9. France withdrew official support of the Jacobite Stuart dynasty in 1716
By the end of 1716 France, which had been at war throughout most of the long reign of Louis XIV, was financially and militarily exhausted, badly in need of a period of peace. France’s treaty with Great Britain that year officially ended French support for the exiled Stuart dynasty. War between Britain and Spain continued over the Spanish conquests in Italy and on the Mediterranean islands. In order to shift British attention away from the Mediterranean, where the British Navy dominated, the Spanish government sought the means of resurrecting Jacobite insurrection in Scotland, Ireland, and England. Allied with the Swedes, the Spanish were determined to invade England via Scotland, restoring the Stuarts by placing James Edward on the throne while Jacobites supported by the Swedish fleet struck south from Scotland.
A Spanish invasion force of several thousand soldiers and supporting fleet was joined by James Edward in Cadiz in 1719, but after the death of Sweden’s King Charles XII Swedish support for the expedition ended. Whether the Spanish attempt was a legitimate invasion or merely the creation of a fleet in being to tie up the British fleet, the Spaniards in the end did not land in the British Isles. A small Jacobite force advanced upon Inverness. This force collided with government troops at the Battle of Glen Shiel, a major defeat for the Jacobite cause. Following the battle captured Jacobite troops were released, the captured Spanish troops shipped to Spain, and the British declined to pursue those Jacobites who escaped, an unusual circumstance in the Jacobite insurrections, when capture and torture were commonplace.