Waverley

After a revolution in England that dethroned the Catholic King James II and VII in 1688, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement of 1701, which excluded Catholics from the line of succession to the English throne. James was replaced by his daughter Mary II and her Protestant husband William of Orange, but Mary’s successor, her sister Anne, died without a surviving child in 1714. The new line of succession bypassed the remaining Stuarts, who were all Catholic, and passed the crown to a distant German relation, George I of Hanover. Hanoverians supported the reigns of George and his son, George II, who was king in 1745. Hanoverians were often associated with the Whig political party, and Scott uses the terms interchangeably to describe people with these convictions in his novel.

Those who supported the hereditary monarchy did not support the 1701 Act of Settlement, which disinherited any non-Protestant members of the royal family from their place in line for the throne. This led to the very distant and foreign relations of the last king to inherit the throne and begin the Hanoverian dynasty. Whereas Hanoverians thought religion was more important than hereditary lineage, Jacobites thought the reverse and believed in a strictly hereditary monarchy.

The term Highland describes the mountainous areas of Scotland mostly situated toward the north and west, and the people and culture of that region. Eighteenth-century Highland culture was distinct from elsewhere in Scotland and Britain. Though the Highlands fell within the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom after the 1707 Acts of Union, the governance of the Highlands was not that straightforward. Clans existed in all regions of Scotland, but unlike the Lowlands, the Highlands continued to be more or less governed by local clans at the time of the Jacobite uprising of 1745 as they had been for centuries. After the Battle of Culloden, Highland culture was largely decimated. Scott’s “Waverley Novels” often romanticize the Highlands and Highland culture, leading to a romanticized view of the region in contemporary and modern popular culture.

Jacobites did not agree with the Act of Settlement of 1701, instead supporting the hereditary monarchy of the Stuart line. This meant that, rather than supporting the German Protestant George of Hanover, they believed that the rightful king was his Catholic son, was the deposed James II’s son, James Francis Edward Stuart. The grandson of James II and VII, Charles Edward Stuart (often called Bonnie Prince Charlie) was the leader of the Jacobite cause and incited the uprising of 1745 to restore his father to the throne. Though the Jacobite uprising of 1745 was explicitly against the Hanoverians, many who participated in Scotland were also against the 1707 Acts of Union which combined Scottish and English Parliaments. Both Catholics and Protestants held Jacobite views, and though this belief was perhaps most prominent in Highland Scotland, people across Great Britain rooted for the Jacobites in 1745 and before. As Scott associates the Hanoverians with the Whigs, he also often conflates the Jacobites with the Tory party. Though Jacobite sentiments were not annihilated after the Battle of Culloden, 1745 marked the last large-scale uprising of the Jacobites.

The term Lowland describes the regions with lower altitudes in Scotland, mostly situated toward the south and east of the country, and the people and culture of the region. Scott often describes the Lowlands as the opposite of the Highlands and depicts Lowland culture as closer to English culture than Highland culture. However, Scott also shows how Lowland regions differ as much as those in the Highlands, and have their own distinct customs, practices, and language. Politically, Scott also adds nuance to the regional distinctions by showing Lowlanders who are both Jacobites and Hanoverians.