Jacobitism

'The True Law of Free Monarchies;' James VI and I's political tract formed the basis of Stuart ideology

Jacobite ideology originated with James VI and I, first monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1603. Its basis was divine right, which claimed his authority came from God, and the crown's descent by indefeasible hereditary right: James and his supporters emphasised his right to the throne by blood to forestall controversy over his appointment by Elizabeth I as her successor.[4] Personal rule by the monarch eliminated the need for Parliaments, and required political and religious union, concepts widely unpopular in all three kingdoms.[5]

"Divine right" also clashed with Catholic allegiance to the Pope and with Protestant nonconformists, since both argued there was an authority above the king.[6] The 17th century belief that 'true religion' and 'good government' were one and the same meant disputes in one area fed into the other; Millenarianism and belief in the imminence of the Second Coming meant many Protestants viewed such issues as urgent and real.[7]

As the first step towards union, James began standardising religious practices between the churches of England, Scotland and Ireland. After his death in 1625, this was continued by his son Charles I, who lacked his political sensitivity; by the late 1630s, instituting Personal Rule in 1629, enforcing Laudian reforms on the Church of England, and ruling without Parliament led to a political crisis.[8] Similar measures in Scotland caused the 1639–1640 Bishops' Wars, and installation of a Covenanter government.[9]

Organised by a small group of Catholic nobility, the October 1641 Irish Rebellion was the cumulative effect of land confiscation, loss of political control, anti-Catholic measures and economic decline. Intended as a bloodless coup, its leaders quickly lost control, leading to atrocities on both sides.[10] In May, a Covenanter army landed in Ulster to support Scots settlers; although Charles and Parliament both supported raising an army to suppress the rebellion, neither trusted the other with its control, tensions that ultimately led to the outbreak of the First English Civil War in August 1642.[11]

In 1642, the Catholic Confederacy representing the Irish insurgents proclaimed allegiance to Charles, but the Stuarts were an unreliable ally, since concessions in Ireland cost them Protestant support in all three kingdoms. In addition, the Adventurers' Act, approved by Charles in March 1642, funded suppression of the revolt by confiscating land from Irish Catholics, much of it owned by members of the Confederacy.[12] The result was a three-way contest between the Confederacy, Royalist forces under the Protestant Duke of Ormond, and a Covenanter-led army in Ulster. The latter were increasingly at odds with the English government; after Charles' execution in January 1649, Ormond combined these factions to resist the 1649 to 1652 Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.[13]

Charles I, whose policies caused instability throughout his three kingdoms

Charles II repudiated his alliance with the Confederacy, in return for Scottish support in the Third English Civil War, and Ormond went into exile in 1650. Defeat in 1652 led to the mass confiscation of Catholic and Royalist land, and its re-distribution among English Parliamentary soldiers and Protestant settlers.[14] The three kingdoms were combined into the Commonwealth of England, regaining their separate status when the monarchy was restored in 1660.[15]

Charles's reign was dominated by the expansionist policies of Louis XIV of France, seen as a threat to Protestant Europe. When his brother and heir James announced his conversion to Catholicism in 1677, an attempt was made to bar him from the English throne.[16] Nevertheless, he became king in February 1685 with widespread support in England and Scotland; a Catholic monarch was preferable to excluding the 'natural heir', and rebellions by Protestant dissidents quickly suppressed. It was also viewed as temporary; James was 52, his second marriage was childless after 11 years, and his Protestant daughter Mary was heir.[17]

His religion made James popular among Irish Catholics, whose position had not improved under his brother. By 1685, Catholic land ownership had fallen to 22%, versus 90% in 1600, and after 1673, a series of proclamations deprived them of the right to bear arms or hold public office.[18] The Catholic Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1687, and began building a Catholic establishment that could survive James. Fearing a short reign, Tyrconnell moved at a speed that destabilised all three kingdoms.[19]

