Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 2 on 5/6/2002.

This article is 77 months old and some information provided may be time sensitive. Please check all details of events, tours, opening times and other information before travelling or making arrangements.

Gael Force

Take a swift history lesson, from James II to Queen Victoria - and discover the influence of the Jacobites on Scotland's past

In 1685, aged 52, James Stuart was crowned king of Great Britain. His father Charles I believed he had a divine right to rule as his fancy dictated. Parliament disagreed, and they went to war. The king lost and was decapitated. Oliver Cromwell became the Lord Protector and that should have settled the matter, but the Stuarts were restored to the throne on Cromwell’s death. Charles II’s great passions were good living and his mistresses. A subtle man, he avoided confrontation with his subjects but he died without a legitimate child and his brother James had the rigidity and self-righteousness of his father. Worse, he was a Roman Catholic and the Protestant faith was perceived as the cornerstone of British liberty.

James and his promotion of Catholicism was tolerated because his heir, by his first wife, was Mary. She was stoutly Protestant and married to the even more stoutly Protestant William of Orange who was involved in a desperate war with France. But in 1688 came disaster. After 15 years of marriage, James’s queen, Mary of Modena, produced a son who would ensure a Catholic succession. William was invited to England to take the throne. James panicked and fled to France, dying there in 1701, and William, in the Bloodless Revolution, was crowned king.

The ruling class was split into factions – Whigs and Tories. Many of the latter objected to this usurpation of the anointed king. Others were wary of the new power of William’s supporters and wished the Stuarts’ return. Th.....

To read the rest of this article you can buy this issue or subscribe to Scotland Magazine to have every issue delivered direct to your door.

By James Irvine Robertson

Section : Scottish Jacobites

Page number : 36