More Religion, politics and adventurers

Author: * Cinaedh Cruithni - 7 Posts on this thread out of 507 Posts sitewide.
Date: Jun 19, 2006 - 11:50

England and Scotland

In lowland Britain the Catholics tended to come from the gentry and formed the most ideologically committed supporters, drawing on almost two centuries of subterfuge as a minority persecuted by the state and rallying enthusiastically to Jacobite armies as well as contributing financial support to the court in exile. Some Scottish Highland clans such as the Clan Macdonald of Clanranald remained Catholic, but they were exceptions.

Just as much dedicated support in England came from the Nonjuring Anglicans, which started with Church of England clergy who refused on principle to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary while James still lived, and developed into an Episcopalian schism of the church with small congregations in all the English cities. In many respects, Jacobites perceived themselves as the heirs of the Royalists or Cavaliers of the English Civil War era, who had fought for James II's father Charles I and for the Established Church against the Parliamentarians - who stood for the primacy of Parliament and for religious dissent. Jacobite supporters displayed pictures of both Cavalier and Jacobite heroes in their homes.

Scottish Episcopalians provided over half of the Jacobite forces in Britain, and although Dundee's rising in 1689 came mostly from the western Highlands, in later risings Episcopalians came from the north-east Scottish Lowlands as well as from the Highland clans, although Highlanders were always in the majority. They too were described as Nonjurors. As Protestants they could take part in Scottish politics, but were in a minority and were repeatedly discriminated against in legislation favouring the established Church of Scotland although they were never treated as violently as Presbyterians had been under Stuart rule. However many Episcopalians were quiet about any Jacobite sympathies and were able to accommodate themselves to the new regime.

The Scottish Highlands

To the Scottish Highland clans the conflict was more about inter-clan politics than about religion, and a significant factor was resistance to the territorial ambitions of the (Presbyterian) Campbells of Argyll. There was a precedent for post 1689 Jacobitism during the period of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, when clans from the western Highlands had fought for James's father Charles I in the Scottish Civil War against the Campbells and the Covenanters. Another factor in Highland Jacobitism was James II's sympathetic treatment of the Highland clans. Whereas previous monarchs since the late 16th century had been antagonistic to the Gaelic Highland way of life, James had worked sympathetically with the clan chieftains in the Commission for Pacifying the Highlands. Some Highland chieftains therefore viewed Jacobitism as a means of resisting hostile government intrusion into their territories. The significance of their support for the Stuarts was that the Highlands was the only part of Britain which still maintained private armies, in the form of clan levies. During the Jacobite Risings, they provided the bulk of Jacobite manpower.

From:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobitism#Jacobite_community.2C_ideology_and_policy