Native American Jacobites!

From The Catholic Herald, a review of a new book from OUP about the Wabanaki confederation of what is now north-eastern USA and south-eastern Canada, highlighting their desire to aid the Catholic Stuarts:

It was 1715 and a tribal people were preparing to assist in restoring Britain’s exiled Royal House of Stuart, sharpening tomahawks, covering themselves in war paint and raising sails on ships built to the highest technical standards of the day.

No, I haven’t been drinking too much Bourbon. Nor am I confusing Scottish highlanders, American Indians and Caribbean pirates. I am writing about a combination of two facts – the amassing of a fleet of sailing ships by the Indian tribes of the Wabanaki confederation, and the role which those tribes played in the Jacobite movement – facts which are virtually unknown but which can be studied in Matthew Bahar’s book, Storm of the Sea: Indians and Empires in the Atlantic’s Age of Sail. . . .

From the time they learned of the “Glorious Revolution” until the 1760s, the Wabanaki supported the claims of the Stuart dynasty, making them some of the last adherents of the Jacobite cause. It was a position which contributed to their cooperation with the Jacobites’ French allies in colonial campaigns during the War of the League of Augsburg, the War of the Spanish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession – cooperation of greater strategic significance than might be readily apparent.

The more that Indian aid could minimise France’s need to send men and supplies to North America, the more resources France could spare for a Stuart restoration. Conversely, British victories in the colonies would divert French resources from Jacobite efforts. In 1745, for example, the French colonial fortress of Louisburg fell to a New England army. Had the fortress held out, the army and fleet which Louis XV sent to recapture it the following year would have been ordered to support Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s Jacobite rising, even if it meant setting out on such a mission after the Battle of Culloden.

The Wabanaki also contributed to bleeding dry the House of Hanover’s ability to make war. One of the major props of the power of Hanover was naval supremacy. The British navy’s most important source of timber for shipbuilding was the Wabanakis’ homeland. . . .

More from OUP about the book:

Narratives of cultural encounter in colonial North America often contrast traditional Indian coastal-dwellers and intrepid European seafarers. In Storm of the Sea, Matthew R. Bahar instead tells the forgotten history of Indian pirates hijacking European sailing ships on the rough waters of the north Atlantic and of an Indian navy pressing British seamen into its ranks.

From their earliest encounters with Europeans in the sixteenth century to the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the Wabanaki Indians of northern New England and the Canadian Maritimes fought to enhance their relationship with the ocean and the colonists it brought to their shores. This native maritime world clashed with the relentless efforts of Europeans to supplant it with one more amenable to their imperial designs. The Wabanaki fortified their longstanding dominion over the region's land- and seascape by co-opting European sailing technology and regularly plundering the waves of European ships, sailors, and cargo. Their campaign of sea and shore brought wealth, honor, and power to their confederacy while alienating colonial neighbors and thwarting English and French imperialism through devastating attacks. Their seaborne raids developed both a punitive and extractive character; they served at once as violent and honorable retribution for the destructive pressures of colonialism in Indian country and as a strategic enterprise to secure valuable plunder. Ashore, Indian diplomats engaged in shrewd transatlantic negotiations with imperial officials of French Acadia and New England.

Positioning Indians into the Age of Sail, Storm of the Sea offers an original perspective on Native American, imperial, and Atlantic history.

Bonnie Prince Charlie at Home

The National Museum of Scotland opened an exhibition on Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites. A review and overview from The Financial Times:

On July 25 1745, Charles Edward Stuart landed on the Scottish mainland at Borrodale. Despite bearing the title Prince of Wales, it was the first time he had been in Britain, having lived all his life in Rome. His mission was to restore his father, James III, to the throne, and in so doing make Scotland an independent kingdom once more. But one of the first people he met, unimpressed with Charles’s invasion force of 12 (one of whom was a priest), said simply, “Go home”.

Charles was undaunted. “Home?” he said. “I am come home.” Charles knew that his chances of reaching and seizing London were low. But a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, titled Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites, shows how Charles used his underdog status to his advantage. A central exhibit is the shield, or “targe”, Charles carried on to Borrodale beach. It is flamboyantly decorated with a snarling Medusa’s head; Charles, it tells us, was a modern Perseus, sent to rescue the people of Britain from oppression. Other exhibits, a number of them from private collections, include Charles’s elaborate silver travelling cutlery, swords, portraits, miniatures and the kind of “memorabilia”, such as a wine glass engraved with the prince’s face, beloved of his loyal followers.

The Jacobite cause — as James’s supporters were called — began in 1688, when the Catholic James II was deposed by the Protestant William III. James was a brave soldier (his suit of armour here was the last to be made for a British monarch), but he failed to regain the crown. He left that challenge to his son, James Francis Edward Stuart, or James III.

Please read the rest there.

Making a Mountain Out of a Molehill: William III, RIP

William III of England died on March 8, 1702 and his sister-in-law Anne succeeded him. This blogger and author, Andrea Zuvich, takes great issue with the commonly accepted idea that he died because of a fall from his horse:

“William III died in a riding accident.” How many times have I heard this? According to the evidence, this was almost certainly not the case. William III had a constant battle with his lungs and it was a problem with his lungs that lead to his death – not merely falling from his horse. . . .

She presents evidence from his autopsy and concludes:

In plain English, he died from pneumonia: his lungs were in a terrible state. He had suffered from chronic asthma throughout his life, and as we know, pneumonia is most likely to occur in those who are elderly, very young, or chronically ill. William was chronically ill. Even in our own time, people die from pneumonia regularly throughout the world.

So, what about the broken bone which has constantly been attributed to his death? . . .

It had been set and was okay:

Nonetheless, the Jacobites (followers of King James II) merrily toasted to the mole as the “gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat,” for pushing William towards the Grim Reaper – something they had attempted but been unable to do.

