To Solemnize His Majesty's Birthday': New Perspectives on Loyalism in George II's Britain

`To Solemnize His Majesty's Birthday':New Perspectives on Loyalism inGeorge II's Britain

BOB HARRIS and CHRISTOPHER A. WHATLEYUniversity of Dundee

AbstractThe importance of loyalism or loyal feelings in George II's Scotland has too often beenpassed over or ignored by historians, leading, in some important recent studies ofScottish Jacobitism, to a distorted view of patterns of political allegiance in Scotland inthis period. This article explores a crucial focus and manifestation of loyal sentiment inScotland during this period: celebration of the monarch's birthday. The special nature ofthis occasion is underlined through comparison with political calendars in England andWales, and an extended analysis is o�ered of the various and changing politicalmeanings which these celebrations possessed in Scotland. In late 1745, with Jacobiteforces occupying or close to many Scottish burghs, so widely understood were the ritualsand practices of this day that it o�ered loyal Scots, from a cross-section of urban society,a perfect opportunity to demonstrate their allegiance to their Hanoverian king and theirrepugnance for the Stuart cause. Another important conclusion is that, contrary to whathas been asserted by several historians, royal days remained a very important and vitalpart of the political calendar in many parts of Britain throughout George II's reign. Thisprovides further evidence of the deep roots of enthusiasm for Protestant patrioticmonarchy in eighteenth-century Britain. It was a complex of emotions which was oftenfrustrated and only sporadically glimpsed under George II, but which was, nevertheless,as the popular response to the accession of George III was to show very clearly, widelyin¯uential in shaping perceptions of the British nation and polity.

Early in November 1745 the author of a letter published in thePenny London Post observed: `We are assured there wereRejoicings on the King's Birth Day in almost every Town and

Village in Scotland, and even in the very Neighbourhood of Edinburgh,where the Rebels then were.'1 Such assurances were based on more thanwishful thinking. That year, 30 October (George II's birthday) saw anti-Jacobite demonstrations in many parts of Scotland. In Perth and

*c The Historical Association 1998. Published byBlackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UKand 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

1 Penny London Post, 11±13 Nov. 1745.

Dundee, loyal crowds attacked occupying Jacobite soldiers.2 Events inGlasgow on 30 October are described in some detail in a letter from thelord provost, Andrew Cochrane, to the marquis of Tweeddale, thesecretary of state for Scotland. Cochrane's comments on the celebrationsheld on that day are worth quoting from at some length:

Yesterday being the anniversary of the auspicious birth of our mostgracious sovereign the Magistrates at this critical time advised with someof the Capital Burgesses how far it would be prudent to celebrate it in themanner we formerly used to. The rebel army is still in & about Ed.r andpartys over all the Country. One of horse came here Sunday evening in anhostile manner with swords drawn to press horses and attempt levieingthe excise & stent. They are still at Hamilton and expected to return thisnight with a party of foot for these purposes Marshall Wade with theKing's army at a considerable distance. The rebels carrieing matters withas high an hand as ever as appears by the inclosed and we apprehensivethey want only a pretence for plundering us Notwithstanding all of whichwe agreed to make our rejoicings in much the same way as formerly . . .What the consequence of this may be I know not. We judged it our dutyto give this publick acknowledgement of our Loyalty to our sovereignhowever dangerous at present it may be. If Marshall Wade does not verysoon arrive no doubt we shall feel the e�ects of their resentment.3

The loyalism of Scotland's second city is perhaps unsurprising, giventhe traditional strength of presbyterianism in both the city and itsenvirons and the impressive record of pro-Hanoverianism compiled byGlaswegians in this period. But other, less likely places also stagedsimilar demonstrations. One such place was Aberdeen, where theepiscopalian religion, the ideological wellspring of Scottish Jacobitism,was notably strong. On 29 October the Jacobite governor sent a crierthrough the town to advertise that no celebrations should take place onthe next day. His warning was widely ignored, and elements of thepopulace loudly demonstrated their loyalty to their Hanoverianmonarch. As one contemporary witness observed: `I never saw somany bon®res, nor so much incouraged, as on Wednesday [30 October],by the young people . . . The crys through all the streets, that afternoonand evening, were, King George for ever; down with the PopishPretender; back to Rome with him.'4 Also in the east, but much furthersouth, at Dunfermline, in Fife, immediately following the celebrationsnear the market cross there was what was described as a `scu�e' betweensome inhabitants and Jacobite soldiers, after which some of the`highlanders' were reported to have `¯ed the place that night', with the

2 Events in Dundee are described in Annette Smith, `Dundee and the '45', in The '45: To Gatheran Image Whole, ed. Lesley Scott-Moncrie� (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 99±112. For Perth, see ScotsMagazine, vii (1745), 492.3 National Library of Scotland [hereafter NLS], MS 7072 (Tweeddale MS), fo. 171, Cochrane to

Tweeddale, 31 Oct. 17454 `Extracts from the Diary of the Rev. John Bisset, Minister at Aberdeen, 1745±6', The Miscellany

of the Spalding Club, i (Aberdeen, 1891) [hereafter `Diary of Rev. John Bisset'], 353±4.

*c The Historical Association 1998

398 LOYALISM IN GEORGE II's BRITAIN

rest going before dawn on the following day.5 Even in the minor coastalburgh of Crail, also in Fife, a cryptic entry in the town's account booksuggests that celebrations of some sort took place there on 30 October.6

Crail, like Glasgow and Perth, was surrounded or being harassed byJacobite forces at the time.

I

The loyalism of the Scots during the Forty-Five has not received fromhistorians the attention which it deserves, a fact which has helped to lendweight to a commonly held view that most Scots were too disillusionedwith the `corrupt' politics of Whig oligarchy to view the uprising withanything other than apathy or concern purely for life and property.7 Thisarticle o�ers a di�erent perspective. It also puts forward a view di�erentfrom that which is implicit in Murray Pittock's recent work on ScottishJacobitism. Pittock has sought to portray Jacobitism as somethingapproaching a `national movement', even in the 1740s, arguing that itretained a widespread appeal in urban lowland Scotland for much longerthan most previous historians have allowed.8 Yet his account of politicalallegiance in George II's Scotland is, in some ways, deeply misleading;or, at the very least, unhelpfully selective. It omits, in some casesstrikingly, su�cient reference to opposition to Jacobitism, even in manyof the communities he wishes to paint as strongly committed to theStuart cause. Their loyalism could be every bit as impressive as theactions of their Jacobite opponents. They were prepared to demonstratetheir loyalty to their Hanoverian king publicly and in ways which theyrecognized would place them and their property at considerable risk. Inshort, talk of Jacobitism as a national movement con¯icts with reality inrespect of a cause which fell far short of having a national appeal inGeorge II's Scotland, and which also aroused strong opposition fromsections of popular as well as elite opinion.Starting to map the extent and depth of Scottish loyalism during the

crisis of 1745±6 is only one of the concerns of this article. Another is toplace the celebration of the monarch's birthday in Scotland in 1745 in aseries of broader perspectives. By so doing, it is hoped to ®ll a major gap

5 NLS, MS 7073 (Tweeddale MS), fos. 8±9, David Adie to Tweeddale, 9 Nov. 1745.6 University Archives, University of St Andrews, Crail Burgh Treasurers' Accounts, 1744±6.7 See esp. Bruce Lenman, `A Client Society: Scotland between the '15 and the '45', Britain in the

Age of Walpole, ed. Jeremy Black (1984) [hereafter Lenman, `AClient Society'], p. 93; Daniel Szechiand David Hayton, `John Bull's other Kingdoms: The English Government of Scotland andIreland', Britain in the First Age of Party, 1680±1750: Essays Presented to Geo�rey Holmes, ed.Clyve Jones (1987) [hereafter Szechi and Hayton, `John Bull's other Kingdoms'], p. 256. It isperhaps worth noting that Lenman places rather di�erent emphasis on the lack of support forJacobitism during the Forty-Five in his The Jacobite Risings in Britain 1689±1746 (Edinburgh,1984) [hereafter Lenman, Jacobite Risings], esp. p. 257.8 Murray G. H. Pittock, The Myth of the Jacobite Clans (Edinburgh, 1995) [hereafter Pittock,

Myth of Jacobite Clans].


