Melfort: a Jacobite Connoisseur

John Drummond, Duke of Melfort, has traditionally been regarded by Whig historians as the epitome of the evil Jacobite. Even the so-called revisionist Jacobite historians have found few words of praise to give him. For them he was the councillor who helped bring about the fall of James II, and who helped ensure that he would never return. The vocabulary used to describe him has been loaded with hostility. We are told, to take some examples at random from recent publications, that Melfort was an 'unprincipled careerist', both 'mischief-making' and 'rascally'. His friends and supporters are described as 'croanies and toadies'.

In fact Melfort has suffered badly from being on the losing side. Before the Glorious Revolution he believed that the prerogative powers of the crown should be maintained, perhaps even increased. As a Catholic he gave active support to James H's policies of religious toleration. After 1689 he insisted that only military force would lead to a Jacobite restoration and that a policy of negotiation or concession would be bound to fail. He has been condemned by virtually everyone as an irresponsible 'absolutist', who lacked political judgement. He has been contrasted unfavourably with his chief Jacobite rival, Lord Middle-ton, a more moderate politician who eventually supplanted him as James H's leading minister in exile. Melfort, then, was doubly on the losing side: even the few surviving Jacobite archives speak unfavourably of him.