The Jacobite Rebellions
Loyal subjects of King James II continued to fight his corner after he, and any real hope of success, had gone.
1689-1745
Loyal subjects of King James II continued to fight his corner after he, and any real hope of success, had gone.
1689-1745
The ‘Jacobites’ were loyal to King James II (who was also James VII of Scotland), the Roman Catholic king deposed by the English Parliament in 1688. James took refuge with Louis XIV in France, who saw restoring a grateful James to the English throne as a way to gain control of the world’s most powerful navy.
IN 1688, James II’s dictatorial rule and Roman Catholic sympathies drove Parliament to exile him to France, and crown his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband William in his place. John Graham, Viscount Dundee, raised an army in support of James, but was killed at Killiecrankie in July 1689, and his revolt was crushed at Dunkeld a month later.*
Mary had no children, so to prevent her step-brother, James’s son James Stuart, from succeeding her, the English Parliament passed the Act of Settlement in 1701, barring all Roman Catholics from the throne. The following year, the crown duly went to Mary’s sister, Anne; and in 1714, their cousin George, Prince of Hanover, was proclaimed King George I. James Stuart gathered an army but failed to win popular support, and was defeated at Sheriffmuir in 1715.
Thirty years later, James’s son Charles captured Scottish hearts, but ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ too was eventually defeated, by King George II’s men, at Culloden in 1746.*
This was all part of The Nine Years’ War, in which King William III, in his other capacity as ruler of the Dutch Netherlands, successfully prevented King Louis XIV of France from extending his power across Europe. It was not only the French that took the Jacobites’ side, however. The Spanish also got in on the act in 1719, at the ill-fated Battle of Glen Shiel.
James Stuart and his son Charles are commonly referred to as ‘the Old Pretender’ and ‘the Young Pretender’.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Who was ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
James II was exiled in 1688. People loyal to James were called Jacobites. The Latin for James is Jacobus.