Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context UsefulNotes / HanoverStuartWars

Go To

1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_battle_of_culloden_3.jpg]]
2 [[caption-width-right:350:''The Battle of Culloden'', David Morier, 1746]]
3
4-->''"Bonniey Charlie's noo awa\
5Safely oer the friendly main;\
6Mony a heart will break in twa,\
7Should he no come back again.''
8--->''Will ye no come back again?\
9Will ye no come back again?\
10Better loed ye canna be;\
11Will ye no come back again?"''
12
13A sequel or continuation of the UsefulNotes/EnglishCivilWar that more or less decided the form of the British government. Following the birth of a son to the Catholic King James II and VII [[note]]He was the second King James of England, but the seventh King James of Scotland[[/note]], there was a coup (known to some as the ''Glorious Revolution'' partly because of its surprisingly easy success). James II was expelled for fear of presumed contact with Catholic powers (the [[UsefulNotes/ThirtyYearsWar Wars of Religion]] were dying down but their aftertaste remained) and was tentatively replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary II (who ruled jointly with her husband, William III) and then his other daughter Anne, but each in turn died without surviving issue [[note]] William and Mary had no children, while Anne had ''seventeen'' pregnancies, of which five resulted in live births, but none of her children survived to adulthood[[/note]].
14
15Parliament thereupon brought [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover the ruler of the somewhat obscure German principality of Hanover]] [[note]]Hanover was one of the more powerful German principalities, being more or less dominant in the northwest (albeit in competition with Prussia), but compared to Great Britain, a Power on the European stage when they took the throne, and by the end of the wars in question, a global Great Power, it did indeed seem puny.[[/note]] to sit on the throne, as although they were only distantly related to the reigning dynasty (the first Hanoverian to become British monarch was the great-grandson of King James I and VI on his mother's mother's side, making him the first cousin once removed of James II and second cousin to Mary II and Anne) they were the closest relations who were Protestants (by this point, the fact that the Hanover rulers were Lutherans while Britain was Anglican and Presbyterian mattered less than the monarch ''not'' being Catholic).
16
17In response [[LaResistance a conspiracy]] formed to restore the Stuarts. Supporters of the Stuarts were called Jacobites, after "Jacobus," the Latin form of "James" (as in James II). The Jacobites -- led by James II's son James Francis Edward Stuart (a.k.a. the Old Pretender, or "King James III" as far as his supporters were concerned) and later ''his'' son Charles Edward Stuart (a.k.a. the Young Pretender) made several attempts to organize revolts in their name, and appealed to continental monarchs -- especially France -- for aid. The two principal uprisings, known as the two Jacobite Rebellions, occurred in 1715 and 1745.
18
19The latter, often referred to as "The '45", was the biggest. Charles Edward Stuart landed in Scotland and attracted the support of many Highland clans. After capturing Edinburgh (the city but not the castle) and defeating the government forces at the battle of Prestonpans, he moved south into England, out-manoeuvring a government army sent north to stop him. He got as far south as Derby (120 miles north of London) but, having attracted little support among the English, he retreated back to Scotland. Pursued by government forces commanded by the Duke of Cumberland (George II's son), he was decisively defeated at the battle of Culloden. Charles's subsequent flight across Scotland and his successful escape back to France played a key role in establishing the legend of "Bonnie Prince Charlie", a romantic figure of heroic failure.
20
21During the second half of the eighteenth century, the Stuart cause withered away, its noble supporters disinterested and its common supporters alienated and beaten. Eventually, Henry Benedict Stuart -- Charles Edward's younger brother -- received an annuity from George III [[note]] Either an act of charity after Henry lost all of his French property as a result of UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution or the payment of money that was legally owed to him, depending on your point of view [[/note]]. Although Henry, who was a Cardinal in the Roman Catholic church, never formally asserted his claim to the British throne after his brother's death (apart from having medals struck bearing his portrait and proclaiming himself 'Henry IX, King of Great Britain by the will of God but not by the will of men'), he never renounced it either, and he was opposed to the Vatican's 1792 decision to formally recognise George III as King of Great Britain and Ireland (the Papacy having previously just recognised him as the Elector of Hanover) [[note]] Henry, his father and brother are buried in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome; among the subscribers to their monument there was George IV, who admired the legend [[/note]].
22
