tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/james-ii-22610/articlesJames II – The Conversation2024-01-18T13:28:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212032024-01-18T13:28:12Z2024-01-18T13:28:12ZConflict over William Penn statue removal in Philadelphia misses a point – Penn himself might have objected to it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569690/original/file-20240116-25-ynf8i8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C5808%2C3895&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A statue of William Penn stands at Welcome Park in Philadelphia.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/WilliamPennStatue/3c580aa0cf7c4b1b9a04e895d6cb4410/photo?Query=william%20penn%20statue&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=21&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Matt Rourke</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The National Park Service’s <a href="https://www.nps.gov/inde/learn/news/park-seeks-input-on-the-rehabilitation-of-welcome-park.htm">proposed removal of a statue of William Penn</a> from Philadelphia’s Welcome Park turned out to be short-lived. Announced on Jan. 5, 2024, the proposal was quickly <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/william-penn-statue-philadelphia-nps-social-media-outrage-20240109.html">pulled from consideration</a> due to a public firestorm. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.repcutler.com/News/33378/Latest-News/Cutler-decries-Biden-administration-attempt-to-cancel-William-Penn">Republican leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives</a> accused the Biden administration of attempting to “cancel William Penn out of whole cloth.” The proposal was, he said, an example of contemporary left-wing “wokeism.” <a href="https://twitter.com/GovernorShapiro/status/1744502454048178194">The state’s Democratic governor</a> had also opposed the plans.</p>
<p>Setting aside debates over whether the statue should remain in its Welcome Park location or not, however, you could ask a slightly different question: Should there be a statue at all?</p>
<p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/october-14/#:%7E:text=William%20Penn%2C%20English%20religious%20and,of%20his%20North%20American%20colony.">Born in London in 1644, Penn</a> spent the better part of his adult life advocating against the persecution of religious dissenters. <a href="https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/william-penn/#:%7E:text=Penn%20used%20his%20diplomatic%20skills,formation%20of%20the%20Pennsylvania%20colony.">King Charles II granted him an American colony in 1681</a>; he traveled to America the following year, arriving on the ship Welcome – hence the name, Welcome Park. </p>
<p>Penn envisioned his colony as a place where <a href="https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/william-penn-and-the-founding-of-pennsylvania">civil and religious liberty could thrive</a> in ways that were impossible in his home country. Although he spent just four years in America, <a href="https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers-pennsylvania">he oversaw the founding of the colonial government</a> as well as its capital city, Philadelphia. Since 1894, a 37-foot statue of Penn has <a href="https://www.associationforpublicart.org/artwork/william-penn/">graced the top of Philadelphia City Hall</a>; the present controversy had to do with a 6-foot replica of that statue, located at the former site of Penn’s first Philadelphia home.</p>
<p>Having spent the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/william-penn-9780190234249">better part of two decades studying Penn’s life</a>, career and legacy, one thing stands out to me clearly: The Quakerism that transformed Penn’s life in Ireland, in his early 20s, and that he spent the rest of his life serving and promoting, was profoundly hostile to expressions of human vanity. It condemned anything that suggested the elevation of one individual or social class over others.</p>
<p>In other words, William Penn might well have objected to a William Penn statue. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569935/original/file-20240117-19-nkd0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A green lawn with gravestones at the far end, surrounded by trees and shrubs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569935/original/file-20240117-19-nkd0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569935/original/file-20240117-19-nkd0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569935/original/file-20240117-19-nkd0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569935/original/file-20240117-19-nkd0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569935/original/file-20240117-19-nkd0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569935/original/file-20240117-19-nkd0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569935/original/file-20240117-19-nkd0gn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Penn and several family members are buried here, or somewhere near here, in Jordans, England.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregory Zucker, contributed</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Opposing expressions of vanity</h2>
<p>These egalitarian principles – expressed through such vehicles as plain speech and dress, a refusal to remove hats to honor social “superiors,” and a rejection of luxurious apparel and worldly titles – precipitated a bitter rupture between Penn and his father when he became affiliated with the Society of Friends – the formal name for the Quakers – in 1667. They also set him on the path that would lead him to Pennsylvania 15 years later.</p>
