The Jacobite Risings: 1688-1746

Illustration: The Memorial Cairn, Culloden Battlefield.

 The Jacobite Risings: Overview

Scotland was a restless and discontented nation for much of the 18th century. Many had hoped that the deposition of the Stuart dynasty and the subsequent Treaty of Union would usher in an era of peace and prosperity. When it did not widespread disaffection with the government grew. Some came to align themselves with the Jacobites, a royalist political movement which asserted that Scotland's problems could only be resolved by the restoration of the Stuarts. For decades the government struggled to control a series of Jacobite Risings. Popular history has sentimentalised the Jacobites, dismissing them as hopeless romantics pursuing a doomed cause. In reality, they came breathtakingly close to overthrowing the British government.

Historic Voices

"No blacker, bloodier page will be found in the history of any country than that which records the atrocities perpetrated against a brave enemy at the command and under the eyes of a British monarch's son"

The Prime Minister, Lord Roseberry, in 1894, looking back on the bloody aftermath of the failed Jacobite Rebellions. The "British monarch's son" he refers to is William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, who commanded the government forces at Culloden. His role in the brutal aftermath of the battle earned him the unlovely epithet of "Butcher Cumberland" and the dubious distinction of being one of the most despised figures in Scottish history.

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Background: The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688

In 1688 King James VII of Scotland and II of England was deposed in a palace coup: His ill-advised enthusiasm for imposing what were widely perceived to be pro-Catholic reforms had exhausted the patience of his ministers and subjects. James fled to France, and in his absence the Protestant Prince William of Orange was invited over from Holland to assume the vacated thrones. After defeating forces loyal to James, the victorious Prince was crowned King William III. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were now destined to pass to the House of Hanover, the Stuart dynasty was driven into exile, and the "Glorious Revolution", as this episode came to be called, was complete.

Except that this was not to be the end of the matter. The exiled Stuarts, seething with a sense of rancorous injustice, refused to disappear into history. Over the next 60 years, a succession of armed risings followed as the Stuarts and their supporters fought to overthrow the Hanoverian government in London and restore themselves to power. With loyalty to the Stuarts strongest in the Highlands of Scotland it was inevitable that the Highlanders would play a major part in their struggle for power and revenge; but the Stuart cause would lead the Highlanders to catastrophe.

Illustration: Jacobite Red Cockade flag, Culloden Moor.

The Jacobite Risings: 1688-1746

The meaning of "Jacobite"

The word Jacobite is derived from the Latin “Jacobus” meaning James. The term was used to describe anyone who supported the exiled King James VII and his descendants in their campaigns to reclaim the thrones of Scotland and England that they had lost in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

The Jacobites themselves

The popular image of the Jacobite as a claymore wielding Highlander is evocative but misleading. Much of the armed support for the Jacobite Risings came from the Highlands, but there were Jacobite sympathisers right across Europe and some English Jacobites took an active part in the risings. Jacobite supporters came from across the social spectrum from monarchs like Louis XIV of France right down to the labouring poor.

Jacobite supporters

In an age when people still believed in The Divine Right of kings many felt that the Stuarts, despite their shortcomings, were rightful rulers by virtue of God's Will, tradition and ancient royal lineage. Others simply wanted rid of the ruling House of Hanover that had grown increasingly unpopular since taking power after 1688. North of the border, the 1707 Union that had united Scotland and England into a single state was an important factor. The Union was disliked and the Jacobite promise to restore Scottish independence was enough to convince many Scots to support them.

The early Jacobite risings

The first erupted in 1689 when John Graham, Viscount Dundee, led a small army of 2000 against forces loyal to William of Orange at Killecrankie. The Jacobites won the battle, but they sustained heavy losses and Graham was killed. Bereft of his leadership, the campaign collapsed.

 The next rising in 1715 was far more serious. Led by John Erskine, Earl of Mar, this rebellion saw an awesome force of 10,000 men take up arms for the Jacobite cause in Scotland alone. Together with significant support in England, this should have been enough to give the Jacobites a fighting chance. However, Erskine's uninspiring and incompetent leadership doomed the rebellion to failure. Afterwards the ringleaders had their estates confiscated and many Jacobites were forced into exile.

Another rising took place in 1719, but this was small, disorganised and easily crushed. For the next 25 years Jacobitism seemed to be a spent force and few expected another rising. Then, suddenly in 1745, the Stuarts made one last play for power. They failed, but inadvertently created one of the most colourful and romanticised episodes in any country's history.

The Jacobite Rising of 1745

The 1745 rebellion originated in a French plan to invade Britain with a massive military force led by Prince Charles Edward Stuart, grandson of the exiled King James VII. However, bad weather wrecked the invasion fleet and the whole enterprise was abandoned.

Refusing to concede defeat, the impetuous Prince sailed for Scotland on a lone crusade to raise an army from amongst the Highland clans still loyal to Scotland's ancient royal family. On 19 August 1745 he raised his standard at Glenfinnan near Fort William.

Initially the Prince struggled to convince the clan chiefs to support him, but eventually he assembled a small army of 2000 men. By September this makeshift Jacobite force had captured Edinburgh and routed off-guard government forces at Prestonpans. Emboldened by this astonishing success, the Jacobites invaded England. By the beginning of December they were at Derby, well within reach of London. Only 4 months after arriving with virtually no weapons, money, troops or support the Prince and his ragged clansmen had taken Scotland for the Stuarts – and now they stood poised to conquer England. It must be one of the most extraordinary and audacious achievements in military history.

