The King’s Ministers: George Keith, Earl Marischal, Count Owen O’Rourke, and Diplomacy and Exile in the Jacobite World

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The King’s Ministers: George Keith, Earl Marischal, Count Owen O’Rourke, and Diplomacy and Exile in the Jacobite World

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Abstract

This article compares and contrasts the activities of George Keith, 10th earl Marischal and Count Owen O’Rourke. During the 1730s both men served as diplomatic agents to James VIII and III, the Jacobite claimant to the British and Irish thrones. The article examines their place within the wider Jacobite diplomatic network and outlines their experiences in diplomatic service in Spain and Habsburg Austria, where they attempted to provide diplomatic representation for the Stuart court. By examining the backgrounds of each man, their material circumstances and their service to other princes such as the dukes of Lorraine and the kings of Spain and Prussia, the article considers what these factors meant for the service of both men to James. It suggests that such factors, coupled with differing generational outlooks, ultimately set them on separate paths. Whereas O’Rourke remained in service to James until his death, Marischal would ultimately abandon the Jacobite movement and serve Frederick II of Prussia. Therefore, this article argues that examining O’Rourke and Marischal provides useful insights into the character of the Jacobite diplomatic service and the often pragmatic nature of service to the Stuarts in exile.

Keywords: Jacobitism, Diplomacy, Exile, Ireland, Scotland, Diaspora, Austria, Spain, Lorraine

How to Cite:

Griffin, S., (2026) “The King’s Ministers: George Keith, Earl Marischal, Count Owen O’Rourke, and Diplomacy and Exile in the Jacobite World”, Journal of Irish and Scottish Studies 13(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.57132/jiss.430

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In April 1738, the Jacobite exile, George Keith, 10th earl Marischal, arrived in Vienna while enroute to see his brother, Lieutenant-General James Keith, who had been wounded in Russian service at the siege of Ochakov in the Russo-Turkish War (1736–9). Once in Vienna, Marischal called upon Count Owen O’Rourke, another Jacobite exile who had been residing in the Habsburg capital since 1727. Both men were, at various times, agents of James VIII and III, the Jacobite claimant to the thrones of Britain and Ireland. When Marischal delivered dispatches from the Stuart court in Rome over to O’Rourke, the English Jacobite Sir John Forrester quipped that the latter paid little attention to them until prompted by Marischal to act on the correspondence. Forrester resented O’Rourke for alleged poor treatment of his son in Vienna, so the veracity of this account is subject to dispute. O’Rourke made no reference to such an encounter, simply noting that he had sought out Marischal during his stay and dined with him.1 Indeed, Marischal stayed in Vienna until the end of May 1738 and used O’Rourke’s network to direct his own correspondence to and from Rome before eventually departing to find his ailing brother in Poltava.2 This was to be the only known encounter of two of James VIII and III’s most prominent diplomatic agents who were active throughout the period 1715 to 1750.

The intricacies of the Jacobite diplomatic service have been an underexamined field for many years.3 Anyone wishing to identify the court in exile’s diplomatic agents would first need to refer to the list of diplomatic appointments provided in the Marquis de Ruvigny et Raineval’s work on the Jacobite peerage.4 Further snippets describing the activities of James VIII and III’s agents would then need to be gleaned from work such as Mary Hallé’s (writing as Martin Haile) biography of James, and G. H. Jones’s overview of the Jacobite movement.5 The research of Janetta Guite in the 1980s did much to outline the diplomatic situation in the 1730s and the role of O’Rourke and his contemporary in France: another Irish exile named Colonel Daniel O’Brien.6 However, Marischal and his time as James’s agent in Spain in the early 1730s is noticeably absent from Guite’s analysis. In addition, Guite’s study sought only to outline Jacobite political activities and to prove that the 1730s were a period of extensive diplomatic activity for the Stuarts. Quite better is Rebecca Wills’s book on the Jacobites and Russia which, while more focussed on negotiations and intrigue, went some way in attempting to identify the motivations of the Jacobite diaspora in Russia, some of whom acted as agents for James VIII and III.7

Neither O’Rourke nor Marischal have received a substantial modern biographical examination. Both have received respective biographical entries in the Dictionary of Irish Biography and the Dictionary of National Biography. A two-volume biography of Marischal was published in 1915 and is now surely in need of an update. More recent work on the Jacobites in Lorraine and in Habsburg Austria has highlighted useful information on O’Rourke.8 Unlike their contemporary, Colonel Daniel O’Brien, who was born a second generation émigré in France and who enjoyed the security of being an officer in the French army for the majority of his career, both O’Rourke and Marischal went into exile and were forced to carve new lives for themselves.9 There are other clear similarities in the experiences of both O’Rourke and Marischal making them worthy of further comparison. Both fought for the Stuart dynasty at various times: O’Rourke in the 1690s and Marischal in 1715 and 1719. They found their place within European noble society as O’Rourke established himself in the Duchy of Lorraine and ultimately Habsburg Vienna, and Marischal was commissioned in the Spanish army before forging a career in Prussia. As exiled Jacobites, they both remained attached to and in communication with the Stuart court, which they served as diplomatic representatives. However, there were also important differences between the two men. O’Rourke was Catholic and of Gaelic Irish stock while Marischal’s family were Scottish Episcopalians. O’Rourke went to his grave in the service of James VIII and III; Marischal, by contrast, entered Prussian service, came to possess republican beliefs and eventually cut ties with James’s son, Charles Edward Stuart.10 Marischal’s choice has been interpreted by Edward M. Furgol as self-interest. Indeed, Frank McLynn has stated that Marischal was, like other members of the Jacobite diaspora of similar status, more interested in his own career than in restoring James and his family.11 If so, this makes him worthy of further comparison with O’Rourke.

The benefits of comparative history have long since been recognised. It is seen as a method which allows scholars to test previously accepted explanations, to consider different causes of events which had similar or differing outcomes, and to afford the historian an opportunity to examine a subject beyond one avenue of focus.12 That is not to say that such an approach has its issues. As Peter Burke noted, it may lead to superficial examinations of disparate groups and, in a global sense, ‘force other people’s history’ into categories to which they do not apply.13 Nonetheless, the very plurality of Jacobitism ensures that a comparative approach affords us an opportunity to consider the myriad experiences of individual Jacobites in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century world. No two individuals’ experiences of Jacobitism between 1688 and 1788 were identical. Daniel Szechi has described Jacobite society as being made of ‘layers’. The first of these was composed of the most ideologically committed Jacobites. The next ‘layer’ consisted of Jacobites who flitted in and out of the movement depending on their political situation. The final ‘layer’ comprised those who used Jacobitism for their own material gain.14 These descriptors can be further broken down, for, as Paul Monod has noted, there were ‘contrasting forms of individual adherence’.15 The experiences of Jacobites at home remain different to those of Jacobites in exile. A plebeian Jacobite in the streets knew an experience that was unlike that of their patrician contemporaries.16 There are, however, circumstances which form a basis for collective identity, at the core of which lay obedience to the Stuart dynasty and the belief that they were the rightful monarchs of Britain and Ireland.17

By using a comparative approach to examine the careers of O’Rourke and Marischal, it becomes easier to identify similarities in the experiences of both men while also explaining the reasons for the divergence in their respective relationships with the Stuart dynasty. To do so, this article is divided into several sections. It begins by examining the Jacobite diplomatic situation in the 1720s and 1730s. It then explains the different backgrounds of O’Rourke and Marischal and how it was they came to serve the Stuarts in exile, before evaluating their experiences as diplomatic agents in Austria and Spain respectively. The article then turns to compare their service to the exiled Stuarts. It explores the financial circumstances of both men to consider the effect this may have had upon their service to James. Finally, it examines how both men took diverging paths in their relationship to the Stuarts in exile. Why did O’Rourke remain in service to James while Marischal ultimately broke ties with the Jacobites and entered Prussian service in the late 1740s? This article considers these various factors which set these two men upon the same side until, ultimately, they were not. In doing so, this article demonstrates the pragmatic nature of service and loyalty to the Stuarts in exile and the ways in which this played out within the world of Jacobite diplomacy and intrigue in 1730s Europe.

