tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/jacobites-22609/articlesJacobites – The Conversation2017-03-31T13:59:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/753522017-03-31T13:59:23Z2017-03-31T13:59:23ZScotland’s dazzling visitor attraction numbers are not quite what they seem<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163348/original/image-20170330-4555-xzi1n8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Castles in the air?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/search-results/fluid/?q=edinburgh%20castle&category=A,S,E&fields_0=all&fields_1=all&imagesonly=1&orientation=both&text=edinburgh%20castle&words_0=all&words_1=all">Jane West/PA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Scotland’s visitor attractions are outstripping those in the rest of the UK, <a href="http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15183071.National_Museum_of_Scotland_tops_visitor_attractions_in_Scotland_as_nation_outperforms_UK/">according to</a> a new report. They <a href="http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=403&codeid=789">recorded</a> a whopping 15.6% increase in visitor numbers between 2015 and 2016 compared to an overall UK increase of 7.2% – growing faster <a href="http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=453&codeid=777">for the</a> third <a href="http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=453&codeid=756">year in a row</a>. </p>
<p>Led by big increases from Scotland’s two top visitor attractions, Edinburgh Castle (+13%) and the city’s National Museum (+16%), the Scottish government hailed the 2016 figures as outstanding news. Fiona Hyslop, the tourism secretary, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The success of our leading visitor attractions will continue to play a vital role in making Scotland a destination of first choice for visitors from the UK and across the world. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Unquestionably Scotland has a great range of visitor attractions. “Must-sees” include the <a href="https://www.visitscotland.com/info/towns-villages/glenfinnan-p236571">Glenfinnan Viaduct</a> on the West Highland railway line, made world famous by the Harry Potter films. Then there are battlefields such as nearby <a href="http://www.nts.org.uk/Visit/Culloden">Culloden</a>, where the Jacobites met their <a href="https://theconversation.com/culloden-why-truth-about-battle-for-britain-lay-hidden-for-three-centuries-62398">most famous defeat</a> to British troops in 1745. Not to mention the scores of whisky distilleries in some of the most beautiful settings in the country. </p>
<p>Yet the new figures, published by the <a href="http://www.alva.org.uk">Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA)</a>, look remarkably high to me – especially compared to other key sources. On closer examination, they are exaggerating the reality for Scottish visitor attractions as a whole. </p>
<h2>Who counts what</h2>
<p>ALVA <a href="http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=607">only counts</a> 51 Scottish visitor attractions as members out of a total of more than 1,280. Membership criteria require 1m visitors per year and for each site to be considered among the “most popular, iconic and important attractions”. Of the six Scottish attractions that receive 1m annual visitors on their own, only five are ALVA members: the National Museum, Edinburgh Castle, the city’s Scottish National Gallery and Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Riverside Museum. The sixth, St Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh, is not included. </p>
<p>The remaining Scottish ALVA sites make the count by collectively attracting more than 1m as part of organisations such as the National Trust for Scotland, which includes the likes of Culloden and Ayrshire attractions Culzean Castle and Robert Burns’ Birthplace – or the Royal Collection Trust, which includes the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s official residence in Edinburgh. </p>
<p>Look down the ALVA list and you find most attractions located in Scottish cities, with some significant omissions. These include <a href="https://www.visitscotland.com/info/see-do/the-falkirk-wheel-p248061">the Falkirk Wheel</a>, which attracts more than half a million visitors per year, and the <a href="http://www.royalyachtbritannia.co.uk">Royal Yacht Britannia</a> in Edinburgh, which attracts more than 300,000. