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If you’re wondering, “did the Jacobites win?” - you’re in luck! We have all the information on the Jacobite uprisings right here. Where to begin?
A Scottish king was overthrown and forced to flee his homeland. A royal lineage fought for over 100 years to return to being the recognized monarchy of Great Britain. A fierce and loyal community of supporters stood, fought, and fell by their sides.
Strap in - this is the story of the Jacobite Uprisings.
About The Jacobite Uprising
The most well-known Jacobite Uprising is the Forty-Five Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 or 1746. Here, Bonnie Prince Charlie planned a Jacobite invasion for over two years. The aim of this was to restore Scottish rule to Great Britain.
Not everyone knows that the history of the Jacobite Uprisings has its roots in 1603. It all started with the ascension of James I - James Charles Stuart - to the English throne. Being crowned the King Of Britain was his lifelong ambition. The crown was carried by the Stuarts for three generations.
In 1685, James I’s great-grandson, Charles II, died without an heir. His brother, James II, claimed the throne. The English Parliament and nobles objected because James II was a converted Catholic.
They overthrew him and awarded the crown to his Protestant daughter - Mary. James II fled to France, and it is here that the patriotic Jacobite Uprisings began.
Did The Jacobites Win: About The Uprisings
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Why Are They Called Jacobites?
The word ‘Jacobite’ is derived from Jacobus - the Latin word for James. Jacobites were supporters of the restoration of the senior line of the House Of Stuart to the British throne.
When Mary was given the British crown, the Jacobites were angry. They believed that the monarchs were appointed by God and could not simply be removed from their divine calling. A movement began to restore the divine right of the primary lineage of Stuarts to rule Britain.
Rebellions ensued across the Stuart bloodlines. The final attempt to claim back the throne was in 1759.
Background To The Uprising
In 1603, James I was called upon to take the throne of England and Ireland when Queen Elizabeth died without an heir.
James I was the son of Mary Queen of Scots and great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland. Lineage dictated that James I was the next rightful heir to the throne.
James I began to rule Great Britain with the idea to unify the realms. He began a drive to force England’s Anglican hierarchy on the Scottish Presbyterian Church.
This zealous drive for religious reform was continued by James I’s son, King Charles I, when he ascended to the throne following his father’s death in 1625.
The Scottish people rebelled against the reforms, and armed conflicts began in the 1640s. The people did not want another religion and its rules forced upon them.
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The peak of this conflict was in 1685 when Charles II died without a legitimate heir. This led to his brother - James II - taking the throne.
James II was a converted Catholic and the British Parliament, along with some of the realm’s nobles, refused to allow a Catholic monarch to rule over Protestant England. They overthrew him and crowned his Protestant daughter, Mary, queen.
James II fled to France out of fear for his life. He still claimed the right to the British throne. This was supported by many who believed that the true British monarchy was the Stuart lineage.
End Of The Stuart Reign
After Mary and her husband William’s deaths in 1702, Mary’s sister Anne was crowned queen. Queen Anne’s reign saw the Acts Of Union being signed in 1707. Under these, England and Scotland were formally united.
The Scottish people were extremely unhappy about this as the union merged Scotland into the Great British triad. This removed its right to rule itself as an independent realm.
Ripples of Scottish unrest and rebellion were a constant undercurrent that ran past Anne’s death in 1714. Anne had no heir, and the unrest filtered through into the reign of George I, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg, and Elector of Hanover.
George was the son of the Protestant Sophia of the Palatine, who was next in line to the throne after Anne’s death. Sophia died before she could be crowned, so the crown passed to her son.
This marked the end of the Stuart reign of Great Britain, and notably, Scotland. This was the beginning of the Hanovarian reign of Great Britain.
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The Jacobite Uprisings Begin
Back in France, James II’s son - James Francis Edward Stuart - was known as the Old Pretender. He was angered that a Hanovarian had been named King Of Britain. Many Scottish Highlanders, nobles, and English families devoted to the Stuart cause felt the same.
The Fifteen: First Jacobite Uprising
In 1715, a Scottish nobleman - the Earl of Mar - and his troops took control of Inverness, along with most of northern Scotland.