James dismissed the English and Scottish Parliaments when they refused to approve his measures of religious tolerance, which he enforced using the Royal Prerogative. Doing so threatened to re-open disputes over religion, reward those who rebelled in 1685 and undermine his own supporters. It also ignored the impact of the 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau, which revoked tolerance for French Protestants and created an estimated 400,000 refugees, 40,000 of whom settled in London.[20] Two events turned discontent into rebellion, the first being the birth of James's son on 10 June 1688, which created the prospect of a Catholic dynasty. The second was James' prosecution of the Seven Bishops, which seemed to go beyond tolerance for Catholicism and actively attack the Church of England; their acquittal on 30 June caused widespread rejoicing throughout England and Scotland, and destroyed James's political authority.[21]

In 1685, many feared civil war if James were bypassed; by 1688, even the Earl of Sunderland, his chief minister, felt only his removal could prevent it. Sunderland secretly co-ordinated an Invitation to William, assuring Mary and her husband William of Orange of English support for armed intervention. William landed in Brixham on 5 November with 14,000 men; as he advanced, James's army deserted and he went into exile on 23 December.[22] In February 1689, the English Parliament appointed William and Mary joint monarchs of England, while the Scots followed suit in March.[23]

James II, 1685, dressed in military uniform

Most of Ireland was still controlled by Tyrconnell, where James landed on 12 March 1689 with 6,000 French troops. The 1689-to-1691 Williamite War in Ireland highlighted two recurring trends; for James and his successors, the main prize was England, with Ireland and Scotland secondary to that, while the primary French objective was to absorb British resources, not necessarily restore the Stuarts.[24] Elections in May 1689 produced the first Irish Parliament with a Catholic majority since 1613. It repealed the Cromwellian land seizures, confiscated land from Williamites, and proclaimed Ireland a 'distinct kingdom from England', measures annulled after defeat in 1691.[25]

A Jacobite rising in Scotland achieved some initial success but was ultimately suppressed. Several days after the Irish Jacobites were defeated at The Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, victory at Beachy Head gave the French temporary control of the English Channel. James returned to France to urge an immediate invasion of England, but the Anglo-Dutch fleet soon regained maritime supremacy, and the opportunity was lost.[26]

The Irish Jacobites and their French allies were finally defeated at the battle of Aughrim in 1691, and the Treaty of Limerick ended the war in Ireland; future risings on behalf of the exiled Stuarts were confined to England and Scotland. The 1701 Act of Settlement barred Catholics from the English throne, and when Anne became the last Stuart monarch in 1702, her heir was her Protestant cousin Sophia of Hanover, not her Catholic half-brother James. Ireland retained a separate Parliament until 1800, but the 1707 Union combined England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain. Anne viewed this as the unified Protestant kingdom which her predecessors had failed to achieve.[27]

The exiled Stuarts continued to agitate for a return to power, based on the support they retained within the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland.[28] [29] [30] Doing so required external help, most consistently supplied by France, while Spain backed the 1719 Rising. While talks were also held at different times with Sweden, Prussia, and Russia, these never produced concrete results. Although the Stuarts were useful as a lever, their foreign backers generally had little interest in their restoration.[31]

Historian Frank McLynn identifies seven primary drivers in Jacobitism, noting that while the movement contained "sincere men [..] who aimed solely to restore the Stuarts", it "provided a source of legitimacy for political dissent of all kinds".[32] Establishing the ideology of active participants is complicated by the fact that "by and large, those who wrote most did not act, and those who acted wrote little, if anything."[33] Later historians have characterised Jacobitism in a variety of ways, including as a revolutionary extension of anti-Court ideology; an aristocratic reaction against a growth in executive power; feudal opposition to the growth of capitalism; or as a product of nationalist feeling in Scotland and Ireland.[34]

Jacobitism's main ideological tenets drew on a political theology shared by Non-juring High church Anglicans and Scots Episcopalians.[35] They were, firstly, the divine right of kings, their accountability to God, not man or Parliament; secondly that monarchy was a divine institution; thirdly, the crown's descent by indefeasible hereditary right, which could not be overturned or annulled; and lastly the scriptural injunction of passive obedience and non-resistance, even towards monarchs of which the individual subject might disapprove.[36][37]

Alexander Forbes, 4th Lord Forbes of Pitsligo; his support of the doctrine of indefeasible hereditary right placed him in a minority of Jacobites by 1745

