Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 39

[cahn]

Last post, along with the usual 18th-century suspects, included the Ottonians; changing ideas of conception and women's sexual pleasure; Isabella of Parma (the one who fell in love, and vice versa, with her husband's sister); Henry IV and Bertha (and Henry's second wife divorcing him for "unspeakable sexual acts"). (Okay, Isabella of Parma was 18th century.)

Comments

Re: <i>The '15: The Great Jacobite Rebellion</i> by Daniel Szechi (2006)

[luzula]

So, the Earl of Mar. Szechi is not the type of historian to gossip about anyone’s private life when it isn't relevant to the larger history, or make snarky judgments. (Bruce Lenman, on the other hand, I absolutely recall as making snarky judgments about Mar, but then he is pretty much the master of snarky judgments. As an example, he said that John Graham of Claverhouse "was primarily a very unimaginative soldier for whom the arrival of an order from a superior terminated all speculative thought, if indeed he ever indulged in such".)

Szechi portrays Mar as probably turning Jacobite because he was dismissed from office in September 1714. Mar was facing financial ruin without his minister’s salary (in fact he had not been paid his salary for a while because Oxford manipulated the payment of salaries to keep his followers in line), and in the first place (before turning Jacobite) he seemed to want to make himself a political nuisance who would be best bought off by the new regime. So he embarked on a campaign against the Union. But it failed because the Whigs and Tories couldn't work together, even though many Whigs were also skeptical about the union.

So after that, Mar turned to Jacobitism, and did what he could do promote rebellion in Scotland, among other things telling them that the English Jacobites were ready to rise. But it was larger than him, so it's not like the rising was caused by him. He has been called incompetent as a leader during the rising, and he probably wasn't very competent. But he never claimed to have military experience, and he did follow the advice of the officers he had (but none of them were that great).

Sorry, I don't think there's anything particularly juicy for you here!

Re: <i>The '15: The Great Jacobite Rebellion</i> by Daniel Szechi (2006)

[selenak]

That's okay, it pretty much confirms what the Lady Mary biographer said about him.