I feel quite sorry for William. By the time of his death, he had ruled alone as King since his wife Mary’s untimely death in 1694 and he had been the target of several unsuccessful assassination attempts. He knew he was despised because he was a foreigner – a Dutchman on the throne of England. He felt more comfortable around his fellow Dutchmen, but this only served to make him all the more unpopular. . . .

By 1702, of course, the Jacobites were backing James II's male heir, James Francis Edward Stuart, whom King Louis XIV of France recognized as King James III of England and VIII of Scotland when James II died in 1701.

She concludes with this detail:

In the event, William’s death garnered little attention. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, apparently in the middle of the night, without any great ceremony. His body was placed beside that of his wife in the same vault.

St. John Baptist de la Salle and King James II

St. John Baptist de la Salle's feast day was yesterday, but I noticed this detail when reading a brief biography of him: he made an exception to his policy of educating the poor when King James II of England, in exile, made a specific request:

Although the schools had originally been founded for orphans and the children of the poor, a new departure was made at the request of King James II of England, who was then living in exile. He urged the founding of a college for the sons of his adherents, mainly Irish, who were living in France, and Father John opened such a school for fifty young men of gentle birth.

Because de la Salle emphasized teaching in the vernacular, the Irish youth learned French and French history so they could be of service to King Louis XIV.

Manhattan College in New York posts an explanation of a stained glass window depicting James II visiting this special school, which de la Salle founded in Paris:

This window is based on a drawing by 19th century artist Edouard Garnier.

Catholic King James II of England was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne, July 12, 1690 by his son-in-law, William of Orange. Supported by the French King, Louis XIV, he took up residence at St. Germain-en-Laye near Versailles, France. He asked La Salle to establish a school for the children of his Irish followers. La Salle established the school in Paris in 1700 for the Irish children.

James II, along with Archbishop Noailles of Paris, is here visiting the Irish children.

The cathedral in the background of the window is Notre Dame of Paris, the seat of Archbishop Noailles.

A rather old fashioned life of the saint offers these comments about his Irish students:

Of the subsequent careers of the lads who studied under St. John de la Salle in the exiles' boarding- school we know but little. Some of them doubtless remained at the court of Louis XIV and discharged satisfactorily the offices for which they were fitted. Some of them, we may be sure, took part in the several unsuccessful attempts to place the son and grandson of King James known respectively as the Old Pretender and the Young Pretender on the throne of England. More of them probably imitated the example of their fighting sires and in the French army struck stout blows against their English foes at Blenheim and Ramillies and, maybe, even half a century later, at Fontenoy. The wanderlust, always so potent in Irish blood, may have lured others of them across the Atlantic to Canada and the southern colonies. All that is but a matter of conjecture. But it is pleasant to reflect that through them the influence of St. John Baptist de la Salle spread into divers professions and into various parts of the world, and that the young Jacobites were better and wiser men because of their contact with the holy founder.

American Jacobites? "The Royalist [American] Revolution"

From Harvard University Press:

Generations of students have been taught that the American Revolution was a revolt against royal tyranny. In this revisionist account, Eric Nelson argues that a great many of our “founding fathers” saw themselves as rebels against the British Parliament, not the Crown. The Royalist Revolution interprets the patriot campaign of the 1770s as an insurrection in favor of royal power—driven by the conviction that the Lords and Commons had usurped the just prerogatives of the monarch.

Leading patriots believed that the colonies were the king’s own to govern, and they urged George III to defy Parliament and rule directly. These theorists were proposing to turn back the clock on the English constitution, rejecting the Whig settlement that had secured the supremacy of Parliament after the Glorious Revolution. Instead, they embraced the political theory of those who had waged the last great campaign against Parliament’s “usurpations”: the reviled Stuart monarchs of the seventeenth century.

When it came time to design the state and federal constitutions, the very same figures who had defended this expansive conception of royal authority—John Adams, Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, and their allies—returned to the fray as champions of a single executive vested with sweeping prerogatives. As a result of their labors, the Constitution of 1787 would assign its new president far more power than any British monarch had wielded for almost a hundred years. On one side of the Atlantic, Nelson concludes, there would be kings without monarchy; on the other, monarchy without kings.

HUP posted an interview with the author in July this year and Jack N. Rakove reviews it, with some reservations, for The Weekly Standard:

Eric Nelson is a young historian of political thought at Harvard whose basic ambition is to transform every topic he studies. He has published three books in the past decade, and each seeks to transform a major subject in the study of early modern (16th-18th century) political ideas. His first book, The Greek Tradition in Republican Thought (2004), identifies a mode of thinking about the collective use of property that departs sharply from the emphasis on political liberty and personal independence that dominates the scholarly interpretation of early modern republicanism. Nelson built on this argument in his second book, The Hebrew Republic (2010), by noting how early modern thinkers used the biblical idea of the half-century Jubilee to support the redistribution of property. But that book’s greater contribution lies elsewhere. Nelson argues that the Jews’ desire to replace direct divine rule with monarchy, as expressed in 1 Samuel 8:4-9 and rabbinic commentaries, provides a basis for preferring representative government to arbitrary royalty. The use of these sources by early modern writers demonstrates that creative political thinking was profoundly informed by religious texts and concerns and was not merely a secular development.

In The Royalist Revolution, Nelson turns his attention from Europe to revolutionary America. His argument will alternately surprise, shock, distress, and outrage many scholars, but it will also help to reshape a debate about the origins of the presidency, a topic that gravely matters as we agonize over the role of the post-9/11 executive in our impassioned and impasse-ridden politics.