Jacobite propagandists argued such divinely sanctioned authority was the main moral safeguard of society, while its absence led to party strife. They claimed the 1688 Revolution had allowed self-interested minorities, such as Whigs, religious dissenters, and foreigners, to take control of the state and oppress the common people.[38] However, views on the 'correct' balance of rights and duties between monarch and subject varied, and Jacobites attempted to distinguish between 'arbitrary' and 'absolute' power. Non-juring Church of Ireland clergyman Charles Leslie was perhaps the most extreme divine right theorist, but even he argued the monarch was bound by "his oath to God, as well as his promise to his people" and "the laws of justice and honour".[39] Another common theme in Jacobite pamphlets was the implication that economic or other upheavals in the British Isles were punishment for ejecting a divinely appointed monarch, although after 1710, pamphlet writers instead began blaming the "malevolent" Whig political party for exiling the Stuarts, rather than the nation collectively.[40]

Such sentiments were not always consistently held within the Jacobite community, or restricted to Jacobites alone:[41] many Whigs and Church of England clergy also argued the post 1688 succession was "divinely ordained".[36][42] After the Act of Settlement, Jacobite propagandists deemphasised the purely legitimist elements in their writing and by 1745, active promotion of hereditary and indefeasible right was restricted largely to a few Scots Episcopalians such as Lords Pitsligo and Balmerino.[43]

Instead they began to focus on populist themes such as opposition to a standing army, electoral corruption and social injustice.[44] By the 1750s, Charles himself promised triannual parliaments, disbanding the army and legal guarantees on freedom of the press.[45] Such tactics broadened their appeal but also carried risks, since they could always be undercut by a government prepared to offer similar concessions.[46] The ongoing Stuart focus on England and regaining a united British throne led to tensions with their broader-based supporters in 1745, when the primary goal of most Scots Jacobites was ending the 1707 Union. This meant that following victory at Prestonpans in September, they preferred to negotiate, rather than invade England as Charles wanted.[47]

More generally, Jacobite theorists reflected a broader conservative current in Enlightenment thought, appealing to those attracted to a monarchist solution to perceived modern decadence.[48] Populist songs and tracts presented the Stuarts as capable of correcting a wide range of ills and restoring social harmony, as well as contrasting Dutch and Hanoverian "foreigners" with a man who even in exile continued to consume English beef and beer.[49] While particularly calculated to appeal to Tories, the wide range of themes adopted by Jacobite pamphleteers and agents periodically drew in disaffected Whigs and former radicals. Such "Whig-Jacobites" were highly valued by the exiled court, although many viewed James II as a potentially weak king from whom it would be easy to extract concessions in the event of a restoration.[50]

Flora MacDonald by Allan Ramsay c. 1749–1750; note white roses, a Jacobite symbol

While Jacobite agents continued in their attempts to recruit the disaffected, the most committed Jacobites were often linked by relatively small family networks, particularly in Scotland; Jacobite activities in areas like Perthshire and Aberdeenshire centred on a limited number of influential families heavily involved in 1715 and 1745.[108]

Some of the most powerful landowning families preserved their establishment loyalties, but maintained traditions of Stuart allegiance by permitting younger sons to become involved in active Jacobitism; in 1745, Lewis Gordon was widely believed to be a proxy for his brother, the Duke of Gordon.[109] Many Jacobite leaders were closely linked to each other and the exile community by marriage or blood. This has led some historians, notably Bruce Lenman, to characterise the Jacobite risings as French-backed coup attempts by a small network drawn from the elite, though this view is not universally accepted.[110]

Family traditions of Jacobite sympathy were reinforced through objects such as inscribed glassware or rings with hidden symbols, although many of those that survive are in fact 19th century neo-Jacobite creations. Other family heirlooms contained reference to executed Jacobite martyrs, for which the movement preserved an unusual level of veneration.[111] Tartan cloth, widely adopted by the Jacobite army in 1745, was used in portraiture as a symbol of Stuart sympathies, even before the Rising. Outside elite social circles, the Jacobite community circulated propaganda and symbolic objects through a network of clubs, print-sellers and pedlars, aimed at the provincial gentry and middling sort. In 1745, Prince Charles ordered commemorative medals and miniature pictures for clandestine distribution.[112]

