The King Over the Water: A Complete History of the Jacobites

This is the first modern history for general readers of the entire Jacobite movement in Scotland, England and Ireland, from the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 that drove James II into exile to the death of his grandson, Cardinal Henry, Duke of York, in 1807. The Battle of Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight through the heather are well known, but not the other risings and plots that involved half of Europe and even revolutionary America.

Based on the latest research, The King over the Water weaves together all the strands of this gripping saga into a vivid, sweeping narrative, full of insight, analysis and anecdote. ‘Few causes have aroused a more gallant response from the peoples of these islands than the Honest Cause’, writes Desmond Seward, ‘whether they were fighting for it at Killiecrankie, Prestonpans or Culloden, at the Boyne, Aughrim or Fontenoy, or dying for it on the scaffold’.