It is quite an interesting quirk of history that one of the most enduring stages in the career of Bonnie Prince Charlie is the time after his greatest failure at the battle of Culloden. For many people, Prince Charlie's Jacobite uprising in 1745 was always doomed to failure, yet the person of the Prince has remained a romantic figure throughout history.

Maybe the writing was already on the wall when we realise that his father, James Francis Edward Stuart, was ridiculed as a bogus heir from the moment of his birth. The famous lullaby, "Rock a bye baby on a tree top" was in fact coined to highlight these doubts. They claimed James had been smuggled into his mother's bedroom in a warming pan but was not her real son.

When Bonnie Prince Charlie was born in 1720, the 1715 Jacobite rebellion had already proved a failure and, by 1740, many of the rich and powerful in Scottish society where beginning to consider their future prosperity as lying within the recent Union of Scotland and England. It was the concern over this trend of accepting the Union which acted as one spur in the move towards the '45 rebellion.

So what is about Charles Stuart - Bonnie Prince Charlie - which has insured that he remains a well known and well loved figure in Scottish history despite his claim to fame being confined to one year (1745/46) in the unfolding scroll of Scottish history?

Perhaps his reputation as "the Young Chavalier" gives us one clue. Despite his sometimes abrupt and egotistical nature, his daring and handsome appearance seems to have captured the romantic in many of us. Some historians have referred to his "unfailing courage and cheerfulness" as he pursued his cause in the face of the daunting prospect of the Hanovarian war machine. For some, Charlie is seen as a tragic figure at the battle of Culloden as he watched with tears in his eyes as the battle turned to a massacre. Another survivor of the battle, Lord Elcho, however, saw things differently when he is reported as claiming that Charlie fled the scene to save his own life and accused the prince of being "a damned cowardly Italian".

It was when Prince Charlie was on the run after the battle that he is seen at his most romantic. With a reward of £30,000 on his head he evaded capture and betrayal. His encounter with Flora McDonald adds to the romance as he was dressed as Flora's maid, Betty Burke, and smuggled back to the mainland. He slept rough in the heather and in shepherds' bothies and, when he returned to the continent, he continued for a time to seek new alliances.

Yes, his death in 1788 as a drunken shadow of his former self is a sad end to this romantic hero. But perhaps it is better to have tried and failed than to have never tired in the first place.