What the Outlander series does not tell about Spanish support for the Irish and Scottish Jacobite cause
José Antonio Suárez López
Spanish troops defended the Jacobite cause together with the Mackenzie clan in Eilean Donan in 1719 while the Jacobites fleeing from Great Britain took refuge in Cádiz, and the Spanish nobility supported the cause through the Fitz James Stuart Family, (patriarch of the house de Alba) and the Jacobite Countess of Lismore became the right hand of the Queen of Spain and her husband did the same with the King of France. A hundred years later the Scotsman Jhon Downey became a hero of the Spanish War of Independence.
The Outlander series has sparked a new wave of love for the Scottish Highlands and its age-old culture. Many people visit Scotland because they have been inspired by the books or the TV series, while fan groups for the series are growing online.
What the series does not say is the Spanish support for the Jacobite cause that is the central plot of the series, Scottish and Irish Catholics who defended the return of a Catholic king to the English throne, a cause supported by the French and Spanish monarchies.
It all begins when King James Stuart, the last Catholic monarch to rule England, was overthrown in 1688 by his Protestant son-in-law. Then an English civil war began with the name of Jacobite rebellion in support of James Stuart.
The member of the House of Alba, James Fitz-James Stuart Duke of Berwick (1670-1734) was recognized natural son of James Stuart, Duke of York, and heir to the English crown who ascended the throne in 1685 overthrown by his Protestant brother-in-law in 1688 .
From 1689 to 1691, Berwick fought for his father’s rights and assumed command of the Jacobite armies. Expelled from the country, he took refuge in France where he reached the rank of general in the French army while organizing the Jacobite resistance. He also fought in Spain on the Portuguese front and in the Battle of Almansa in the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1710, Louis XIV of France gave him the title of Duke. His children went to Spain founding the house of Alba, which in Gaelic means Scotland.
In the defense of the castle of Eilean Donan, of the Fitzgeralds clan and then the Mackenzie clan in 1719, a contingent of Spanish troops participated who fought alongside the Scots defeated a month later in the battle of Glen Shiel. The castle would be captured and demolished by three frigates of the English Royal Navy.
There were exactly 200 veterans under the command of Colonel Don Nicolás de Castro Bolano. who fought alongside Clan Cameron of Lochiel, Rob Roy of Clan MacGregor with 40 men and 200 men of Clan MacKenzie, commanded by Sir John Mackenzie.
Finally Carlos Eduardo Estuardo, grandson of King Jaime VII and cousin of the Duke of Alba Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart invaded England with the support of the Scottish and Irish clans being defeated at the Battle of Culloden, in 1746 after which Scots and Irish were persecuted and chose to leave the country and go to Anglo-Saxon or Spanish America.
JACOBITES IN THE SPANISH CROWN
Spain actively participated in the five expeditions of the Stuarts to retake the English throne from 1715 to 1745while the pretender to the British throne Carlos Eduardo Estuardo made his debut as a soldier in the Spanish capture of Naples, being an ally of the Bourbons in Spain and France.
Isabel Obrien, wife of the Jacobite Count of Lismore Daniel Obrien trusted man of the exiled King James who appointed him his ambassador to the France of Louis XV served as a spy and lady-in-waiting for the Queen of Spain Isabel de Farnese, Duchess of Parma, wife of the first Bourbon Felipe IV.
They were thus allies of the Stuarts since the Treaty of Utrecht seeking to return a Catholic king to the throne of England. Elizabeth was descended from the Irish hero Brian Borohw of the Clare household of Irish refugees at the Bourbon court.
After the defeat at Culloden, the army of Carlos Eduardo Estuardo defeated the British in Inverness and then devised a counterattack plan that involved obtaining military support from France and Spain. The Stuarts communicated this plan to Margarita O’Brien so that she could transmit it to the Duke of Huéscar, a descendant of Jacobo Stuart already established in the Spanish court, and through him to the Marquis of Ensenada, of which letters are preserved.
However, Spain and France did not support the plan and the Gallic king limited himself to protecting his northern flank with troops at Dunkirk, offering the young pretender to the English throne money and positions.
JACOBITES IN CADIZ
Many Jacobites arrived in Cádiz at the beginning of the 18th century as political exiles thanks to the British Hispanic trade treaty of 1713 signed after the Treaty of Utrecht with 18 English and Irish companies in Cádiz according to Guadalupe Carrasco.
The English, Scots and Irish were treated as neighbors of Cádiz so they could trade with Hispanic America, although during the War of the Spanish Succession the English were expelled from Cádiz and the Jacobites, who were enemies of the English as well as the Spanish, remained. In 1717, the British ambassador Mr. Bubb complained that the Jacobites were very numerous in Cadiz and «they have become naturalized in the country, and furthermore they want to pass as subjects of his British Majesty to enjoy his privileges».
JHON DOWNIE
A Scot John Downie, born in 1777 in Stirling, where the monument to the Scottish hero Wialliam Wallace stands, emigrated to Spanish America where he made his fortune. The Outlander series perfectly reflects the environment in which John Downie grew up after the battle of Culoden.
Enriched in America, ruined in London and official of the Duke of Wellington, in Badajoz at the head of 3000 Extremadurans in 1810. Pizarro’s sword was given to him by the Countess of the Conquest, in 1812 in Castilleja. Together with the rest of the British army, he chases Soult in his flight from Seville from Castilleja to the Triana Bridge where he was wounded and taken prisoner.
He fought against the French carrying the authentic sword of Francisco Pizarro. He was shot in the eye in Seville and cured by a surgeon in the Ducal Palace of Marchena where he was about to lose his life.
According to El Conciso (Cádiz, September 19, 1812), Captain Villatte treated him «with very little humanity», taking him tied to a cannon and bleeding to death for two days from Seville to Marchena. They arrived at the Ducal Palace of Marchena, whereMarshal Soult and José I were already on their way out. According to the account in The Concise, upon seeing Soult,
Downie said that he would rather die than follow Villatte’s orders. They exchanged it for 150 English soldiers. That night the French were forced to leave Marchena, leaving him in the Palace. The next day he was cured by a good surgeon. Jhon Downie stayed at the Ducal Palace from September 3 to 4 and the Palace administrator José Medina gave him food and drink.
He ate a hen, two large chickens, a bottle of brandy and another of resoli, two kinds of sponge cake and two kinds of sweet syrup, six loaves of bread, half a pound of superior chocolate and half an arroba of good wine. In total 173 reales de vellón. (AHN. Nobility. Letters. File 194-17).
Downie writes a letter of thanks to ‘El Conciso’ where he declares himself «with all his heart the most faithful Spaniard». the surgeon founda considerable portion of worms in the wound» according to El Conciso. He fully recovered in Seville where he was later appointed by the Spanish king as curator of the Reales Alcázares, but he had a scar next to his eye forever.