I.

The exiled Stuarts were slow to establish an independent diplomatic network. The flight of James VII and II’s court in December 1688 and its subsequent establishment in St Germain-en-Laye in France marked the beginning of Louis XIV’s support for the exiled Stuarts and their Jacobite followers throughout the 1690s. Upon James’s death in September 1701, Louis had recognised his son as James VIII and III; for as long as James resided in France the Jacobites had no desperate need for ambassadors and diplomatic envoys, as James was in frequent contact with the French ministry.18 There could be exceptions to this system, and John Drummond, 1st earl and Jacobite duke of Melfort, and his brother James Drummond, 4th earl and Jacobite duke of Perth, were appointed as ambassadors to the Holy See in 1689 and 1695 respectively. Meanwhile, Sir Toby Bourke was appointed to Spain in 1705.19 This all began to change in 1712–13 when, under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht negotiated between Britain and France, James was forced to depart France and settle in Bar-le-Duc in the Duchy of Lorraine and Bar. French support was further compounded by the death of Louis XIV in September 1715, the failure of the 1715–16 Jacobite rising and the regency of Louis’s nephew, Philippe II, duke of Orléans, which saw the establishment of an Anglo-French alliance from 1716–31.20

Therefore, from 1716 onwards, as James moved further from France and settled eventually in Rome, he would appoint numerous diplomatic agents to serve his interests across Europe and to facilitate various attempts at negotiations with Austria, France, Russia, Sweden and Spain. While numerous men passed in and out of James’s diplomatic service in the years after 1716, it was not until the mid 1720s that his diplomatic network reached a level of stability, which would last until the early 1740s. This was brought about chiefly by the sending of Owen O’Rourke to Vienna in 1727; meanwhile, between 1725 and 1727, Colonel Daniel O’Brien had emerged in Paris as James’s most trusted representative in France.21 With this system in place, James was able to keep abreast of developments between Austria, Britain and France in the 1730s and to engage in intrigue and secret diplomacy. While O’Brien was in Paris reporting to James regarding the Cornbury Plot (1734–5), O’Rourke provided James with a channel in Vienna by which he could attempt to communicate with the emperor and his ministers during the War of the Polish Succession (1733–5).22 An outlier in the 1730s system was Spain. Here, James Butler, 2nd duke of Ormonde, invariably had handled James’s affairs since December 1718, although in 1726 he was temporarily overshadowed by Philip, 1st duke of Wharton. In 1732, however, Ormonde retired to Avignon, and James was now lacking an agent at the Spanish court.23 To fill the hole left by Ormonde, he ultimately turned to George Keith, 10th earl Marischal. The network James had established now consisted of O’Brien in France, O’Rourke in Austria and Marischal in Spain

Examining the backgrounds of both O’Rourke and Marischal helps us to better understand each man’s approach to Jacobitism and how they entered James’s service. We can then try to comprehend why they made the choices they did in their later years. Ironically enough, they came from families that initially had been on opposing sides in the seventeenth century. O’Rourke’s grandfather, Con O’Rourke, had taken part in the 1641 rising in Ireland which the Irish claimed in hindsight had been against the Puritans in England and the Scots Covenanters.24 Meanwhile in Scotland, Marischal’s ancestor, William Keith, 7th earl Marischal, had been a Covenanter.25 The rebels in Ireland would eventually agree to terms with royalists in order to focus their energies against parliamentarians and Scots Covenanters. Likewise, by 1649, in what Barry Robertson suggests was a move towards conservatism, William Keith was supporting the royalists in Scotland.26 Importantly, while the Lords Marischal would emerge from the wars of the 1640s and early 1650s relatively unscathed, for the O’Rourkes, the upheaval that followed the war in Ireland and the Cromwellian land settlement would see their landholdings drastically reduced.27 These contrasting experiences in land ownership are another recurring issue which, as we shall see, influenced the later careers of Owen O’Rourke and George Keith, 10th earl Marischal.

Further divergences in experiences can be identified in the latter half of the century. During the Williamite War in Ireland (1689–91), O’Rourke was an officer in a regiment of infantry raised by Hugh ‘Balldearg’ O’Donnell. This was an auxiliary force that was not used by the Jacobite army proper until 1691. O’Rourke was one of over 14,000 men who departed Ireland following the Treaty of Limerick in 1691 and served in exile in the Stuart army in France.28 After seeing service in the Nine Years’ War (1689–97), O’Rourke next found his way into the service of Duke Leopold of Lorraine in 1698 following the Treaty of Ryswick. Commissioned as a captain in the ducal guards, he eventually rose to become a court chamberlain and a counsellor of state to Duke Leopold, where he benefitted from the generosity of the duke who gained a reputation for rewarding his servants and for lavish spending at court.29 In diplomatic affairs, Leopold frequently turned to those whom he deemed to be his most loyal subjects, preferring to utilise individuals who were not members of the local Lorraine nobility.30 This allowed O’Rourke to cut his teeth in diplomacy, and it was through Leopold that O’Rourke first entered the Stuart court’s orbit in 1712 when he had been sent to make contact with James VIII and III prior to the latter’s arrival in Lorraine. Thereafter, O’Rourke was increasingly well-regarded by the exiled Stuart court in Bar-le-Duc and was considered for diplomatic duties.31 By the time of the 1715–16 rising, O’Rourke was firmly established in Lorraine as a member of Leopold’s court and was acclimatised to life as a courtier. Finally, in 1727, amid poor Anglo-Austrian relations, and as Leopold sought to increase the stature and reputation of the House of Lorraine, he supported the appointment of O’Rourke to Vienna as James’s minister.32

While O’Rourke was building a life in exile, George Keith, 8th earl Marischal, remained neutral in the Highland War, which had taken place in Scotland in tandem with the war in Ireland.33 His son, William Keith, 9th earl Marischal, would gain a reputation for Jacobite support; James VII and II had hoped that the ninth earl would join a Scottish Jacobite rising during the failed Franco-Jacobite invasion of England in 1692.34 In Scotland’s parliament, the ninth earl was aligned with the opposition ‘Cavalier’ faction, which Szechi has described as the ‘real mainstay of conventionally political Jacobitism’. Having opposed the Act of Union between England Scotland in 1707, the following year William Keith then mobilised his network in preparation of a rising in support of the failed French invasion of Scotland.35 In turn, William’s father-in-law was James Drummond, 4th earl and Jacobite duke of Perth. Drummond had been imprisoned by the Williamites and released in 1692 on condition that he went into exile on the continent. He subsequently served as James VII and II’s ambassador to Rome and had served as governor to James VIII and III, participating in the abortive rising of 1708.36

