- 39 minutes ago
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:05In the Britain of King William III, turning up late could get you killed.
00:10The business of state was meant to run like clockwork.
00:13Time was money. Money was power.
00:21In the highlands of Scotland, though, the timeless tradition of the clans still ruled.
00:26To William's annoyance, some of those clans remained obstinately loyal to his predecessor, James II,
00:34the Stuart King driven out in 1688.
00:39Even worse, those Jacobites had won a short-lived victory over William's troops at the Battle of Killie-Crankey.
00:57William's right-hand man in Scotland, the Lord Advocate, believed it was high time to teach the clans a lesson
01:04in loyalty.
01:05The chiefs were given a deadline to pledge an oath of allegiance, January 1st, 1692.
01:13Acknowledge William as your lawful king.
01:16Those who make the pledge will be rewarded, those who don't, punished.
01:20The chief of the Macdonald clan of Glencoe missed his appointment by five days.
01:32At dawn on February 13, 1692, Williamite troops from the Argyle Regiment, already quartered in Glencoe,
01:40were ordered to carry out a massacre.
01:43They butchered 38 of the clan, and the rest of the village old men hide.
01:51In London and Edinburgh, news of the massacre at Glencoe was greeted with pious professions of shock,
01:59especially, of course, from those who'd actually had the responsibility of organising it.
02:03An enquiry was held, but needless to say, it was a sham.
02:09And if the intention had been to cow the Jacobites into submission, it had all gone horribly wrong.
02:16The massacre was a public relations disaster for William's government.
02:20The Scottish Parliament voted it an act of murder.
02:25How could victim and perpetrator ever be reconciled now?
02:30How could Scotland, stricken with poverty, with its national pride deeply wounded,
02:36ever come together with its rich and ruthless neighbour?
02:40But come together they did, and the two countries, which had for centuries been divided by politics and religion,
02:47would make a future together, based on profit and interest.
02:52What began as a hostile merger would end as a full partnership in the most powerful going concern in the
02:58world,
02:59Britannia Incorporated.
03:01It was one of the most astonishing transformations in European history,
03:06and this is how it happened.
03:10The US and the US and the US and the US and the US.
03:50In England, the 1690s were the years when the victors of 1688
03:56congratulated themselves on a glorious revolution.
04:04In Scotland, there were years of purgatory.
04:11After the massacre at Glencoe came famine and pestilence.
04:16For several summers in a row, the sun refused to appear.
04:21Torrential rains poured down.
04:23Cattle and sheep became diseased with foot rot.
04:26Fields of barley and oats turned into mildewed slurry.
04:30The Jacobite clergy said this was God's wrath for turfing out the rightful king.
04:40In all this darkness, there were some who saw the light.
04:45A light that was going to shine hot and strong on Scotland.
04:49A plan that would transform the country from impotence and destitution
04:55into riches and power beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
04:58It would make Scotland, or its colonial trading post, New Caledonia, the hub of the universe.
05:14A group of merchants and bankers, including William Patterson, the Scottish founder of the Bank of England,
05:21had the idea of creating a Scottish trading post on the Isthmus of Darien in Panama.
05:27At first sight, the idea sounds like the purest lunacy.
05:31But take a look at the map of world trade and it becomes visionary.
05:36A major obstacle to east-west trade was the long, dangerous and ruinously expensive journey round Cape Horn.
05:44A trade route that cut through Panama was an obvious boon.
05:48At Darien, the distance between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans was only 40 miles.
05:55Goods could be carried across the narrow strip of land to waiting merchant ships.
06:03The trading economy of the world would be revolutionised and Scotland would run it.
06:17The Darien scheme instantly captured the imagination of the Scottish people.
06:22Men and women from all walks of life and from all over Scotland queued up to invest in the venture.
06:36So when the First Fleet sailed from the Firth of Forth in July 1698,
06:41flying the saltire and the extraordinary company flag of Indians, llamas, towered elephants and the beaming rising sun,
06:51it was carrying more than the 1,200 people selected to be the lucky colonists.
06:57It was carrying the hopes of an entire nation.
07:03But the only information the Company of Scotland had about Darien was from a pirate surgeon called Lionel Wafer,
07:10who claimed he knew the Caribbean like the back of his hand and had convinced them the place was paradise.
07:17The climate was mild, he said, the soil fertile and the natives friendly.
07:22They were also vain, spending much of the day combing their long hair.
07:27So naturally, the ship had the conditions they were expecting to encounter.
07:33Crate loads of catechisms and Bibles for converting the pagans.
07:371,400 hats, an even greater supply of wigs.