BOB HARRIS AND CHRISTOPHER A. WHATLEY 399

in current historical knowledge. Although extensive research has beenconducted on eighteenth-century extra-parliamentary politics and thecrowd, work on such celebrations during the reign of George II, inEngland and Wales as well as in Scotland, is limited in several importantrespects. We have only sketchy knowledge of how widespread they were,how they were organized or who took part in them. Relatively little isknown about the signi®cance of such celebrations. This article o�ers anumber of preliminary answers to these questions. One conclusion thatwill be o�ered with some con®dence is that these celebrations occupiedrather di�erent positions in the respective national calendars of politicalcelebration: celebrating the king's birthday was more common and amore important occasion in Scotland, while in England and Wales, thecelebration of royal anniversaries varied widely between towns andregions, and other royal anniversaries were celebrated as well as orinstead of the king's birthday. This pattern of contrasts is one factorwhich explains why the occasion was of such signi®cance in Scotlandduring the Forty-Five.Examination of king's birthday celebrations in this period also has a

deeper historical importance. One of the most pronounced of recenttrends in eighteenth-century British studies has been a renewed interest inmonarchy both as an institution and as a focus for popular loyalties andemotions. Much of the impetus for this has come from historians ofJacobitism. J. C. D. Clark, Paul Monod and Murray Pittock, to nameonly three of the most prominent, have done much to uncover the nexusof ideas, images and practices that surrounded the Stuart dynasty andgave coherence and, among some sections of British society, strength tothe Stuart cause.9 Relatively little work, however, has been done on thepromotion of the Hanoverian monarchy and on the use of celebrationand festivity to bolster its popularity and indeed its rule.10 A commonassumption, recently underlined by Linda Colley, is that the ®rst twoGeorges were too unpopular, too implicated in the narrow anddistasteful politics of Walpolian and Whig oligarchy, to arouse wide-spread displays of a�ection and allegiance. If the Hanoverians won thebattle for popular loyalties in this period, they did so because, in periodsof crisis such as 1745±6, their continued rule coincided with people'sperceptions of their economic and religious interests, not because ofpersonal loyalty to their monarch.Another, related perception is that little or no e�ort was made to foster

loyalty to George II, the main focus of this article. Colley talks of a

9 J. C. D. Clark, English Society 1688±1832: Ideology, Social Structure and Political PracticeDuring the Ancien ReÂgime (Cambridge, 1985) [hereafter Clark, English Society]; Paul KleÂ berMonod, Jacobitism and the English People, 1688±1788 (Cambridge, 1989) [hereafter Monod,Jacobitism and the English People]; Murray G. H. Pittock, Poetry and Jacobite Politics inEighteenth-century Britain and Ireland (Cambridge, 1994).10 But see H. T. Dickinson, The Politics of the People in Eighteenth-century Britain (1994),pp. 255±86.



`complete absence of a popular cult of monarchy in this period'.11 TimHarris, meanwhile, has spoken of a withdrawal by the èstablishmentelite from involvement in street politics'. He also refers to a seculardecline in `public rituals of legitimation after 1688', a decline which hesuggests really took hold under the ®rst two Georges.12 Such views areunderstandable: George II's all too obvious liking for his Hanoverianelectorate exacerbated the deeply ingrained xenophobia of many Britons;and neither George nor his queen, Caroline, sought actively to cultivatethe good opinion of their subjects. Also, as Robert Bucholz has shown,from at least Queen Anne's reign, the importance of the court as a sourceof spectacle and cultural patronage was much reduced.13

This case can, however, be pushed too far. Britain remained through-out this period ± and, indeed, beyond it ± a society in which the personof the king commanded great attention as one in whom many peopleinvested their hopes and with whom they identi®ed their interests andprinciples. Monarchs were assumed to wield enormous in¯uence orpotential in¯uence, to have the capacity to shape national fortunes, asthe persisting attraction of the image of the Patriot King testi®es. Thiswas also a society in which political ceremony and spectacle remainedpervasive, and continued to possess considerable signi®cance.14 Giventhese facts, it seems prima facie improbable that no attempt was made toencourage warmer feelings towards George II. And, indeed, a seam ofevidence that is only just beginning to be mined, including that for thewidespread celebration of the king's birthday and other royal anniver-saries, does point in a somewhat di�erent direction.15 It suggests ahunger for a popular patriotic monarch (who was not a Stuart) which theHanoverians could never satisfy completely, but which was neverthelessan important element in the way Hanoverian monarchy was portrayedand projected ± and hesitatingly perceived ± between the beginning ofGeorge II's reign in 1727 and its end in 1760.As mentioned above, existing work on the political calendar in Britain

under George II, especially the royal calendar, is limited and large gaps

11 Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707±1837 (1982) [hereafter Colley, Britons], p. 202.12 Tim Harris, `The Problem of ``Popular Political Culture'' in Seventeenth-century London',History of European Ideas, x (1989), 53. Ronald Hutton has also recently argued that the GloriousRevolution `did much to wither' the royal ritual year in England. This was because the new regimesought to encourage celebration of national successes, especially military victories, rather than royalanniversaries. As Hutton remarks, it `turned the political year into more of a progress report uponits good government and less a commemoration of monarchy itself': Ronald Hutton, The Rise andFall of Merry England: The Ritual Year 1400±1700 [hereafter Hutton, Rise and Fall of MerryEngland ] (Oxford, 1994), p. 259.13 Bucholz also argues that `ritual, symbol and personal allegiance were coming to mean less andless to an increasingly cosmopolitan, venal and partisan ruling elite' (Robert Bucholz, The AugustanCourt: Queen Anne and the Decline of Court Culture (Stanford, Cal., 1993), p. 250).14 See the comments in Peter Borsay, ` `Àll the Town's a Stage'': Urban Ritual and Ceremony1660±1800', The Transformation of English Provincial Towns 1600±1800, ed. Peter Clark (1984)[hereafter Borsay, Àll the Town's a Stage'], pp. 228±58.15 See Christine Gerrard, The Patriot Opposition to Walpole: Politics, Poetry, and National Myth,1725±1742 (Oxford, 1994), ch. 7.



persist. Most comments and observations relate to England; they alsotend to be based on fragile foundations. The ®rst modern historian tosketch the main elements of the Hanoverian political calendar was JohnBrewer, although he gave only a few examples of where and how thesedays were celebrated.16 Brewer suggested that by the mid-century a`sedate' and `consensual' calendar had emerged in England, the crucialdates being 30 January (anniversary of the martyrdom of Charles I),29 May (Restoration day), 5 November (anniversary of the GunpowderPlot and William III's landing at Torbay in 1688), 1 August (George I'saccession day) and 4 November (William III's birthday). A number ofother historians have looked at calendrical celebrations from theRestoration to around the early 1720s, usually as part of an examinationof party con¯ict.17 In this period ± often identi®ed as the ®rst age ofparty ± political celebrations were frequently occasions of considerabletension and violence. Di�erent political groupings, Whig, Tory orJacobite, sought to establish their own calendars and obstruct those oftheir rivals. Implicit in much of the work on these incidents is thesuggestion that such political celebrations became less contentious, or atleast caused less disorder, under George II, although, as Nicholas Rogershas recently emphasized, contention and violence did persist into the1730s in Norwich and Bristol.18 New, changed partisan political mean-ings were also introduced into the calendar from the 1730s. Thesere¯ected the growing importance of patriot politics and concerns,concerns that cut across traditional party divisions. As Rogers argues,`what transformed the calendar in the 1730s and 1740s were the extra-ordinary celebrations of opposition victories against the Court.'19 Thebest examples of these are the celebrations that attended the defeat of theexcise bill in 1733 and the celebrations surrounding the ®gure of AdmiralVernon in the early stages of the war against Spain which broke out inOctober 1739.Several obstacles stand in the way of constructing a more complete

picture of the national political calendar in this period. As RonaldHutton has noted for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, parishelites exercised considerable freedom of choice in determining whichanniversaries were marked locally. The result could be considerablediversity, even within a single county or region.20 Further di�cultiesstem from the nature of the sources. Most useful are borough, or in

16 John Brewer, `The Number 45: AWilkite Political Symbol', England's Rise to Greatness, 1660±1763, ed. Stephen B. Baxter (Berkeley, Cal., 1983), p. 364.17 Nicholas Rogers, Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole and Pitt (Oxford,1990) [hereafter Rogers, Whigs and Cities], esp. ch. 10; Monod, Jacobitism and the English People,ch. 7.18 Nicholas Rogers, `Popular Jacobitism in Provincial Contexts: Eighteenth-century Bristol andNorwich', The Jacobite Challenge, ed. Eveline Cruickshanks and Jeremy Black (Edinburgh, 1988),pp. 122±41.19 Rogers, Whigs and Cities, pp. 373±4.20 Hutton, Rise and Fall of Merry England.



