View source for Loyalism

{{Short description|Allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom}}
{{Redirect|Loyalist}}
{{EngvarB|date=October 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
[[File:British Loyalism.svg|250px|right|thumb|Loyalists support the United Kingdom or the [[The Crown|British crown]].]]
{{Toryism |expanded=characteristics}}
'''Loyalism''', in the [[United Kingdom]], its [[British Overseas Territories|overseas territories]] and its [[British Empire|former colonies]], refers to the allegiance to the British crown or the United Kingdom. In North America, the most common usage of the term refers to loyalty to the [[The Crown|British Crown]], notably with the [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|loyalists]] opponents of the [[American Revolution]], and [[United Empire Loyalists]] who moved to other colonies in [[British North America]] after the revolution.

== Historical loyalism ==
===18th century===
====North America====
{{Main|Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalists fighting in the American Revolution}}
In North America, the term ''loyalist'' characterised colonists who rejected the [[American Revolution]] in favour of remaining loyal to the king.<ref>Wallace Brown, "The Loyalists and the American Revolution." ''History Today'' (Mar 1962), 12# 3, pp. 149–157.</ref> American loyalists included royal officials, [[Anglican]] clergymen, wealthy merchants with ties to London, demobilised British soldiers, and recent arrivals (especially from Scotland), as well as many ordinary colonists who were conservative by nature and/or felt that the protection of Britain was needed. Colonists with loyalist views accounted for an estimated 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the white colonial population of the day, compared with those described as "[[Patriot (American Revolution)|Patriots]]", who accounted for about 40–50 per cent of the population and the rest neutrals. This high level of political polarisation leads historians to argue that the American Revolution was as much a [[civil war]] as it was a [[war of independence]] from the [[The Crown|British Crown]].<ref name="Allen2010">{{cite book|author=Thomas B. Allen|title=Tories: fighting for the king in America's first civil war|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vf_FG2Q7LeMC|year=2010|publisher=HarperCollins|isbn=978-0-06-124180-2}}</ref><ref name="Brown1965">{{cite book|author=Wallace Brown|title=The king's friends: the composition and motives of the American loyalist claimants|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yi9CAAAAIAAJ|year=1965|publisher=Brown University Press|isbn=9780870570926}}</ref><ref name="Calhoon1973">{{cite book|author=Robert M. Calhoon|title=The loyalists in Revolutionary America: 1760–1781|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=r8xFYgEACAAJ|year=1973|publisher=Harcourt Brace Jovanovich}}</ref>

British military strategy during the American Revolution relied on mobilising loyalist soldiers throughout the [[Thirteen Colonies]]. Throughout the war, the [[British military]] formed over 100<ref name="urlLoyalist Institute: List of Loyalist Regiments">{{cite web |url=http://www.royalprovincial.com/military/rlist/rlist.htm |title=Loyalist Institute: List of Loyalist Regiments |access-date=18 November 2011}}</ref> loyalist line regiments whose strength totaled 19,000 of which 9,700 served most at one time. Including militia and marine forces more than 50,000 served. The Patriots used tactics such as property confiscation to suppress loyalism and drive active loyalists away.<ref name="Flick1901">{{cite book|author=Alexander Clarence Flick|title=Loyalism in New York during the American revolution...|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aZo-AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA7|year=1901|publisher=Columbia university.|page=7|isbn=9780598865229}}</ref>

After the war, approximately 80–90 per cent of the Loyalists stayed in the new United States, and adapted to the new conditions and changes of a republic.{{cn|date=September 2023}}

=====Loyalist migrants=====
{{main|Expulsion of the Loyalists}}
[[File:Tory Refugees by Howard Pyle.jpg|upright|thumb|Depiction of American [[Loyalists (American Revolution)|Loyalist]] refugees on their way to [[the Canadas]] during the [[American Revolution]]]]
Of the 62,000 who left by 1784, almost 50,000 sought refuge elsewhere in the [[British North America]]n colonies of [[Province of Quebec (1763–1791)|Quebec]] (partitioned into [[the Canadas]] in 1791), [[New Brunswick]], [[Nova Scotia]], and [[Prince Edward Island|St. John's Island]];<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/military-heritage/loyalists/loyalists-ward-chipman/Pages/loyalist-maritimes-ward-chipman.aspx|title=Loyalists in the Maritimes — Ward Chipman Muster Master's Office, 1777–1785|date=16 May 2019|work=Library and Archives Canada|publisher=Government of Canada|access-date=3 May 2020}}</ref>{{notetag|St. John's Island was renamed Prince Edward Island in 1798.}} whereas the remaining loyalist migrants went to [[Jamaica]], the [[Bahamas]] and Britain, often with financial help from the Crown. They were joined by 30,000 or more "Late Loyalists" who settled in Ontario in the early 1790s at the invitation of the British administration and given land and low taxes in exchange for swearing allegiance to the King,<ref>{{cite book|title=Liberty's Exiles, American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World|author=Maya Jasanoff|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=2011|pages=206–208}}</ref> for a total of 70,000+ new settlers. There were in fact four waves of emigration: in the years 1774 through 1776 when for example 1300 [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Tories]] were evacuated with the British fleet that left Boston for Halifax; the large wave of 50,000 in the years 1783; some few thousands who had stayed in the new Republic but left disenchanted with the results of the revolution for Upper Canada between 1784 and 1790; and the large number 'Late Loyalists,' 30,000, who came in the early 1790s for land, many of them neutrals during the War, to Upper Canada; they soon outnumbered the original truly committed anti-Republicans, 10,000, who had earlier arrived: some Loyalists about 10 per cent maybe from New Brunswick returned to the States as did an unknown number from Nova Scotia.<ref>Christopher Moore, The Loyalists, Revolution, Exile, Settlement, 1984, pp. 244–252 {{ISBN|0-7710--6093-9}}</ref> This migration also included [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous]] loyalists such as [[Mohawk nation|Mohawk]] leader [[Joseph Brant]], the "[[Black Loyalist]]s" – former slaves who had joined the British cause in exchange for their freedom, and [[Anabaptist]] loyalists ([[Mennonites]]).<ref name="Barkley1975">{{cite book|author=Murray Barkley|title=Murray Barkley the Loyalist tradition in New Brunswick:: the growth and evolution of an historical myth, 1825–1914|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qs6TNAAACAAJ|year=1975|publisher=s.n.}}</ref><ref>''Acadiensis'' 4 (1975): 3–45;</ref>

