Loch Arkaig treasure

[3] In April 1746, the Mars and Bellona ships arrived in Scotland with 1,200,000 livres (another Spanish instalment, plus a large French supplement).

Six caskets (one having been stolen by McDonald[6] of Barrisdale's men) were brought to Loch Arkaig (just north of Fort William) and hidden.

Cluny is believed to have retained control of it, and during his long years as a fugitive was at the centre of various futile plots to finance another uprising.

However, whilst staying secretly at Brenachyle by Loch Katrine, he was betrayed (apparently by the notorious "Pickle", a Hanoverian spy) and arrested.

He was charged under the Act of Attainder for his part in the 1745 uprising and sentenced to death, being drawn and then hanged on 7 June 1753, at Tyburn[12] (the last Jacobite to be executed).

However, the Stuarts' papers (now in the possession of King Charles III) record a host of claims, counter-claims and accusations among the Highland chiefs and Jacobites in exile, as to the fate of the monies.

The historian Andrew Lang (who was one of the first people to research the papers since Walter Scott secured them for the crown) recorded, in his book Pickle the Spy (1897),[13] the sordid tale, and the involvement of both the prince and his father in trying to locate the monies.