Why there was nothing 'glorious' about 1688

A conference next month will challenge lazy thinking about the Stuarts, says David Twiston Davies The Stuart kings have been a shimmering presence on the edge of British consciousness ever since James 11 lost the throne 319 years ago. They had serious failings, and strong reasons can be advanced to explain their loss of power. Nevertheless, no subsequent sovereigns have exuded quite the same assured air; and no justification for the grubby events of the "Glorious Revolution" can make their removal feel right.
The arch-Whig Lord Macaulay made the most trenchant case against the Stuarts in the 19th century, when he maintained that the political settlement replacing James with Prince William of Orange was the key to an invaluable constitutional stability, one which we continued to enjoy right up to the end of the last century. Even Catholics, who recognise the Reformation settlement for the ruthless land-grab that it was, have fallen in with this somnolent and safe argument. Few care to point out that this inglorious episode was not about James's attempt to establish autocratic government. Rather, a powerful minority. fuelled with anti-papist fears, was bent on preventing James from establishing toleration for all religions; and so Catholics were barred from fully participating in politics and the professions for almost another 150 years.
The humbug of 1688 and after, which became all the more convincing for not being questioned, referred to Dutch William as "the deliverer", whose armada crossed the sea to Torbay on a "Protestant wind". The tepid welcome he received in that town was forgotten. So was the way he pushed himself on to the throne and the irritation of English taxpayers on finding that they had to pay his mercenaries who, ironically, included many continental Catholics. The whole business was a blot on the consciences of contemporary Englishmen. who became even more exasperated after the Electors of Hanover, selected for their Protestantism, were invited on to the throne in 1714.
Of course it was dangerous to say this in public but the first two Georges German, gross and speaking in guttural accents compared badly with the tall, elegant Stuarts waiting on the Continent. The many evocative portraits in paint and print of James, his son and two grandsons ensured that they were as familiar to the British public of their time as film stars and pop singers are today. "Yestenday'sfromorrow's Family" maintained a court, staffed by Anglicans and Dissenters as well as Catholics. It had full royal ceremonial, secretaries of state and even a Black Rod, ready for that return which, in the end, never happened despite constant attempts to bring it about. Naturally there was plenty of quarrelling, and gradually things went wrong.
Bonnie Prince Charlie (King Charles ELI) became a disappointed drtink in later life, with no legitimate children, and his younger brother (King Henry 1X) extinguished any remaining embers of hope by becoming a cardinal. One side of the medal Henry had struck, after succeeding his brother in 1788, declared that he was King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and Cardinal Bishop of Frascati. On the other side it realistically stated Non desideriis hominum sed voluntatis Dei (Not by the desires of man but by the will of God).
When the late Sir John Plumb wrote his England in the 18th Century more than 50 years ago he considered half a page sufficient to cover Jacobitism. But a contrary wind has been gathering pace, and is signalled by a two-day historical conference at the British Academy in London next month.
Led by the redoubtable Eveline Cruickshanks, who discerned afresh the reality of the threat that the Jacobite Tory party posed to the Georgian settlement, a corps of dedicated historians have been unpicking the truth, to the accompaniment of some determined sneering from opponents who see no reason for funding further research work.
The papers to be delivered will show how Jacobitism seeped into every corner of life in a deeply divided kingdom between 1688 and the 1750s, which was much more than the wealthy and complacent land modern Whig historians have claimed it to have been. These will discuss the organisation of Bonnie Prince Charlie's army, the views of Dryden and Swift as well as the role of the Catholic clergy and the Jacobites to be found on the Aberdeen magistrates' bench.
Continental archives have revealed how the most committed supporters of the Hanoverian government, such as the Duke of Marlborough and the prime minister Sir Robert Walpole, thought it wise to maintain wary contacts with the Stuart court. This has helped to overthrow the orthodox assertion that Jacobitism was always doomed whereas its fortunes always depended on the state of European power politics. which never really coincided with the preparations of the Stuart followers. The example of the Polish Government in Exile, whose elderly London-based members were derided for almost 50 years as comic anachronisms before reappearing triumphant in the ruins of their Communist homeland in 1990, showed that the Jacobites were justified in believing for as long as they did that their cause could triumph.
It is sobering to realise that the fall of the Soviet empire seemed far less likely 25 years ago than a Stuart restoration did to English, Scots, Irish and Welsh throughout the first half of the 18th century.
It is also significant that the new interest in Jacobitism has come when the United Kingdom is under increasing strain from old wounds, which date back to the ejection of the Stuarts. Whether Britain's European ties would have been bound to loosen to the extent that they did, as she perceived the world-wide opportunities opening up before her, can be debated.
But it comes as a shock after living so long with an Irish problem stemming from James's defeat at the Battle of the Boyne, to see the creation of a new Scottish Parliament threatening to unravel loyalties.
This is not only calling into question the Act of Union but also fuelling demands for repeal of the Acts of Settlement and Succession, which were passed to bar the Stuarts or any other Catholics from sitting on the throne.
With the strongest claimant to the Stuart crown now a German, the Duke of Bavaria, a restoration is neither desirable nor possible; and only a few lunatics would seriously consider the removal of our highly respected, experienced and, indeed, much loved Queen; though there are some Scots (as there always have been) who fool themselves that a republic is the answer to all their problems. Serious historians, such as those who will assemble at the Academy, do not consider it an important part of their remit to indulge in speculation about what might have been. Nevertheless the renewed interest in Jacobitism will prove of inestimable value if it helps to remove the centuries of blind prejudice against Catholics which still lurks beneath the surface in this country.
Above all a glance at the damage caused by the overthrow of the Stuarts should encourage us to question the doctrine of inevitable progress which, during the past decade, has been fuelling the nonsense used by our departing prime minister to justify any fundamental change that just pops into his mind.