Who, What, When icon

Who, What and When

When William of Orange invaded England in 1688, taking the crown from the House of Stuart and sending the Catholic James VII and his infant son into exile in France, the nation was divided between those who welcomed the revolution and those who remained loyal to the exiled dynasty. The Stuarts’ supporters became known as Jacobites from ‘Jacobus’, the Latin version of James.

With a court in London and a Stuart court in France, politicians and European states began a game of position, preference and power: plotting and manoeuvring themselves to secure their own ends. It was a game of crowns that would result in the 1715 Jacobite rising in Scotland.

Explore the interactive family tree and timeline to find out more about the key characters and learn what some of the key global events of the period were.

Timeline and family tree

Click on one of the portraits to find out more about the character. To find out what some of the key events of the period were, scroll through the timeline which gives a brief overview.