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Passage Illustrated: Randulph refuses to join the Conspiracy

"You must drink the toast — it's the rule of the club," added Sir Bulkeley.

"It is a rule I cannot subscribe to," replied Randulph.

"How! — am I mistaken in you, young man?" said Firebras, regarding him menacingly.

"Do as they bid you, or you'll have your throat cut, 'pon rep!" whispered Mr. Cripps, popping his head over Firebras's shoulder.

"Will you drink the toast, or not?" demanded Firebras, fiercely.

"I will not!" replied Randulph, firmly. "It is treasonable, and I refuse it."

Randulph's bold declaration had well nigh cost him dear. Cries of "spy!" "traitor!" "Hanoverian!" "down with him!" resounded on all sides; the landlord rushed to the door, and placed his back against it, to prevent any attempt at egress in that way; while Sir Norfolk Salusbury, plucking his long blade from its sheath, and making it whistle over his head, kicked a chair that stood between him and the young man out of the way, and bade him, in a stern tone, defend himself. [Chapter XVII, "Mr. Cripps's Alarming Intelligence — Randulph's Introduction to the Jacobite Club — Sir Norfolk Salusbury and Father Verselyn — The Treasonable Toast — Dangerous Position of Randulph — His Firmness — Punctiliousness of Sir Norfolk Salusbury," page 104]

Commentary

After the surreptitious conversation in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey, Cruikshank depicts the group of Jacobites, meeting in the upper room of an inn, demanding the allegiance of the protagonist, who bluntly refuses to subscribe to their views by drinking the proposed toast. The scene in the plate is very much as Ainsworth describes it in the text:

The landlord ushered them into a large room, lighted by a chandelier suspended from the ceiling. In the centre of the apartment was a circular table covered with bottles and glasses. Having hung up their hats against the wall, the company sat down to the table, and a few bumpers went briskly round. [page 103]

The upper room belongs to The Rose and Crown in Gardiner's Street, situated in the London district known as Petty France. The seven characters whom Randulph Crew affronts by his refusal to toast the Stuart Pretender to the throne are the tall, gangly Sir Norfolk Salusbury (extreme left), the gaily-attired Crackenthorpe Cripps, Cordwell Firebras (right, beside young Crew), Mr. Travers, Sir Bulkeley Price (last seen on horseback in Sir Bulkeley Price bringing the mortgage money to Mr. Scarve), and the group's chairman, Father Verselyn (centre, under the chandelier). Cruikshank's chief problems are to inject tension into what appears to be a static group picture, and to individualise the middle-aged Jacobites. It probably would not have been possible to suggest by posture or facial expression that the traitor in their midst is not Crew but Cripps, as Ainsworth subsequently reveals once the plotters have escaped across the rooftops. The illustrator's including a glass display case containing stuffed game-birds may constitute an implicit editorial comment about the antiquated notions of these middle-aged gentlemen about restoring the Stuarts to the throne of what has become since the Glorious Revolution The United Kingdom of Great Britain.

The XVIIIth Century found a divided loyalty to England and, after the "Forty-five," certain regiments disaffected towards the Sovereign were ordered to drink his health. To salve their consciences, the Jacobite officers of the day used to stretch their glasses over their finger-bowls and drink to "The King over the water." Ever since those days it has not been the custom to put finger-bowls on the mess table. (Footnoted: Major R. M. Grazebrook, O.B.E., M.C., in the Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research​.) Some regiments of the old Army, such as the Grenadier Guards, Coldstream Guards, the King's Royal Rifles, and many more, priding themselves that their loyalty was never in doubt; did not drink the health of the Sovereign at all. Others, equally trusty, drank it every night. [Lieut.-Colonel C. C. R. Murphy]

Thus, the large punch-bowl in the centre of the table contains water, to signify the gulf between the British Isles and the present residence of the Stuart​ claimant, otherwise known as James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales (10 June 1688-1 January 1766),​ ​ nicknamed "The Old Pretender." Despite the support of the Papal States and Louis XIV of France, James​ was attainted for treason in London on 2 March 1702, and his titles were forfeited under English law. Following the coronation of George I of Hanover in October 1714, major riots​ broke out in some English counties, but an attempt the next year to place James on the throne by force of Scottish arms failed. After the unsuccessful invasion of 1715, James lived in exile as the King of Great Britain in Papal territories, first at Avignon​ (April 1716-February 1717), then at Pesaro (1717)​ and Urbino (July 1717–November 1718), and finally in Rome — hence, to Stuart loyalists he was "The King over the Water." The vacant chair in the Cruikshank illustration, positioned prominently, subtly suggests both Randulph Crew's reluctance to join the group and the imminent claimant to the throne of the United Kingdom, Prince Charles Edward Stuart (i. e., Bonnie Prince Charlie), poised to invade.

This and the subsequent illustration, in which the Jacobites escape from Grenadier guards, recalls the period of intense plotting when the Stuart sympathizers, whose hopes had been buoyed up by the French government's renewing its support in 1744, expected that the Young Pretender, Prince Charles Edward Stuart, would lead an invasion of England. Although this invasion did not materialise at the time of the Jacobites' meeting in Ainsworth's novel, on 23 July 1745 the Young Pretender (from December of 1743 styled the Prince Regent at his father's court), and seven companions landed at Eriskay in the Highlands and raised the Stuart standard. Although the artist neither distorts the plotters' visages nor renders them mere caricatures, Cruikshank's sympathies (despite his Scots heritage) is with the slender young man who fearlessly stands upon principle and against a treasonous rebellion. For such an act with the illustrator would display little sympathy in his series of illustrations the following year on W. H. Maxwell's History of the Irish Rebellion in 1798 (1845).

The Jacobite revolts in 1708, 1715, and 1719 had failed to restore the Stuarts to the throne. Despite victory at Falkirk Muir in January 1746, the Battle of Culloden in April ended the Rebellion and significant backing for the Stuart cause. Charles Edward escaped to France, where, however, he was unable to win further support. Part of the reason for the collapse of the Second Rising was the Stuart leadership's misreading the degree of support that their claimant would receive in England. Charles Edward and his father, James, misinterpreted English indifference to the Hanoverian dynasty as potential enthusiasm for their cause. Even dedicated English Jacobites such as these in the Cruikshank illustration were primarily Protestant Church of England Tories, and, since resentment at their exclusion from Whig-controlled governments was a key aspect of their disaffection with George II, their crucial support was unreliable at best. Their failure to perceive the post-1715 decline in widespread English support for the Stuart cause was a critical factor in the failure of the 1745 rising to catch fire south of the Tweed.

Related Materials

• Jacobites
• Jacobites in the 19th century
• James I and the Doctrine of The Divine Right of Kings

References

Ainsworth, William Harrison. The Miser's Daughter: A Tale. With 20 illustrations by George Cruikshank. First published in 3 volumes by Cunningham and Mortimer, London, 1842. London, Glasgow, and New York: George Routledge, 1892.

Murphy, C. C. R. "Toasts in the Army." (February-November, 1948). Regimental Rogue.​First published in The Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, Vol. 93.​ http://regimentalrogue.com/misc/toasts_in_the_army.htm

Vann, J. Don. "The Miser's Daughter in Ainsworth's Magazine January-October 1842." Victorian Novels in Serial. New York: MLA, 1988. Pp. 22-23.

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