I keep coming back to the Bonnie Prince probably because there is so much printed material available one way and another not to mention rather beautiful tableware and tall tales. In the past it was assumed that regional newspapers of the period reflected a Londoncentric viewpoint. This was what people wanted to read – with a side interest in the local crime rates, corresponding descriptions of executions and the occasional hideous accident.
In 1745 the press presented a very anti-Jacobite stance. There were headlines like “No Popery” and “No Pretender.” The London Gazette helpfully announced Bonnie Prince Charlie’s landing in Scotland with a £30,00 reward for his capture whilst the Newcastle Courant, one of the oldest regional papers (I think) provided a sketch map of the Battle of Colloden. The papers were so wholeheartedly Hanoverian that anything Scottish came almost to be regarded as a political and social threat to order and safety. This was a viewpoint that would last for some time afterwards. Harris’s article on Jacobitism identifies the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 as a news event of the kind with which we are all too familiar today – the papers ceased to report events they actively sort out scoops and battled one another to be first with a new angle or event.
Satirists made the point that the Jacobites were in league with the pope and being manipulated by the French. This particular example is in the hands of the British Museum. Another cartoon entitled The Highland Visitors depicts the Scots indulging in a spot of light plundering. To be fair the satirists were more than happy to point a finger at General Cope when he arrived in Berwick with the news of his defeat following Prestonpans and in the aftermath “Butcher Cumberland” was not presented in a warm or friendly light as this cartoon shows with Britannia weighing mercy and butchery:
The figures involved were presented in tabloid dimensions. This stereotyping was something that had grown out of the broadsheets and ballads of earlier centuries. There is even an article on anti-Scottishness in political prints of the period and the use of prints to depict stereotypical Scots including the blue bonnet which the Young Pretender can be seen wearing at the start of this post. Even more interestingly it was only in 1745 that tartan became synonymous with Scottishness as, I am sad to say, did being unwashed and eating oats. Having said that the counter balance was the concept of Highland savagery – making the gentrified Hanoverians look somewhat sissy in contrast. Bonnie Prince Charlie might have been the representative of popery, tyranny and chaos but he was also the brave “highland laddie” that grew from his extended tour of the Scottish Highlands.
But back to the papers of the day – The Northampton Mercury, as averse to the Derby Mercury, took the unprecedented steps of hiring couriers so that they could beat the London papers in reporting Bonnie Prince Charlie’s retreat from Derby. It also arranged for the London Papers to be couriered to its offices by using four staging posts for speed. The modern age of newspapers had arrived.
As some of you are aware I teach some courses for the WEA – the Workers Educational Association. I shall be delivering a very short course at the beginning of September (Tuesday morning 4th and 11th) on the topic of the Jacobite Prince in Derby. The course reference is C2340279.
https://enrolonline.wea.org.uk/Online/CourseSearchResults.aspx
If you would like to attend please book via the WEA website or phone their office.
Barker, Hannah. (1999) Newspapers and English Society 1695-1855
Clarke, Bob. (2004) From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers to 1899.
Harris, Bob. (1995) England’s Provincial Newspapers and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46. History 80. 5-21
Pentland, G 2011, ‘“We Speak for the Ready”: Images of Scots in Political Prints, 1707-1832’ Scottish Historical Review, vol 90, no. 1, pp. 64-95. DOI: 10.3366/shr.2011.0004
Nunnington Hall in Ryedale is built on land originally owned by St Mary’s Abbey in York. The hall is fifteenth and sixteenth century in origin –so no medieval links to feasting or law should you pause a while in the double height hallway with its baronial fireplace but its perhaps unsurprising to discover that there was a building here in the thirteenth century.
The history of Nunnington’s owners is lively. It passed into the Parr family when Maud Green married Sir Thomas Parr of Kendal. As the elder of the two co-heresses it was Maud who acquired Nunnington. Maud died in 1532. Her son William inherited the property but unfortunately for him the then Marquess of Northampton became involved in Wyatt’s Rebellion of 1553. The bid to replace mary Tudor with Lady Jane Grey failed. Jane had not plotted but her father the duke of Suffolk had become involved. He, his daughter and his son-in-law were promptly executed. Parr was fortunate to suffer only attainder. Nunnington was forfeit to the Crown.
Nunnington was leased out to various families including Elizabeth I’s physician but in 1655, after the English Civil War, the manor was sold to Ranald Graham. He was succeeded by his nephew Sir Richard Graham of Netherby in Cumbria. He was made Viscount Preston and Baron Esk in 1681. He would also marry into the Howard family when he married the daughter of the earl of Carlisle. He served under Charles II and James II. He even did a turn as English ambassador in France. In 1689 his luck turned when he sided with James II rather than William of Orange and James’ daughter Mary. Graham was captured on his way across the Channel. Even as his escape vessel was boarded he made every attempt to destroy incriminating documents. He was attainted and sentenced to death in 1691. The sentence was never carried out because Queen Mary spared him when his daughter Catherine pleaded for his life- it may also have helped that he did turn evidence against his fellow conspirators- but his lands were parcelled out to, amongst others, the earl of Carlisle. It was just as well that it had all been kept in the family because Richard was allowed home and his son Edward eventually inherited Graham’s estate although it was his daughter Catherine by then Lady Widdrington who ultimately inherited Nunnington when her nephew Charles died – the names give an indication of continued Graham loyalty to the Stuart cause…though how the Jacobites felt about Lord Preston giving evidence against them is another matter entirely.
The Jacobites left Derby on the 6th December but William Augustus (the duke of Cumberland) didn’t get the information until the next day. He set off in hot pursuit hoping to catch Charles on English soil. Meanwhile the Jacobites headed back the way that they came with brief interludes for making local legends. For reasons best known to himself and the original story teller Bonnie Prince Charlie allegedly diverted off the main road at Ashbourne for a quick jaunt around the White Peak – he also allegedly stayed in Hartington where he took a mistress – one night stand might be a more apt description- who died presumably from love and who continues to haunt Hartington Hall waiting for her prince to return, pictured above. Far more likely is the tale of the landlord of the Royal Oak by the River Dove who failed to part with his horse when the Jacobites demanded it and was shot for his pains.
It was at Clifton,outside Penrith that Cumberland’s advance party clashed with the Jacobite rearguard who had been ordered to conceal themselves behind two hedges. It was the 18 December and was to be the last battle on English soil. As the sunset the two sides met and both sides claimed victory – whilst the Redcoats retained the field the Scots could very justifiably argue that their retreat had not been impeded. The St Cuthbert’s Church, Clifton contains a memorial to the men of Bland’s regiment who fell during the skirmish and there is a roadside memorial to the battle. Cumberland stayed the night at Townend Cottage.
As the Jacobites marched south via Lancaster the Hanoverians in the form of the Lancashire Militia and the Liverpool Blues marched into action – which meant breaking bridges. The bridge over the Mersey at Warrington was demolished as were several others but by the time the order came to demolish the bridge at Stockport it was too late. The Blues hurried off to join the garrison at Chester and Liverpudlians heaved a sigh of collective relief as the Jacobites headed for Manchester and Manchester’s magistrates promptly left. There was something of an exodus prior to their arrival. Such was the state of concern that Oates records that families packed their belongings and their families onboard boats in Liverpool ready to sail in the event of the army turning its attention in their direction. Not everyone felt the same about the Stuart cause apparently two fiddlers played the Jacobites into Preston – though Preston a town with a reputation of jacobite sympathies didn’t offer up many in the way of recruits.
