Thesis Correspondence VII

Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye*

Dear Dr. _____,

I have quickly read over four books under Edward Corp. (Corp wrote the first two books below and edited the last two.) My order for A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France was canceled, but I think I have plenty from Corp already. He wants to take on the Stuart court as a cultural entity without working it into the details of British Jacobite revolts. As such, he's a bit off my path, but nevertheless someone I need to know. I want to take on the Scottish nobility, and discuss the expectation of British Jacobites before and during the revolts. Corp concentrates on the Continental European cultural connection, emphasizing opera and dance among other art forms.

Wesley

Notes on The Stuarts in Italy, 1717-1766: A Royal Court in Permanent Exile by Edward Corp.

In this work, Corp appears to be occupied with describing the inner dealings of the Jacobite exiled court outside of its immediate Britannic succession context. He explains the ups and downs in Papal support, dependent on relations with the king and queen and subversive Freemason groups. In music, the Stuart court was renowned for being excellent and incorporated many Continental European attributes. The composition of the Court itself included a strong foreign influence until about the 1745 revolt, when British members seemed to take on more of a role. However, when the revolt failed, James settled in for a permanent European court setting. Hanoverian subversion of formally Jacobite Freemason outlets frustrated court stability as even the Pope himself issued a death warrant for those found participating in clubs. Although I admire Corps method for its honesty with the court and Continental emphasis, I miss a certain relevance to its most pressing political goals in Britain among its British following.

Notes on The Jacobites at Urbino: An Exiled Court in Transition by Edward Corp.

Corp discusses the temporary phase of exiled Stuart court life at Urbino, between Avignon and Rome. Within this phase, the court established a common Jacobite love for music and a portrait iconography to inspire loyalty which eventually matured into a firm pro-Jacobite cardinal faction among the papal court at Rome. Pensions were more or less equalized, with prominent Scottish pensioners earning about the same as kitchen staff. Although the Scottish pensioners fought over religious details, they held to a common British identity even in the midst of foreign surroundings. With the new Scottish peers came more ceremony, and they eventually converted the king to Italian Opera. The presence of a Stuart Italian Court coincided with the beginnings of the Grand Tour educational model, and impacted Anglo-Italian relations.

Notes on The Stuart Court in Rome: The Legacy of Exile edited by Edward Corp.

This collection of essays covers Stuart and Jacobite cultural and financial history from the 17^th to 19^th centuries. As Corp introduces, the main thrust of historigraphical direction in the book pushes Jacobitism further from the all too common debate on the political feasibility of the Stuart restoration (and consequently, further from my thesis). In the first essay, Eirwen E. C. Nicholson puts forward an ironic contest between the tree motifs of the houses of Orange and Stuart: featuring the orange and oak tree figures. Both icons deal with the hereditary establishing of each royal house. Daniel Szechi connects English Grand Tourist impressions of the majesty of the Stuart court with morality in Britain. As the Stuart court departed from its moral tradition in Scotland to form a cosmopolitan fashionable Continental European court, Scottish Jacobites like the Earl of Mar grew disillusioned. Edward Gregg uses a cross-examined study of the Hanoverian spy Stosch's accounts of the Stuart court to supplement the Stuart Papers with a more descriptive account of Stuart finances. Jane Clark demonstrates that Stuart courtly support for contemporary European opera influence the tone of music in Europe, even threatening Handle's dominance in England. Victoria Thorpe notes that a change in the Thistle iconography in the Stuart court signals a new significance in Stuart Freemasonry, as Charles hoped to court Scottish and French Freemasons to establish a successful restoration attempt (to me, this seems to break the cultural emphasis of most of these essays, and gets at some political motivations). Peter Piniski relies on unnoticed Polish sources to establish a line derived from Charles' illegitimate daughter. Godfrey Evans hopes to excite some interest in the significance of Classical Baroque imagery of silver artwork pieces belonging to the Dukes of Hamilton, and finally Kathryn Barron describes the Royal collections of Jacobite art before, during, and after Victoria's reign.

Notes on The Stuart Court in Exile and the Jacobites edited by Eveline Cruickshanks and Edward Corp.

This collection is far less consistent in theme than the other. It seemed a little bland; bashing Whig stereotypes or laying groundwork which really doesn't appear to be cutting edge anymore (it was published in 1995). Cruickshanks establishes the first phase of Jacobitism beginning with Louis XIV's failure to help the Jacobite cause after 1689 (many problems with this; first the French did attempt aid afterward, and second, Jacobite pageantry finds its roots before the failed 1689 attempt). Nathalie Genet-Rouffiac contrasts Jacobite refugees with Huguenots, and ends up claiming that Jacobites posed a much larger threat (not a helpful comparative study). P. A. Hopkins outlines Sir James Montgomerie's change from a Whig to a Jacobite, and John Childs points out the rather obvious political point that a French attempt towards restoration in 1692 acted as a diversion, enabling France to conduct a successful siege of Namur. Howard Erskine-Hill describes how Caryll feared a new military Protestantism in his treatment of Protestant/Catholic relations. James McMillan notes how Lewis and Thomas Innes showed support in Paris for the Stuart dynasty. Roger Schmidt explains Mary of Madena's Attorney-General Roger North became the first to debunk the Whig view of history. Monod uses the suppression of the Jacobite press to challenge Macaulay's claim that the press was free after the Restoration (even Monod is bland here). Micheline Kerney Walsh describes how Toby Bourke's influence as the Stuart ambassador to Spain led to Jacobite Patrick Lawless' appointment as Spanish ambassador to London. The only real essay to catch my eye is Murray Pittock's essay on how Jacobite propaganda was Classical in nature, and how the Highlander was perceived as patriotic. I want to pick up on this theme.

