More than ever now or never
My title today is, if I’m not mistaken, a souvenir of “the ’Fifteen.” … Here, I have found it: Lord Bolingbroke to the exiled King James III, a.k.a. James Francis Edward Stuart, a.k.a. the Old Pretender. … Or maybe I have not. For upon adjusting my spectacles I see it is “James Rex” to the Duke of Berwick, the 23rd of August, 1715. … But I’d swear Bolingbroke had coined this excellent phrase. … Perhaps I am getting old.
Jacobites among my gentle readers will know the whole story. (And if you’re not a Jacobite, why are you here?) It did not end as well as could be hoped, and neither did “the ’Forty-five,” but hey. Not everything works out on this planet. Some strings still need tying, later on.
My own Jacobitism trails off, somewhere between the sublime and the ridiculous, with the Cardinal Duke of York — arguably King Henry IX and I, to his death in 1807, at Rome, there. His somewhat unreliable, predeceased brother, King Charles III (a.k.a. “Bonnie Prince Charlie”), produced no (legitimate) heir, and so we must bid a sad adieu to the Stuarts. Thereafter I will take the de facto, and so, God Save the Queen!
I was unhappy with the (ironically labelled) Glorious Revolution, of 1688; with the Bill of Rights, 1689; with the Act of Union, 1701; with the Act of Settlement, 1707; and with a few other things, gentle reader. (And I condemn them thrice, on behalf of the Kingdom of Scotland, the Kingdom of Ireland, and the Kingdom of England. … Er, and on behalf of the Kingdom of Canada, too.) I’m still unhappy, but what can one do?
And where were we? Ah, yes: with Bolingbroke encouraging His Majesty King James III not to dawdle. He thought the time right to recover the British throne, now that poor “Queen” Anne was dead, and the Protties reduced to fetching some wretch from Hanover who could not even speak English. They’d had to go to the very bottom of the Stuart line to dig him out.
The route to Westminster lay through Scotland, aye Scotland, and it was time for him to book the trip. James did get there eventually.
Unfortunately, neither the rightful King, nor his general, Lord Mar, was quite ruthless enough when the shills of the Hanovers came hunting.
We had them by the numbers at one point. But aheu, we pulled our punches.
What can I say?
*
Here’s what.
Advent is upon us, and the Feast of Saint Andrew, too, and one full long year has dribbled by since, on a hopeful lark, I resolved to file these Idleposts daily. (Deciding more recently to leave Sundays to the priests.) Rent also falls, by coincidence, at the end of each month; and while my readership grows and grows, the contributions through PayPal have been ailing.
Gosh! do I hate begging. I’m not holy enough for that, just yet. And besides there are several who embarrass me, by sending too much or too often. You know who you are; so know that you’re excused.
But the rest of you, please, don’t pull punches.