07:41The Darienites were expecting to live like Lairds of the lagoon.
07:47But before the ship got anywhere near Darien, the dream had turned into a nightmare.
07:5440 crew and passengers died on the long voyage.
07:58And when they found their golden island, it was, of course, a mosquito-infested swamp.
08:05The natives did not, it seemed, want their combs or anything else.
08:10In the sweltering, rainy jungle, all the colonists' efforts went into lugging cannon
08:16into a primitive stockade bravely christened Fort St. Andrew.
08:21They were dying now of disease and hunger at a rate of 10 a day, and their supplies ran with
08:29maggots.
08:32And there was no outside help.
08:35Tropical New Caledonia was a direct threat to the English trading empire, and the government
08:41in Westminster was determined it should fail.
08:45A law was passed, making it illegal for any Englishman to invest in the scheme or give
08:51assistance to the desperate Darienites.
08:55When a second Scottish expedition arrived at New Edinburgh, all they found were hundreds
09:01of graves.
09:08Back home, when the full extent of the disaster sunk in, the fate of the Darien expedition
09:14became a national trauma.
09:16They consumed a full third of Scotland's liquid capital.
09:21But the most serious casualty of the fiasco had been the last, best hope of a national
09:26rebirth, Scotland going it alone.
09:29That hope died in the malarial swamps of Darien.
09:35Many laid the failure of Darien squarely at England's door for its deliberate sabotage of
09:41the scheme.
09:42A wave of Anglophobia swept the country, startling the men who ran things in Westminster.
09:48They became even more worried when it looked likely that Queen Anne, who had succeeded William
09:54in 1702, would die childless.
09:57A crisis over the succession loomed.
10:00For the defenders of the revolution of 1688, whoever succeeded her simply had to be Protestant.
10:07In Scotland, however, after the humiliation of Darien, many Scots now favoured Anne's half-brother,
10:15the Catholic, James Edward Stuart, who was living in exile with England's old enemy, France.
10:22Westminster could not tolerate these kinds of threats from its own backyard.
10:27It knew it had to take away Scotland's independence and insist on full political union.
10:35The creation of a single British state under a single parliament was now a matter of immediate urgency.
10:45The Westminster politicians knew they needed a sweetener to make the union more palatable.
10:51And this is it.
10:53In this chest was deposited the equivalent, the exact amount that had been lost in the Darien
10:59adventure, all £398,000 of it.
11:03You can almost hear the advocates of union saying, as they beamed broadly, now this is what
11:10union means.
11:11You seem to be a little hard-pressed for funds, my dear fellows.
11:23The equivalent money, along with favourable trade concessions, was the carrot dangled before
11:30members of the Scottish Parliament.
11:32And by now, there were many who were already looking south, saw reality, smelt the profits.
11:39But behind the carrot, of course, lay the stick.
11:43Westminster threatened to block Scottish exports to England unless Scotland entered union negotiations.
11:53The writing was on the wall.
11:56Distraught, Lord Belhaven delivered a lament over the funeral pyre of Scottish independence.
12:04I see our ancient mother Caledonia, like Caesar, sitting in the midst of the Senate, attending
12:12the final blow, and breathing out her last.
12:17We are an obscure poor people, though formerly of better account, removed to a remote corner
12:24of the world without name and without alliances.
12:30In 1707, the deed was done.
12:34A treaty of the union had been drafted.
12:37It took just ten weeks to go through the Scottish Parliament, six through Westminster.
12:44Scotland and England were now joined at the hip.
12:55What kind of nation was this Great Britain?
13:01To answer that question, all you needed to do was to go along to the new Royal Naval Hospital,
13:07a palatial retirement home for pensioned-off servicemen in Greenwich.
13:15It was a triumphal statement of how Britain saw its place in the world in the early 18th century.
13:35On the ceiling, painted by Sir James Thornhill, a jubilant allegory celebrates the reign
13:41of William of Orange and his wife, Mary.
13:48Thornhill's design is a shameless steal from the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles,
13:53but the artistic larceny is, of course, making a point.
13:59Here, Apollo the sun god shines not on the Catholic sun king, Louis XIV, but on the British monarchs.
14:07Over there, in France, despotism and potpourri.
14:11Over here, thanks to William, liberty and Protestantism.
14:16Over there, the curses of serfdom, misery and superstition.
14:22Over here, the blessings of navigation, trade and science.
14:28But, of course, you don't go to ceiling paintings for the unvarnished truth.
14:34The truth was that we have been at war for almost 25 years, give or take a few intermissions.
