A piece of public art above a pend next to Boots Chemists now celebrates what was arguably one of the most significant events in Peterhead's history.
On 21 August 1715 George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal and his younger brother James, loyal and ardent Jacobites, proclaimed James Francis Stuart, the Old Pretender, as James V111, rightful king of Scotland at the Tolbooth, then situated near what is now the site of the Townhouse close to the statue of Field Marshall Keith in Broad Street. Nearby Proclamation Pend commemorates this historic event, one of several proclamations in the North-east which along with the raising of the Standard of James V111 at
Braemar by the Earl of Mar on 6 September was effectively the start of the 1715
Jacobite campaign. Four months later, on the night of 22 December 1715, too
late to offer leadership in the campaign Stuart himself landed at Peterhead.
The Jacobite campaign was short lived and so disastrous that on 4 February 1716 Prince James Francis Stewart, left
Scotland from Montrose, two days before the Jacobite troops were disbanded.
