Anti-jacobite attitudes to the jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745

Abstract

My thesis is focused on the Jacobite Risings in early eighteenth century England. It analyses the principal reasons that the majority of the English public were very anti-Jacobite during the two Risings, and discusses any changes between the two Risings. It has found that anti-Catholic sentiment was the primary reason behind anti-Jacobite feeling, as anti-Catholicism was still a strong prejudice in the early eighteenth century. The second most important reason was the opposition to the political theory of the divine right of kings, and fear of tyranny, which Whig propaganda tried to persuade society that the Stuarts would install if they gained the throne. Also important was the English hatred of the French, as the Stuarts had become particularly associated with the French, and thus with intolerant Catholicism and absolutist tyranny. Almost as important during the 1745 Rising as anti-Catholicism however, was prejudice against the Scottish Highlanders, who made up the bulk of the Jacobite army. So underlying most anti-Jacobite feeling was English fear of being enslaved by tyrannic Catholics from other cultures.