14:41And during that time, Britain had been completely transformed by the experience.
14:47It was no longer a case of gallant little England defending the sceptered isle against the serried ranks of despots.
14:55Now, we sat at the heart of the greatest war machine in the world.
15:05That machine couldn't work without the lubrication of money.
15:10So along came a national debt needed to pay for it all.
15:14And this debt needed servicing.
15:16So enter the armies of money men.
15:19Accountants, tax assessors, customs and excise officers.
15:24Buried inside all the crowing propaganda of the Greenwich ceiling, there was one crucial nugget of truth.
15:32Louis XIV could demand money for his wars.
15:36William III had to ask for it.
15:39Almost everywhere else in Europe, the more military the state, the stronger the king, except in Britain.
15:47Here it was Parliament, not the monarchy, who signed the checks.
15:50The longer the war went on, the stronger Parliament became, as the purse on which it sat grew bigger and
15:57bigger.
15:58What's more, the kind of politics raging in Britain we can now recognise as distinctly modern.
16:05Two parties, the Whigs and Tories, diametrically opposed not just about the policies of the day,
16:11but about the entire political character of the nation and the upheaval of 1688 that had created it.
16:19The Whigs and Tories were not just two parties who, when the barracking was done, could meet up for a
16:26drink and a bawdy joke.
16:27They went to different taverns, different coffee houses, different clubs.
16:32They were two armed camps.
16:36And the artillery barrages that flew between them were often red hot.
16:43A quarter of a million votes were at stake in elections.
16:47More than 20% of the adult male population, and nothing was spared to grab them.
16:52Money, drink, libels, gangs of toughs.
16:56This was all-out war at the Hustings.
17:04Tories accused the Whigs of being fanatics, the dregs of the populace, atheists, Commonwealth men.
17:13Whigs accused Tories of being willing tools of the Jesuits and the French.
17:21Since the revolution had said there should be an election every three years, this guaranteed an awful lot of politics.
17:32The political temperature reached fever pitch in 1714, when Queen Anne died with no heir.
17:39To make sure of a Protestant successor, no fewer than 57 individuals with blood ties to Anne were passed over
17:47to arrive at the next King of England.
18:02It was the Whigs who backed his arrival in Britain, and were rewarded when the new king appointed a Whig
18:09government.
18:10In response, the Tories ridiculed the new king as a lecherous dolt.
18:15His coronation was greeted with rioting in 20 towns.
18:33But by far the most serious trouble now came from across the border.
18:38The union had failed to dampen enthusiasm in Scotland for the Jacobite cause.
18:43In fact, in fact, quite the opposite.
18:45The promised miracle of trade and abundance had failed to cross the Firth of Forth,
18:51and all of Scotland was suffering from high taxes imposed by Westminster.
18:57The Jacobite leader, the Earl of Marr, buoyed up by promises of support from English Tories and Jacobites,
19:04declared James the rightful king at Braemar and proceeded to raise an army.
19:12The Jacobite slogan of King James and no union meant support from both the highlands and lowlands came swiftly.
19:2110,000 men joined the rebellion.
19:29And when news came through of a Jacobite rising in Lancashire, the government knew it was in serious trouble.
19:38But the Earl of Marr set new records for military ineptness.
19:42After the Battle of Sherrith Muir, which ended in a draw,
19:46and with his troops still outnumbering the Hanoverian army,
19:50Marr moved energetically into retreat.
19:53By the time James Edward Stuart landed at Peterhead on December 22nd,
19:58it was all over.
20:06The Hanoverian dynasty remained,
20:09but the Jacobite rising was yet another demonstration of just how unstable the new political order was.
20:17After this stormy start to the 18th century,
20:20if anyone would have predicted it would be followed by decades of calm,
20:24they would have been thought an absurd optimist.
20:27Yet, that's exactly what happened.
20:31And it came about through the efforts not of a king, a religious leader, or even a general,
20:37but a political manager of uncanny genius.
20:45He'd been, like his father and grandfather before him, a Norfolk squire and an MP.
20:50He'd moved smoothly through the big money jobs, paymaster general, chancellor of the Exchequer,
20:57and he would come to dominate British political life for a quarter of a century.
21:02He was Robert Walpole.
21:08Although he never actually had the title, Walpole was, in effect, Britain's first prime minister.
21:15And under his leadership, the British economy boomed as never before.
21:30Walpole's appeal was to shameless self-interest.
21:33From the pursuit of it, he believed, would come the country's greater good.
21:37Which would you prefer, he might have said, a battle over principles and religious convictions?
