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cahnAnd in this post:
-luzula is going to tell us about the Jacobites and the '45!
-I'm going to finish reading Nancy Goldstone's book about Maria Theresia and (some of) her children Maria Christina, Maria Carolina, and Marie Antoinette, In the Shadow of the Empress, andselenak is going to tell us all the things wrong with the last four chapters (spoiler: in the first twenty chapters there have been many, MANY things wrong)!
-mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War
(seriously, how did I get so lucky to have all these people Telling Me Things, this is AWESOME)
-oh, and also there will be Yuletide signups :D
-
luzula is going to tell us about the Jacobites and the '45!-I'm going to finish reading Nancy Goldstone's book about Maria Theresia and (some of) her children Maria Christina, Maria Carolina, and Marie Antoinette, In the Shadow of the Empress, and
selenak is going to tell us all the things wrong with the last four chapters (spoiler: in the first twenty chapters there have been many, MANY things wrong)!-
mildred_of_midgard is going to tell us about Charles XII of Sweden and the Great Northern War(seriously, how did I get so lucky to have all these people Telling Me Things, this is AWESOME)
-oh, and also there will be Yuletide signups :D
Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-04 07:47 pm (UTC)That's very interesting. It's sort of paradoxical to me that the government was worried enough to enact that law in 1743 (presumably in response to the fact that James III's heir had grown up and turned out to be ambitious), but still be so unprepared in 1745, especially after the French attempt in '44!
Oh, and the arguments for or against it: I see that they're about the English punishment for treason in general, which was controversial both because of the physical cruelty, but also because it punished children for their fathers' sins (they could not inherit from a father convicted of treason and lost all titles). Scotland didn't use to have that law, they just executed the traitor. But in 1709, the English law for treason was introduced in Scotland, much against the will of the Scots MP:s and also arguably against the articles of Union of 1707, because Scotland had been guaranteed to keep its laws. I just randomly started to read the Duke of Bedford's speech (he raised a regiment of his own in the '45, btw, though it was mostly useless), and saw something I didn't know: that this foisting of the English punishment for treason on Scotland (and also the law itself in England) was supposed to have a time limit: until the Pretender was dead (James III, it must be) and also three years after the Hanoverian succession. So it seems what they're debating is not just about whether the Stuarts should be attainted for treason, but whether this law should continue to be prolonged?
Good for the Duke of Bedford; I like his speech arguing for the abolishment of the English punishment for treason (well, except for when he claims that when poor people revolt, they will always set up arbitrary and tyrannical power).
Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-05 03:52 pm (UTC)Precisely in response to the fact that he'd shown up in France in late 1743 agitating for support, and the French had received him instead of kicking him out.
Remember that one of the terms of the Peace of Utrecht back in ~1713 was that France had to recognize the Protestant Succession and kick James "III" out south of the Alps, which is why the Stuarts are now living in Rome. The fact that BPC is now in France and clearly not there to socialize and attend the opera, is a violation of the treaty. And of course, France and GB are now at war again.
still be so unprepared in 1745, especially after the French attempt in '44!
Well, at least one of the speechmakers (Chesterfield) was arguing that there was no way there was any real and present danger!
Chesterfield also made an interesting argument, which was that they shouldn't pass this bill (again, they're arguing mostly about the forfeiture of estates, not about attainting BPC for treason) because the government already had law on its side, unlike the Pretender, who could only offer violence, and there was no call for the English to start acting like him by threatening violence.
but also because it punished children for their fathers' sins
I saw a lot of this in my skimming! One counterargument seems to be that just like if the fathers spent money when they were alive, it's not punishing children that the fathers can't leave them what they don't own when they die. (Which is interesting, because the whole principle of entailment is that you can't alienate your own real estate because you're holding it in trust for the next generation. I wonder if anyone mentions that. Of course, not all estates are entailed, but as I recall from my Roman days, the early Romans *couldn't* alienate their own property, for that very reason.)
until the Pretender was dead (James III, it must be)
Yep, James III, who ended up not dying until 1766.
So it seems what they're debating is not just about whether the Stuarts should be attainted for treason, but whether this law should continue to be prolonged?
Yep, that's one of the articles! I think it was Chesterfield who was going, "Look, he's 55, he's in pretty good health, he's going to live a while longer, why do we need to extend the term longer?" The bill got passed and did in fact get extended to include the two sons, so 1807, when Henry Benedict died (BPC dying in 1788). Though it then got repealed in 1799, when there really was no danger from the Jacobites anymore.
Ha ha, wow, not going to stop you. Great work digging!