These Loyalists were the founders of modern English-speaking Canada, and many of their descendants of these King's Loyal Americans still identify themselves with the nominal hereditary title "UEL" ([[United Empire Loyalist]]) today. To one degree or another, from ideological reasons or less so mixed with prospects of a better life, "All the Loyalists had taken a stand for the Crown and the British Empire"...whether "from a rigorous toryism to some vague sense that royal government was hardly so evil as its enemies claimed. In Canada this diversity was preserved. The Loyalist communities were rarely unanimous – or placid – in their politics".<ref>Moore, op. cit. p, 253</ref>

==== Ireland ====
The term ''loyalist'' was first used in Irish politics in the 1790s to refer to Protestant Irishmen (often of English or Scottish ancestry) who opposed [[Catholic Emancipation]] and Irish independence from the British Empire.<ref name="Cross1920">{{cite book|author=Arthur Lyon Cross|title=A shorter history of England and greater Britain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5yAOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA593|year=1920|publisher=The Macmillan company|pages=593–595, 597}}</ref> Prominent Irish loyalists included [[John Foster, 1st Baron Oriel|John Foster]], [[John Fitzgibbon, 1st Earl of Clare|John Fitzgibbon]] and [[John Beresford (statesman)|John Beresford]]. In the subsequent [[Irish Rebellion of 1798]], the term ''ultra loyalist'' was used to describe those who were opposed to the [[United Irishmen]], who were in support of an independent [[Irish Republic]]. In 1795, [[Ulster loyalist]]s founded the [[Orange Order]] and organised the [[Yeoman]] Militia, which helped to put down the rebellion. Some loyalists, such as [[Sir Richard Musgrave, 1st Baronet, of Tourin|Richard Musgrave]], considered the rebellion a Catholic plot to drive Protestant colonists out of Ireland.<ref name="Cross1920" />

===19th century===
==== Australia ====
The [[Sydney]] and [[Parramatta]] Loyalist Associations, with approximately 50 members each, were formed in 1804 to counter radical societies in those counties, and subsequently helped to put down the [[Castle Hill convict rebellion]] later that year.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.lancers.org.au/site/The_Military_at_Parramatta.asp |title=The Military at Parramatta |access-date=28 September 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926083321/http://www.lancers.org.au/site/The_Military_at_Parramatta.asp |archive-date=26 September 2015 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="ColemanKnight1953">{{cite book|author1=Keith Coleman|author2=J. T. Knight|title=Short history of the military forces in N.S.W. from 1788 to 1953|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lXFlzgAACAAJ|year=1953}}</ref>

==== England and Wales ====
During the early 19th century, nearly every English and Welsh county formed a Loyalist Association of Workers in an effort to counter a perceived threat from [[radical societies]].<ref name="Gee2003">{{cite book|author=Austin Gee|title=The British volunteer movement, 1794–1814|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1TMtozjZ7fYC|year=2003|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-926125-3|pages=17–18}}</ref> The first such association was founded in [[Westminster]] on 20 November 1792.{{cn|date=September 2023}}

