At some point down the years Her Majesty the Queen must have pondered where she would have been had Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobite army not turned back at Derby in December 1745.

Such thoughts would have returned to her yesterday when she visited the National Trust for Scotland's (NTS) new £9.5m Culloden Battlefield visitor centre, outside Inverness.

Here it was that the Jacobite dream died on April 16, 1746, when over 1200 fell. Her line was secured on the throne, and the Duke of Cumberland and his troops exacted a most hellish price from those who had come out for the Jacobites.

The tales of unspeakable cruelty and near genocidal conduct of the government forces after the battle, are all too well known and are rehearsed by some every year at the anniversary of the battle.

Yet the romance lives on and apparently it was her majesty herself who had wanted to go to Culloden yesterday, the first monarch ever to do so, as NTS Culloden project coordinator Alexander Bennett confirmed. "This has been one of those really fantastic days that you dream about and it was at her behest," she said.

Indeed he said the Queen was extremely knowledgeable about the artifacts on display and that her lady-in-waiting had donated a small painted pendant of Bonnie Prince Charlie from her private collection as an invaluable addition.

Accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, she toured the exhibition and met staff who talked her through aspects of the state-of-the-art displays.

Kate Mavor, chief executive of the NTS, said it was a "fantastic privilege" to welcome the Queen at the attraction, and continued "What I'm delighted to hear from our staff today is how many people are coming out of the exhibition extremely moved."