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163365/original/image-20170330-4551-1rj6tyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163365/original/image-20170330-4551-1rj6tyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163365/original/image-20170330-4551-1rj6tyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163365/original/image-20170330-4551-1rj6tyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163365/original/image-20170330-4551-1rj6tyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163365/original/image-20170330-4551-1rj6tyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163365/original/image-20170330-4551-1rj6tyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163365/original/image-20170330-4551-1rj6tyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Burns’ cottage in Alloway, Ayrshire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pikerslanefarm/14142907668/in/photolist-nxL6HE-dohTty-RXQzK8-gTWb3A-dohVPs-ec5XyP-ecbC3o-dohU17-ed2868-gTW86q-ec5XiR-ecbBYo-ecbCpA-ed1Emg-ed1Eyp-dohNxk-oBymZm-nS3ija-nQcoty-nQfMZB-6EYmUp-4DP4ch-5vWsRL-4DJMjF-nQcawG-nQ6EcY-dohVeN-gTWtTs-ed1E9c-gTX9xt-dohLMk-dohVUW-dohKYZ-dohWc9-dohMzp-ed7iyf-gTWd5y-dohMjM-oDnoAq-dohVJm-gTWrQ7-dohW3C-dohUmf-dohM6p-dohVxj-dohUS7-gTXcdP-dohUMd-gTWUQD-uCQKK1">Amanda Slater</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The other key source of annual visitor numbers is the <a href="https://www.asva.co.uk">Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions (ASVA)</a>. With less limiting membership criteria, it currently has 450 members. Its survey includes 249 sites and also monitors visitor spending and associated activities. </p>
<p>The ASVA 2016 report, which is not publicly available, recorded an overall increase in Scottish visitor numbers of 6%. It still shows increases across all regions, particularly in sectors such as heritage and distilleries – though these inevitably mask a more complex picture. Some non-ALVA members are up more than 10% a year, while others experienced small drops – Edinburgh Zoo, for example. </p>
<h2>The underlying story</h2>
<p>So why the big difference in overall growth between the two sets of figures? Many of Scotland’s smaller attractions have not been performing as well as the big-ticket draws, even if they have still been growing. Having said that, the ASVA numbers are a more reliable and representative guide to the overall performance. </p>
<p>All attractions are vulnerable to vagaries such as new exhibitions, temporary closures, improvements in visitor counting tools – and weather and road developments. Because ALVA focuses on a smaller number of sites, such one-offs are more likely to distort the figures. To give one example, the National Museum’s 2016 numbers have been flattered because, after a <a href="http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=605">7% drop in 2014</a> and <a href="http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=605">4% drop in 2015</a> owing to ten galleries being closed for redevelopment, they reopened in 2016, bringing in more visitors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163366/original/image-20170330-4578-6devqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163366/original/image-20170330-4578-6devqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/163366/original/image-20170330-4578-6devqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163366/original/image-20170330-4578-6devqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163366/original/image-20170330-4578-6devqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=405&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163366/original/image-20170330-4578-6devqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163366/original/image-20170330-4578-6devqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/163366/original/image-20170330-4578-6devqt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inside the National Museum of Scotland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/su1droot/7398426654/in/photolist-cgLSuf-aLwvH8-94aMZ1-pwqfva-qqzcNB-cUAesW-bdWwke-jDxTzb-aDZGaS-jDxqTn-ajnVce-dVTZr6-jDz5mE-ajqGsU-aLwNvc-jDxjSL-amhRAe-bsFnTm-mZu8eB-bFi59F-RciJgT-a4VotW-RzbP7h-ikQGop-cXiybQ-gyfRzX-5Hufvr-gqee8N-apHUYM-a9jaCU-puomDi-atKC2y-bV29xG-cgLQ4C-7nxwm4-cgLRRm-dVZzF7-jDz3EU-knMd8z-fmZjHL-jDv71Z-jDy857-dPuYVD-s44zPV-jDziWL-cdtVUJ-jA6WYV-jDxnHf-a4VoaL-8m4aAz">Ben Mason</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ignoring the smaller attractions also misses an economic contribution that is more important than it may first appear. Cumulatively these sites help to differentiate a destination, in some cases by offering <a href="http://stars.library.ucf.edu/rosenscholar/444/">special interest experiences</a>. They help bring socioeconomic benefits to community hotels, shops and other businesses, <a href="http://www.coris.uniroma1.it/sites/default/files/14.28.24_Visitor%20attractions%20and%20events%20Responding%20to%20seasonality.pdf">particularly</a> out of season. </p>
<p>If we go by the ASVA numbers, Scotland’s visitor attractions still compare well to other parts of the UK. VisitBritain’s 2015 survey of 1,459 English sites, the most recent available, <a href="https://www.visitbritain.org/annual-survey-visits-visitor-attractions-latest-results">showed 2% growth</a> compared to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-35690252">3.4% growth</a> for Scottish attractions the same year – a modest but noticeable difference, albeit that most of the <a href="http://www.alva.org.uk/details.cfm?p=423">UK’s biggest attractions</a> are still south of the border. The number one ranked British Museum’s 6.4m annual visits far outdoes the National Museum of Scotland’s 1.8m, predominantly due to the volume of visitors and residents in the London area. </p>