* Château de saint-Germain-en-Laye (Yvelines) Photo JH Mora, août 2005 From french wiki, uploader by Spedona 23 août 2005 à 22:29
User Sir Gawain rotated image.

Thesis Correspondence VI: Primary Source Research

Scottish Coat of Arms from Nesbit's A System of Heraldry

Dear Dr. _____,

After just reading Alexander Nesbit's A System of Heraldry for James Francis Edward Stuart (in two volumes), I believe I have finally found the root of a Classical and medieval emphasis among Scottish nobility. This will form the underlying theme for my thesis, and will work well with the epic The Grameid and primary accounts of the 1745 revolt I have read in which the Highlander troops seem to be the emphasis of battle. The underlying current for my work will be to link the ancient heraldic orders of power among the Scottish and English nobles vested in the Stuart dynastic right with the concepts of Classical empire and Western nationhood.

Nesbit notates the science of heraldry as the queen of liberal knowledge, being a way to separate the “worthy” from the “vulgar” and “plebeian.” Its beauty as an art lies with its connection to ancestry, and its heritage is one of Classical and medieval honor. Whereas the Romans used statuary and masks, the knights of Europe and particularly France invented heraldic embellishments of arms. France gave Scotland this tradition (a Franco-Scottish connection). Nesbit introduces the medieval conflict of the “Savage Knight” (the Highlander) and its recognition as a legitimate knight of Christendom (I will have pages on this). He discusses the origins of the oak tree symbol among the many noble families of Scotland (which will eventually become a Jacobite symbol), and the Stuart peerage of nobility across Britain for centuries (he has hundreds of pages devoted to all of this). He links the original line of kings (Bruce's line) with the stewards (eventually Stuarts) and claims the Stuart line the rightful heir. Classical and Biblical references abound; lending pageantric support to his arguments. Many of the figures and emblems representing the noble legitimacy of Britain within Christendom are linked with the Stuart line (the interaction between the Garter and Thistle play prominently). Nesbit's two volumes will saturate my commentary of Jacobite pageantry with the cultural and political/intellectual meanings I need to pull in order to link the Jacobite hope with an older form of European Classicalism.

Respectfully,

Wesley

Thesis Correspondence V

MacLeod (R. R. McIan)

Dear Dr. _____,

Here are three articles on Scottish history by Alan MacInnes, author of Clanship, Commerce and the House of Stuart, 1603-1788. MacInnes has been really difficult to summarize, as he uses rather dense political history to illumine Scottish cultural history. I think from here, I'll read some of Corp's books, and then leave historiography behind me. If I need to touch up on a particular school, I can always get scholarship referenced in MacInnes's historiographical summary of Scottish history Early Modern Scotland: The Current State of Play.

Wesley

Notes on Repression and Conciliation: The Highland Dimension 1660-1688 by Allan I. MacInnes in The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 65, No. 180, Part 2 (Oct., 1986).

In this article MacInnes demonstrates that Stuart suppression of the Covenanters only entailed a small part of Stuart policy to secure a repressive political military order over all of Scotland, including the Highlands. Whereas much scholarship has centered on the Covenanters, MacInnes focuses on Stuart policy on the Highlands. He shows that the Highlands were actually at a feuding all-time low when Charles II started initiating lock down policy, and most of organized crime actually happened in the Lowlands. Citing original court records, MacInnes notes criminal statistics for 1661-1674 as below:

                                                Lowlands           Lowland peripheries               Highlands

Crimes of aggression                  117                              16                                   18

Crimes against property              70                                25                                   22

He does offer the disclaimer that crime obviously exceeded documentation, but the clans also suppressed it internally before ad hoc panels of their own. Furthermore, the Highlanders never colluded in a common military effort like the Lowlanders. Raiding happened on a freelance basis and was sponsored by clan gentry instead of the chiefs. Furthermore, blackmailing predominated mostly among Highland criminal bands who had already broken with clan authority and were rented out by Lowland landlords always wishing to win territorial disputes among themselves. Nevertheless, Charles II's regime militarized a Highland watch, branded Highlanders as idle, and set the stage for William's Massacre of Glencoe scene.

Notes on The First Scottish Tories? by Allan I. MacInnes in The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 67, No. 183, Part 1 (Apr., 1988).

MacInnes uses the vernacular poem 'An Cobhernandori' dating around 1648-1649 to culturally infer a transplanting of the Irish Tory faction to Scotland. His argument hinges its reference to Angus MacDonald of Glengarry's venture to Ireland, from which MacInnes evaluates the political and intellectual connotations of the word “Tory” as translated into Scottish Gaelic. I really am helpless in abbreviating his very dense and brief argument without the following quote:

The lack of success which attended the embroilment of the Highland redshanks in the factional affairs of the Catholic Confederacy left Angus MacDonald vulnerable to criticism. His apparent failure to mobilize the majority of his clansmen in support of his Irish venture was now compounded by the less than glorious circumstances of his brief return to Glengarry. Thus, the political adaptation of the label 'Tory' – a term of abuse for his erstwhile Irish associates – suggests that an implicit criticism of his Irish venture was masked by the anonymous poet's explicit attack on the Covenanting establishment which contracted the Engagement. The transplanting of 'Toraidh' [Tory] may be deemed to serve a dual function in 'An Cobhernandori': as a general term of reproach for pursuers of military entanglements as well as a specific term of disparagement for the Engagers.

MacInnes may firmly conclude that the poem anticipates by thirty years the Tory label as a distinct political opposition to the Whig faction.

Notes on Treaty of Union: Voting Patterns and Political Influence by Allan I. MacInnes in the Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung, Vol. 14, No. 3 (51) Conference 1988 (1989).

