ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the different dimensions of Jacobitism, and then proceeds to a consideration of how extensive Jacobite sentiment was in British society at large. It suggests that those who became Jacobites because of a deep attachment to the principles of divine-right monarchy and Stuart legitimism. Jacobitism became an ideology of opposition, and Jacobites tended to unite around negatives; there was much less support for the positive alternative represented by either James II or his son, the Old Pretender. Hostility towards the policies and corrupt practices associated with the Court Whigs might have caused more and more people to look on the possibility of a Stuart Restoration with increasing sympathy. Country Jacobitism and legitimism were not necessarily incompatible. Propagandists could always argue that the fact that so many misfortunes had befallen England since the Revolution confirmed how wrong it had been to dethrone the rightful sovereign.