Scotland burgh, accounts. Also helpful are churchwardens' accounts andprovincial newspapers. Yet the survival of these is patchy, and in the caseof newspapers so too was their existence in the early Hanoverian period.Where they do survive, eighteenth-century newspapers reported politicalcelebrations only sporadically, usually only where they were controver-sial or editors had some particular reason for doing so, for example, todemonstrate a particular political allegiance. Even where reference ismade to them, moreover, this is usually only very brief and in languagethat is formulaic and, therefore, for the historian, unhelpful.21 Thesurvival of borough or churchwardens' accounts is similarly erratic, andin several places ± for example, Flint or Carmarthen boroughs inWales ± they no longer exist for this period. Their usefulness where theydo survive is also subject to the vagaries of accounting practices: muchseems here to have depended on the caprice of the individual treasurer orchamberlain, or those to whom he was responsible.22

II

Allowing, then, for these methodological di�culties, what does theevidence so far examined begin to show about the political calendar inGeorge II's Britain? The pattern in Scotland is most easily dealt with.This is because there is least variation, in terms of both time andlocation. A single day ± the monarch's birthday ± formed the core of theScottish political calendar. Restoration day was widely, albeit con-troversially, celebrated in the later Stuart period, and e�orts were madeto restore 5 November as a day of national celebration after the removalof James VII, but neither appears to have been formally celebratedanything other than sporadically.23 A number of other royal days andanniversaries were celebrated in Georgian Scotland, but far less regularlythan 30 October. In Inverness, on the eastern edge of the highlands, thetown council held celebrations on the king's birthday in almost everyyear during George II's reign. The only year for which no record of acelebration survives is 1743, and this may well re¯ect careless accounting.Before her death in 1737, the burgh also celebrated Queen Caroline'sbirthday (1 March). On 6 June 1738 payments were made for the town's

21 See the comments on this in Bob Harris, ` ``American Idols'': Empire, War and the MiddlingRanks in Mid-eighteenth-century Britain', Past and Present, 150 (1996) [hereafter Harris,`American Idols'], 116.22 Some treasurers provide details of expenditure on celebrations which are identi®ed by date;others simply record a lump sum payment for unspeci®ed celebrations or payments to namedindividuals without any indication of what payment is for.23 C. A. Whatley, `Royal Day, People's Day: The Monarch's Birthday in Scotland, c. 1660±1860',People and Power in Scotland: Essays in Honour of T. C. Smout, ed. Roger Mason and NormanMacDougall (Edinburgh, 1992) [hereafter Whatley, `Royal Day'], pp. 170±88; see alsoC. A. Whatley, ` ``The Privilege which the Rabble have to be Riotous'': Carnivalesque and theMonarch's Birthday in Scotland', Labour and Leisure in Historical Perspective: Papers Presented atthe 11th International Economic History Congress, Milan 1994, ed. I. Blanchard (Stuttgart, 1994),pp. 89±100.



bells to be rung to celebrate the birth of a son to the prince of Wales.24

The pattern in Dundee and Glasgow was broadly similar. In addition tothe king's birthday in most years, Dundee celebrated the queen'sbirthday in 1735, the prince of Wales's marriage in 1735, the prince'sbirthday in 1737 and 1751, and the future George III's birth in 1738. Thetown council also orchestrated celebrations for the duke of Cumber-land's birthday in 1752 and 1753.25 Glasgow's accounts for 1738 record apayment of £11 for claret and madeira provided to the town ùpon thenews of the young prince being born'. In 1729 the anniversary of PrinceFrederick's birthday had been celebrated.26 Many Scottish burghs alsocelebrated military victories and days of thanksgiving during wars. Inmost cases, however, expenditure on such events was considerably lessthan on the celebration of the king's birthday.27

While celebration of the king's birthday in Scotland was principally anurban phenomenon, with the festivities often being orchestrated byburgh authorities, the practice does appear to have spread beyond theurban population. In colliery and salt manufacturing villages andsettlements, some proprietors and their factors ensured that at least somerural dwellers were incorporated into the royal calendar; in Argyll in theaftermath of the Forty-Five the duke of that name sent ten guineas andhis best ox to the soldiers then making the new road from Luss toInverary ìn order to solemnize his Majesty's Birth-Day'.28

The pattern of national political celebrations in England and Waleswas, as already indicated, di�erent from that which pertained inScotland. The di�erences concerned royal anniversaries rather thancelebrations of military victories: English and Welsh boroughs were noless enthusiastic than their Scottish counterparts about celebratingdefeating or seizing territory from the French and Spanish.29 In the ®rstplace, a far wider range of royal anniversaries and occasions werecommonly celebrated in England. For example, in Berwick-upon-Tweedbon®res were held in 1740±1 to commemorate coronation day(11 October) as well as the birthday of George II. In 1759±60, the

24 Highland Regional Archives, Inverness Burgh, Treasurers' Account Books, 1727±60.25 Dundee Archives and Records Centre [hereafter DARC], Dundee Burgh, Treasurers' AccountBooks, 1727±60.26 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Glasgow, AD 1718±38, ed. Robert Renwick (Glasgow,1909), pp. 313, 497.27 See e.g. for celebration of the victory at Dettingen in 1743, DARC, Dundee Burgh, Treasurers'Account Books, 1743. The victories of the Seven Years War were widely celebrated in Scotland. InPerth, there were victory celebrations in 1758 on news of the capture of Cape Breton and, in thefollowing year, on news of victory over the French ¯eet at Quiberon Bay, and the taking ofTiconderoga and Quebec. Perth and Kinross Council Archives [hereafter PKCA], A. K. Bell PublicLibrary, Perth Burgh, Treasurers' Account Books, 1758, 1759. For expenditure on celebrations, seeWhatley, `Royal Day', p. 172.28 C. A. Whatley, À Saltwork and the Community: The Case of Winton, 1716±1719', Transactionsof the East Lothian Antiquarian and Field Naturalist's Society, xviii (1994) [hereafter Whatley, ÀSaltwork and the Community'], 53; Glasgow Courant, 31 Oct. 1748.29 See e.g. Bob Harris, Àmerican Idols', 115±16.



coronation was still being commemorated in Berwick, along with30 October, 5 November, 29 May and Prince George's birthday(4 June).30 In Southwark, bells were rung in 1729±30 in the parish ofSt Mary, Rotherhithe on 29 May, 11 October, 30 October and thequeen's birthday. The following year accession day was also similarlycommemorated. In the parish of St George the Martyr, also in South-wark, bells were rung on 29 May, 11 June (the anniversary of George II'saccession), 11 October, the king's and queen's birthdays, and 11September. In the last instance, it was the king's arrival from Hanoverthat was being celebrated.31 In the parish of Gresford in Denbighshire,Wales, bells were regularly run on accession day, as well as on 29 Mayand 5 November.32 At the parish church in Chippenham, Wiltshire, bellswere regularly rung on 29 May, 11 June, 11 October, 30 October and5 November. In St Peter's in Marlborough in the same county, the bellswere rung on 1 March, 29 May, 1 August, 30 October, 5 November andon the bishop's visitation.33 In mid-century Oxford, the days that wereregularly celebrated seem to have been 5 November, 29May and 11 June.In the parish of St Mary Magdalen in that city, the bells were regularlyrung on 29 May, 11 June, 11 October, 30 October, 5 November,19 January and 1 March.34 The marriages of the princess of Wales andprince of Wales in 1733 and 1735 also seem to have been very widelycelebrated. In 1735 one London paper declared:

