Thesis Correspondence XI: How the Scots Invented the Modern World

 Shipping on the Clyde

Dr. _____,

I thought I ought to get through a popular history on Scotland by Arthur Herman, a John Hopkins/George Mason scholar. I'm sure you've heard of How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It. After skimming through it, I found it a little too exuberant and celebratory in the modern world for my conservative taste, and its conclusions were rather sloppy. With regards to Jacobitism, he sights good scholarship (Monod and Pittock), but is far too sparse and casual with the research. One particular conclusion seems to fall at the root of my thesis:

"This is another persistent myth: that Highlanders supported Bonnie Prince Charlie out of some ancient mystical loyalty to the Stuarts. The truth was that the alliance between the Crown and the clan chieftains was one of mutual self interest. The Crown recognized the chieftain's life-and-death power over his tenants, reinforced the privileged status of his family members and supporters, and protected his children's rights to his land by formal law. In exchange, the chiefs gave the king a rough version of law and order in a remote and largely inaccessible part of his kingdom. It also allowed him to play one clan against another, when it suited his own political purposes."

This is completely a false dilemma. First, I take issue with his premise that myth and economic/political motives stand apart. The entire premise of my thesis will be that cultural traditions informed political opinion. Herman skims over the vital significance of the Scottish nobles. Mystical loyalty and the traditional law over land went hand-in-hand. The vast majority of correspondence between king and country during the exile focused on unifying the kingdom along "ancient" lines of noble pedigree and monarchical inheritance, while Scottish epic poetry in Classical form reinforced the same emphasis on hereditary right. Only rarely might the dynasty successfully pit clan against clan without suffering divisive results which might contradict his pageantry for the kingdom of Scotland as a whole.

I am still in the middle of the Brus, but I am going to put the main emphasis on perfecting my prospectus. I'll send you a copy by the end of the week, and hopefully schedule a time next week to discuss it in person.

Wesley

Thesis Correspondence IX: Stuart Papers, Vol. II

 Pettie - Jacobites, 1745

Dear Dr. _____,

I found the second volume of the Stuart Papers to be very informative regarding cultural references. The universal understanding of the Highlanders is one of loyalty without sufficient means to achieve Stuart restoration. A definite resource problem plagued the administrative side of organizing a successful attempt. Clan Ranald in particular is describes as possessing family ties to loyalty, but many other clan leaders are so linked with the attempt that it is obvious the Highlanders had vested interest in the Noble hierarchy of the Stuart cause in Great Britain. James' main action towards raising support among both the British nobility and populace is through the heraldic pageantry of Standard Raising, and he invariably links that particular heraldry with Scottish ancient appeal, choosing Scotland as his preliminary and primary place to raise his Standard. I have chased down various systems of codes regarding the names of places and people in order to discover cultural meanings in the texts. For instance, Highlanders in one place are referred to as "Heathcoats," Holland is "Milflower," and Scotland is quite often "Mr. Woods." Other codes do not necessarily imply cultural specificity, and I want to be very careful in my inferences, but these few were almost certainly obvious characterizations of cultural ideals. My only disappointment is that the correspondence does not proceed further than 1716, and I will need to look elsewhere for correspondence during Prince Charles' attempt. I have noted extensively as usual.

Wesley

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.”