James II heard of the success and set out to join the Earl and the uprising in Scotland. Unfortunately, by the time he got there, the Jacobite force had been defeated. This happened as they marched south to London, at the Battle Of Preston.
Bonnie Prince Charlie & The Forty-Five Rebellion
Tensions continued to bubble in the following decades.
The Old Pretender’s son, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, was known as the Young Pretender. However, he was best known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. He began plotting an invasion of Great Britain in 1743.
He believed that the timing was perfect for a rebellion. This was because the British forces had been deployed to the European continent to support Britain’s ally, Austria, in the War Of The Austrian Succession.
Government troops were also stationed in North America, the Indian subcontinent, and the Caribbean as part of the Succession.
The domestic protective forces were considered to be severely depleted, leaving Great Britain open to a potential siege.
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In July 1745, Charlie sailed to the Scottish Isle of Eriskay and began garnering support for the uprising. He grew the Jacobite numbers as he rallied Scottish clans to his aid.
The Jacobites March
On 15 September, the Jacobite army marched on Scotland’s Edinburgh, and the Old Pretender was declared King James VIII. At the same time, Charlie planned the invasion of England.
However, British authority was not idle. The government put a £30,000 bounty on the Young Pretender’s head. King George II, son of George I, set a recall of his brother, the Duke Of Cumberland, to aid in quelling the rebellion.
The invasion began in mid-November of 1745, with Prince Charles laying siege to Carlisle, then continuing south to take Manchester.
Jacobite spirits were high, and they believed that bringing the Stuart line back into power was within their grasp.
However, the Duke solicited the help of Field Marshal George Wade. He joined the Duke’s pursuit of the Jacobites from the Midlands. The dual force of the two armies forced the Bonnie Prince and his Jacobite army to scatter, and Charlie fled to Scotland.
On 25 December, Charlie and his army reached Glasgow. The Jacobites restocked their provisions and were able to defeat British government troops at the Battle of Falkirk Muir.
The Duke Of Cumberland’s forces were set on defeating the Jacobites, and they landed at Edinburgh in 1746.
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The last stand was made by the Jacobites at Culloden Moor on 16 April. The exhausted army, with basic weaponry, was no match for the superior British artillery. About 20 000 Jacobite men lost their lives at the Battle Of Culloden.
The few that escaped fled into the West Highlands. Those who were caught were executed or transported elsewhere.
The British government banned the Scottish tartan and kilt and disbanded the clan system. This historical hierarchy was lost to Scottish history.
The Jacobite Uprising: A Timeline
November 1688: James II, the Catholic King Of Britain, flees to France.
27 July 1689: Viscount Dundee leads the Battle of Killiekrankie, and defeats a Protestant army.
21 August 1689: Jacobites attempt to revolt in Dunkeld, Scotland.
1 July 1690: The Battle of Boyne takes place in Ireland, where James II is defeated by William of Orange.
12 July 1691: In the Battle of Aughrim, Irish Jacobites were defeated.
13 February 1692: The Glencoe Massacre takes place. The MacDonald clan chief swore his oath to King William late. This resulted in 38 members of that clan being killed by members of the Campbell clan.
12 June 1701: The Act Of Settlement was passed by British Parliament. This stipulated that if William III and Princess Anne died without heirs, succession to the throne would pass to Sophia of Hanover, granddaughter of James I.
6 September 1701: James II dies.
6 September 1715: The beginning of The Fifteen. A Jacobite rebellion flares up in Braemer, Scotland, following the ascension of King George I.
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13 November 1715: The Battle of Sherriffmuir occurs, where the Scottish Jacobites are defeated.
14 November 1715: A Scottish/English Jacobite army was defeated near Preston, northwest England.
24 September 1722: The Bishop of Rochester, a Jacobite leader, is exposed to the Atterbury Plot, and is arrested and exiled.
23 July 1745: The Forty-Five rebellion begins.
11 September 1745: Jacobites capture Edinburgh, Scotland.
21 September 1745: Battle Of Prestonpans, where Jacobites defeat a British force, then move south into England.
4 December 1745: Marching Jacobites reach Derby, 150 miles away from London. Due to a lack of support, Prince Charles Edward Stuart is advised to return to France.