Nelson’s argument begins with an ingenious analysis of a surprising claim that American revolutionaries made just before independence. Resistance leaders and the Continental Congress repeatedly urged George III to take their side in the struggle against Parliament’s assertion that it possessed unlimited authority to enact laws governing the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” In their view, the king should act as a wholly independent monarch who would treat each of his empire’s representative assemblies as possessing essentially the same authority. If Parliament overstepped its power in enacting laws for the colonists, the king should intervene, wielding his royal veto against unjust legislation. He should act, as Thomas Jefferson memorably wrote in 1774, as “the balance of a great, if a well poised empire.” Far from clinging unthinkingly to the Glorious Revolution settlement of 1688 and its aftermath, which made the British king a decidedly constitutional and limited monarch, George III should reclaim his prerogative and vigorously exercise the independent powers that custom and theory located in the executive. The clearest exponent of this view was James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who later played a critical role in shaping the novel presidency that emerged from the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Other scholars, myself included, have never known quite what to make of these claims. Taken at face value, they imply an ignorance of British governance so profound as to make the colonists seem like political idiots. Perhaps the claims can be read as an ultimatum to Britain’s ruling class. The colonists really did not believe that the king would take this part. They simply wanted to demonstrate that they would no longer recognize any parliamentary jurisdiction over America, beyond allowing it to regulate imperial trade, a power that had to be lodged somewhere.

Nelson powerfully demonstrates that there was a depth to this position that other scholars have simply missed. In his view, some (though hardly all) American leaders had become “patriot royalists” who were strikingly sympathetic to the monarchist arguments that the “execrable” Stuart monarchs of the 17th century had made against Parliament. The key texts here pivot on a largely forgotten struggle in the 1620s, when Parliament tried to enact legislation regulating American fisheries, and James I and Charles I each wielded the royal prerogative to insist that the colonies were not subject to parliamentary governance. For patriot royalists arguing within the precedent-laden traditions of Anglo-American governance, the Stuart success on this point in the 1620s provided crucial evidence that the colonists could revive and deploy a century-and-a-half later.

Read the rest of the detailed review there.

Will Ye No Come Again? A Portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie

From The Guardian:

A genuine and acceptably bonny portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie has been rediscovered, by the remorseful art historian who broke hearts in the Scottish souvenir industry by debunking the best-known portrait of the national hero, immortalised on countless tins of shortbread.
 
The long-lost portrait of the pink-cheeked prince was painted in Edinburgh in 1745 by one of Scotland's most renowned artists, Allan Ramsay, in the year the Young Pretender, grandson of the deposed Stuart king James II, launched a doomed invasion of England in an attempt to restore his family to the throne. It is the only known portrait of the prince made in Britain: the butchery of the battle of Culloden ended the Jacobite rebellion, Charles spent the rest of his life in exile, died in 1788 and was buried in Rome.
 
"Such a great image," Bendor Grosvenor said fondly of his discovery, which he tracked down from an old photograph to Gosford House, the family home of the Earls of Wemyss, just outside Edinburgh. "It gets the confidence of a man who wanted to invade England at the age of 24."

You may see the portrait at The Guardian site.

When Bendor Grosvener opined that a famous portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie (seen at right) was really of his brother Henry Benedict, later Cardinal, Stuart, he really upset the apple cart, as this BBC article demonstrates:

Now a leading expert believes the pastel might be Prince Henry Benedict instead of Charles Edward Stuart.
 
The gallery said it was not uncommon for re-attributions to be made.
 
It follows a two-year row over the identity of the man in the painting since London art dealer Bendor Grosvenor claimed it was not Bonnie Prince Charlie.
 
At first the gallery dismissed the claim citing expert on Jacobite portraiture, Dr Edward Corp of the University of Toulouse, France, in its defence.
 
However, Dr Corp has now changed his opinion in an article in the latest issue of The British Art Journal.
 
He said: "'The weight of evidence, perhaps regrettably, supports Bendor Grosvenor's argument that the pastel in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery shows Prince Henry rather than Prince Charles."

I think when you compare that portrait above to this of the Duke of York as Cardinal York, the resemblance is clear. Part of the reason experts thought it could not be Henry was that he was a Cardinal by 1747--but he had been in command of the naval expedition of the '45, and evidently both he and his elder brother had sat for portraits by Maurice Quentin de La Tour.

As Dr. Corp noted, this re-attribution was a really big deal:

"It is not merely the catalogue of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery which needs to be corrected.
 
"The impression which an entire nation has derived of this important historical figure should also be changed.
 
"The portrait is now reproduced in all biographies of the prince, and has been selected to illustrate the article about him in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography."
 
Still the real search is for a portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie by Maurice Quentin de La Tour painted around the same time as this painting of Henry Benedict, the Duke of York.

More on the Scottish National Portrait Gallery here.

The Stuarts In Italy

According to Cambridge University Press, the blurb for The Stuarts in Italy, 1719–1766: A Royal Court in Permanent Exile by Edward Corp:

For nearly half of the eighteenth century, the exiled Stuart court provided an important British presence in Rome. It acted as a surrogate embassy for the many Grand Tourists passing through the city – Hanoverian Whigs as well as Tories and Jacobites – and as a significant social and cultural centre. This book presents the first complete study of the court of the exiled Stuart King James III, offering a significant reassessment of its importance and of the lives of the Stuarts and their courtiers, and their relations with the Popes, cardinals and princely families of Rome. Edward Corp's interdisciplinary approach also reveals the Stuarts' patronage of leading portrait painters, their influence on the development of Italian opera, and the impact of their court buildings on relations with their supporters. This book will be essential reading for everyone with an interest in Jacobitism, Italian culture and the eighteenth-century Grand Tour.

~This is the first ever study of the exiled Stuart Court in Italy
~Provides a great deal of new information about the lives of all four members of the Stuart royal family; James III and his Polish wife Queen Clementina, and the upbringing of their two children (Bonnie Prince Charlie and Cardinal York)
~Makes comprehensive use of previously unexploited Italian archives


This is a sequel to Corp's work on the Stuart exiles in France, A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689–1718, which I reviewed here.
This study of "a court in exile" covers all aspects of the grandeur of court life. When King James II was deposed during the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-89, he came with his family to France, where his cousin, Louis XIV allowed him to establish a large court-in-exile in the Château of Saint-Germain near Versailles. The book describes the magnificent setting of the court, the way it was organized, and how the exiled courtiers lived. Particular attention is given to the close relationships between the British and French royal families.

