The Battle of Glen Shiel
King Philip V of Spain sent a second Spanish Armada against Britain, but it suffered much the same fate as the first.
1719
King George II 1727-1760
© Nigel Brown, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0.
Upper Glen Shiel from Sgurr na Ciste Duibhe. The combined jacobite-Spanish forces were out-manoeuvred when the Royal Navy destroyed their weapons magazine in the ever-so-slightly-exposed castle at Eilean Donan.
Introduction
The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 forbade Philip V of Spain, grandson of Louis XIV of France, to claim the French throne. But his chief minister, Italian cardinal Giulio Alberoni, egged him on, triggering the ‘War of the Quadruple Alliance’.
WHEN Philip V of Spain, in preparation for his larger assault on France, annexed the islands of Sicily and Sardinia, a British fleet led by Sir George Byng upset his plans by defeating him at the Battle of Cape Passaro on 11th August, 1718.
Smarting at London’s intervention, the following year Philip despatched an armada commanded by an Irish exile, the Duke of Ormonde, to Scotland’s west coast. His aim was to install a friendlier King than George I in the form of the ‘Old Pretender’, James Stuart, whose father James II had unwillingly abdicated in 1688.
However, a storm prevented Ormonde’s fleet reaching the British Isles. A second, smaller force of Jacobites and Spanish marines was defeated at Glen Shiel on June 10th, 1719, after the Royal Navy destroyed their ammunition, stored in the castle on Eilean Donan.*
Britain replied by capturing the Spanish town of Vigo in October, and Philip finally abandoned his ambitions, signing the Treaty of The Hague on 17th February 1720.
With acknowledgements to Historic UK.
‘Jacobites’ is the term for followers of the Old Pretender, James Stuart, from the Latin for James, Jacobus. His own rebellion had failed in 1715; his son Charles (‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’) rebelled again in 1745 against George II, and was defeated.
