regent. 

This ceremony took place on a rocky knoll, 300 metres north of the Monument in the hills behind Glenfinnan Church.  An inscription carved into the rock marks the spot.

By 1815 the Jacobite threat had receded sufficiently into history to allow the erection at Glenfinnan of a monument to mark the raising of the standard, paid for by the wealthy descendant of a Jacobite.