Jacobitism, High Treason, and the ‘Scottish Problem’: the evolution of post-Union treason legislation in Scotland, 1708–48

Citation

Cunningham CE (2025) Jacobitism, High Treason, and the ‘Scottish Problem’: the evolution of post-Union treason legislation in Scotland, 1708–48. In: Cultures of Scottish Jacobitism: Identities, Memories, and Materialities, 1688–1788. Manchester University Press.

Abstract
This chapter sheds new light on the ensuing legal and cultural complexities of trying Jacobites for high treason in Scotland following the Union of 1707. It emphasises the swift creation of several Anglocentric ‘British’ treason laws conceived as a direct response to the grave threat Jacobitism posed to the embryonic Kingdom of Great Britain. This legislation originated from a suppressive and reactive policy concerning how the recently created British nation-state would deal with this severest of crimes. The chapter shows that while the endurance of Scottish Jacobitism paved the way for biased laws established to diminish it, the imposition of this legislation presented a legal and cultural problem for British governments in the Scottish courts until the late 1740s. Comparing case studies of Jacobite trials and proceedings held in 1708, 1718, and 1748 after respective insurrectionary attempts demonstrates how Scots from across the political spectrum responded to the feeling that the nascent British state rapidly undermined their autonomous judicial system and laws. Examining the application of British state treason legislation on Jacobites in Scotland reconsiders the centrality of Scottish Jacobitism as the motivator of treason-related Whig legal doctrine in the years after the Union.