Here is a quantitative analysis of the political proceedings leading up to the Treaty of Union. MacInnes summarizes the results of a database compilation of primary source material and scholarship of the diverse voting records of members of the Scottish Estates embroiled in the political conflict over Union. Whereas undoubtedly, the Treaty of Union depended on English manipulation, military intimidation, and Scottish economic defeatism, the database revealed statistics that seem to question “the extent to which all members of the Scottish estates were exposed or susceptible to political influence in favour of an incorporation union.” The Union was carried against public opposition according to data from receipt of petitions in 15 out of 33 shires and 21 of 67 royal burghs. One burgh commissioner voted for Union by mandate, but no other petitions from the constituencies favored union. Shire and burgh commissioners simply disregarded petitions from constituents. As protest mounted from the Opposition in hopes of delaying Union, 80 members (only 35%) failed to protest one way or other (for or against opposition to Union). Only 10 members did not vote within the categories of constitutional, political, and economic divisions; 2 being prohibited by office to vote, 2 were excused, and of the rest, only 2 others had excused absences. Most of all members voted in over 20 divisions, and 71 elite band members voted in more than 27 divisions. No one party had an absolute majority. Fourteen or less members cross-voted against their party in about 15 divisions. The Court and Squadrone activists clearly maintained more party discipline than the Opposition by holding onto a greater section of elite voters and having less cross-voting overall. Because the Opposition was denied a ready access to spoils of political office, it had much difficulty in maintaining cohesion, and as such the Opposition can no longer be considered a party. MacInnes concludes, “That principled commitment in the Scottish estates was a minority activity is not contested. But, that such commitment was the exclusive preserve of opponents of Union is insupportable.”

Thesis Correspondence IV

Charles Edward Stuart (1775)

Dear Dr. _____,

Frank McLynn authored a very good book Charles Edward Stuart: A Tragedy in Many Acts, in which he described the disposition of Prince Charles, his emotional fluctuations, and his perception of the Jacobite cause. In my opinion, it is a 557 page masterpiece because he does not force a thesis onto Jacobitism as a whole, but remains true to his task as a biographer. I do not mean to say that his book holds conceptions out of step with scholarship, but rather that he is somewhat beyond the standard Jacobite historiography, always looking at Prince Charles as a human being. The below article is completely opposite. It is also fairly old. In it, McLynn challenges concepts of international French absolutism in five pages; an undertaking which really requires a heavier source base and more analysis. Still, he does demonstrate that the French at least hypothetically entertained the idea of a Scottish republic after 1745, and dangled Prince Charles as the bait for the catch.

Wesley

Notes on An Eighteenth-Century Scots Republic? An Unlikely Project from Absolutist France by F. McLynn in The Scottish Historical Review, Vol. 59, No. 168, Part 2 (Oct., 1980).

In the Maurepas Papers, McLynn discovered a very interesting plot to use Prince Charles as a Trojan horse to implement a Scots republic. The principle proponent of this strategy was none other than the French dispatch and investigator of the Jacobite 1745 campaign, Alexander de Boyer, Marquis d'Eguilles. He traveled with the army, was captured, and released six months later. He addressed Maurepas in a letter after his escape, and provided him with four possible policies: initiate a diversionary campaign until the English treaty was signed, begin an all out war to re-establish Stuart kingship across Britain, restore Stuart kingship to only Scotland, or build a Scottish republic. D'Eguilles feared that any pro-French concessions won through a diversion campaign might just as easily be secured by more economic means elsewhere. A complete Stuart restoration might risk a Stuart-Dutch alliance against France, and restoring the Stuarts to only Scotland might embroil Scotland in a war over dynastic succession in the British Isles that would concern France little, as the Stuarts would never willingly give up a claim to the English thrown. Accordingly, d'Eguilles favored a Scottish republic which would by definition erase the Stuart claim, and secure a Franco-Scottish alliance at no cost to French interests. However, such a plan was unlikely to succeed, as a French commander-in-chief would be needed to replace Irish commanders who would not fight for Scottish independence, and a French army secured to ensure no Irish/Scottish friction. Only Presbyterian Scotland would fight for republic, but they hated the French. The Highlanders, episcopalians, non-jurors, and Catholics would never give up the Stuart claim. Hence, D'Eguilles advised a gradual turn towards a republic over a period of three decades, and for the movement entertaining Prince Charles' hopes would be indispensable. McLynn concludes that these proposals were probably too radical for serious consideration in 1747. Yet, d'Eguilles' proposal is surprising, considering his Catholic pro-royalist family.

Thesis Correspondence III

Charles I, van Dyck portrait

Dear Dr. _____,

I only have one relevant article that I could find available from Murray Pittock. You will recall from his The Myth of the Jacobite Clans that he is very critical of the prominence of the Highlander in the 1745 revolt. However, much of his other scholarship focuses on Enlightenment and Romanticized perceptions of Scotland and modern Scotland in a global setting. If he is criticizing a common Romantic myth, I agree, but find it somewhat of a straw-man argument. Alan MacInnes has done an excellent job at showing the integral nature of the northern Scottish Highlander in the revolt as an eighteenth-century phenomenon (without resorting to Romantic sources). I get the feeling that Pittock is not really familiar with the scholarly debates on Jacobitism and often misses the mark completely. For instance, he slips in the below article (1990) and refers to the Stuarts as absolutists, when Bruce Lenman had already established quite firmly as early as the 1970s that Jacobites and Stuarts alike were more after the idea of hereditary succession than absolutism. French aid might have been absolutist, but from the perspective British Jacobitism or even Charles I's reign, absolutism is a very difficult position to hold.

Wesley

Notes on The Poetry of Lionel Johnson by Murray Pittock in Victorian Poetry, Vol. 28, No. ¾, The Nineties (Autumn – Winter, 1990).