21:44Well, that was only going to lead to war, turmoil, and poverty.
21:49Or would you rather have what I can offer you?
21:51Peace, political stability, and low taxes.
21:55What today we'd call a healthy business environment.
21:59From the beginning, Walpole, nicknamed Cock Robin, had made a bet that the politics of the future
22:06would be about portfolio management, rather than religious passion or legal debate.
22:13In 1712, he'd been sent to prison for embezzlement,
22:17and the experience had given him a painful lesson
22:19in how tightly intertwined were political and financial fortunes.
22:26But perhaps his greatest asset was his unerring grip on the psychology of loyalty.
22:34Walpole made a point of taking every new Whig member of the House of Commons out to dinner,
22:39tete-a-tete, and there with a glass of his best claret in your fat little hand
22:45and a haunch of mutton juicily oozing on the trencher,
22:49and Cock Robin's glittering eyes twinkling amiably at you,
22:53assuring you that the life of the party, the state of the nation,
22:57depended on you, the new member from little mucking on the world.
23:01How could you not express undying devotion and loyalty to his interest?
23:09Walpole sat at the controlling centre of a vast empire of patronage.
23:14The jobs at his disposal conferred honour as well as cash on the holder,
23:20and they were dangled on a string by the great political puppeteer.
23:26In retrospect, we can see that Walpole built Britain's, in fact,
23:30the world's first modern party political machine.
23:34He had placement in Parliament primed to vote, as he directed.
23:38He had George I and then George II eating out of the palm of his hand.
23:44And just in case anyone was tempted to flirt with the opposition,
23:48he had the kind of information that could make life really difficult for them.
23:53In short, Walpole had the goods.
23:58The goods, in fact, in every sense of the word.
24:08Just how much of a fortune he made for himself is spectacularly on view
24:14here at his country house in Norfolk, Houghton Hall.
24:20Houghton was the Whig Xanadu, the last word in opulence.
24:25Anything the riches could buy, Walpole bought.
24:27Marble, mahogany, figured damask, shimmering silks and satins,
24:33classical sculpture, glorious Renaissance and Baroque art,
24:37all shipped to his East Anglian pleasure dome.
24:48But Houghton was not just about living the good life,
24:52much as its master undoubtedly reveled in it.
24:54It was also a statement of grandeur meant to stun sceptics
24:59into recognising that only someone truly in command of the nation's fortunes
25:04could possibly afford something like this.
25:08King George may have had the throne, but Cock Robin had the palace.
25:13There's no doubt that Walpole's appeal to self-interest was infectious.
25:19With the glittering prizes dangled before their noses,
25:22the governing class of the country, just 180 peers and 1,500 country gentry,
25:28lined up to trade in party passion for Palladian houses.
25:33They stopped shouting and started building.
25:42And what they built was designed to insulate them
25:46from the grubbiness of the real world.
25:49And Robert Walpole showed them the way.
25:53This stone column marks the spot where the village of Houghton once stood.
25:58It had been here for centuries, but now it was just an inconvenience.
26:02It was much too close to Walpole's great house,
26:04and it definitely spoiled the view.
26:06So he simply had it demolished and moved down the road.
26:12Of course, they could tell themselves, and they did,
26:16that their great houses and parks
26:18were not just monuments to wealthy self-indulgence.
26:22They were also a testimony
26:24to the greatness and glory of the nation.
26:31Stephen Switzer,
26:32one of the leading landscape architects of the day,
26:35certainly saw this as his duty.
26:38Magnificent gardens, statues, and waterworks
26:41complete the grandeur of the British nation.
26:44Tis then that we may hope to excel
26:46the so much-boasted gardens of the French
26:48and make that great nation give way
26:50to the superior beauties of our gardens,
26:53as her late prince has
26:55to the invincible force of British arms.
27:01Well, this was the kind of battle
27:02the rich and powerful in Hanoverian Britain
27:05really liked to fight war by gardening.
27:15Starhead in Wiltshire
27:16is one of the great 18th-century landscape gardens.
27:20Taking their inspiration
27:21from the villas of ancient Rome,
27:23aristocrats like Sir Henry Hall,
27:25who built Starhead,
27:27even thought of their parks
27:28as a kind of public education
27:30and encouraged the locals to pay a visit,
27:33provided, of course,
27:35they stuck rigidly
27:36to the designated tour route.
27:39That route would not just meander
27:41between ponds and trees,
27:43but towards little classical buildings
27:45designed to kindle feelings
27:47of virtue and patriotism
27:49in their breast.
27:59But sharing all this pastoral graciousness
28:03only went so far.