So this I didn't actually mind spending time on, because my resistance to reprising the Jacobites is that I don't want to be rehashing the same ground (and the temptation is there, because I know I have access to *so much more* than I did when I was a high schooler in a small town in pre- and early-internet days). But this is new ground that I'm interested in covering, so I'm game. :)
In the last decade, I've twice tried and failed to read Blackstone cover to cover, so any excuse to dip into him again is welcome. And I still remember the moment, almost twenty years ago, when I was at college and realized the library had entire shelves of volumes of the Parliamentary speeches. I was flabbergasted and wished I was still in the fandom so I could make time to read them!
He's notorious for being "best of all possible worlds" and casting each and every law as wise and moderate. This is entertaining, because England was known for having a brutal criminal law, death penalty for everything and gruesome torture + death for the really bad stuff, and watching him bend over backwards to do gymnastics to cast everything as "Well, but it could be worse!" is hilarious.
He's not always reliable, but he is comprehensive, and very readable, although the four volumes are too long and dense for me to have read the series cover-to-cover. Now that I have a much better system for reading long and dense works, which I developed in the last 3 years, I should give it another try.
But in the more near future, I'd like to sample the Parliamentary speeches on treason. They seem fascinating! I see a lot of references to the Greeks and Romans. Which is exactly what I'd expect from the 18th century, but it is cool to see it in practice.
Re: Jacobites and treason
Date: 2021-11-06 02:13 pm (UTC)But it's also about titles, which you can't spend like you do money. I also saw an argument that it's even an offense against the illustrious forebears of the nobility, who expected their children to be ennobled for all time.
Though it then got repealed in 1799, when there really was no danger from the Jacobites anymore.
Oh, interesting. But that was a time when the British government was really worried about treason. The French revolution had happened, and there was a crackdown on seditious reading clubs passing around Rights of Man, etc. They were so worried that they suspended habeas corpus and kept people locked up indefinitely without bringing charges, I suppose because so many people were being locked up that the court system couldn't keep up.
But thinking about it further, the old English punishment for treason is really harsher on the rich and titled--execution or transportation is enough of a deterrent for the kind of people involved in the potential rebellions of the 1790's. In fact, this is part of the Duke of Bedford's argument: we want the nobility to feel that they can revolt if they feel that it's necessary (such as, from his POV, in 1688), because if only poor people revolt, they will have no proper leaders and will
take all his stuffset up arbitrary and tyrannical government. And in the 1790's, the threat wasn't coming from the nobility, so the government felt safe changing the punishment for treason. Is my off-the-cuff theory, anyway.Re: <s>Jacobites</s> Stuarts and treason
Date: 2021-11-06 09:40 am (UTC)The scale of the mass justice on that autumn of 1685 was eyewatering. ON a single day in September over 540 prisoners were tried and sentenced. Jeffreys told the incarcerated rebels that if they pleaded guilty the King would s how mercy. He was expected to execute only the ringleaders, and that made sense. After all, the rank and file of the New Model Army - i.e. the Republican English army that had fought against Charles I. under Cromwell - had not been tried, let alone executed, in 1660. Instead it was the signatories of Charles I.'s death warrant who had been hunted down. Even in the rebellions of the 16th century the vast majority of grassroots recruits were pardoned.
After watching the first few who pleaded 'not guilty' being almost immediately condemned and executed, most of the remaining rebels did was Jeffreys advised and were accordingly convicted of 'levying war against the king' and other related crimes. But the horrifying realisation soon came that this time, there would be almost no clemency. Over the weeks that followed 250 people would be hanged, drawn and quartered, while a further 850 were to be transported to the West Indies for ten years labour. In all over 90 per cent were either executed or deported, and fewer than ten per cent pardoned.
The scale of the executions was such that the hangman Jack Ketch, who had so mutilated Monmouth on Tower Hill, complained that even with an assistant, one Pascha Rose, he could not hang, draw and quarter twenty-nine people in one day as he was being asked to. After the sentencing, the hangings themselves were systematically distributed across thirty-seven locations in orst, Devon and Somerset to maximise their impact. (...) Jeffreys' lack of pity for the rebels was unsurprising, but it added to the profound sense of shock. One young woman of Lyme Regis pleaded on her knees before the judge to spare the life of her fiancé. The judge was reported to have looked down at her and to have remarked with a smirk that 'he could only spare her part of him; but as he knew what she wanted, it should be that part which she liked best, and he would give orders to the sheriff accordingly.' The sight and smell of the mutilated corpses, mounted as macabre trophies, was too much for many to bear. John Langford of Dorcester cut down the quarters of a friend, judging the consequent punishment worth enduring.
