Julian Whitehead

Espionage in the Divided Stuart Monarchy 1685-1715

(Pen & Sword, 2020), 200 pp. $49.95

There has been an increase in the study of early modern European espionage and intelligence gathering in the past couple of decades which has led to some surprising realisations about well known figures such as Sir Joseph Williamson and Aphra Behn among others. Having attended what is known in the UK as a ‘grammar’ school in my youth, one founded by Sir Joseph, demonstrating an unexpected interest in girls’ education (he also founded such a school in the same Kentish town for boys) one was amazed in more recent years to learn on his long employment as government spymaster under Charles II and to learn of the remarkable Aphra Behn’s spying escapades when not writing her wonderful literary oeuvre.

However, in the period covered by this volume, Behn and Williamson have largely moved into the past tense, Intelligence gathering is, perhaps, not the force it once was and the efforts under James VII & II, William and Mary and Queen Anne come more to the fore. As Julian Whitehead states, the thirty years between 1685 and 1715 largely created the United Kingdom as we know it today, but if intelligence work had played out in other ways, it could all have appeared very different.

The death of King Charles II opens the story with his deathbed conversion to Catholicism and the accession of a Catholic monarch to the throne of a Protestant state. ‘Popish plots’ behind him he married a Catholic wife and his unpopularity proceeded to grow as he promoted Catholics and thought to embrace absolutism. One unfortunate decision was to place Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland in charge of espionage and intelligence gathering. An idle time server was, perhaps, not the best man for the job!

The Stadhouder William of Orange seems to have been better served by his intelligencers and with his Stuart wife, Mary, had better connections with Britain than many European rulers. We are informed that intelligencers and spies came in many forms, from careerists to loyal volunteers through to those who had been ‘turned’ or forced to the pure chancers, of whom there appear to have been many! One of those many forms included the ample one of  Simon Fraser, 11th Baron Lovat, Time server, rapist, rebel, Catholic convert, double agent and all purpose rogue and rapscallion. He did eventually meet a sticky end at Tower Hill, however.

A chapter dedicated to ‘King Monmouth’ proves how badly served an individual can be by their intelligencers.  The Duke received nothing but poor intelligence which persuaded him, under pressure from those who should have known better, that he had the support for a rebellion. The results in the ‘bloody assizes’ under the drunken, time serving hanging judge, Jeffreys. are too well known to need repeating here.

The Monmouth rebellion improved James’s popularity for a time, but it was not to last. Dissident plotting and intelligence gathering continued apace both at home and abroad.Then the increasingly Catholic monarch and his wife produce a male heir. Or did they? The tale of the ‘warming pan’ soon gained traction via the stories told by intelligence gatherers and James failed to strengthen his own cause by insisting on a wish to repeal the Test Acts against the advice of his own intelligencers. This appears to have been something he was rather good at and as Whitehead states, it led to him rather ‘sleepwalking over the edge’ (p 64) in 1687.

As we all know, in 1688, William and Mary made their move. He had good intelligence and a successful propaganda machine, something that James l largely lacked or simply was unwilling to listen to. He convinced himself (with the aid of his advisors) that William was preparing for war with France. He even ignored the advice of the Papal Nuncio, d’Adda, to this effect and the papacy were well informed if no one else was.

William landed unopposed in the West Country and James ran (twice as is often forgotten), returning after the first flight but eventually making his way out of the country via Rochester which has both a ’Restoration House’ and an ‘Abdication House’ as memories of the later Stuart monarchs. It appears that intelligence turned a blind eye while the escape was made.

Given the fate of his father, James might well have been relieved to leave. It is abundantly clear that a catastrophic failure in intelligence gathering combined with the King’s ‘tin ear’ for any that was gathered, led to his downfall. Williamson and Jenkins had been efficient spymasters but Sunderland and his cohorts clearly never were

William needed to deal with the issue of the Jacobites and first James, then James Frances Edward, the Old Pretender’s efforts to regain the throne, combined with trouble across the Scottish border and over the Irish Sea, but the dual monarchy survived. Jacobite propaganda circulated including a final piece at the end of her life from the redoubtable Aphra Behn but the Royal Post Office had become an efficient gatherer of intelligence under that time serving radical survivor, John Wildman who even created intelligence gathering machinery to open mail undetected. The failure of various assassination attempts against William can be seen as being due to successful intelligence gathering.

It may still have ended differently. Anne had more sympathy with her half-brother, James Frances Edward and how far she had ever believed the ‘warming pan’ propaganda is still open to debate. However, as so often, religion was the factor that could not be overcome. Her rather sad reign came to an end with the accession of the House of Hanover, something she had not wished but in the end, could not be avoided. From 1699 to 1702 with the ‘Death of Princes’ (p 167) there was changing of the guard on the thrones of Europe.

George I, Elector of Hanover ascended the British throne and the book ends with ‘the 15’ rebellion and a brief resumé of what came afterwards. All of this was the very stuff of ballad tradition but for all the bloodshed, it ends in rather a touching way, with the elderly Cardinal Henry Stuart, son of the Old Pretender, last of the line, being granted a pension by George III when he heard of his impoverishment.

The book does not really contain any new research, largely relying on existing recent studies for its information but it would certainly be a good general reader for anyone interested in the later Stuart monarchs, the Monmouth episode, the ‘Glorious Revolution’ and the Jacobite conspiracies. There are more detailed studies of intelligence gathering, espionage and propaganda but it does give a good idea of the complexities involved.

If there is a complaint to be made it is one of poor copy editing. The book has numerous spelling errors and place names are a particular bugbear. La Hogue, as in the naval battle of La Hogue is spelled at least three different ways and numerous places get spelled in a piecemeal of contemporary and modern spellings which can lead to considerable confusion for those less well versed in the history.

The book contains a series of monochrome illustrations and some useful appendices

Jasmin Ditcham
Wellington, Shropshire, UK
Independent scholar