 Outside Ireland, Jacobitism was strongest in the western Scottish Highlands, Perthshire and Aberdeenshire, and areas of Northern England with a high proportion of Catholics such as western Lancashire, Northumberland and County Durham.Sympathisers were also found in parts of Wales, and in the West Midlands and South West England, to some degree overlapping with the Royalist strongholds of the Civil War era.The movement had an international dimension; several European powers sponsored the Jacobites as an extension of larger conflicts, while many Jacobite exiles served in foreign armies.