A highly attractive pair of Sterling Silver Drop Earrings featuring a Jacobean Butterfly enhanced with Amethyst colour stones. The Butterfly symbolised hope for the Stuarts’ grand return from exile and was used as a secret symbol by Jacobites.
Crafted entirely of 925 Sterling Silver, they are shipped complete in an attractive black box.
These beautiful earrings will make an ideal gift, and a lasting momento, for someone who loves the heritage of Scotland.
Size (approx) - 20.0mm x 24.0mm (each earring).
A short history of the Jacobites
For over 300 years the story of the Jacobites has fascinated people. and has been the subject of books by many famous authors, including Sir Walter Scott and more recently Diana Gabaldon and her Outlander series of historical novels.
The aim of the Jacobites was 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.
They get their name from ‘Jacobus’, the Latin form of James. Jacobites rebelled against the British government on five occasions between 1688 and 1746, the last ending in the crushing defeat at Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s flight to France.
The House of Stuart was a dynasty that was riven by in-fighting and plots, with the most damaging split being religious – Catholic against Protestant. By the late 1600s the populations of both England & Scotland were overwhelmingly Protestant, with only about 2% being practicing Catholics. The situation in the sparsely populated Highlands of Scotland was however different, with some Clans sticking to the old form of Catholic worship, whilst others were as passionately Protestant.
When the Catholic James VII & II succeeded the throne in 1685 from his late Protestant brother Charles II, he attempted to make changes to the religious order, causing social turmoil. He was eventually deposed in 1688 and replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary II, ruling jointly with her husband and first cousin (James's nephew) William III.
The Jacobite movement was, therefore, closely linked with Catholicism from the outset, and subsequently never supported by the majority of the population. Historians today generally accept that the Jacobite kings and princes were largely pawns, used by France to create diversions in a much wider European war they were fighting with the British.
Following the defeat at Culloden many Jacobites went into exile abroad, with those who stayed at home using secret symbols and emblems, such as a White Rose, Butterfly, Acorn & Oak Leaves and the Scottish Thistle as a clandestine way of showing their allegiance.