This article is literary criticism. In it, Pittock ties Johnson's nostalgia and love of the artist with a mythological perception of Charles I. Celtic features as a mythic and perfect past, where artistry remains immortal, and Charles I is not only an encourager of art, but dies in order to validate his own sublimity, or claim to artistry. Like the rest of Johnson's themes, Charles I triumphs in death to legitimize his life. (However, I can personally say that there are major, major points of historical difference between Johnson and the original 17th century defense of Charles I in Eikon Basilike.) The only other real relevant point of interest to me was Pittock's tying Johnson's star mythology to the poet Ben Jonson (a source which may be valuable to me).

Thesis Correspondence II

George Frideric Handel by Balthasar Denner

Dear Dr. _____,

I have pulled as many articles by Paul Monod as I could find, after having already read his book Jacobitism and the English people, 1688-1788. My experience with Monod's scholarship is that he is usually very solid; Corp's antithesis in a way. He uses political history to inform his cultural history, and in the end, he manages to turn out rather firm arguments. I personally struggle with Monod's use of paternalism, and his political discussions often drift from Jacobitism to Tory/Whig debates. Yet, he may allow for a broader discussion on classical influences of the eighteenth-century Jacobite controversy.

Wesley

Notes on Jacobitism and Country Principles in the Reign of William III by Paul Monod in The Historical Journal, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Jun., 1987).

Monod begins by announcing an age of “Jacobite restoration” in historical scholarship. He sets out to address the neglect of study (in 1987) on Jacobitism during William III, arguing that English Tories did reveal some sympathy, although not overtly, in refusing the Association of 1696, bills of abjuration, and the Fenwick attainder. Evidently, scholars had been disassociating English Tories from the Jacobite movement (and for good reasons), but Monod wishes to argue that a tendency at least did exist in Tories to not entirely throw off all hopes for the Stuarts. However, Monod differentiates opposition to William from loyalty to James. The Jacobite influence must be seen as more subtle in Parliament, and although some Tories did wish for James' return, they shrank from an immediate effort. This influenced their policies without ever becoming realized in full revolt.

Integral to the Tory political platform were the Country principles, held by many of the landed English squires, which argued against standing armies, pensioners, or placemen, and advocated a transparent and cheap government. The Exclusion Crisis divided the squires; some becoming Whigs and others disliking Whig indifference of hereditary succession (an idea integral to landed nobility for obvious reasons). This created a Court-Country dichotomy, which eventually led to a Country party of Whigs and their Tory allies. As Monod argues, Jacobitism became the catalyst that pushed reluctant Tories into the Country party (a Jacobitism which was able to work outside of its strict pro-Court form; a conservative Jacobitism). Five phases emerge before Country Jacobitism was fully established:

1688-89 – a period marked by Jacobite failure as James pursued military measures in Scotland and Ireland without regard for Whigs

1689-92 – same sort of results as above

1692-3 – James appealed to Whigs, who persuade him forgo authoritarian rhetoric and issue the Country manifesto.

1693-96 – excluded Tories began drifting towards both Country and Court.

1696 – the Assassination Plot derailed the Country alliance for a time, but with the end of William's reign, Country Jacobities resurfaced and eventually established a mode of Jacobite policy which continued through the eighteenth-century.

Since the new settlement of William and Mary was not entirely conservative and contained disruptive procedure (even though in the name of the Constitution), Tory loyalists and Country squires objected for conservative reasons. Loyalists held that the Glorious Revolution destroyed the Constitution by handing the throne to a usurper, and the Country coalition saw that William and Mary's administration only enhanced the problems of centralization begun in Stuart Restoration. The Country party were somewhat justified in their concerns, since war with France in 1689 expanded the English state. Squires from both the Tory and Whig persuasions worried about higher taxation and ministerial despotism, which easily might blend loyalism and Country attitudes. However, it took the Stuart court three years before understanding this potential.

The “Whiggish” Jacobite faction, led by the Scottish Presbyterian Sir James Montgomery, London printing businessman Robert Ferguson, and barrister Charlwood Lawton helped begin negotiations for the Country manifesto by arguing that James must govern by law, establish liberty of conscience, further a free parliament, turn down all French aid, and dismiss the army after overturning William's invasion. Eventually, Whig and Jacobite tendencies meshed at the conservative interest of the Country, and English Jacobitism itself entered a new phase. Montgomery has written that James possessed many errors, but “not every error can furnish a good reason for... revolutions.” The 1693 declaration was seen as a renewal of the Constitution, furthering liberty of conscience, limiting power, initiating free elections, and alleviating tax burdens. The Whig Jacobites did not succeed in converting the Country faction towards a Whig Jacobite conspiracy, but it did initiate a new and more realistic phase in Jacobite policy to unite Country Whigs and Tories in a conservative bipartisan effort to frustrate the Junto government.

Notes on Dangerous Merchandise: Smuggling, Jacobitism, and Commercial Culture in Southeast England, 1690-1760 by Paul Monod in the Journal of British Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Apr., 1991).

Reasons for smuggling trades in the eighteenth-century are unclear and diverse. Certain contemporary chroniclers frame smuggling as a way to assert popular rights, bravery, or a distaste for repressive government. Scholarship differs in its representation or smuggling. Cal Winslow gives a romanticized view of 1740s tea smuggling in the English south-coast as a “social crime,” pitting the laboring class against the established social authority. On the other hand, economic scholarship favors a “big business” model, in which one-third of all English trade to Holland and France was smuggled, effecting both prices and distribution. John Styles criticizes Winslow's view of social crime by arguing that crime and commerce often operated independent of each other. Monod builds the case that among the political and economic developments of the time, Jacobitism played a part in making smuggling a “big business.” He claims that three features were integral to Jacobite influences on smuggling in the English south-coast: local landlord “paternalism”for those who allowed smuggling on their property, a mixture of politics and commerce within smuggling, and formalized structure. Jacobite secret society clubs became a way of expressing a love for the Stuarts more evocatively.