<p>All UK tourism has benefited from <a href="http://www.ukinbound.org/about/inbound-tourism">more inbound visitors</a>, but Scottish visitor attractions have also seen substantial <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-tourist-attractions-see-15-rise-in-visitor-numbers-1-4404265">capital investment programmes</a> and collaborate well on training and sharing best practice via member organisations such as ASVA. Scotland has also seen national campaigns like VisitScotland’s <a href="https://www.visitscotland.com/about/themed-years/history-heritage-archaeology/">Year of History, Heritage and Archaeology 2017</a>; plus <a href="http://www.visitscotland.org/research_and_statistics/tourism_sectors/film_tourism.aspx">film/TV tourism</a> from the likes of Harry Potter and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3006802/">Outlander</a>. Extra air routes and <a href="https://www.transport.gov.scot/public-transport/ferries/road-equivalent-tariff/">cheaper ferry prices</a> have also helped. </p>
<p>Tourism businesses have also been getting more customer friendly, introducing longer opening hours, better pricing packages and sharper attempts to target millenials – <a href="http://www.nms.ac.uk/about-us/press-office/museum-late-celts/">music nights</a> at the National Museum for example. Scotland is also seen as safer for tourists than the UK – <a href="http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/edinburgh-wins-title-of-uk-s-safest-destination-1-3536909">Edinburgh was voted</a> the country’s safest destination in 2014, for example. </p>
<p>So while the growth of Scotland’s visitor attractions may not be quite as frothy as the ALVA figures suggest, it’s far from disappointing. Indeed, ASVA records a very respectable 16% increase overall since 2013. However welcome the surge at the biggest attractions, this looks like a steady and gradual increase that can be sustained into the future. That is a story well worth telling in its own right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/75352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Leask does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Are Edinburgh Castle et al really acing their English equivalents?Anna Leask, Professor of Tourism Management, Edinburgh Napier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623982016-07-14T11:03:23Z2016-07-14T11:03:23ZCulloden: why truth about battle for Britain lay hidden for three centuries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130426/original/image-20160713-12358-mjlb9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Culloden#/media/File:The_Battle_of_Culloden.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Battle of Culloden of 1746, where British troops defeated the Scottish Jacobite army for the final time near Inverness, has long been mis-represented for political purposes. The Jacobites’ struggle to restore the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-II-king-of-Great-Britain">deposed Stuart dynasty</a> to the British throne was a major threat to the success of a single centralised Britain. Yet for several centuries, historians presented the Jacobites as kilted primitives. </p>
<p>Culloden also saw the beginning of a national narrative about reconciling England and its “less developed” peripheries – a mission that would soon also be applied to more remote peoples to justify expanding the British Empire. Benjamin West’s famous painting of <a href="https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=5363">The Death of General Wolfe (1770)</a>, which depicted not Culloden but the Battle of Quebec of 1759 between Britain and France, is an early example of how this was done. </p>
<p>It pictures a curious Native American observing the British general’s dignified death. Behind the man in green uniform stands Simon Fraser, chief of the Clan Fraser, who had fought for the Jacobites on the opposite side to Wolfe at Culloden (and was not in fact at Quebec). The message is plain: Fraser has been integrated into the dignity of the British imperium, as the Native American will be, too. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130444/original/image-20160713-12392-zu7d6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130444/original/image-20160713-12392-zu7d6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130444/original/image-20160713-12392-zu7d6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130444/original/image-20160713-12392-zu7d6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130444/original/image-20160713-12392-zu7d6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130444/original/image-20160713-12392-zu7d6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130444/original/image-20160713-12392-zu7d6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130444/original/image-20160713-12392-zu7d6e.