<p>Penn made his name as a defender of such plain principles. He was fined by the judge for refusing to remove his hat at his 1670 London trial for unlawful assembly and disturbing the peace, stemming from his <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Peoples_Ancient_and_Just_Liberties_A/mcNbAAAAcAAJ?hl=en">preaching to an unauthorized religious gathering</a>. As he put it, “I do not believe, that to be any respect.” Despite numerous threats from the judge, Penn’s jury found him not guilty. The fine for refusing to remove his hat, however, remained in force. He had earlier offered no fewer than 16 reasons against such “hat-honour” in his pamphlet, published in 1669, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Penn-English-Quaker-leader-and-colonist">titled “No Cross, No Crown.</a>”</p>
<p>A decade later, shortly after <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/pa01.asp">receiving his colonial charter</a>, Penn took pains to ensure that people knew his American colony was not named for him, which would have represented the height of personal vanity. It was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Penn-British-admiral">named for his father</a>, a well-known naval commander and friend of Charles II. Though William Penn had proposed “New Wales,” that name was rejected; when he suggested “Sylvania,” the king added “Penn.” </p>
<p>Thus was born Pennsylvania, Penn wrote <a href="https://digitallibrary.hsp.org/index.php/Detail/objects/13236">in a letter to fellow English Quaker Robert Turner</a>, “a name the King [gave] it in honor to my father … whom he often mentions with praise.” Penn even tried to bribe the undersecretaries of state to change the name, “for I feared lest it should be looked on as vanity in me.” </p>
<p>Members of the Society of Friends were so committed to opposing expressions of vanity that for a time, both during Penn’s lifetime and for years after his death, they forbade grave markers entirely.</p>
<h2>Unmarked grave or grand mausoleum?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/october-14/">Penn died in 1718 in England</a>. Philadelphia lawyer George Harrison was deputized by Pennsylvania’s government to <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/08016753/">bring Penn’s remains</a> back from England to Philadelphia in 1882, to mark 200 years since the founder’s first arrival. </p>
<p>But Quakers in Jordans, a village in Buckinghamshire, England, where Penn is buried, insisted that the precise location of Penn’s remains were unknown. The meeting – in other words, the local Quaker congregation – had decided to do away with gravestones entirely in 1766. Friends Meeting clerk Richard Littleboy told Harrison that no one was entirely sure where Penn rested. </p>
<p>Jordans Friends also pointed to the incongruity of Penn being interred in a grand mausoleum, with pomp and fanfare, as Pennsylvania officials planned to do, when Friends’ principles pointed so firmly in the opposite direction. </p>
<p>Littleboy protested “the removal of his remains to a trans-atlantic home, amid the pomp and circumstance of a state ceremonial, accompanied in all probability by military honors and parade,” which he considered “utterly repugnant” to Penn’s “<a href="https://archive.org/details/remainsofwilliam00harr/page/42/mode/2up">character and sentiment</a>.”</p>
<p>And so Harrison returned to Pennsylvania empty-handed, and <a href="https://journals.sas.ac.uk/fhs/article/view/4614/4566">Penn remains to this day somewhere</a> in the burial ground outside Jordans Meetinghouse in Buckinghamshire, England.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569695/original/file-20240116-27-2jwy6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man wearing a large black hat; a white long-haired wig and 18th-century clothes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569695/original/file-20240116-27-2jwy6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569695/original/file-20240116-27-2jwy6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569695/original/file-20240116-27-2jwy6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569695/original/file-20240116-27-2jwy6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=652&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569695/original/file-20240116-27-2jwy6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569695/original/file-20240116-27-2jwy6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569695/original/file-20240116-27-2jwy6a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Penn.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/use-this-image/?mkey=mw42786">An engraving by Prior, after Unknown artist, National Portrait Gallery</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From City Hall to Welcome Park</h2>
<p>The statue in Welcome Park pales, of course, compared to the massive Penn that stands atop City Hall, and which, as an iconic part of Philadelphia’s skyline for more than a century, is surely not going anywhere anytime soon.</p>
<p>The Welcome Park site more generally – which also includes a model of the <a href="http://phillyhistoryphotos.com/slate-roof-house/">Slate Roof House</a>, Penn’s first home in Philadelphia – is a historically significant site that merits upkeep and interpretive resources appropriate to 21st century concerns. There are many ways to accomplish these tasks. It is worth noting that representatives from the Native American tribes consulted by the Park Service on the plan for the park apparently were not especially concerned about <a href="https://apnews.com/article/william-penn-statue-native-american-philadelphia-fd36a446127f987c3935931f94ecd477">either the statue or its location in Welcome Park</a>.</p>
<p>The statue itself – in miniature, at Welcome Park, or supersized, on City Hall – implicitly poses its own question: How best to commemorate someone who spent his life guided by the principles of a group that resisted commemoration?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>
