Talk:Jacobite rising

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I'm working on updating some of the battle pages for the Jacobite Risings, especially Battle of Prestonpans. I've created a Campaignbox for the second rising (but it's probably incomplete now) and have updated the Prestonpans article to use the Battlebox template. A campaignbox is needed for the first rising, and the battle pages need to be updated to use the Template:Battlebox infobox. See also my comment at WP:Battles. Would appreciate help anyone could provide in filling in the missing pieces. Thanks! --Craig Stuntz 15:40, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

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[edit] Hanoverian?

Forgive me if I seem to be splitting hairs, but the Jacobites were defeated at Culloden by the British Army, not by 'Hanoverian forces', which, I imagine, were probably stationed in Hanover. I realise that the use of this label is a long-established convention, but that does not make it correct. I've substituted 'government forces', which would seem to cover all possible angles. Rcpaterson 18:52, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Jacobite monarchs were the British Government in exile, the Stuart form specifically. Lord Loxley 03:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, government forces is better. I believe 'Hanoverian' was referring to the fact that they were loyal to the Hanoverian monarchy, not that they were in any way native to Hanover. Rshu 18:11, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] London Threatened?

The main article says:

It is also said that London was never threatened by the Jacobites; In fact at that time, London had no significant defending forces and the Jacobite army was only two to three days march away. London officials had made evacuation plans for themselves.

The Jacobite army was at Derby, 125 miles from London. In 1745 this was not 'two or three days' march. It would be lucky if a rag-tag army could get ten miles a day, and that is without meeting any opposition. (Look at the march rate of the march from Scotland) So London was never imminantly threatened at any time, though that is not to say panic did not set in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.107.35.166 (talk • contribs) 21:34, 7 May 2007

[edit] Copied from WP:RD/H

It is certainly true that the Jacobite adventure exposed both the fragility of the Hanoverian state and the incompetence of the British government of the day. Charles came to Scotland with no troops and few arms; yet within a matter of weeks he had taken control of most of the country, sweeping aside an army of inexperienced recruits at Prestonpans. Yet the invasion of England that followed in early November was one of history's great gambles. It was, moreover, contrary to the assertion of generations of armchair Jacobites, never more than a 'reconnaissance in strength'; a way, firstly, of testing the resolve of the English Jacobites, and secondly, of prompting the French into launching a cross-Channel invasion. On both of these points Charles had given lavish but vague assurances to the Highland chiefs who followed his banner. No commander in Charles' army, even the most sanguine, believed that the Stuarts could be imposed on a reluctant English nation by arms alone. By the time the army reached Derby in early December the illusion was gone: the English did not rise and the French did not come. At a council of war all of the Jacobite commanders, Charles excepted, decided to return to Scotland and wait there for the promised French aid.

By December 1745 this was a very real danger. An invasion force under the Marshal-Duke de Richelieu was poised at Dunkirk, ready to make the crossing. With favourable winds, a landing could have been affected in much the same fashion as that of William of Orange in 1688. Admiral Vernon, commanding the British fleet in the Downs, was well aware that the French might have slipped westwards, unobserved by his own ships. But even if the French had landed, and advanced in support of Charles in London, England would still have to have been conquered as thoroughly as it had been in 1066; for there is no evidence at all that the nation, beyond some of the Tory fringes, would have settled down to a fresh period of Stuart rule, one that would have reversed all of the prevailing currents of English history. Also the French bill, in political terms alone, is likely to have been extraordinarily high, as Geogre has indicated, the payment of which would have transformed the country into a client state of the Bourbons. A Jacobite victory would almost inevitably have entailed permanent French occupation. It could not have worked any other way. Clio the Muse 22:48, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Entertaining speculation, but this seems to have missed quite a few points about the mindset of the various parties and the military and political complexities. Are there attributable suggestions for improving the article? . .. dave souza, talk 21:40, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Risings or Rebellions?

The article's been stable for quite some time using "risings", but 80.229.9.98 (talk · contribs) evidently wants the article to take as default the Hanoverian position of "rebellions" and "the Young Pretender" rather than the "Prince", etc. In my opinion the previous description is more common and so preferable, this is something open to discussion. 80.229.9.98 also made a number of changes, omitting for example the well documented points that Cumberland trained his troops in bayonet tactics which successfully dealt with the highland charge, and that Charles insisted on an unsuitable battlesite for that tactic. The new reference looks less specialised than the others, presumably presenting the Government viewpoint. .. dave souza, talk 15:53, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

My editing has not thoroughly 'Hanoverianised' the article - e.g. I've left 'Rising' as the main title and in its place in the opening sentence. I'm not sure how anyone can have formed the impression that 'rising/prince' is more common usage than 'rebellion/pretender' - I've just googled both "Jacobite Rising" & "Jacobite Rebellion" & got 40,400 & 68,700 returns respectively. In my own experience, frequency of use of 'rising/prince' tends to be inversely proportional to the academic merit of the book in question & I note that the bibliography contains no Whig polemics, but at least one piece of shameless Jacobite propaganda (Pittock). What historians who strive to achieve NPOV tend to do is to use a mixture of Jacobite & Whig phraseology, since there are very few neutral options. That's what I've done, e.g. by changing the thoroughly Jacobite "the following clans "came out" to join the Prince" to the mixed "the following clans "came out" to join the Pretender" rather than replacing it with the thoroughly Hanoverian "the following clans rebelled to join the Pretender". It only looks like I've gone for an uncompromisingly Hanoverian result because the article was so heavily biased towards the Jacobite POV previously, so the changes necessary to achieve a mixture of terminology were all Jacobite>>>Whig. 'Rebellion', 'Pretender' &c are also preferable because they reflect the facts of British constitutional history. An adherent of either party could argue that 'their' dynasty was De Jure royal, according to whether they favoured Acts of Parliament or the Divine Right of Kings when deciding what was lawful, but even a Jacobite would be forced to admit that the Georges were also De Facto Kings & Charles Stuart a De Facto Pretender. It is true that HRH trained his troops with new bayonet tactics, but it is unsubstantiated speculation that these & the choice of battlefield defeated the Highland Charge, which had never before been tested in a head-on attack against prepared troops armed with socket bayonets. The new reference, Smith's 'Georgian Monarchy', is a serious academic work, not the "government viewpoint". It is based on successful doctoral research, so has been subject to the most rigorous scrutiny known to the modern academic system, unlike any of the other works cited.80.229.9.98 (talk) 16:00, 31 December 2007 (UTC)