The Stuart Secret Army

The Hidden History of the English Jacobites

Evelyn Lord

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781317868545
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This book is unique in bringing together all strands of English Jacobism in an accessible chronological framework, highlighting key individuals, providing a biographical dictionary of less well known English Jacobites, an account of the major primary source material, and a gazetteer of places to visit. It will appeal to any member of the general public who is interested in the Stuart cause and the Jacobite rebellions as well as those who would like to know more about 18th century society in the great house and the tavern.

CHAPTER 1

Life in 18th-century England

The Jacobite drama was played out in a century of change, during which England changed from an agricultural nation to one in which industry was taking over. Silk and cotton mills spread along the valleys of Derbyshire and the north-west of England. Iron works belched smoke and fumes over Coalbrookdale and the Severn Valley. Daniel Defoe on his tour through Great Britain during 1724–26 noted in Newcastle upon Tyne ‘a view of the inexhausted store of Coals and Coal Pits, from whence not only London, but all the South Part of England is continually supplied … we see the prodigious heaps, I might say, Mountains of Coal, which are dug up at every Pit’. Defoe also observed the great increase of the Yorkshire woollen trade.¹

Canals, turnpikes and coastal shipping tied industry and markets together, closing the gap between the north and south, east and west of England, and helping to create a coherent nation state. The turnpike facilitated travel, and Defoe devoted an appendix in the account of his tour to the benefits of the turnpike, noting that keeping the roads in good repair was essential for trade and for ‘the Ease and safety of Gentlemen riding to London’.²

Life was short in the 18th century, but the population was growing inexorably. Although vulnerable to disease and starvation, a steady increase in the number of people can be discerned from 1750 onwards. In 1701 the population was estimated to be about 5 million, by 1801 it was 8.6 million and rising. This was despite 25 mortality crises in the 18th century, when the death rate peaked and outstripped births.³ As the population increased efforts had to be made to feed the many hungry mouths, efforts which changed the landscape of England. Open fields were enclosed by hedges and walls, so that new crops could be tried and new livestock breeds introduced. Common land was ploughed up and cultivated, fens and marshes were drained, and wasteland brought into production. Eighteenth-century England was a hive of activity.

Society was organised according to rank and status. At the top were the temporal and spiritual lords, the peers and the gentry. In the upper middle section were the clergy, the professionals such as lawyers, and the wealthy tradesmen and yeomen farmers. In the lower middle were the craftsmen, shopkeepers and farmers with only a few acres. At the bottom were the labourers and the paupers. In 1688 Gregory King, a political economist, drew up a scheme of income and expenditure for all levels of society. His calculations show that at the top were 160 families with an income of at least £3200 a year, at the bottom 849,000 families who lived on £2 a head per year.⁴

In the countryside these inequalities were becoming more visible as the structure of the old village communities changed. The gentry withdrew further behind their park fences, and employed landscape gardeners such as Humphrey Repton or Capability Brown to design managed wildernesses for them. At their gates the poor struggled to live on what they were allowed from parish relief. Laws prevented them from moving in search of work unless they had a certificate promising to pay any poor relief should they need it from the parish in which they were born, or had married into. If they moved without permission and fell on hard times they were hauled up before the Justices of the Peace and examined under oath as to where they had come from, and what they had been doing. They were then sent back to their original parish of settlement. Widows with children and women expecting children out of wedlock were especially vulnerable.

Defoe observed the contrast between rich and poor on his travels. He also noted how the two interacted. In his description of the town of Sudbury in Suffolk he noted that the town was ‘very Populous and very Poor. They have a great Manufacture of Says … but Multitudes of poor almost ready to eat up the Rich.’⁵

Cesar De Saussure from Lorraine, who visited England in the 1720s, noted that the gentry had large country houses, and he observed that there was a strong network of country gentry who met regularly at assemblies for the purpose of dancing.⁶ The assembly room became the hallmark of civic pride and polite society. It was part of the urban renaissance of the 18th century as towns and cities rebuilt their public areas. The rules of the assembly rooms show that they were run on strict lines that mirrored the divisions in society as a whole. At Derby, for example, when the assembly rooms opened in 1714 attorneys’ clerks, shopkeepers and tradesmen were forbidden to enter, and there was a strict dress code in force with fines for anyone contravening it.⁷

