Bonnie Prince Charlie in London, 1750

Years after Culloden, in the despondent London fog,

the fat, failed, drunken Stuart indulged his ancestral 

homeland with an unbidden visit.

The Young Pretender arrived incognito,

false eyebrows and all,

and claimed the capital as his

beneath his breath.

Reported at the Palace, the even fatter king.

George II, merely pondered when Charlie

would be bored of London and leave.

Poor Prince of unwelcome, no-one stared

in awe except the ravens at the Tower

who had another agenda with him.

They cawed caustically at the has been royal,

reminding him they had once been a god's

dark honour guard.

Remembering his place, Prince Charlie

muttered a snatch of Gaelic, a smattering of Welsh

against the birds,

whether a curse, prayer or promise,

then turned to the Thames

and swam back to France.