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Death of General Wolfe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/british-colonies/colonial-period/a/benjamin-wests-the-death-of-general-wolfe">Wikmedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is no coincidence that this idea of Jacobite primitives has been contested since 1970 as imperial Britain has become more fragmented and Scottish nationalism has risen. Yet the popular image of the Jacobites at Culloden remains. Arguably no battle is remembered so powerfully and so falsely. Peter Watkins’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KaE2CAkk4Q">1964 film Culloden</a> demonstrates the enduring power of this vision, in which modern British guns supposedly brought down kilted swordsmen.</p>
<p>British statists and romantic Scottish patriots have both drawn on the same image: dirty, badly-armed savages sacrificing themselves for the Italian princeling, Bonnie Prince Charlie (or Prince Charles), yet get credit for nobly defending an ancient way of life. As I have demonstrated in my <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/culloden-9780199664078?cc=gb&lang=en&">new book</a> on the battle, Culloden as it happened is in fact much more interesting than Culloden as it is remembered. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f_wE-j2gMO4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>What really happened</h2>
<p>On Culloden Moor on April 16 1746 arguably the last Scottish army sought to restore Prince Charles’ father James to a multi-kingdom monarchy more aligned to European politics than colonial struggle. </p>
<p>Forget any idea of Highland clans against British regiments. The Jacobites were heavily armed with muskets and formed into conventional regiments. They were drilled according to French conventions and some British army practice and fought next to Franco-Irish and Scoto-French allies. They possessed numerous artillery pieces <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/amazing-discoveries-250-years-after-culloden-1-466171">and fired</a> more balls per man than the British.</p>
<p>On the other hand, they had no more than 200 mounted men; the British had almost four times as many. Once the Jacobite frontline failed to break the British front at more than one point, their reinforcements were readily disrupted by British cavalry and dragoons on the wings, and the ensuing disorder led to collapse. The British benefited from using their cavalry late, having learned from the battles of <a href="http://www.battleofprestonpans1745.org/heritagetrust/html/history.html">Prestonpans</a> and <a href="http://www.britishbattles.com/battle_of_falkirk.htm">Falkirk</a>. </p>
<p>The Jacobite army also only numbered about 5,000, barely a third its maximum strength in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/union/features_union_jacobites.shtml">rising of 1745-46</a> and <a href="http://www.britishbattles.com/battle_of_culloden.htm">several thousand fewer</a> than the British. It fought Culloden in spite of these numbers partly because it was a regular army and unsuited to a guerrilla campaign. Culloden was always going to be difficult for the Jacobites to win, but this manpower shortage – combined with the lack of cavalry – was critical. That was what made it possible for the British dragoon blades to cut down the Jacobite musketeers. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles Stuart: the Young Pretender.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.anglophile.ru/en/kings-queens/681-bonnie-prince-charlie.html">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Jacobites are also usually accused of choosing the wrong battlefield. The Irish quartermaster and Jacobite adjutant general John Sullivan <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Battle_of_Culloden">gets blamed</a> for persuading Prince Charles to choose boggy, flat terrain, which did not play to the army’s strengths. </p>
<p>Some historians argue that the error was not listening to an alternative suggestion by the prince’s lieutenant-general, Lord George Murray. But while it is true that Sullivan vetoed several other sites, one of which at least was Murray’s choice, neither made sense. </p>
<p>The best site was chosen by Sullivan 1km east of the final battle line. Its only disadvantage was that it was very visible to the Royal Navy in the Moray Firth. This delayed the Jacobites’ night attack on April 15 and in the subsequent confusion they ended up deployed further west than intended. In that sense, no-one “chose” the final battlefield. </p>