In the past I received a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship (2011-12) to study Penn's political thought.</span></em></p>A proposal to remove William Penn’s statue from a Philadelphia park was pulled after public outcry. Penn’s biographer says his Quaker religion may well have disapproved of such a statue.Andrew Murphy, Professor of Political Science, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1048572018-10-12T11:57:32Z2018-10-12T11:57:32ZPrincess Eugenie and the unexpected importance of second daughters of second sons<p>The reaction of most of the world’s press and the British public to the marriage of HRH Princess Eugenie of York, ninth in line to the British throne has been <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/princess-eugenie-2-million-taxpayers-money-prince-andrew-labour-mp-a8497221.html">at best lukewarm</a>. But this indifference is not really extraordinary –the second daughter of the second son of Elizabeth II has never featured prominently in international media. </p>
<p>Since her birth in 1990, Eugenie – who is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45827183">marrying drinks executive Jack Brooksbank</a> – has never formed part of the actively working monarchy in the same manner as her cousins, princes William and Harry. While she does support some public charities in keeping with the roles and duties of her family – most recently in the <a href="https://people.com/royals/princess-eugenie-travels-to-serbia-to-help-fight-human-trafficking-ahead-of-her-royal-wedding/">fight against human trafficking</a> – she is not on the Civil List, and has pursued <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45827183">an independent career</a> in fine art sales, making use of a degree in the history of art from Newcastle University. </p>
<p>But it was not always so easy for a princess so far down the royal pecking order to stay out of the spotlight – and history has shown that sometimes unexpected heirs turn out to have important roles to play.</p>
<p>A recent trend in historical research has been to look beyond the dominant central characters of the history of monarchy and investigate peripheral members of royal dynasties – the princely satellites to royal suns, as I explored <a href="https://theconversation.com/prince-harry-and-the-history-of-the-heir-and-the-spare-96685">in a previous piece</a> for The Conversation. In extending this story one step further, to the second daughters of second sons, we can see that the history of monarchy in Europe was in fact a much wider affair, embracing not just kings and queens, but even those members of their families who were fairly remote from the expected succession to the throne.</p>
<h2>Anne the survivor</h2>
<p>Princess Anne of York, who was born in 1665, was expected to play a fairly peripheral role in the British monarchy. The daughter of James, Duke of York, and niece to Charles II – a second daughter of a second son – she was fodder, you may have thought, for a marriage to secure a diplomatic alliance for the Stuart monarchy. But Anne had a couple of things going for her: none of her brothers had survived infancy and it was clear by the time of her birth that her uncle Charles was not going to produce an heir. Most importantly, neither England or Scotland barred female succession to the throne.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240396/original/file-20181012-119135-1tg8yu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/240396/original/file-20181012-119135-1tg8yu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240396/original/file-20181012-119135-1tg8yu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240396/original/file-20181012-119135-1tg8yu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240396/original/file-20181012-119135-1tg8yu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240396/original/file-20181012-119135-1tg8yu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/240396/original/file-20181012-119135-1tg8yu0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James II with his family.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Lely/Benedetto Gennari via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>James’ first wife, <a href="http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/stuart_37.html">Anne Hyde</a>, died in 1671 and the Duke of York remarried the Italian princess <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mary-of-Modena">Mary Beatrice of Modena</a> in 1673 – and hoped for a male heir. Daughter Anne was married off, therefore, in 1683, to <a href="http://www.unofficialroyalty.com/prince-george-of-denmark/">Prince George of Denmark</a>, the younger brother of King Christian V. Christian was a protestant – but also an ally of France’s catholic king, Louis XIV – and so a good counterbalance to Dutch power in the North Sea, which was represented dynastically by William of Orange. William had been married a few years before to Anne’s older sister, Princess Mary.</p>
<p>In 1685, Charles II died and his brother became James II of England (and James VII of Scotland). But he was only to reign for a few years before being chased off the throne by the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688. His daughter Mary was proclaimed queen alongside her husband William III. Anne became their heir. </p>
<p>So, when William died in 1702, Anne succeeded as queen – and reigned for 12 years. Finally emerging from the shadows, she surprised many by proving herself <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/anne.shtml">a capable ruler</a>, overseeing the transformation of England and Scotland into a united Great Britain. It was during her reign that the two-party system of government largely evolved.</p>
