Josh Gates Hunts For Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Lost Gold | Expedition Unknown

tales of treasure inspire writers dreamers  and adventurers but the greatest treasures shape the fate of nations the  lost gold of Scotland is one such fortune six chests containing an estimated  35,000 gold coins today’s value tens of millions of dollars the gold was meant to  fund the Jacobite uprising of 1745 led by Prince Charles Edward Stewart a Scottish  rebellion against [Music] England but the treasure arrives too late the war is  [Music] lost the fleeing rebels bury the gold somewhere in the Scottish Highlands  more than 250 years later it’s still missing now a worldclass historian has  a groundbreaking lead unexplored ruins matching accounts of where the gold was hidden and  a famous explorer has discovered a map pinpointing a lost hideout that may conceal a treasure  so is the fabled fortune real or just the stuff of legend i’m heading to the Highlands  to dig up the truth behind Scotland’s rebel

gold i’m here to meet Gregor Ewing a leading  expert on the lost rebel gold and the prince at the center of the legend okay so let’s talk  kind of basics here who is this guy who is Bonnie Prince Charlie well he was a young guy he was 25  years old right and he picked up that nickname when he was in Edinburgh and the girls saw him  and said “Well look at that Bonnie Prince.” And there’s a good looking guy thereafter the  name stuck so who is he in their family so what happened was that James II who was Bonnie  Prince Charlie’s grandfather was chased from the throne of the UK okay so this uprising is  like a real life Game of Thrones but with way more characters and fewer dragons so buckle up  it’s 1603 and Scotland and England unite under this guy James Stewart King of Scots the throne  passes to his son Charles I but being king kind

of goes to his head which promptly gets lpped  off and things only go downhill from there his son Charles II is a king in name only and this  dude Oliver Cromwell aka Tywin Lannister from Game of Thrones holds the real power charles  II dies suddenly some say he’s poisoned which is like the number one way to kill kings for some  reason and his brother James II takes the throne james here may have a heavy metal wig but he’s  also a Catholic which means the Church of England isn’t exactly a fan so in 1688 they give him the  boot and he’s shipped off to France see you later have fun enjoy the quasants supporters of the  exiled king calling themselves Jacobites launch a series of failed rebellions fast forward to  1745 and here’s where our guy comes in bonnie Prince Charlie yay he’s the grandson of the exiled  king and he sails from France back to Scotland to

mount a final effort to reclaim his family throne  oh and don’t worry there won’t be a quiz later so he comes over here and what is he packing does  he have an army with him he arrives in one single boat with just seven followers so we’ve got a guy  here who’s going to invade the UK with just seven followers either he’s crazy or he’s a man with a  plan he has a plan he’s been communicating with the Highland chiefs the Highland chiefs still  view the Stewarts as the rightful monarchs of Scotland many of these clan chiefs feel that the  English are stripping away Scottish rights so they rally behind Bonnie Prince Charlie who they’re  convinced will be a better king for Scotland there is an army and they march quickly they  take the first big town they come to Perth they take Edinburgh the capital of Scotland they take  Edinburgh wow okay so he’s doing great he’s doing

great keeps pressing forward and gets to as far  as Derby he’s 150 mi from London so he’s on the doorstep of the throne really yeah they’re on the  doorstep and that’s as far as the island chiefs are going to go prince Charlie promises the clan  chiefs that they’ll have financial and military support from the French an arrangement he’d made  while still in exile but the crucial aid has yet to arrive so instead of pressing forward Charlie  is forced to retreat the rebels withdraw all the way to Inesse with the British in pursuit  they face off at the brutal battle of Colad [Music] decimated by a bigger better equipped  army 1,500 Highlanders fall in less than an hour the uprising is crushed prince  Charlie and his troops flee for their lives hunted by the British Charlie spends six months  on the run crisscrossing the western islands and

somehow managing to elude capture in a game of  cat-and- mouse through the remote frontiers of the Scottish Highlands the sheep’s heap where  we’re sitting right now allegedly Bonnie Prince Charlie stayed the night here look at this this  is him so Charlie was here possibly where we’re sitting right now so I followed the story up  in Lock Arcade in the in the Highlands now many people believe the gold was there do you  think it was there i believe it was there it was passed into the hands of Cloney McFersonen  so who is Clooney McFersonson clooney McFerson is the right-hand man the most trusted military  general of the Jacobite uprising so he’s one of Charlie’s big supporters he’s Charlie’s best  friend what does McFersonson do with the gold he’s on the run just like many other Highlanders  under British rule Clooney McFersonson is stripped of his land his castle and his heritage clooney  and Prince Charlie end up hiding out together

charlie eventually escapes to France leading the  gold with Clooney for safekeeping the treasure is never seen again chris carefully unveils a rare  gem from the museum’s collection an interlocking map of the Central Highlands from 1783 and I want  you to have a look at the same area do you see anything missing on this map yes the cave there’s  no mention of it it’s not on here it’s not there right the whole western side of the lock is just  blank so then I want you to have a look on the opposite bank of the lock on the eastern side  yep you can see trees down here right but look at the tiny letters between the trees read that  out place where CS hid himself 1746 think about CS what might that mean charles Stewart on the  button it’s literally on the opposite side of the lock and the year is right 1746 absolutely that’s  charming you’re looking at a treasure map Josh

we scour the area for the place where CS  hid and Clint watched over the gold oh look at this [Music] this is not natural nature  doesn’t make rectangles that’s a foundation we might be the first people out here since  it was built we followed a series of clues to where it was marked on the map at Prince Charlie  Head and right here we found the foundations of an unmapped McFersonen cottage that’s incredible  it’s quite remarkable if this is the foundation of Clooney’s cage we just solved a 250y old  mystery to sniff out any traces of the treasure Clooney was protecting emil sets up a series of  probes that will send electrical pulses into the ground enabling us to see whatever lies below  we push this button here by measuring the time it takes the current to travel between each probe  he can build a virtual image of soil disturbances

and reveal any anomalies buried beneath our  feet all right Emil you’ve electrocuted the ground what did it tell us it tells us that we  have a very thin layer of soil okay so how much soil before you hit bedrock probably about 2  ft so if somebody dug a pit here and buried something it’s probably fairly shallow very  shallow any interesting potential targets i would say in front of the house where the soil  looks a bit more turned over just about 8 ft from the wall and I think that’s where we should  take the metal detector and start detecting okay oh my goodness it’s a coin it’s not a  coin look at it that is a coin it’s not look it’s a button i’m telling you that’s  a coin you’re right you’re right that’s a button do you see that little strap of  green it’s copper that’s what they made

their buttons with that is a copper jackabite  button that’s a significant find the idea that somebody was walking around they were  wearing this hundreds of years ago this is incredible what you’ve discovered already  is probably going to inspire a field study of this cottage for sure it’s not a gold coin but  that’s a little piece of history right there ashley will continue to investigate what  very well may have been Clooney and Prince Charlie’s hideout we leave confident that  we’ve unearthed part of a secret rebel network shining a light on a dark period  of Scottish history by arriving too late to save the rebellion the gold altered the fate  of Scotland forever unleashing years of hardship forced to abandon their ancestral land for  brighter prospects in the new world today more people of Scottish heritage live  in the United States than in Scotland prince Charlie died in exile in France but his  name and his rebellion are far from forgotten