~The first full study of the Stuart court in exile in France, following the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688/89
~Covers all aspects of the court - social, financial, cultural - and not merely the political background
~Emphasises cultural and patronage issues, breaking new ground in describing the painting, poetry and music of the court

The emphasis in the new book on music and art, with chapters on "The Stuarts and Italian operatic life", and "The Stuarts and Italian music", as well as on the portraits of the court, looks particularly fascinating.

King of Angels or King of the English? Adeste Fideles/O Come All Ye Faithful

Because I sent a contribution to the Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst in England, they sent me a Christmas card, signed by Lord and Lady Windsor, Nicholas and Paola. The art for the outside of the Christmas card is one of the manuscript copies of John Francis Wade's "Adeste, Fideles". My husband took the pictures below:

 

The most familiar translation of this hymn, which was written by Wade in 1750, is by Frederick Oakeley, an Oxford Movement follower of Blessed John Henry Newman, who joined the Catholic Church in 1845.

There is a very common theory that this hymn contains a code referring to Bonnie Prince Charlie--Wade was a Jacobite, and an exile in Europe after the '45. The BBC cites this expert, Bennett Zon of Durham University:

He said "clear references" to the prince were in the lyrics, written by John Francis Wade in the 18th Century. The prince was defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746 after raising an army to take the British throne.Born shortly before Christmas in December 1720, Bonnie Prince Charlie was the grandson of England's last Catholic monarch, James II. He was born in exile in Italy and became the focus for Catholic Jacobite rebels intent on restoring the House of Stuart to the British throne.

Prof Zon, said there was "far more" to the carol - also known as Adeste Fideles - than was originally thought.

He said: "Fideles is Faithful Catholic Jacobites. Bethlehem is a common Jacobite cipher for England, and Regem Angelorum is a well-known pun on Angelorum, angels and Anglorum, English.

 

"The meaning of the Christmas carol is clear: 'Come and Behold Him, Born the King of Angels' really means, 'Come and Behold Him, Born the King of the English' - Bonnie Prince Charlie." Professor Zon said the Jacobite meaning of the carol gradually faded as the cause lost its grip on popular consciousness.

This interpretation has been around for a long time, however, according to this site. I can accept the possible code in the first verse, but wonder about the rest of the hymn. Did John Francis Wade really intend his fellow Jacobites to think of Bonnie Prince Charlie as "Deum de Deo" (God from God), "Lumen de Lumine" (Light from Light)? I have my doubts about that! Canon Oakeley's translation:

O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem;
Come and behold Him
Born the King of angels;
Chorus:O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
O come, let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.

God of God,
Light of Light;
Lo, He abhors not the Virgin's womb:
Very God,
Begotten, not created; Chorus.

Sing, choirs of angels;
Sking in exultation,
Sing, all ye citizens of heaven above;
Glory to God
In the highest; Chorus.

Yea, Lord, we greet Thee,
Born this happy morning:
Jesus, to Thee be glory given;
Word of the Father,
Late in flesh appearing; Chorus.

Kings Over the Water and their Supporters' "Material Culture"

Coming soon from Cambridge University Press: The Material Culture of the Jacobites by Neil Guthrie:

The Jacobites, adherents of the exiled King James II of England and VII of Scotland and his descendants, continue to command attention long after the end of realistic Jacobite hopes down to the present. Extraordinarily, the promotion of the Jacobite cause and adherence to it were recorded in a rich and highly miscellaneous store of objects, including medals, portraits, pin-cushions, glassware and dice-boxes. Interdisciplinary and highly illustrated, this book combines legal and art history to survey the extensive material culture associated with Jacobites and Jacobitism. Neil Guthrie considers the attractions and the risks of making, distributing and possessing ‘things of danger’; their imagery and inscriptions; and their place in a variety of contexts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Finally, he explores the many complex reasons underlying the long-lasting fascination with the Jacobites.

The Cambridge University Press website contains several .pdfs of excerpts from the book, including the Table of Contents:

Introduction
1. 'By things themselves': the danger of Jacobite material culture
2. 'Many emblems of sedition and treason': patterns of Jacobite visual symbolism
3. 'Their disloyal and wicked inscriptions': the uses of texts on Jacobite objects
4. 'Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis': phases and varieties of Jacobite material culture
5. 'Those who are fortunate enough to possess pictures and relics': later uses of Jacobite material culture
Bibliography

The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia has an exhibition now of one of the most common Jacobite objects: the glassware used to toast the true Kings of England:

So the Stuart supporters, or Jacobites, instituted, amongst other things, the practice of drinking toasts to their King “over the water” in glasses engraved with cryptic symbols which reflected their Stuart loyalties.

The NGV possesses an extensive and important collection of these rare glasses, many of them generous gifts from the Morgan family of Melbourne. Kings over the water will explore the fascinating hidden symbolism of these beautiful objects, created as part of a doomed political adventure whose tragic history continues to cast a romantic spell even today. 

The exhibition site includes an essay on the glassware's manufacture and use, detailing the symbols etched in glass to represent the Stuart claimants:

Jacobite glasses were decorated with engraved cryptic symbols and mottos which, to those who understood their coded messages, spoke of the drinker’s loyalty to the Stuart dynasty. By far the most common symbol was the six-petalled white heraldic rose, an ancient emblem of the Stuarts. The white rose also had connotations of strict legitimacy. Its adoption by James III as his personal badge was particularly appropriate as rumours of his illegitimacy had been circulated by political enemies since his birth.

On its own, the white rose is believed to have stood for the exiled king. A rose bud to the right of the rose represented his heir apparent, Prince Charles Edward Stuart. A second rosebud, to the left of the rose, represented Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Princes Charles’s younger brother. When there are two rosebuds, that representing Prince Charles is often larger and on the verge of opening.