Welsh Tory Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn; his blue coat was a colour often worn by Jacobite sympathisers

Among the more visible elements of the Jacobite community were drinking clubs established in the early 18th century, such as the Scottish Bucks Club or the "Cycle of the White Rose", led by Welsh Tory Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn.[113] Others included the "Sea Serjeants", largely composed of South Wales gentry or the "Independent Electors of Westminster" led by the Glamorganshire lawyer David Morgan, executed for his role in 1745.[114] Other than Morgan, the vast majority of their members took no part in the 1745 Rising; Charles later suggested he "will do for the Welsh Jacobites what they did for me. I will drink their health".[115]

Oak Apple Day on 29 May commemorated Charles II and was an occasion for displays of Stuart sympathy, as was "White Rose Day", the Old Pretender's birthday on 10 June.[116] Symbols were commonly employed by Jacobites, since they could not be prosecuted for their use, the most common being the White rose of York, adopted after 1688 for reasons now unclear. Various origins have been suggested, including its use as an ancient Scottish royal device, its association with James II as Duke of York, or Charles I being styled as the "White King".[117] Jacobite military units often used plain white standards or cockades, while green ribbons were another recognised Stuart symbol despite their association with the Whig Green Ribbon Club.[118]

Despite being greeted as a hero on his return to Paris, Charles' reception behind the scenes was more muted. D’Éguilles, unofficial French envoy to the Jacobites, had a low opinion of him and other senior Jacobites, describing Lochgarry as "a bandit", and suggesting George Murray was a British spy. For their part, the Scots were disillusioned by lack of meaningful English or French support, despite constant assurances of both.[119] Events also highlighted the reality that a low level, ongoing insurgency was far more cost-effective for the French than a restoration, a form of warfare potentially devastating to the local populace.[lower-alpha 1] By exposing the divergence between Scottish, French and Stuart objectives, as well as the lack of support in England, the 1745 Rising ended Jacobitism as a viable political alternative in England and Scotland.[44]

The British authorities enacted a series of measures designed to prevent the Scottish Highlands being used for another rising. New forts were built, the military road network finally completed and William Roy made the first comprehensive survey of the Highlands.[120] Much of the power held by the Highland chiefs derived from their ability to require military service from their clansmen and even before 1745 the clan system had been under severe stress due to changing economic conditions; the Heritable Jurisdictions Act removed such feudal controls by Highland chiefs.[121] This was far more significant than the better-known Act of Proscription which outlawed Highland dress unless worn in military service: its impact is debated and the law was repealed in 1782.[121]

Charles Edward Stuart in old age; in 1759, he was dismissed by French ministers as "incapacitated by drink"

As early as 1745, the French were struggling with the costs of the War of the Austrian Succession, and in June 1746, they began peace negotiations with Britain at Breda. Victories in Flanders in 1747 and 1748 actually worsened their position by drawing in the previously neutral Dutch Republic, whose shipping they relied on to avoid the British naval blockade.[122] By 1748, food shortages among the French population made peace a matter of urgency, but the British refused to sign the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle while Charles remained in France. After he ignored requests to leave, the French lost patience; in December 1748, he was briefly jailed before being deported.[123]

In June 1747, his brother Henry became a Catholic priest; since Charles had no legitimate heir, this was seen as tacit acceptance by their father the Jacobite cause was finished. Charles continued to explore options for a rising in England, including his conversion to Anglicanism, a proposal that had outraged his father James when previously suggested.[124] He "secretly" visited London in 1750 to meet supporters, and was inducted into the Non Juror church.[125] However, the decline of Jacobitism is demonstrated by the fact the government and George II were well aware of his presence and did nothing to intervene. The English Jacobites made it clear they would do nothing without foreign backing, which despite Charles's overtures to Frederick II of Prussia seemed unlikely.[126]

A plot to capture or assassinate George II, headed by Alexander Murray of Elibank, was betrayed to the government by Alastair Ruadh MacDonnell, or "Pickle the Spy", but not before Charles had sent two exiles as agents. One was Archibald Cameron, responsible for recruiting the Cameron regiment in 1745, who was allegedly betrayed by his own clansmen and executed on 7 June 1753.[127] In a 1754 dispute with the English conspirators, a drunken and increasingly desperate Charles threatened to publish their names for having "betrayed" him; most remaining English sympathisers now left the cause.[128]

