Scotland, the Stewarts and all That (again?)

Good morning all!

OK, Alex Salmond might be as appealing as week-old haggis but he is serious (apparently) about holding a referendum on Scottish independence. (See here.)

So...

It's August 1745. Bonnie Prince Charlie learns from Henry of Navarre (the Huguenot heir to the French throne who, in 1593, allegedly said "Paris is well worth a Mass", adopted Roman Catholicism, became King Henry IV and, among other things enacted the Edict of Nantes, providing for toleration for Huguenots), declares "Edinburgh is well worth the Kirk," adopts Presbyterianism and swears to uphold the Elizabethan religious settlement in England.

What happens next?

Be well!

Oxartes
 
I don't know how well this fits in with what we know of Bonnie Prince Charlie, his father and indeed the Stewarts/Stuarts in general. They were exceedingly stubborn upon the religious issue - if James the 'Old Pretender' had shown similar religious flexibility in the 1700s then he may well have acceded to the throne instead of George of Hanover. Although to be fair I do remember now that Charlie did convert to Protestantism later in life, so perhaps this isn't all that implausible.

Given the reputation of the Stewarts though I think a lot of people would not have taken this conversion at face value. The basic problem is that 1745 is too late - memories of pre-Union Scotland are fading and most people are content with both the Union of Parliaments and the Hanoverian succession. The Jacobites' best chance of success was 1715, and thanks to poor military leadership they completely bungled the operation.
 
The Jacobites frequently announced that they would scrupulously respect the CoE: after all, English Jacobitisms was much broader than English Catholicism, which was pretty weeny. The non-comformists were of course beyond being reclaimed.

The problem they had in Scotland was that there was no middle-road. To accept a Presbyterian establishment that had chucked the Episcopalians into the wilderness was to loose the support of those Episcopalians, who were the backbone of the Jacobite movement. Now, Highland politics being what they were, this does not necessarily mean that if they made the very drastic and un-Stewartlike maneuvre of becoming Presbyterians - or, more likely, pledging to uphold the establishment - they might not lose all their Episcopalian support. But it's a thing to bear in mind.

The other problem is that in '45, no Presbyterian was being won over. The '15 is another matter, but the '15 lives in the shadow of the smaller and less serious revolt thirty years later thanks to its crippling lack of romanticism.
 
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