Therefore, by the time George Keith was born in Inverugie Castle in Aberdeenshire at some point between 1689 and 1693, his family had become increasingly Jacobite in nature and were in contact with the exiled Stuart court in France. This might beg the question: why did George Keith, 10th earl Marischal, not serve the exiled Stuarts sooner than he did? Although Marischal’s father espoused Jacobite beliefs and was in communication with the Stuart court in exile, he was a Scots Tory representative peer in the House of Lords in Westminster, and he had had no issue in acknowledging James’s half-sister Anne as queen.37 Jacobites in Westminster could extract concessions while remaining ostensibly loyal to the regime. For instance, in 1710 the Jacobite element among the Scots Tories had sought compensation for Jacobites imprisoned during the French invasion scare of 1708; in 1712 they successfully secured a legal toleration for Episcopalian worship in Scotland.38 Jacobite politicians were increasingly instructed by the exiled Stuart court to support the Tory government of Robert Harley, 1st earl of Oxford. Although issues such as the Malt Tax crisis and ongoing dissatisfaction with the union could still cause them to mobilise, by 1713 there was little to differentiate the Scots Jacobite peers from Harley’s Tory ministry.39 The Tories in England were themselves divided between Jacobites and non-Jacobites, but for as long as Anne was queen, the former group was not predisposed to support the Stuart court in exile, while the High Church could content itself with Anne’s pious adherence to Anglicanism.40

These circumstances may help explain why George Keith, 10th earl Marischal, did not show any signs of Jacobite activity before 1715. He appears to have followed the pragmatic example set by his father and served Queen Anne fighting with Marlborough in Flanders during the latter years of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14). By 1714 he was commander of the Scottish troop of the Horse Grenadier Guards. It was not until the accession of George I in 1714 that Marischal’s approach was faced with an unwelcome set of circumstances. Distrustful of the Tories from the onset, George I had favoured the Whigs and allowed their ministry to purge the Tories from court, the army and local government. Against this backdrop, Marischal lost his commission and returned to Scotland to partake in the 1715 rising. Following the rising’s failure, he then fled to France before ultimately obtaining a commission in the Spanish army in 1719.41 This would not be the last time that Marischal would switch allegiances to improve his position.

II.

When O’Rourke was sent to Vienna in 1727, James VIII and III (with the tacit support of Duke Leopold) had sought to take advantage of the Alliance of Vienna between Emperor Charles VI and King Philip V of Spain. Both monarchs had been allies since 1725, and this had led to a ‘cold war’ in Europe, with the Austro-Spanish alliance on one side, and Britain, the French and the Dutch on the other.42 In Vienna, O’Rourke sought to garner political support from the emperor’s ministers, but the Austrian ministry were disinterested in the Jacobites and remained noncommittal. Instead, the Austrians sought protection against France (their great rival since the days of Emperor Charles V) and worked towards establishing alliances with Britain. O’Rourke was informed that James could only count on the emperor’s support in the event of war with Britain.43 Not to be outdone, O’Rourke developed a social network in Vienna that included the Austrian Court Chancellor Philipp Ludwig von Sinzendorf, the Spanish diplomat James Fitzjames Stuart, duke of Liria and Xérica, the Portuguese ambassador João Gomes da Sylva, Conde de Tarouca, and the Irish émigré General John Andrew Hamilton who served in the Imperial army.44 Such connections allowed O’Rourke to remain active in the social life of the city and to remain connected to the emperor’s court. In this way he was able to gather news for James VIII and III in Rome.

Relations between Britain and the emperor improved with the signing of the Treaty of Vienna in March 1731; this marked the end of the Anglo-French alliance that had been in place since 1716.45 As a result, the French were determined to reduce the power and territory of the emperor. To that effect they began to seek a rapprochement with Spain.46 In anticipation of closer Franco-Spanish relations, James appointed Marischal to be his representative in Spain, instructing him to avoid publicly announcing himself as James’s minister and to work to promote a closer relationship between France and Spain. While Marischal obeyed James’s instructions, he was sceptical of his success. Indeed, since the summer of 1732, Philip V of Spain had been suffering a severe bout of depression which had rendered him inactive at court. The Spanish monarch stayed in bed and often did not bathe while refusing to deal with affairs of state.47

Marischal encountered difficulties from the beginning. He met Don José, Marquis de Patiño, who served as Secretary of State for the Navy and Indies from 1726, and for the Treasury of Spain before receiving a third appointment to Secretary for War in 1730. Patiño informed Marischal that the court of Spain placed little trust in France. While Patiño promised him an audience with the king and queen, Marischal found the minister unwilling to do anything in support of the Jacobites unless it was for his own benefit. Ultimately, Marischal was unable to obtain an audience with the royal couple.48 The frustration continued unabated in September 1733 when James instructed Marischal to support the career advancement of several Jacobite émigrés in the Spanish army. Initially asked to support a Jacobite named Oxborough, a few days later, Marischal received additional instructions to seek a promotion to lieutenant colonel for the son of Sir David Nairne. This was followed by another letter requesting Marischal’s support in favour of Sir Charles Wogan, then serving in the Regimiento de Irlanda in the Spanish army.49 The problem for Marischal was that he already had a poor relationship with Patiño, who also served as Secretary of War. As a result, Marischal reported that he could do little for those seeking opportunities for promotion. Regarding Oxborough, Marischal wrote that he did not know to whom he should be referred. Nairne, he informed James, would be better served applying to his commanding officer.50

Based on their own and other contemporary accounts, one gets the impression that while Marischal struggled, O’Rourke was much more adept at building a network and stream of support upon which he could rely. It was in this way that in 1735 during the War of the Polish Succession, James unsuccessfully attempted to broker peace negotiations between the emperor and the French using O’Rourke’s contacts at court.51 However, once again, the Austrians remained wary of the Jacobite movement. Once they were persuaded of the sincerity of French overtures, the Austrians ultimately excluded the Jacobites from proceedings; peace was brokered without Stuart involvement.52

It is clear that from his time in Lorraine, O’Rourke had greater experience of being at court and of dealing with courtiers and other nobles. This allowed him to manoeuvre in Vienna to some effect. In contrast, Marischal’s experience in Spain had largely been in the army and outside of the courtly setting. This could prove difficult for diplomatic agents, as early modern diplomats regularly relied on the social skills they had acquired at court when carrying out their duties.53 At the same time, one can dig deeper to examine Marischal’s competency in diplomatic matters. When the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau fled Geneva in 1762, he sought refuge in Neuchâtel where Marischal was then serving as governor in the service of Prussia.54 Rousseau described Marischal as:

gifted with the most penetrating intellect… [but] he sometimes allows himself to be deceived and cannot be undeceived. His temper is curious; there is something whimsical and strange in his turn of mind. He appears to forget people whom he sees everyday… and his attentions seem out of place. His presents are given capriciously, without regard to their suitability. On the spur of the moment he sends or gives whatever occurs to him, without discrimination, whether it be very valuable or absolutely worthless.55

Although these observations were made when Marischal was a much older man, they do suggest an intelligent if somewhat erratic personality unsuited to diplomatic service. Yet Marischal’s diplomatic activities did not end with his service to James. Once he had established himself in Prussia, he was appointed Prussian envoy to France in 1751 and later to Spain in 1759. In Paris in 1754, Charles-Phillipe d’Albert, duc de Luyne, remarked that while Marischal was an easy man to get on with, he was old and in poor health.56 Initially, Marischal was on good terms with several French ministers including Louis Philogène Brûlart, Marquis de Puyzieulx and François Dominique de Barberie, Marquis de Saint Contest. Given the rivalries at play among ministers at the French court, Frederick II of Prussia encouraged Marischal to cultivate their friendships and to deal with them in a tactful manner.57 By January 1752, however, the ministers had become less communicative, and Frederick commented on the brief and laconic nature of his correspondence.58 By the late spring of 1752, the Prussian king had lost faith in the capabilities of the French, and Marischal was receiving cold responses from the French ministers. It was his view that they were suspicious of Frederick II, and the latter ordered Marischal to utilise his contacts in Paris to dispel such suspicions at court.59

Although Marischal complained of his own unsuitability to diplomacy, Frederick II was pleased enough with his performance to send him to Spain in 1759.60 In his second stint at diplomacy in Spain, Marischal doubted his capabilities at his increasing age and recommended that Frederick dispatch a more capable envoy. However, Marischal was astute enough to learn of an impending Franco-Spanish alliance in 1760, a fact which he later disclosed to the British ministry and which contributed to his pardon from George II and an Act of Parliament allowing him to inherit the estate of his relative, the earl of Kintore, in Scotland.61 Clearly, Marischal was capable of identifying important developments and seizing an opportunity. How then do we explain Marischal’s more enthusiastic service in Prussia in contrast to his more underwhelming earlier service to James III/VIII in the 1730s, and what was it that caused his switch from Spanish to Prussian service? The answer is predominantly a mix of personal and financial circumstances.

