Jacobitism
Jacobitism was a political ideology advocating the restoration of the senior line of the House of Stuart to the British throne. When James II of England chose exile after the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Parliament of England ruled he had "abandoned" the English throne, which was given to his Protestant daughter Mary II of England, and his nephew, her husband William III. On the same basis, in April the Scottish Convention awarded Mary and William the throne of Scotland.
The Revolution created the principle of a contract between monarch and people, which if violated meant the monarch could be removed. A key tenet of Jacobitism was that kings were appointed by God, making the post-1688 regime illegitimate. However, it also functioned as an outlet for popular discontent, and thus was a complex mix of ideas, many opposed by the Stuarts themselves. Conflict between Prince Charles and Scottish Jacobites over the Acts of Union 1707 and divine right seriously undermined the 1745 rising.
Jacobitism was strongest in Ireland, the Western Scottish Highlands, Perthshire, and Aberdeenshire. Pockets of support were also present in Wales, Northern England, the West Midlands and South West England, all areas strongly Royalist during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In addition, the Stuarts received intermittent backing from countries like France, usually dependent on their own strategic objectives.
In addition to the 1689–1691 Williamite War in Ireland and Jacobite rising of 1689 in Scotland, there were serious revolts in 1715, 1719 and 1745, French invasion attempts in 1708 and 1744, and numerous unsuccessful plots. While the 1745 Rising briefly seemed to threaten the Hanoverian monarchy, its defeat in 1746 ended Jacobitism as a serious political movement.
Political background
Jacobite ideology originated with James VI and I, who in 1603 became the first monarch to rule all three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. 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. His concept of personal rule eliminated the need for Parliaments, and required political and religious union, concepts widely unpopular in all three kingdoms, but especially England.The principle of divine right also clashed with Catholic allegiance to the Pope, and with Protestant nonconformists, since both argued there was an authority above the king. The 17th-century belief that 'true religion' and 'good government' were one and the same meant disputes in one area fed into the other, while Millenarianism and belief in the imminence of the Second Coming meant many Protestants viewed such issues as urgent and real.
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. Similar measures in Scotland caused the 1639–1640 Bishops' Wars, and installation of a Covenanter government.
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. The Rebellion was intended as a bloodless coup, but its leaders quickly lost control, leading to atrocities on both sides. 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; these tensions ultimately led to the outbreak of the First English Civil War in August 1642.
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. 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.
In 1650, Charles II repudiated his alliance with the Confederacy in return for Scottish military support, and Ormond went into exile. Defeat resulted in the mass confiscation of Catholic and Royalist land, and its re-distribution among Parliamentarian soldiers and Protestant settlers. The three kingdoms were combined into the Commonwealth of England, only regaining their separate status following the 1660 Stuart Restoration.
Charles II'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. Nevertheless, he became king in February 1685 with widespread support from the Protestant majorities in England and Scotland. Accepting a Catholic monarch was seen as preferable to excluding the 'natural heir', and Protestant dissident rebellions in England and Scotland were quickly suppressed. It was also viewed as temporary, since James was 52, his second marriage was childless after 11 years, and his Protestant daughter Mary was heir.
His religion made James popular among Irish Catholics, whose position had not improved under his brother. Catholic land ownership had fallen from 90% in 1600 to 22% in 1685, partially due to Catholic landlords converting to the Protestant Church of Ireland. After 1673, a series of proclamations deprived Catholic gentry of the right to bear arms or hold public office. 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.
When the English and Scottish Parliaments refused to remove civil restrictions on Catholics and Non-Conformists, James dismissed them and used the Royal Prerogative to force his measures through. These actions re-opened disputes over religion, rewarded the Protestant dissidents who rebelled in 1685, and undermined 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. 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's prosecution of the Seven Bishops, which seemed to go beyond tolerance for Catholicism into actively attacking the Church of England. Their acquittal on 30 June caused widespread rejoicing, and destroyed James's political authority.
In 1685, many had feared civil war if James were bypassed. By 1688, even his chief minister, the Earl of Sunderland, felt only his removal could prevent it. Sunderland secretly coordinated an Invitation to William, assuring Mary and her husband and James's nephew, 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. In February 1689, the English Parliament appointed William and Mary joint monarchs of England, while the Scots followed suit in March.
Most of Ireland was still controlled by Tyrconnell, where James landed on 12 March 1689 with 6,000 French troops, but the 1689-to-1691 Williamite War in Ireland highlighted two recurring trends. For James and his Stuart successors, the main prize was to regain England, while the primary French objective was to tie down British resources, rebellions in Scotland and Ireland being seen as the cheapest option. 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 subsequently annulled after defeat in 1691.
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.
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 Act of Settlement 1701 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.
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. 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.