The Arrival of the Young Pretender Expected
Charles Norbert Roettiers (1720-72)
Category
Coins and medals
Date
1748
Materials
Silver
Measurements
412 mm (Diameter)
Place of origin
Paris
Order this imageCollection
Osterley Park and House, London
NT 773305
Summary
Silver, medal announcing the return of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (1720-1788), the Young Pretender, attributed to Charles Norbert Roettiers (1720-72), struck Paris, France, 1748. A silver medal attributed to Charles Norbert Roettiers (1720-72) announcing the expected return from exile of Prince Charles Edward Stuart (1720-1788), the Young Pretender. The obverse has an undraped bust portrait in profile facing right of Prince Charles, his hair short. The Latin legend reads ‘Charles Prince of Wales’ with, at bottom, the date 1745. The reverse depicts the draped figure of Britannia, who stands by a rock on the foreshore, holding her spear and a shield emblazoned with the Union Jack, looking out towards the approaching fleet. To her right is a globe with the map of Great Britain. The Latin legends translates as ‘Love and Hope’ and, in the exergue, ‘Britannia’. This example is damaged on the reverse. Although this medal would appear to relate to the 1745 Jacobite rising, it is more likely that it was struck to the commission of Prince Charles in France in 1748, during the negotiations for the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle.
Full description
The 1745 uprising began in the Scottish Highlands in August 1745, at a time when much of the British army had been deployed to the Continent, as a consequence of the War of the Austrian Succession. Prince Charles Edward Stuart made landfall in Scotland at Eriskay on 23 July 1745. The uprising met initially with success and growing support, allowing Charles to take a string of towns and in September to enter Edinburgh and, subsequently, to march into England, reaching as far south as Derby. However, the Prince, who despite his personal courage was in many respects a poor leader and strategist, failed to capitalise on his successes and by the end of December 1745 had retreated to Scotland. The disaster of the Battle of Culloden on 16 April 1746 spelt the end of the rebellion and turned Charles into a fugitive, who after famous adventures escaped eventually to France and exile for the remainder of his life. The medal portrays Britannia as the embodiment of the supporters of the Jacobite cause in Britain, awaiting salvation from the approaching fleet of Prince Charles and his followers. It was made in France, for distribution to Charles’s supporters in that country and in Britain. It may be the work of Charles Norbert Roettiers (1720-72), a member of the Roettiers dynasty of engravers and medallists, some of whom supported the Jacobite cause and left England for France. The neo-classicising portrait of the Young Pretender is based on a portrait bust by the French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne (1704-1778), casts of which were widely distributed to Jacobite supporters; plaster casts were for example for sale in London in 1749-50 (Guthrie 2013, p. 28; an example is at Sizergh Castle, NT 998576). The rock with seaweed in the foreground left of the reverse would appear to be a rebus (hidden signature) for Charles Norbert Roettiers, which would subtly advertise his responsibility for the medal, but in a manner that is not too obvious. The dating of the medal, which would appear to be 1745, has been much discussed. Although it would make sense to see it as being made in preparation for the 1745 Rebellion, Charles cannot have sat for his bust by Lemoyne before 1746. It is known that Charles had quantities distributed in France in 1748, when negotiations were underway at Aix-la-Chapelle (modern Aachen) to bring to an end the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). The medals seem in fact to have been made at this time and to have been deliberately distributed in such numbers by Charles ‘that there were but few of any tolerable mark but had one’ and ‘made a very great noise, as the medals were dispersed ‘over England, Scotland, and several parts of the Continent’ (George Lockhart and Anthony Aufrere, The Lockhart Papers, 2 vols., London 1817, II, p. 570). Dougal Graham, skellat bellman of Glasgow (c. 1721-1779), wrote a notice of the medal in the 3rd edition of his History of the late Rebellion, which was published in 1774 and, unlike the first edition, covered events subsequent to the 1745: ‘While he at Paris did reside, Were silver and copper medals made, With an inscription thus exprest, “Carolus Walliae Princeps.” This in letters round the head, On the reverse “Britannia” read. Then ships, with this motto, you’d see, “Amor et spes Britanniae.” This did offend the French grandees, And did the King himself displease.’ (Dougal Graham, Collected Works, Glasgow 1883, I, p. 220) As Graham suggested, Charles’s rather aggressive gesture much irritated the French government, which greatly desired to reach a satisfactory peace, so it may even have encouraged the eventual French agreement to recognise within the Treaty the legitimacy of the Hanoverian government in Britain. A touching reminder of Charles’s real sense that he was the divinely intended monarch of the United Kingdom came in another story, in which the prince de Conti was recorded as having remarked to Charles in Paris that the reverse of the medal, with its depiction of naval ships, had surprised him as the British navy had been no very good friend to the Jacobite cause. Charles replied ‘That may be so, but I am nevertheless the friend of the fleet against all its enemies, just as I shall always regard the glory of England as my own; and her glory resides in her navy.’ (The Lockhart Papers, II, p. 571). There is a smaller version of the medal (Medallic Illustrations, II, p. 601, no. 252.). The medal was copied a few years later by Thomas Pingo (1714-76) for the medal struck for his supporters, when Prince Charles in 1752 made a secret visit to London (NT 773310). The portrait was also used by Pingo for his ‘Oak Medal’, struck in 1750 for the members of a Jacobite Society in London (NT 733309). There is a second example of the medal, in copper, in the collections at Osterley Park (NT 773306). Jeremy Warren 2019
Provenance
Given to the National Trust in 1993 by George Child Villiers, 9th Earl of Jersey (1910-1998).
Marks and inscriptions
Obverse, legend: CAROLUS WALLIAE PRINCEPS 1745 Reverse, legend: AMOR ET SPES Reverse, exergue: BRITANNIA
Makers and roles
Charles Norbert Roettiers (1720-72) , medallist
References
Cochran-Patrick 1884: Robert William Cochran-Patrick, Medals of Scotland from the earliest period to the present time, Edinburgh 1884, p. 72, no. 56, Pl. XIV, Fig. 2. Hawkins, Franks and Grueber 1885: Edward Hawkins, Augustus W. Franks and Herbert A. Grueber (eds.), Medallic Illustrations of the History of Great Britain and Ireland to the death of George II, 2 vols., London 1885, vol. II, pp. 600-01, no. 251. Farquhar 1923-4: Helen Farquhar, ‘Some Portrait Medals struck between 1745 and 1752’, British Numismatic Journal, (1923-24), pp. 171-233, pp. 172-86. Skeet 1930: Francis John Angus Skeet, Stuart Papers, Pictures, Relics, Medals and Books in the Collection of Miss Maria Widdrington, Leeds 1930, p. 75. Woolf 1988: Noel Woolf, The Medallic Record of the Jacobite Movement, London 1988, pp. 111-12, no. 59:2. Mitchiner 1988-2007: Michael Mitchiner, Jetons, Medalets and Tokens, 4 vols., London 1988-2007, vol. III (British Isles circa 1588 to 1830), 1998, p. 1740, no. 88.2.b (5105). Eimer 2010: Christopher Eimer, British Commemorative Medals and their Values, London 2010, p. 97, no. 595.