THREAD: American King

"In 1774, (Bonnie Prince Charlie) 'had pressing invitations to America for which he will not embark unless assisted by the Crowns of France & Spain...the Massachusetts Militia fought the redcoats at Lexington in 1775 playing the Jacobite battle march..(1/12

Almost certainly, some kind of invitation was made by the Bostonians in 1775 that he should be the figurehead of an provisional American government. Until then Americans had seen themselves as loyal subjects of the Crown, but a Jacobite leavening must have existed, (2/12)

especially among Episcopalian Scots. A member of Washington's army who may have been a Jacobite was General Hugh Mercer...once a surgeon in (Bonnie Prince Charlie's) army...A coronation at Boston or Philadelphia may even have been (broached) - Episcopalian prelates could be (3/12

brought over from Scotland to crown him. It took time for the idea of president to evolve and, until then, American Jacobites must have still regarded him as their king...A Stuart king could could well have appealed to conservative Patriots as well as Tories - and to the (4/12)

French, who eventually intervened in America. Dr. (Samuel) Johnson believed that a fundamental reason for colonial rejection of British rule was the ancient dynasty's replacement by the Hanover family, which had weakened respect for the monarchy. In 1783 he told General (5/12)

Oglethorpe, a formal Governor of Georgia and a Jacobite at heart, that the rift was due to George III's 'want of inherent right'. A coronation at Boston and an American court that looked down on the court of St. Jame's with its German Pretender might well have hastened (6/12)

King George's collapse into insanity...Abate Angelo Fabroni, rector of Pisa University, had (reported) letters sent to Charles in 1775 by Bostonians, assuring the king of their loyalty and asking him to come and lead them...Fabroni was a...friend of Cardinal York (Henry IX) (7/12

...Washington Irving...records how Sir Walter Scott had told him of seeing among the Stuart Papers at Carlton House 'a memorial to Charles from some adherents in America, dated in 1778, proposing to set up his standard in the back settlements'...The reason for his refusal (8/12)

was not so much ill health as determination to regain the three kingdoms on this side of the Atlantic, which - to him at least - did not seem impossible, especially if France intervened in the American war. He still hoped for a French invasion of England that would bring (9/12)

a Restoration...Charles followed the American campaigns on a large map this his agent, Dom Gregory Cowley, Prior of St. Edmund's at Paris, obtained for him. The prior also supplied any information from the front that he could glean from French sources. Regarding himself (10/12)

as their king, Charles rejoiced at the colonist's victories - perhaps seeing the campaign as a re-run of the Forty-Five. If nothing came of the plans to crown Charles king in North America, former Stuart supporters made an enduring contribution to the new United States. (11/12)

Bishop (Samuel) Seabury...introduced the Scottish (Episcopalian) liturgy instead of the (English) Book of Common Prayer. 'The sacramental soul of Jacobitism', it has been claimed in consequence, 'put down deep roots in America, where its legacy lives and thrives today." (12/12)