The British government and the prisoners of the Fifteen Rebellion

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is the examination of the treatment by the British Government of the prisoners of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. It is the main contention of this work that, in general, the government was lenient with the large numbers of captives, making examples of only a few in London and Lancashire. Those who languished in prison did so for less than two years, and the prisoners from the upper class enjoyed a higher standard of living than that of the common felon. Primarily due to the plethora of information on the upper classes and the dearth of accounts relative to the lower classes in the primary source materials, this thesis is based for the most part on the experiences of the former.

Chapter I begins with a general discussion of the events leading to The Fifteen Rebellion: the Protestant Settlement of the British Crown after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the growth of Jacobitism throughout the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne, and the abortive military attempts of the Jacobites to regain the throne. The capture of the prisoners of the Rebellion and the resultant Raree-shows are the subjects of Chapter II. Chapter III, which is set in Newgate Prison in London, examines the lives of the upper-class prisoners incarcerated there. The trials of the sever Jacobite peers captured at the Battle of Preston, their subsequent executions, and their forfeited estates form the theme of Chapter IV. Chapter V deals with public opinion concerning the plight of the prisoners, with the Act of Indemnity, and with the trials of the remainder of the rebels. Finally, Chapter VI, which discusses the nature of actions taken by the government against the imprisoned rebels, presents a comparison with the "Bloody Assizes" of 1685, only thirty years before The Fifteen, and sees the Government treatment of the rebels in its relation to political stability in England.