Since there were questions about the history of the Stuarts and the Hanoverians, which is the background to so many British and Irish folk songs, I thought people might be interested in this sketch. If you get confused by the genealogy, try the British royal-family tree.

James II, of the house of Stuart, the legitimate king of England, seems to have been a Catholic--secretly, because of the powerful anti-Catholic feeling in England then. He had two daughters by his first wife, a Protestant: Anne and Mary. Later he married a Catholic, and in 1688 she bore him a son, also James. The prospect of a Catholic heir (and the appointment of a Catholic Lord Lieutenant of Ireland--see notes to "Lilli Burlero" in the DT) so alarmed powerful Protestant lords that they looked for someone to replace James. There was a perfect candidate: his daughter Mary was married to Prince William of Orange, the ruler of the Netherlands. William was James’s nephew (yes, he and Mary were first cousins), an able ruler and general, and a thorough Protestant.

The Protestant lords invited William and Mary to rule England. When they landed, King James fled to Ireland, where many of the Catholic Irish supported him. King William pursued him and his British army was joined by many Ulster Scots (Protestants living in Ireland). These latter were nicknamed "Orangemen" after William’s principality. William’s army won the ensuing campaign (the victory that the Orangemen remembered best was the battle of the Boyne), and James fled to France. His son James maintained his claim to the throne; he was known as the "Old Pretender". Back in England, Parliament passed a Bill of Rights that, along with more democratic provisions, barred any Catholic from assuming the throne.

This usurpation was named, by the winners, the "Glorious Revolution".

Mary died without children, and when William died later, the monarchy passed to Mary’s sister, Anne Stuart. When Queen Anne died without children in 1714, however, there was a shortage of Protestant heirs. Parliament decided to give the throne to George, the Elector of Hanover, a great-grandson (in the female line) of King Charles I and thus a second cousin of William, Mary, and Anne. He was Protestant and a prince, but he spoke no English.

This was too much for many of the Scots, who had long supported the Scottish Stuart family, Catholic or not. These "Jacobites" ("James" is a version of "Jacob") did not stop at satirical songs about "Geordie" (the Scottish nickname for George), but rebelled in 1715 on behalf of the Old Pretender. The rebellion was put down. A second Jacobite rebellion, led by James’s son Charles ("Bonnie Prince Charlie" or the "Young Pretender") in 1745, was also put down. Charles died without children (if memory serves, he eventually became a Catholic clergyman), and so Jacobitism is now, in the words of Robertson Davies, "that most lost of all lost causes". If any Jacobites are left, they might reply in the words of Tom Lehrer (about the Spanish Civil War), "He may have won all the battles,/ But we had all the good songs!"

Any thoughts? Suggestions? References? (Other than going to the library and looking up "History--England".)