The Jacobite government-in-exile,1 originally established at Saint-Germain-en-Laye but then transferred to Bar-le-Duc (1713), Avignon (1716) and eventually the Papal States in Italy (1717), consisted of two distinct parts. There was the ministry, which was soon reduced in size to become exclusively the secretariat, and there was the household. Nearly all the documents which now comprise the Stuart Papers in the Royal Archives can be identified as having belonged to the one or to the other.
Most of the documents belonged to the secretariat, which conducted the correspondence of the exiled kings with the papacy and the pro-Jacobite kings and princes of continental Europe. The secretariat also maintained contact with the Jacobites2 in England, Scotland and Ireland, and (especially after 1716) with the many Jacobites living in exile on the continent, but not at the Stuart court. The papers of the secretariat are therefore of considerable social as well as diplomatic and political interest.
The papers of the household, which are proportionally much fewer, are concerned with the management of the Stuart court itself. They mainly concern the salaries paid to the servants employed by the exiled royal family, and the pensions paid to the many other Jacobites living in exile, whether at the court or elsewhere. At first the pensioners included the members of the ministry and the secretariat, who were regarded as government officials rather than household servants.
Many, if not most, of the names of these servants and pensioners will be unfamiliar to people using the Stuart Papers. They can, however, all be found in the history of the exiled court written by the present author,3 while sixteen of them have separate entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.4
It must be stressed that the Stuart Papers mainly date from after 1716, when the exiled court moved to Avignon. The archives of the court at Saint-Germain and Bar-le-Duc, covering the years 1689 to 1715, were all left behind in the château-vieux de Saint-Germain and then taken to Paris for permanent conservation. Some of them were deposited in the Irish Collège des Lombards in 1734, but the great majority were deposited in the Collège des Ecossais in 1735. Apart from a few papers which were subsequently sent at James III and VIIIs' request to the court in Rome, virtually all the Jacobite archives of the period 1689-1715 remained in Paris and were destroyed during the French Revolution. There are relatively few papers which date from before 1716 in the Stuart Papers today.
Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Bar-le-Duc, 1689-1715: The Secretariat
The ministry was established at Saint-Germain after the return of James II and VII from Ireland in 1690. It consisted of a Lord Chancellor, a Secretary of State, and a Secretary of State and War for Ireland. The Lord Chancellor was Sir Edward Herbert, previously Chief Justice of Common Pleas and now created Jacobite Earl of Portland. When he died in 1698 he was not replaced, and his papers were entrusted to the secretariat. The Secretary of State and War for Ireland was Sir Richard Nagle, previously Attorney General for Ireland. When he died in 1699 he too was not replaced, but his work was continued by his under- secretary, John Kearney, who liaised with the Irish troops in the French army. After Kearney died in 1733 his papers were all taken to the Irish Collège des Lombards. Although they have not survived, there is an inventory which indicates what they contained in RA SP/Main/166/55.
From 1693 to 1711 there were two Secretaries of State, who divided between them the political correspondence of the exiled kings. One secretary was Protestant, and mainly conducted the correspondence with England, Scotland and the French government. The other was Catholic and conducted the correspondence with the Papacy and the other Catholic courts of Europe, notably Spain. Before 1693 and after 1711 there was only one Secretary of State, who was therefore responsible for all the correspondence. Three of the four men who held the office were supported by clerks. The other was Henry Browne (later 5th Viscount Montagu), an English Catholic who was acting Secretary of State from 1689 to 1691.
