The Collaborative International Dictionary
Jacobitism \Jac"o*bit*ism`\, n.
The principles of the Jacobites.
--Mason.
Wikipedia
Jacobitism ( ; , ) was a political movement in Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King James VII of Scotland, II of England and Ireland, and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. The movement took its name from Jacobus, the Renaissance Latin form of Iacomus, the original Latin form of James. Adherents rebelled against the British government on several occasions between 1688 and 1746.
After James II was deposed in 1688 and replaced by his daughter Mary II, ruling jointly with her husband and first cousin (James's nephew) William III, the Stuarts lived in exile, occasionally attempting to regain the throne. The strongholds of Jacobitism were parts of the Scottish Highlands and the lowland north-east of Scotland, Ireland, and parts of Northern England (mostly within the counties of Northumberland and Lancashire). Significant support also existed in Wales and South-West England.
The Jacobites believed that parliamentary interference with the line of succession to the English and Scottish thrones was illegal. Catholics also hoped the Stuarts would end recusancy. In Scotland, the Jacobite cause became intertwined with the last throes of the warrior clan system.
The emblem of the Jacobites is the White Cockade. White Rose Day is celebrated on 10 June, the anniversary of the birth of the Old Pretender in 1688.
Usage examples of "jacobitism".
This suspicion of Jacobitism, revived by Burns himself, when he rose into fame, seems not to have influenced either the feelings, or the tastes of Agnes Brown, a young woman on the Doon, whom he wooed and married in December, 1757, when he was thirty-six years old.