<h2>Civil war or conquest?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040183">Until the 1960s</a>, Culloden was seen as the final battle in an Anglo-Scottish conflict. It was the precursor to the Highlands becoming the last part of Scotland to be fully incorporated into Great Britain, the British Empire and, most importantly, the British army. This helped underline the sense of Jacobites as aliens: Gaelic-speaking Catholics in an English-speaking Protestant country (never mind that all Jacobite military orders were in English). </p>
<p>But the rise of modern Scottish nationalism made the idea of an Anglo-Scottish battle uncomfortable. Jacobitism has nationalist implications nowadays. Since the 1960s, there has been a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/culloden-9780199664078?cc=gb&lang=en&">determined effort</a> by British historians to present Culloden as the final battle in a civil war. “British army” is often supplanted by “government troops” or “Hanoverians”, despite being more British by some distance than the force commanded by Wellington <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zwtf34j">at Waterloo</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jacobite re-enactment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thepatman/11252918735/in/photolist-i9o9Gg-5UZZri-i9ozqn-fj6rrg-pNfk6N-Y4dm9-qAzzon-3c4VFp-nFpMn1-a3fV4r-AhVqzt-azJzuz-eiABox-8tGaQX-ekAMvr-fuuCMG-pDXuQT-nxYKEb-b6Zv5c-ndMc1M-qUJ13h-i9oeuc-fj878M-fjn8zW-obJAFD-78GyvP-i9opEm-i9o7B4-aqjiiH-7ra9YJ-i9o5NK-ejHsqt-i9ocNh-i9owov-i9oaQ8-fusZP4-i9obCR-i9oA9r-nVXwx2-HbGuaH-4RXpW8-i9o5cp-i9oiXE-i9okiY-fuuDhd-8MWqVz-i9oBtF-i9omDw-8MWrvM-odvsT6">Rob Eaglesfield</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Culloden was of course a civil war, as was the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/easterrising/aftermath/af04.shtml">Anglo-Irish war of 1919-21</a> or the <a href="http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_american_independence.html">American War of Independence</a>. But every national struggle divides its nation, and the Jacobite Rising of 1745-46 was certainly a fight for a Scottish nation, too. Ending the Anglo-Scottish <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1707/7/contents">union of 1707</a> to restore the Stuarts’ multi-kingdom monarchy was a key Jacobite war aim. </p>
<p>So not only is the “primitives” narrative wrong and not only was the battle quite different to the memory, but Culloden was the final significant defeat of a Scottish alternative to the British state. The irony is that a federal British Isles under a single crown, <a href="https://scottishhistorysociety.com/learning-resources/the-union-of-1603/">which had existed</a> between 1603 and 1707 and is effectively what the Jacobites wanted, is closer to where we are today than the victors of Culloden could ever have imagined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Murray Pittock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Jacobites are regularly cast as ‘primitive’ Scots – yet it is a false narrative suited for political ends.Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor of English Literature, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/554032016-02-25T15:55:58Z2016-02-25T15:55:58ZBagpipe bandits: how the English blew Scotland’s national instrument first<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112942/original/image-20160225-15160-rb9vda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This could come to blows</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zoetnet/6157173870/in/photolist-ao68hb-4y5LxV-yEv2G1-4y9ZYG-am6UVC-5eFzMz-4ya11o-cpDinJ-4uaqGB-nvsxks-am46fx-fHsLC-4y5LqB-4WPCqz-dun225-4WTUc7-584U6X-2ivDeB-6fbTej-4fZgtT-v1DpgG-8KEd4T-py15S5-9VetDC-5edobD-5ednuV-8mnm6G-783jaN-ng1RF3-bpWbNj-pDec53-afK9pD-8uzCL1-rf78P9-pi9vpm-e3fG7y-am47BP-i5BTD-iuXZCq-8uzD7w-7DKyB9-piydqi-oyz7HB-3iUxqF-5eh8gw-5eFyHK-4ya155-ouN43d-5ecLQc-8dLnBf">zoetnet</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Great Highland bagpipe is as central to Scottish identity as tartan and Robert Burns. Walk down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and you’ll hear that familiar wail, while pipers gather each year to empty their lungs at everything from local competitions to the famous <a href="http://www.edintattoo.co.uk">Edinburgh Military Tattoo</a>. The pipes were not invented in Scotland, though. In fact, they are part of a much older tradition that some may find unpalatable: the English were playing the pipes hundreds of years before the Scots got their hands on them. </p>
<p>Bagpipes are actually a family of instruments, and most countries from India to Scotland and from Sweden to Libya boast at least one indigenous variety. They <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199203833.001.0001/acref-9780199203833">date back</a> over 3,000 years, but appear to have been developed from the hornpipe, which <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bagpipes.html?id=a6MIAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">goes back</a> even further. Through the millennia, bagpipes have appeared in an incredible number of varieties – big like a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVPjHB9oEc">zampogna gigante</a>; small like a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OVYA-DJ_og">musette</a>; droneless, or with two or more drones (or reeds); and with either one or two chanters (or pipes). </p>
