Counting the ‘Cavaliers’:Two Contemporary Analyses of the Political Wing of the Scots Jacobite Underground in the Union Parliament¹

Underground movements are understandably reluctant to record the names and numbers of their adherents because any such compilation is manifestly a hostage to fortune. Hence very few lists of politically active Jacobites actually compiled by the Jacobites themselves have survived to the present day. In the French foreign ministry archives at La Corneille, however, there is a rare and previously unknown/unused example of such a list. ‘The Rolls of Parliament as they stand’, is a classic printed, marked list of all the lords entitled to sit in, and commissioners elected to, Queen Anne's Union Parliament. It identifies the political allegiances of the great majority of the sitting commissioners and peers, and in particular the Jacobites among them. Rather better known, yet hitherto seldom consulted or used, is a debriefing document describing the political alignment of a great many of those in parliament and the general political inclination of their constituents written by Captain Harry Straton for the Jacobite King James III and VIII in August 1706. These two sources are the basis of the analysis that follows. The focus is on what these two Jacobite analyses of the state of Scotland and Scottish politics can tell us about the political dynamics of the Scottish Parliament and the country more broadly on the eve of the Union debates.</p

Towards an Analytical Model of Military Effectiveness for the Early Modern Period: the Military Dynamics of the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion

Abstract Early modern European rebellions have long been of interest to military historians, yet, with the exception of the 1745 rebellion led by Charles Edward Stuart, the military history of the Jacobite rebellions against the English/British state is little known outside the Anglophone world. Likewise, though there have been many analyses of particular rebellions no analytical model of rebel military capabilities has hitherto been proposed, and thus meaningful comparisons between early modern rebellions located in different regions and different eras has been difficult. This article accordingly offers an analysis of the military effectiveness of the Jacobite rebels in 1715-16 structured by a model adapted from the ›Military Effectiveness‹ framework first advanced by Allan Millett and Williamson Murray. This is with a view to stimulating military-historical interest in Jacobite rebellions other than the ’45, and promoting more systematic discussion of the military effectiveness of early modern European rebel armies. </jats:p