<h2>Changing roles</h2>
<p>As junior royal daughters go, Anne was atypical in her rise to the top – as many similarly situated younger daughters of younger sons faded into obscurity. But the nature of the British monarchy regarding female succession has meant that, while still limited, there were more opportunities for royal women than in neighbouring France or Germany where women were still banned from the throne. Queen Victoria was the <a href="http://www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/hanover_6.htm">daughter of a fourth son</a> and Queen Elizabeth II is the <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/queen-elizabeth-ii-9286165">daughter of a second son</a>, George VI, another duke of York, who succeeded to the throne after his brother’s <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2701463.stm">abdication in 1936</a>.</p>
<p>The role of junior princesses marrying to aid royal diplomacy did of course continued: royal daughters and grand-daughters – even those fairly remote from the throne – were directed by Queen Victoria to solidify alliances through marriage, resulting in several members of her extended family being <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2552270/Royal-Cousins-War-tells-family-rift-saw-George-V-Tsar-Nicholas-against-German-cousin.html">on opposite sides in World War I</a>. </p>
<p>One of these, Princess Victoria Melita, another second daughter of a second son (Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh), defied royal tradition and started off the 20th century with a shocking new idea, <a href="https://www.historyextra.com/period/victorian/in-profile-the-british-princess-who-scandalised-the-royal-family/">divorcing her first husband in 1901</a> and marrying for love the Grand Duke Cyril of Russia, against the family’s wishes. Another second daughter would attempt to do the same in the 1950s, as seen in the recent television documentary <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bk8xcp">Princess Margaret: the Rebel Royal</a>. </p>
<p>In today’s world, Princess Eugenie’s choice of husband has caused no royal ripples, and it is extremely unlikely that – barring some kind of bizarre disaster that removed the eight people who are ahead of her in succession – she will ever rise to greater prominence in the history of monarchy of the United Kingdom. But history has shown, sometimes we can expect the unexpected.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104857/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan Spangler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>At least one second daughter of a second son of the British monarch has ended up on the throne in her own right.Jonathan Spangler, Senior Lecturer in History, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/609562016-07-04T10:53:00Z2016-07-04T10:53:00ZThe long history behind the power of Royal Portraits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/128667/original/image-20160629-15248-75xu66.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Generation game.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Mail</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The royal portraits released to mark the <a href="https://www.royal.uk/queens-birthday">90th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II</a> deliberately emphasise her status as the matriarch within a flourishing family. The oldest and newest generations of royals smile together for the camera, projecting the Windsor line as safely secured into the future. </p>
<p>These well choreographed and well publicised pictures blend longevity and authority with an appreciation of renewal and dynastic security. Across British history, however, the idea that the monarch’s nuclear family is necessarily a unit of stable authority has been hard won.</p>
<p>While of course there have been royal families for as long as there have been monarchs, spouses and offspring haven’t always shared the limelight. The pivotal era of change is that of the <a href="http://stuarts-online.com/">Stuarts (1603-1714)</a>, who reigned when print culture exploded and new forms of visual media emerged. </p>
<p>Successive Stuart monarchs quickly grasped the value of royal imagery, keenly sponsoring portraits of themselves or holding lavish events which promoted their reign and policies. In turn, authorised images were disseminated more extensively through cheaply printed pamphlets. </p>
<p>Sharing the royal image with their subjects was a new and powerful tool – but it also carried risks.</p>
<p>Promoting his family held advantages for the first Stuart monarch, James VI of Scotland, who assumed the English throne in 1603, becoming James I. After the turbulent reigns of the early Tudors, and decades of rule by a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/tudors/elizabeth_i_01.shtml">Virgin Queen</a>, James brought his subjects a healthy royal family. While he perhaps had little affection for his wife, Queen Anna of Denmark – and rather more for his succession of male royal favourites – he appreciated the importance of dynastic continuity and placed his three young children clearly in the public eye.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127768/original/image-20160622-7203-na1ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127768/original/image-20160622-7203-na1ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127768/original/image-20160622-7203-na1ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127768/original/image-20160622-7203-na1ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127768/original/image-20160622-7203-na1ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127768/original/image-20160622-7203-na1ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127768/original/image-20160622-7203-na1ico.