History - The Rough Guide to Scottish Highlands and Islands - page 410

Parliament passed the Act of Security , in 1703, stating that Scotland would not accept a
Hanoverian monarch unless they had first received guarantees protecting their religion
and their trade.

The Act of Union
Despite the strength of anti-English feeling, the Scottish Parliament passed the Act of
Union by 110 votes to 69 in 1707. Some historians have explained the vote in terms of
bribery and corruption, but there were other factors. Scottish politicians were divided
between the Cavaliers - Jacobites (supporters of the Stewarts) and Episcopalians - and
the Country party, whose Presbyterian members dreaded the return of the Stewarts
more than they disliked the Hanoverians. To the Highlands and Islands, however, the
shift of government four hundred miles further south from Edinburgh, itself distant
enough for many, was to make relatively little difference to their lives for the best part
of the rest of the century.
The country that was united with England in 1707 contained three distinct cultures:
in south and east Scotland, they spoke Scots; in Shetland, Orkney and the far
northeast, the local dialect, though Scots-based, contained elements of Norn (Old
Norse); in the rest of north and west Scotland, including the Hebrides, Gaelic was
spoken. These linguistic differences were paralleled by different forms of social
organization and customs. The people of north and west Scotland were mostly
pastoralists, moving their sheep and cattle to Highland pastures in the summer, and
returning to the glens in the winter. They lived in single-room dwellings, heated by a
central peat fire and sometimes shared with livestock, and in hard times they would
subsist on cakes made from the blood of their live cattle mixed with oatmeal.
Highlanders supplemented their meagre income by raiding their clan neighbours and
the prosperous Lowlands, whose inhabitants regarded their northern compatriots with
a mixture of fear and contempt. This was the background for the exploits of Scotland's
very own Robin Hood character, Rob Roy (see box, p.136).

The Jacobite uprisings
When James VII (II) was deposed, he had fled to France, where he planned the
reconquest of his kingdom with the support of the French king. When James died
in 1701, the hopes of the Stewarts passed to his only son, James Edward Stewart,
the “Old Pretender” (“Pretender” in the sense of having pretensions to the throne;
“Old” to distinguish him from his son Charles, the “Young Pretender”). James's
followers became known as Jacobites , derived from Jacobus, the Latin equivalent
of James.

The Fifteen
After the accession to the British throne of the Hanoverian George I, son of Sophia,
Electress of Hanover, it sparked the Jacobite uprising of 1715 (also known as The
Fifteen): its timing appeared perfect. Scottish opinion was moving against the Union,
which had failed to bring Scotland any tangible economic benefits. The English had
also been accused of bad faith when, contrary to their pledges, they attempted to
impose their legal practices on the Scots. Neither were Jacobite sentiments confined

1650 1689 1692 1698

The Scots Royalist army
are defeated at the Battle
of Dunbar by the English
under Oliver Cromwell

Unsuccessful
Jacobite uprising
against William
of Orange

Glencoe massacre: 38
members of the MacDonald
clan murdered by anti-
Jacobite Campbells

1200 Scots leave
to establish a
colony in Panama