Jacobitism: Encyclopedia II - Jacobitism - Military campaigns and Jacobitism

Jacobitism - Military campaigns and Jacobitism

This section focusses on the political context. For military aspects of these campaigns see the Williamite war in Ireland and Jacobite Risings.

Jacobitism - Jacobite war in Ireland

James II and VII had his viceroy Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell take action to secure Ireland for the Catholic cause, culminating in the Siege of Derry which began on 7 December 1688. By then the deposed James had fled to France, and with support from King Louis XIV of France, who was already at war with William of Orange, James landed in Ireland on 12 March 1689. Having taken Dublin and joined the Siege of Londonderry, to maintain the support of Catholic nationalists he reluctantly agreed to the Irish Parliament's demand for an Act declaring that the Parliament of England had no right to pass laws for Ireland. By August 1689 Williamite forces relieved the siege and cleared most of Ulster of Jacobites.

The following July, William's army was victorious in a skirmish at the Battle of the Boyne. The Jacobite army retreated, little damaged, but James fled to France, acquiring the nickname Séamus an chaca (James the beshitten) and leaving the Irish to fight on until in October 1691 they surrendered and the Irish army was made to leave Ireland to become the Irish Brigade of the French army. Jacobitism lingered on for another century in the ideology of nationalist secret societies, but did not play an overt role again in Ireland.

Jacobitism - Bonnie Dundee

On April 16, 1689, almost a month after he left the Convention in Edinburgh and five days after it had proclaimed William and Mary, Viscount Dundee, known as Bonnie Dundee to his supporters and as Bluidy Clavers to his opponents, raised James' standard on the hilltop of Dundee Law with less than 50 men in support. At first he had difficulty in raising many supporters, but after the Williamite commander had proved ineffective and 200 Irish troops had landed at Kintyre he gained support from Catholic and Episcopalian Highland Clans, though not from the Episcopal Bishops of the Scots nobility.

Victory for the Jacobite Highlanders at the Battle of Killiecrankie on July 27, 1689 was marred when Bonnie Dundee was killed in the fighting. A series of government expeditions to subdue the highlands eventually led to Jacobite defeat in May 1690 and lingering hopes faded with news of the Battle of the Boyne. A year later the Jacobites were forced to agree to a truce while the Clan chieftains sent requests to the exiled James VII and II for permission to submit to William, and in January 1692 the Jacobite Clans formally surrendered to the government. William's main interest was in the War of the Grand Alliance in the Low Countries against the French and he paid little attention to Scotland, trying to bribe or coerce the lawless clans. His demands that each chief put in writing the submission authorised by James resulted in the Massacre of Glencoe on February 13, 1692.

Jacobitism - The Old Pretender's attempted invasion

In 1701 James II and VII died. He was succeeded in his claims by his son, James Francis Edward Stuart. He was recognised as King James III of England and King James VIII of Scotland by the courts of France, Spain, and Modena, and by the pope; to his detractors he was known as the Old Pretender.

After a brief peace, the War of the Spanish Succession renewed French support for the Jacobites and in 1708 James Francis set out with French troops, but the French fleet was chased away by the Royal Navy and retreated round the north of Scotland back to France.

Jacobitism - Union and Hanoverians

In March 1702 William died and the throne passed to Mary's sister who became Queen Anne. Scotland's economy was faltering and the English parliament used trade sanctions to force the Scottish parliament towards union. One Scottish politician who thrived in these unpopular negotiations was John Erskine, Earl of Mar who, despite his Episcopalian background, ably supported the Scottish Revolution interest and after being a signatory to the Act of Union of 1707 was rewarded by Queen Anne and rose in the new British parliament to a key role in running Scottish affairs, a position formalised in 1713 when the post of Secretary of State for Scotland was revived for him. In that year he was part of the ministry that negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht which ended hostilities between France and Britain, in a deal unpopular with Hanoverians and Whigs.

