Not because the Hanoverians were nicer than James, but because BPC had a protection Monmouth did not - he was legtitimate royalty.

Huh. I don't have strong opinions on whether he would have been executed--could go either way, imo--but I've always considered it a possibility. He was descended from royalty, and he was legitimate, yes, but would the Hanoverians really have recognized him as royalty? Or are you saying that they would have had to be concerned about repercussions from people who did?

My thinking was always that BPC wasn't an anointed monarch, nor even the son of one, and even being an anointed monarch isn't guaranteed protection if you're a plausible threat to the current monarch. After coming as close to London with an army as he did, an execution wouldn't have surprised me.

But I could be convinced.

Honestly, both of you know so much more about the 45 that I would not argue with your expertise.

But you know more about the Hanovers and the 18th century in general. :) Also, keep in mind that my knowledge is 20 years old and doesn't extend to many primary sources, and if there's one thing salon has taught me, it's that any belief I hold will eventually be overturned by new evidence, if I just wait long enough.

I mean, if Elizaveta and Catherine in Russia lock up not just poor Ivan and Anna Leopoldovna for life but also all of Ivan's siblings and EC's brother instead of just, well, killing them, in Russia, where the supreme rulers have way more leaveway than in the rest of Europe...

Ah, but that wasn't a double standard! Elizaveta famously decided not to have a single person executed in her entire reign! And both she and Catherine had a standing order to have Ivan killed on the spot if there was an escape attempt, which is how he died (almost immediately after Catherine's coup). Elizaveta was also said to have cradled the one-year-old during the coup, saying, "Poor, innocent baby." Which is also completely different from BPC and his army.

Also, in the event of a BPC capture, who would make the decision to execute him? Cumberland? G2? Would there be a trial?

I would be interested to know what Cumberland's standing orders were during the hunt for the Prince. If you really wanted to kill him, it wouldn't be that hard to say that he didn't survive the attempt to capture him, so sorry, too bad.

If he had been captured alive, I was always assuming Parliament would have claimed jurisdiction and he would have been put on trial for treason. I mean, if they could execute Charles I!

BPC's followers count as rebels from a Hannovarian pov, but does BPC, who hasn't been born in Britain and thus isn't really a subject of King George (or is he, again, from a Hannoverian pov - of course he's not from a Stuart one)?

Yeah, this is an interesting legal question. Hmm. I just checked Blackstone, and this is possibly relevant:

Local allegiance is such as is due from an alien, or stranger born, for so long time as he continues within the king's dominion and protection: and it ceases, the instant such stranger transfers himself from this kingdom to another.

Oh, wait, this is even better:

It was enacted by statute 13 and 14 W. III. c. 3 that the pretended prince of Wales, who was then thirteen years of age, and had assumed the title of James III. should be attainted of high treason...And by statue 17 Geo. II. c. 39, it is enacted, that if any of the sons of the pretender shall land or attempt to land in this kingdom, or be found in Great Britain, or Ireland, or any of the dominions belonging to the same, he shall be judged attainted of high treason, and suffer the pains thereof.

Yeah, this is consistent with the impression I'd always had that BPC would have been charged with high treason. Would they have gone with the full death penalty in practice? I can't say for sure, but this law was passed in 1743 in direct response to BPC's arrival in France, and the relevant passage reads:

he...shall, by virtue of this act, stand, and be adjudged attainted of high treason, to all intents and purposes whatsoever, and shall suffer and forfeit as persons attainted of high treason by the laws of the land ought to suffer and forfeit.

If anyone is interested in knowing who took what side in the parliamentary debate (which was mostly about the clause to attaint anyone of high treason who even corresponded with any of the Stuart pretenders), there are 200 pages of speeches in Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England: 1743-1747 on Google. :) Chesterfield is against. What's interesting is he doesn't seem to think there's the slightest danger of a real invasion. But he also argues that even if there's a real danger, essentially, "We can't let the terrorists tyrants win by passing laws that would make us as bad as them."

Also, if he's a live prisoner, could he be made to officially resign from any claims the Stuarts have to the throne?

