Tea at Trianon: A Jacobite Manuscript in Williamsburg, VA

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, December 20, 2020

A Jacobite Manuscript in Williamsburg, VA

I do question the assertion that Scots could not read Latin. They could, especially if they were Catholic or university educated. From In Media Res:

The manuscripts, mostly from the 1690s and early 1700s, were promptly scanned and divvied up amongst the students in Hendrickson’s Latin II class. In the fall semester, they were to make a transcription of their document, and in the spring a translation. The scans were a a treasure trove — students found letters describing military misadventures, assassination attempts, and several other items of real interest. The gem in the bunch, however, was that given to Samuel Meyer: a document entitled Nuperrima Principis Orangii Lex Adversus Scotos Catholicos.

It was not immediately evident what the document was, so Hendrickson reached out to Thomas J. McSweeney, Robert and Elizabeth Scott Research Professor of Law at William & Mary Law School. McSweeney found it strange that the document referred to itself as a “senatus consultum,” and indeed had never heard of any kind of Scottish legal text that was referred to with such a classical title. Initially, he thought that it may have been something issued on the advice of the high court judges, who were known as “senators” in early modern Scotland. He also made a very important observation concerning an oddity in the title. Namely, that it refers to William III of England as the “Prince of Orange.” At the time the document was written in 1700, that title would have been defunct, as William had been named King of England and Scotland two years prior.

Two months later and after much research, Samuel Meyer discovered this was a Latin version of an Act of Scottish Parliament from the year 1700 that limited the rights of Catholics. As far as he could tell, this is the only extant copy of the document in Latin, and it is strange that one was needed at all. Why would a law passed in Scotland need a translation into a dead language? It was McSweeney who made the connection in the end: this was a Jacobite copy of the statute, and it was written in Latin because it was not intended to be read by a Scot. (Read more.)