Widespread discontent gave the Jacobites increasing hopes of James Francis gaining power when the popular Anne died leaving no immediate successor. However, the Act of Settlement 1701, confirmed by the Act of Union, required the monarch to be Protestant while James Francis was a devout Catholic. In the event the Whigs were quick to bring in from Hanover George I, great grandson of James I of England and VI of Scotland, an uncharismatic German who spoke poor English. This unattractive foreign figure revived populist loyalism, still slow to transfer affection to the new regime while the old dynasty lived. His arrival in 1714 was greeted by a winter of riots in England. George favoured the Whigs, and in the spring of 1715 the Tories lost the General Election to the Whigs who then impeached Tory leaders for their part in the peace negotiations with France. Tory fears for themselves and for the High Church of England led to conspiracy for armed rebellion, but when the time came their leaders were paralysed with fear and indecision and an alerted government ordered the arrest of the major players. At the day for the rising in the south-west a large number of Tory gentry turned up for "a race meeting" at Bath, but on receiving a letter from their leader (who was in hiding) saying that all was lost, they went home.

Jacobitism - The 'Fifteen

In Scotland years of famine and hardship fed discontent with the Union, providing fertile ground for what is often referred to as the First Jacobite Rising (or Rebellion). Mar had found himself identified with the previous government which thwarted his attempts to continue in office in the incoming Hanoverian government of King George I, and fearing impeachment he turned his loyalty to James, justifying his nickname Bobbin' John.
James Francis corresponded with Mar from France, as part of widespread Jacobite plotting, and in the summer of 1715 he called on Mar to raise the Clans without further delay. Mar, realising that the government had found out about his part in the conspiracy, rushed from London to Braemar and summoned clan leaders to "a grand hunting-match" on August 27, 1715 where he announced his change of allegiance. On September 6 he proclaimed James as "their lawful sovereign" and raised the old Scottish standard, whereupon (ominously) the gold ball fell off the top of the flagpole. Mar's proclamation called on men to fight "for the relief of our native country from oppression and a foreign yoke too heavy for us or our posterity to bear".

While Mar succeeded in raising an alliance of clans and northern Lowlanders united mainly in detesting the Union and recent Whig repression, he turned out to be an indifferent and indecisive general. Planned risings in Wales and Devon were forestalled by government arrests. A rising in the north of England joined forces with a rising in the south of Scotland and with a contingent from Mar marched into England, but did not meet the expected welcome and surrendered after a brief siege at the Battle of Preston (1715). Mar's forces in Scotland were unable to defeat government forces. A ship from France belatedly brought James Francis to Peterhead, but he was too consumed by melancholy and fits of fever to inspire his followers. After briefly setting up court at Scone, Perthshire then retreating to the coast, he withdrew to France with Mar on February 4, 1716, leaving a message advising his Highland followers to shift for themselves.

Jacobitism - Jacobitism in England

The unpopularity of George and the Whigs continued. Over the next five years, and to a reduced extent afterwards, a significant section of the English crowd asserted loyalism in Jacobite forms, including songs, symbolic oak leaves and white roses worn on anniversaries, attacks on Whigs and hanging or burning effigies of George with cuckold's horns. They derided his marital problems and mistresses (who got nicknames like the Goose and the Elephant) with songs (preserved in Jacobite Reliques) like Cam Ye O'er Frae France which includes the words "Saw ye Geordie's grace, Riding on a goosie?". In the minds of many, the "King over the Water" (whom the Jacobites' opponents called the Old Pretender) became a mythical Arthurian figure, a good king who would one day return and put things right. There was also a developing myth of Jacobite martyrs, praising the brave defiance of Jacobites at the scaffold and treasuring relics in an almost religious way. This inspired their supporters, but for most people these hangings merely showed that the Jacobites were on the losing side.

Jacobitism - Spanish supported Jacobite invasion

The failure of the '15 convinced the Jacobites that to overthrow the Hanoverians they needed the support of a major European power, and in an age when the Habsburg empire was collapsing and armies becoming professionalised this gave a lever to any country in dispute with Britain. With France still at peace, the Jacobites found a new ally in Spain's Minister to the King, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni, but an invasion force which set sail in 1719 failed to reach England and the party of Jacobites and Spanish soldiers which reached Scotland met only lukewarm support and the Spanish soldiers were forced to surrender at the Battle of Glen Shiel.

Jacobitism - The Atterbury plot

Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester and a passionate High Tory, conspired with Mar who had been appointed "Secretary of State" by James Francis in France, for a rising to coincide with the general election in 1722 aiming to exploit public anger over the South Sea Bubble. English Tories out in their constituencies were to summon their kinsmen, friends and tenants to secure their localities and march on London, while volunteers from the Irish Brigade were to land in the south to join them. While the French were sympathetic, an official request for assistance from the Jacobite court in exile meant that they could no longer turn a blind eye so they informed the English ambassador and posted the Irish Brigade out of temptation's way. Mar was bullied into betraying the conspiracy, which collapsed with arrests, denunciations and flights abroad.