<p>The drones can be vertical or horizontal, compressed into a little barrel or dangling on the piper’s back, and the bag can be inflated by a mouthpiece or by bellows. The bag can be covered in brocade or tartan, left as a tanned skin, or even made of Gore-Tex. Each has its own scale, tone and sound, all of which tells a tale about their home country.</p>
<h2>Bag-innings</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bonnie banks O’ Umbria?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stockholm_-_Antikengalerie_5_-_Büste_Kaiser_Nero.jpg#/media/File:Stockholm_-_Antikengalerie_5_-_Büste_Kaiser_Nero.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early documents about bagpipes are scarce. Though literature featuring bagpipes in Ancient Greece is dubious, sources confirm that the instrument was known to the Romans. The ancient historian Dio Chrysostom <a href="http://www.loebclassics.com/view/dio_chrysostom-discourses_71_philosopher/1951/pb_LCL385.165.xml">described</a> Emperor Nero as being able to play the pipe both with his mouth and by squeezing a bag under his armpit. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3916199-the-bagpipe">According to</a> the most widely accepted opinion, the Romans brought the instrument into Britain after their invasion in AD 43.</p>
<p>It is not until the Middle Ages that the bagpipe tradition took off in a significant way, however. By that time there are copious references all across Europe. A remarkable episode in British bagpipe literature is the <a href="https://archive.org/details/oldenglishriddl01wyatgoog">Exeter Riddles</a>, a manuscript containing Anglo-Saxon riddles possibly collected by <a href="http://www.britannia.com/bios/leofricex.html">bishop Leofric</a> (1016-1072). Riddle 31 tells of a beautiful, noble bird resting on a man’s shoulder, with its beak facing downwards and its feet in the air. <a href="http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1928">The answer</a> to the name of the bird is the bagpipe, since its beak is the chanter and its feet are the drones. </p>
<p>The first time the term “bagpipe” appears in its English-language form is several hundred years later, <a href="http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/cat/dml.cfm">in 1288</a> (albeit modified for a Latin text). It appears in an entry in the Book of the Treasurer of King Edward I, “cuidam garcioni cum una bagepipa pipanti coram rege de dono ipsius regis, ij s.”. This translates as “a certain servant with a bagpipe who piped before the king was given two shillings” – a good sum, roughly the weekly income for an agricultural worker at the time.</p>
<h2>Wha’s like us?</h2>
<p>The first unquestionable appearance of the bagpipe in Scotland is not until the 15th century, in carvings in Rosslyn Chapel and Melrose Abbey, respectively of an angel-piper and a pig-piper. It is reasonable to think that the tradition was absorbed into Scotland from the south, before developing its own characteristics. By the 16th century it was Scotland’s military instrument, and a carrier of public events. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ye Jacobites by name …</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/melodeonjohn/19837300939/in/photolist-wdXmrZ-wpdLN4-wFoSkY-bo2mhH-yGAgeP-yGAgg2-8vfQMM-8JqBqm-8pxesd-fu8MTK-fdY1uX-fuoWZ9-fu9Qpk-fup5UU-fuojr3-mCCFdL-nYDJfM-8Mu96b-4TLhjK-cRBqJm-ixpTZX-8uzCL1-8Ch2S1-8Mu8ZQ-8uwyZv-6gfKMa-8JqBof-dCpjWL-hiYW9p-mCE7Nv-6DQZed-dae8Go-fesMdF-8CEhn9-8DR9f3-9saxqp-5bNWVW-fBVZJ3-8QodX3-fytumW-oPETHQ-8M5zeK-8MqKB5-8M9qYA-8Mcg5P-8MrCab-8MwVJW-dwzZy9-dysjhE-dvDN5R">Jock Stewart Redmond</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much 18th-century Scottish material about the bagpipe is linked to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/scotland_jacobites_01.shtml">Jacobitism</a>, the movement that sought the return of the Catholic Stewart kings to the British throne following the removal of James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Jacobites saw the bagpipes as an icon of Scottish national belonging and military pride, while their Hanoverian opponents used the instrument in propaganda to caricature the Jacobites. </p>
<p>This politicisation of the bagpipes led to a common belief that they were banned in Scotland. Partly the source of the confusion is the <a href="http://www.mqup.ca/traditional-gaelic-bagpiping--1745-1945-products-9780773521346.php">Disarming Act of 1746</a>, to which a passage added two years later ordered “restraining the Use of the Highland Dress”. It included tartan and plaid, but never the bagpipes. The misconception was probably strengthened by episodes such as the <a href="http://thepipesofwar.com/production-blog/?p=107">hanging of piper James Reid</a> of Dundee. He was captured in 1745 in Carlisle and sentenced to hanging for treason, having taken part in Jacobite rebellions. He may have been a piper, but his hanging had nothing to do with disobeying the Disarming Act.</p>