23Although the conflict had nominally originated in a dispute over the nature of the British constitution (specifically the Right of Succession, the Jacobites holding it to be a royal birthright, the Hanoverians a liberty of Parliament), it also drew in various cultural, ethnic and religious conflicts. In particular, the Hanoverians were supported by the largely Protestant English, Lowland Scots and Ulster Scots, while the Jacobites were supported by the largely Roman Catholic Irish and Highland Scots. Or, to put it cynically, the Irish and some Scots were fighting the English and some other Scots to decide whether a Frenchman [[note]] well, a man who was half-English with Scottish ancestry and half-Italian but raised in France[[/note]] or a German would sit on the British throne.
24
25Although it is generally accepted that the Hanoverians were the preferable candidates, having greater respect for Parliamentary authority, a good deal of Jacobite romanticism still exists, particularly in Scotland; although in Ireland it was largely superseded by republican sentiments, it entered the Scottish nationalist mythology, with Bonnie Prince Charlie and his Jacobite Highlanders becoming iconic images of the Scottish nationalist movement. To this day, there exists a small number of Britons who express support for the Jacobite cause, although the current claimant, Duke Franz of Bavaria - "Francis II", in the Jacobite reckoning - has formally declined to pursue the claim.
26----
27!!Depictions in fiction:
28
29* This series of wars has been dealt with in fiction by several authors, most notably [[Creator/WalterScott Sir Walter Scott]] and Creator/RobertLouisStevenson.
30** Scott's ''Literature/{{Waverley}}'' -- which some reckon to be the first [[HistoricalFiction historical novel]] -- is about the adventures of Edward Waverley, a young Englishman who travels to Scotland during the '45 (initially as a junior officer of the British Army) and falls in with a group of Jacobite rebels. ''Literature/RobRoy'' is set around the first Jacobite rising. Another of his novels, ''Redgauntlet'', is about a fictional third Jacobite Rebellion.
31** Stevenson's ''Literature/{{Kidnapped}}'' is about an OddFriendship between David Balfour (a Lowland boy of Hanoverian persuasion) and Alan Breck Stewart (a real-life Jacobite Highland warrior) several years after the '45. Another of his novels, ''Literature/TheMasterOfBallantrae'', is about two brothers, James and Henry Durie, who agree to support different sides in the '45 to ensure that the family estate will be safe regardless of who wins — a decision with long-reaching consequences.
32* Creator/JohnBuchan's novel ''Midwinter'' is something of an inversion of ''Waverley'' in that the protagonist, Alistair Maclean, is a Jacobite officer in the English Midlands during the '45. During the course of his mission to make contact with English Jacobite sympathisers, he is befriended by Creator/SamuelJohnson (Boswell's ''Life of Johnson'' has very little to say on what he was actually doing during the period 1745-46; Buchan used this as a [[FramingDevice framing device]] for his novel). An elderly Bonnie Prince Charlie appears in Buchan's short story "The Company of the Marjolaine".
33* ''Franchise/DoctorWho'' visited this conflict as early as Season 4, with [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/DoctorWhoS4E4TheHighlanders "The Highlanders"]], set in the aftermath of Culloden. The Doctor's longest-running companion Jamie [=McCrimmon=] is a Jacobite piper. Interestingly, the [=McCrimmons=] were a real clan, but they actually fought on the Hanoverian side.
34* This is an important part of the backstory in Creator/KatherineKurtz's ''Two Crowns For America'' (set during UsefulNotes/TheAmericanRevolution). Several characters are stated to have fought in these wars, and there is a conspiracy to invite the current Jacobite heir to take the crown of the new American country.
35* Mentioned (well, the Jacobite remnants at least) in British statesman Lord Chesterfield's ''Literature/LettersToHisSon'': The Earl writes that his son may meet if not the Pretender himself, then at least his followers when he's in Rome.
36* In ''A Jacobite Trilogy'' by Dorothy Kathleen Broster, dashing Jacobite hero Ewen Cameron leaves his homeland follow the Bonnie Prince Charlie into war.
37* ''Film/{{Culloden}}'': The most harrowing example of how it all ended.
38* ''{{Literature/Outlander}}'' (and the [[{{Series/Outlander}} TV series based on it]]) which involves the last Jacobite Rising of 1745.
39* ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' features many [[FantasyCounterpartCulture equivalences]] taken from this conflict. The Blackfyre Rebellion, which didn't exactly come from Parliamentary reform, follows the structure of the Jacobite conflict, with the defeated becoming exiles and mercenaries on another continent, periodically conducting many failed rebellions, with their homegrown supporters and sympathizers fiercely persecuted by the government. The Glencoe Massacre is also frequently cited as one of several inspirations for the infamous "Red Wedding", which takes place in the third book of the series.
40* In the ''Series/{{Highlander}}'' TV series, the Immortal main character Duncan [=MacLeod=] fought in these wars in several eras. Flashbacks from various seasons show Duncan's evolution from being totally devoted to the attempt to put Charlie on the throne, his one-man RoaringRampageOfRevenge after Culloden, (including using his powers as an Immortal to repeatedly hunt down and brutally murder both English leaders and common soldiers who defeated and then oppressed the Scots) and finally his growing disillusionment with both the conflict and Charlie as time went by. This ultimately culminated in him leaving the conflict behind forever, regretful about some the cruel extremes he went to. And having earned some Immortal enemies from both sides of the conflict along the way.

Top