Yes, just like Philip V was made to resign from any claims he had to the French throne. ;) IOW, if I were a Hanover, I wouldn't feel very safe.

Okay, see, this post is what I mean when I say that if we start talking about the Jacobites, I will get sucked back in. :'D

presumably in response to the fact that James III's heir had grown up and turned out to be ambitious

Precisely in response to the fact that he'd shown up in France in late 1743 agitating for support, and the French had received him instead of kicking him out.

Remember that one of the terms of the Peace of Utrecht back in ~1713 was that France had to recognize the Protestant Succession and kick James "III" out south of the Alps, which is why the Stuarts are now living in Rome. The fact that BPC is now in France and clearly not there to socialize and attend the opera, is a violation of the treaty. And of course, France and GB are now at war again.

still be so unprepared in 1745, especially after the French attempt in '44!

Well, at least one of the speechmakers (Chesterfield) was arguing that there was no way there was any real and present danger!

Chesterfield also made an interesting argument, which was that they shouldn't pass this bill (again, they're arguing mostly about the forfeiture of estates, not about attainting BPC for treason) because the government already had law on its side, unlike the Pretender, who could only offer violence, and there was no call for the English to start acting like him by threatening violence.

but also because it punished children for their fathers' sins

I saw a lot of this in my skimming! One counterargument seems to be that just like if the fathers spent money when they were alive, it's not punishing children that the fathers can't leave them what they don't own when they die. (Which is interesting, because the whole principle of entailment is that you can't alienate your own real estate because you're holding it in trust for the next generation. I wonder if anyone mentions that. Of course, not all estates are entailed, but as I recall from my Roman days, the early Romans *couldn't* alienate their own property, for that very reason.)

until the Pretender was dead (James III, it must be)

Yep, James III, who ended up not dying until 1766.

So it seems what they're debating is not just about whether the Stuarts should be attainted for treason, but whether this law should continue to be prolonged?

Yep, that's one of the articles! I think it was Chesterfield who was going, "Look, he's 55, he's in pretty good health, he's going to live a while longer, why do we need to extend the term longer?" The bill got passed and did in fact get extended to include the two sons, so 1807, when Henry Benedict died (BPC dying in 1788). Though it then got repealed in 1799, when there really was no danger from the Jacobites anymore.

Ha ha, wow, not going to stop you. Great work digging!

So this I didn't actually mind spending time on, because my resistance to reprising the Jacobites is that I don't want to be rehashing the same ground (and the temptation is there, because I know I have access to *so much more* than I did when I was a high schooler in a small town in pre- and early-internet days). But this is new ground that I'm interested in covering, so I'm game. :)

In the last decade, I've twice tried and failed to read Blackstone cover to cover, so any excuse to dip into him again is welcome. And I still remember the moment, almost twenty years ago, when I was at college and realized the library had entire shelves of volumes of the Parliamentary speeches. I was flabbergasted and wished I was still in the fandom so I could make time to read them!

cahn, I think I've told you who Blackstone is, but just to repeat: he wrote a monumental four-volume treatise called Commentaries on the Laws of England, published 1765-1770. They were read by the American Founding Fathers and influential in the shaping of the new laws. The online scan I've used when I need to check the original, instead of the OCRed Kindle version I use for actual reading, is from the Boston Public Library and signed by John Adams!

He's notorious for being "best of all possible worlds" and casting each and every law as wise and moderate. This is entertaining, because England was known for having a brutal criminal law, death penalty for everything and gruesome torture + death for the really bad stuff, and watching him bend over backwards to do gymnastics to cast everything as "Well, but it could be worse!" is hilarious.

He's not always reliable, but he is comprehensive, and very readable, although the four volumes are too long and dense for me to have read the series cover-to-cover. Now that I have a much better system for reading long and dense works, which I developed in the last 3 years, I should give it another try.

But in the more near future, I'd like to sample the Parliamentary speeches on treason. They seem fascinating! I see a lot of references to the Greeks and Romans. Which is exactly what I'd expect from the 18th century, but it is cool to see it in practice.