The Jacobites by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0000000000000
Published: 2020-10-27T22:36:43+00:00

The Jacobite court and the new diaspora

The collapse of the ’15 left the Jacobite movement in chaos. In the three kingdoms only its Irish component escaped largely unscathed. The English and Scots Jacobites who were not involved in the rising, or somehow avoided detection, were lying low to avoid drawing the authorities’ attention. Those who had been ‘out’ and were still at liberty were trying to survive by any means necessary, either by hiding in remote rural areas or fleeing into exile in Europe. The diaspora as such will be discussed in a later chapter; what will be considered here are the consequences for the Jacobite underground of the Jacobite court’s eviction from northern Europe and the political impact on the government-in-exile of the small wave of Jacobite refugees (mostly Scots and about 2,000 strong) who escaped to the Continent in the aftermath of the rising.

When he arrived back in France in late February 1716 James found himself immediately confronted by major problems. Léopold-Joseph, Duke of Lorraine, had given the Jacobite king asylum at Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine in 1713, stalwartly refused British demands that he expel him and surreptitiously helped fund the Jacobite war-effort in 1715. The failure of the rising, however, changed his calculations. He was now looking at long-term British (and after the death of Louis XIV, French) diplomatic hostility, and potential trouble with his overlord, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, unless he moved James on. He accordingly notified him that he needed to leave Lorraine forthwith.⁵¹ So where was the Jacobite king to go? Philippe de Bourbon, Duc de Orléans and Regent of France for the child-king Louis XV, had also offered some secret support for the ’15, but its collapse changed everything. The Regent was now looking for a rapprochement with Britain and therefore there could be no question of James being allowed to stay in France, though his mother, Mary of Modena, was permitted to remain in residence at St Germain, her home since 1688. James tried a ploy, which was to move to Avignon, at this time a papal enclave entirely surrounded by France. The British government was, however, determined to drive him south into Italy in order to underscore his Catholicism, which could then be used for propaganda purposes; and to keep the British sweet as well as for his own reasons the Regent demanded that James leave the city. James finally agreed only after the Regent cut off the pension he was paying to Queen Mary (and secretly to the Jacobite king), and in February 1717 moved to the papal states in Italy.⁵² Neither James nor Pope Clement XI were sure Rome was the best place for him to stay (because of the propaganda resonances), so James first tried settling his court and shadow-government at Pesaro and then Urbino. For various reasons neither was satisfactory, and in 1718 the Jacobite court moved to Rome, taking up residence in the Palazzo del Re in early 1719.⁵³

Though the court’s proximity to, and

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