Thereafter the Secretaries and their clerks were as follows:
- 1691-94: John Drummond, Earl, then Jacobite Duke of Melfort (Scottish Catholic)
- Senior clerk: David Nairne (Scottish Catholic)
- 1st assistant clerk: Etienne du Mirail de Monnot (French Catholic)
- 2nd assistant clerk: Nicholas Dempster (Scottish Catholic)
- 1693-1713: Charles, 2nd Earl of (Scottish Protestant, but converted to Catholicism in 1702)
- Clerk: David Lindsay, 1693-1703 (Scottish Protestant)
- Under-secretary: David Nairne, 1703-13
- Assistant clerk: Etienne du Mirail de Monnot, 1703-13
- 1694-1711: John Caryll, later Jacobite Lord Caryll (English Catholic)
- Senior clerk: David Nairne, 1694-1703
- Under-secretary: David Nairne, 1703-11
- 1st assistant clerk: Etienne du Mirail de Monnot, 1694-1703
- 2nd assistant clerk: Nicholas Dempster, 1694-1711
In addition to his responsibility as joint Secretary of State, Caryll also served as private secretary to Queen Mary of Modena, and handled her correspondence with the papacy and the Italian cardinals and princes. In this capacity he was supported after 1694 by the same three people: Nairne, Monnot (until 1703) and Dempster. When Caryll died and was not replaced as Secretary of State, the post of private secretary to the queen was given to John Stafford, an English Catholic, who was assisted at Saint-Germain by Dempster, while Nairne and Monnot accompanied Middleton to Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine. Stafford died in 1714, after which Dempster was promoted to private secretary and held the post until the queen's death in 1718. He was assisted by a French Catholic clerk named Jacques Chauvois.
At Bar-le-Duc, meanwhile, the secretariat was reorganised when Middleton retired in December 1713. Sir Thomas Higgons, an English Protestant, was appointed Secretary of State with responsibility for the correspondence with England and Scotland. Nairne, a Catholic, was given the new post of Secretary of the Closet for the King's private letters and despatches, with responsibility for the Roman and other Catholic correspondence. Higgons did not have any clerical assistance, so some of his work was actually performed by Nairne, who continued to be assisted by Monnot.5
In 1714, while James III and VIII was still in Lorraine, Queen Anne died and was succeeded by King George I, Elector of Hanover, who dismissed her Tory ministers and replaced them with Whigs. Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke, who had been one of the Tory Secretaries of State, then fled to Paris in March 1715, and was given the same appointment by James in July. Once again, therefore, there were two Jacobite Secretaries of State, Higgons at Bar-le-Duc and Bolingbroke in Paris. Although Bolingbroke corresponded with James in Lorraine, and liaised with Queen Mary at Saint-Germain, his role was more that of a minister than an actual Secretary of State.
The papers collected by Browne, Melfort, Middleton and Higgons in their capacity as secretaries of state, and by their assistants (Nairne, Monnot, Dempster and Lindsay) were taken to the Collège des Ecossais in 1735 and nearly all destroyed in Paris during the French Revolution. There are, however, five inventories which give us a good idea of what they contained. These inventories were drawn up in 1715 and 1738, and can be seen in the Bodleian Library, Carte MSS 211, p.332 (1715), and RA SP/Main/205/89, RA SP/Main/206/1 and 2, and RA SP/Main/208/69 (1738). It should be added, however, that it was normal practice for the secretaries of state and their assistants to regard their own correspondence as their personal property, to be retained by them when they left office. Thus, some of the papers of Browne are in the Westminster Diocesan Archives,6 and some of those of Melfort are in the British Library,7 while a letter book of Dempster's is at Douai Abbey.8 Middleton gave all his official papers to Nairne, who also kept many of the papers of Melfort and Caryll, and some of these are with Nairne's own papers in the Bodleian Library.9