And the Latin mottoes:

Audentior Ibo (I shall go more boldly). This motto probably derived from the sixth book of Virgil’s Aeneid, in which Aeneas consults a mystic who warns him of grim fighting to come, but adds ‘sed contra audentior ito’ (‘but go forth against it with great daring’).

Radiat (It shines).

Redeat (May he return). This motto appears on a medal with a bust of Prince Charles, struck in 1752 for the Oak Society.

Rede (Return!).

Redi. Perhaps an abbreviation of Redii (I have returned).

Reditti (Restore).

Revirescit (It revives).

Fiat (May it come to pass). This is also a Latin equivalent of ‘Amen’.

Turno Tempus Erit (For Turnus there shall be a time). Turnus is a character in Virgil’s Aeneid who struggles against Aeneas for mastery of Italy. Aeneas defeats Turnus in battle and is inclined to spare his life, but notices that Turnus wears the sword of a friend of his whom he has killed. Aeneas slays Turnus in revenge. Turnus may be meant to stand for the Duke of Cumberland, who defeated the Jacobites at Culloden. The glass warns that the Hanoverian victory may be short lived.

Hic Vir Hic Est (This, this is the man). This motto derives from the sixth book of Virgil’s Aeneid. After the fall of Troy, Aeneas escapes to Italy where he is permitted to descend into the underworld in order to gain a glimpse of the future. He sees the coming glory of Rome, and the appearance of Augutus Caesar is heralded with the phrase Hic Vir Hic Est.

The English Reformation Today: Episode Ten!

Today's topic is The Long Eighteenth Century for English Catholics after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 until the first Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791. During this period, Catholics were really at their lowest point since Henry VIII's Break from Rome in 1534. They were but a small minority, they had no national center at Court (as they had throughout the 17th century with the original Stuarts), and in Enlightenment England, with the Broad Church mentality of the Church of England, they weren't really even worth persecuting!

I'll start with the story of James II's reign, his attempts to bring about religious freedom through an Act of Indulgence, and the invasion of England by the Dutch, invited by Members of Parliament and the Church to keep Protestantism safe in England from James and his Catholic son and heir. Then the story has two narratives--the new Stuarts, William and Mary, then Anne, and the Parliamentary acts that prevented Catholics from even being near the throne: no Catholic monarch, no Catholic spouses allowed; while the old Stuarts, James II and his heirs in French exile, led invasions in Ireland and Scotland, attempting to regain the throne, especially when the Hanoverian dynasty came to England.

I'll describe how the Latitudinarians took over leadership of the Church of England when the High Church Anglicans lost power, especially after the Non-Juror movements meant the loss of some of the better bishops, including an Archbishop of Canterbury and two great spiritual writers, Thomas Ken and William Law. All of this history, of course, is laid out in the narrative of Chapter 9 of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation.

As for Catholics, as I mentioned, they were at the lowest point in their history, but there are a few high points:

Richard Challoner is one of the heroes of this era: as Vicar Apostolic, he worked to remind Catholics of their heritage in England. He completed the great work of gathering details about the martyrs of the 16th and 17th centuries which would be the basis on their causes for canonization in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Alban Butler wrote his great Lives of the Saints, still a basic work of hagiography.

Fathers George Leo Haydock and John Lingard were born near the end of the 18th century and in the next century, they would produce great intellectual works. Father Haydock would write and edit a great Biblical Commentary, while Father Lingard would produce a great history of England that would redress some historical errors of the Whig version of history, paving the way for full emancipation of Catholics in 1829.

The Catholic Relief Acts of 1778 and 1791 will wrap up this episode, including the horror of the Gordon Riots, provoked by the first easing of restrictions on Catholic worship. I welcome all listeners of Radio Maria US to my blog, whether you're listening on one of their radio stations or on line or through one of their apps. I invite you to call in with questions and comments toll-free at 866-333-MARY(6279). Just a reminder, too, that podcasts of previous episodes of The English Reformation Today are available on the Radio Maria US website. Next week: Emancipation at Last! and four important dates: 1829, 1845, 1850, and 1870.

Revolutionary England, Almost

 

Frank McLynn writes about seven times when England could have experienced a complete revolution--somehow passing over the Civil War and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He includes the Pilgrimage of Grace and the Jacobite uprising (the '45) among the seven. As Nigel Jones comments in this review, the premise is a little weak, and the selection might be questionable:

 

It is axiomatic in British history that this country – unlike many European neighbours – does not ‘do’ revolutions. This assumption is at least arguable. If the Civil War of the 1640s, resulting in the quasi-legal killing of a king, and his replacement by a military dictatorship with millennial overtones, was not a revolution, then the term has no meaning. Ditto the 1688 ‘Glorious Revolution’. Yet according to Frank McLynn, neither of these upheavals constituted a true revolution, which, he argues, Britain has never experienced.

His book focuses on seven moments when he claims Britain came closest to “the possibility for overthrow of a regime and a drastic change of direction politically, economically, socially”: the Peasants’ Revolt, Jack Cade’s 1450 rebellion, the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536, the Civil War, the 1745/6 Jacobite uprising; the Chartists of the 1840s, and the 1926 General Strike. . . .

The examples McLynn lumps into his revolutionary sack are questionable: if the Pilgrimage, why not the Prayer Book or Kett’s rebellion? And if Chartism, why not the era of Peterloo and the Cato Street conspiracy? This is also very old-fashioned history, with heroes and villains praised – or more frequently damned – featuring Henry VIII, Cromwell and (bizarrely) Stanley Baldwin in a rogues’ gallery of tyranny.

As to why Britain avoided revolution, McLynn discounts such theories as its insular isolation, its small professional army, the popularity of its modern monarchy, or the myth that its people were less violent than their continental counterparts (before the 18th century the reverse was the case). He identifies a few factors as crucial: Britain’s early industrialisation; its acquisition of an empire to export its surplus workforce; and finally the preference for gradualist reformism to revolutionary activism, exemplified by the popularity of Methodism over Marxism.

