Lot 524
MANUSCRIPT JACOBITE POEM
UNDER THE PRETENDERS PORTRAIT WITH HIS SWORD DRAWNE THESE LINES ARE WRITT
Auction: Day Two | Thursday 20 August from 10am | Lots 199 - 555
Description
c.1700, single sheet of laid paper, 19.6 x 15.5cm, composed in 2 stanzas of 14 and 4 lines with a 2-line title at head, in an outdated secretary hand, incipit ‘Born to a triple empire I submitt’;
John Stewart, 2nd Duke of Albany (c.1482-1536), Regent of Scotland during the minority of James V. Document signed ‘Jehan’, 13 May 1516, on paper, issued in the name of ‘my Lord Gordoun’ (presumably Alexander Gordon, 3rd Earl of Huntly, Scottish nobleman and commander at Flodden), granting the ward of lands in Lochaber (Glen Loy, Loch Arkaig, Glen Roy, Glen Spean and ?Ardreansk) formerly in the possession of Ferquhard Macintosh (12th chief of clan Macintosh, d.1514) to Huntly's cousin James, earl of [?], signature at foot, marginal losses and repairs, a couple of small losses to text (2)
Footnote
First item: an early copy of a known Jacobite poem written from the perspective of James Stuart (James III, the Old Pretender). as he accepts the accession of Anne as part of God's design before predicting her eventual abdication in his favour. In the 19th century a copy of the work was recorded in the library of the Easy Club, an Edinburgh literary society (Rogers, Social Life in Scotland from Early to Recent Times, 1884, vol. 2, pp. 364-5).