The Jacbobites Worldwide
George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, by Pierre Parrocel ABDUA:30561
A
fter the defeat of the Jacobite forces in 1715 and 1746, thousands of refugees went into exile in pursuit of a safe haven and a secure livelihood. While some remained in Scotland, hiding their political sympathies, others travelled further afield, drawing on networks of kin or patronage, to establish new lives and opportunities abroad.
Sometimes accompanied by their families, experienced Scots, Irish and English soldiers swelled the military and naval ranks in France, Spain, Sweden, Italy, Austria, Prussia and Russia, providing mercenary troops as well as military leaders.
Some Jacobites were less fortunate and were forcibly exiled. Over 2,000 men, women and children were banished from Scotland to North America and the West Indies following the 1715 and 1745 Risings, where they were sold as indentured servants.
George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal
Until the 1715 Rising, the Earl Marischal, George Keith, was Chancellor of Marischal College. After the Jacobite defeat, Keith went into exile and became a diplomat for Frederick the Great of Prussia, losing both his title as Earl Marischal and his powers of patronage in Marischal College. This large-scale and optimistic portrait painted in 1716 reveals the continuing confidence of the Jacobite court, even after the defeat of 1715.
North America
Within 10 years of Culloden, the army emerged as a major link between Jacobite communities in Scotland and Britain’s North American colonies. With the outbreak of war between Britain and France in 1756, former Jacobites were encouraged into British military service. When peace arrived in 1763, officers and soldiers from the heartlands of Highland Jacobitism took up the government’s offer of free land in North America, alongside others seeking economic prosperity within Britain’s Atlantic world in the decade before the American War of Independence.
The experiences of Hugh Mercer and Flora MacDonald are striking examples of the changing identities and experiences of some of the Jacobite diaspora.
Flora MacDonald
Flora MacDonald is best known for aiding Charles Edward Stuart’s escape in 1746. The daughter of a Jacobite officer, her second and third husbands had served with the government, reflecting the divisions in Highland society. In 1774, MacDonald and her family emigrated to North Carolina. They were typical of many former Jacobites and supported Britain in the American War of Independence. The loss of two sons in British service and financial ruin followed, and MacDonald returned to Skye in 1785. This romanticised engraving of MacDonald derives from an Allan Ramsay portrait, painted while she was imprisoned in London in 1746.
Gallery
Click on an image to view full size.
Baltic Europe
James Edward Keith
James Edward Keith was the younger brother of the last Earl Marischal and went into exile after the 1715 Jacobite Rising. He soldiered throughout Europe and had great success as a Russian general. His military genius made him a favoured general of Frederick the Great of Prussia during the Seven Years War between Prussia and Austria. He was appointed governor of various territories, including the Ukraine, Finland and Berlin.
Before the Union of the Parliaments in 1707, Scotland had enjoyed centuries of trade with the Hanseatic League, an economic alliance stretching from the Baltic to the North Sea. Communities of Scots settled throughout the region and established trading networks over many generations. Following the 1715 and 1745 Risings, many seasoned professional soldiers, such as George and James Keith, used these established networks to build new lives and careers.
This 19th century oil painting depicts the aftermath of the Battle of Hochkirch in 1758, with the body of the fatally wounded James Edward Keith being carried into a church. Although the battle was a defeat for Prussia, it enabled Frederick the Great to retreat to safety. Frederick later had Keith’s body taken to Berlin to be buried and erected a statue of him there in 1769.
India
Britain’s rapidly developing empire in India offered Jacobites another opportunity for escape or rehabilitation after Culloden. Some had little choice. In 1747 the government offered Jacobite prisoners the choice of standing trial or enlisting for service in India. Mortality rates in the East Indies made army service little better than a death sentence. Others had more resources. The sons of minor gentry who had been involved in the 1745 Rising were able to depart quietly for Indian ports, where siblings and kinsmen offered refuge and a low profile.
John MacPherson
John MacPherson from Skye was the grandson of the fervent Jacobite, Donald MacLeod of Berneray. Family connections were the key to his successful imperial career. His uncle, Alexander MacLeod, captain of an East India Company merchant ship, offered him employment in 1767, shortly after he had graduated from King’s College in Aberdeen. MacPherson’s education provided him with the skills to navigate the intricate political and financial world of British India and he rose to become Governor-General of British India in 1785. He later used his Indian wealth to establish a bursary at King’s for Gaelic-speaking students. Imperial profits now helped support the perpetuation of Gaelic in Scotland.
Vice-Principal Roderick MacLeod of Aberdeen’s King’s College is shown second from right in this satirical print from 1786. He was a distant relative of John MacPherson and this kinship proved mutually beneficial. While MacPherson enhanced his prestige in India through his links with King’s College, MacLeod assisted the sons of Highland gentry who were students by securing MacPherson’s patronage for them in India. In the post-Jacobite world of British imperialism, former Jacobite and Hanoverian families did equally well.
Gallery
Click on an image to view full size.
Beads
Ludovoic Grant was a Jacobite captured at the battle of Preston in 1715 and banished to America the following year. He became a trader in the Cherokee Nation, learning their language and marrying a Cherokee woman. Today many Cherokee people claim descent from him. This beaded sash was probably made by a Cherokee or Choctaw woman in the later 18th century and was collected by another North-East Scot, Ogilvie of Barras.
ABDUA:
The Marischal Staff of Scotland
After the 1715 Rising, George Keith lost the title of Earl Marischal and his links with Marischal College, due to his support of the Jacobite cause. Living in exile in Potsdam in 1765, he took advantage of contact with the philosopher David Hume to send the 16th century Marischal Staff to Marischal College:
Potsdam, 1765.
As we have from here seldom occasion of gentlemen going to Scotland, and that you have often from Paris, I desire that you will do me the favour to forward my old baton of Marischal to the Marischal College of Aberdeen, and at the same time make them my compliments; hoping they will receive the useless present as still a mark of regard and affection.
Letter to David Hume from George Keith, Earl Marischal