The papers which were still being used by the secretariat when the court moved to Avignon, and the ones subsequently sent to Rome at the king's request, are nearly all calendared in the first of the seven volumes of the Stuart Papers published by the Historical Manuscripts Commission. The former include the registers of James III and VIII's letters to Pope Clement XI and the cardinals (RA SP/M/16 and RA SP/M/22), and the cyphers used in Lorraine (RA SP/Box/5). The latter include the letters sent to James and Queen Mary by James FitzJames, Duke of Berwick, in 1712-15 (RA SP/Main, printed in Calendar of the Stuart Papers belonging to His Majesty the King, preserved at Windsor Castle, Vol. 1: 1579-Feb 1716, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1902), an entry book of the queen's letters of 1685-1709 copied by Monnot in 1721 (RA SP/M/15), and the wills and codicils of James II and VII and Queen Mary (RA SP/Main/1/24, 114 and RA SP/Add/1/45, 46).10
Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Bar-le-Duc, 1689-1715: The Household
The households of the king and queen established at Saint-Germain in 1689-90 were divided into four departments, as they had been at Whitehall. These were the bedchamber, the chamber, the household below stairs and the stables. With one exception James II and VII and Queen Mary left the top posts in each department vacant. Thus, to take just the household of the king (both James II and VII and James III and VIII), there was no Groom of the Stole but only gentlemen of the bedchamber; there was a Lord Chamberlain until 1696 (William Herbert, Jacobite Duke of Powis) but thereafter only a vice-chamberlain; there was no Lord Steward but only a comptroller of the household; and no Master of the Horse but only equerries.11 To manage the entire household there were several commissioners, one of whom was responsible as treasurer and receiver-general for paying both the salaries of the household servants and the pensions of the other Jacobites in exile. When the court moved to Bar-le-Duc in 1713 the treasurer and receiver-general, and the other commissioners, remained at Saint-Germain with the queen, so a new post of treasurer was created for the greatly reduced household of the king. The new treasurer was subsequently called the controller (of the household below stairs) and treasurer.
With very few exceptions, none of the household papers have survived. We do not even have an inventory of what they might have contained. The papers that by chance have survived include 'the oath to be taken: particularly by all the Kings servants, who are under the Ld Steward [sic] in His Maties Household' (RA SP/Box/3/1/70/1), and some lists of salaries and pensions for 1693, 1703 and 1715 (RA SP/Main/1/79, 2/23, 8/92).12 The Stuart Papers do, however, contain two, 'Books of Entrys of Warrants', recording all, or very nearly all, the household appointments made at Saint-Germain and Bar-le-Duc between November 1691 and October 1715 (RA SP/M/18 and 19). Because each warrant was not only signed by the king but also counter-signed by the secretaries of state, the books were kept in the secretariat and taken to Avignon when the court moved there in 1716.13
Avignon and the Papal States, 1716-1766
The Stuart court was based at Avignon from 1716 to 1717, at Pesaro in the spring of 1717, at Urbino from 1717 to 1718, and then in Rome from November 1718. With one important exception, when James took most of his courtiers to live in Bologna (1726-29), the court then remained permanently in Rome, where the king died at the beginning of 1766. For the fifty years that followed the arrival of the court at Avignon in 1716, its archives have mainly survived. Most of the papers were originally kept in loose bundles, but now are nearly all bound up into the Main series of chronological volumes, regardless of their origins. They can, however, be identified as having been the archives either of the secretariat or of the household, including a newly created treasurer's department.
The Secretariat in Avignon and the Papal States, 1716-1766
In March 1716, following the unsuccessful Jacobite rising in Scotland, James appointed John Erskine, Jacobite Duke of Mar, to replace Bolingbroke as Secretary of State, and gave him responsibility for corresponding both with the Jacobites in England and Scotland and the Jacobites recently arrived on the continent. David Nairne, meanwhile, remained Secretary of the Closet with responsibility for the Roman correspondence.