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=525&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James I and his royal progeny.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikicommons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>London’s printers devoted much attention to the king and his family. Genealogical charts and portraits of the family were disseminated in cheap printed form. James’s great book of political theory, <a href="http://www.stoics.com/basilikon_doron.html">Basilikon Doron</a>, was also rushed into print in London in 1603. This text was an extended essay on dynastic continuity, addressed to his eldest son, Prince Henry. And while James’s family experienced more than its share of upheaval, with Henry dying suddenly in 1612, and his sister Elizabeth being sucked into the morass of the <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/thirty-years-war">Thirty Years’ War</a>, royal imagery stressed the continuity of Stuart rule.</p>
<p>Charles I, James’s second son, went on to exploit even more fully the potential of the royal family image. Charles’s marriage to the French princess Henrietta Maria coincided with his father’s unexpected death in 1625, meaning his reign began at the same time as the start of a stable and happy marriage. His image as a ruler was virtually indistinguishable from his profile as a husband and father. </p>
<p><a href="http://english.rutgers.edu/images/documents/faculty/coiro_ball_of_strife_essay_2009.pdf">Scholars have even argued</a> that Charles only established an identifiable and independent reputation as a ruler from around 1630, when Henrietta Maria gave birth to the first of a succession of seven children.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127526/original/image-20160621-13008-1ht0mav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127526/original/image-20160621-13008-1ht0mav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127526/original/image-20160621-13008-1ht0mav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127526/original/image-20160621-13008-1ht0mav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=710&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127526/original/image-20160621-13008-1ht0mav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127526/original/image-20160621-13008-1ht0mav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/127526/original/image-20160621-13008-1ht0mav.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles I, family guy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Royal Collection</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>All the media of the age were mobilised to celebrate the family. Volumes of poetry were published to mark each royal birth, while the greatest court artists were commissioned to paint portraits. One portrait of Charles, Henrietta Maria and their first two children, by Anthony Van Dyck, hangs to this day in Buckingham Palace. Yet the risks of this approach also became apparent, as the perceived influence of a foreign, Catholic queen <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=oz-BxVxgzhwC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">became a focus of resentment</a> in the 1640s. </p>
<h2>Traditional gender roles</h2>
<p>Set against a more traditional model of masculine authority, Charles was derided by his critics as weak and vulnerable. The publication of secret correspondence between the couple, in <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-kk-AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&hl=en%20-%20v=onepage&q&f=false#v=onepage&q&f=false">The King’s Cabinet Opened</a> (1645), fuelled the flames of civil war.</p>
<p>The royal family remained a source of tension in the second half of the Stuart era. Charles II’s childless marriage to Katherine of Braganza lacked the intensity of his parents’ union. For his brother and heir, James II, the birth of a Catholic son in 1688 in fact precipitated his downfall. While his subjects were prepared to tolerate James II’s leadership, they were anxious about the prospect of a future line of Catholic Stuarts. </p>
<p>His opponents challenged the maternity of the child, James Francis Edward, alleging that he was an imposter smuggled into the Queen’s rooms in a bedpan. Hundreds of pamphlets, histories and even plays were produced about this “warming pan plot”. </p>
<p>Months later, James’s son-in-law, William of Orange, capitalised on discontent and invaded England to seize the crown. Thereafter, images of the Stuart royal family tended to be divisive, often associated with the “Jacobites” who sought to restore James to the throne.</p>
<p>Today, the Windsors can congratulate themselves on their evident success in creating an image suited to the times. Yet a glance back in history, to the very century when the royal family was invented as a media product, underlines the challenges that they face in promoting – and maintaining – the positive royal image in a digital age.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/60956/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew McRae receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna-Marie Linnell receives funding from the AHRC for her PhD studentship. </span></em></p>Royal PR in pictures started with the Stuarts 400 years ago.Andrew McRae, Head of English, Professor of Renaissance Studies, University of ExeterAnna-Marie Linnell, PhD candidate, University of ExeterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/554032016-02-25T15:55:58Z2016-02-25T15:55:58ZBagpipe bandits: how the English blew Scotland’s national instrument first<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112942/original/image-20160225-15160-rb9vda.