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  The Risings of 1715 and 1745 in Scotland

The Risings of 1715 and 1745 in Scotland

Something must now be said about the details of the history during the period comprised by the reigns of George I (1714-27) and of George II (1727-60). "Soul extinct; stomach well alive " is the verdict of one distinguished historian on this epoch. Indeed, it cannot, except towards its close, be called an inspiring one. In politics there was a good deal of corruption, and no great principle to ennoble the strife between the party factions. In religion, the Church of England, it has been said, slept and rotted in peace, and its leaders-the bishops-were in some cases hardly Christians. The poetry was of the artificial, epigrammatic character, of which Pope was such a master. A period of peace was followed by a period of war, in which for a time many of our soldiers and seamen showed conspicuous incapacity. Nevertheless, it was a period of growing toleration in matters of religion, and of growing common sense in the affairs of the world; the country grew prosperous, and trade and industry increased; and the nation obtained, for the first half of this epoch, what perhaps it most needed at that time-an interval of repose.

Such a period was not one in which men would be prepared to lead forlorn hopes in support of lost causes. Though Tory squires and Oxford undergraduates might still continue to toast the Stuarts (Under such disguises as Jobs standing for James III (the Old Pretender), Ormonde, and Bolingbroke; or £3, 14S. 5d., which denoted James III and the two foreign kings who were expected to assist him, Louis XIV of France and Philip V of Spain), the mass of the nation quietly acquiesced in the Hanoverian succession. Only in Scotland, and especially in the Highlands, was active devotion shown to the House of Stuart, and Scotland was the centre of the two rebellions which took place* The first rising was in 1715, and is known, from the name of its leader, as Mar’s Rebellion. There were to be risings in the Highlands under the Earl of Mar himself, and in the Lowlands of Scotland; in Cumberland, under a Mr. Forster; and in the west of England, where the Duke of Ormonde was to land. But the rising in the west came to nothing. The two Scotch forces should have combined for a joint attack upon Stirling, which commanded the communications of Highlands and Lowlands; but the Lowlanders went south instead of north, and along with the men of Cumberland were taken prisoners at Preston. The day before their capture Mar met the Hanoverian army at Sheriffmuir, and though the battle was indecisive, the right wing of each army soundly defeating the wing opposed to it, the rebellion fizzled out. After the rebellion was over a few of its leaders were executed, though one of them, Lord Nithsdale, succeeded in escaping from prison in his wife's dress the day before that fixed for his execution (When George I heard of Lord Nithsdale's escape, he merely said that it was " the best thing a man in his condition could have done").

Chronology
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