Charles Edward Stuart's Targe

[artificer]

Steve,

in the notes of Amelia Murray MacGregor from the bound collection of MacLeay's illustrations for Queen Victoria (The Highlanders of Scotland) the targe is described as follows:

pg20 "Ewan MacPherson... he stands 6 feet 2 and carries the Target made in France for Prince Charles Edward before he came to Scotland, and presented after Culloden to Cluny's Ancestor."
... "The targe is now in the Royal Scottish Museum in Edinburgh."

pg55 "The target represented in the picture was carried by Prince Charles at Culloden. The two-handed sword was for two hundred years in the possession of the Frasers of Struy, the last of whom
bequeathed it to the present Cluny."

Whether or not it was truly TAKEN into battle, I could not say, but accounts place it at Culloden.

Of course the accounts COULD be apocryphal, just like how every old sporran is Rob Roy's and George Washington apparently slept EVERYWHERE.
But the notes are VERY detailed for each sitter and much of their clothing, down to how much they were reimbursed for travel and being away from their work/estates.

Interestingly enough there was a second one of these targes made, which was housed at Warwick Castle but destroyed by fire in 1871.

ith: