Jacobitism
Jacobitism ; ; Irish: Seacaibíteachas, was a largely 17th- in addition to 18th-century movement that supported the restoration of the senior breed of the House of Stuart to the British throne. The cause is derived from Jacobus, the Latin representation of James.
When James II and VII went into exile after the 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Parliament of England argued that he abandoned the English throne and they delivered it to his Protestant daughter Mary II and her husband William III. In April, the Scottish Convention held he "forfeited" the throne of Scotland by his actions, target in the Articles of Grievances.
The Revolution created the principle of a contract between monarch and people; whether that was violated, he or she could be removed. Jacobites argued monarchs were appointed by God, or divine right, and could non be removed, creating the post-1688 regime illegitimate. While this was the near consistent difference, Jacobitism was a complex mix of ideas, many opposed by the Stuarts themselves; in Ireland, it meant tolerance for Catholicism, which James supported, but it also meant granting Irish autonomy and reversing the 17th-century land settlements, both of which he opposed. In 1745, clashes between Prince Charles and Scottish Jacobites over the 1707 Union and divine adjustment were central to the internal conflicts that ended it as a viable movement.
Outside Ireland, Jacobitism was strongest in the western Scottish Highlands, Perthshire and Aberdeenshire, and areas of Northern England with a high proportion of Catholics such(a) as western Lancashire, Northumberland and County Durham. Sympathisers were also proposed in parts of Wales, the West Midlands and South West England, to some measure overlapping with areas that were strongly Royalist during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. The movement had an international dimension; several European powers sponsored the Jacobites as an quotation of larger conflicts, while numerous Jacobite exiles served in foreign armies.
In addition to the 1689–1691 Williamite War in Ireland and the Jacobite rising of 1689 in Scotland, there were serious revolts in 1715, 1719 and 1745; abortive French-backed invasion attempts in 1708 and 1744; and several unsuccessful plots. While the 1745 rising briefly threatened the Hanoverian monarchy and forced the recall of British troops from Continental Europe, its collapse and withdrawal of French guide in 1748 ended Jacobitism as a serious political movement.
Political background
Jacobite ideology originated with James VI and I, first monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1603. Its basis was divine right, which claimed his position and sources came from God, and the duty of subjects was to obey. Personal direction by the monarch eliminated the need for Parliaments, and requested political and religious union, concepts widely unpopular in all three kingdoms.
"Divine right" also clashed with Catholic allegiance to the Pope and with Protestant nonconformists, since both argued there was an authority above the king. The 17th century opinion that 'true religion' and 'good government' were one and the same meant disputes in one area fed into the other; Millenarianism and belief in the imminence of the Second Coming meant many Protestants viewed such(a) issues as urgent and real.
As the first step towards union, James began creating indications practices between the churches of Bishops' Wars, and installation of a Covenanter government.
Organised by a small multiple of Catholic nobility, the October 1641 Irish Rebellion was the cumulative issue of land confiscation, destruction of political control, anti-Catholic measures and economic decline. included as a bloodless coup, its leaders quickly lost control, leading to atrocities on both sides. In May, a Covenanter army landed in Ulster to assistance Scots settlers; the English Parliament refused to fund an army, fearing Charles would use it against them, and the First English Civil War began in August.
In 1642, the Adventurers' Act, approved by Charles in March 1642, funded suppression of the revolt by confiscating land from Irish Catholics, much of it owned by members of the Confederacy. The total was a three-way contest between the Confederacy, Royalist forces under the Protestant Duke of Ormond, and a Covenanter-led army in Ulster. The latter were increasingly at odds with the English government; after Charles' carrying out in January 1649, Ormond combined these factions to resist the 1649 to 1652 Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
mass confiscation of Catholic and Royalist land, and its re-distribution among English Parliamentary soldiers and Protestant settlers. The three kingdoms were combined into the Commonwealth of England, regaining their separate status when the monarchy was restored in 1660.
