ABSTRACT
The importance of the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion did not end with the surrender at Preston or the inconclusive battle at Sheriffmuir. Instead, its detritus, the prisoners, became a critical test for George I and his government, challenging their resolve to balance mercy with a stinging lesson in the authority and legitimacy of the regime by using its power to execute or spare traitors and extend or remit the punishment to their families through banishment and confiscations. The Jacobites, using time-tested tactics of delay, petitions, influence from patrons crucial to the new government and the court of public opinion, struggled to save themselves and their estates, while the government moved carefully, considering the political costs of delay, the power to be gained or lost by allowing influential courtiers to bargain for clemency and the reputation it wished to maintain in the public eye. Like so many rebellions before it, including Kett’s, the Northern Rebellion and the Williamite War in Ireland, the ’15 ended with a negotiated settlement—the government executed only 50 men, but transported more than 600 and used confiscation to undercut the power of its former and potential enemies. For their part, many Jacobites were broken by debts or the strain of imprisonment or were persuaded to submit to the state through the good offices of their loyalist friends and family, who traded their influence for their Jacobite friends’ and kinsmen’s lives and expected dutiful behavior in the future in return.