Whenever I think of book about revolutions, I think of Susan Dunn's Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light, published in 2000:

The American and French revolutions presented the world with two very different visions of democracy. Although both professed similar Enlightenment ideals of freedom, equality, and justice and set similar political agendas, there were also fundamental differences. The French sought a complete break with a thousand years of history; the Americans were content to preserve many aspects of their English heritage. Why did the two revolutions follow such different trajectories? And what lessons do they offer us about democracy today? In lucid narrative style, Dunn captures the personalities and lives of the great figures of both revolutions, and shows how their stories added up to make two very different events.

I completely agree with the assessment of this reviewer: "Everybody should read this book. It offers a lively education in a small package. Then, if there's time, reread Federalist 10 and 51, as well as Simon Schama's book Citizens. What the French took from the Americans, Lord Acton once wrote, "was their theory of revolution not their theory of government — their cutting but not their sewing.""


Julian and Gregorian Celebrations of Victories in Ireland

William III won two great victories in Ireland in July, at the Boyne against James II, his father-in-law and at Aughrim, against the Jacobite forces led by the Marguise de St. Ruth. The Orange Order celebrates the former on July 12 on the Gregorian calendar (it occurred on July 1, 1690 on the Julian calendar); the latter, they used to celebrate on July 12 (1691) on the Julian calendar until the adjustments of the Gregorian calendar moved the day to July 22.

After these decisive victories in Ireland, and the Jacobite surrender of the seige of Limerick, more punitive Penal Laws were passed against Irish Catholics, including, but limited to:

~Exclusion of Catholics from most public offices (since 1607)

~Ban on intermarriage with Protestants; repealed 1778

~Catholics barred from holding firearms or serving in the armed forces (rescinded by Militia Act of 1793)

~Exclusion from the legal professions and the judiciary; repealed (respectively) 1793 and 1829.

~Education Act 1695 – ban on foreign education; repealed 1782.

~Bar to Catholics entering Trinity College Dublin; repealed 1793.

~On a death by a Catholic, his legatee could benefit by conversion to the Church of Ireland;

~Popery Act – Catholic inheritances of land were to be equally subdivided between all an owner's sons with the exception that if the eldest son and heir converted to Protestantism that he would become the one and only tenant of estate and portions for other children not to exceed one third of the estate. This "Gavelkind" system had previously been abolished by 1600.

~Ban on converting from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism on pain of Praemunire: forfeiting all property estates and legacy to the monarch of the time and remaining in prison at the monarch's pleasure. In addition, forfeiting the monarch's protection. No injury however atrocious could have any action brought against it or any reparation for such.

~Ban on Catholics buying land under a lease of more than 31 years; repealed 1778.

~Ban on custody of orphans being granted to Catholics on pain of 500 pounds that was to be donated to the Blue Coat hospital in Dublin.

~Ban on Catholics inheriting Protestant land

~Prohibition on Catholics owning a horse valued at over £5 (in order to keep horses suitable for military activity out of the majority's hands)

~Roman Catholic lay priests had to register to preach under the Registration Act 1704, but seminary priests and Bishops were not able to do so until 1778

~When allowed, new Catholic churches were to be built from wood, not stone, and away from main roads.

~'No person of the popish religion shall publicly or in private houses teach school, or instruct youth in learning within this realm' upon pain of twenty pounds fine and three months in prison for every such offence. Repealed in 1782.

~Any and all rewards not paid by the crown for alerting authorities of offences to be levied upon the Catholic populace within parish and county.

These repressive penal laws wouldn't be repealed until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Catholic relief acts, while other practices, like Catholics paying tithes to the Church of Ireland survived even those legislative milestones. The Orange Order marches on The Twelfth still provoke disorder, conflict and violence.

After these Jacobite campaigns in Ireland, the field of battle changed to Scotland, with the '15 and the '45.

Jacobite Ships and Exiles in Maryland

Maura Jane Farrelly mentioned the Jacobite exiles who were shipped to Maryland and "purchased" by Catholic gentry--and the tensions their presence created between Catholics and Anglicans in Maryland in her book Papist Patriots. Here is some information about those ships and the two that landed in Maryland, The Friendship of Belfast and The Goodspeed in 1716. This book, Scottish Emigration to Colonial America, 1607-1785 by David Dobson, also provides some detail. In fact, it seems to be that David Dobson is the specialist in this research, with quite a list of publications! It looks like a fascinating topic, for genealogical studies especially.

Robert Louis Stevenson and Jacobites

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me die.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Following up on my post about Robert Louis Stevenson's defense of St. Damian, the Leper Priest, here is some background on Stevenson's great Jacobite novels: Kidnapped and The Master of Ballantrae:

Masterpiece Theater aired the BBC adaptation of Kidnapped a few years ago. Set in the period after the failure of Bonnie Prince Charlie's 1745 attempt to regain the throne, Kidnapped tells the story of David Balfour:

In an effort to claim his inheritance -- the House of Shaws, a great landed estate -- Davie finds himself trapped on a ship and headed for slavery in the New World. But thanks to the intervention of a swashbuckling highlander, Alan Breck, Davie eludes his captors and joins Breck on a wild flight through the Scottish highlands, pursued by notoriously ruthless English bounty hunters. . . .

On a quest for justice, through perilous encounters with friend and foe, Davie gradually learns about the difference between right and wrong. But there are still difficult moral decisions to be made, right up until the story's final, enthralling chapter...

First published in 1886, Kidnapped -- a gripping adventure story full of drama, poignancy, heroism and danger -- surpasses even Treasure Island as a sophisticated literary work masquerading as a ripping yarn for young readers.

This site traces the path taken by Balfour and Breck through the Scottish Highlands between 27 June and 24 August 1751.

The Master of Ballantrae also explores issues of inheritance and loyalty against the backdrop of the Jacobite uprising of 1745 and its affects on Scotland:

The Master of Ballantrae begins in 1745 and is narrated by Mackellar, the loyal, often meddling steward to the respected Durie of Durisdeer family. The family consists of the old Lord and his two sons, James (the eldest son and Master of Ballantrae) and Lord Henry. Miss Alison Graeme, a relative, and heir to a great fortune, also lives with the family.