Sir Thomas Higgons had gone to join the king in Scotland in January 1716 but was not with James and Mar when they sailed back to France. To avoid capture he was obliged to take a ship to Poland and then travel through Germany to rejoin the king. By the time he eventually arrived at Avignon, Mar was already well established as Secretary of State, and it was obvious that there was no need for a second Secretary. Higgons therefore left the court and returned to live at Saint-Germain.14
From 1716 until 1719 Mar and Nairne continued to divide the correspondence between them. Mar was assisted by two clerks: John Paterson who, like Mar, was a Scottish Protestant (1716-19); and Robert Creagh who was an Irish Catholic (1717-19). Nairne had no secretarial assistance, because Monnot had been ordered to remain at Saint-Germain with Queen Mary and Dempster.15
This arrangement came to an end in February 1719, when James left Rome and went to Spain, hoping to join a Spanish expeditionary force planning to invade England. Mar resigned his post, leaving all his correspondence in Rome,16 and attempted unsuccessfully to travel overland to join the king in England. At the same time Nairne was given a baronetcy and appointed Jacobite minister to the papal court. One of Mar's clerks, Paterson, left Rome and went to live at Saint-Germain. The other, Creagh, was appointed private secretary to Princess Clementina Sobieska when she arrived in Rome later that year to become James's wife. He retained the post until she died in January 1735.17
From 1719 to March 1725 there was no official Secretary of State, but the Jacobite correspondence was conducted by an acting Secretary, of whom there were two, both Scottish Protestants: James Murray, February 1719 to February 1721; and John Hay, February 1721 to March 1725. Murray was created Jacobite Earl of Dunbar in February 1721. Hay had secretly been created Jacobite Earl of Inverness in 1718, but his title was not acknowledged until March 1725.
Because the Stuart court had moved to Rome, there was no longer any Roman correspondence to be conducted by Nairne. Moreover, when the Spanish invasion failed, and James was obliged to return to live with Queen Clementina in Rome, there was no longer any need for a Jacobite minister at the papal court. Nairne was therefore demoted. He kept the title of Secretary of the Closet, but was made subordinate to the acting Secretary of State, put in charge of routine non-political correspondence, and given purely clerical tasks. The clerks who dealt with the political correspondence were: Francis Kennedy, September 1719 to July 1725 (Scottish Protestant); and Thomas Sheridan, January 1721 to September 1725 (Irish Catholic)
In March 1725 John Hay, now Jacobite Earl of Inverness, was given a warrant to be Secretary of State. Shortly afterwards Kennedy resigned his position as clerk because he hated working for Inverness. Then Sheridan was moved from the secretariat to become under-governor of Prince Charles,18 and replaced by James Edgar, a Scottish Protestant. By the end of 1725, therefore, when James moved his court to Bologna, the secretariat consisted of the Secretary of State (Inverness) and two assistants: James Edgar for political work, and the elderly Sir David Nairne for routine non-political work. Much of the correspondence was with the many exiled Jacobites living in France, Spain or elsewhere.
Inverness was extremely unpopular and was held responsible for provoking Queen Clementina's flight from the court to a convent in Rome in 1725. James therefore came under pressure to dismiss Inverness as a condition for the queen's return. He was reluctant to do this, partly because he liked and trusted Inverness, partly also because it had become very difficult to find a Jacobite of sufficient status who was willing to occupy the post of Secretary of State. In the end, Inverness tendered his resignation and left the court in April 1727, much to the relief of Edgar and Nairne, making it possible for the queen to join her husband in Bologna a few months later. In the absence of anyone more suitable James appointed Sir John Graeme to be his new Secretary of State. Graeme, who was also a Scottish Protestant, held the post from May 1727 to August 1728 when he asked to be allowed to resign.
It was this resignation which caused the king to abolish the post of Secretary of State and reorganise the secretariat. Edgar was promoted to become the king's private secretary, and Nairne was allowed to retire. From 1728 onwards there was only a private secretary who worked with a clerk. The private secretaries were: James Edgar, August 1728 to October 1762; and Andrew Lumisden, October 1762 to January 1766. The clerks who assisted them were: Mathurin Jacquin, 1728-50; and Andrew Lumisden, 1750-62.
Jacquin, a French Catholic, had previously been the private secretary to Cardinal Filippo Antonio Gualterio, the Cardinal Protector of England, and was already privy to most of the Jacobites' political secrets. By chance Gualterio had died in April 1728, leaving Jacquin unemployed, so he was available to be recruited as Edgar's assistant. When he died his post was given to Lumisden, a Scottish Protestant who had served Prince Charles in Scotland, and who eventually succeeded Edgar as private secretary. Lumisden did not have a clerk to assist him.
