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University of Dundee MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY Information and French Support for Jacobite Ireland, 1689-1691 Keogh, Jonathan Stuart Award date: 2013 Link to publication General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 01. Oct. 2021 MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY Information and French Support for Jacobite Ireland, 1689-1691 Jonathan Stuart Keogh 2013 University of Dundee Conditions for Use and Duplication Copyright of this work belongs to the author unless otherwise identified in the body of the thesis. It is permitted to use and duplicate this work only for personal and non-commercial research, study or criticism/review. You must obtain prior written consent from the author for any other use. Any quotation from this thesis must be acknowledged using the normal academic conventions. It is not permitted to supply the whole or part of this thesis to any other person or to post the same on any website or other online location without the prior written consent of the author. Contact the Discovery team ([email protected]) with any queries about the use or acknowledgement of this work. INFORMATION AND FRENCH SUPPORT FOR JACOBITE IRELAND, 1689–1691 JONATHAN STUART KEOGH Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy in History University of Dundee December, 2013 2 Table of Contents List of tables ...................................................................................................................... 3 Abbreviations .................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................... 4 Declaration ........................................................................................................................ 5 Thesis Summary ................................................................................................................ 6 General Introduction .......................................................................................................... 7 Chapter I – Literature Survey........................................................................................... 10 Chapter II – Jacobite Printed Propaganda: From France to a Three-Kingdom Context ..... 27 Chapter III – The Guises of Diplomacy: Two French envoys in Ireland ........................... 46 Chapter IV – Chamlay and Support for James ii: From Sound Advice to Manipulation.... 81 Chapter V – Having the Queen’s Ear: Court Politics and Decision-Making on Jacobite Ireland, 1689–1690 .......................................................................................................... 99 Chapter VI – Correspondence and Intelligence .............................................................. 121 General Conclusion ....................................................................................................... 134 Bibliography.................................................................................................................. 135 3 LIST OF TABLES Table I: Breakdown of D’Avaux’s official correspondence while in Ireland, 1689-1690……….54 ABBREVIATIONS AAE CP Archives des Affaires Etrangères, Correspondance Politique (Angleterre) AN Archives Nationales, Fonds Marine Nationale BL British Library CNRS Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique CSP Calendar State Papers, Domestic Series DNB Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford UP, 2004) f. folio (as in a page in a manuscript) HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission HMSO Her Majesty’s Stationery Office IMC Irish Manuscripts Commission Mss. Manuscripts NLI National Library of Ireland, Dublin PRO Public Record Office, London SHD Service Historique de la Défense, Fonds Armée de Terre, Vincennes 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would to take this opportunity to thank my supervisor Dr Chris Storrs, who gave me much encouragement and advice over the long gestation of this study. I would also like to extend thanks to the external examiner Dr Rowlands who gave valuable feedback on an earlier version. The Department of History and Administrative staff at the University of Dundee deserve praise for their generous assistance, which really made a difference to me as a distance-learning student also working a full time job. Gratitude is due to friends and family for their patience and understanding in helping me work and putting up with absences over the course of the study. Finally, special thanks go to my friend Pamela for her thoughtful help and invaluable support. 5 DECLARATION I, Jonathan Stuart Keogh, hereby certify that this thesis has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. Unless otherwise stated, all references have been consulted by me. Date: ………………….. Signature of candidate: ………………………. 6 THESIS SUMMARY Although conventional Irish historiography has viewed French support for the Jacobite war effort in Ireland in the period 1689-1691 largely in terms of military assistance, a small number of scholars have taken a more original view. Their works considered the interaction between the two groups by looking at both French and Irish sources and scholarship in tandem, thus creating a new paradigm through which to examine the period. This new approach is adopted here and is applied to the concept of information as it related to French support for Jacobite Ireland. Through themes and individuals the crucial importance of information, its acquisition, concealment and transmission is shown in the context of the changing French appraisals of the Irish campaign. The information to be considered ranges from propaganda and diplomacy to court gossip and cryptography. Both thematic areas like propaganda and intelligence through correspondence are examined. Specific French individuals, exemplary in the appropriation and exploitation of information, are looked at and their contributions assessed. The thesis shows that the French went to considerable effort to stay informed about the situation in Jacobite Ireland and to secure their channels of communication. The efforts of the new Williamite regime to intercept and disrupt that flow of information, both regarding correspondence and propaganda in an Irish and a Three-Kingdom context are also outlined. The study also considers domestic French discussions and court conflicts and how these may have influenced military events in Ireland. In sum, this study argues that French support for James II was subject to internal discussion and brokerage of influence at court. The examination as a whole confirms information as a valid framework of enquiry to better understand French interaction with Jacobites in Ireland, but is also applicable in a wider context, that of the use of intelligence in the conflict between France and the new Williamite regime in the Three Kingdoms in the early period of the Nine Years War. 7 GENERAL INTRODUCTION Recent decades have seen the flowering of scholarship on Jacobite Ireland and louisquatorzien France, the former particularly in the wake of the tercentenary of the Jacobite Wars in Ireland. 1 The greater availability of archival material, such as the landmark publication of Mulloy’s edition of Franco-Irish Correspondence , has led to new and fruitful questions being asked of those sources and to the reappraisal of more traditional assumptions and approaches. 2 Nevertheless, the relationship between the two has not received due consideration. Studies of Jacobite Ireland in this period tend to paint the French involvement there in broad strokes, seldom engaging with the nuances. There are two notable exceptions to this trend: Symcox focused on the development of Louis XIV’s strategy in relation to Ireland and Conroy looked at French maritime interest in Ireland in terms of navigation and cartography. 3 Although their works differ greatly in style and scope, Symcox and Conroy demonstrate that a synthetic approach to French activity in relation to Ireland yields fresh insight about both spheres and is a useful way forward. This study builds on their approach in analysing French support for James II and his forces in Ireland in the period 1689–1691; specifically, it examines aspects of transmission, circulation and appropriation of information related to French conduct of the Irish campaign. Situating this in the larger context of the War of the Three Kings as well as the start of the Nine Years War, this study proceeds thematically and conceptually. It examines a range of sources — both primary and secondary, Irish and French. Through case studies of the practical mechanics and of exemplary individuals, it explores topics including propaganda, diplomacy, strategy, court gossip and espionage,