III.

Diplomatic representatives were required to self-fund their activities and missions.62 However, having to finance a prolonged stay away from home, spending periods of time at court, and mixing with courtiers, nobles and other diplomats could prove costly. In this way, diplomats could seek financial aid from their sovereign at home. If princes refused financial support they could face losing their agents who would be forced to depart or potentially find other masters who would support them.63 James provided both O’Rourke and Marischal with financial support when he could. This did not mean, however, that he was able to wholly alleviate the financial pressures of both men.

For O’Rourke, these financial necessities were not of initial concern. In 1709, he had married Catherine-Diane de Beauvau. This had been an important move in his rise to prominence in Lorraine in the early 1700s. The Beauvau family had been in Lorraine since the fifteenth century and had strong familial connections to the ancienne chevalrie of the duchy. In Duke Leopold’s time, Catherine-Diane’s brother Marc had been the duke’s favourite at court, and he had in turn cemented his own position by marrying Leopold’s mistress in 1704.64 As Catherine-Diane had been married twice before, O’Rourke had been able to claim uncollected annuities (worth 27,000 francs) owed to her deceased second husband in 1711. Three years later, the O’Rourkes then received the gruerie of the Jacquot woods. These benefits were on top of the multiple salaries and pensions O’Rourke received for his service to Leopold at court.65 The marital alliance with the Beauvau coupled with the generosity of Duke Leopold therefore provided O’Rourke with both increased financial security and increased upward social mobility. However, this comfortable position would not last forever.

The favour enjoyed by the Beauvau family earned them enmity.66 Upon the death of Leopold in 1729, he left behind a duchy heavily in debt. As his eldest son and heir, Francis Stephen, was in residence in Vienna, Leopold’s widow Élisabeth-Charlotte assumed control of the state as regent. She immediately halted the spending that had been indulged in by her late husband and set out to reform the duchy’s finances.67 Marc de Beauvau (now known by his additional title of Prince de Craon) was relieved of office, had estates confiscated and was arrested for embezzlement.68 Catherine-Diane’s Morley estate was also seized, causing both her and her husband to experience a ‘very low condition’. To add to O’Rourke’s woes, reports from the duchy were that the duke’s newly appointed commissaries were ‘rigid’ and ‘hard hearted people’.69 Catherine-Diane expressed dismay at not being able to hold onto her Morley estate, and her husband sought money from James in Rome while accumulating debts. Duke Francis Stephen left him in the dark with regards to a year of back payments owed from Leopold’s time.70 By September 1729, O’Rourke was informed that he could not receive any payment as he was not on the court’s list of pensioners.71

As Élisabeth-Charlotte possessed ‘an ancient ill grounded aversion’ towards his wife, O’Rourke had little reason to hope for the restoration of the estate. However, in March 1730, Francis Stephen released Craon, and a decision was made on the pensions of the O’Rourkes. Catherine-Diane’s payment was almost halved, and O’Rourke would be able to retain his small payment but lose the arrears that had accumulated while the pension had been frozen.72 To cause further stress to the family, the payment of their Lorraine pensions would not be received until 1733, during which time James VIII and III continued his financial support of O’Rourke. When Francis Stephen relinquished Lorraine to Stanislas Leszczyński in return for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1736, Catherine-Diane was permitted to keep her estate at Morley while O’Rourke was to receive nothing. The O’Rourkes would ultimately be forced to sell one of their properties to relieve their financial woes.73

Marischal also experienced financial difficulties. As we have already established, he did not enjoy the same courtly experiences or connections as O’Rourke; these limitations also affected his finances. Marischal depended largely on his military pay to keep afloat. In 1730, he had written contentedly of his financial position. He was in receipt of arrears from the Spanish army, on top of his regular pay, and these had taken care of his debts and living expenses in Valencia.74 By 1733, evidence suggests that Marischal was in receipt of financial support from James in Rome.75 The situation was exacerbated when Marischal was overlooked for promotion in the Spanish army in 1734.76 In 1735, issues arose again following an order from the court to ‘pay only six months’ of Marischal’s pension. For the next two years, Marischal experienced delays and non-payment of his pension, and from as early as 1736 he was in receipt of credit from John Keith, 3rd earl of Kintore in Scotland.77 Marischal resented what he described as his ‘continual dependence and slavery’ on the Spanish court and believed that his Episcopalian background prejudiced it continually against him.78 Marischal’s financial position and lack of prospects in Spain influenced his eventual decision to transfer to Prussian service.

With the failure of the 1745–6 rising and his younger brother James Keith’s move to Prussia, Marischal was enticed to follow suit by a promise of a pension worth 2,000 crowns.79 Here his experience could not have been more different to his years in Spain. Frederick II of Prussia already held James Keith in high esteem, and the brothers were to become part of a circle of intellectuals that formed among the officers of the Prussian army. Moreover, Marischal and his brother were well travelled and cultured men not lacking in experience, and for this they were additionally valued by Frederick.80 Within three years of his arrival in Prussia, Marischal was made envoy to France, followed by an appointment to the governorship of Neuchâtel in 1754. Service under Frederick also set in motion Marischal’s eventual pardon and inheritance of the Kintore estate. In 1764, he then bought a portion of the former Marischal family estate in Aberdeenshire. An agent was then hired to oversee the maintenance of his Scottish estate and to sell its produce while also dealing with requests for aid from Scotland.81

O’Rourke was less lucky, as he did not enjoy a similar relationship with Duke Leopold’s heir, Francis Stephen of Lorraine. Since 1723, Francis Stephen had been groomed to one day marry the archduchess Maria Theresa, the daughter and heir of Charles VI. Because of this, Francis Stephen followed the emperor’s lead in limiting his interactions with O’Rourke, and he was cautious of O’Rourke’s political loyalties.82 In O’Rourke’s eyes, Francis Stephen was the opposite of his father, and yet other émigrés in the Duchy of Lorraine who came from similar Irish Jacobite backgrounds to O’Rourke continued to flourish under Francis Stephen.83 These different experiences require only the simplest of explanations. Whereas O’Rourke remained closely associated with the exiled Stuart court, other members of the Irish diaspora in Lorraine did not, and as a result enjoyed better prospects under Duke Francis Stephen in Lorraine, in Tuscany and ultimately in the Habsburg lands. The lack of opportunities afforded by the duke would prevent O’Rourke from obtaining any further promotion or advancement. Nevertheless, even if O’Rourke had taken up service with another prince, it is difficult to imagine him turning his back upon the exiled Stuarts. This strong devotion to the Stuart court is what ultimately separated O’Rourke from Marischal.

