Part One: A Cause is Born

Part One: A Cause is Born

The Jacobite story did not begin with Bonnie Prince Charlie or Culloden. It began with the fall of a king. In 1685, James VII of Scotland and II of England took the throne. His succession was lawful, but his Catholic faith and belief in strong royal authority alarmed a largely Protestant political class. When his son was born in 1688, raising the prospect of a lasting Catholic dynasty, opposition hardened.

That same year, William of Orange, husband of James’s Protestant daughter Mary, was invited to intervene. James fled into exile, and William and Mary were placed on the throne in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. But to James’s supporters, there was nothing glorious about it. They saw it as a usurpation. The rightful king had been driven out, and no political settlement could undo his claim by birth.

In Scotland, James was known as Jacobus — the Latin for James. Therefore, a follower or a supporter of Jacobus became a Jacobite. Historians are clear that Jacobitism was never a single, simple movement. It was not only Highland, nor only Catholic. In Scotland, many supporters were Protestant Episcopalians. In Ireland, Jacobitism often carried hopes of Catholic restoration. In England, some were drawn by older ideas of hereditary monarchy and resistance to the post-1688 order. It became a broad and flexible cause, shaped by religion, politics, and loyalty.

In Scotland, tensions quickly turned to action. In 1689, John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, led a rising in support of James. It was the first major Jacobite challenge and showed that this was not just a theoretical dispute — men were willing to fight for it.

At its core, the Jacobite cause raised a deeper question: what makes a king legitimate? Is it bloodline and divine right, or the will of a nation and its laws?