Jacobite landowners (Monod cites many Jacobite landowners by name) were protective of their tenants in smuggling controversies, even frustrating courtroom proceedings in the quest to end smuggling (more examples cited). Landowners did not protect tenets merely for altruistic reasons; doing so enhanced their local prestige and legitimacy. In many cases, disaffected landowners turned to Jacobitism and smuggling in conjunction (examples cited). This connection between Jacobitism and “paternalism” led to politicization of smuggling itself. The trade was subsequently used to transport Jacobite correspondence and agents (many, many examples cited; Monod has done his research here, solid as usual). Monod ties smuggling with Jacobite underworld club culture.

Notes on Painters and Party Politics in England, 1714-1760 by Paul Monod in Eighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Spring 1993).

In this article, Monod proposes that the early Hanoverians could not establish a Biblical or classical “history” painting genre in England due to their inability to avoid party politics, and eventually Whigs developed a diverse and commercial sphere for art after 1730. The common feature against English “history” painting among both Tory and Whig was the association of such art with Roman Catholicism, superstition, and idolatry. The Jacobite “foppish” traditions of the Stuarts were abandoned. Furthermore, in post-Stuart England, “history” painting found no royal patron. Even Horace Walpole himself admitted that William III had done nothing to further art, George I was entirely devoid of artistic zeal, and the hated Charles I initiated the “first era of real taste in England.” Many in England longed for a higher form of Western art, but did not trust its Continental sources. In this context began the career of the only real “history” painter in England, Sir James Thornhill, who seemed to reach the “higher” form of art in his painting of St. Paul's Cathedral with a Baroque court style. However, he abandoned his work and turned to gardening and architecture after his association with the South Sea scandal. Under Shaftesbury's influence, the Whigs next turned to architecture in order to successfully establish an artistic achievement for England. Yet English art did not entirely slip into obscurity between the eras of Thornhill and Sir Joshua Reynolds. Jonathan Richardson initiated a form of art that did not degenerate into the “low” and yet appealed to a universal set of “Gentlemen in general.” It was to be neither high or low, but sophisticated, scientific, and neuter to factions, thus beginning a new era for art in England during the 1730s.

Notes to The Politics of Handel's Early London Operas, 1711-1718 by Paul Monod in The Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 36, No. 3, Opera and Society: Part I (Winter 2006).

Although Handel's operas are not partisan (like the difficulty of Whig artists in Monod's last article), Monod sees them as containing veiled political hints that are informative to his broader English political context of division between Whigs and Tories. Handel would have been careful not to offend either Whigs or Tories in his audience, but his plays still for the most part carry the contemporary Whig flavor of patriotism, populism, and most of all “politeness.” However, operas were far from universally popular among the Whig faction. John Dennis provided the most vehement Whig enemy to opera. He claimed opera, especially in its Italian form was effeminate, favored arbitrary power, and built on “foreign foppery.” More devastating were Joseph Addison and Richard Steele's moderate Whig objections: it's “only Design is to gratifie the Senses...” and its context was too fantastical, having “painted Dragons spitting Wild-fire.” Like Plato, Steele argued that if audiences could not perceive sense in music and if music excluded “Arts that have a much greater Tendency to the Refinement of human Nature,” then it must be cast out of the commonwealth of England. However, The Spectator did retreat from this position so as not to offend readers, and argued that opera may be an artistic possibility if it became more natural in its rhetoric and was deduced “from the general Sense and Taste of Mankind.” A group of English aristocrats including Shaftesbury and Burlington kept English opera alive by encouraging both the polite philosophy advocated in The Spectator and a tinge of Italian culture. Shaftesbury put forward the ideal for the virtuous aristocrat in his Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, and although never mentioning opera, proposed Renaissance Italy as the birthplace of modern principles of rationality in art. Burlington also deemed bad taste as “Gothic,” and believed Italian art brought back an association with ancient Rome.

Burlington became Handel's patron from 1712-1717, and a few of Handel's operas are sufficient to demonstrate the Shaftesbury Whig philosophy of Burlington in the creation of these works. In Teseo, Handel plays out the Classical issue of dynastic succession in eighteenth-century Whig moods, having the Athenians support by popular consent of Teseo as king instead of King Egeo's hereditary claim to the throne. Yet by a stoke of Providence, Teseo seems to be a legitimate heir after all, and Egeo redeems his character with a change of heart. Virtue and popular consent play out firmly in this play. Amadigi differs from Teseo in that it is not strictly political, but it does match the contemporary political scene in its rejection of female leadership (as in the case of the Georgian era after the reign of Queen Anne). On the other hand, his play Silla read straightforwardly does include anti-Whig sympathy, implying a political inconsistency. Furthermore, with the founding of the Royal Academy, Whigs moved more and more away from opera because of its state sponsorship. Monod ends by saying that Handel's creation of some fine pieces while giving England a polite form of Italianate entertainment was the result of genius not politics. (This sounds rather terse with Handel's work, but I think Monod did draw connections between the political culture of the Whigs and Handel's operas. This was the most speculative I've seen Monod yet.)

Thesis Correspondence I

 Haydn Playing

 Per Scriptum E. Wesley Reynolds
Soli Deo Gloria

As I approach the final year of my Master's work, I'd like to use this blog to open up my correspondence and notes with my adviser, Dr. _____. My thesis is on Jacobite, Scottish Highland, and Stuart dynastic pageantry and heraldry. I'll paraphrase my adviser's replies, and include my some of my original notes. Below is my first update this semester. I'm dealing with scholarship in this case, so wait for my discussions on original source material later.