In order to keep her wealth in the family, Alison is pledged to be the Master’s wife. The Master himself is a drinker, a gambler, and a womanizer. Although he is manipulative and insinuating, he is his father’s and Alison’s favorite. Despite Henry’s best attempts, he always falls short in the eyes of his family, his only champions Mackellar and an old servant Macconochie.

The Jacobite Rising of 1745 proves an anxious time for the Durie family. To be on the safe side they decide to support both parties: one son will go and fight for the Jacobites, while the other will stay home to keep favour with King George.

As the eldest, the Master should stay at home. He refuses, and finally demands that he and Henry toss a coin for it. The Master wins and rides out, but the family later hear he has been killed at the Battle of Culloden. Tam Macmorland, who fought alongside the Master, now falsely alleges that Henry had betrayed the Master and his men to the King.

Tory Bishop born March 6, 1663

Francis Atterbury, future Bishop of Rochester, was born on March 6, 1663, during the reign of Charles II. He was born in Buckinghamshire and attended Christ Church at the University of Oxford, and was ordained in 1687. He became a leader of the High Church Anglicans. In the 18th century, he would play an important role in the plotting to restore the heir of Charles' brother James II, deposed in 1688, to the throne of England.

I dedicate a section in Chapter Nine of Supremacy and Survival: How Catholics Endured the English Reformation, to the Jacobite cause, without going into all the detail of how much plotting went on in England to restore the Old Pretender, aka James III (James Francis Edward Stuart) to the throne. I focus on the exile of the Stuarts and the effects of the Glorious Revolution on Catholics in the section "The Jacobite Cause and Catholic Nadir"--but Francis Atterbury was in the thick of things in England.

The Hanoverian dynasty established by the succession of George I under Parliament's guidance was not very popular. As Anne Barbeau Gardiner commented in a Touchstone review of The Atterbury Plot by Eveline Cruickshanks and Howard Erskine-Hill (2004):

"The year 1720 was an auspicious one for beginning a rebellion because of the widespread anger at George I over the crash of the South Sea Company. Large numbers of formerly well-to-do stockholders were suddenly destitute and blamed the king, who had been the governor of the failed scheme. Londoners were greeting the king with ominous silence, and aristocrats who had been hostile to “the Pretender” were suddenly trying to get his picture."

Invaders from the Continent, including Spanish forces, were organized and Atterbury was readily able to court disaffected supporters of the new king to the cause, but the plotters weren't able to raise the necessary funds and the French government informed George I of the plot. Atterbury ended up in prison and charged with treason. Because there was no real evidence of treason he was convicted in Parliament of a lesser charge and exiled.

In Paris, he became the leader of the Jacobite exiles there. James III invited him to stay with him in Rome, but the former Church of England bishop did not feel comfortable there. He died in Paris on February 22, 1732 but his remains were returned to England and he is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Although the Old Pretender James III was a solid Catholic and the Bishop a solid Anglican, Atterbury supported the legitimate claim of the Stuart heir to the throne. The same would be true during James II's Irish campaigns to reclaim his throne and would be for the Young Pretender, Bonnie Prince Charlie--staunch Anglicans and even Presbyterians in Scotland would defend the concept of primogeniture with their lives and their livelihoods.

The Death of Bonnie Prince Charlie

According to Theo Aronson in Kings Over the Water: The Saga of the Stuart Pretenders, the Young Pretender, AKA Bonnie Charlie, born Charles Edward Stuart, actually died on the anniversary of his grandfather's execution on January 30, 1788. His death, however, is dated January 31st of that year.

After the defeat at Culloden in '45 and the Holy See's recognition of the House of Hanover after Prince Charles' father died in 1766, the Pretender wandered in Europe, sometimes calling himself the Duke of Albany.

His wife, Princess Louise of Stolberg-Geden, left him in 1780, claiming abuse. He legitimized his daughter Charlotte, born of his mistress Clementine Walkinshaw, in 1783. They stayed together in Rome and Florence until his death in 1788. Prince Charles was first buried in the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter's in Frascati where his brother was bishop, but then he was moved to St. Peter's Basilica when Henry Cardinal Stuart died in 1807. That's where the Prince Regent, later George IV of the House of Hanover, supported the construction of a monument by Antonio Canova to the three Stuart Pretenders--the threat was gone, after all--commemorating the saga of the Kings over the Water.

The Death of James II and VII

On September 16, 1701, the deposed King of England, Ireland and Scotland died in exile. Reading his list of titles, demonstrating the ups and downs of his life, I wonder if he read Boethius:

~~From 14 October 1633 to 6 February 1685: Prince James
~~From 27 January 1644 to 6 February 1685: The Duke of York
~~From 10 May 1659 to 6 February 1685: The Earl of Ulster
~~From 31 December 1660 to 6 February 1685: The Duke of Albany
~~Before 1 January 1665 to 6 February 1685: His Royal Highness
~~From 6 February 1685 to 11 December 1688: His Majesty The King
~~From 11 December 1688 to 16 September 1701: His Majesty King James II, but to the Jacobites in exile and in England, Scotland, and Ireland: His Majesty The King

In March 1701, John Drummond, the Duke of Melfort, sent a letter that ended up in England, where his avowal that King Louis XIV would restore King James II to the throne created an international and diplomatic panic. When James found out about it at St. Germain-en-Laye, he suffered a massive stroke on March 4 in the midst of a Lenten prayer service. He and Queen Mary Beatrice went to take the waters at Bourbon for a month, but when they returned he was really no better. (He managed to exile Lord Melfort!) James suffered another stroke in July and another massive stroke on September 2--the end was clearly near.

