Jacobite Politics in Aberdeen and the’ 15

Abstract

On September 20^th 1715, James Francis Edward Stuart was proclaimed King James VIII at the Mercat cross in Aberdeen. George Keith, 9^th (and last) Earl Marischal of Scotland, led the proceedings. He was flanked by his younger brother, James Francis Edward Keith, members of the Aberdeenshire nobility and gentry, and a significant contingent of the town’s merchant burgesses and trades guild members. They had good reason to make a scene. The ’15, which had been simmering for months, had finally been unleashed at Braemar two weeks earlier. The proclamation was shaded by rioting and the town’s magistrates and councillors evacuated the Tolbooth, Aberdeen’s municipal headquarters. These, the town’s leading citizens, were otherwise absent from the occasion. The Jacobites took control of Aberdeen swiftly. Despite the rioting, there was little resistance and no need for violence. This is somewhat surprising, when one considers that the town’s pro-Hanoverian magistracy was equally in-tune with the political and military developments taking place in the summer and autumn of 1715. The town, indeed the whole country, was psyched up for a Jacobite crescendo of some sort. What we know is that even if the magistrates did not support the Jacobite insurrection, and even if they were loath to regard James Stuart proclaimed king in their burgh, they did not do much to stop it.¹