The Jacobite cause came into being after The Glorious Revolution of 1688. The reigning monarch, James II of England and VII of Scotland, was extremely unpopular due to a combination of being Catholic and harbouring absolutist ambitions. Fear of Catholicism, which was the religion of the traditional enemies France and Spain, and James II’s tendency towards absolutism pushed several Protestant nobles to invite Mary, the eldest daughter of James II, and her husband, James’s nephew William of Orange, to take the crown. When William invaded England mass defections and little resistance to William’s cause forced James II and his wife to flee to France, where they became guests of his cousin Louis XIV. In March 1689, James attempted to reclaim his throne by landing in Ireland with 6000 troops, but was soundly defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in July of that year, forcing him to flee back to France where he died in 1701.…
At the time the war broke out, Sweden was one of the most powerful countries in Europe. The French writer Voltaire (1694-1778) called it the ‘Famous War of the North.’ From 1560 and 1700, the Swedes had built up a Baltic Empire under great leaders such as Gustavus Adolphus with their small but professional army, including occupying the provinces of Karelia, Ingria, Estonia, and Livonia in the east and Western Pomerania, Wismar, the Duchy of Bremen, and Verden, as well as parts of Denmark and Norway in the west. 
The War of Spanish Succession was fought in Europe and the colonies between 1701 and 1714. The theatre of war in the Americas was known as Queen Anne’s War and involved a series of smaller wars fought by British colonists against the French and their native American allies.
In the prologue of the first novel William Benton explains that he stayed with a group of maroons after he jumped ship. Nathaniel Bagshaw was unaware of the term. Benton explains that they were communities of escaped black slaves. A large community began to flourish on the island of Jamaica, which was ruled by the Spanish at the time, from 1530 onwards after several slave revolts in the colonies of New Spain. The Spanish called them maroons, which is believe to come from the word ‘cimarron’, meaning ‘fierce’ or ‘unruly’. They were known to often ally themselves with buccaneers.