The abolition of the post of Secretary of State in 1728, and James's decision to employ only a private secretary to handle his correspondence, was made possible because the king had begun to rely on a group of advisers without portfolio in a recreated ministry. Most of his ministers, starting with Cardinal Gualterio, were Italian, French or Spanish, but some were the king's own subjects. They included:
- Sir Toby, Jacobite Baron Bourke, 1729-37 (Irish Catholic)
- George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal, 1731-33 (Scottish Protestant)
- James Murray, Jacobite Earl of Dunbar, 1743-46 (Scottish Protestant)
- Captain Henry Fitzmaurice, 1747-53 (Irish Catholic)
- Daniel O'Bryen, Jacobite Earl of Lismore, 1747-59 (Irish Catholic)
- Sir John Graeme, Jacobite Earl of Alford, 1760-63 (Scottish Protestant)
Graeme had been the last of James's Secretaries of State in 1727-28, and since then had been living in France. When the king invited him to return to Italy he specified that it was 'to assist me, as he [Lismore] did, in quality of minister, but without the title of Secretary of State'.19
There seems little doubt that the Secretaries of State and the private secretaries all left their official correspondence in the Palazzo del Re when they either died or retired, and that the archives of this period of the secretariat can therefore be regarded for all intents and purposes as complete.20 The one exception concerns David Nairne who retained all his official and private correspondence with Cardinal Gualterio and took it away with him when he left the court. Many of the official letters he received from Gualterio, which should be with the Stuart Papers, are now in the Bodleian Library.21
The Household in Avignon and the Papal States, 1716-1766
The king's household was gradually reduced and simplified while the court was at Bar-le-Duc, Avignon, Pesaro and Urbino, so that its structure was considerably different in Rome from what it had been at Saint-Germain. In the bedchamber there were no longer any gentlemen, nor even any grooms, and the king was served only by valets. In the chamber there was no longer a vice-chamberlain, and there were no gentlemen or grooms to wait on the king. In the household below stairs there was no longer a comptroller. The stables, by contrast, were still headed by some equerries.
In March 1717 James created a new post called the maggiordomo (or intendant de la maison), in charge of 'the Household Below Stairs, the Table and the Stables'. The maggiordomo was made responsible for all of the household, but especially for ensuring that the food and drink prepared in the kitchen, the confectionary and the wine cellar were properly served at the king's table upstairs in his apartment. Themaggiordomo was also responsible for ensuring that there were always some Jacobites (normally pensioners without posts) available to attend the king in his presence and privy chambers when he needed them. In effect the maggiordomo controlled everything except the secretariat.
Nine people held the office of maggiordomo under James. They were:
- Charles Booth, 1717 (English Catholic)
- John Middleton, Lord Clermont, 1717-18 (Middleton's son; Scottish Catholic)
- John Hay, 1718-22 (Scottish Protestant. N.B. in 1721-22 Hay was also acting Secretary of State, so at that time he controlled the entire court)
- Thomas Forster, 1722-36 (English Protestant)
- John Stewart, 1736-39 (Scottish Catholic)
- William Hay, 1739-41 (Scottish Protestant)
- Francis Strickland, 1741-44 (English Catholic)
- Sir William Hay, 1744-51 (reappointed and created a Jacobite baronet in 1748)
- Don Antonio Escudero, 1751-53 (Spanish Catholic; Grand Prior of Navarre)
- Sir John Constable, 1753-66 (English Catholic)
Very few papers have survived which can be associated with the management of the king's household. The most obvious exception concerns RA SP/M/31, which contains the menus of the meals served at the king's table in 1732-33, when Thomas Forster was maggiordomo. There are also some inventories of plate drawn up when James went to Bologna in 1726 and returned to Rome in 1729 as well as two inventories of the contents of the Palazzo del Re after he had left (RA SP/Main/98/47, 131; 106/79). The books of entries and warrants concerning the household appointments of 1716-63 are in RA SP/M/19 and 20.