Dear Dr. _____,

I have purchased the following books by Edward Corp:

The Stuarts in Italy, 1719-1766: A Royal Court in Permanent Exile
The Stuart Court in Exile and the Jacobites
The Stuart Court in Rome: The Legacy of Exile
A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689-1718
The Jacobites at Urbino: An Exiled Court in Transition.

I am convinced that I need to read most of all his scholarship, though he has a turn for speculative cultural arguments with both annoys and fascinates me. On the whole of it, he seems mostly to be dealing with the Stuart dynasty apart from its more immediate political context in order to detail cultural connections which went beyond the cause to standard Continental European court protocols. I would like to see if such cultural attributes of the exiled Stuarts might shed more light on the Scottish Highland pageantry (which Corp almost ignores completely).

Here are some notes on all the journal scholarship I could get by Corp. Please forgive my constant use of the passive voice in these notes; I naturally think in the passive, a nasty habit really.

Wesley


Notes on The Exiled Court of James II and James III: A Centre of Italian Music in France, 1689-1712 by Edward T. Corp in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Vol. 120, No. 2 (1995).

Scholars have not studied the way of life of the exiled court until recently, because of a shortage of material and because Jacobities have not been considered important. (Like I said, it's a small field we're dealing with here.)

The exiled Stuart court witnessed the vital change in French tastes on high music from their own to a more Italian style (around 1689, after the French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully's death). Also, the Stuart court at St.-Germain was geographically situated near the two centers of French music Paris and the palace of Versailles. Three important discoveries regarding the history of the court music of the exiled Stuarts have been made. First, the Master of Music for the court has been discovered, one Italian composer Innocenzo Fede by name, and the relevant source material has been placed in the Stuart Papers (I just knew that source would be handy; I'm so glad I have it). Second, scholars have recognized that a list of Italian cantatas and sonatas used Fede for the court may be found in the Parisian seven volume collection Bibliothbque Nationale. Third, courtier and armature musician David Nairne's private diary has been found. From all this, Corp concludes that the Italian direction in music of the Stuart exile court influenced France's move towards Italian music in the 1690s.

Stuart court music included three departments: the Anglican Chapel Royal, the king's private singers and musicians known as “His Majesty's Private Musick,” and the ceremonial trumpeters and drummers. Also, the queen's Catholic chapel contains its own musicians. With James II's construction of a new chapel in Whitehall (before his exile), new musicians were hired and Fede was chosen as court maestri di cappella.  Fede preformed at the birth ceremonies of Prince James. The Stuart court along with Fede eventually transitioned into its exile after the defeat at the Boyne. Not one musician from Anglican Chapel and only one musician with the Private Musick fled to the Continent; of which formally the great Henry Purcell had been a part. Four out of sixteen trumpeters came over, and one kettledrummer. Gianbattista Cazale served as the king's Catholic chapel organist, Jacques Paisible played oboe. Rehiring of musicians was sporadic, but four more are known; the Bavarian Abraham Baumeister; Frenchman, violinist, and dancing-master Jean Faure; Scottish countertenor, composer, violinist, and lutenist John Abel; and finally tenor and bedchamber performer Thomas Heywood. Composers Gottfried Finger and Bartolomeo Bernardi from the Catholic chapel also probably worked for the exiled court. In addition, the Stuarts hired musicians from the town, and frequently kept freelance musicians busy with various projects, such that these musicians would have eventually depended on court performance as a regular portion of their income. (I think this fact very important from a cultural perspective. It not only puts the Stuart court in a position to change French court music, as Corp is arguing, but it further infers that the Stuarts created a pageantry of music all their own for the purpose of proving a Classical western Jacobite appeal. Perhaps this appeal becomes flavored with Highland culture during the revolts in Scotland... Something to hypothesize about.)

Among many of Corp's descriptions of where music was played, I especially noted the ballroom. I know for certain that balls were part of Prince Charles' “spell” during his march from Scotland to England. Corp explains that balls were held for birthdays regularly (did Prince Charles ever hold a birthday ball during his march, I wonder). Worthy of note, James II distanced himself from court ceremony, discouraged court music, and gave himself to religious devotion. Consequently after his death, music flourished during his son's exiled succession (who was recognized as James III by most of the Catholic world). David Nairne related that during the winter of 1702-1703, thirty concerts were preformed in twenty weeks (wow!). Seven balls were performed in eleven weeks during 1707 and six in seven weeks during 1708, just after the Scottish invasion (important for me). The theater at the Stuart court in St.-Germain was one of the finest in France, and Louis XIV had Lully's ballets performed there. James III began attending performances at Versailles. However, both the Stuart ambassadors to Rome favored Italian music. Italian church music performed at Whitehall before the exile had already been a favorite with Lord Melfort, and his ambassadorship to Rome in 1689 exposed him to the work of Carissimi at Saint Apolinare Church and countless other Italian secular and church works until his recall to St.-Germain in 1691. As the queen and some leading courtiers and musicians of James III's court were Italian, Corp argues that St.-Germain became an sort of Italian compliment to Versailles French culture. Even in art and architecture, the Stuart diplomatic opinion favored the Italian modes. Ambassador the Duke of Perth listened to cantatas and sonatas every night during his business with Cardinal Pietro, patron to the all important Arcangelo Corelli (cannot stress the importance of this, as Prince Charles' favorite piece to play was Corelli's Christmas Concerto). Perth concluded Corelli the greatest composer the world over. Corelli published his trio sonatas, dedicating the third to James III's uncle. The music brought back to Fede from Rome by Melfort and Perth collected in Bibliothbque Nationale links directly the music at St.-Germain with Roman influence (and perhaps a broader argument about Neo-Classical pageantry opens out at this point; I need dig a little bit more here). Corp concludes that this proves that Versailles musicians knew of the Italian influence.