During the Seven Years' War in 1759, Charles met Choiseul, then Chief minister of France to discuss another invasion, but Choiseul dismissed him as "incapacitated by drink".[129] The Jacobite cause was abandoned by the French, while British supporters stopped providing funds; Charles, who had returned to Catholicism, now relied on the Papacy to fund his lifestyle. However, with the death of Charles’s father in 1766, the Hanoverians received the Pope’s de facto recognition.[130] Despite Henry's urgings, Clement XIII refused to recognise his brother as Charles III; Charles died of a stroke in Rome in January 1788, a disappointed and embittered man.[131]

Detail of the monument in the Vatican

Following Charles’s death, Scottish Catholics swore allegiance to the House of Hanover, and resolved two years later to pray for King George by name. The Stuart claim passed to Henry, now a Cardinal, who styled himself King Henry IX of England. After falling into financial difficulty during the French Revolution, he was granted a stipend by George III. However, his refusal to renounce his claim to be ‘Henry IX’ prevented a full reconciliation with the House of Hanover.[132]

The next serious suggestion of restoring a Stuart Jacobite Pretender to one of their former thrones, came from an unexpected source, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Despite their general anti-clericalism and hosility to the Bourbon monarchy, the French Directory suggested to the United Irishmen in 1798 restoring the Jacobite Pretender, Henry Benedict Stuart, as Henry IX, King of the Irish.[133][134] This was on account of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert landing a force in County Mayo for the rebellion and realising the local population were devoutly Catholic (a significant number of Irish priests supported the Rising and had met with Humbert, although Humbert's Army had been veterans of the anti-clerical campaign in Italy).[134] The French Directory hoped this option would allow the creation of a stable French client state in Ireland, however, Wolfe Tone, the Protestant republican leader, scoffed at the suggestion and it was quashed, with a short-lived Irish Republic proclaimed instead.[134]

Following the death of Henry in 1807, the Jacobite claims passed to those excluded by the Act of Settlement: initially to the House of Savoy (1807–1840), then to the Modenese branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (1840–1919), and finally to the House of Wittelsbach (1919–present). Franz, Duke of Bavaria is the current Jacobite heir. Neither he nor any of his predecessors since 1807 have pursued their claim. Henry, Charles and James are memorialised in the Monument to the Royal Stuarts in the Vatican.

Traditional Whig historiography viewed Jacobitism as marginal to the progression towards present-day Parliamentary democracy, taking the view that as it was defeated, it could never have won.[135] Representing "pre-industrial paternalism" and "mystical loyalism" against forward-thinking individualism, this conception of Jacobitism was reinforced by Macaulay's stereotype of the typical "Tory-Jacobite squire" as a "bigoted, ignorant, drunken philistine".[135]

More recent analyses, such as that of J. C. D. Clark, suggest that Jacobitism can instead be regarded as part of a "deep vein of social and political conservatism running throughout British history", arguing that the Whig settlement was not as stable as has been depicted.[136] Further interest in Jacobite studies has been prompted by a reassessment of the nationalist aspirations of Scots Jacobites in particular, emphasising its place as part of an ongoing political idea.

Romantic revival

As the political danger represented by Jacobitism receded, a nostalgic and sentimental view of the movement appeared, particularly with respect to the final 1745 rebellion. Relics and mementoes of 1745 were preserved and Charles himself became celebrated in "increasingly emotional and sentimental language". The publication in the 1830s of parts of The Lyon in Mourning by Episcopalian bishop Robert Forbes (1708–1775), a collection of source material and interviews with Jacobite participants in the 1745 rising, reinforced this memorialising tendency.[137]

19th century historiography often presented the Scots Jacobites as driven by a romantic attachment to the House of Stuart, rather than as having a wide range of individual motivations. This suited a Victorian depiction of Highlanders as a "martial race", distinguished by a tradition of a "misplaced loyalism" since transferred to the British crown.[138] The participation of Lowland and north-eastern gentry in the movement was less emphasised, while the Irish Jacobites were presented as a largely negative influence on Charles in 1745.

