Choosing (Historical) Sides

Recently a friend of mine texted me from Culloden in Scotland*–the battlefield where the Duke of Cumberland routed Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Jacobite forces and effectively ended the Jacobite cause. (Charles was later involved in a half-hearted French plan to invade England in 1759, but it came to naught.) She wanted to know if I wanted…

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What Did the Old Pretender Pretend?

The story of England’s Glorious Revolution is generally summarized as follows: In 1688, the Protestant nobility of England, outraged by attacks on their constitution, rose up against the man usually described as the last Stuart king, James II, and offered his throne to his daughter and son-in-law, William and Mary of Orange.* James fled to…

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