The Jacobite rising of 1689 was a Jacobite rebellion that occurred in the Scottish Highlands from 1689 to 1692 amid the War of the Grand Alliance. John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee led a failed attempt to reclaim Scotland for King James VII, dying at the Battle of Killiecrankie and leaving his army to be defeated at the Battle of Dunkeld and the Battle of Cromdale. The massacre of Glencoe, carried out by pro-Whig Highlanders against their Tory rivals, put a temporary end to Highlander resistance to the Glorious Revolution.
Background[]
When the Roman Catholic King James II of England and VII of Scotland came to the throne in February 1685, Englishmen and Scots initially showed widespread support, as many feared that an exclusion of James from the throne on religious grounds would result in a destructive civil war as seen in the 1640s. The Monmouth Rebellion in England and Argyll's Rising in Scotland were easily crushed. However, the Protestant cause was bolstered by France's revocation of the Edict of Nantes and expulsion of 200,000 Huguenots, the birth of a Catholic male heir to the throne (James Francis Edward Stuart), the King's prosecution of the Anglican "Seven Bishops," and the King's efforts to appoint Catholics to high military commands. In 1688, Tories who feared for the future of the Protestant Church of England and Whigs who viewed King James as a papist tyrant joined forces and invited Prince William of Orange to take the crown by force. On 5 November 1688, William's 14,000-strong invasion army landed in England, and the English Army deserted almost without a fight. On 23 December, King James went into exile, effectively abdicating the throne. In February, the English Parliament made William and his wife, James' daughter Mary, co-rulers of England. In March, the Scottish Convention of Estates met to proclaim William and Mary as the rulers of Scotland, but James concurrently sent a letter to Scotland from Ireland demanding obedience and threatening punishment for non-compliance. Episcopalians - who clustered in the Borders and in North East Scotland, and were numerous in the Scottish Highlands - and the Catholic Gaels of the Highlands and Islands readily responded to James' call, as did royalist Presbyterians. John Graham, 1st Viscount Dundee began raising troops, while George Gordon, 1st Duke of Gordon held Edinburgh's castle for James. On 11 May, William and Mary accepted the Scottish throne.
War[]
Throughout the rebellion, the Jacobites struggled to maintain an army, as the Highland style of warfare consisted of short-term service and dispersing after fights. The Whig general Hugh Mackay decided to avoid battle and allow the Jacobite army to disperse, and Edinburgh Castle fell to the Whigs on 14 June. Dundee's army, reduced to 200 men by the desertion of 1,800 Highland levies, was reinforced by just 300 Irish Jacobites in July. When the Jacobites garrisoned Blair Castle, which controlled access to the Scottish Lowlands, Mackay moved to assist with the castle's recapture. Dundee ambushed Mackay's army as it passed through the Killiecrankie Pass, inflicting heavy losses but suffering a mortal wound in the process. The Jacobites lost a third of their number, and the Irish general Alexander Cannon determined that the Jacobites lacked sufficient siege equipment to capture a port and gain access to Irish supplies. In the August 1689 Battle of Dunkeld, the Jacobites again suffered heavy losses, and Cannon's army dispersed. Mackay was able to spend the winter capturing several Jacobite strongholds before constructing a new base at Fort William. Thomas Buchan assumed command of the Jacobites in February 1690, raising just 800 men. Mackay defeated Buchan at the Battle of Cromdale in May before relinquishing command to Thomas Livingstone, 1st Viscount Teviot that November. John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair bribed most remaining Jacobite chiefs to swear allegiance to William in June 1691, while the clansmen who dragged their feet were forced into submission by the massacre at Glencoe in February 1692.
Aftermath[]
King William had been able to maintain control over Scotland with the help of its 95% Presbyterian majority, causing Scottish Episcopal bishops to propose union with England. In 1690, the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland eliminated all bishops and removed two-thirds of all ministers. Episcopalians excluded from the church remained strong in Aberdeenshire and Perthshire, and they and the rebellious Highland clans formed the backbone of future Jacobite risings.