To continue...when Queen Anne died, Parliament passed over James Stewart and offerred the throne to George, Elector of Hanover. George's mother was a granddaughter of James I. George couln't speak English, but London society preferred a sophisticated German continental over a kilt-wearing Scotsman (the English thought of and treated Highlanders much in the same way they thought of and treated Mohawks). This sparked outrage in the north as Scotland had always been ruled by a Scotsman (even Edward Plantaganet's puppet, John Baliol, was Scottish). James Stewart, aka "The Old Pretender", raised an army, marched on London, and almost won. His son, Charles Stewart (Bonnie Prince Charley or the Young Pretender) tried a second time and did not succeed. The ousting of the Stewarts began the Scottish migration to America where they became heavily involved in another, more famous rebellion against the English: the American Revolution.
To explain: Parliment passed over James Stewart on the grounds patly that he was a catholic, but mostly because the stewart dynasty had been an unmitigated disaster that had plunged the country into a series of vicious civil wars. Worst of all, Charles II, in all other respects a pretty decent monarch, had sold us out to the FRENCH. You can do a lot of things and be forgiven, but that IS beyond what anyone in England can tolerate.
The myth of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" is well overblown. It wasnt London society that preferred George, it was all of British society, Scots most of all. The Kilt wearing Scotsman was born in Italy and had a Polish accent. The English didnt like the highlanders true, but lowland Scots positively hated them. The 45 rebellion failed primarily for one reason and one reason only: lack of popular support. People did not want the stewarts back. A majority of Scotsmen didnt want them back.
Scots had been migrating to America for years before the clearances. They were heavily involved in a more famous rebellion, but not against the English. It was the British. There were plenty of Scottish regiments in the British army and plenty of Scotsmen who fought for the crown.
It may be true that the later efforts to regain the throne, after 1688, were supported mostly by Highlanders.
You are correct, the House of Stuart was not a shining example of peace and tranquility. Then again neither was the House of Tudor nor the last 100 years of the Plantaganets. Combining the religious conflicts between Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans with the growing power of Parliament at the expense of the Crown, it is hard to imagine that any dynasty would have faired much better.
It is also true that there were a great many Anglophiles in Scotland- especially south of the Firth of Forth. Many of the Scottish nationalist rebellions could also be characterized as civil wars between the Anglophiles and Anglophobes- much like the Carolinas during the American Revolution.