Jacobitism - Aftermath of the 'Fifteen in Scotland

In the aftermath of the 'Fifteen, the Disarming Act and the Clan Act made ineffectual attempts to subdue the Scottish Highlands, and efforts at "rooting out of the Irish language" (Gaelic) were renewed. Government garrisons were built or extended and linked to the south by the Wade roads constructed for Major-General George Wade. Jacobitism lingered on amid resentment of economic hardship and the Whig government, and Catholic missionaries increased their influence with some clans, but political resistance to the Union lessened and Jacobitism became more of a secretive game with the glasses of claret being waved over water before the Loyal Toast so that it became a toast to "the King (over the water)".

In 1725 Wade raised the independent companies of the Black Watch as a militia to keep peace in the unruly Highlands, but in 1743 they were moved to fight the French in Flanders.

Jacobitism - The Cornbury plot

Robert Walpole's Excise Scheme of 1733 caused a crisis with public disorders, and Lord Cornbury, heir to the Earl of Clarendon, convinced the French ambassador in London and the French Secretary of State in Paris that the Hanoverian regime was crumbling and proposed a French invasion matched with Jacobite risings. The French cabinet considered the scheme then rejected it, their officials were demoted and Cornbury abandoned politics.

Jacobitism - 1744 French invasion attempt

Anglo-French relations gradually worsened and the Jacobites tried proposing further schemes, starting in 1737 with John Gordon of Glenbucket suggesting a Highland rising backed by French invasion and continued with lobbying by Lord Semphill as "official" Jacobite agent at the French court. During 1743 the War of the Austrian Succession drew Britain and France into open, though unofficial, hostilities against each other. Through Semphill, English Jacobites made a formal request to France for armed intervention. The French king's Master of Horse toured southern England meeting Tories and discussing their proposals, and in November 1743 Louis XV of France authorised a large-scale invasion of southern England in February 1744. Charles Edward Stuart (later known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender) who was in exile in Rome with his father (James Francis) was invited to accompany the expedition and rushed to France, but a storm destroyed the attempt. The British lodged strong diplomatic objections to the presence of Charles, and France declared war but abandoned ideas of Jacobite risings and gave Charles no more encouragement.

Jacobitism - The 'Forty-Five'

Early in 1744 a small number of Scottish Highland clan chieftains had sent Charles a message that they would rise if he arrived with as few as 3,000 French troops, and even against later cautions from his advisers he was determined not to turn back. He secretively borrowed funds, pawned his mother's jewellery and made preparations with a consortium of privateers. He set out for Scotland on 22 June 1745 with two ships, but the larger ship with 700 volunteers from the Irish Brigade and supplies of armaments was forced back. Charles landed with his seven men of Moidart on the island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides on 23 July 1745, and though Scottish clans initially showed little enthusiasm Charles went on to lead the Second Jacobite Rising in his father's name, taking Perth and Edinburgh almost unopposed.

The small Hanoverian army in Scotland under Sir John Cope chased round the Highlands, and eventually encountered Charles near Edinburgh where they were routed by a surprise attack at the Battle of Prestonpans, as celebrated in the Jacobite song "Hey, Johnny Cope, are you waking yet?". There was alarm in England, and in London a patriotic song was performed including the defiant verse:

This song was widely adopted and was to become the National Anthem (usually sung without that verse).

After Charles held court at Holyrood palace for five weeks he overcame Lord George Murray's caution by declaring that he had Tory assurances of an English rising and the Jacobite army set for England. Under Murray's command they successfully manoeuvred past government armies to reach Derby on 4 December, only 125 miles (200 km) from a panicking London, with a resentful Charles barely on speaking terms with his general. By then Charles was advised of progress on the French invasion fleet which was then assembling at Dunkirk, but at his Council of War his previous lies about assurances were exposed. They returned to join their growing force in Scotland, with a petulant Charles refusing to take any part in running the campaign until he insisted on fighting an orthodox defensive action at the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746 and they were finally defeated. Charles fled to France blaming everything on the treachery of his officers and making a dramatic if humiliating escape disguised as Flora Macdonald's "lady's maid". Cumberland's forces crushed the rebellion and effectively ended Jacobitism as a serious political force in Britain.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Military campaigns and Jacobitism", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki