Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 3 on 5/7/2002.

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Monarchs of the Glen

The British monarchy is whee it isbecause of its Scottish roots. A look back in time by Charles Douglas

What is so often forgotten amid all the myths and misinformation that surrounds the British Monarchy is that the Royal House of Windsor,
which currently occupies the throne of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, is there because of its Scottish credentials.

This came about chiefly as a result of domestic religious strife. Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries was deeply divided between the forces of
Catholicism and the rising Protestant persuasions. In 1532, Henry VIII of England set the precedent by creating the Church of England and appointing himself its head. In Scotland, the Reformation by 1560 had established the Presbyterian faith.

It is impossible to underestimate the strength and depth of feeling this provoked at the time. It was because of his conversion to Catholicism that James VII of Scotland and II of England, last of the Stuart kings, was driven into exile in 1688 by his daughter and Protestant son-in-law William of Orange. With the Act of Settlement of 1701, the parliament of the day decreed that the British Crown should bypass 42 Catholic heirs in favour of the nearest Protestant candidate, and that person was Sophia, daughter of James VI of Scotland’s daughter Elizabeth. Sophia had
married the Elector of Hanover, and that is how her son George, following her death, became the first Hanovarian King of England and Scotland.

In the decades that followed, the son and grandson of the disenfranchised James VII led two Jacobite uprisings, c.....

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By Charles Douglas

Section : Royal History

Page number : 28