cahn

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In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

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From:

luzula

So, I have read the 18th century chapters in frank mclynn’s The Road not Taken: how Britain narrowly missed a revolution 1381-1926. The reason I read it is because McLynn is the author of what seems to be the definitive biography of BPC. I don't think I'm actually going to read that book, but I thought I could get the gist of his opinions if I read the chapter on the 45 in this other book…

Sorry again for the poor spelling etc, since I'm dictating to spare my hands.

there's nothing new for me about the actual course of the war, but I learned two new things about the economics of the period which I'm really surprised I haven't come across elsewhere. Why has no one said this before? the first is that the anti Catholic feeling in Britain had (among other things) an economic basis. The so called Abbey lands were taken from the Catholic Church, and the owners of that land were afraid that if the country became Catholic again, then these lands would be taken from them, Even in the 18th century. This was a third of britain’s land! Of course it had changed hands a lot of times since then, and now often belonged to various members of the aristocracy. the jacobites from James II onwards never intended to give that land back to the Catholic Church, but it was used as a Whig scare tactic against them.

So the second thing I learned is about the importance of britain's national debt. Apparently William of orange needed a lot of money for his wars, and the monarchs after that borrowed too. There was a whole system of financial capitalism set in place after 1688, like the Bank of England and the South sea company. The Whigs were very worried that if James II or BPC ended up on the throne, they would repudiate the national debt since it had been pledged by illegitimate monarchs (from the jacobite POV). obviously the debt holders were rich and powerful people, allied with the Whigs or Whig politicians themselves. this is the primary reason for the stock market crashes connected with jacobite attempts. And unlike the situation with the Abbey lands, James III or BPC might very well have done that. Many of James III’s advisors apparently counseled him to do so. BPC equivocated in 1745, and it's unclear what he would have done if he had won. Obviously it would have been good for state finances, but bad for (relations with) the debt holders including the Dutch. it would also have allowed James III/BPC to lower the high taxes, which was a major jacobite criticism of the whigs, and conciliate the people on which the taxes fell.

McLynn agrees with Szechi about the increasing radicalism of jacobite politics and how far it had come from the divine right of James II.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

These were both very interesting, thank you! I had probably run across both facts in my reading but they didn't stick, because politics weren't my main interest.

McLynn is the author of what seems to be the definitive biography of BPC.

I definitely read this at least once, but I wasn't critically assessing different authors in those days (mostly just getting outraged if I found mistakes or "mistakes"), so I can't tell you what I thought of it, alas.

From:

luzula

He occasionally did that annoying thing where he made a judgment about somebody's character without backing it up. Hopefully he does better work when he writes book length on the topic, instead of writing just a chapter to sum it up…

From:

cahn

Oh wow, those are both super interesting. I certainly got into history through the crazy personal stories, but it's interesting how important these economic systems are. Thanks!