"Jacobites" by John Pettie (1874): romantic view of Jacobitism

Walter Scott, author of Waverley, a story of the 1745 rebellion, combined romantic, nostalgic Jacobitism with an appreciation of the practical benefits of Union. In 1822 he arranged a pageantry of reinvented Scottish traditions for the visit of King George IV to Scotland when George IV visited Edinburgh as a successor to his distant relative Charles Stuart. The tartan pageantry was immensely popular, and Highland clothing, previously associated with rebellion and disorder became Scotland's National Dress. 1824 saw the restoration of some Jacobite titles and 1829 Catholic emancipation; with political Jacobitism now safely confined to an "earlier era", the hitherto largely ignored site of the final Jacobite defeat at Culloden began to be celebrated.[139]

Many Jacobite folk songs emerged in Scotland in this period; a number of examples were collected by Scott's colleague James Hogg in his Jacobite Reliques, including several he likely composed himself. Nineteenth century Scots poets such as Alicia Spottiswoode and Carolina Nairne, Lady Nairne (whose "Bonnie Charlie" remains popular) added further examples. Relatively few of the surviving songs, however, actually date from the time of the risings; one of the best known is the Irish song "Mo Ghile Mear", which although a more recent composition is based on the contemporary lyric "Buan ar Buairt Gach Ló" by Seán Clárach Mac Domhnaill.

Jacobitism has been a popular subject for historical novels, and for speculative and humorous fiction.

• The historical novels Waverley (1814) and Rob Roy (1817) by Sir Walter Scott focus on the first and second Jacobite rebellions.
• Kidnapped (1886) is a historical fiction adventure novel by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that features the intrigues of Jacobite troubles in Scotland.
• In the 1920s, D. K. Broster wrote the Jacobite Trilogy of novels featuring the dashing hero Ewen Cameron.
• Joan Aiken's Wolves Chronicles have as background an alternative history of England, in which King James III, a Stuart, is on the throne, and the Hanoverians plot to overthrow him.
• A fictional account is given of the Jacobite/Hanoverian conflict in The Long Shadow, The Chevalier and The Maiden, Volumes 6–8 of The Morland Dynasty, a series of historical novels by author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles. Insight is given through the eyes of the Morland family into the religious, political and emotional issues at the heart of the struggle.
• Corrag (also known as Witch Light) (2009) by Susan Fletcher centres on the Massacre of Glencoe. It offers the eyewitness account of Corrag, a reputed witch.
• The historical book series Outlander and its television adaptation are fictional portrayals of the Jacobite rebellion and its aftermath.
• In 2017, a partnership of Visiting Scotland, National Museum of Scotland and Historic Scotland launched The Jacobite Trail to promote the Jacobite story and the locations that feature therein.

• James II and VII (6 February 1685 – 16 September 1701).
• James III and VIII (16 September 1701 – 1 January 1766), James Francis Edward Stuart, also known as the Chevalier de St. George, the King over the Water, or the Old Pretender. (Son of James II)
• Charles III (31 December 1720 – 31 January 1788), Charles Edward Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Chevalier, or the Young Pretender. (Son of James III)
• Henry IX and I (6 March 1725 – 13 July 1807), Henry Benedict Stuart, also known as the Cardinal King. (Son of James III)

Since Henry's death, none of the Jacobite heirs have claimed the English or Scottish thrones. Franz, Duke of Bavaria (born 1933), a direct descendant of Charles I, is the current legitimate heir of the house of Stuart. It has been suggested that a repeal of the Act of Settlement 1701 could allow him to claim the throne, although he has expressed no interest in doing so.[142]

• List of movements that dispute the legitimacy of a reigning monarch
• Conservatism

• BBC – Interactive Timeline of British History
• General History of the Highlands
• The University of Guelph Library, Archival and Special Collections, has more than 500 Jacobite pamphlets, histories, and literature in its rare books section introduced at UG Library: Archival and Special Collections – Jacobite Pamphlets
• Ascanius; or, the Young Adventurer