After Culloden, supporters of the Jacobite cause continued to keep alive the dream of a Stuart restoration for several generations, despite draconian reprisals employed by “Butcher” Cumberland, the younger son of George II, to pacify the Highlands. Hanoverian policy evolved into a systematic campaign to break the Highland chiefs and the ancient clan system and to eradicate the Highland way of life. In addition to executing more than eighty leaders of the rebellion and attainting titles and lands of participants, the government of George II forbade the wearing of the tartan or any other item of distinctive Highland dress and threatened transportation to the American colonies for anyone found continuing to support the “King over the water.”
Many Jacobite supporters fled to exile in France with their Prince. Many more emigrated to the New World or were transported there under conditions hardly better than slavery. Jacobite intrigues continued to smolder in Europe, especially in France, where the Stuart cause became closely intertwined with Freemasonry, whose oaths of secrecy provided convenient camouflage. (Freemasonry was to provide a similar cover for secret plotting in the American colonies, as Hanoverian heavy-handedness provoked increasing colonial resentment.) For many years it was hoped that a Stuart restoration might begin in America, serving as a base of operations from which Charles Edward Stuart might eventually reclaim at least his Scottish throne.
This is the story of a few of those Jacobite exiles who became inextricably intertwined in the shaping of the New Order that was to become the United States of America, and the thread of Freemasonry that bound them to the American cause, and the Unknown Master believed to have directed much of their activity from the other side of the Atlantic—toward what ultimate end, we can only guess. An independent Crown for America was a distinct possibility for many years, with at least two wearers under serious consideration. Exactly how Jacobite kings and Crowns and the thread of Freemasonry actually did figure in the eventual birth of the American Republic probably will never be known for certain, but this is how it might have been.…
Partial Bibliography
Background on the American War for Independence
Bernier, Oliver. Lafayette: Hero of Two Worlds. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1983.
Elting, John R., ed. Military Uniforms in America: The Era of the American Revolution, 1755–1795. San Rafael, Calif.: Presidio Press, for the Company of Military Historians, 1974.
Fleming, Thomas. Now We Are Enemies: Bunker Hill, the Battle—and Before and After. London: Victor Gollancz, 1960.
Forbes, Esther. Paul Revere and the World He Lived In. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1942.
Frothingham, Thomas G. Washington, Commander in Chief. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1930.
Gross, Robert A. The Minutemen and Their World. New York: Hill and Wang, 1976.
Harris, John. American Rebels: A Narrative History of the Beginnings of the Revolution. Boston: Globe Newspaper Co., 1976.
Hume, Ivor Noel. 1775: Another Part of the Field. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1966.
Ketchum, Richard M. The Winter Soldiers: George Washington and the Way to Independence. London: History Book Club, 1973.
__________. The World of George Washington. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1974.
Knill, Harry. The Story of Our Flag. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Bellerophon Books, 1992.
Langguth, A. J. Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1988.
Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.
Mollo, John, and Malcolm McGregor. Uniforms of the American Revolution. Poole, Dorset: Blandford Press, 1975.
Schwartz, Barry. George Washington: The Making of an American Symbol. New York: Macmillan, Free Press, 1987.
Simmons, R. C. The American Colonies from Settlement to Independence. New York: David McKay Co., 1976.
Thane, Elswyth. Potomac Squire. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1963.
Thayer, William M. George Washington: His Boyhood and Manhood. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1883.
Tuchman, Barbara. The First Salute. New York: Viking Penguin, 1988.
Wilbur, C. Keith. The Revolutionary Soldier, 1775–1783. Old Saybrook, Conn.: Globe Pequot Press, 1969, 1993.
Wills, Garry. Cincinnatus: George Washington and the Enlightenment—Images of Power in Early America. New York: Doubleday, 1984.
Jacobite Background
Aronson, Theo. Kings Over the Water. London: Cassell, 1979.
Blaikie, Walter Biggar. Itinerary of Prince Charles Edward Stuart, from His Landing in Scotland July 1745 to His Departure in September 1746. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1975.
Buchan, John. “The Company of the Marjolainc.” In The Moon Endureth. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1912.
Chambers, Robert. History of the Rebellion of 1745. London: W. & R. Chambers, 1827. Reprint. Edinburgh, 1869.
Chidsey, Donald Barr. Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Biography of the Young Pretender. London: Williams and Norgate, 1928.
Daiches, David. Charles Edward Stuart: The Life and Times of Bonnie Prince Charlie. London: Pan Books, 1973.
Kybett, Susan Maclean. Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Biography. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
Lenman, Bruce. The Jacobite Cause. Glasgow: Drew Publishing, in association with the National Trust, 1986.
Linklater, Eric. The Prince in the Heather. London: Granada, 1986.
McLaren, Moray. Bonnie Prince Charlie. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1972.
Maclean, Fitzroy. Bonnie Prince Charlie. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988.
McLynn, Frank. Charles Edward Stuart: A Tragedy in Many Acts. London: Routledge, 1988.
__________. The Jacobites. London: Routledge and Keegan Paul, 1985.
Marshall, Rosalind K. Bonnie Prince Charlie. Edinburgh: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1988.
Nicholas, Donald. The Young Adventurer: The Wanderings of Prince Charles Edward Stuart in Scotland and England in the Years 1745–6. London: Batchworth Press, 1949.
Stevenson, William. The Jacobite Rising of 1745. London: Longman Group, 1968.
Tayler, Alistair and Henriette. The Stuart Papers at Windsor. London: John Murray, 1939.
Masonic and Esoteric
Barry, John W. Masonry and the Flag. After 1923. Reprint. Kila, Mt.: Kessinger Publishing Co., no date.
Capt, E. Raymond. The Great Seal: The Symbols of Our Heritage and Our Destiny. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Artisan Sales, 1979.
Day, John. Memoir of the Lady Freemason. Cork: 1914, 1941.
Hall, Manly P. America’s Assignment with Destiny. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1951.
__________. The Secret Destiny of America. Los Angeles: Philosophical Research Society, 1944.
Howard, Michael. The Occult Conspiracy: Secret Societies—Their Influence and Power in World History. Rochester, Vt.: Destiny Books, 1989.
Leadbeater, C. W. The Hidden Life in Freemasonry. Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1949. Reprint. Mokelumne Hill, Calif.: Health Research, 1973.
Morse, Sidney. Freemasonry in the American Revolution. 1924. Reprint. Kila, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing Co., no date.
A Ritual and Illustrations of Freemasonry. London: W. Reeves, c. 1908.
Roberts, Allen E. George Washington Master Mason. Richmond, Va.: Macoy Publishing and Masonic Supply Co., 1976.
W. O. V., The Three Distinct Knocks, or the Door of the Most Ancient Free-masonry. London: 1760. Reprint. Kila, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing Co., 1992.
Dedicated to
the Brotherhood of Freemasonry,
under the All-Seeing Eye,
whose Brethren helped shape America’s destiny.
Present at the creation.…
About the Author
KATHERINE KURTZ completed an M.A. in medieval English history while writing her first two novels, and worked as an instructional designer for the Los Angeles Police Academy before shifting to a
full-time writing career. Her Deryni series has become a foundation of the modern fantasy genre. Ms. Kurtz lives in a Gothic Revival house in Ireland with her husband, author Scott MacMillan; four cats; and at least two resident ghosts.
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