== Modern loyalism ==
=== Northern Ireland ===
{{main|Ulster loyalism}}
Generally, the term ''loyalist'' in [[Northern Ireland]] is typified by a militant opposition to [[Irish republicanism]], and also often to Roman Catholicism. It stresses [[Ulster Protestants|Ulster Protestant]] identity and community with its own folk heroes and events, such as the actions of the [[36th (Ulster) Division]] during [[World War I]] and the activities of the Orange Order. An Ulster loyalist is most commonly a [[Unionism in Ireland|unionist]] who strongly favours the political union between [[Great Britain]] and Northern Ireland,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.academia.edu/1896376|last=White|first=Andrew|date=2007|title=Is contemporary Ulster unionism in crisis? Changes in unionist identity during the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Irish Journal of Sociology |volume=16|issue=1|pages=118–135}}</ref> although some may also support an [[Ulster nationalism|independent Northern Ireland]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Northern Ireland Loyalist Paramilitaries (U.K., extremists)|url=http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-organizations/northern-ireland-loyalist-paramilitaries-uk-extremists/p9274|work=Council on Foreign Relations|access-date=23 May 2012|author=Staff|year=2011|archive-date=20 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130620111722/http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-organizations/northern-ireland-loyalist-paramilitaries-uk-extremists/p9274|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IudoAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA56|title=Unionists, Loyalists, and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland|isbn=9780199875382|last1=Smithey|first1=Lee A.|date=22 August 2011|publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tcd.ie/Political_Science/staff/michael_gallagher/HowManyNations95.pdf|title=People - Political Science - Trinity College Dublin|website=www.tcd.ie}}</ref> In recent times, the term has been used to refer to several loyalist paramilitary groups, such as the [[Ulster Defence Association]] (UDA), [[Ulster Volunteer Force]] (UVF), [[Red Hand Commando]] (RHC) and the [[Loyalist Volunteer Force]] (LVF).

Although Irish loyalist paramilitaries have claimed to speak on behalf of their communities and unionists in general, their electoral support is minimal and exclusively based in the urban working class. The [[Progressive Unionist Party]], a pro-[[Good Friday Agreement|Belfast Agreement]] loyalist party, won seats in the [[Northern Ireland Assembly]] in 1998, 2003 and 2007, but lost them in 2011.

=== Republic of Ireland ===
Loyalism in the post-partition [[Republic of Ireland]] has declined since independence.<ref name="ClearyConnolly2005">{{cite book|author1=Joseph N. Cleary|author2=Claire Connolly|title=The Cambridge companion to modern Irish culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kt8l_7gAS-gC&pg=PA71|year=2005|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-82009-7|pages=71–72}}</ref> Large numbers of southern Irish loyalists and non-loyalists volunteered for service in the British Armed Forces in World War I and World War II, many of them losing their lives or settling in the United Kingdom after the wars.<ref name="Grayson2009">{{cite book|author=Richard S. Grayson|title=Belfast Boys: how Unionists and Nationalists fought and died together in the First World War|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QBsUGGlXciwC|year=2009|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-84725-008-7}}</ref> Partition saw mass movements of southern loyalists to Northern Ireland or to Great Britain,<ref name="Hennessey1998">{{cite book|author=Thomas Hennessey|title=Dividing Ireland: World War One and Partition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bha01y6OD6UC&pg=PA178|year=1998|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-19880-6|pages=178–181}}</ref> although small loyalist or neo-unionist groups are still active.{{cn|date=September 2023}}

=== Scotland ===
The Scottish loyalist movement originated during the [[Industrial Revolution]] when a significant number of Ulster Protestants migrated to Scotland from Ireland.<ref>{{cite web|title=Support in Great Britain|url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/loy/gb.html#1|work=A Guide to Ulster Loyalism and Unionism Online|publisher=CAIN Web Service|access-date=23 May 2012|author=Niall O'Dochartaigh|year=2004–2005}}</ref> In Scotland, a loyalist is someone on the fringes of [[Unionism (Scotland)|Scottish unionism]] who is often strongly supportive of loyalism and unionism, although mainly concentrating on the Irish union issue rather than on [[Scottish politics]].{{citation needed|date=November 2012}} Scottish loyalism is typified by militant opposition to Scottish republicanism, [[Scottish independence]].

Coming from a large section of Scottish society Scottish loyalism has become more visible through prominent demonstrations of the beliefs of its members since the establishment of a [[Scottish Parliament]]. Scottish loyalism is visible through participation at Orange parades with supporters from [[Rangers F.C.|Rangers]], [[Heart of Midlothian F.C.]] and [[Airdrie United F.C.|Airdrie United]].
Loyalists in Scotland mostly live in small working-class [[enclave]]s in the major urban centres or industrial villages, notably [[Glasgow]], Lanarkshire, [[Edinburgh]], [[Renfrewshire]], Fife, [[West Lothian]] and [[Ayrshire]]. There are relatively few loyalists in areas such as [[Aberdeen]], the [[Scottish Borders]] and the [[Scottish Highlands]].

== See also ==
* [[Legitimist]]
* [[Monarchism]]
* [[Reactionary]]
* [[Royalist]]

==Notes==
{{notefoot}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* [http://www.redcoat.me.uk/index.htm American Loyalists]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070405172547/http://www.britishulsteralliance.co.uk/ British Ulster Alliance]
* [http://www.ulster-scots.co.uk Ulster-Scots Online]
* [http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/ CAIN – University of Ulster]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070223042047/http://www.haldimand-collection.ca/ Haldimand Collection]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20011202155837/http://www.swansealoyal.co.uk/ Welsh Loyalists]
* [http://www.scottishloyalists.com/ Scottish Loyalists]

{{Nationalism in the United Kingdom}}

[[Category:Monarchism in the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Political movements in the British Isles]]
[[Category:Political ideologies]]