Eighteenth-century society was one of contrast as well as change. It was the age when the population moved into the towns, to live in overcrowded courts and tenements, but it was also the age when great country houses were built: Castle Howard, Saltram, Stourhead and Stowe were 18th-century edifices. The elegant squares and crescents of Bath and other spa towns were built to house the leisured classes during the ‘season’. Defoe observed them gossiping and drinking tea in Tunbridge Wells, Epsom and Hampstead.⁸

Although the 18th century could boast a vibrant provincial culture, it was London that dominated the country. One in ten of the population lived in London. From London newspapers, fashions and ideas spread out across the country. London was the seat of government, and the superior courts of law. London with its anonymous teeming streets provided ideal cover for the English Jacobites who could come and go unnoticed. They were helped in their endeavours by the fact that 18th-century England was a clubbable society. Coffee houses and taverns abounded, each with its own political stance and clientele. The Jacobites knew where to go to find other supporters. De Saussure described London’s coffee houses with some distaste: ‘In London there are a great number of coffee houses, most of which, to tell the truth, are not very clean, or well furnished, owing to the quantity of people who resort to these places and because the smoke quickly destroys good furniture.’⁹ He quickly learnt that some coffee shops were not all they seemed; ‘… many others are temples of Venus. You can easily recognise the latter, because they frequently have as a sign a woman’s arm or hand holding a coffee pot.’¹⁰

Despite their shortcomings coffee houses were an essential feature of 18th-century social life. Diaries kept by men such as John Byrom or Dudley Ryder show that they visited the coffee houses daily to meet with like-minded people, and to engage in debates on the scriptures, or discuss the events of the day. As well as the coffee house, in the years 1715–16 Ryder was a member of six different clubs.¹¹ The clubs and coffee houses were part of a flourishing intellectual life in London and in the provinces. Circulating libraries were popular, where those that could afford it could borrow volumes of improving sermons or the latest novels. Most urban areas of any size had a theatre where the patrons could watch actors such as David Garrick perform Shakespeare, or participate in the exuberant production of John Gay’s The Beggars’ Opera. First performed at the Lincoln’s Inn Theatre in 1728, this was a satire on the corruption of the legal profession, as well as pandering to the public’s taste for crime and sensational heroes. Strung together with ballads using recognisable popular tunes it was an instant success with all classes of society.

The Beggars’ Opera is contemporary with the courtly and devotional music of Handel. Handel arrived in England in 1712, and dominated the music scene from then on with his anthems, concertos and oratorios, culminating in The Messiah, first performed in Dublin in 1742. Handel was the court musician who composed the music for the Hanoverians’ coronations, and for other royal events that have remained in the classical music repertoire ever since.

The same comparison between popular and high culture can be seen in art. The cartoons and portrayals of low life by William Hogarth (1697–1764) can be compared with the urbane middle-class figures of Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) and the patrician portraits of Joshua Reynolds (1723–92).

Another genre of 18th-century painting illustrated new developments in technology and scientific thought. Joseph Wright of Derby’s paintings of scientific experiments such as An Experiment on a Bird in a Bell Jar, 1760 or A Philosopher Giving a Lecture on the Orrery, 1766, show new intellectual inquiries in action, while industrialisation with its furnaces working round the clock gave artists new sources of light and inspiration.

Joseph Wright was associated with the Lunar Society, a group of Midland intellectuals who met at each other’s homes when the moon was full to discuss education and literature, and to perform scientific experiments. Their number included Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood. The Lunar Society was one of many similar societies that grew up in the 18th century, which were the result of critical analysis of society, mankind and the universe that characterised the 18th-century Enlightenment. By the end of the century most towns had a Literary and Philosophic Society. This spirit of inquiry led to collections being made of antiquities, fossils and historical documents that form the basis of many provincial museums. Economic and social theory were also being placed onto a legitimate and rational footing in the 18th century with the publication of works such as The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith in 1776.

