Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 28 on 20/09/2006.

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A golden opportunity missed

James Irvine Robertson The Jacobite Rising of 1715

Everyone has heard of the 1745 Jacobite Rising and Bonnie Prince Charlie, but the 1715 Jacobite Rising is much less understood. And it even seemed to baffle people at the time, because it should have succeeded, in Scotland at least. The historical sources are far less forthcoming than might be expected.

The year 1707 was the date of the Act of Union between England and Scotland. It slithered through the Edinburgh Parliament, its progress lubricated with English gold for the dominating aristocracy, but it largely went against the popular will.

Alas, Scotland was bankrupt, the consequence of the ill-advised Darian Scheme for Scottish Colony in Panama, so the outcome was inevitable.

In 1708, the Chevalier James, son of the last Stuart king to sit on the throne of Britain, sailed into the River Forth aboard a French fleet to recapture his exiled father’s lost domain. But it was too windy to land and the ships returned to France.

In 1714 Queen Anne, James’s half-sister, and the last of the direct line of Stuart monarchs, died. In terms of the Act of Settlement of 1701, its purpose to ensure a Protestant succession, their cousin Prince George of Hanover was offered the British Crown.

The 11th Earl of Mar had been one of the architects of the Union and profited from it.

He had earned the nickname of ‘Bobbing John,’ being remarkable for switching sides when it suited him. By 1713, he had risen to become one of the three British Secretaries of State and sent a fulsome letter of .....

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By James Irvine Robertson

Section : Scottish History

Page number : 20