Re: Bin Ladiin and Bonnie Prince Charlie


"Alan Smaill" <smaill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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"allan connochie" <allan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

"Alan Smaill" <smaill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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And of course he definitely wanted to dissolve the said union. After all
one
of its raison d'etres was to exclude his family from the throne.

was it, though?
both England and Scotland already had legislation ruling out Catholic
monarchs before the Act of Union, so I'm not sure how Union changed
anything much here.

There is a subtle difference though. For example the Act of Security in 1704
said the successor to Anne had to be "of the Royal Line of Scotland and of
the true Protestant Religion" however it also made it clear that they could
appoint someone different to who succeeded to the throne of England. Becuase
of the religion issue the Hanovarians fitted the criteria but theJacobite
claimants failed it, though it was left open for their religious conversion.
However the Act of Union not only states that the successor to the new
throne of Great Britain should be Protestant, it specifically names them as
"Princess Sophie, Electoress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, snd the Heirs
of her body being Protestants" and this article meant that the Stuarts were
now completely excluded whilst their was a Hanovarian claimant around.
Charles was always going to, if he could, annul the Act of Union because of
this. Though there may well have been other reasons too. The question
remains to as what would have been in its place. There is no evidence one
way or the other as it never came about but the Jacobites may simply have
gone about drawing up a new treaty. If not then possibly the worst outcome
would have been a reversion to the shared monarchy of 1603 to 1707. This had
been a disaster for Scotland. Even more so in that a Stuart monarchy would
have been a move back to absolutism. History shows that Scottish interests
were completely ignored by the Stuarts in favour of English interests. At
least the Union gave some Scottish representation be it small. A better
solution would have been a restoration of the seperate kingdoms with
seperate monarchs, but I don't think that would have been on the agenda.



I'd imagine
that in his heart of hearts he wasn't hostile to the idea of union in
itself
though. After all his family had been obsessed with it for a century
prior
to the actual union.

It's hard to know, but it could well have been a tactical move on his
part.

Quite so. Plus of course he was acting independently and in the end it would
probably have been the will of James which mattered and not necessarily
Charles.




Certainly some of those who took his side saw
themselves as acting in a specifically Scottish cause (witness
the saltire flown as a clan banner in the rising, now in the
Chambers St museum).

Quite so he used every support he could muster. But even if we pretended
that his main cause was break up of the union it still doesn't make him
a
freedom fighter. For someone to be called a 'freedom fighter' then to
have
the term meaning anything it would need to be a popular national
uprising.
It didn't approach that. In fact in some ways you could say he
threatened to
set freedom back a few steps as his thoughts were more closely aligned
to
the despotic European monarchies than they were to the emerging
restricted
monarchy in Britain.

I agree the "freedom fighter" tag doesn't fit.
As to freedom, who knows what would have happened if one of the rebellions
had worked out in Scotland alone? They would have been in no position
to impose something like the French monarchy over a Presbyterian
country. One thing Charles did when in control of Edinburgh was
to declare freedom of worship for the different denominations --
in this he was being more liberal than the government of the time
which had severe restrictions on Catholic worship. A tactical move,
maybe,
and we can't read too much into it ...

Quite agree.. And we have to look at it in the wider picture. It was only a
part of a wider European War. The bulk of the British Army (between 40,000
and 50,000 men) was fighting on the continent. Scotland was completely
undefended bar about 4,000 men, many of whom were either complete recruits
or invalids. It is not at all certain that had Charles remained solely in
Scotland and England accepted him as Scottish monarch (something which
wouldn't have happened anyway) that he could have held Scotland once troops
started returning and Lowland Scotland got organised. As soon as the
Jacobite army left many of the towns and cities, the townspeople quickly
declared their opposition to Charles. He couldn't rely on Highlanders to
control the towns and cities indefinitely. Hence we may well have seen
Scotland packed with French troops to prop up a puppet French
administration. The likelyhood of him controlling England itself (without
French assistance) where he had little support is perhaps even more
unlikely. All what if stuff I know.

As for the freedom of worship. Of course as a Catholic he would want their
burden lifted. As the bulk of his supporters were Episcopalians he wouldn't
offend them. Lowland Scotland was mostly Presbyterian but like you say any
move against them would have been a tactical mistake which would have
hardened opposition. We don't know what he'd have done. We do know that his
family had nigh on a century of actively working against, and at times
brutally repressing, Presbyterian Lowland Scotland though. We also know that
his main backer was Louis XV of France. Louis XIV launched massive attacks
on French Protestants. The religion was banned; churches were destroyed; and
massacres took place. Hundreds of thousands fled the country. The
suppression was relaxed, but not ended, in 1787. It's impossible to look at
the Jacobite situation fairly without regarding the whole picture. Sides
were drawn up on two opposing camps of a much wider conflict of which the 45
Rebellion was only an offshoot. Much is said about the religious oppression
in Britain, but the opposing side was certainly no better, and in fact were
probably much worse. Considering the Prince's family history and considering
his supposed main backer, then it is easy to understand why folk probably
did not take his toleration proclamation as 100% trustworthy.


Allan





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