The Jacobites of Scotland took their name from the Latin for James,
Jacobus, here referring to the exiled King James. Under James VI of
Scotland, the 2 nations had a shared monarch as this Scottish king became James I of
England. The Jacobite monarchs were Stuarts. While
Scotland retained its sovereignty as an independent nation until after Culloden, the relationship between these 2 nations was set forth by the Treaty of Union of 1707, in which
England and
Scotland joined to form
Great Britain. The essence of the
Union was a political affiliation between the nations which, among other provisions, called for mutual defense against foreign countries and sharing of newly founded colonies.
The Jacobites, along with most Scots, opposed the Union on a variety of fronts, including taxation whereby English tax-collectors were sent to impose the law strictly in Scotland. Bonnie Prince Charlie, the grandson of King James VII and more formally known as Prince Charles Edward Stuart, led a Jacobite rebellion against the English in 1745. By this time, the House of Stuart had been displaced by Hanover, which then reigned over Britain through the person of King George II. Therefore, a restoration of a Stuart to the throne overthrowing, not only the King of Scotland, but of England as well. This was a serious business.
Prince Charles sailed from France and landed in the Western Isles with just a few men and lacking tangible support by the French. However, his charisma, if not his intellect, motivated Highland chieftains of some powerful clans, including Mackintosh of which the Glennie family was a sept, and some of the less powerful but equally committed, including the Robertson Clan, which counted the Reids among its clansmen, to rally to the Jacobite cause.
Within a month of Prince Charles’ arrival in Scotland, he fielded an army and soon held the Highlands and Edinburgh in his grasp. As he moved south, he met little organized resistance, but the breadth of support he anticipated never materialized. Scots of the Lowlands viewed Highlanders with distrust, and even contempt, and were opposed to the restoration of Roman Catholicism. Neither were the English in the mood for embracing the Jacobite cause in favor of King George II. At Derby, about 125 miles north of London, Prince Charles retreated with English troops surrounding his army. .
Charles, chased into the Highlands, took his stand on April 16, 1746 at Culloden, near Inverness, against an English army commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, the brother of King George II. With officers and troops not fit for battle and out-maneuvered by Cumberland, the Highlander troops were routed, and then massacred. Prince Charles escaped to the Hebrides, eventually sailing to France and obscurity. The Jacobite Rebellion was over forever.
The English, outraged by the Rebellion, hammered Scotland into a shape more to its liking. Jacobite supporters were oppressed with a vengeance in a campaign that lasted one year. Numerous Highland settlements were torched and decimated. Cattle were confiscated. The Mackintosh Clan, known for its longstanding support of the Stuarts and which had provided Prince Charles with lodging in the days leading up to Culloden and many men to join him in fighting, was targeted, along with other clans supporting the Rebellion, for particularly harsh treatment. Yet even clans loyal to the Crown did not escape the wrath of the English. Some Scots, even today, view the English actions in the aftermath of Culloden as ethnic cleansing, or genocide.
Military actions aside, a cornerstone of post-Rebellion policies applied to Scotland was eradicating the power of the clans, the force that defined Highland society and the glue that held it together. Clan chieftains could no longer wage war nor hold court dispensing justice as they saw it to clan members. Clan icons and implements, the tartans and bagpipes, were declared illegal. Highlanders were no longer permitted to carry weapons, not only crimping their ability to do battle but curbing their persistent and remunerative, if annoying, practice of plundering Lowlands farms.
The Highlanders of our imaginations – a proud and independent people of colorful clans led by valiant chieftains marching to the skirl of the bagpipes - were transformed forever into the fluff of legend.
While the disaster at Culloden and its aftermath did not, alone, send John Glennie on his way westward more than 100 years later, it facilitated restructuring the Scottish social fabric and economy in ways that did.
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