Responding to the Jacobite threat : Policy, law and assimilation, 1688-1807

This book examines how various states and governments collectively responded to the Jacobite threat during the long eighteenth century. It emphasises the strategies and methods employed to dismantle Jacobitism and prevent a Jacobite restoration, thereby ensuring the Protestant Succession and the stability of the British State. -- .

In this first comprehensive monograph to examine the Jacobite threat from the perspective of its opponents, Cunningham investigates the mechanisms employed by states across the British Isles to eliminate this significant danger. Drawing on original primary research and data analysis, the study illustrates the complexity and scope of the politico-legal responses required to eradicate Jacobitism, responses that shaped all social classes and spheres within the Three Kingdoms. The book shows how numerous governments adopted a balanced approach that combined punishment with clemency, seeking both to deter rebellion by making its consequences clear and to reintegrate as many former state enemies as possible. By utilising institutional memory and administrative precedents to address the ‘Jacobite problem’, the British State ultimately dismantled the eighteenth-century socio-political structures that allowed Jacobite ideology to persist, destroying its remaining influence. -- .