Between 1719 and 1727 James refused to allow Clementina to have her own separate household, insisting that she should be served either by his own servants or by the wives of his servants. After she left the court in 1725 Clementina made her return dependent on her being given her own household, something which she finally obtained in 1727.23
The Treasurer's Department of the Household
As noted above, until 1713, when the court moved to Bar-le-Duc, the finances of the court had been managed by an officer called the treasurer and receiver-general, who was one of the commissioners of the household. At first the treasurer and receiver-general happened also to be Queen Mary's vice- chamberlain, but in 1709 the post was given to William Dicconson, an English Catholic, who had no other responsibilities. Dicconson, like his predecessor, received the Stuart pension from the French Treasury and paid all the salaries and pensions.
Because Dicconson remained at Saint-Germain when the king went to Bar-le-Duc, a new post of controller and treasurer was created for one of the courtiers who accompanied the king. This was Sir William Ellis (an English Protestant), who had previously been one of the commissioners of the household. Ellis liaised with Dicconson, paid the salaries of all the servants who were with the king in Lorraine, and was also in charge of the household below stairs.
Ellis's role became more important when the court moved to Avignon in 1716, because the king then financed his court with a new pension received from the Pope rather than with his old French pension, and it was Ellis who received the money from the papal authorities. Although he was made technically subordinate to the maggiordomo when that post was created in 1717, Ellis managed to maintain a degree of independence, particularly after 1722 when John Hay ceased to be the maggiordomo.
Ellis remained controller and treasurer (also called cofferer) until his death in 1732. He was assisted by three clerks:
- Joseph Martinash, 1717-22 (English Catholic)
- William Watkins, 1722-27 (English Catholic)
- Domenico Arnoux, 1727-32 (Italian Catholic)
When, however, James went to Bologna in 1726 he initially left Ellis behind in Rome. A new servant was therefore recruited in Bologna to receive the papal money from Ellis in Rome and pay the salaries and pensions of the Jacobites who were with the king. This was Pietro Antonio Marsi, an Italian Catholic, who was given the title of paymaster. By 1727, therefore, when Ellis joined the king in Bologna, the treasurer's department consisted of Ellis himself, Marsi and Arnoux. And when Ellis died in 1732 the Stuart court finances continued to be handled by Marsi, assisted by Arnoux. The latter died in 1764, but the former was still in office when James III and VIII died in 1766.
The papers of the treasurer's department are preserved with those of the secretariat in the Stuart Papers. They can be seen throughout the main series of chronological volumes, starting in April 1717 (HMC Stuart v, 542), in the boxes of undated papers, and in many of the miscellaneous volumes (notably the account books in RA SP/M/32-39, 41-43, 46-47, 49-50, and the registers of Marsi's correspondence during the 1750s in RA SP/M/23-25). The main series, for example, includes many lists of salaries and pensions, particularly after 1726.24
For many years, there was a regular correspondence between the treasurer's department in Rome and William Dicconson, who continued to be responsible for the finances of the Jacobites in France, both before and after the death of Queen Mary. When Dicconson died in 1743 his papers were sent to Rome, and they are now included in both the Main series of chronological volumes and the boxes of undated papers,25 thereby considerably enhancing the value of the treasurer's archives within the Stuart Papers.
*****
The Jacobite government-in-exile came to an end with the death of James III and VIII in January 1766. The Stuart Papers, however, contain a great many papers which belonged to his sons, Prince Charles and Prince Henry (Cardinal York), from the period before 1766. These include the papers which Charles assembled when he was away from Rome, from 1744 to 1766 (e.g. RA SP/Box/4), and the papers of Henry after he became a cardinal in 1747 (e.g. RA SP/M/26-29, 40, 44-45). Most of their papers, however, are preserved in the many chronological volumes covering those years (RA SP/Main/255-431).26 The large quantity of papers from 1766 until the death of Charles in 1788 and until the death of Henry in 1807 (RA SP/Main/431-541) document the lives of the last two Stuarts but cannot be regarded as relevant to a study of the Jacobite government-in-exile.
NOTES:
1 After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 removed James II from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland and replaced him with his daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, James and his family fled to France with many of their loyal followers, courtiers and advisers, who formed a Government-in-exile. After James II's death in 1701, his son succeeded him to become the Jacobite James III and VIII.
