The Jacobite Rebellion was the final attempt of the House of Stuart to re-establish itself on the British throne and it saw the death throes of the independent martial prowess of the Highland clans. No event in British history has been more heavily romanticized, but Gregory Fremont-Barnes succeeds in stripping away the myths to reveal the key events of this crucial period. From questions of dynastic succession to religious dominance, the events leading to the Rebellion are carefully explained and analyzed, drawing upon a host of primary research. From the landing of Bonnie Prince Charlie to the battle of Culloden, this book offers a complete overview of the Rebellion, complete with detailed maps and beautiful period illustrations.
In the summer of 1745, Charles Edward Stuart, the grandson of England's King James II, landed on the western coast of Scotland intending to overthrow George II and restore the Stuart family to the throne. He gathered thousands of supporters, and the insurrection he led—the Jacobite Rising of 1745—was a crisis not only for Britain but for the entire British Empire. Rebellion and Savagery examines the 1745 rising and its aftermath on an imperial scale. Charles Edward gained support from the clans of the Scottish Highlands, communities that had long been derided as primitive. In 1745 the Jacobite Highlanders were denigrated both as rebels and as savages, and this double stigma helped provoke and legitimate the violence of the government's anti-Jacobite campaigns. Though the colonies stayed relatively peaceful in 1745, the rising inspired fear of a global conspiracy among Jacobites and other suspect groups, including North America's purported savages. The defeat of the rising transformed the leader of the army, the Duke of Cumberland, into a popular hero on both sides of the Atlantic. With unprecedented support for the maintenance of peacetime forces, Cumberland deployed new garrisons in the Scottish Highlands and also in the Mediterranean and North America. In all these places his troops were engaged in similar missions: demanding loyalty from all local inhabitants and advancing the cause of British civilization. The recent crisis gave a sense of urgency to their efforts. Confident that "a free people cannot oppress," the leaders of the army became Britain's most powerful and uncompromising imperialists. Geoffrey Plank argues that the events of 1745 marked a turning point in the fortunes of the British Empire by creating a new political interest in favor of aggressive imperialism, and also by sparking discussion of how the British should promote market-based economic relations in order to integrate indigenous peoples within their empire. The spread of these new political ideas was facilitated by a large-scale migration of people involved in the rising from Britain to the colonies, beginning with hundreds of prisoners seized on the field of battle and continuing in subsequent years to include thousands of men, women and children. Some of the migrants were former Jacobites and others had stood against the insurrection. The event affected all the British domains.
One of the most celebrated moments in Scottish history, the Jacobite Rising of 1745 is often romanticized. Drawing on the work of historians and a wide range of contemporary sources, Culloden expert Stuart Reid strips away the myths surrounding the events of the campaign, revealing some of the lesser known and fascinating truths about the Rising. Illustrated with contemporary sketches and meticulous full-colour reconstructions of dress and equipment, the raising of Prince Charles Edward Stuart's army is examined in detail from its organization in regiments and their command system, to its weapons, tactical strengths and weaknesses.
In the summer of 1745, a charismatic (but inexperienced) young Prince sailed to Scotland - determined to wrest the crowns of Great Britain from the head of George II. In a few short weeks, he raised an army large enough to challenge the government's forces in Scotland and, against the odds, stormed to a shocking victory over them at the Battle of Prestonpans. Celebrated ever since in song and art, Prestonpans nevertheless proved to be a false dawn on the road to defeat at the Battle of Culloden seven months later, but without his victory at Prestonpans and all the opportunities it provided, Charles Edward Stuart ('Bonnie Prince Charlie') could never have invaded England and his short uprising would then have been but a footnote in the history of Georgian Britain. This book - the climax of years of on-site investigation and source analysis - pieces together the events of the Prestonpans campaign in unprecedented detail. Focusing on the week of the battle, the author's knowledge of the towns and villages through which the armies marched brings their motions vividly to life. Combined with eyewitness testimonies and close scrutiny of the evidence presented to the Board of Inquiry in 1746, this allows the reader to understand the build-up to the battle from an individual, as well as strategic, level. Such an understanding is revealed as critical, as the effects of morale, landscape and personality are shown to have determined the fate of the battle far more than the relative power of broadsword and bayonet. The book opens with an exploration of the battlefield area prior to the Rising, before analysing the political and military strengths and weaknesses of the opposing causes; this includes rarely-provided information on the career of Sir John Cope. After following the opening campaign in the Highlands, the reader is then taken on a detailed day-by-day journey through the week leading to the battle. The account of the engagement itself - driven by eyewitness testimony and contemporary evidence - also incorporates the latest archaeological analysis of the site to create the most detailed and engaging presentation yet of this famous and dramatic event. Its aftermath and legacy, both on a local and national level, is then considered before the book concludes with a look at the changes which have occurred across the battlefield landscape up to the present day. This is a study of one of Britain's best-documented, but least analysed, battles - seen from within the landscape and communities around which it was fought. No longer should the two days of events which make up the Battle of Prestonpans be viewed simply as the prologue to a future defeat; instead, they are presented as they were understood at the time: as the climax of a month-long campaign which, it seemed, would determine the fate of Scotland.
Lacking the romantic imagery of the 1745 uprising of supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 has received far less attention from scholars. Yet the ’15, just eight years after the union of England and Scotland, was in fact a more significant threat to the British state. This book is the first thorough account of the Jacobite rebellion that might have killed the Act of Union in its infancy. Drawing on a substantial range of fresh primary resources in England, Scotland, and France, Daniel Szechi analyzes not only large and dramatic moments of the rebellion but also the smaller risings that took place throughout Scotland and northern England. He examines the complex reasons that led some men to rebel and others to stay at home, and he reappraises the economic, religious, social, and political circumstances that precipitated a Jacobite rising. Shedding new light on the inner world of the Jacobites, Szechi reveals the surprising significance of their widely supported but ultimately doomed rebellion.
The dramatic story of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his quixotic attempt to regain the throne of England. The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46 is one of the most important turning points in British history--in terms of national crisis every bit the equal of 1066 and 1940. The tale of Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," and his heroic attempt to regain his grandfather's (James II) crown--remains the stuff of legend: the hunted fugitive, Flora MacDonald, and the dramatic escape over the sea to the Isle of Skye. But the full story--the real history--is even more dramatic, captivating, and revelatory. Much more than a single rebellion, the events of 1745 were part of an ongoing civil war that threatened to destabilize the British nation and its empire. The Bonnie Prince and his army alone, which included a large contingent of Scottish highlanders, could not have posed a great threat. But with the involvement of Britain's perennial enemy, Catholic France, it was a far more dangerous and potentially catastrophic situation for the British crown. With encouragement and support from Louis XV, Charles's triumphant Jacobite army advanced all the way to Derby, a mere 120 miles from London, before a series of missteps ultimately doomed the rebellion to crushing defeat and annihilation at Culloden in April 1746--the last battle ever fought on British soil. Jacqueline Riding conveys the full weight of these monumental years of English and Scottish history as the future course of Great Britain as a united nation was irreversibly altered.
In the summer of 1745 'Bonnie Prince Charlie', grandson of James VII and II landed on the Isle of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. He would be the Jacobite Stuarts' last hope in the fight to regain the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. A major new exhibition on Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites opens at the National Museum of Scotland, and tells a compelling story of love, loss, exile, rebellion and retribution. It will challenge many of the misconceptions that still surround this turbulent period in European history.This book has eight specially commissioned essays on the Jacobites and includes a catalogue that showcases the rich wealth of objects in the exhibition.00Exhibition: National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK (23.06.-12.11.2017).
