A walking cane long-thought to have belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie could fetch a five-figure sum when it is auctioned off next week.

The cane is thought to have been given as a gift by Charles Edward Stuart to a French noble family, who presented it in 1909 to Alfred William Cox.

Mr Cox’s descendants are selling the cane, which was exhibited at the Cambridge Guildhall in 1911.

The cane has an inlaid steel head with compressed gold inlaid pommel, with a British crown above the initials “CE”.

It has been valued by auctioneers Lyon and Turnbull at between £10,000 and £20,000, and will go under the hammer on Wednesday August 12 in Edinburgh.

Colin Fraser, consultant specialist at the Scottish works of art and whisky auction, said: “It is remarkable to consider this cane’s long history.

“When it was exhibited in 1911, it was recorded as having been ‘used by Prince Charles when he was at the French court, and was presented by him to a French nobleman, in whose family it has remained until a few years ago, when it was presented by the present holder of the title to the lender’.”

Mr Cox came from a long line of successful Scottish jute merchants and factory owners working in Dundee and Liverpool.

Rome-born Charles was an exiled Jacobite who tried to claim the British throne.

But at the Battle of Culloden in April 1746 his forces were overrun and he was hunted as a fugitive until he escaped to France five months later.