Accounts of the Great Rejoycing on the marriage of His Royal Highnessthe Prince of Wales with the Princess of Saxe Gotha, are coming up byevery post; particularly, from Nottingham, Coventry, Bath and Bristol, atwhich last place, besides the ringing of Bells, and colours display'd fromthe steeples, Guns ®ring from the shipping, &c±Twenty-nine Pieces ofcannon were haul'd upon sledges up to the great Hill call'd Brandon Hill,where also divers discharges were made during two days, and 12 or 14Barrells of Beer given to the Populace on the said hill, where was alsoerected a very large Bon®re.35

One year later the attempt by local Whigs to celebrate George II'sbirthday in Bristol provoked a riot.36

30 Berwick-upon-Tweed Record O�ce, H.2/31, Borough Accounts, 1740±1; H.2/41, BoroughAccounts, 1759±60.31 Southwark Archives, 1432, Churchwardens' Accounts, St Mary's, Rotherhithe, 1729±30, 1730±31; 788, Churchwardens' Accounts, St George the Martyr, 1729±30.32 Clywd County Record O�ce, Churchwardens' Accounts, Gresford, Denbighshire, 1727±60.33 Wiltshire County Record O�ce [hereafter WCRO], 473/400, Parish Church, Chippenham,Churchwardens' Accounts, 1717±30; 1197/22, St Peter's, Marlborough, Churchwardens' Accounts,1727±60.34 Oxford Council Acts 1701±1752, ed. M. G. Hobson (Oxford, 1954), pp. 312±23; OxfordshireCounty Record O�ce, MSS D.D. Par Oxford, St Mary Magdalen, b. 43, 44, St Mary Magdalen,Churchwardens' Accounts, 1727±60.35 Reprinted in the Weekly Worcester Journal, 30 April±7 May 1735.36 See Monod, Jacobitism and the English People, p. 223.



If a wider range of royal days was celebrated in England than north ofthe border, what of 30 October? What place did this day occupy in thenational political calendar in England andWales? In several places, whatseems to have happened is that celebration of the day, along with otherroyal anniversaries, lapsed or became less frequent or important in the1730s. This was true, for example, in Reading in Berkshire, Winchester inHampshire, Leicester, and Leominster in Herefordshire.37 Yet thedecline was far from universal, as the cases cited above indicate. Suchevidence can easily be supplemented. It would appear, for example, thatcelebrations on 30 October, as on other royal anniversaries, remainedcommon in London throughout the reign. In both 1738 and 1751, to takejust two years, several papers referred to celebrations in `several parts ofthe city and suburbs'.38 In various parishes in Westminster, the day wassimilarly recognized. In St James's, Piccadilly, it was one of six daysmarked by some sort of entertainment, the display of a standard and abon®re.39 Other places where 30 October was, again along with otherroyal anniversaries, regularly celebrated include Abingdon in Oxford-shire; Windsor in Berkshire; Andover in Hampshire; Guildford inSurrey; Sandwich, Faversham, and New Romney in Kent; Bridgnorth inShropshire; Hereford City in Herefordshire; and Newcastle upon Tyne inthe north east.40

If 30 October continued to be widely, albeit unevenly, celebrated inEngland and Wales during this period, how prominent was it in theannual cycle of celebrations? This is di�cult to assess in general terms ±local variations are so great ± but it does appear that, unlike in Scotland,

37 The Reading Chamberlains' Accounts record celebrations on both the king and queen'sbirthdays in 1727, 1728 and 1729. The next record of expenditure of this nature falls in 1742, whensoldiers were given money to drink the king's health and for a bon®re. A further, small payment isnoted for celebrations on 30 Oct. 1744 and a much bigger sum for the same occasion in thesubsequent year. Thereafter the only relevant payment falls in 1759 and is for wood for a bon®re tocelebrate the fall of Quebec. Berkshire County Record O�ce, R/FA 3/74-87, Reading Borough,Hall Revenues and Chamberlains' Accounts, 1727±60. Hampshire County Record O�ce [hereafterHCRO], W/E1/150-71, Winchester City, Chamberlains' Account Books, 1730±55; Records of theBorough of Leicester, vi. 140; Hereford Record O�ce [hereafter HRO], S 67 III (D), LeominsterBorough, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1727±69. A paragraph in Farley's Bristol Journal, 2 Nov. 1745,suggests that while celebrations were taking place in Bristol on 30 October in the 1740s, these werevery limited in nature and scale.38 See e.g. Leeds Mercury, 1 Nov. 1738; Norwich Mercury, 5 Nov. 1741.39 Westminster City Archives, D 1706, Churchwardens' Accounts, St James's, Piccadilly, 1733.The other days were 11 June, 11 Oct., 5 Nov., 22 Jan. and 2 March.40 Abingdon Town Archives, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1727±60; Berkshire County Record O�ce,Windsor, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1727±60; HCRO, W/E1/165, 167, Andover, Chamberlains'Accounts, 1747±8, 1748±9; Surrey County Record O�ce, BR/OC/6/3, Guildford Borough,Account Books, 1730±60; Kent County Record O�ce [hereafter KCRO], Sa/FAt. 41, SandwichBorough, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1727±60; Fa/FAC 198±9, Faversham Borough, Chamberlains'Accounts, 1727±60; FAc 9, New Romney Borough, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1757± ; ShropshireCounty Record O�ce, 4001, F/1/112±46, Bridgnorth Borough, Baili�s' and Chamberlains'Accounts, 1727±60; HRO, BG 11/24/2 Hereford City, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1732±60. ForNewcastle's annual political calendar, see Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics,Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715±1785 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 294±6.



it was not accorded any special signi®cance in the majority of places. Inmost places, amounts of expenditure were similar irrespective of whatanniversary was being celebrated. For example, in Abingdon it wasregular practice to have both churches in the town ring their bells and toorganize a number of bon®res on a total of nine occasions during theyear.41 Moreover, in numerous English towns considerably more wasspent on entertainments on civic days ± for example, days on which theelection of the mayor, borough sessions, the assizes or auditing of theaccounts fell ± than on days of national celebration. Many places alsohosted an annual buck feast, or variant thereof, where a local noblemanprovided the town authorities with a deer. These civic entertainments,especially mayoral election entertainments, often appear to have beenquite elaborate a�airs. At Marlborough in Wiltshire, for example, themayor received a payment of £20 for his feast in 1719. To put this inperspective, in 1727 the accounts record a much more modest payment of£3 2s 11d for `wine and eatables' on the king's coronation.42 AtMaidstone in Kent, in 1748, the accounts record a payment of a littleover £8 on the buck feast. In the previous year, the mayor's feast had costthe corporation over £15. The usual sum spent in this borough on anentertainment on 30 October or any other national calendrical occasion,when they occurred, was around £3.43 There were exceptions to thisgeneral pattern ± for example, New Romney in Kent and Sandwich inthe same county ± where corporations were regularly spending more onthe king's birthday than on any other occasion.44 In Scotland, civic feastswere usually limited to the day of the election of the new town council.Unlike in England, these celebrations or entertainments do not appear tohave been used to the same degree to impress upon the local populationthe grandeur and symbolism of local authority.Patterns of national political celebration in England and Wales, there-

fore, showed considerable variation, much more than in Scotland.Behind these patterns lay a number of factors, apart from the degree oflatitude that local authorities and political elites exercised in this matter.First, in some places corporations may have been reluctant to stage suchevents because they could result in uncomfortable displays of popularlicence and disorderly conduct. This is likely to have weighed particularlyheavily with authorities in larger towns and cities. In 1738 the court ofthe lord mayor and aldermen of the city of London heard a petition fromthe inhabitants of Cheapside Conduit `complaining of the very great Evilwhich attends the making a Bon®re in that Neighbourhood uponRejoycing Evenings'. The speci®c cause of the complaint was events on

41 The other days were 20 Jan., 1 March, 29 April (bishop's visitation), 29 May, 11 June, 15 June,11 Oct., 30 Oct. and 5 Nov.42 WCRO, G 22 1/205/2, Marlborough Borough, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1719±1727.43 KCRO, Md/Fca 1, Maidstone Borough, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1747±8.44 Ibid., FAc 9, New Romney Borough, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1757± ; Sa/FAt.41, SandwichBorough, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1727±60.