2 These were the remaining supporters of James II and his heirs in England, Scotland and Ireland. The movement endured throughout most of the eighteenth century. The last legitimate Jacobite claimant to the throne was Henry Benedict Stuart, youngest grandson of James II, who died in 1807.
3 Edward Corp, A Court in Exile: The Stuarts in France, 1689-1718 (Cambridge University Press, 2004); The Jacobites at Urbino: An Exiled Court in Transition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); The Stuarts in Italy, 1719-1766: A Royal Court in Permanent Exile (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
4 William Dicconson; James Drummond, 4th Earl and 1st Jacobite Duke of Perth; John Drummond, 1st Earl and 1st Jacobite Duke of Melfort; James Edgar; Sir William Ellis; John Erskine, 6th Earl and 1st Jacobite Duke of Mar; John Hay, Jacobite Earl then Duke of Inverness; Sir Edward Herbert, Jacobite Earl of Portland; Sir Thomas Higgons; George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal; Andrew Lumisden; Charles, 2nd Earl of Middleton; James Murray, Jacobite Earl of Dunbar; Sir Richard Nagle; Sir David Nairne; Sir Thomas Sheridan.
5 For example, the manuscript drafts in French and English of James's protest against the accession of George I, dated 29 August 1714 from Plombières, are both in the handwriting of Monnot (RA SP/Main/3/102, 104, 107). Unlike Nairne, Higgons could not read or write French.
6 Stuart Papers at the Westminster Diocesan Archives, B6, B7. B9 and E11, Our Lady of Victories, Kensington, London.
7 British Library Lansdowne MSS 1163 A, B and C; and British Library Add MSS 37660, 37661 and 37662.
8 Douai Abbey Library and Archives, Berkshire.
9 Edward Corp, 'An Inventory of the Archives of the Stuart Court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1689-1718', Archives, xxiii (1998) 118-46. This inventory combines the contents of the inventories of 1715 and 1738 with the few surviving papers of 1689 to 1715 in the Stuart Papers, supplemented by several additional references.
10 The inventory of James II and VII's possessions, which was kept with his wills and codicils, is now in the Brotherton Library of Leeds University (MS Dep. 1984/2/5).
11 In the household of Queen Mary there were ladies of the bedchamber but not a Mistress of the Robes; there was a vice-chamberlain but not a Lord Chamberlain; there was a clerk of the green cloth but not a Lord Steward; and there were equerries but not a Master of the Horse. At the very end of her life, however, after James had left Saint- Germain, she appointed both a Master of the Horse (Middleton, 1713-16; James Drummond, 2nd Duke of Perth, 1716- 18) and a Lord Chamberlain (James Drummond, 1st Duke of Perth, 1714-16; Lord Middleton, 1716-18).
12 Until 1709 the treasurer and receiver-general was Robert Strickland. His list of all the salaries and pensions paid in 1696 is now in the Strickland Collection (R4) at Sizergh Castle, Cumbria. There is also a list of 1709 in the British Library, Egerton MS 2517. In addition to these, there are a few papers concerning both the allowances given to the household servants (RA SP/Main/39/117, and RA SP/Box/3/90) and the money owed to the king and queen by some of them (RA SP/Box/3/1/86, 87). The 'Orders for the regulation of the stables, kitchen, and servants, the prices of liveries, the oats, hay and straw to be allowed for different horses, etc', dated 20 December 1709, are calendared in HMC Stuart, i. 234; RA SP/Main/2/55.
13 There is an interesting note in RA SP/M/19/60, counter-signed by Lord Middleton in November 1701, which records that: 'Whereas it is our intention, that the ceremoniall, formes and customes of our Court and Household, should be truly observed and practisd as in the times of our Royall Ancestours, Kings of England; and that all our Officers should be maintained in the just functions and priviledges of their respective offices: and wee wanting at present the requisite informations of these particulars, thinke fitt therefor to declare, that whatsoever has, or may be done here, contrary to the establish'd rules of our Court, shall not be made precedents nor drawn into consequence in England.'
