CEE – Prince Charles Edward Stuart

 

Scotland has been a Kingdom since at least the year 843 A.D. when Kenneth MacAlpin united the Scots and Picts under one Monarchy. Apart from a brief hiatus in the 17th century, Scotland has been ruled by a descendant of Kenneth MacAlpin ever since. With competing branches of the family claiming precedence, the legitimate heir to the throne was sometimes a matter of dispute into which people were drawn in support of one claimant over another. Such was the case in the 14th century when the Houses of Balliol and Bruce produced rival claimants to the throne. The political changes which occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries brought about long periods of unrest as people adjusted to societal changes which had a huge impact on Scotland and how the country was governed – and by whom she was governed.

 

The Union of Crowns in 1603 saw the Scottish Royal House of Stuart inherit the throne of England. King James VI of Scots moved south to become James I of Great Britain. It had been only a few decades since the Reformation had brought sweeping changes to the religious landscape of Scotland and England, and King James was keen to bring his two Kingdoms into a closer union by the imposition of a common language and a common faith. As their power increased, so also did their sense of importance, and the Stuart Monarchs held to the concept of the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ – so also did many of their subjects. It was in this context that the rights of a democratically elected Parliament had to be asserted, and the Monarchy found its authority challenged with the beheading of Charles I in 1649. The new regime was not accepted by everyone and, after the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, Charles II was succeeded by James VII/II in 1685. The accession of a Catholic Monarch, legitimate though he was, was a threat to the newly established Protestant order in Britain. For that reason, James VII/II was deposed in 1688 at the Glorious Revolution and succeeded by two daughters who had been raised in the Protestant Faith, married respectively to William of Orange and George of Denmark. Anne oversaw the Union of Parliaments in 1707 which brought England and Scotland into an even closer relationship which was not without controversy. As Mary and Anne left no heirs, the throne was to be inherited by their Catholic brother, James VIII/III, known to us as the ‘Old Pretender’ – the legitimate representative of the House of Stuart. James had been excluded by the Act of Succession of 1701 which barred a Catholic from the throne and instead, the throne passed to his second cousin George I – of the House of Hanover and the first of the Hanoverian Monarchy. From the frequent use of the name ‘James’ (Jacobus in Latin), the supporters of the legitimate heir derived their appellation ‘Jacobites’.

 

James VIII/III, living in exile on the Continent, launched two attempts to reclaim his birthright – in 1715 and in 1719. Both failed. James knew he could count on the loyal support of many Scots who had a strong sense of loyalty to the legitimate heir of a chieftainship or of the throne itself. Moreover, among the Episcopalian Scots of the North-East or the Catholic Scots of the far West, there were genuine grievances that their civil rights were being suppressed by a distant Parliament in a foreign land, headed by a King from Germany who had less claim to the throne than James. These people, whose language, religion, way of life and sense of loyalty to tradition marked them out as different, would rise in support of a King who would restore their rights and sense of dignity. They would willingly defend a King who would defend them.

 

The last attempt to regain the throne for James VIII/III occurred when his son, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the ‘Young Pretender’, came ashore on the Isle of Eriskay on the 23rd of July 1745. Here, he was in the territory of Clanranald – a Clan with many Catholic branches and aware of its own glorious history as Lords of the Isles and distant relations of the Stuart Monarchy through the House of Bruce. Although among friends, there was less enthusiasm now for the Stuart cause and it was with greater difficulty that the Clans were rallied. Their initial success took them deep into the heart of England before they turned around and retreated northwards, the endeavour to regain the throne finally defeated at Culloden in 1746. The Prince became a fugitive and was eventually transported to the safety of the Continent where the Stuart Monarchy ended with the death of Charles Edward Stuart in Rome in 1788. The Pretender who set foot on the soft sands of Traigh Leis on Eriskay was buried in the splendour of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. It was a far cry from the fate of his loyal supporters who saw the traditional order broken down through oppressive legislation and a dismantling of the Clan system which saw the chiefs exchange loyalty to their clansmen and home territories for the luxury of a life among gentlemen in the cities. To finance those new lives, the land was turned over to grazing which was more profitable than rents from tenants. The Clearances saw a mass movement of people uprooted from their ancestral lands and sent to the four corners of the globe; their loyalty repaid with betrayal. The small island where Bonnie Prince Charlie took his first steps on Scottish soil was to become home to some of those cleared from their land on neighbouring islands. Their descendants are there to this day.