Corp next builds a connection between the famous French Baroque composer Francois Couperin and the Italian taste at St.-Germain. Corp speculates that Couperin's friendships with Delalande (organist for the Stuarts) David Nairne would doubtlessly introduced him to the Italian music influence at St.-Germain. Interestingly, Couperin's musical style began to change towards the Italian from 1689 on, and he became the first Frenchmen ever to compose Italian trio sonatas.

Notes on The Musical Manuscripts of “Copiste Z”: David Nairne, Francois Couperin, and the Stuart Court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye by Edward Corp in the Revue de Musicologie, T. 84, No. 1 (1998).

Corp argues that Louis XIV's music copyist of the music in the Bibliothbque Nationale manuscript (marked as “Copiste Z”) copied the treble clef in a non-French script, implying that he was a foreigner. Corp then begins down a long trail of theorizing on the manuscript development, which was really difficult for me to follow without taking more time. However, the effect was that the David Nairne and “Copiste Z” manuscripts run into each other, or at least a connection with someone from St.-Germain exists, suggesting that French music transcription was influenced by the Italian tastes of the exiled Stuarts. Nairne has been further linked to Couperin through his exposure to Abbe Jossier's social circle, etc. (Corp seems to overkill his often inferential arguments). Corp concludes that if his theory is correct, he can give a specific list of the Italian and other various pieces performed at St.-Germain for the Stuart court; something he was unable to do in his previous article.

Notes on Music at the Stuart Court at Urbino. 1717-18 by Edward Corp in Music & Letters, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Aug. 2000).

Unbelievable; another speculative argument! The Stuarts briefly stayed in Urbino at the Palazzo Ducale in the Papal States from July 1717 to October 1718 after their dismissal from France. The king changed from the French style opera to the Italian opera. In Corp's own words: “This development... went beyond a simple question of musical taste. Moreover, it might also have been of significance for the career of Domenico Scarlatti.” With the Jacobite move to Italy, more Scottish than English courtiers moved with it, and their tastes ran with the new Italian styles that not even Corelli and Scarlatti had been using. His Scottish courtiers had oddly witnessed the Italian craze in the London operas from 1708-1715, and appreciated the Venice operas during their new exile. They convinced James III to get the Pope's permission to invite an opera company in Pesaro to Urbino. While at Palazzo Ducale in Urbino, the one entertainment for the Stuarts was music, because of the remote hilltop location. Eventually James III learned to agree with his new courtiers, and appreciate the Italian operatic form. Jacobite court taste in music also ran towards Vivaldi, Antonio Lotti, and Tomaco Albinoni. James III preferred Gasparini and Bononcini.(I thought this argument from Corp of particular weight to my course):

"James III's enthusiasm for Italian opera did not go unnoticed by those hoping for a Jacobite restoration. If the king had been restored in 1708, or even as late as 1716, he would almost certainly have attempted to introduce French opera at his court in England. Now that James had been converted to Italian opera, that would no longer have been the case: and the supremacy of Italian opera in London would have been assured. Of greater significance was the identity of the composer who would actually provide the Italian operas, since Handel (a German like George I) would have been unlikely to be favoured by a restored Stuart regime. Those composers whom James III had encountered in Italy, and particularly in Rome, were more likely to receive his patronage. Of them, Domenico Scarlatti was particularly well placed to benefit from a Jacobite restoration."

Scarlatti did eventually resign his post at St. Peter's and moved back to Lisbon after hearing that the 1719 Jacobite Rebellion had failed. Corp infers that Scarlatti might have moved to London if the 1719 revolt had ever succeeded.

Notes on Handel, Scarlatti and the Stuarts: A Response to David Hunter by Edward Corp in Music & Letters, Vol. 82, No. 4 (2001).

In this article, Corp is somewhat put off by the criticisms of David Hunter. Corp does however note that Hunter is correct about Handel and that Corp overgeneralized in his previous article (above). Rather than perceiving Handel as Hanoverian or German, he is more accurately described as possessing the same imperialistic taste as George I (which I cannot personally affirm or deny). However, Corp did reiterate that his argument primarily dealt with James III's conversion to Italian opera and rejection of his French court which impelled him to rely on faulty advisers and weakened the political movement in the 1720s (although I would interject that Corp's real emphasis was on the cultural implications for Scarlatti, rather than on the Jacobite political scene). Corp reiterates the speculative nature of his argument regarding Scarlatti, which Hunter misunderstood.

This was not one of Corp's most rational articles, although it did admit error when necessary. He characterizes Hunter's refutation as “What a big sledgehammer to crack such a little nut!” He writes further, “David Hunter refers to 'the animosity that exists even today concerning Jacobitism', and observes that 'hardly a year goes by without a debate or a sniping review' (n. 17). I think he is right.” Whatever Hunter wrote, Corp's demeanor did not seem the most appealing to me; in the words of Shakespeare “Sweet revenge grows harsh.” Or perhaps Corp's coffee was just too strong that morning.

Notes on Further Light on the Career of 'Captain' Francois de Prendcourt by Edward T. Corp in Music & Letters, Vol. 78, No. 1 (Feb., 1997).

