DUPLICITOUS LOVERS, MONSTROUS SUBJECTS: SELFISH LOYALTIES AND THE JACOBITE OTHER AFTER 1688

Abstract

This dissertation traces the Jacobite image and voice in public discourse after England’s revolution of 1688. It explores constructions of political subjecthood in the wake of a revolution that was both promisingly and problematically contractual. Jacobites were the supporters of the deposed King James II and, as such, highlighted inconsistencies in post-1688 ideas of loyalty. I explore anti-Jacobite pamphlets in conjunction with Jacobite manuscripts and novels from the late Stuart period to juxtapose popular images of Jacobites with the voices of Jacobites themselves, exploring overlapping concerns regarding contractual relationships of obligation, selfish passions and the pitfalls of affectionate, passive obedience. Previous historiography on 1688 and the late Stuart period has tended to differentiate between modern and traditional interpretations of the revolution and to highlight the partisan divide. Without negating the importance of revolutionary shifts and partisan divisions, I investigate a marginalized political group from the perspective of both their detractors and themselves in order to expose shared cultural concerns after 1688. I argue that the period after 1688 witnessed a crisis in constructions of loyalty based on a new but uncomfortable awareness of self-interest as a basis for sociopolitical binding. Rather than a stark partisan distinction between traditional, monarchical loyalties and contractual, self-interested bonds, I highlight the nervous, uneven and incomplete development from patriarchal to self-preservative bonds across the political spectrum. A shared cultural anxiety reveals itself most potently in common metaphors of gendered power gone awry: failed husbands and incest articulate abuses of power; whoredom represents economically motivated devotion; and rape approximates de facto submission. I also demonstrate that it is at times the most marginalized voices, Jacobite women, who recognize the growing utility of contractual loyalty and who have the most innovative critiques of society. I trace the discomfort with selfish foundations for obligation from the concerns of post-1688 political discourse into the shifting context of 18th century empire and the anxieties of consumer culture, ultimately suggesting that concerns with the role of self-interest in the formation of political communities has a longer and more nuanced history than is commonly supposed.