11 June, the anniversary of the king's accession. As the petition observed:`the People there gathered were so outrageous as to burn the wigs,headcloths &c of several Gentlemen and ladies who passed that way, bythrowing serpents into their coaches; that several people were maim'd,and scarce any Person who pass'd by at the Time of the Fire, but whatwas molested, or had his pocket pick'd.' As a result of the petition, thecity magistrates directed that city marshals and constables should attendin every street on all days of celebration `in order to detect Persons asshall be guilty of ®ring and throwing of serpents and squibs'.45 There wasnothing new about such complaints; they had been made since at leastthe 1670s. Their repetition indicates the deep-rooted nature of theproblem.The depth of concern about order is also revealed in newspaper

reports of political celebrations, especially for military and politicalvictories, from the 1730s. These nearly always sought to emphasize therespectability and orderly conduct of the participants.46 These entertain-ments were often organized by subscription; attempts also appear tohave been made to exclude or limit the participation of the lower orders.The growing emphasis on orderly conduct is indicative of both thegrowing level and widespread nature of concern about popular licence inthis period and the anxiety of many people of middling rank to establishtheir claims to political respectability.Expense may also have been an important factor. This is occasionally

hinted at in borough minute books. In Gloucester, for example, it wasdecided as early as 1719 to stop the practice of having `traditionaldinners' because of the prohibitive cost.47 In Leicester in the mid-centuryattempts appear to have been made to cut back on corporationexpenditure on entertainments. In 1740 the corporation decided thatall `clergy, Town O�cers, Gentlemen and their servants and all others'attending the annual venison feast should pay for themselves, wherepreviously they had been funded by the corporation. The venison dinnerwas the highlight of the civic year in the town.48 At Minehead the parishvestry decided in 1738 to restrict the ringing days to ®ve to save money.49

This leaves a third factor that is likely to have strongly shaped localcalendars of political celebration: politics. As other historians haveemphasized, political motivations could play a crucial role in thiscontext. It was Tories who generally continued to celebrate QueenAnne's birthday into George II's reign. From around 1714 to at least theearly 1720s, Hanoverian royal days were clearly seen in many placesthrough highly partisan eyes. For how long this continued, and where, is

45 Quoted in Leeds Mercury, 26 Oct. 1738.46 Harris, `American Idols', 117.47 Gloucestershire County Record O�ce, GBR 19, fo. 71, Gloucester Corporation Minute Books,1719.48 Records of the Borough of Leicester, vi. 132.49 Bob Bushaway, By Rite: Custom, Ceremony and Community in England 1700±1800 (1982), p. 49.



very di�cult to say. Tories may have believed that they had few reasonsfor celebrating 30 October other than in exceptional years, such as 1727(the year of George II's accession) or 1745. Two Tory-controlledboroughs where celebration was kept up for a few years after 1727 andthen lapsed completely until the Forty-Five were Reading andLeicester.50 Whigs may also have had diminishing reason to give theanniversary prominence. The fact that the seditious calendar developedby Jacobites or disgruntled Tories disappeared in many places from theearly 1720s meant there was less reason to maintain a counter, loyalcalendar. The slow, albeit uneven, diminution in party divisions, and riseto prominence of patriot or country politics and alliances may haveworked in the same direction. The evidence would suggest, however, thatmuch depended on local factors. The Whig corporation at Bristol seemsto have celebrated the king's birthday in some fashion throughout thisperiod, as do a number of clubs in the city, while at Winchester, inHampshire, also under Whig control, 5 November was the onlycalendrical occasion being regularly celebrated by the 1740s.51 Thecalendar of celebration in Bridgnorth borough, which was controlled bythe Whigs, remained very rich and vital and focused on royal anniver-saries throughout George II's reign. The pattern was similar in Sandwich,a Kent borough in which the admiralty was likely to have had a largeinterest, as well as in Hereford, an independent borough.52 It mightperhaps also be worth noting here that the pattern in some places servesto disrupt any tidy notion of a strong positive correlation between partyallegiance and patterns of celebration. Thus, in Tory-controlledAbingdon, the king's birthday was one of a number of royal anniver-saries regularly celebrated throughout George II's reign, while ToryOxford continued to celebrate the king's accession day if not hisbirthday.53

III

So far, our focus has been on patterns of royal celebration in Britain inthe reign of George II. But what about the meaning or meanings of theseevents? And why were the Scots seemingly more diligent about celebrat-ing their monarch's birthday? As far as the second of these questions isconcerned, there are several reasons we need to consider. In examiningthese, the special status of this major calendrical occasion in Scotlandalso becomes clearer.Bruce Lenman has described Scotland after 1707 and the subsequent

loss of its privy council in 1708 as a `client society'.54 Party manoeuvring

50 See above, p. 406.51 See above, p. 406.52 See above, p. 406.53 See above, p. 405.54 Lenman, `A Client Society', pp. 69±93.



at Westminster certainly played a major role in shaping the politicalcareers of competing Scottish magnates from this period, as DavidHayton has recently sought to emphasize.55 Yet it was at court that royalattention and favour were to be found and access to patronage gained.56

The costs of withdrawal from court could be considerable, as Mar,Argyll and Ilay all discovered within ten years of the passing of the Act ofUnion.57 In this changed political context, it was important for politi-cally ambitious Scots to demonstrate not only their own loyalty but alsothat of Scotland. The existence of such perceptions and calculations ishinted at in a letter sent from London by the Squadrone leader the dukeof Roxburghe to his wife, on the death of Queen Anne and theproclamation of her successor King George I. Roxburghe reported that`everything is in perfect peace and quiet here'. It was the sentence thatfollowed, however, that betrays his anxieties: `I wish there were nomadman in Scotland to make any ridiculous disturbance'.58 Deliveringquiescence in Scotland was an important means of achieving ministerialapproval and perhaps of arousing royal interest. It was Roxburghe'sfailure to do this in 1725, when the imposition of the malt tax provokeddisturbances in many parts of Scotland, that brought his career as thirdsecretary to an abrupt end. The lord advocate, Sir David Dalrymple, hadbeen dismissed in 1720 for failing to deal su�ciently ruthlessly withleading Jacobites who had been involved in the Fifteen.59 WithinScotland, such imperatives communicated themselves down variouspolitical ladders to burgh elites. The impetus may have come from belowas well; burgh elites would have been anxious to satisfy their magnatepatrons with a particularly successful display of loyalism which waslikely to add to their credit.At Westminster and St James's, perceptions of Scotland after the

Glorious Revolution were deeply negative, and this only added to theweight of the political imperatives outlined above.60 Within Englishgoverning circles, and among English political opinion in general,Scotland was perceived as an alien country, with a population made upof papists, Jacobites and scheming self-seekers. The uncertainty of theScots' commitment to the union, which was made only too visible in theanti-union rumblings and riots of the later months of 1706 and the earlymonths of 1707, even before the act had come into force, and on a

55 David Hayton, `Constitutional Experiments and Political Experiences, 1689±1725', Conquestand Union: Fashioning a British State, 1485±1725, ed. S. S. Ellis and Sarah Barber (1995) [hereafterHayton, `Constitutional Experiments'], pp. 293±302. See also P. W. J. Riley, The English Ministersand Scotland, 1707±1727 (Manchester, 1964) [hereafter Riley, English Ministers and Scotland ].56 Szechi and Hayton, `John Bull's other Kingdoms', p. 246.57 J. M. Simpson, `Who Steered the Gravy Train, 1706±1766?', Scotland in the Age of Improve-ment, ed. N. T. Phillipson and R. Mitchison (Edinburgh, 1970), pp. 47±72.58 National Register of Archives (Scotland), Survey No. 1100, Roxburghe MSS, Bundle 726, 1stduke of Roxburghe to his wife, 1 Aug. 1714.59 Riley, English Ministers and Scotland, p. 270.60 Szechi and Hayton, `John Bull's other Kingdoms', pp. 248±55.



number of occasions thereafter, as in 1713 and 1714, only deepenedconcern in London.61

