JACOBITES (from Lat. _Jacobus_, James), the name given after the
revolution of 1688 to the adherents, first of the exiled English king
James II., then of his descendants, and after the extinction of the
latter in 1807, of the descendants of Charles I., i.e. of the exiled
house of Stuart.
The history of the Jacobites, culminating in the risings of 1715 and
1745, is part of the general history of England (q.v.), and especially
of Scotland (q.v.), in which country they were comparatively more
numerous and more active, while there was also a large number of
Jacobites in Ireland. They were recruited largely, but not solely, from
among the Roman Catholics, and the Protestants among them were often
identical with the Non-Jurors. Owing to a variety of causes Jacobitism
began to lose ground after the accession of George I. and the
suppression of the revolt of 1715; and the total failure of the rising
of 1745 may be said to mark its end as a serious political force. In
1765 Horace Walpole said that "Jacobitism, the concealed mother of the
latter (i.e. Toryism), was extinct," but as a sentiment it remained for
some time longer, and may even be said to exist to-day. In 1750, during
a strike of coal workers at Elswick, James III. was proclaimed king; in
1780 certain persons walked out of the Roman Catholic Church at Hexham
when George III. was prayed for; and as late as 1784 a Jacobite rising
was talked about. Northumberland was thus a Jacobite stronghold; and in
Manchester, where in 1777 according to an American observer Jacobitism
"is openly professed," a Jacobite rendezvous known as "John Shaw's Club"
lasted from 1733 to 1892. North Wales was another Jacobite centre. The
"Cycle of the White Rose"--the white rose being the badge of the
Stuarts--composed of members of the principal Welsh families around
Wrexham, including the Williams-Wynns of Wynnstay, lasted from 1710
until some time between 1850 and 1860. Jacobite traditions also lingered
among the great families of the Scottish Highlands; the last person to
suffer death as a Jacobite was Archibald Cameron, a son of Cameron of
Lochiel, who was executed in 1753. Dr Johnson's Jacobite sympathies are
well known, and on the death of Victor Emmanuel I., the ex-king of
Sardinia, in 1824, Lord Liverpool wrote to Canning saying "there are
those who think that the ex-king was the lawful king of Great Britain."
Until the accession of King Edward VII. finger-bowls were not placed
upon the royal dinner-table, because in former times those who secretly
sympathized with the Jacobites were in the habit of drinking to the king
_over the water_. The romantic side of Jacobitism was stimulated by Sir
Walter Scott's _Waverley_, and many Jacobite poems were written during
the 19th century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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