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This could come to blows</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zoetnet/6157173870/in/photolist-ao68hb-4y5LxV-yEv2G1-4y9ZYG-am6UVC-5eFzMz-4ya11o-cpDinJ-4uaqGB-nvsxks-am46fx-fHsLC-4y5LqB-4WPCqz-dun225-4WTUc7-584U6X-2ivDeB-6fbTej-4fZgtT-v1DpgG-8KEd4T-py15S5-9VetDC-5edobD-5ednuV-8mnm6G-783jaN-ng1RF3-bpWbNj-pDec53-afK9pD-8uzCL1-rf78P9-pi9vpm-e3fG7y-am47BP-i5BTD-iuXZCq-8uzD7w-7DKyB9-piydqi-oyz7HB-3iUxqF-5eh8gw-5eFyHK-4ya155-ouN43d-5ecLQc-8dLnBf">zoetnet</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Great Highland bagpipe is as central to Scottish identity as tartan and Robert Burns. Walk down Edinburgh’s Royal Mile and you’ll hear that familiar wail, while pipers gather each year to empty their lungs at everything from local competitions to the famous <a href="http://www.edintattoo.co.uk">Edinburgh Military Tattoo</a>. The pipes were not invented in Scotland, though. In fact, they are part of a much older tradition that some may find unpalatable: the English were playing the pipes hundreds of years before the Scots got their hands on them. </p>
<p>Bagpipes are actually a family of instruments, and most countries from India to Scotland and from Sweden to Libya boast at least one indigenous variety. They <a href="http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199203833.001.0001/acref-9780199203833">date back</a> over 3,000 years, but appear to have been developed from the hornpipe, which <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Bagpipes.html?id=a6MIAQAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">goes back</a> even further. Through the millennia, bagpipes have appeared in an incredible number of varieties – big like a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVPjHB9oEc">zampogna gigante</a>; small like a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OVYA-DJ_og">musette</a>; droneless, or with two or more drones (or reeds); and with either one or two chanters (or pipes). </p>
<p>The drones can be vertical or horizontal, compressed into a little barrel or dangling on the piper’s back, and the bag can be inflated by a mouthpiece or by bellows. The bag can be covered in brocade or tartan, left as a tanned skin, or even made of Gore-Tex. Each has its own scale, tone and sound, all of which tells a tale about their home country.</p>
<h2>Bag-innings</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112944/original/image-20160225-15170-1l05ezb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bonnie banks O’ Umbria?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stockholm_-_Antikengalerie_5_-_Büste_Kaiser_Nero.jpg#/media/File:Stockholm_-_Antikengalerie_5_-_Büste_Kaiser_Nero.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Early documents about bagpipes are scarce. Though literature featuring bagpipes in Ancient Greece is dubious, sources confirm that the instrument was known to the Romans. The ancient historian Dio Chrysostom <a href="http://www.loebclassics.com/view/dio_chrysostom-discourses_71_philosopher/1951/pb_LCL385.165.xml">described</a> Emperor Nero as being able to play the pipe both with his mouth and by squeezing a bag under his armpit. <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3916199-the-bagpipe">According to</a> the most widely accepted opinion, the Romans brought the instrument into Britain after their invasion in AD 43.</p>
<p>It is not until the Middle Ages that the bagpipe tradition took off in a significant way, however. By that time there are copious references all across Europe. A remarkable episode in British bagpipe literature is the <a href="https://archive.org/details/oldenglishriddl01wyatgoog">Exeter Riddles</a>, a manuscript containing Anglo-Saxon riddles possibly collected by <a href="http://www.britannia.com/bios/leofricex.html">bishop Leofric</a> (1016-1072). Riddle 31 tells of a beautiful, noble bird resting on a man’s shoulder, with its beak facing downwards and its feet in the air. <a href="http://uncpress.unc.edu/browse/book_detail?title_id=1928">The answer</a> to the name of the bird is the bagpipe, since its beak is the chanter and its feet are the drones. </p>
<p>The first time the term “bagpipe” appears in its English-language form is several hundred years later, <a href="http://www.britac.ac.uk/pubs/cat/dml.cfm">in 1288</a> (albeit modified for a Latin text). It appears in an entry in the Book of the Treasurer of King Edward I, “cuidam garcioni cum una bagepipa pipanti coram rege de dono ipsius regis, ij s.”. This translates as “a certain servant with a bagpipe who piped before the king was given two shillings” – a good sum, roughly the weekly income for an agricultural worker at the time.</p>
<h2>Wha’s like us?</h2>
<p>The first unquestionable appearance of the bagpipe in Scotland is not until the 15th century, in carvings in Rosslyn Chapel and Melrose Abbey, respectively of an angel-piper and a pig-piper. It is reasonable to think that the tradition was absorbed into Scotland from the south, before developing its own characteristics. By the 16th century it was Scotland’s military instrument, and a carrier of public events. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=662&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/112950/original/image-20160225-15165-1dhd3if.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=832&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ye Jacobites by name …</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/melodeonjohn/19837300939/in/photolist-wdXmrZ-wpdLN4-wFoSkY-bo2mhH-yGAgeP-yGAgg2-8vfQMM-8JqBqm-8pxesd-fu8MTK-fdY1uX-fuoWZ9-fu9Qpk-fup5UU-fuojr3-mCCFdL-nYDJfM-8Mu96b-4TLhjK-cRBqJm-ixpTZX-8uzCL1-8Ch2S1-8Mu8ZQ-8uwyZv-6gfKMa-8JqBof-dCpjWL-hiYW9p-mCE7Nv-6DQZed-dae8Go-fesMdF-8CEhn9-8DR9f3-9saxqp-5bNWVW-fBVZJ3-8QodX3-fytumW-oPETHQ-8M5zeK-8MqKB5-8M9qYA-8Mcg5P-8MrCab-8MwVJW-dwzZy9-dysjhE-dvDN5R">Jock Stewart Redmond</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Much 18th-century Scottish material about the bagpipe is linked to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/scotland_jacobites_01.shtml">Jacobitism</a>, the movement that sought the return of the Catholic Stewart kings to the British throne following the removal of James II in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. The Jacobites saw the bagpipes as an icon of Scottish national belonging and military pride, while their Hanoverian opponents used the instrument in propaganda to caricature the Jacobites. </p>