Yet at this decisive moment the impetus was lost. The Jacobite leaders quarrelled, support in England wavered and the Hanoverian regime was now on the offensive. With powerful forces surrounding them, the Jacobites made the fateful decision to return to Scotland. They retreated North with Hanoverian forces under the command of the king's son, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, in pursuit.

On 16^th April 1746 after months of evasion the two sides clashed on Culloden Moor. Dispirited and outnumbered, the Jacobites were defeated. The Prince fled the field, eventually escaping to Europe where he spent his remaining years in ignominious decline. The Jacobite risings were over.

Aftermath

The last Jacobite rising of 1745 has often been romantically portrayed as a lost cause from the start; in fact, it had come very close to success as the horrified Hanoverian regime realised. The existence of an armed and lawless clan society that could be mobilised against the state was something that the government could tolerate no longer. It was decided to eliminate this menace once and for all.

The Highlands were placed under military occupation and what followed was a systematic and brutal campaign against its inhabitants. Homes were burned, property plundered, the people driven out. Much of this near-genocide was masterminded by the Duke of Cumberland, for which the Scots accorded him the unlovely epithet of "Butcher Cumberland" and the dubious distinction of being forever one of the gargoyles of Scottish history. This ignominy was richly deserved. The aftermath of Culloden was just the beginning of a prolonged period of repression and within a few generations the old Highland way of life had been destroyed.

To lament the passing of the harsh, impoverished clan society that vanished into history in the years after 1746 is both pointless and sentimental. Yet the circumstances in which it took place, the brutality with which it was done and the way in which some Scots complied with the destruction of the Highlands has made this one of the darkest chapters in Scotland's history.

Illustration: Memorial Cairn, Culloden Moor

It has become something of a cliché to say that the Jacobites sought to change history. In reality the exact opposite is true: what they really wanted was for history to stay the same. With hindsight we can see that The "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 was the culmination of a long historical process by which power was gradually prised from the grip of the Stuart dynasty. For all its captivating audacity, the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 was a desperate attempt by the Stuarts and their followers to force history back down the road it had travelled in 1688 and return to a vanishing world of tradition, hierarchy and royal absolutism. Its failure may seem inevitable now, but this was not so obvious to those who lived to see the extraordinary events of 1745.

From our more elevated 21st century vantage point we can see that the unfortunate reality for Scotland's ancient royal house of Stuart was that history and society were moving on and leaving them behind. True, the new Hanoverian government that the Stuarts plotted for so long to overthrow was not popular, and the Union between England and Scotland that they had vowed to repeal even less so; but the alternative offered by the Stuarts was a return to a past that was even less appealing. The Stuart dynasty had come to represent too much that the Scots had fought to overthrow during the previous two hundred years - Catholicism during the Reformation Upheaval, and despotic royal power during the Covenanter Revolution.

  The Jacobite Risings remain one of the most widely known, romanticised and misunderstood episodes in Scottish history. The Scots themselves have been complicit in this process. Within only a few years of the Stuart cause coming to grief at Culloden a host of writers and artists had already embarked on the lucrative business of commemorating the Jacobites in song, story, painting and poetry. Oversimplification and outright falsification was the inevitable result.

During the process the entire culture of the Highlands was simultaneously destroyed and reinvented in just a few years. The Highland clans, once feared and persecuted as disloyal barbarians, were absorbed by the government into regiments of the British army and became celebrated as great warriors and gallant patriots. Tartan and Highland dress, banned for years in the aftermath of Culloden, became fashionable amongst European high society. The savage became noble.

At some point during this process of historical reinvention Charles Edward Stuart was recreated as "Bonnie Prince Charlie." Lachrymose Jacobite ballads lamented the Prince's flight over the water to Europe after Culloden and pined for the day when he would come back again. This trite sentimentality stands in stark contrast to the harsh reality: not only did the country not want him back again, it had never wanted him in the first place. The vast majority of Scots had not rallied to the Prince's standard in 1745; many, in fact, had chosen to fight in the government army against him. What support Charles did have was concentrated almost exclusively in the Highlands. Even here many had been all but coerced into joining his campaign by their clan chiefs.

Even if Charles Edward Stuart had continued his march south after Derby and captured London, something which is well within the bounds of probability, it is by no means certain that he would have been able to consolidate his position afterwards. The Stuart dynasty's many enemies would not have remained quiescent for long - particularly if, once restored to power, the Stuarts again started to display the same high-handed and despotic governmental style that had been the downfall of their predecessors.

However, all this is to speculate about a future that never happened. In reality, the Scots chose to send Charles packing back to exile in Europe. They came to accept the "Glorious Revolution" settlement of 1688 and learned to live with the Union of 1707. There was much about both that they did not like, but they were canny enough to appreciate the emerging benefits: stable parliamentary government, an end to religious conflict and the burgeoning opportunities offered by trade and commerce within the new Anglo-Scottish Empire. It was, at any rate, preferable to the alternative: a return to the arbitrary and despotic rule of the Stuarts.

As for Charles Stuart and the Jacobites, both have long since been reinvented as iconic and heroic figures in Scottish history. Those who opposed them have been condemned to history's chamber of horrors. It is a victory of sorts.

The Jacobite Risings

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