In explaining this dynamic, we need to consider the spectrum of Jacobite loyalties. McLynn has suggested that there was a divide in outlook between the first and second generation of Jacobites in exile as the more ‘pious’ minded early Jacobites gave way to a more cynical younger cohort.84 The generational gap between O’Rourke and Marischal certainly provides room for diverging worldviews and political beliefs. O’Rourke was a staunch believer in the divine and hereditary right of monarchs and expressed this belief repeatedly in letters to James VIII and III.85 By contrast, Marischal was, according to Rousseau, ‘thoroughly proud and republican’, and Voltaire noted the literary correspondence that passed between Frederick II and Marischal that was said to have mocked Christianity and offended the Prussian king’s Calvinist subjects.86 Nowhere is that division between O’Rourke’s and Marischal’s outlook more clear than in their relationship to the exiled Stuarts. O’Rourke remained a servant of James to the end while Marischal did not.

The final rift came via Marischal’s relationship with Charles Edward Stuart. Marischal noted that Charles had been ‘unruly’ as a child but expressed hopes that he would be ‘bold and no dissembler, two great and good qualities’.87 The relationship was to decline in the years that followed as Marischal came to view Charles Edward as detestable. When Charles Edward attempted to secure Marischal as his secretary of state in 1747, he was met with the latter’s outright refusal.88 During the Elibank Plot of the 1750s, when Charles Edward hoped to gain Prussian support for a Jacobite restoration, Marischal was characteristically unenthused although he did facilitate communication between Charles Edward and Frederick II of Prussia. The final breach came in 1754, when Marischal refused to meet Charles Edward in Paris and dismissed the prince’s last-ditch efforts to reconcile.89

Marischal’s actions were anathema to a man such as O’Rourke who placed great emotional value on his relationship with James VIII and III and sought to ensure the continued service of the next generation of the O’Rourke family. In 1727 and 1731, James bestowed the titles of Baron of Carha and Viscount of Breffney, respectively, upon O’Rourke. These titles were to lead to a string of correspondence between O’Rourke, James, and James Murray, earl of Dunbar, in the 1730s and 1740s, as the childless O’Rourke sought to have his titles reissued with special remainder to the children of his surviving cousins.90 From at least the 1720s, O’Rourke had been patron to several different relatives and members of his extensive family whom he sent for from Ireland. This was not uncommon among the Irish diaspora abroad who would send for family to join them on the continent where their prospects for social advancement were far superior in the service of a Catholic monarch than in an Ireland dominated by the Protestant Ascendancy.91 Once O’Rourke’s relations joined their patron in Nancy, they were presented to his extended family of Lorraine in-laws and other members of the local nobility.92 When the boys had gained experience of court culture, their benefactor secured them commissions in the French army and in the musketeers of Louis XV.93 O’Rourke also acquired commissions for relatives in the Imperial army.94 Immersing the boys in courtly life and sending them into the military would, according to O’Rourke, prepare them for eventual service to James; this is something which the latter acknowledged. In 1742, after persistent requests to Dunbar and to James VIII and III, O’Rourke received a guarantee that his Jacobite titles would pass to his younger relatives following his death. For O’Rourke this would ultimately ensure that his family’s future would remain secure through its service to the Stuart dynasty.95

IV.

When considering individual feelings of Jacobite loyalty and motivation, a comparative examination of figures such as O’Rourke and Marischal is a useful exercise. Both men served James VIII and III, and were contemporaries engaged in the same diplomatic network in the late 1720s and early 1730s. The international situation in Europe after the failed 1715–16 rising led James to seek diplomatic support beyond France. To do this, he sought agents from among the Jacobite diaspora, such as O’Rourke and Marischal, to serve him. Through them, James attempted to influence the decisions of the Austrians and the Spanish, and in turn to obtain outcomes that would be beneficial to a potential Stuart restoration. The two men were exiles, albeit they had come to that situation via different paths. O’Rourke, the Irish Catholic exile, had fought in the Williamite War (1689–91) and was to build a new life for himself in the Duchy of Lorraine. Marischal had come from a Scottish Tory and Episcopalian background where his family had shown a pragmatism that had allowed them to support Jacobitism while remaining contentedly in Scotland and England. Only with the Hanoverian succession and failed rising of 1715–16 did that situation change.

To say that both men had wholly different experiences at the host courts to which they ventured on James’s behalf is not entirely true. Both Marischal and O’Rourke faced difficulties in dealing with the ministers they encountered. O’Rourke was informed that the emperor would not support James except in case of a war with Britain. Marischal was unable to build a relationship with Patiño and never obtained an audience with the king of Spain. Nonetheless, O’Rourke was able to remain active through his connections to various figures in Vienna and could actively engage in Jacobite intrigue in Habsburg Austria. By comparison, Marischal made little headway in Spain. However, based on his activities in later years he could be adept when required, and his service to James in Spain in the 1730s is in marked contrast to his activities as a Prussian diplomat in France and Spain in the 1750s.

In Spanish service, Marischal was unable to obtain military promotions and financial stability, and it is clear that this hampered his duties towards James and ultimately influenced his entrance into Prussian service. Faced with a lack of prospects, Marischal’s move to Prussia ensured that by the late 1740s he no longer needed to rely on the Jacobite movement. Gone was the need to seek financial support from James in Rome or from relatives in Scotland, and in carrying out his duties to Frederick II in the 1750s, he demonstrated far more initiative than he had serving James in the early 1730s. Service to Prussia ultimately led to Marischal’s obtaining a royal pardon from George II and his being able to secure a Scottish estate. In contrast, O’Rourke struggled under Duke Francis Stephen, and he was unable to gain any royal favour from the young duke. Ducal reforms and an unwillingness to humour the Jacobite agent led to increased difficulties for O’Rourke and made him more dependent on James for support.

The generational element is also important. Once considered side-by-side with their backgrounds, it becomes easier to understand each man’s loyalties. O’Rourke was ultimately a product of seventeenth-century Ireland. One needs to remember that his family had lost everything over the course of the century, culminating in the final defeat of the 1690s after which O’Rourke had been forced into exile on the continent. This influenced his sense of loyalty and dedication to the Stuarts, and he was doggedly loyal to James and served him faithfully. The emotional value which he placed on his service is reflected in the lengths to which he went to secure the reissue of his Jacobite titles with special remainder to his male relations. It was also his way of securing continued royal favour for his family while attempting to ensure their continued service to James. When O’Rourke died in exile in 1743, he was still serving James in Vienna, providing reports on the progress of the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48).

