page_title: Jacobitism
section_title: Political background
hierarchical_section_title: Jacobitism / Political background
context_page_description: Jacobitism was a largely 17th- and 18th-century movement that supported the restoration of the House of Stuart to the British throne. The name is derived from Jacobus, the Latin version of James.
  When James II and VII went into exile after the 1688 Glorious Revolution, the Parliament of England argued he abandoned the English throne and offered it to his Protestant daughter Mary II and her husband William III. In April, the Scottish Convention held he "forfeited" the throne of Scotland by his actions, listed in the Articles of Grievances.
  The Revolution created the principle of a contract between monarch and people; if that was violated, he or she could be removed. Jacobites argued monarchs were appointed by God, or divine right, and could not be removed, making the post-1688 regime illegitimate. While this was the most consistent difference, Jacobitism was a complex mix of ideas, many opposed by the Stuarts themselves; in Ireland, it meant tolerance for Catholicism, which James supported, but also Irish autonomy and reversing the 17th-century land settlements, which he opposed.
context_section_description: Jacobite ideology originated with James VI and I, first monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1603. Its basis was divine right, which claimed his position and authority came from God, and the duty of subjects was to obey. Personal rule eliminated the need for Parliaments, and required political and religious union of all three kingdoms. Catholic allegiance to the Pope and Protestant nonconformists belief were incompatible with divine right, since both argued there was an authority above the king.
  In the 17th century, links between religion and political beliefs meant disputes in one area fed into the other, particularly as government was often seen as a microcosm of a larger, divine order. The spread of Millenarianism and belief in the imminence of the Second Coming meant many Protestants in particular viewed such issues as urgent and real.
  As the first step towards a single kingdom, James began creating standard practices between the churches of England, Scotland and Ireland. This continued after 1625 under Charles I, but enforcing Laudian practices on the Church of England, and ruling without Parliament led to a political crisis. Similar measures in Scotland caused the 1639–1640 Bishops' Wars, and installation of a Covenanter government.
  Organised by a small group of Catholic nobility, the October 1641 Irish Rebellion was the cumulative effect of land confiscation, loss of political control, anti-Catholic measures and economic decline. Intended as a bloodless coup, its leaders quickly lost control, leading to atrocities on both sides. In May, a Covenanter army landed in Ulster to support Scots settlers; the English Parliament refused to fund an army, fearing Charles would use it against them, and the First English Civil War began in August. 
  In 1642, the Catholic Confederacy representing the Irish insurgents proclaimed allegiance to Charles, but the Stuarts were an unreliable ally, since concessions in Ireland cost them Protestant support in all three kingdoms. In addition, the Adventurers' Act, approved by Charles in March 1642, funded suppression of the revolt by confiscating land from Irish Catholics, much of it owned by members of the Confederacy.
  The result was a three-way contest among the Confederacy, Royalist forces under the Protestant Duke of Ormond, and a Covenanter-led army in Ulster. The latter were increasingly at odds with the English government; after Charles' execution in January 1649, Ormond combined these factions to resist the 1649 to 1652 Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
  Charles II repudiated his alliance with the Confederacy, in return for Scottish support in the Third English Civil War, and Ormond went into exile in 1650. Defeat in 1652 led to the mass confiscation of Catholic and Royalist land, and its re-distribution among English Parliamentary soldiers and Protestant settlers. The three kingdoms were combined into the Commonwealth of England, regaining their separate status when the monarchy was restored in 1660.
  Charles's reign was dominated by the expansionist policies of Louis XIV of France, seen as a threat to Protestant Europe. When his brother and heir James announced his conversion to Catholicism in 1677, an attempt was made to bar him from the English throne. Nevertheless, he became king in February 1685 with widespread support in England and Scotland; a Catholic monarch was preferable to excluding the 'natural heir', and rebellions by Protestant dissidents quickly suppressed. It was also viewed as  temporary; James was 52, his second marriage was childless after 11 years, and his Protestant daughter Mary was heir.
  His religion made James popular among Irish Catholics, whose position had not improved under his brother. By 1685, Catholic land ownership had fallen to 22%, versus 90% in 1600, and after 1673, a series of proclamations deprived them of the right to bear arms or hold public office. The Catholic Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1687, and began building a Catholic establishment that could survive James. Fearing a short reign,
caption: The last Stuart monarch, Anne ca 1702; she viewed the creation of Great Britain as the culmination of the work begun by James I in 1603
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