<p>The bagpipes have been banned – but in Poland during World War II. Original research from the Ethnographic Museum of Warsaw in collaboration with Poznan’s Museum of Musical Instruments shows footage documenting how Germans ordered Poles not to play their version of the pipes, perhaps threatened by the instrument’s ability to stir nationalist spirits. Such is the information that comes out of bagpipe studies, which has been undergoing a revival of late – and is indeed the subject of a paper at a <a href="https://www.thepipingcentre.co.uk/bagpipe-education/international-bagpipe-conference-2016/">conference in Glasgow</a> on February 26-28. So while the Scots may have made the instrument their own over the centuries, they share the piping tradition with the hands of many nationalities – including the English. Widdye credit it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vivien Williams received the Stephen Copley Postgraduate Research Award (BARS) in 2012. She is affiliated with Edinburgh University’s Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and with the International Bagpipe Organisation as co-organiser of the third International Bagpipe Conference.</span></em></p>There’s something every Scot should know about those caterwauling pipes.Vivien Williams, Research Assistant (Musicology), University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/506702015-11-14T10:23:54Z2015-11-14T10:23:54ZHow a battle 300 years ago nearly wrecked the new union of England and Scotland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101832/original/image-20151113-10420-1x707c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Argyll's troops recreated at Sheriffmuir</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/machighlander/21146424384/in/photolist-oeGTyr-cSKDhj-cSKELW-z6ZBUj-cSKBJb-7sQ2i7-ovf9Y-cSLSRj-oeVV7v-6NoVvH-g44cvq-cSLTBY-acqUqN-6fTzhm-ydDs69-8aJvWC-A3FR9a-owgGrE-owrZDy-8aKtxC-yV2bLJ-8DXUpg-ow6L8C-A7C4pF-aE4fPW-9KRpMD-syD8dW-i2JCG-ej9Nqt-7vdqUx-zbuMmH-dDAd69-ydCXeS-ar6tXP-ydD85o-9HdtVC-aqNooT-aqNooD-ehaQey-znHh4x-pfxAv3-nNSHTc-jYv6c-jYv3L-yXc3Ut-38hRQc-r6n43-zeH6JM-yT4ZJ7-yX61BW">Jim MacRae</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Let us imagine: the prime minster of Scotland arranges an urgent summit meeting with his counterpart in England to pressure his southern neighbour not to leave the European Union. The Scots-Irish commercial union can withstand England’s unwillingness to join them in the eurozone, but leaving the EU would be a social tragedy for a close southern neighbour – as well as a perceived boon for Scottish business with the departure of substantial banking and financial activities from London to Edinburgh. </p>
<p>Newspapers meanwhile report that the Queen has made desperate phone calls to Downing Street pleading with the English PM not to leave the EU. She warned him it could encourage the break-up of the Union of the Crowns, which had united the Scottish and English monarchies in 1603 (while maintaining separate parliaments). </p>
<p>This parallel world is not one created on the back of a different outcome to last year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/scottish-referendum">Scottish referendum</a>, but on something that nearly happened exactly 300 years ago. Few people realise how close Scotland and England came to heading in different directions only a few years after <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/act-of-union-1707/">the Act of Union</a> of 1707, which established the United Kingdom of Great Britain with one parliament. The event in question is the Battle of Sheriffmuir, which took place near Stirling in Scotland on November 13 1715. </p>
<h2>Contested result</h2>
<p>Sheriffmuir was the pivotal battle in a rebellion in which the supporters of the Catholic James Francis Stuart, the Jacobites, attempted to return the exiled Stuarts to the throne by force. Nicknamed the Old Pretender, James Francis Stuart was the son of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/james_ii.shtml">James II (VII of Scotland)</a>, who had been deposed by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_iii_of_orange">William of Orange</a> in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/glorious_revolution_01.shtml">Glorious Revolution</a> of 1688-9. Having taken Perth, the Jacobites were moving south, commanded by the earl of Mar, determined to change the course of history. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Francis Stuart by Alexis Simon Belle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Francis_Edward_Stuart#/media/File:Prince_James_Francis_Edward_Stuart_by_Alexis_Simon_Belle.