Jacobitism

The last genuine rebellion on British soil, the Jacobite rising of 1745 forms one of the greatest 'what ifs' of British history. If Bonnie Prince Charlie's troops had defeated the forces of George II, it is fair to say that the entire subsequent course of the country's history would have been dizzyingly changed. Jacobitism is a comprehensive study of the Stuart dynasty's attempts to regain the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland in the eighteenth century. It provides not only a history of the Jacobite cause and the Risings but also studies of Jacobite culture, the financing of Jacobitism, the Jacobite diaspora and Jacobitism and nationalism, as well as a critical review of the major changes in Jacobite scholarship this century.

For over seventy years after the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688–90, Jacobitism survived in the face of Whig propaganda. These essays seek to challenge current views of Jacobite historiography. They focus on migrant communities, networking, smuggling, shipping, religious and intellectual support mechanisms, art, architecture and identity.

The essays in this collection examine religion, politics and commerce in Scotland during a time of crisis and turmoil. Contributors look at the effect of the Union on Scottish trade and commerce, the Scottish role in tobacco and sugar plantations, Robert Burns’s early poetry on his planned emigration to Jamaica and Scottish anti-abolitionists.

In both 1715 and 1745 there was a major military challenge in Britain to the thrones of George I and George II, posed by Jacobite supporters of the exiled Stuart claimant. This book examines the responses of those loyal to the Hanoverian dynasty, whose efforts have been ignored or disparaged compared to the military perspective or that of the Jacobites. These efforts included those of the clergy who gave loyalist sermons, accompanied the volunteer forces against the Jacobites and even stood up to the Jacobite forces in person. The lords lieutenant organized militia and volunteer forces to support the status quo. Official bodies, such as the corporations, parishes, quarter sessions and sheriffs, organized events to celebrate loyalist occasions and dealt with local Jacobite sympathisers. The press, both national and regional, was uniformly loyal. Finally, both the middling and common people acted, often violently, against those thought to be hostile towards the status quo. The effectiveness of these bodies had limits, but was at times decisive, and showed that the dynasty was not without popular support in its hours of crisis. This volume is essential reading for all those interested in the Jacobite rebellions and the early English Georgian state, church and society.

Since the rise of the modern nation state in Europe, political leaders have had to cope with the problems of conspiracy and internal security. The English Ministers and Jacobitism between the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745 is a study of the response made to these twin problems by the British central government, under Stanhope, Sunderland, and Walpole. Faced with the prospect of assassination, internal rebellion, and conspiracy, the ministers naturally took all necessary measures to protect the security of the state. Nor did their worries end with the successful defeat of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715; an examination of the anti-Jacobite campaign after this date clearly demonstrates a continuing dread of Jacobitism. At the same time, their action in the years 1715-45 against Jacobite plots for a restoration betrays an acute awareness on their part of the political advantages to be reaped through careful exploitation of those fears. Professor Fritz's study is a valuable addition to the existing literature on Jacobitism. It uncovers new documents revealing the workings of the conspirators, and it illuminates how the threat of conspiracy was used successfully by imaginative politicians to retain power.

In the late nineteenth century a resurgent Jacobite movement emerged in Britain and the United States, highlighting the virtues of the Stuart monarchs in contrast to liberal, democratic, and materialist Victorian Britain and Gilded Age America. Compared with similarly aligned protest movements of the era – socialism, anarchism, nihilism, populism, and progressivism – the rise of Jacobitism receives little attention. Born in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Jacobitism had been in steep decline since the mid-eighteenth century. But between 1880 and 1910, Jacobite organizations popped up across Britain, then spread to the United States, publishing royalist magazines, organizing public demonstrations, offering Anglo-Catholic masses to fallen Stuart kings, and praying at Stuart statues and tombs. Michael Connolly explains the rise and fall of Anglo-American Jacobitism, places it in context, and reveals its significance as a response to and a driver of the political forces of the period. Understanding the Jacobite movement clarifies Victorian Anglo-American anxiety over liberalism, democracy, industrialization, and emerging modernity. In an age when worries over liberalism are again ascendant, Jacobitism in Britain and the United States, 1880–1910 traces the complex genealogy of this unease.

This book is a comprehensive survey of the Jacobite movement, from its violent counter-revolutionary origins to its bitter conclusion. Written to be easily accessible, it takes into account the latest research and is designed to provide an easy introduction to the field.

A comprehensive study of material objects associated with the Jacobites, produced, acquired and treasured in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.