The Stuarts in Exile

In 1715, the Old Pretender James Francis Stuart launched one of British history's most audacious and longest running rebellions to reclaim his throne from the Hanoverian king George I. In this two-part 300th-anniversary special, Dr Clare Jackson tells the story of The Stuarts in Exile and sheds new light on the political, military and cultural threat the Jacobites posed to the embryonic British state. Although the '15' ultimately failed, it crystallized the stark choice facing those living in early 18th-century Britain. Are you for the Stuarts or are you for Hanoverians?

The Jacobite struggle has often been dismissed as a dynastic spat that culminated in Bonnie Prince Charlie's tragic defeat at Culloden in 1745. But rather than a Scottish story, Dr Clare Jackson reveals the Jacobite campaign took place on a European stage and inspired a nexus of international intrigue and covert plots. In this second episode, Dr Clare Jackson reveals why so many law-abiding Scots and English were prepared to support the catholic Stuarts and how the new protestant Hanoverian regime hung by a thread, as George I and II struggled to impose their authority on frequently hostile and anti-European subjects.