The Jacobite Rebellion
The attempts by the old Stewart Monarchy to impose
Episcopalism upon the people of Scotland were still fresh in
people's memories. The brutal persecution of people's religious
freedom and the 'Killing Time', as it became known, that defined
the Covenanting period left the people of Lowland Scotland appalled
at the very suggestion of the Stewarts regaining the
throne.
There were of course exceptions. The union between Scotland and
England had always been deeply unpopular throughout Scotland and
some thought that by lending support to the Jacobite cause they
could engineer a platform from which they could advocate
separation. A few Jacobite swords still exist carrying the
inscription 'For Scotland and no Union'. These were undoubtedly
carried by men from the Lowlands as most Highland inscriptions were
in Gaelic. It is doubtful that any Stewart ruler would have been
any more sympathetic to this cause than a Hanoverian one. Also, a
few gentlemen from influential Catholic families from both Scotland
and England, who had seen their status reduced under the Hanoverian
Government, saw it as an opportunity to re-establish prominent
positions within the community.
Others were adventurers, who saw it merely as a means of financial
gain. One such man was the 4th Earl of Kilmarnock who was
a Presbyterian. The Earl had fallen on lean times and took the
political gamble of joining the rebellion led by Charles Edward
Stewart in 1745 as a way of restoring his family's fortunes. His
attempt to raise troops in his home town of Kilmarnock is
a good indicator of the feelings towards the rebellion in
south-west Scotland. Thirty years earlier his father, the 3rd Earl,
was one of the main commanders on the Government side against the
earlier Jacobite uprising of 1715. Tasked with raising troops he
mustered over 500 men, including 220 infantry and 120 horses in
Kilmarnock - second only to Paisley in number. When his son
attempted to do the same in 1745, this time for the Jacobite cause,
he didn't even raise an eyebrow let alone any troops. He then tried
to recruit from his lands near Falkirk where he only managed the
support of his youngest son (his elder two sons already had
commissions with the Government forces, one in the Dragoons, the
other in the Navy), his two gardeners, his wig maker, his
coal-hewer, one fourteen-year-old drummer boy and a couple of his
own tenants who owed him rent. Another good indicator of people's
anxiousness about the Jacobite advance was the reaction of the town
of Dumfries upon learning that the rebels were heading
their way. Rather than welcome the rebels the residents, fuelled by
Government propaganda and some accurate accounts of Jacobite
pillaging, fortified their town and armed themselves with pikes,
bills and muskets ready to fight.
The Jacobite defeat and the brutal pacification of the Highlands
caused tremendous hardships and divisions in the north of Scotland.
In contrast, the Lowlands experienced their first real period of
stability for decades. New farming methods were
implemented, education became more widespread and new industry
boomed. The area became the most literate in Europe and the
deconstruction of the Highland clan system and its traditions meant
an influx of ready labour as dispossessed Highlanders migrated
south. So where did the modern view of the Jacobite Rebellion
spring from?
It probably began quite soon after the events. The newly
enlightened Lowlanders must have heard many stories about the
atrocities carried out in the north by the Government troops and
about the plight of many highland families. Ordinary people then
saw wealthy landowners getting fat off the back of the clearances
that followed. Entire communities in the Highlands were turned off
their land and forced into emigrating abroad to make way for more
'profitable' sheep. Robert Burns, writing soon after the
rebellion, expressed admiration for the rebels. He also took the
side of the French Revolutionaries and the Americans in their War
of Independence. He saw the French Revolution as a class struggle
and a victory for many of the ideals he himself adhered to. In the
American War, he saw parallels between it and the
Scottish Wars of Independence for which he often
expressed romantic notions. His support for the Jacobites is harder
to explain, he may have been simply having a go at the policies of
the Government of his day - as many people still do - and he never
showed any love for the Hanoverian Monarchs who he referred to as
"an idiot race to honour lost". He also held some degree of
contempt for some of the stricter elements within the Presbyterian
Church within southwest Scotland which they had helped
establish.
Sir Walter Scott's portrayals of the Highlands in his nineteenth
century novels such as 'Rob-Roy', have a lot to do with the
romantic take on eighteenth century Scotland now widely held. His
gripping adventure stories full of swashbuckling, kilted heroes
defying the odds proved so popular that they came to represent how
people viewed the Scots as a nation. Queen Victoria's 'love of all
things Scottish' also contributed to this false impression as
images of her surrounded by tartan-swathed servants circulated the
world. This 're-invention' of Scotland became so complete that it
is now the image of themselves and their heritage that many Scots,
both Highland and Lowland, share.