14 HMC Stuart, vii. 128, RA SP/Main/34/106: Higgons to James, 28 July/8 August 1718; HMC Stuart, vii. 398, RA SP/Main/37/103, Higgons to Mar, 6/17 October 1718.
15 Monnot was theoretically employed by Mar as his clerk until 1719 (HMC Stuart, vii. 129, RA SP/Main/34/108: Monnot to Mar, 28 July/8 August 1718).
16 Mar's political and personal correspondence, including the papers of Paterson, are in HMC Stuart, vols i-vii and RA SP/Main/1-40.
17 Some of Queen Clementina's correspondence with James has survived in the Stuart Papers. Her letters to her father about her marriage and the court are preserved among the Sobieski papers in the National Historical Archives of Belarus at Minsk (Nacyjanalnyj Gistarycznyi Archiu Bielarasu w Minsku), f.694, o.12, rkps, 358, 359 and 360. Robert Creagh's letters are in rkps 333.
18 When Thomas Sheridan died in 1746 he left some of his father's papers with the Stuart Papers. They are now RA SP/M/5, 6 and 7. Some of his own personal papers are in HMC Stuart, i. 251, 340, 358, 364, 366; and HMC Stuart, vii. 707 (RA SP/Main/2/76; 3/128; 4/46-47, 68, 75).
19 RA SP/Main/396/102: James to Graeme, 9/20 November 1759.
20 At some point in the early nineteenth century, before the Stuart Papers were bound up into chronological volumes, some of the papers of the secretariat were separated from the main collection. These papers are now at Chiddingstone Castle (Kent), and in British Library Add MSS 38851 (letters of 23 August 1717 and 1 to 29 September 1734). There are other papers, which were possibly inherited or merely taken from the rest of the Stuart Papers in 1807 by Marchese Sigismondo Malatesta. They are at Stanford Hall (Leicestershire) and Trinity College, Dublin, all of them described in Historical Manuscripts Commission 10th Report, Appendix, Part VI (London, 1887).
21 Bodleian Library, Carte MSS 257 and 258.
22 RA SP/Main/98/83; 99/114-120; 106/24; 123/80-88. There are also inventories of plate and porcelain in RA SP/M/33/52-58 (previously SP/M/33/143-55). Finally, there are three volumes relating to the jewels of James 'III and VIII', dated 1724-28 and mainly signed by Inverness, at Chiddingstone Castle, which were removed at some time from the Stuart Papers.
23 The papers concerning the establishment of the queen's household are in RA SP/Main/92/150; 108/14-20, 111; 111/79, 80; and RA SP/Box/3/1/72. The senior posts in the queen's household included ladies of the bedchamber, and three gentlemen of the chamber (one of them entitled first gentleman).
24 There are not many lists before 1726. The surviving ones are in RA SP/Box/3/1/89 (July 1717), Box/3/1/90 (January 1719) and RA SP/M/34 (November 1722). After 1729 there are a great many lists, nearly all of them in the main chronological volumes and entitled either 'Gages du Roy' or 'Pensions'.
25 Dicconson's papers included his correspondence with Queen Mary (HMC Stuart vols i-vi, RA SP/Main/1-33), and some drafts of his correspondence with James in 1718 (HMC Stuart, vii. 553; RA SP/Box/3/1/87, 88). After the death of Queen Mary, Dicconson wrote regularly to Rome about the Jacobites at Saint-Germain and Paris, and his papers are the essential source for any study of what happened to the Stuart court in France after the departure of the king and the death of the queen.
26 There are also 55 volumes of the papers of Cardinal York which were inherited, or possibly simply removed from the rest of the Stuart Papers, by Marchese Sigismondo Malatesta. They are now in British Library, Add MSS 30428- 30477 and 34634-34638.
CITATION: Corp, Edward: "The Jacobite Government-in-Exile." State Papers Online: The Stuart and Cumberland Papers from the Royal Archives, Windsor Castle, Cengage Learning (EMEA) Ltd, 2018