Order and obedience also proved di�cult to establish in the Scottishlocalities, a situation which was not eased by the continuing presence ofJacobite sympathizers among the ranks of the JPs, especially in theeastern and northern counties, and despite a purge in 1716±17.62 Acrosslarge parts of the country, customs and excise o�cials were simplyunable to carry out their duties, unless aided by military forces. This wasseen as further evidence of the ungovernability of the Scots and of theirfailure to acknowledge the sovereignty of Westminster.63 There wereobsessive fears, within the Scottish as well as English governing classes,that behind virtually any sort of serious public disorder there could bedetected the hand of `rebels', often of a Jacobite hue, who had moresinister and threatening aims. Such fears were, of course, not absent inEngland, but they were intensi®ed in the case of Scotland by distance andrecent history. In such circumstances, expressions of loyalty and a�ectionby important sections of Scottish society to the Hanoverian monarchycan be seen as one highly visible means of assuaging royal unease andperhaps of softening English attitudes towards Scotland and the Scots.Scotland's political managers may have calculated, too, that declarationsof ardent adherence to the Protestant succession would also serve toimprove the reception in London of Scottish objections to the workingout of union during the ®rst two or three decades after 1707, when mostof the promised bene®ts failed to materialize.64

The importance of this last factor declined from the 1730s. This waspartly owing to the determination of Ilay and his associates to make theunion work, through the aggressive use of patronage and by theestablishment of the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Board of Trusteesfor Manufactures;65 it was also owing, however, to increasingly apparentconnections between growing economic success and the union.66 Thebalance of motivations behind the celebration of the monarch's birthdaymay have shifted as a result: the emphasis was slowly changing from astrategy of containment and reassurance to one of reminding Scots, and

61 For a short survey of the problems faced by the British monarchy in this crucial period when`patriotic' opposition in Scotland coalesced with Jacobitism and a demand for repeal of the union,see Hayton, `Constitutional Experiments', pp. 287±90.62 E. K. Carmichael, `Jacobitism in the Scottish Commission of the Peace, 1707±60', ScottishHistorical Review [hereafter SHR], lviii (1979±80), 58±61.63 Riley, English Ministers and Scotland, pp. 64, 128±9; C. A. Whatley, `How Tame were theScottish Lowlanders during the Eighteenth Century?', Con¯ict and Stability in Scottish Society1700±1850, ed. T. M. Devine (Edinburgh, 1990) [hereafter Whatley, `How Tame?'], pp. 6±14.64 Lenman, Jacobite Risings, pp. 98±106.65 J. S. Shaw, The Management of Scottish Society 1707±1764 (Edinburgh, 1983), ch. 6.66 For recent discussions about the economic impact of the union of 1707, see T. M. Devine, `TheUnion of 1707 and Scottish Development', Scottish Economic and Social History, v (1985), 23±40;C. A. Whatley, `Economic Causes and Consequences of the Union of 1707: A Survey', SHR, lxviii(1979), 150±81.



anyone else who was interested, of the achievements and merits of theBritish empire ruled by the Hanoverians.That it was also a Protestant empire was an additional and compelling

factor which by the 1740s had persuaded the Church of Scotland of themerits of Hanoverian rule. The church had become a powerful bulwarkof this rule. In 1746, for example, the general assembly of the Church ofScotland approved the appointment by Forfar presbytery, in oppositionto some elders and heads of families in the parish of Cortachy and Clovain Angus, deep within the alleged `heartland of Lowland Jacobitism', ofa minister who `had lately distinguished himself for his loyalty to theGovernment'.67 In the aftermath of Culloden, the assembly assured KingGeorge that its ministers had `by Divine Grace manifested a Firmzealous attachment to your Majesty's Person and Government' andordered its presbyteries to seek out and take action against o�cers of thechurch `that may be accused of having been Guilty in the . . . Rebellion'.68

Fasting had been encouraged during it, while in Dundee, under thecontrol of Jacobite forces during December 1745, the kirk sessiondecided that no public preaching would take place as long as ministerswere forbidden to pray for King George.69 The loyalism of the Church ofScotland points, in turn, to one further factor which may help to explainthe contrasts between the Scottish and English national politicalcalendars: the part played by the established churches in both countries.The Anglican church required that its ministers perform special serviceson three anniversaries ± 5 November, 29May and 30 January.70 In manyplaces, vestries also lent their support, and that of the bells of their parishchurch, to the celebration of a wide array of royal anniversaries. TheScottish kirk ensured that nothing like the English calendar of author-ized festivity survived into the eighteenth century. The monarch'sbirthday was the exception: it was the one national calendrical celebra-tion which, after the revolution, the kirk (with the backing of the Scottishestates and privy council prior to 1707) had been prepared to counten-ance and indeed support on a regular basis, both at national level and inat least some parishes.71

67 University Muniments, St Andrews, MS BX 9075.A1, General Assembly Minute Books, 1746±50, pp. 55±8.68 In some parishes in the highlands, ministers may have been less than assiduous in carrying outthese instructions; see Bruce Lenman, The Jacobite Clans of the Great Glen 1650±1784 (Edinburgh,1984), p. 129.69 DARC, CH/1212/2, Dundee General Session Minutes, 1716±56, 21 Dec. 1745, 28 Dec. 1745,16 Jan. 1746, pp. 621±2.70 Clark, English Society, p. 158.71 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, Third Ser., XV, 1690 (Edinburgh, 1967), p. 511;Whatley, `Royal Day', p. 193. To what extent individual kirk sessions actively participated in themonarch's birthday celebrations in Scotland is at present unclear. What is undeniable is that therewas strong support for the Protestant Hanoverian succession in the reign of George II at presbyteryand kirk session level.



IV

What about the form and content of the king's birthday celebrations? Inwhat ways did Scots `solemnize' the day? The roots of such celebrations,as in England, probably stretch back into the later medieval era. Thepattern in Scotland after the Restoration may have been set on 29 May1661, the date of Charles II's restoration north of the border as well ashis birthday, which saw the emergence of what Rosalind Mitchison hascalled a `sentiment for royalty' in Scotland.72 Orders of the privy counciland by town councils in several burghs, underpinned by proclamations,bon®res, bells and frequently gun®re, ensured that the urban populationin Scotland was made aware of the special character of the day.A striking feature of the manner in which the monarch's birthday

celebrations were organized in Scotland was that a substantial part of theproceedings was conducted in public places. This also happened inseveral places south of the border, but in Scotland, which was in materialterms a notoriously poor country over which the grip of the presbyteriankirk remained tight in the linked arenas of civic and popular culture, thelavishness and spectacular nature of these celebrations stood out farmore clearly.73 The closed nature of elections in Scottish burghs, andtheir less rich and ostentatious civic culture, reinforced this contrast. It isperhaps signi®cant in this context that the burgh authorities in Cupar,Fife, should have chosen the king's birthday in 1720 as the occasion tounderpin local and state authority against the background of a majoroutbreak of food rioting on the east coast, behind which was what waso�cially described as `a combination . . . hatched to set ye country, oncemore by ye Ears'.74 The baillies and town councillors invited Scotland'slords of justiciary, then sitting in Cupar at the trial of those who werebeing prosecuted for involvement in the riots, as well as the o�cers of thearmy currently in the town, to join them in marking the day.75

The public aspects of the celebrations and of the day can be readilyillustrated. The day's events, which had frequently been preceded bydecking the towns' public buildings in ¯ags, began with the continuousringing of the towns' bells. Where these existed, it was the `musick bells'that were used, indicating that this was a joyous occasion. A series ofbon®res was then lit at strategic points around the town. In Glasgow in1747 `large' bon®res were set going at the cross and outside the college

72 Whatley, `Royal Day', p. 176; Rosalind Mitchison, Lordship to Patronage: Scotland 1603±1745(1983), p. 70.73 For comment on the weakness of popular culture in early modern Scotland, see `Introduction'to Scottish Society 1500±1800, ed. R. A. Houston and I. D. Whyte (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 33±5; forthe low level of living standards prior to c. 1760, see A. J. Gibson and T. C. Smout, Prices, Food andWages: Scotland 1550±1780 (Cambridge, 1995).74 Whatley, `How Tame?', p. 102. The 1720 food riots, arguably the most extensive which hadtaken place in Scotland, require further investigation.75 University Archives, University of St Andrews, B 13/14/3, Cupar Town Council Minutes,27 May 1720. The authors are indebted to Paula Martin for this reference.



