Heroes and villains
JACQUELINE RIDING considers an unapologetically partisan history of the Jacobites, spanning the entirety of the movement’s dramatic rise and fall
The King Over the Water: A Complete History of the Jacobites
by Desmond Seward Birlinn, 384 pages, £25
Desmond Seward is a prolific author of an impressively broad range of popular histories. His latest, The King Over the Water, spans the rise and fall (as a political force at least) of the Jacobite ‘movement’. In brief, the book traces those within the British Isles and beyond who supported, with varying degrees of enthusiasm or activism, the restoration of the Catholic Stuart king, James II and VII, and his legitimate male heirs, after the so-called Protestant ‘Glorious Revolution’.
While Seward makes full use of the latest historical research and subject mainstays, there are no fresh revelations from the archives here. Rather, the author argues, the innovation lies in the approach, which is to cover the whole Jacobite period, from 1688 to the death of James’s grandson Henry in 1807; to embrace, equally, the entire British Isles; and to present the story from an unapologetically Jacobite/Stuart position and in an approachable style.
Since we are not overburdened by popular histories on Jacobitism, Seward’s lively book is a welcome addition – but there is a difficulty in arguing for complete originality through the manner of approach outlined above. Histories analysing the strength of Jacobite support, presented in digestible prose and from a sympathetic standpoint, are out there – admittedly some covering a slightly shorter period (ie until the death of Henry’s more famous brother, Charles, in 1788) or focused on specific moments (the risings of 1715 or, by far the most common, of 1745).
Seward’s implied belief that Jacobitism is still cloaked in tragedy in the popular imagination – and indeed is still perceived as an exclusively Scottish, Roman Catholic phenomenon – is disappointing if true. It points to a collective failure on the part of modern scholarship to widen its appeal. At least the National Museum of Scotland’s excellent 2017 exhibition, Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobites, exposed the movement’s myths and realities and did much to bring the public up to date with this fascinating episode in British history.
Some may find Seward’s old-school descriptive style and hero/villain signposting a challenge – although, in his defence, he declares his bias from the outset. In 1688,
Such ripe and partisan prose will surely warm the cockles of the handful of diehard Jacobites, as Seward describes them, still alive today
William III and II, “skeletal, roundshouldered, eagle-nosed and racked by asthma… stole” his uncle’s crown and is the epitome of a “wicked” nephew. Meanwhile, James’s second wife and the Jacobite matriarch, Mary of Modena, is “a great beauty, with dark Italian eyes, jet black hair, a shapely figure”, and so on. Such ripe and partisan prose will surely warm the cockles of the handful of diehard Jacobites, as Seward describes them, alive today.
On a more serious note, Seward’s suggestion that Charles’s 1745–46 campaign failed through sheer bad luck is a stretch. We must seek to draw answers, with a dispassionate gaze, from the decisions and deeds of the (predominantly) men involved – not least Charles himself and his contrary, selfserving cousin Louis XV – rather than reproach the wilful gods, or the equally contrary British weather.
Jacqueline Riding is a historical adviser and author. Her latest book is Peterloo: The Story of the Manchester Massacre (Head of Zeus, 2018)