It is difficult to imagine O’Rourke severing ties with the Stuarts as Marischal eventually did in the 1750s. In many ways, Marischal, while undoubtedly a man of principle, might best be described as pragmatic in his loyalties. He came from a background in which his father had practised Jacobitism while also contentedly co-operating with the government and sitting in the House of Lords in Westminster. Marischal himself had been in the service of Queen Anne. That sense of pragmatism recurred as Marischal joined the failed 1715–16 rising in support of James, and it was on display again with his jump into Prussian service over thirty years later. Unlike O’Rourke, Marischal was ultimately able to return home; however, he found himself unable to live out his final years on his ancestral estates. Frederick II requested Marischal’s return to Prussia in the spring of 1764, and Marischal ultimately opted to return to Potsdam. Like O’Rourke, Marischal too would die in central Europe in 1778.96

In the 1730s, Marischal and O’Rourke were only two pieces of a much broader diplomatic network. Over the course of many years, James VIII and III solicited many men for his service. If this article has proven anything, it is that more in-depth comparative work is needed to better understand the mechanics of the Stuart court’s diplomats, and their characters, motivations, and views of the world in which they lived. It is clear from the above that not only personal factors but also economic ones influenced both O’Rourke’s and Marischal’s approach to Jacobitism and their service. James VIII and III bore the unenviable task of maintaining a shadow court in exile complete with a shadow diplomatic service composed of men from three separate regions: England, Scotland and Ireland, who possessed their own needs, expectations and motivations all while in exile. Such a system depended not only on loyalty to the Stuart dynasty but also on patronage from James and the agents having the financial means to support themselves while in his service.97

Recent work in the historiography of anti-Jacobitism has shown that those who sided against the Jacobites and remained loyal to the Hanoverian state could often do so based on pragmatic choices which combined ideology and loyalty with access to patronage and a sense of security.98 Based on the analysis outlined above, it would appear that similar factors were at play among the agents of James VIII and III. With this in mind, a more extensive and in-depth analysis that considers James’s full diplomatic corps would be welcome and would further complement and expand on the analysis above. Such an examination, however, is beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, a fuller and more comprehensive study of James’s diplomatic agents is needed and should offer useful glimpses into the world of Jacobite diplomacy and its agents’ experiences of exile.