gate on the High Street, the burgh's main thoroughfare.76 Usually themagistrates, town councillors and other leading citizens, who wouldinclude resident and invited noblemen, leading merchants and local stateo�cials, such as customs o�cers, assembled at their respective towncrosses, decorated symbolically in some cases in evergreens and ¯owerswhich in Edinburgh in 1750 took the `Form of an Imperial Crown'.77

Supported by a series of rounds of small arms ®re and, where available,cannon ®re, the o�cial party would drink the health of the king and hisfamily, and then walk in procession accompanied by the town guards orthe military to the town house where further toasts would be drunkbefore the dignitaries retreated inside to consume yet more drink andwhatever food and sweetmeats had been purchased for the occasion.78

It has been argued in an English context that there was a tendency forthe populace increasingly to be relegated in calendrical celebrations tothe role of passive spectators. The same tendency is certainly discerniblein Scotland, but it is easy nevertheless to underestimate the participatoryaspects of the day, particularly because the sources for these celebrationsare written by those who were often seeking to limit or circumscribethose aspects. For a long time part of the ritual had been the distributionamong the crowds who attended them of drink, and this continuedthroughout the period under discussion. During George II's reign,Dundee's treasurer was regularly paying for around eighty or ninetybottles of claret, as well as other liquors such as sherry and ale and theubiquitous broken glasses.79

What proportion of the population took part is di�cult to say withany degree of certainty. The fact that exhortations to the citizenry to turnout or to recognize the occasion in the ®rst years of George I's reign werenecessary suggests that the level of participation could be less thansatisfactory and was certainly not always universal.80 Such evidence ishard to ®nd much beyond the early eighteenth century, however.Newspapers which reported the event almost certainly gave their readersin¯ated accounts of the numbers turning out, and claims that `Loyalty,Love and Harmony appeared in every Corner' must necessarily betreated with caution. Even so, as we saw at the beginning of this article,indications are that the monarch's birthday saw a high level of popularinvolvement. References to riot and disorder provide a further clue.Another is the quantity of liquor which was bought: it can hardly havebeen possible for any of the workers at Winton saltworks to haveremained sober after consuming the two barrels of ale and four bottles of

76 Glasgow Courant, 2 Nov. 1747.77 Ibid., 12 Nov. 1750.78 In Inverness in 1734, it was decided to move the celebrations out of the town hall to the cross,where a `Great Table' was to be brought out. Highland Regional Archives, Inverness Burgh, BurghTreasurers' Account Books, 1734.79 See DARC, Burgh Treasurers' Accounts, 1698±1735, 1735±1753.80 Ibid., Council Minute Book, VIIIa, 24 May, 30 Oct. 1716, 21 May 1717.



claret which were provided for them by their factor William Adam on theking's birthday in 1719.81 Additional and rather di�erent evidence comesfrom Stirling in 1734, where a disturbance took place on 30 Octobercaused by skirmishing between rival political factions, with one of theranks of combatants being described as being `warmed with thesolemnitys of the Day' and ànimate with Liquor'.82 The likelihoodthat larger than normal crowds mingled on the streets on that day issuggested by the decision of the authorities to appoint additional guards,a step which was taken on only one other occasion, the sitting of thecircuit court. It was necessary, too, because of the temporary absencefrom Stirling of troops, who usually kept order.If a representative cross-section of the community appears usually to

have been involved in marking the king's birthday, we are still some wayfrom establishing the meaning of such involvement. The day waso�cially sponsored, with crowds turning out in response to the noise andthe attractions of the spectacle and the possibility of obtaining what innormal circumstances must have been a modest quantity of free drink. Insome places there is evidence to suggest that it may have been a holidayfor the lower orders as well as for the urban elites who orchestrated theoccasion.83 Paternalism also had its part to play, through the disburse-ment of small sums of money to the poor. Although weakening andfragmented by a variety of competing loyalties, urban society in the early1700s was still cohesive enough to warrant the application of the conceptof community,84 and indeed those accused of being part of ProvostRobert Wingate's alleged aggressive assault on some of the party of SirJames Campbell of Arkinglass in Stirling in 1734 comprised variousurban tradesmen along with merchants, lawyers and local landedgentry.85

It would be a mistake, however, to assume that the impetus andenthusiasm for the monarch's birthday celebrations came solely fromàbove'. It is becoming increasingly clear that outside the formal politicalnation in early modern Scotland there was a larger, active politicalconstituency whose principal channel of communication was the streetdemonstration. Riot has been seen in this period as having an integrativerather than a divisive function, acting as a vehicle through which theyoung and non-burgesses could express their views on a variety of

81 Whatley, À Saltwork and the Community', 53.82 The relevant legal papers are in the Scottish Record O�ce [hereafter SRO] at JC3/19, JusticiaryCourt Books of Adjournment, 1734±6; for the wider context of Stirling politics in this period, seeA. T. N. Muirhead, `Stirling 1734', Forth Naturalist and Historian, xi (1989), 105±20.83 A. H. Millar, Haunted Dundee (Dundee, 1923), p. 56. The monarch's birthday was certainly aholiday or at least part-holiday for many urban dwellers in Scotland in the later eighteenth andearly nineteenth centuries.84 R. A. Houston, Social Change in the Age of Enlightenment: Edinburgh 1660±1760 (Oxford,1994) [hereafter Houston, Social Change], p. 101.85 SRO, JC3/19, Criminal Letters of Sir James Campbell and others v. the Magistrates of Stirlingand others, 1734.



issues.86 Although the causes and occasions of riot were many, there isconsiderable evidence to suggest that earlier than suspected hitherto, themonarch's birthday was viewed by the inhabitants of urban Scotland as aspecial occasion, one on which they could legitimately express theirgrievances, sometimes violently. These, however, were directed at thestate's intermediaries or local representatives ± tax o�cers or magis-trates, or unpopular politicians, for example ± rather than the monarch.It was evidently for this reason that Scotland's Edinburgh-basedparliamentarians refused to attend the monarch's birthday celebrationsthere in April 1706.87

Yet what is perhaps surprising is how relatively few references we havecome across to Jacobite counter-demonstrations, although these were byno means absent. Stuart birthdays were celebrated, as in Edinburgharound 10 June 1714 ± the birthday of James Edward Stuart ± when itwas reported than the tranquillity of the city had been disturbed by`disloyall and disa�ected persons to her Majesty and government', or inAberdeen in the following year.88 In Dundee in 1714, a justice in Angusreported that on the same day the magistrates of the town had drunk thepretender's health at the town cross.89 The same day was celebrated inMontrose thirty-one years later.90 In other places warnings had to beissued against the breaking of windows illuminated by loyalists. Care isneeded in interpreting this phenomenon, however. Smashing windowswas not necessarily an anti-Hanoverian act, and even where there arehints of a Jacobite taint to a street disturbance, rarely is the evidenceconclusive enough to distinguish Jacobite intentions from the roguish-ness of high-spirited youth.91 This should occasion no surprise. Histor-ians now recognize that crowds, disparate in their aims and composition,are almost impossible to categorize. What we can say on the basis of theevidence we have surveyed is that in the later seventeenth and earlyeighteenth centuries Jacobite-motivated riots on the monarch's birthdayappear not to have been common.The comparative absence of serious disturbances does not, however,

necessarily signify indi�erence. As was noted earlier, the `mob' inScotland had an articulate political voice which was raised over a rangeof issues. Edinburgh's rioters were in¯amed by three in particular:xenophobia, `outsiders' and Roman Catholics.92 Other issues which

86 Houston, Social Change, p. 291.87 Blair Castle, Atholl MSS, Box 45, Bundle 7 (10), Patrick Scott to duke of Atholl, 8 Feb. 1707.88 Extracts from the Records of the Burgh of Edinburgh, 1701±1718, ed. Helen Armit (Edinburgh,1967), p. 266; SRO, GD 220/5/455/4 (Montrose MSS), copy of letter to duke of Montrose fromAberdeen, 13 June 1715.89 SRO, GD 220/5/357/4 (Montrose MSS), John Haldane to Montrose, Gleneagles, 1 Nov. 1714.90 `Diary of Rev. John Bisset', 397. There was also an incident involving suspected Jacobite revelryand an assault of a soldier in Montrose on 23 Feb. 1748, the birthday of Henry, cardinal duke ofYork: NLS MS 304 (Letter book of General Bland, 1747±54), fos. 41±4, 50.91 See e.g. Houston, Social Change, p. 316.92 Ibid., p. 292.



