CHAPTER SEVEN

THE FRANCO-SCOTTISH WARS: 1689–1697 AND 1702–1713

The English must also take most of the credit for the terrible cam- paigns waged recently in Germany and Spain and Belgium, though we too may boast some share in that glory, a share unacknowl- edged abroad.1

Ever since the publication of James Grant’s invaluable Old Scots Navy in 1914, scholars have largely followed both his narrative and conclu- sions in relation to events of the Franco-Scottish wars and ’s contribution to them.2 Grant focuses on the initial exploits of two hired merchantmen, followed by the issuing of letters of marque to some privateers and the eventual establishment of a dedicated Scottish navy (composed of three vessels), with great emphasis usually being placed on its diminutive size when it is described. However, by con- sidering the Franco-Scottish wars in the context of the previous con- flicts of the early modern period, we not only confirm some aspects of Grant’s narrative, but also bring in new arguments which certainly give rise to alternative perspectives. While the basics of the narrative remain the same—there were indeed only three ships in the Scottish navy (1696–1707)—the conclusions drawn about their significance can and should be considerably revised. France had long been one of Scotland’s main trading partners but, as we have seen, under the Stewart regime the Scots had already twice been at war with France in the seventeenth century. By the late 1680s, fears of a Catholic alliance forming between Louis XIV and James VII and II prompted both the ‘Glorious Revolution’ in (1688) and the subsequent deposition of Scotland’s Catholic king and the selection

1 Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, History of the Union of Scotland and England, trans- lated and edited by Douglas Duncan (Edinburgh, 1993), pp. 115–116. 2 J. Grant, (ed.), The Old Scots Navy from 1689 to 1710 (, 1914). For recent scholars shadowing Grant’s arguments see, for example, Graham, A Maritime History of Scotland, in particular chapter 2, ‘The Defence of Maritime Sovereignty’, pp. 63–99; Brian Lavery, The and Scotland (Edinburgh, 2007), pp. 18–34. 284 chapter seven of William II and III (1650–1702) and Mary Stewart (1662–1694) as joint monarchs in Scotland (1689). The politics of this regime-change in Britain are well known, and in 1689 Scotland’s government once more eschewed Episcopalianism in favour of Presbyterian Kirk gover- nance. This led many Episcopalians and Catholics to leave the country and go into exile, either in England or on the continent. An exodus of Jacobite soldiers and supporters ensued thereafter, the majority of whom followed their king to France where they established a court in exile at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.3 As it was simply impossible to accommodate all the followers at this Court, many of the Scots were recruited into the small Jacobite military unit based at Lille in Flanders or placed elsewhere in the French military establishment.4 This recruit- ment was symptomatic of a nation riven by split loyalties, involving those who supported the new regime of William and Mary against those who remained loyal to the deposed king, James VII and II, and his successors. The exact proportion of the nation that supported each sovereign remains a hotly contested subject, but there are some cer- tainties pertinent to this study on which we can focus. The regime- change in the British Isles had major implications for Scottish shipping and trade, for William II and III continued to pursue his longstand- ing anti-French agenda when he became king in Great Britain and thus brought Scotland (along with England) into his wars. In doing so he certainly found many willing volunteers keen to loyally affirm their support for the triumph of Protestantism which they believed the new monarchy represented. Thus, on 6 August 1689, the Privy Council issued its formal declaration of war against Louis XIV ‘as a great disturber of Christendom’, and forbad all trade, correspondence and ‘meddling’ with the French thereafter.5

3 E. Corp, et. al., A Court in Exile; The Stuarts in France, 1689–1718 (Cambridge, 2004). 4 See the section ‘A Jacobite Army at Lille’ in M. Glozier, Scottish Soldiers in France in the Reign of the Sun King (Leiden, 2004), pp. 231–249; André Pagès, ‘Les lys et le chardon: les Ecossais de la maison du roi’ in Academie des Sciences et Lettres de Mont- pellier, Bull. 37 (2007), pp. 114, 118–119. An excellent source book is B.P. Lenman and J.S. Gibson, (eds.), The Jacobite Threat—Rebellion and Conspiracy 1688–1759: England, Ireland, Scotland and France. A Source Book (Edinburgh, 1990). 5 RPCS, 3rd series, XIV, 1689, pp. 17–18. ‘Declaration of War against the King of France’, 6 August 1689. For more detailed analysis of the Nine Years War (1688–1697) from a French perspective, see Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army, pp. 58–69 and passim.