<p>This politicisation of the bagpipes led to a common belief that they were banned in Scotland. Partly the source of the confusion is the <a href="http://www.mqup.ca/traditional-gaelic-bagpiping--1745-1945-products-9780773521346.php">Disarming Act of 1746</a>, to which a passage added two years later ordered “restraining the Use of the Highland Dress”. It included tartan and plaid, but never the bagpipes. The misconception was probably strengthened by episodes such as the <a href="http://thepipesofwar.com/production-blog/?p=107">hanging of piper James Reid</a> of Dundee. He was captured in 1745 in Carlisle and sentenced to hanging for treason, having taken part in Jacobite rebellions. He may have been a piper, but his hanging had nothing to do with disobeying the Disarming Act.</p>
<p>The bagpipes have been banned – but in Poland during World War II. Original research from the Ethnographic Museum of Warsaw in collaboration with Poznan’s Museum of Musical Instruments shows footage documenting how Germans ordered Poles not to play their version of the pipes, perhaps threatened by the instrument’s ability to stir nationalist spirits. Such is the information that comes out of bagpipe studies, which has been undergoing a revival of late – and is indeed the subject of a paper at a <a href="https://www.thepipingcentre.co.uk/bagpipe-education/international-bagpipe-conference-2016/">conference in Glasgow</a> on February 26-28. So while the Scots may have made the instrument their own over the centuries, they share the piping tradition with the hands of many nationalities – including the English. Widdye credit it?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55403/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vivien Williams received the Stephen Copley Postgraduate Research Award (BARS) in 2012. She is affiliated with Edinburgh University’s Institute for the Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and with the International Bagpipe Organisation as co-organiser of the third International Bagpipe Conference.</span></em></p>There’s something every Scot should know about those caterwauling pipes.Vivien Williams, Research Assistant (Musicology), University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/506702015-11-14T10:23:54Z2015-11-14T10:23:54ZHow a battle 300 years ago nearly wrecked the new union of England and Scotland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101832/original/image-20151113-10420-1x707c9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Argyll's troops recreated at Sheriffmuir</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/machighlander/21146424384/in/photolist-oeGTyr-cSKDhj-cSKELW-z6ZBUj-cSKBJb-7sQ2i7-ovf9Y-cSLSRj-oeVV7v-6NoVvH-g44cvq-cSLTBY-acqUqN-6fTzhm-ydDs69-8aJvWC-A3FR9a-owgGrE-owrZDy-8aKtxC-yV2bLJ-8DXUpg-ow6L8C-A7C4pF-aE4fPW-9KRpMD-syD8dW-i2JCG-ej9Nqt-7vdqUx-zbuMmH-dDAd69-ydCXeS-ar6tXP-ydD85o-9HdtVC-aqNooT-aqNooD-ehaQey-znHh4x-pfxAv3-nNSHTc-jYv6c-jYv3L-yXc3Ut-38hRQc-r6n43-zeH6JM-yT4ZJ7-yX61BW">Jim MacRae</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Let us imagine: the prime minster of Scotland arranges an urgent summit meeting with his counterpart in England to pressure his southern neighbour not to leave the European Union. The Scots-Irish commercial union can withstand England’s unwillingness to join them in the eurozone, but leaving the EU would be a social tragedy for a close southern neighbour – as well as a perceived boon for Scottish business with the departure of substantial banking and financial activities from London to Edinburgh. </p>
<p>Newspapers meanwhile report that the Queen has made desperate phone calls to Downing Street pleading with the English PM not to leave the EU. She warned him it could encourage the break-up of the Union of the Crowns, which had united the Scottish and English monarchies in 1603 (while maintaining separate parliaments). </p>
<p>This parallel world is not one created on the back of a different outcome to last year’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/scottish-referendum">Scottish referendum</a>, but on something that nearly happened exactly 300 years ago. Few people realise how close Scotland and England came to heading in different directions only a few years after <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/evolutionofparliament/legislativescrutiny/act-of-union-1707/">the Act of Union</a> of 1707, which established the United Kingdom of Great Britain with one parliament. The event in question is the Battle of Sheriffmuir, which took place near Stirling in Scotland on November 13 1715. </p>
<h2>Contested result</h2>
