JACOBITE SPY WARS - Moles, Rogues and Treachery by Douglas, Hugh

Phoenix Mill, 1999, Sutton, UK first edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 6x9, xvii, 269 pp, illus, notes, bibliog, index.-------------------------------------------------------The Jacobite story is more than the tale of Bonnie Prince Charlie, his unlucky father and grandfather, and a handful of battles - the Boyne, Sheriffmuir, Preston, Prestonpans, Falkirk and Culloden. It is also one of history's longest-running spy sagas, the story of the dark underbelly of the Jacobite years, of spies and counter-spies, treachery and manipulation.The Jacobite Movement began with the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when James II of England and VII of Scotland fled and his daughter, Mary, and her husband, William of Orange, took over the thrones. It ended in 1788 with the death of Prince Charlie who ruled as `King over the Water'. Although destroyed several times - in the defeats of the risings of 1715, 1719 and 1745, and with the wrecking of several invasion attempts by France and Spain - in an intelligence war that drew in people from Sussex smugglers to Highland clansmen, the Jacobites proved remarkably able to haunt the Hanoverian government.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Across Europe `moles' dug for secrets at every court, and kings, ambassadors, soldiers, cardinals and royal mistresses all took part, from the great Duke of Marlborough to Madame de Pompadour and the devious King Louis XV. Even young Glengarry, heir to a highland chieftainship, sold himself to Prince Charlie's enemies. Sir Robert Walpole proved a compulsive master mole-catcher, Baron Philip von Stosch combined art with spying, and the Irish adventurer, pimp and cardsharper, Dudley Bradstreet, claimed with justification to have wrecked Prince Charlie's 1745 risingAs for the prince, in his character lurked all the makings of a great spy and the defects of a bad one. He was a master of disguise and intrigue, which fooled his enemies, yet his arrogance and impetuosity contributed greatly to the Jacobites' eventual defeat in the espionage war. In the final analysis all the battles won and lost during the Jacobite century do not account for the failure of the Stuarts to be restored to the kingdoms they lost at the Glorious Revolution: ultimate defeat lay in their failure to win the intelligence war.