Daniel Szechi

‘Such nonsense that it cannot be true’: the Jacobite reaction to George Lockhart of Carnwath's Memoirs Concerning the Affairs of Scotland

This article is a response to the critique of the Jacobite George Lockhart of Carnwaths, Memoirs Concerning the Affairs of Scotland published by Christopher Whatley and Derek Patrick in the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies in 2007. Whatley and Patrick argued that Lockharts influential account of the Union has for too long been uncritically accepted by historians. This article builds on their use of contemporary whig reactions to its version of events by reviewing the text in light of critical Jacobite sources (Lockharts acerbic narrative also antagonized many of his comrades-in-arms). It nonetheless, concludes that neither whig nor Jacobite critics of the Memoirs diminish its usefulness as a source. Ultimately both bodies of criticism focus on particular moments, rather than on the Memoirs as a whole, and far from all the criticisms were valid. Thus if the text is handled according to the regular canons of historical evidence it more than retains its value for the historian.

Britain’s lost revolution?

1. Britains lost revolution and the historians 2. March 1708 and its aftermath 3. The Jacobite underground in the early eighteenth century 4. The Scots Jacobite agenda, 1702-10 5. The geopolitics of the enterprise of Scotland 6. Conclusion Bibliography Index

Negotiating Catholic Kingship for a Protestant People: ‘Private’ Letters, Royal Declarations and the Achievement of Religious Detente in the Jacobite Underground, 1702–1718

It is well known that there was a great deal of religious tension between Protestants and Catholics in eighteenth century Britain. What is far less well known is that this tension reached into the heart of the Jacobite movement. Protestant Jacobites were determined to prevent Catholicism coming back with King James ‘III and VIII’ if they succeeded in restoring him to the throne, and pressed him hard to make religious concessions that would limit the extent of Catholic power at the exiled court and in the event of a Stuart restoration. This essay analyses the political dynamics of the struggle that ensued and thus sheds new light on the internecine politics of the Jacobite movement and the character of the shadow monarch as he grew into his role as king over the water.

Towards an Analytical Model of Military Effectiveness for the Early Modern Period: the Military Dynamics of the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion

Abstract Early modern European rebellions have long been of interest to military historians, yet, with the exception of the 1745 rebellion led by Charles Edward Stuart, the military history of the Jacobite rebellions against the English/British state is little known outside the Anglophone world. Likewise, though there have been many analyses of particular rebellions no analytical model of rebel military capabilities has hitherto been proposed, and thus meaningful comparisons between early modern rebellions located in different regions and different eras has been difficult. This article accordingly offers an analysis of the military effectiveness of the Jacobite rebels in 1715-16 structured by a model adapted from the ›Military Effectiveness‹ framework first advanced by Allan Millett and Williamson Murray. This is with a view to stimulating military-historical interest in Jacobite rebellions other than the ’45, and promoting more systematic discussion of the military effectiveness of early modern European rebel armies. Abstract Rebellionen der Frühen Neuzeit haben seit Langem das militärgeschichtliche Interesse erregt. Allerdings ist die Kenntnis um die Rebellionen der Jakobiten gegen den englischen/britischen Staat - mit Ausnahme des von Charles Edward Stuart angeführten Aufstands von 1745 - außerhalb der angelsächsischen Welt kaum bekannt. Dazu kommt, dass zwar viele Untersuchungen zu einzelnen Rebellionen vorliegen, ein eigentliches Modell zur Analyse militärischer Aufstände aber bislang nicht vorgelegt worden ist. Dieser Mangel erschwert den zielführenden Vergleich frühneuzeitlicher Rebellionen in unterschiedlichen Regionen und Zeiten. Dieser Aufsatz bietet daher eine Analyse der militärischen Effektivität des Jakobitenaufstand von 1715/16, die sich an das ursprünglich von Allan Millett und Williamson Murray entwickelte Modell von »Militärischer Effektivität« in der Neuzeit anlehnt. Dadurch soll sowohl das militärhistorische Interesse an den Jakobitenaufständen jenseits der 1745er Rebellion angeregt als auch die Debatte um die militärische Effektivität frühneuzeitlicher Rebellenarmeen befördert werden.

Introduction: Loyalty and Identity

The study of Jacobitism is at a crossroads. From the 1970s, when Eveline Cruickshanks and Howard Erskine-Hill re-established it as a serious area of research, the main emphasis among those who work on Jacobitism has been on its disruption of the prevailing trends of the contemporary societies of the British Isles through risings, conspiracies, riots, seditious words and a language of dissidence that resonated in literature, song, art, glass and textiles. This new research disrupted a traditional historiography which in response has generally sought to ignore rather than counter it. The traditional view identified Jacobitism not as a real threat to the stability of the British kingdoms, but rather as a defiant pose that never translated into a coherent ideological alternative, a marginal politics outside the social, religious and political mainstream. To be a Jacobite was to be a backward-looking absolutist rather than a forward-looking Briton.

Retrieving Captain Le Cocq’s Plunder: Plebeian Scots and the Aftermath of the 1715 Rebellion

Rebellions are ipso facto civil wars in the making. However brief and unsuccessful they might be, it is in their very nature to dislocate government and civil society. Hence the condition of Scotland in March 1716. The Jacobite rebellion that had begun in September 1715 was certainly defeated. James Stuart, the Old Pretender, had abandoned his retreating army at Montrose and taken ship for France on 4 February accompanied by the erstwhile leader of the rising, John Erskine, Earl of Mar, and a handful of other senior Jacobite officers.1 Major-General Thomas Gordon of Auchintoul, left behind with the unhappy task of leading the disintegrating Jacobite army back to the Highlands and negotiating the best terms he could with the pursuing government army and the Whig authorities in London, had disbanded what was left of his demoralised forces at Ruthven in Badenoch on 14 February.2

Jacobite Politics in the Age of Anne

Every political movement has watershed moments when decisions are taken with very long-term consequences. This article explores one such moment with respect to the jacobite movement during the reign of Queen Anne. Implicitly building on Geoffrey Holmess model of the workings of the whig and tory parties in the age of Anne, the article analyses the turn to the Scots that took place within jacobite politics between 1702 and 1710. Throughout the 1690s the English jacobites had dominated the politics of the jacobite movement. Cementing their hold on the jacobite courts outlook and policies there was, too, an intrinsic anglocentrism at royal and ministerial level. Yet by 1715 the Scots jacobites were clearly equal partners with the English within the movement, and this parity was to shape the entire subsequent history of the jacobite cause. This shift within the politics of the movement was, moreover, not simply a corollary of the union. This article argues that the shift to the Scots was far more fundamental in terms of the outlook and policies of the movement, and ultimately did not depend on the immediate military utility of the Scots jacobites, but on a new perception of them as a uniquely important resource.