Notes

  1. Sir John Forrester to James Edgar, 7 December 1738, Royal Archives, Stuart Papers (hereafter RA, SP) 211/113; O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 12 April 1738, 19 April 1738, Österreichisches Staatsarchiv/Haus-, Hof-, und Staatsarchiv (hereafter ÖStA/HHStA), England Varia, 8.5/396–7. ⮭
  2. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 17 May 1738, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/398; K. A. Varnhagen von Ense, Leben des Feldmarschalls Jakob Keith (Berlin, 1844), 62. ⮭
  3. This trend is now beginning to change, and an overview and discussion of James’s diplomatic network will be found in Stephen Griffin, ‘Jacobite Agents and their Interests: International Jacobitism After the Fifteen’ in Calum Cunningham, Jérémy Filet and William Runacre (eds), The Apex of Jacobitism: Challenges, Cultures and Legacies of the 1715 Rising (Manchester, forthcoming). ⮭
  4. Melville Henri Massue, marquis de Ruvigny et Raineval, The Jacobite Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Grants of Honour (London, 1904), 232–4. ⮭
  5. Martin Haile, James Francis Edward, the Old Chevalier (London, 1907); G. H. Jones, The Main Stream of Jacobitism (Cambridge, MA, 1954). ⮭
  6. Janetta Inglis Keith Guite, The Jacobite Cause, 1730–1740: the International Dimension (PhD thesis, McMaster University, 1987). ⮭
  7. Rebecca Wills, The Jacobites and Russia, 1715–1750 (East Linton, 2002). ⮭
  8. Edward M. Furgol, ‘Keith, George, styled Tenth Earl Marischal (1692/3?–1778)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition, 2004), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/15265 [hereafter ODNB; last accessed 14 July 2026]; Edith E. Cuthell, The Scottish Friend of Frederic the Great: the Last Earl Marischall (2 vols, London, 1915); Stephen Griffin, ‘O’Rourke, Owen’, Dictionary of Irish Biography (March 2023), https://www.dib.ie/biography/orourke-owen-a10295 [last accessed 14 July 2026]; idem, ‘Duke Leopold, Small State Diplomacy, and the Stuart Court in Exile, 1716–1729’, The Historical Journal, 65 (2022), 1244–61, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X2100090X; idem, ‘Between Public and Private Spaces: Jacobite Diplomacy in Vienna, 1725–1742’, Royal Studies Journal, 9 (2022), 46–59, https://doi.org/10.21039/rsj.344. ⮭
  9. Edward Corp and Margerite Elisabeth Joseph O’Brien, ‘Disputed Kingship Among the Jacobite O’Briens in Eighteenth-Century France’, Archivium Hibernicum, 71 (2018), 60–82, at 61–5. ⮭
  10. Frank McLynn, The Jacobites (London, 1985), 77. ⮭
  11. Furgol, ‘Keith, George’, ODNB; Frank McLynn, Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (London, 2003), 401. ⮭
  12. Stefan Berger, ‘Comparative and Transnational History’ in Stefan Berger, Heiko Feldner and Kevin Passmore (eds), Writing History: Theory and Practice, third edition (London, 2020), 292–316, at 296. ⮭
  13. Peter Burke, History and Social Theory (New York, 1993), 26–7. ⮭
  14. Daniel Szechi, The Jacobites: Britain and Europe, 1688–1788, second edition (Manchester, 2019), 24–5. ⮭
  15. Paul Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688–1788 (Cambridge, 1989), 12, chs. 9 and 10. ⮭
  16. See for example, Frances Nolan, ‘Zealous for the “Cause”: Irish Women as Jacobite Agents, 1689–1724’ in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 40 (2025), 29–51, https://doi.org/10.3828/eci.2025.4. ⮭
  17. For outlines of the various strands of English, Irish and Scots Jacobitism see: Vincent Morley, ‘Irish Jacobitism, 1691–1790’ in James Kelly (ed.), The Cambridge History of Ireland: Volume 3, 1730–1880 (Cambridge, 2018), 23–47, at 24–5, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316335680.004; Éamonn Ó Ciardha, Ireland and the Jacobite Cause, 1685–1766: A Fatal Attachment (Dublin, 2002), 29, 89, 267–8, https://doi.org/10.1177/033248930202900119; Allan I. Macinnes, ‘Jacobitism in Scotland: Episodic Cause or National Movement?’, Scottish Historical Review, 86 (2007), 225–52, at 233–7, https://doi.org/10.3366/shr.2007.86.2.225; Bruce Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain, 1689–1746 (London, 1980), 55–6; Paul Monod, ‘Jacobitism and Country Principles in the Reign of William III’, The Historical Journal, 30 (1987), 289–310, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X00021452; Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 17–27, 132–58. ⮭
  18. Daniel Szechi, Jacobitism and Tory Politics, 1710–14 (Edinburgh, 1984), 11–12. ⮭
  19. Edward Corp, ‘Drummond, John, styled first earl of Melfort and Jacobite first duke of Melfort (1649–1714)’, ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8077 [last accessed 14 July 2026]; idem, ‘Drummond, James, fourth earl of Perth and Jacobite first duke of Perth (1648–1716)’, ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/8070 [last accessed 14 July 2026]; Mario Luis López Durán, ‘¿Un Cortesano Olvidado? La Trayectoria de Toby Bourke Durante el Reinado de Felipe V (1703–1713)’ in José María Imízcoz Beunza, Javier Estaban Ochoa de Eribe and Andoni Artola Renedo (eds), Los Entramados Políticos y Socialades en la España Moderna (Madrid, 2023), 2017–2031, at 2027. ⮭
  20. Edward Corp, A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689–1718 (Cambridge, 2004), 295–6; Daniel Szechi, 1715: the Great Jacobite Rebellion (New Haven, CT, and London, 2006), 215–16. ⮭
  21. For O’Brien’s rise, see, G. V. Bennett, The Tory Crisis in Church and State, 1688–1730 (Oxford, 1975), 293, n.1. ⮭
  22. O’Brien to James, 21 June 1733; O’Brien to James, 27 July 1733, RA, SP 162/137; 163/126; Paul Vaucher, Robert Walpole et la Politique de Fleury (Paris, 1924), 144–9. ⮭
  23. William K. Dickson, The Jacobite Attempt of 1719 (Edinburgh, 1895); René Moulinas, ‘James Butler, 2nd Duke of Ormonde in Avignon’ in Toby Barnard and Jane Fenlon (eds), The Dukes of Ormonde, 1610–1745 (Woodbridge, 2000), 255–62; Keene to Robinson, 5 April 1726, in Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers from 1501–1726 (2 vols, London, 1778), II, 636–8. ⮭
  24. Pádraig Lenihan, Consolidating Conquest: Ireland, 1603–1727, second edition (Oxford, 2014), ch. 5, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315835709; Anonymous, A True Relation of the Manner of Our Colonel Sir Frederick Hamiltons Return from London-Derry in Ireland (1645), 16–22. ⮭
  25. Barry Robertson, Royalists at War in Scotland and Ireland, 1638–50 (Abingdon, 2016), 48, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315607092. ⮭
  26. S. J. Connolly, Divided Kingdom: Ireland, 1630–1800 (Oxford, 2008), 89–93, https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199543472.001.0001; Robertson, Royalists at War, 184; George Cockayne, Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom (8 vols, London, 1887–98), V, 249. ⮭
  27. Stephen Griffin, ‘Princes, Agents and Friends: Count Owen O’Rourke and the Stuart Presence in Vienna, 1727–43’ (PhD thesis, University of Limerick, 2020), 71. ⮭
  28. Ibid., 71; Pádraig Lenihan, ‘The “Irish Brigade”, 1690–1715’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 31 (2016), 47–74, at 49, https://doi.org/10.3828/eci.2016.6; Harman Murtagh and Diarmuid Murtagh, The Irish Jacobite Army (Dublin, 2024), 259–63. ⮭
  29. Griffin, ‘Princes, Agents and Friends’, 59–60; Anne Motta, Noblesse et Pouvoir Princier dans la Lorraine Ducal (Paris, 2015), 427–73. ⮭
  30. Alain Petiot, ‘D’Innsbruck à Lunéville: L’expérience de l’exil du Duc Léopold’ in Anne Motta (ed.), Échanges, Passages et Transferts à la Cour du Duc Léopold, 1698–1729 (Rennes, 2017), 33–46, at 41–2, https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pur.154885; Guy Rowlands, An Army in Exile: Louis XIV and the Irish Forces of James II in France, 1691–1698 (London, 2001), 18. ⮭
  31. D’Auddifret to Louis XIV, 13 September 1712, Archive des Affaires Étrangères (hereafter AAE), Collection Politique, Lorraine 83/27–8; Berwick to James III/VIII, 1 March 1715 in HMC, Stuart Papers, I, 350. ⮭
  32. Griffin, ‘Duke Leopold’, 1257–8. ⮭
  33. Dundee to Melfort, 27 June 1689, in Mark Napier, Life and Times of John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee (3 vols, Edinburgh, 1862), III, 601. ⮭
  34. Paul Hopkins, Glencoe and the End of the Highland War (Edinburgh, 1986), 355. ⮭
  35. Daniel Szechi, Britain’s Lost Revolution? Jacobite Scotland and French Grand Strategy, 1701–8 (Manchester, 2015), 29 [quotation], 95–6; P. W. J. Riley, King William and the Scottish Politicians (Edinburgh, 1979), 154. ⮭
  36. Corp, ‘Drummond, James’, ODNB. ⮭
  37. William Keith, 9th Lord Marischal to Mary of Modena, 8 March 1704, in James MacPherson, Original Papers Containing the Secret History of Great Britain from the Restoration to the Accession of the House of Hanover (2 vols, London, 1775), I, 680–81; John Macky, Memoirs of the Secret Services of John Macky Esq; During the Reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George I (London, 1733), 214. The Scots peers were divided into three broad groups: a ‘court’ faction which supported the queen and sought office, a Whig opposition faction and a Jacobite faction. Szechi, Jacobitism and Tory Politics, 63. ⮭
  38. Szechi, Jacobitism and Tory Politics, 85–96. ⮭
  39. Ibid., 130–5. ⮭
  40. Daniel Szechi, ‘Jacobite Politics in the Age of Anne’, Parliamentary History, 28 (2009), 41–58, at 45, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-0206.2008.00061.x; Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 28. ⮭
  41. Daniel Szechi, ‘The Political Consequences of the Cuckoldy German Turnip Farmer’ in Brent S. Sirota and Allan I. MacInnes (eds), The Hanoverian Succession in Great Britain and its Empire (Woodbridge, 2019), 20–37, at 23, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781787445468.002; Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, 172–3; Furgol, ‘Keith, George’, ODNB; T. Constable (ed.) A Fragment of a Memoir of Field-Marshal James Keith, Written by Himself, 1714–1734 (Edinburgh, 1843), 35–41. ⮭
