| abstract | - Following the English Civil War there was a coup (known to some as The Glorious Revolution partly because of its surprisingly easy success). The Stuart dynasty was expelled for fear of presumed contact with Catholic powers (the Wars of Religion were dying down but their aftertaste remained). James Stuart was tentatively replaced by his daughter Mary and then his other daughter Anne, but each in turn died without issue. Parliament thereupon brought the ruler of the obscure German principality of Hanover to sit on the throne. In response a conspiracy formed to restore the Stuarts. Supporters of the Stuarts were called Jacobites. The Jacobites made several attempts to organize revolts in their name, and appealed to continental monarchs for aid. However, each attempt was suppressed until the Stuart cause simply withered away, its noble supporters disinterested and its common supporters alienated and beaten. The conflict nominally originated in a dispute over the nature of the British constitution, specifically the Right of Succession, Jacobites holding it to be a royal birthright, the Hanoverians a liberty of parliament. However, it also drew in various cultural, ethnic and religious conflicts, particularly between the largely Protestant English, Lowland Scots and Ulster Scots, and the largely Roman Catholic Irish and Highland Gaels. Although it is generally accepted that the Hanoverians were the preferable candidate, having greater respect for parliamentary authority, a good deal of Jacobite romanticism still exists, particularly in Scotland; although in Ireland it was largely superseded by republican sentiments, it entered the Scottish nationalist mythology, the Jacobite Highlander becoming the iconic image of the Scottish nationalist movement. To this day, there exists a number of Britons who express support for the Jacobite cause, although the current claimant, Duke Franz of Bavaria - "Francis II", in the Jacobite reckoning - has formally declined to pursue the claim.
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