could bring crowds onto the streets were trade and employment.93

Signi®cantly, Linda Colley has argued that it may have been the poorwho worried most about the prospect of a Jacobite-inspired invasion.94

If this is true, and it seems entirely plausible, it might be expected thatwage-earners and the like in Scotland's increasingly prosperous lowlandburghs may have been equally inclined as the social elites in thecommercial towns to support the status quo. For these individuals,Britain and its Protestant Hanoverian rulers represented opportunitiesfor sales of linen (Scotland's `staple'), leather and the vast array of goodswhich were destined for or dependent upon the expansion of Scotland'snewly acquired British mercantile empire.At present we know too little about the composition of the most active

elements in the monarch's birthday crowds, the `thousands' who inGlasgow in 1748 drank the health of the king. What evidence there is(most of it drawn from later in the century) points to large numbersof artisans and youths in particular. This is also suggested by thedemonstration which took place in Perth on 30 October 1745. Althougha modest-sized town at the turn of the eighteenth century, a considerablyhigher proportion of its listed inhabitants were employed in manufactur-ing than the Scottish urban norm.95 It was a sub-section of this stratumof society that seems to have been behind the demonstrations. They alsoappear to have acted without direction from above. Contemporaryaccounts of the events identify the moving forces behind the disturbanceas the maltmen and the trades lads.96 These individuals seem to haveendeavoured to conduct the normal festivities of a king's birthdaydespite the fact that the town was under Jacobite control. They began inthe morning by ringing the church bells, and in the evening theyorganized bon®res and illuminations. Those who refused to illuminatetheir windows had them broken. They then demanded that the Jacobitedeputy governor, Oliphant of Gask, hand over some arms being stored inthe council house. Gask responded by attempting to disperse the mob,but without success. The alarm was sounded on the church bells, and theattacking Jacobite forces were themselves attacked and relieved of theirarms. The loyal crowd then mounted an assault on the council house.This was beaten o� only at the cost of one life and a number of injuries.On the loyalist side, George Gorrie, a weaver, was killed and four menwere wounded.97 When Jacobite reinforcements arrived the next day,many of the mob ¯ed. Loyalism, like Jacobitism, had its price, however,and the coda to this example is a sadly pathetic one. The price for the

93 See e.g. SRO, PC1/51, Privy Council Acts, 1696±9, 8 June 1699, p. 574.94 Colley, Britons, p. 77.95 Ian D. Whyte, `The Occupational Structure of the Scottish Burghs in the Late SeventeenthCentury', The Early Modern Town in Scotland, ed. Michael Lynch (1987), p. 228.96 There is a good description of the riot in the Scots Magazine, vii (1745), 492.97 PKCA, B59/30/70, Perth Burgh Records, copy letter, provost of Perth to secretary of the earl ofAlbermarle, 17 Nov. 1746.



Perth maltmen and trades lads was ingratitude. On ¯eeing the town, theymade their way to Stirling castle where they were enrolled into a loyalvolunteer regiment ± General Blakeney's Company of Perthmen. Theysaw little action apart from digging the forti®cations surroundingStirling castle. They also appear to have received little ®nancial supportfor their e�orts. They were forced to issue a memorial to the governor ofthe castle, General Blakeney, complaining of their treatment. There is norecord of whether the memorial was successful.98

V

To conclude: celebration of royal anniversaries in early-HanoverianBritain was widespread. Those historians who have argued that the royalcalendar withered after 1688 are simply not supported by the evidence.This calendar needs recovering and its meanings exploring more fully.Here it has been possible only to provide a few glimpses of its richnessand vitality, and much more could be said about the di�erent ways inwhich such occasions were marked south of the border. We should notassume that there was no popular participation, although there wasalmost certainly a steadily strengthening tendency, as Peter Borsay hasemphasized, for the plebeians to be relegated to a spectator role and forentertainments to retreat into select indoor forms.99 The records are poorand patchy for many places, yet what they suggest is that in a remarkablenumber of places, these `rejoycing days', as they were called, werecelebrated in ways which sought to impress the local population througha mixture of ritual and paternalism. In some places, such as in certainport towns, the day appears to have been marked with considerabledrama, with ships rigged out in their colours and guns ®ring.100 Thesurvival of this calendar raises important questions about how weportray early Hanoverian political culture, and the role within it of theperson and image of the Hanoverian monarch. It perhaps also helps usto understand better the widespread enthusiasm which greeted theaccession of George III; the roots of patriotic kingship were deep ones,albeit often disguised under the generally unpopular George II.The focus in this article, however, has been on celebrations of the

king's birthday in Scotland and the contrasting calendars of nationalcelebration in Scotland, on the one hand, and England andWales, on theother. In Scotland, the king's birthday appears to have been a moreimportant occasion, not only because it was one of fewer days that weremarked with local celebrations but also because it took on additionalmeanings in the context of the politics of Britain after the union of 1707.

98 Ibid., B59/30/77, Memoriall for the Soldiers Volunteers serving in the Perth IndependentCompany under the Command of Capt. James Campbell, 1746.99 Borsay, `All the Town's a Stage', pp. 228±58.100 This, for example, seems to have regularly been the case in Sandwich in Kent. See KCRO,Sa/FAt. 41, Sandwich Borough, Chamberlains' Accounts, 1727±60.



Scottish society was also less rich in its leisure and popular culture,signi®cantly poorer and much more closely controlled by its landedelites. The monarch's birthday was one of very few occasions on whichthe populace had an opportunity to make its sentiments known and tobreak free, albeit temporarily and to a very limited extent, of the grimrestraints of poverty and the kirk. For the political elites, it provided avery public way of demonstrating to an often indi�erent court the loyaltyof an unloved Scotland.But the political importance of the occasion ran deeper than that. It

was one of the means by which a loyal, largely presbyterian Scotland wascoming into clearer political de®nition, one which encompassed not justsupporters of the Church of Scotland and the union, but supporters ofsecessionist churches and even those loyal to George II but opposed tothe union. It is an element of Scottish society that some scholars, notablythe literary historian Murray Pittock, have recently tried hard tooverlook. Demonstrations of loyalty on the part of lowland Scots did notawait the `distancing' of Jacobitism in the 1750s and 1760s, but were tobe found both before and during the ®nal Jacobite rising.101 It is in thiscontext that the riots of 30 October 1745 take on another importantmeaning. They highlight the fact that Scotland was greatly dividedduring the crisis, not between a minority of active supporters of theyoung pretender and those who were indi�erent to the fate of theHanoverians, but between two minorities, made up of Jacobites andsupporters of George II, and a further group or series of groups, whoprobably made up the majority. These comprised people whose reactionsvaried from embarrassment through confusion to indi�erence. Thearticulate and vocal minority who were loyal Scots were in many placesprepared to contest vigorously the political terrain with the Jacobites,even when under Jacobite occupation. The king's birthday on30 October, with its well-established (and equally well-understood)forms of celebration, provided an excellent opportunity for them to dothis. The situation is lucidly reported by the Reverend John Bisset. Likemore of his countrymen than have been allowed by historians, Bisset wasan opponent of the union, but a ®rm supporter of George II during thecrisis. He was both a participant in and witness to the events in Aberdeenon 30 October 1745. With more than a hint of contrition, he declared inhis diary: `I shall believe, after this, that many keep the birth day moreout of love to the wine, than loyalty to King George, when theydiscourage a test of loyalty when it was the proper time to give it; for inthe ordinary course of things, I never a�ect these rejoycing days, but nowwas the time, and I am rejoyced to ®nd many here at last so animated.'102

101 Pittock, Myth of Jacobite Clans, p. 10.102 `Diary of Rev. John Bisset', 353.



To Solemnize His Majesty's Birthday': New Perspectives on Loyalism in George II's Britain

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