Change was also taking place in politics. Although the Houses of Parliament were still dominated by the landed interest, this had split into parties. After the Hanoverian succession the Tories, who were the country party, were denied office and were continually in opposition. Denied political power many Tories looked towards the Jacobites to restore this for them. However, the court party, the Whigs, led by Robert Walpole, were firmly entrenched and supported by George I who heartily disliked the Tories. De Saussure wrote that the Tories believed in the absolute prerogative of the sovereign, and that all subjects must submit to him or her. The Whigs thought this created despotism, and they believed that a subject only owed obedience to the sovereign as long as the sovereign maintained the conditions under which power was given to him. He added that the two parties were so opposed to each other that it would be a miracle if they agreed.¹²

Few people were allowed to vote for members of parliament, but all were subject to its laws, and the taxes it imposed. The 18th century saw an increase in the harshness of the law. Capital offences multiplied, and these included acts against property as well as against person. The gallows or transportation became the common fate for the thief, the poacher and the forger. De Saussure described criminal law at work in 1726. In London, after the criminals were arrested they were taken to Newgate or one of the other government prisons. There they remained until the assizes. When the case had been heard the judge summed up, and if the prisoner was found guilty he or she was taken back to gaol, but this time loaded down with chains. Those sentenced to death were put onto a list given to the king for his approval. On the day of the execution the condemned prisoners, dressed in white linen shirts with white caps on their heads, were taken on carts to Tyburn. Once there they were placed on a wide cart under the gallows. The chaplain prayed and said a psalm and then the prisoners’ relatives were allowed to mount the cart to say goodbye. After about a quarter of an hour the chaplain and relatives got down from the cart, the executioner covered the prisoners’ eyes with the caps they were wearing and lashed the horses that pulled the carts, which slipped away from under the condemned men’s feet. De Saussure saw the friends and relatives tugging at the prisoners’ feet so that they would die quickly and not suffer, and afterwards there were undignified scuffles between the relatives of those hung and the London surgeons who arrived to take away the bodies for dissection.¹³ De Saussure reported that executions took place in London every six weeks with between five and fifteen hung at a time. He remarked that hanging was no deterrent as ‘there are a surprising number of footpads in this country, and a surprising quantity of robbers’.¹⁴

An alternative to robbery was to join the army. During the 18th century England was involved with the War of Spanish Succession from 1702–13, the War of Jenkins’ Ear 1739–43,¹⁵ the War of Austrian Succession 1740–48, the Seven Years War 1756–63, the War of American Independence, and of course wars with republican France at the end of the century. The early 18th-century army was at its most effective under the Duke of Marlborough, who planned the victory of Blenheim in 1704.

Finally, despite it not appearing to be centre stage, religion was still of fundamental importance in 18th-century social and political life. The Church of England was secured in 1688, but at the same time its place as the established church was weakened. The Toleration Act of 1689 gave dissenting worshippers the right to hold meetings provided they had a licence. This meant that Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyteria...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Preface
• Notes on dates and titles
• Chronology of English Jacobite events
• Introduction
• 1 Life in 18th-century England
• 2 Principles, plots and discoveries, 1689–1703
• 3 Spies, ciphers and riots 1702–14
• 4 High-born traitors: the court in exile and supporters at home
• 5 1715
• 6 The Earl of Derwentwater
• 7 Sweden, smugglers, the bishop and the Black Acts, 1716–35
• 8 The trappings of Jacobitism
• 9 Sir John Hynde Cotton: the Jacobite and the Tory party
• 10 1745
• 11 Culloden and after
• 12 Studying the English Jacobites
• Glossary
• Gazetteer
• Was my ancestor an English Jacobite?
• Butler’s List of Lords and Gentlemen in each county favourable to the Stuart cause, made in 1743
• Bibliography
• Index