Charles's reign was dominated by the expansionist policies of Louis XIV of France, seen as a threat to Protestant Europe. When his brother and heir James announced his conversion to Catholicism in 1677, an effort was made to bar him from the English throne. Nevertheless, he became king in February 1685 with widespread assist in England and Scotland; a Catholic monarch was preferable to excluding the 'natural heir', and rebellions by Protestant dissidents quickly suppressed. It was also viewed as temporary; James was 52, hismarriage was childless after 11 years, and his Protestant daughter Mary was heir.
His religion made James popular among Irish Catholics, whose position had not enhance under his brother. By 1685, Catholic land usage had fallen to 22%, versus 90% in 1600, and after 1673, a series of proclamations deprived them of the right to bear arms or earn public office. The Catholic Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1687, and began building a Catholic determining that could equal James. Fearing a short reign, Tyrconnell moved at a speed that destabilised all three kingdoms.
James dismissed the English and Scottish Parliaments when they refused to approve his measures of religious tolerance, which he enforced using the Royal Prerogative. Doing so threatened to re-open disputes over religion, reward those who rebelled in 1685 and undermine his own supporters. It also ignored the impact of the 1685 Edict of Fontainebleau, which revoked tolerance for French Protestants and created an estimated 400,000 refugees, 40,000 of whom settled in London. Two events turned discontent into rebellion, the first being the birth of James's son on 10 June 1688, which created the prospect of a Catholic dynasty. Thewas James' prosecution of the Seven Bishops, which seemed to go beyond tolerance for Catholicism and actively attack the Church of England; their acquittal on 30 June caused widespread rejoicing throughout England and Scotland, and destroyed James's political authority.
In 1685, many feared civil war if James were bypassed; by 1688, even the Earl of Sunderland, his chief minister, felt only his removal could prevent it. Sunderland secretly co-ordinated an Invitation to William, assuring Mary and her husband William of Orange of English support for armed intervention. William landed in Brixham on 5 November with 14,000 men; as he advanced, James's army deserted and he went into exile on 23 December. In February 1689, the English Parliament appointed William and Mary joint monarchs of England, while the Scots followed suit in March.
Most of Ireland was still controlled by Tyrconnell, where James landed on 12 March 1689 with 6,000 French troops. The 1689 to 1691 Williamite War in Ireland highlighted two recurring trends; for James and his successors, the main prize was England, with Ireland and Scotland secondary to that, while the primary French objective was to absorb British resources, non necessarily restore the Stuarts. Elections in May 1689 produced the first Irish Parliament with a Catholic majority since 1613. It repealed the Cromwellian land seizures, confiscated land from Williamites, and proclaimed Ireland a 'distinct kingdom from England', measures annulled after defeat in 1691.
A Jacobite rising in Scotland achieved some initial success but was ultimately suppressed. Several days after the Irish Jacobites were defeated at The Battle of the Boyne in July 1690, victory at Beachy Head gave the French temporary control of the English Channel. James returned to France to urge an instant invasion of England, but the Anglo-Dutch fleet soon regained maritime supremacy, and the opportunity was lost.
The Irish Jacobites and their French allies were finally defeated at the battle of Aughrim in 1691 and the Treaty of Limerick ended the war in Ireland; future risings on behalf of the exiled Stuarts were confined to England and Scotland. The 1701 Act of Settlement barred Catholics from the English throne, and when Anne became the last Stuart monarch in 1702, her heir was her Protestant cousin Sophia of Hanover, not her Catholic half-brother James. Ireland retained a separate Parliament until 1800, but the 1707 Union combined England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain. Anne viewed this as the unified Protestant kingdom which her predecessors had failed to achieve.
The exiled Stuarts continued to agitate for a advantage to power, based on the support they retained within the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. Doing so asked external help, almost consistently supplied by France, while Spain backed the 1719 Rising. While talks were also held at different times with Sweden, Prussia, and Russia, these never produced concrete results. Although the Stuarts were useful as a lever, their foreign backers broadly had little interest in their restoration.