Composer and keyboard player “Captain” Prendcourt was forced to provide for himself by teaching harpsichord after his dismissal from the Stuart Catholic Whitehall chapel in 1687-8 when James II escaped from England. Corp notes that the standard sources for Prendcourt come from Michael Tilmouth's The New Grove (scholarship), and John Wilson's version of Roger North's commentaries on music (North being a contemporary of Prendcourt). Prendcourt's music can be found in only one known original manuscript of harpsichord pieces now at York Minster. Corp argues from archives on the Bastille now in the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, Paris that Prendcourt did not stay in England after the Glorious Revolution as scholars have previously thought, but that instead he somehow was imprisoned at the Bastille. For some political reasons, North deliberately decided to keep that fact secret in his account of Prendcourt. Although Prendcourt was originally a Frenchman and had been to the Indies and Spain, he was possibly an ordained priest and probably a Spanish soldier in the 1670s-80s, but not a captain as he called himself. Beginning in 1686, he taught Latin, signing, and music at Whitehall as Master of the Children. North suggests that Prendcourt's pride and refusal to perform any work but his own put him at odds with other musicians at the chapel including the Chapel Master Fede, Gottfried Finger, James Paisible, and Bernardo Bernardi. He regarded all others, even the great Corelli as simply triflers. Prendcourt was dismissed just before William's invasion for “misconduct,” making a flight with the king quite impossible. Prendcourt decided to go to Ireland, hop back into his military career, and after meeting James II there managed to fall back into favor with the king. Prendcourt gained military governorship of the garrison at Armagh, and became along with the Charlemont garrison, the only remaining garrisons in the province to stand against William's armies after James II's withdraw to Ulster. Supposedly Prendcourt had converted to Protestantism while at Whitehall before converting back to Catholicism, and the French suspected him of treason in his new office. James II informed him that he would be honorably dismissed after first sending him to St.-Germain and Versailles to relay dispatches; a move which the French accepted with great reluctance. Prendcourt was then meant to be escorted safely to Germany by a French Secretary of State, but he instead decided to stay in France. He followed Louis XIV to Mauberge on an army inspection, and returned to Paris, changing his name and address. Eventually, he was arrested on suspicion of spying for William and imprisoned at the Bastille until October 1697 after the war's end. If Prendcourt ever did carry any music with him, it must have been destroyed at the Bastille. Prendcourt resided in the rue de la Tisseranderie after being released, near St.-Germain where he would have almost certainly listened to Couperin's organ playing. Prendcourt was not allowed to stay in France for long, and late in the year 1697, he was sent to Calais under military escort and then on to England.

Corp claims to now know why North hid Prendcourt's imprisonment. North himself was a Jacobite and worked secretly for Mary of Modena as her Attorney General, “As a convicted anti-Jacobite spy, Prendcourt was a rather unsuitable contact, and it would have been safer to suppress all reference to his imprisonment.” Furthermore, Corp also can claim rather convincingly that Prendcourt was not a Jesuit as North had believed him to be, for certainly the French archives would have referenced the fact if it were true. The French manuscript also confirms Tilmouth's argument that the York Minister manuscript contains Prendcourt's own work; the handwriting matches.

Notes on 'Captain' Prendcourt Revisited by [Roz Southey and] Edward T. Corp in Music & Letter, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Nov., 1998)

This article is really a correction of details. Roz Southey brings to bear the Corporation minutes from Newcastle upon Tyne for All Saints Church, Chamberlain's Accounts, and All Saints burial records to indicate that Prendcourt worked as an organist until his death on September 12, 1725. Corp readily accepts Southey's correction to his guess that Prendcourt may have died in the year 1707. Corp had no knowledge of Southey's sources, and only had North's 1707 account of Prendcourt written in the past tense, presumably as though he had died.

Notes on Maurice Quentin de La Tour's Portrait of Prince Charles Edward Stuart by Edward Corp in The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 139, No. 1130 (May, 1997).

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery acquired in 1994 a portrait which they claim to have been the lost portrait of Charles by Maruice Quentin de La Tour which was subsequently displayed in the Paris Salon in 1748. However, doubt surrounds the legitimacy of the portrait. Before the finding, the 1748 portrait's existence was only known through the copies and engravings of Michael Aubert. There are differences between the 1994 finding and the copies. For instance, the Prince is portrayed in the 1994 finding as having both the sash of the Order of the Garter and the jewel of the Order of the Thistle, whereas Aubert portrayed only the sash and not the gem. The absence of the star of the Garter on a fur cloak and discrepancies in ribbon placement are other difficulties with the newly discovered painting. Corp emphasizes that the heraldic insignias of Western Europe (Garter, Golden Fleece, and Saint-Esprit) were not considered compatible. Of course rarely was this ever a problem, but in the case of James II, the king found that the ribbons of the Garter and the Thistle crossed, interrupting the symbolism. The Garter hung from the left shoulder, while the Thistle fell from the left. Until 1716, James III was careful never to wear the Garter and the Thistle together, but then James decided to bring the orders together in a way that resembled Philip V in 1700. James suspended the Thistle jewel  from the neck on a ribbon turned green from red. The Garter sash crossed the ribbon just above the Thistle, as in the case of the Saint-Esprit, only on the reverse side. Prince Charles would have inherited this form of heraldic pageantry. However, in portrait painting the technique was to reverse the angle, making Prince Charles' heraldry too close to that of Saint-Esprit. Painters were instructed to simply paint the sash on its original side, but in several portraits of the Stuarts this correction to the technique was not always carried out, and the Garter sash is shown hanging on the right shoulder. Aubert made this mistake while copying Quentin de La Tour. To correct his mistake, Aubert put the sash lower, covering the Thistle and exposing its ribbon around the neck. Aubert had a new problem; his method brought Prince Charles ever closer the Saint-Esprit and Golden Fleece combination (well known in France). So, he invented a fur cloak in order to suspend the Garter. The other copies were corrections to the engraving, not the original portrait. Corp concludes, “But the implications of this analysis extend beyond this particular case study... James III once stated that he was not prepared to give the Garter to anyone who would not or could not wear it openly, and that as the leading French nobles all stood a chance of receiving the Saint-Esprit, he had decided never to give the Garter to any of them.” (There is much to think about the heraldic implications here, far beyond just the Stuart court, but into the Jacobite political and cultural movement. I've got to dig into his sources, and tie this to the British Isles.)