Survival Strategies: Jacobite Adaptability, 1689-1789, and Counter-revolutionary Prototypes

Abstract

Jacobitism had national origins though of necessity became a transnational phenomenon when deemed a security risk within the post-Revolutionary British state. This chapter considers its capacity for adaptability over time when confronted with the multiple choices of subverting or engaging with a régime deemed Revolutionary in order to displace it. In doing so, it highlights the centrality of cosmopolitan aristocratic networks to the longevity of Jacobitism, and considers the extent to which Counter-Revolutionaries of the 1790s regarded the Jacobite reading of and response to 'Revolutionary Britain' as a mirror and pattern for their own times.