THEY have largely been forgotten about but a new book reveals the women who played key roles as secret agents for the Jacobite cause.
Not only that, but one of them contributed to the European Enlightenment from her Aberdeenshire base, 50 years before Edinburgh became the renowned hotbed of intellectual fervour.
“It raises the question of whether the Jacobites helped to kick off the Enlightenment in Scotland,” author Mike Shepherd (below) told the Sunday National.
Unquenched Rage: The Jacobites Of North East Scotland, 1688-1708, contains the mostly unknown story of two powerful women, both Countesses of Erroll, who ran military intelligence for the Jacobites in Scotland.
Lady Catherine Carnegie was the first to manage the intelligence network in Scotland, passing communications between Scotland and the exiled Jacobite Court in France.
Her role was taken over by the next Countess of Erroll, Lady Anne Drummond. Some of Anne’s coded messages to and from the Jacobites in France have survived – they were smuggled in salmon shipments to the continent from Aberdeen.
Anne helped the 1708 Franco-Jacobite attempted invasion of Scotland, with her base of Slains Castle acting as Intelligence HQ for both the Scottish Jacobites and the French military during the planning phase.
This almost succeeded, the French invasion fleet arriving in the Firth of Forth, only to be chased up the north-east coast by the British Navy. Not in the book because it happened after the time frame, but still remarkable, is Lady Anne’s daughter, Mary Hay, who became the next Countess of Erroll. She was also a Jacobite and raised men from her Aberdeenshire estate for Bonnie Prince Charlie in the 1745 Rising.
Shepherd believes he has come across a whole area of Jacobite history that has been neglected yet, even so, he had to self-publish as he couldn’t find a Scottish publisher who would take it.
“History books from Aberdeenshire are perceived not to have a big market, even books about the Jacobites,” he said.
The book’s genesis came about when Shepherd was asked by a history society in Canada to give an online talk on the Jacobites of the north east of Scotland.
When people from all over the world subscribed to the talk, he realised there was a lot of interest in the subject and decided to turn his research into a book.
“The typical Jacobite book is often a retread of familiar ground whereas I came across a whole area of Jacobite history that has been basically forgotten,” he said.
While some of Anne Drummond’s activities have been noted previously, the full extent of her involvement and the power she wielded is detailed more clearly in the new book which shows that from her stronghold in Slains Castle she set up an intelligence network that ran throughout Scotland.
Her two Jacobite brothers, James and John Drummond, were exiled on the continent and along with King James VII and his son, James VIII, used Anne as a point of contact for the rest of the country. The castle was also used as a secret landing point for French vessels because of its relative isolation.
Anne used a code to pass on military intelligence to the exiled Jacobite court through her letters so they read as trivial household messages.
Her spying culminated in the failed French invasion of 1708 which she helped to plan along with Colonel Hooke who came over from France and used Slains as a base.
“When that failed, she was broke and under the spotlight so that was the end of her operations,” said Shepherd.
Anne’s involvement in the Enlightenment took place years earlier when she was asked to contribute to what is regarded as a foundational text for the flourishing of intellectual thought in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. Pierre Bayle’s Historical And Critical Dictionary was once one of the most popular books in northern Europe. Published between 1697 and 1702, it was a unique source of information and argument at that time.
Shepherd said: “Anne was a woman of letters and contributed two articles – possibly as many as seven – on Scotland in the first edition. It was no small achievement to have contributed to a famous book like that. It’s amazing.”
He added that the whole of the North East was primed for intellectual activity at that time, with two renowned universities in Aberdeen and a constant exchange of trade and ideas with France and the Low Countries.
“When European ideas came across, a significant number of individuals started their own research,” said Shepherd. “It was about 50 years ahead of the main Scottish Enlightenment and Anne was part of that. As well as contributing to Bayle’s book, she wrote articles for a geography text book about the geography of North East Scotland.”
Her predecessor Catherine Carnegie is even less well-known, but played a pivotal role in the first Jacobite rising, having previously been involved in the siege of Edinburgh castle in 1688.
“While that lasted, Catherine Carnegie seems to have adopted the role of military intelligence and was responsible for communications with those inside the castle, both from within Scotland, and also from King James VII in France,” said Shepherd.
Later, before the Battle of Killiecrankie when Bonnie Dundee was raising the Highland clans, Catherine was involved in a plot to deceive the enemy into thinking King James would invade Scotland’s southwest from Ireland.
“The plan was actually to disembark in the Highlands so it was arranged for Catherine Carnegie to be captured with a fictitious letter from King James. She was arrested but eventually escaped and she ended her life as the governess of the young James Stuart in France,” said Shepherd.
He has uncovered so much fresh information about the Jacobites of the North East of Scotland that he has had to limit the book to just 20 years between 1688-1708, meaning that Anne Drummond’s successor, Mary Hay, is not covered even though she was also active in the Jacobite cause.
“In the ‘45, she persuaded quite a lot of men to join the Jacobite Army so we have three countesses of Erroll in a row espousing the Jacobite cause with a great deal of power and telling men what to do,” said Shepherd.
Unquenched Rage: The Jacobites Of North East Scotland, 1688-1708, is available from Amazon.
