Conclusion

Summary

What then is to be made of Jacobitism in the British Atlantic world? Several important conclusions emerge from this study though two remain preeminent. First and foremost Jacobitism and anti-Jacobitism were important aspects of the British Atlantic world for over thirty years following the Revolution of 1688. Moreover, Jacobitism did not simply consist of a series of romantic rebellions or plots against the British government: Jacobitism persisted as an integral element of British political culture and religious controversies in England, Scotland, Ireland and the colonies from 1688 to the death of George i in 1727. Anti-Jacobitism developed in parallel. This then was a period fraught with religious controversies and party-driven political tensions which reverberated not just through England, Scotland and Ireland but also in the numerous British Atlantic colonies. It should no longer be possible to ignore Jacobites in the colonies as some sort of cultural or political aberration. Although it is true that Jacobites were not actively plotting colonial rebellions or participating in transatlantic conspiracies to restore the exiled Stuarts, Jacobitism – and therefore anti-Jacobitism – was part and parcel of a transatlantic British culture because it was an enduring feature of British political and religious discourse throughout the first half of the eighteenth century.

The prevalence of Jacobitism and anti-Jacobitism in the British Atlantic colonies points towards a second conclusion: the vibrancy of political and religious exchanges in the British Atlantic world. Political and religious controversies were diffused throughout a pan-Atlantic public sphere, which, in turn, facilitated the anglicisation of the British Atlantic world. As the complexity and cultural depth of Britain's Atlantic colonies becomes increasingly evident, it is necessary to broaden our understanding of Britain. In recent years, historians of colonial America have made admirable advances by conceiving of the colonies as part of an Atlantic world and incorporating scholarship examining the British Isles in order to revise traditional Whig narratives. British historians – though much fewer in number – have also benefitted from taking an Atlantic turn and envisioning the colonies as an integral part of early modern Britain. This book builds upon this established tradition in order to encourage British historians to think in more expansive geographical terms, and imperial and colonial historians to more actively embrace and engage with the diversity evident in historical scholarship examining the British Isles.