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sheriffmuir is sometimes <a href="https://ia802701.us.archive.org/22/items/historyofscotla03brow/historyofscotla03brow.pdf">confusingly declared</a> a defeat for the Jacobites, but in fact was a tense and bloody draw between Mar’s troops and the loyalist soldiers under the chief of clan Campbell, the duke of Argyll – even though it was about 12,000 Jacobites against 4,000 government troops. On the same day, the government defeated Jacobite forces <a href="http://www.visitlancashire.com/explore/preston/the-battle-of-preston">at Preston</a> in the north of England, ending all hope of a successful rising. The Jacobites paused and then dispersed at the very time that the Old Pretender finally landed in north east Scotland. He lingered for only four weeks before returning into exile in France in the company of Mar.</p>
<p>The whole episode had very much alarmed the unionist and Hanoverian government in London. At the time the 1707 union was hated in England and Scotland, while <a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensoftheUnitedKingdom/TheHanoverians/GeorgeI.aspx">King George I</a>, who had been crowned in 1714, was an unpopular foreigner who could not even speak the language of his people.</p>
<p>A clear victory for the Jacobite army would have seen a collapse in the new regime enacted by the 1707 act and a Stuart restoration, such would have been the boldness of the Jacobite forces rushing south to London. The union would have been halted in its tracks and separate parliaments reinstated under one monarch. As for religion, a Catholic king James III and VIII would have had to practise his faith in private while supporting the Church of England. As James II and VII had found out to his cost, England as much as Scotland was not prepared to tolerate a Catholic king without firm guarantees to protect Protestantism. </p>
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<h2>So near and yet …</h2>
<p>This whole what-might-have-been takes us back to James II and VII, the man who put the “James” into Jacobitism. Ever since he was replaced by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_iii_of_orange">William of Orange</a>, he has suffered an <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/maurice-ashley/there-case-james-ii">exaggerated assassination</a> of his reputation from a stream of Whig and neo-Whig historians. They condemn him for a weak personality, sheer incompetence, cowardice and authoritarianism – and Catholic authoritarianism at that. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1245&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1245&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1245&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King James II by Sir Godfrey Kneller Bt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England#/media/File:King_James_II_by_Sir_Godfrey_Kneller,_Bt.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rper20/33/2">know that</a> he was impressed by the Scottish parliament and opposed to the Anglo-Scottish union from his private “Advice to his Son” of 1692, first published more than <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pk08AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">100 years later</a>. William of Orange <a href="http://www.jacobite.ca/documents/16890316.htm">claimed in 1689</a> that nothing could be more sensible than a union with the two kingdoms “living in the same island, having the same language, and the same common interest of religion and liberty” – James II and VII completely rejected this view and knew William’s scheme would help encourage Jacobite patriotism. </p>
<p>In his “advice”, James stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the true interest of the crown to keep the kingdom of Scotland separate from England. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He said those who support union should be seen as “weak men, bribed by some private concern”. Indeed James would have voted Yes in last year’s referendum. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Battle of Sheriffmuir by John Wootton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The former king’s son James Francis <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Jacobite_threat.html?id=OBcXAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">had the same views</a>. Had he come to power on the back of a victory at Sheriffmuir, he would have ended the constitutional experiment that was the union of 1707. Perhaps in that alternate timeline, the Queen would have purred down the phone in the ear of the Scottish PM when she heard that an English referendum to leave the EU produced a No vote.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair is the author of James VII, Duke and King of Scots, 1633-1701 (John Donald, 2014) </span></em></p>Had the Jacobites triumphed at Sheriffmuir in 1715, Nicola Sturgeon would now be Scottish prime minister.Alastair Mann, Senior Lecturer in History, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.