Date of Award

Spring 2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

Department

History, Politics and International Relations

First Advisor

Robin Lauermann

Abstract

Legacies change over time, and the Battle of Culloden is no different, especially depending on who is seeking out election in Westminster. Often, the Jacobite failure is used to garner political gain during nationalistic movements; while others included when Westminster needed to push back against the Scottish people to keep them subdued. The catastrophic failure of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion led to changing political legacies over the next two hundred years, which has permeated modern-day United Kingdom politics with the result of a Scottish referendum in 2014. With a close analysis of stateless nations theory, as well as Wales as a foil for lack of referendum, a complete picture of the Jacobites and Scotland as a whole appears. While there has been significant research on both the historical and political side, there is no official trace of the political legacy left by the Jacobites. Several important Scottish scholars provide backgrounds on the history leading up to and during the rebellion, as well as a crash course in the Scottish political system. There are also several key primary sources including an official veteran’s register from London which holds the names of men who fought for the English crown; and a letter written in the early nineteenth century to describe how a piece of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s tartan was sewn into the new king’s coronation ensemble. Recent scholarship on the modern states making up the United Kingdom and their goal of potential independence from England has gained significant traction since the 2014 Scottish Referendum. A vast majority of these scholarly pieces concern the failure the Scottish National Party (SNP) had in the 2014 referendum and how the party is moving towards convincing the younger and more supportive population of an independent Scotland. 1 Scholarship on the theory of the stateless nation is vast and complex but provides a much-needed basis and context for how Scotland and its foil in Wales operate in their current grey political area.

Comments

Created as part of: Politics 497: Major Honors

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