  42. Griffin, ‘Duke Leopold’, 1256–8. ⮭
  43. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 17 May 1727, 30 July 1729, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/99, 232; Griffin, ‘Princes, Agents and Friends’, 107–8. ⮭
  44. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 2 September 1730, 23 September 1730, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/261; Stephen Griffin, ‘O’Rourke, Owen’, Dictionary of Irish Biography. ⮭
  45. Derek McKay and H. M. Scott, The Rise of the Great Powers, 1648–1815 (London, 1983), 136–8. ⮭
  46. Ibid., 139–41. ⮭
  47. James III/VIII to Marischal, 27 February 1733, RA, SP 159/159; Henry Kamen, Philip V of Spain: the King Who Reigned Twice (London, 2001), 189–90. ⮭
  48. Marischal to James III/VIII, 28 June 1733, RA, SP 162/174; Marischal to Edgar, 13 July 1733, RA, SP 163/66; Marischal to James III/VIII, 18 October 1733, RA, SP 165/163. ⮭
  49. James III/VIII to Marischal, 5 September 1733, 18 September 1733, 3 October 1733, RA, SP 164/136, 164/205, 165/73. ⮭
  50. Marischal to James III/VIII, 18 and 26 October 1733, RA, SP 165/162, 165/199; Antonio de Béthencourt Massieu, Relaciones de España bajo Felipe V (Madrid, 1998), 135; Antonio Rodriguez Villa, Patiño y Campillo: Reseña Histórico-Biografía de Estos Ministros de Felipe V (Madrid, 1888), 89. ⮭
  51. Extrait de la lettre du Roi Jacques a Mr O’Bryen, 11 May 1735, AAE, Collection Politique, Angleterre 391/161–2. ⮭
  52. Bartenstein to O’Rourke, September 1735, AAE, Collection Politique, Angleterre 392/121; O’Rourke to James, 8 October 1735, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/356; James to O’Rourke, 15 October 1735, RA, SP 183/72. ⮭
  53. Jeremy Black, British Diplomats and Diplomacy, 1688–1800 (Exeter, 2001), 2. ⮭
  54. Edith E. Cuthell, Scottish Friend, II, 128–31. ⮭
  55. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau (New York, NY, 1963), 620–1. ⮭
  56. Charles-Philippe d’Albert, duc de Luynes, Mémoires du duc de Luynes sur la Cour de Louis XV (1735–1758) (17 vols, Paris, 1860–65), XIII, 276. ⮭
  57. Frederick II to Marischal, 26 October 1751, 27 November 1751, 3 December 1751, 28 December 1751, in Politische Korrespondenz Politische Korrespondenz Friedrich des Großen (46 vols, Cologne, 1879–1939), VIII, 498, 543, 549, 577–8. ⮭
  58. Frederick II to Marischal, 22 January 1752, in Politische Korrespondenz, IX, 12. ⮭
  59. Frederick II to Marischal, 28 March 1752, 18 April 1752, 19 December 1752; Marischal to Frederick II, 8 December 1752, in Politische Korrespondenz, IX, 74, 90, 289–91. ⮭
  60. Cuthell, Scottish Friend, I, 262–5, 286–91. ⮭
  61. Frederick II to Marischal, 12 December 1759, 12 March 1760, in Politische Korrespondenz, XIX, 29, n.1, 164; Cuthell, Scottish Friend, II, 76–90, 100–1; Mitchell to Holdernesse, 8 January 1759, 14 February 1759, in Andrew Bisset, Memoirs and Papers of Sir Andrew Mitchell, K.B. (2 vols, London, 1850), II, 505–7. ⮭
  62. Hamish Scott, ‘Diplomatic Culture in Old Regime Europe’ in Hamish Scott and Christopher Storrs (eds), Cultures of Power in Europe During the Long Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, 2007), 58–85, at 73, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511496899.005. ⮭
  63. See Andrea Pühringer, ‘The Finances of Non-Permanent Diplomacy’, in Dorothée Goetze and Lena Oetzel (eds), Early Modern Diplomacy: A Handbook (Berlin, 2024), 693–706, https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110672008-036. ⮭
  64. Stephen Griffin, ‘“Make Use of It as You Judge Proper”: The O’Rourke-Beauvau Family Network in the Early Eighteenth Century’ in Aske, Billingsley, et al. (eds), Participation, Collaboration, Association: Communities, Exchanges, Politics, And Philosophies in the Eighteenth Century (Paris, 2023), 35–52, at 36–7. ⮭
  65. A gruerie essentially granted owners the right to the use of a wood or forest in exchange for a ducal levy; Griffin, ‘Make Use of It as You Judge Proper’, 39. ⮭
  66. Motta, Noblesse et Pouvoir Princier, 463. ⮭
  67. Renate Zedinger, Franz Stephan von Lothringen: Monarch, Manager, Mäzen (Vienna, 2008), 46. ⮭
  68. Ibid. ⮭
  69. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 13 and 20 August 1729, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/234–5. ⮭
  70. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 27 August and 3 September 1729, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/234. ⮭
  71. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 17 September 1729, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/235. ⮭
  72. Marc de Beauvau was made a prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1722 and thereafter was known as the Prince de Craon; Zedinger, Franz Stephan, 46; O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 24 September 1729, 25 March 1730, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/238, 252. ⮭
  73. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 26 April 1732, 28 June 1732, 25 April 1733, 24 March 1736, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/289, 292, 306, 364d; James III/VIII to O’Rourke, 2 September 1740, RA, SP 226/9. ⮭
  74. Marischal to Keith, 12 July 1730 in Cuthell, Scottish Friend, I, 149. ⮭
  75. Marischal to James III/VIII, 22 April 1733, 18 October 1733, RA, SP 160/181, 165/163. ⮭
  76. Marischal to James III/VIII, 20 March 1734, RA, SP 169/12; James III/VIII to Marischal, 18 June 1734, RA, SP 171/32. Seven years earlier, his brother, James Keith, had left the Spanish service having been informed that the king of Spain would have supported Keith’s own promotion if he were to convert to Catholicism. Constable (ed.), Fragment of a Memoir, 76. ⮭
  77. Marischal to Kintore, 17 August 1736, Aberdeen University Library (hereafter AUL), MS 3064/2/2/2; Marischal to Hamilton, 13 February 1737, 20 June 1737, in HMC, Weston Underwood MSS, 472–3, 499. ⮭
  78. Marischal to Hamilton, 13 February 1737, in HMC, Weston Underwood MSS, 472–3. ⮭
  79. Marischal to Edgar, 9 March 1748, in Cuthell, Scottish Friend, I, 233. ⮭
  80. Christopher Duffy, The Army of Frederick the Great (New York, 1974), 48–9, 165–6; George Peabody Gooch, ‘Old Age’ in Peter Paret (ed.), Frederick the Great: A Profile (New York, 1972), 39–54, at 46–7, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-01476-7_3. ⮭
  81. Marischal to Bailie Bruce, 10 December 1771, 9 August 1773, AUL, MS 3064/2/2/2; Cuthell, Scottish Friend, II, 182. ⮭
  82. Zedinger, Franz Stephan, 31–4; Griffin, ‘Duke Leopold’, 1259. ⮭
  83. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 8 February 1738, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/390; see, for example, the career of Charles O’Gara, Maura O’Gara Riordan, ‘Count Charles O’Gara, 1699–1777’, Corran Herald, 46 (2013–4), 66–9. ⮭
  84. McLynn, Jacobites, 152. ⮭
  85. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 29 March 1738, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia 9/50–2; O’Rourke to James, 21 April 1742, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia 8.5/478. ⮭
  86. Rousseau, Confessions, 618; Voltaire, ‘Mémoires pour servir a la vie de M. de Voltaire’ in Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet (ed.), Œuvres complètes de Voltaire (Paris, 1883), 64. ⮭
  87. Marischal to Keith, 21 November 1731, 30 October 1732, in HMC, Ninth Report, 222. ⮭
  88. McLynn, Jacobites, 196; McLynn, Bonnie Prince Charlie, 95–7, 335. ⮭
  89. McLynn, Bonnie Prince Charlie, 400–11, 429–31. ⮭
  90. Griffin, ‘Princes, Agents and Friends’, 195–8. ⮭
  91. Jérémy Filet, ‘The Networks of Francis Taaffe, 3rd Earl of Carlingford and Irish Jacobite Émigrés in the Duchy of Lorraine’, Eighteenth-Century Ireland, 36 (2021), 27–47, at 34–5, https://doi.org/10.3828/eci.2021.5; Karen Harvey, ‘The Wild Geese in the Service of Imperial Austria: Captain John Bellew’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 118 (1988), 5–12; Dominic Rooney, ‘The O’Donnell Brothers from Larkfield, Manorhamilton’, Leitrim Guardian (1999), 32–3. ⮭
  92. Griffin, ‘Make Use of It as You Judge Proper’, 6. ⮭
  93. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 11 March 1730, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/251. ⮭
  94. O’Rourke to James III/VIII, 30 October 1728, 20 August 1729, ÖStA/HHStA, England Varia, 8.5/213, 234. ⮭
  95. Griffin, ‘Princes, Agents and Friends’, 195–8. ⮭
  96. Frederick II to Marischal, 16 February 1764; Marischal to Rousseau, 13 April 1764, in Cuthell, Scottish Friend, II, 187–8; 195–6; Marischal to Bailie Bruce, 10 September 1766, AUL, MS 3064/2/2/2. ⮭
  97. For more on this idea in early modern diplomacy see Christian Windler, ‘From Social Status to Sovereignty – Practices of Foreign Relations from the Renaissance to Sattelzeit’ in Tracey A. Sowerby and Jan Hennings (eds.), Practices of Diplomacy in the Early Modern World c.1410–1800 (Abingdon, 2017), 254–66; J. H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past and Present, 137 (1992), 48–71, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/137.1.48. ⮭
  98. See Matthew P. Dziennik, ‘Armailt làidir de mhilìsidh’: Hanoverian Gaels and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745’, Scottish Historical Review, 100 (2021), 171–98, https://doi.org/10.3366/shr.2021.0514; idem, ‘The Fiscal-Military State and Labour in the British Atlantic World’ in Aaron Graham and Patrick Walsh (eds), The British Fiscal-Military States, 1660–c.1783 (Abingdon, 2016), 159–78. ⮭

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