Abstract
In recent decades, research on Irish, Scottish and English Jacobitism and the related subject of migration to continental Europe has developed very significantly. As Frances Nolan points out in the introduction to this compelling study of the life of Frances Jennings, ‘These developments are invaluable, but, until recently, scholars have spilled little ink specifically on the roles and experiences of Jacobite and Catholic lay women in Ireland, England, Scotland or on the continent’ (p. 7). Frances Jennings has been the subject of some historical interest but, as Nolan shows, much of the writing on her has been problematic and she has been cast frequently in a negative light. Philip Sergeant's 1913 study, Little Jennings and Fighting Dick Talbot – one of a series of books that the author produced on the history of elite women – marked a change of emphasis, but a scholarly reassessment of Jennings’ life is long overdue. While the under-development of women's history was one reason for the patchy interest in Jennings, the nature of the sources for her biography also posed significant problems. Jennings’ papers disappeared in the mid-eighteenth century which makes the task of reconstructing her life and networks especially challenging, but Nolan has compensated for the loss by drawing on an incredible archival trail of material in Ireland, Britain and France, including innovative use of legal and financial records. This permits a detailed reconstruction which pays careful attention to the entirety of Jennings’ long and fascinating life.
The opening chapters of The Jacobite Duchess assess Jennings' early life and Nolan makes it clear from the outset that her subject does not fit into neat historical categories. Born in England, in 1648 or 1649, Jennings’ background was in the minor gentry but political, financial and personal issues meant that her future was uncertain. Despite this, Frances made a ‘considerable impact on the Court of Charles II’ and married the Irish solider George Hamilton (p. 25). Hamilton's Catholicism necessitated a move to France, where he established a prominent military career. Jennings followed in 1669 and Nolan is perceptive on the challenges of life abroad, especially after Hamilton's death in action in 1676. Nolan also offers insightful analysis of Jennings’ conversion to Catholicism, balancing awareness of the practical benefits of conversion in France with acknowledgement of the apparent sincerity of her engagement with her new faith, notably through her entanglements with Jansenism. As Nolan puts it, it was ‘a genuine if qualified conversion’ (p. 58). In the decade following Hamilton's death, Jennings moved between Paris, London and Dublin. Nolan draws on the available evidence to show how Jennings managed widowhood and, in 1680, she married for a second time, to Richard Talbot, the future duke of Tyrconnell. The accession of James II transformed their circumstances and Jennings moved increasingly in powerful political circles. Nolan draws on Thomas Sheridan's ‘Narrative’, a source hostile to Jennings and Talbot, but which read against the grain offers evidence that Jennings ‘played an important part in her husband's politicking during James II's reign, acting as his eyes and ears at court and as an informal embassy to the king’ (p. 83). Jennings also played a direct role in ‘augmenting Catholic hegemony’ in Dublin through her patronage of a Benedictine convent near Dublin Castle (p. 96). At the same time, The Jacobite Duchess considers carefully the charges of ‘nepotism, monopolisation, corruption and intrigue’ made against the Tyrconnells (p. 105). While Nolan acknowledges the jaundiced nature of the sources which denounced Jennings, she concludes that the charges were more than the inventions of her enemies. By the time Tyrconnell died in 1691, Jennings was back in Paris, now ‘something of a figurehead for the émigré Irish community in France’ (p. 115). Nolan provides a detailed assessment of the manner in which Jennings confronted the manifold problems – political, legal, financial and personal – of widowhood and exile. Jennings’ relationship with her sister, Sarah, who had married John Churchill, future duke of Marlborough, proved essential. This was despite Jennings’ continuing Jacobitism. Indeed, Nolan argues that Jennings operated as a Jacobite agent in the first decade of the eighteenth century, moving between Paris and Brussels, as well as spending time in England and Ireland. Moreover, ‘The duchess of Tyrconnell often relied on women to assist her in managing her affairs and trafficking information’ (p. 157).
The final chapters of The Jacobite Duchess provide the first detailed account of Jennings’ later life. Nolan shows that she was ‘neither static nor retiring’ but continued to lead an active life following her move to Dublin in 1708 (p. 157). Much of her time was taken up with family, legal and financial affairs, but she continued to maintain Jacobite associations and to patronise female religious. Nolan correctly points out that Jennings’s ‘wealth and social status set her apart’ (p. 191). But the life of a Catholic Jacobite woman – one so closely associated with the events of the reign of James II in Ireland – at the heart of ascendancy Dublin undoubtedly reveals something of the complexities of early-eighteenth century Ireland. Jennings died a wealthy woman, but disputes concerning her legacy occupied her family and their lawyers for decades, reflective of her difficult personal relationships, a facet of the story which Nolan handles adroitly.
The Jacobite Duchess is an absorbing and innovate study of a multifaceted life. The book is excellent on the many contexts within which Jennings must be placed, but it never loses sight of its subject. The complicated nature of Jennings’s life ensures that the result is a major contribution to Irish and Jacobite history, as well as to women's and gender history. It should also be acknowledged that the book appears in The Boydell Press’ wonderful Irish Historical Monograph Series, one which has published exemplary research for almost two decades. Indeed, The Jacobite Duchess sits comfortably alongside ground-breaking recent work by Rachel Wilson, Damien Duffy and Bronagh McShane which is reshaping our understanding of early modern Irish women. The Jacobite Duchess is a model of scholarship on every level and deserves a very wide readership.