18 December 1745: The Clifton Moor Skirmish is considered the last battle to take place on English soil. Retreating Jacobites engage with the Duke of Cumberland’s British government troops. Many are killed on both sides. The English are buried in the Clifton churchyard, and the Scots are buried under an oak tree that became known as the Rebel Tree. A plaque of remembrance remains there to this day.
17 January 1746: The Jacobites fail to capture Stirling Castle in Scotland, but defeat General Henley Hawley’s British troops at the Battle of Falkirk Muir.
18 February 1746: The Jacobites capture Inverness, and stay there for two months.
16 April 1746: The last battle takes place - the Battle Of Culloden. British cannons decimate the Jacobite army in under one hour.
20 September 1746: Prince Charles flees Culloden Moor with a bounty of £30,000 on his head.
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Did The Jacobites Win?
The Bonnie Prince managed to evade capture for years and seemingly disappeared into the Scottish Highlands.
In September 1746, he left Scotland and sailed back to France. The boat he sailed on was named L’Heureaux, which means ‘the happy one’.
Charlie’s flight from Culloden became commemorated in a popular folk song called The Skye Boat Song. This is a Jacobite lament describing how the Bonnie Prince disguised himself as an Irish woman and was rowed over the Minch to the island of Skye.
He briefly considered another invasion in 1759, during the Seven Years’ War. This was a seven-year-long conflict among European powers that saw Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and Saxony fighting Prussia, Hanover, and Great Britain.
This rebellion never occurred. Charlie spent the remainder of his years in exile in Rome until he died on 31 January 1788. He was laid to rest in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, where the Monument To The Stuarts can still be seen today.
The Jacobite uprisings, although fueled with zeal and support for the royal Stuart family line, did not see the Stuarts returned to the throne of Great Britain.
The line of the Royal House of Stuart ended in 1807, with the death of Charles Edward Stuart’s brother, Cardinal Henry Benedict Stuart.
Charles II did have several illegitimate sons, who have surviving descendants. These include Charles Gordon-Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond; Henry FitzRoy, 12th Duke of Grafton; Murray Beauclerk, 14th Duke of St Albans; and Richard Scott, 10th Duke of Buccleuch.
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James II also had an illegitimate son who founded the House of FitzJames.
What Happened To The Jacobites?
After the Battle Of Culloden, and the fall of the House Of Stuart and the Jacobites, the British government came to power. British powers broke down the ancient Scottish clan structure.
The Acts of Proscription were passed, which put Scotsmen in the iron grip of the British. They were forbidden to carry weapons and their Highland dress of tartan and kilts was forbidden.
The Scotsmen weren’t even allowed to play the famed Scottish bagpipes. Those who disobeyed these rules could expect fines, imprisonment, or exile.
Many Jacobites were conscripted into the British army. These Jacobites stood at the forefront of Britain's 18th-century imperial expansion.
Three Things You May Not Know About the Jacobite Uprising
Many Jacobites that came from England and Ireland wore tartan and Highland clothing. This was because Bonnie Prince Charlie wanted his army to have a uniform look.
The tartan used to make kilts, plaids, and trews was coloured with imported dyes to ensure that it had the brightest colours possible.
When Charlie escaped to France in 1746, he was helped by Flora MacDonald (statue shown below). He went into disguise as an Irish serving girl called Betty Burke so he could get safely to Skye. This dress was later copied and became a best-seller.
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Final Thoughts
If you were wondering, “did the Jacobites win?” - we hope you have your answer!
The Jacobites were a community of Stuart supporters who believed in the purity of the Stuart lineage as the rightful monarchy of the Scottish throne.
The Jacobites were not a movement to give up easily. This can be seen in the number of attempts made to revolt and restore a Stuart king to the throne. For all their attempts, their mission was not a success.
This is a story of incredible bravery, political prowess, intrigue, and absolute determination. History will forever remember the Jacobites and their vision.