King Louis XIV promised James on September 13 that he would recognize "the Prince of Wales", James Francis Edward as the rightful King of England upon the former's death. When James II died on September 16, 1701 French heralds indeed proclaimed his son "King James III of England and Ireland; King James VIII of Scotland". King Philip V of Spain, Louis' grandson, and Pope Clement XI also recognized the young king.

Queen Mary Beatrice mourned her husband for a long time and found consolation in religious devotions and stays at the convent in Chaillot.

As I have noted before, I think that James II suffered horrible betrayals--his daughters, the Churchills, and other leaders of Parliament. He seems to have repented of his past sins of the flesh and infidelity to his two wives while in exile. He suffered the humiliation of exile and defeat and yet he worked to have his son prepared as well as possible for the duties of rule in England. May he rest in peace.

Queen Anne of Great Britain, RIP

Anne Stuart, youngest daughter of James II and Anne, the Duchess of York, died on August 1, 1714. Her death, without an immediate heir, brought the Stuart Dynasty to an end. The succession of George the Elector of Hanover brought a new dynasty to England. Anne's half-brother, James Francis Edward (James III and VIII) attempted to retake the throne for the (Catholic) Stuarts in 1715, of course.

Mark Kishlansky's A Monarchy Transformed, 1603-1714 is the new history of that dynasty published in the Penguin History of Britain series (replacing Maurice Ashley's England in the Seventeenth Century, 1603-1714, #6 in the old Pelican History of England series). He speaks of Anne rather wittily and perhaps cruelly, as having only two pasttimes, gambling and eating, so that she lost pounds at one table and then gained pounds at another.

The official book description:
The seventeenth century, writes Mark Kishlansky, was 'a wheel of transformation in perpetual motion', a period of political and religious upheaval that defined the nation for decades to come and remains critical for understanding the nation today.

Beginning with the accession of James I and concluding with the death of Queen Anne, this compelling account describes the tempestuous events that took place during the Stuart dynasty and provides lively pen portraits of the many fascinating personalities involved. Conspiracies, rebellions and revolutions jostle side by side with court intrigues, political infighting and the rise of parties. In 1603 Britain was an isolated archipelago; by 1714 it had emerged as among the intellectual, commercial and military centres of the world.

At the beginning of each chapter he provides a separate narrative of an important event--for instance, chapter 3 begins with the discovery of Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder of the Gunpowder Plot; chapter 10 begins with the finding of magistrate Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey's body, which gave credence to Titus Oates's story about a vast Catholic/Jesuit plot to assassinate King Charles II; and chapter 13, dedicated to Anne's reign, begins with the furor over the Sacheverell sermon.

Contents:

List of Maps
Preface
Prologue
1 The Social World
2 The Political World
3 The Scottish Accession, 1603-1618
4 The Duke of Clubs, 1618-1628
5 The Reign of Charles I, 1629-1637
6 Rebellion and Civil War, 1637-1644
7 Civil War and Revolution, 1645-1649
8 Saints and Soldiers, 1649-1658
9 The Restoration Settlements, 1659-1667
10 For Church and King, 1668-1685
11 A Protestant Succession, 1685-1689
12 A European Union, 1689-1702
13 Great Britain, 1702-1714
Epilogue
For Further Reading
Index

The Last Stuart Pretender Dies

Henry Benedict Stuart, second son of the Old Pretender, James III (James Francis Edward Stuart) and Maria Klementyna Sobieska, died on July 13, 1807. He was born on March 11, 1725 (NS) in Rome, where the Pretender lived after the failure of the Jacobite plots of 1715. The French Court of King Louis XV had not welcomed him as King Louis XIV had.

His mother left his father soon after Henry's birth, accusing him of infidelity and residing in a convent. They reconciled two years later, but Maria Klementyna died in 1735, ten years before her sons made the great attempt to retake the throne in 1745.

When that attempt failed, Henry returned to Rome and began his ecclesiastical career during the reign of Pope Benedict XIV, progressing through the minor orders while a Cardinal-Deacon in 1747 and the sub-deaconate in 1748 and then being ordained deacon and priest in 1748. He became the Cardinal-Bishop of Frascati, a diocese near Rome in 1761. He was quite wealthy with many properties and benefices, but he lost it all during the French Revolution and in support of Pope Pius VI, who was imprisoned by Napoleon and died in August of 1799. The College of Cardinals, with Cardinal Henry Stuart met in exile in Venice to elect Pope Pius VII in the contentious papal election of 1800.

In the meantime, when his brother Bonnie Prince Charlie died in 1788, the Cardinal had become the de facto Pretender, but he did not seek the throne and was not recognized by the Papacy, being called the Cardinal Duke of York. His priesthood and cardinalate really made it impossible for him to seriously be considered a candidate, anyway. While his brother had been roaming throughout Europe, even visiting England and renouncing his Catholicism (briefly) for any advantages in his attempt to regain the throne, Henry Cardinal York's path probably disappointed the Young Pretender, especially as he had no legitimate heirs.

In 1803, the Cardinal Duke of York returned to Frascati and became Dean of the College of Cardinals. He died on July 13, 1807 when he was 82 years old. The line of the Pretenders was taken up by Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia who was the grandson of Charles II's favorite sister, Henrietta Anne, wife of Louis XIV's brother Philippe of France, Monsieur. Charles Emmanuel IV never actively sought the throne of England. The Cardinal, his mother, his father, and his brother are all buried in the crypt of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. (There is a separate memorial for Maria Klementyna Sobieska.) The inscription reads:

IACOBO·III
IACOBI·II·MAGNAE·BRIT·REGIS·FILIO
KAROLO·EDVARDO
ET·HENRICO·DECANO·PATRUM·CARDINALIVM
IACOBI·III·FILIIS
REGIAE·STIRPIS·STVARDIAE·POSTREMIS
ANNO·M·DCCC·XIX

(To James III, son of King James II of Great Britain, to Charles Edward and to Henry, Dean of the Cardinal Fathers, sons of James III, the last of the Royal House of Stuart. 1819). More about the monument here.