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Scotland - Union, the Hanoverians and the Jacobites
By 1700, the Protestant monarchy seemed in danger of coming to an end with the childless Stuart queen, Queen Anne.
Since the direct heir to the throne espoused Catholicism, the English parliament passed the Act of Settlement, making the Protestant descendants of Sophia of Hanover next in the line of succession.
In Scotland, however, the Scottish parliament passed the Act of Security, which allowed for a Stuart return so long as the heir converted to Protestantism.
Rather than risk the possible return of the scion James III, then living in France, the English parliament opened negotiations for the formal amalgamation of the two countries.
In 1707, the two parliaments merged and confirmed the succession of the Hanoverians.
Scotland took 45 seats in the Parliament at Westminster, and the Scottish legal system and church remained intact, but for all intents and purposes, Scotland became subsumed in the Kingdom of Great Britain.
The House of Stuart refused to acquiesce so its supporters, the Jacobites, made repeated attempts to regain the throne of the united Kingdom of Great Britain.
In 1708 James III attempted an invasion aboard a French fleet, but the Royal Navy prevented them from landing. A more serious attempt occurred in 1715.
The Jacobite Rising of 1715, known as "The 'Fifteen", involved planned simultaneous uprisings in Wales and Devonshire as well as in Scotland, but government arrests forestalled the southern ventures.
In Scotland the Earl of Mar, nicknamed Bobbin' John, raised the Jacobite clans and led them bravely but indecisively.
Mar captured Perth, but let a smaller government force under the Duke of Argyll hold the Stirling plain.
A force sent by Mar met up with risings in the north of England and the south of Scotland, and the Jacobites fought their way into England before they suffered defeat at the siege known as the Battle of Preston and surrendered on 14 November 1715.
The day before Mar failed to defeat Argyll at the Battle of Sheriffmuir, and after a melancholy James III belatedly landed in Scotland his council advised giving up and James fled back to France.
An attempt in 1719 at a Jacobite invasion with Spanish support met only lukewarm support from a few clans and ended with surrender at the Battle of Glen Shiel.
In 1745 the Jacobite Rising known as "The 'Forty-Five" began when the son of James III, Charles Stuart (commonly known as "Bonnie Prince Charlie"), landed on the island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides.
Several Highland clans joined his cause and his army took Edinburgh then defeated the only government army in Scotland at the Battle of Prestonpans.
They marched on England and got as far as Derby, where the Jacobite leadership had a crisis of confidence and the army retreated to join more Jacobite forces in Scotland.
The Duke of Cumberland crushed the "Forty-Five" and the hopes of the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden on (April 16th 1746).
Charles hid in Scotland with the aid of the Highlanders until September 1746, when he escaped back to France with the help of Flora Macdonald.
France expelled him in accordance with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), effectively ending any realistic chance of a Stuart restoration.
Article is provided courtesy of Wikipedia.org and distributed under the terms of GNU Free Documentation License.
Click here for the Scotland360.com History of Scotland Index page.
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