It was not just the rebels themselves who were given severe sentences. ON his very first day in court Jeffreys tried the sevent-year-old Lady Alice Lisle, who though deaf and infirm was accused of allowing rebels to sleep in her stables. She maintained her innocence throughout and it was only through relentless hectoring and bullying the jury over many hours, and after rejecting a not guilty verdict three times, that Jeffreys was able to force a conviction. When he did so, he remarked with satisfaction that ' if I had been among you and she had been my own mother, I should have found her guilty'. Despite a barrage of pleas for her life, Alice Lisle was hanged six days later. Another woman accused of aiding the rebels was Elizabeth Gaunt, a tallow chandler who had lodged with Mrs. Smith in Amsterdam. The crime for which she was tried was that of helping to arrange a passage out of London for one James Burton, who was testifying against her to save his own skin. She was found guilty and on 23 October 1685 was burned alive at Tyburn. As the pyre was lit she held up a Bible and declared in a clear voice she died to defend it. She would be the last woman in English history to be executed for treason.
(From "The Last Royal Rebel: The Life and Death of James, Duke of Monmouth" by Anna Keay.)
(Jeffreys is a rare case of karma catching up with someone: when James II. had to flee the country, Jeffreys was arrested for treason and died in the Tower (of illness) before he could be brought to trial.)
(One could make a case that Hannoverians had learned how to treat rebels from James?)
Re: <s>Jacobites</s> Stuarts and treason: Monmouth's death
Date: 2021-11-06 10:12 am (UTC)Meanwhile, Monmouth (who was the last Duke to be executed in England)
Stepping up onto the scaffold, Monmoth addressed the crowds. (...) 'I come to die', adding with emphasis, 'I die as a Protestant of the Church of England.' The clerics tried to talk him into condemning all acts of resistance to royal authority, but Monmouth would not be drawn; instead he was intent on protecting the hnor of the woman he loved, and so he spoke the words he had rehearsed: 'I have had a scandal raised about me about a woman, a lady of virtue and honor. I will name her the Lady Henrietta Wentworth. I declare that she is a very virtuous and Godly woman. I have committed no sin with her; and that which had passed betwixt us was very honest and innocent in the sight of God.'
When asked to denounce his invasion as a rebellion, Monmouth said nothing but handed over a piece of paper on which he had written the only recantation he was prepared to make. It staded his regreat at having been declared king, and confirmed that he knew his parents had never been married. He went no further. He made no statement of loyalty or penitence to James II, whom he called 'the King who is now', and asked only that he would not punish his children on his account.
The bishops tried again, but still Monmouth would not be drawn. HE was sorry, he said, for evryone he had wronged. (...) Pressed hard to call his upsiing a 'rebellion', Monmouth continued to resist. The most he would concede was his regret. 'I never was a man that delighted in Blood, I was very far from it.' he said. 'I am sorry for invading the Kingdom, and for the Blood that has been shed, and for the Souls which may have been lost by my means, I am sorry it ever happened.'
Around the scaffold stood an armed guard and beyond them the sheriffs and the crowd. When asked whether he would not say something to them to acknowledge his crimes, he stood quite still and was silent. (...) The bishops tried one last time to extract words of obedience to James II. But when they said 'Lord Save the King', Monmouth did not repeat them. (...) Finally one of them asked him whether he would at least say something to the guards of the importance of remaining loyal to the king. Monmouth replied only: "I will make no speeches, I come here to die.' With the midday sun shining down, his servant came forward to help him undress. He removed his wig, refused the cap and blindfold he was offered, and from his pocket he took a small silver object which he gave to his man along with six guineas. (The money is traditionally for the executioner.) (...)
With the crowd motionless in awful anticipation, Ketch, legs apart, steadied himself. Reaching back, he heaved the great axe through the air, but when it fell heavily it came down sort, chopping deep into Monmouth's neck, causing his body to convulse and his head to turn, but withuot killing him. Now partially facing his victim, Ketch began to shake, and when he swung the axe again, he again failed to make a clear strike and took another bite from Monmouth's neck. The crowd goraned at each horrific hack. When his third swing also missed, Ketch's shoulders sagged, and he htrew down his weapon in despiar, crying: "God dame me I can doe noe more, my heart faillles me.' The spectators roared in disbelief, as the butchered body of Monmouth lay, still alive, before them. Only the universal shouts and screams from the crowd and the furious order from the sheriffs caused him to pick up the axe and to swing it twice more. Even then he had finalyl to take a knife to sever the remaining sinews of Monmouth's neck. When he held up the disembodied head, 'there was no shouting but many cried'. The emotion of the onlookers was overwhelming: 'If there had not been a guard before the souldiers to conduct the executioner away, the people would have torn him to pieces, so great was their indignation at the barbarous usage of the late Duke of Monmouth.'
(I checked out the footnote sourcing this description, and Keay based it on a contemporary pamphlet ("An account of what passed at the Execution of the late Duke of Monmouth") as well as Luttrell, State Affairs, and State Trial transcriptions.)