<p>Sheriffmuir was the pivotal battle in a rebellion in which the supporters of the Catholic James Francis Stuart, the Jacobites, attempted to return the exiled Stuarts to the throne by force. Nicknamed the Old Pretender, James Francis Stuart was the son of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/james_ii.shtml">James II (VII of Scotland)</a>, who had been deposed by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_iii_of_orange">William of Orange</a> in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/civil_war_revolution/glorious_revolution_01.shtml">Glorious Revolution</a> of 1688-9. Having taken Perth, the Jacobites were moving south, commanded by the earl of Mar, determined to change the course of history. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=776&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101900/original/image-20151114-10420-8xxkau.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=975&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Francis Stuart by Alexis Simon Belle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Francis_Edward_Stuart#/media/File:Prince_James_Francis_Edward_Stuart_by_Alexis_Simon_Belle.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sheriffmuir is sometimes <a href="https://ia802701.us.archive.org/22/items/historyofscotla03brow/historyofscotla03brow.pdf">confusingly declared</a> a defeat for the Jacobites, but in fact was a tense and bloody draw between Mar’s troops and the loyalist soldiers under the chief of clan Campbell, the duke of Argyll – even though it was about 12,000 Jacobites against 4,000 government troops. On the same day, the government defeated Jacobite forces <a href="http://www.visitlancashire.com/explore/preston/the-battle-of-preston">at Preston</a> in the north of England, ending all hope of a successful rising. The Jacobites paused and then dispersed at the very time that the Old Pretender finally landed in north east Scotland. He lingered for only four weeks before returning into exile in France in the company of Mar.</p>
<p>The whole episode had very much alarmed the unionist and Hanoverian government in London. At the time the 1707 union was hated in England and Scotland, while <a href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/HistoryoftheMonarchy/KingsandQueensoftheUnitedKingdom/TheHanoverians/GeorgeI.aspx">King George I</a>, who had been crowned in 1714, was an unpopular foreigner who could not even speak the language of his people.</p>
<p>A clear victory for the Jacobite army would have seen a collapse in the new regime enacted by the 1707 act and a Stuart restoration, such would have been the boldness of the Jacobite forces rushing south to London. The union would have been halted in its tracks and separate parliaments reinstated under one monarch. As for religion, a Catholic king James III and VIII would have had to practise his faith in private while supporting the Church of England. As James II and VII had found out to his cost, England as much as Scotland was not prepared to tolerate a Catholic king without firm guarantees to protect Protestantism. </p>
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<h2>So near and yet …</h2>
<p>This whole what-might-have-been takes us back to James II and VII, the man who put the “James” into Jacobitism. Ever since he was replaced by <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/people/william_iii_of_orange">William of Orange</a>, he has suffered an <a href="http://www.historytoday.com/maurice-ashley/there-case-james-ii">exaggerated assassination</a> of his reputation from a stream of Whig and neo-Whig historians. They condemn him for a weak personality, sheer incompetence, cowardice and authoritarianism – and Catholic authoritarianism at that. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=991&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1245&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1245&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101901/original/image-20151114-10435-y0fc74.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1245&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">King James II by Sir Godfrey Kneller Bt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_England#/media/File:King_James_II_by_Sir_Godfrey_Kneller,_Bt.jpg">Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rper20/33/2">know that</a> he was impressed by the Scottish parliament and opposed to the Anglo-Scottish union from his private “Advice to his Son” of 1692, first published more than <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pk08AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">100 years later</a>. William of Orange <a href="http://www.jacobite.ca/documents/16890316.htm">claimed in 1689</a> that nothing could be more sensible than a union with the two kingdoms “living in the same island, having the same language, and the same common interest of religion and liberty” – James II and VII completely rejected this view and knew William’s scheme would help encourage Jacobite patriotism. </p>
<p>In his “advice”, James stated: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is the true interest of the crown to keep the kingdom of Scotland separate from England. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He said those who support union should be seen as “weak men, bribed by some private concern”. Indeed James would have voted Yes in last year’s referendum. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101834/original/image-20151113-10431-34v98l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Battle of Sheriffmuir by John Wootton.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The former king’s son James Francis <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Jacobite_threat.html?id=OBcXAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">had the same views</a>. Had he come to power on the back of a victory at Sheriffmuir, he would have ended the constitutional experiment that was the union of 1707. Perhaps in that alternate timeline, the Queen would have purred down the phone in the ear of the Scottish PM when she heard that an English referendum to leave the EU produced a No vote.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alastair is the author of James VII, Duke and King of Scots, 1633-1701 (John Donald, 2014) </span></em></p>Had the Jacobites triumphed at Sheriffmuir in 1715, Nicola Sturgeon would now be Scottish prime minister.Alastair Mann, Senior Lecturer in History, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.