28:06For the ruling class,
28:08their land was now a money pump.
28:11Big, profit-yielding farms
28:13replaced strip farming,
28:14and smallholders were turfed off their land.
28:17Too bad.
28:19Landowners needed all the money
28:20they could get
28:21to keep up appearances,
28:23not just in the country,
28:24but in the town,
28:26and above all,
28:26in the place
28:27which was the biggest,
28:29brashest,
28:29fastest-growing city in Europe,
28:32London.
28:37Here,
28:37the winners and losers
28:39of Walpole's Britain
28:40jostled side by side.
28:43700,000 of them,
28:45one in ten Englishmen.
28:48Foreign visitors
28:49were astounded
28:50at the noise,
28:51the hectic throngs
28:52packing the streets,
28:54the tireless hucksterism,
28:56the glittering greediness
28:57of it all.
29:00The modern morality tales
29:02of the painter
29:03and engraver
29:04William Hogarth
29:05are peopled by innocence
29:06arriving dewy fresh
29:08from the country,
29:11surrendering to the temptations
29:12of the city
29:13and falling hopelessly
29:15into a deep,
29:16dark sink
29:17of iniquity
29:18and disease.
29:24But however much
29:26moralists frowned
29:27on the new consumerism
29:29that had gripped the city,
29:30economic realists
29:32knew it was the way forward.
29:34Come buy my greens
29:36and flowers
29:37find your houses
29:38to adorn.
29:41There had been
29:42other great emporium cities
29:43in Europe,
29:44but nothing like this.
29:46London had invented
29:48serious shopping
29:49and it had something
29:50like 20,000 shops
29:52to prove it.
29:54London shops
29:55would lure the customer
29:57to buy something
29:57they'd never thought
29:58of acquiring,
29:59novelty items
30:00like oriental goldfish,
30:02which became
30:03an aristocratic marvel.
30:05caged canaries,
30:07finches and parrots.
30:10Unheard of luxuries
30:11became commonplace,
30:13priced to appeal
30:14to the middle class.
30:15China from Holland
30:16from which to sip
30:17your tea.
30:19Exotic fruits
30:21like pomegranates
30:22and pineapples.
30:23The first commercially
30:25available condoms,
30:27lambskin for the rich,
30:28linen soaked in brine
30:30for the not so rich.
30:33London's consumer culture
30:35was Mephistopheles
30:36winking an eye,
30:38crooking a finger
30:39and proffering credit.
30:42But terrible things
30:44could happen
30:45to those
30:45who ran out of credit
30:47and ran out of time.
30:53A debt of just two pounds
30:55would get you
30:57locked up
30:57in a debtor's prison.
30:59The prison,
31:00like almost everything else
31:01in greedy,
31:02managerial Hanoverian Britain,
31:04was a business,
31:05a matter of pounds,
31:06shillings and pence.
31:09Five thousand pounds
31:10was the price
31:11one John Huggins
31:12paid for the wardenship
31:14of the fleet prison,
31:15the equivalent
31:15of half a million pounds today.
31:18The way he could recoup
31:20his investment
31:21was to charge the inmates
31:22for their stay,
31:23the hotel from hell,
31:25including, of course,
31:26the rent for their shackles.
31:28A fiver
31:29would get you
31:30your own cell,
31:31a few shillings more,
31:33something approximating food.
31:35Less than that,
31:36and you took your chance
31:38in the packed common prison,
31:39sleeping on the floor,
31:41no air,
31:42no sanitation.
31:45and smallpox
31:46waiting to get you.
31:51Who are the real criminals?
31:53Was the cry on the streets
31:55and in the coffeehouses
31:56and in the newspapers
31:57of London.
31:58Everywhere you looked,
32:00the line between
32:01the law enforcers
32:02and the law breakers
32:04seemed arbitrary.
32:06In 1725,
32:08the Lord Chancellor
32:09was convicted
32:09of embezzling
32:1080,000 pounds.
32:12People had had enough.
32:15In the 1730s,
32:17satires and essays
32:19and poems and pictures
32:20documented
32:21a rising wave
32:22of revulsion
32:23at the world
32:24Walpole had brought
32:25into being.
32:28A sense that
32:30beneath all the platitudes
32:31about peace
32:32and stability
32:33lay squalor
32:34and corruption.
32:39A walk through London,
32:41for example,
32:42was a walk
32:42over prostrate bodies,
32:44big and little.
32:47Infants,
32:48whose mothers
32:48were unable
32:49or sometimes unwilling
32:50to raise them,
32:51were abandoned
32:52on the streets.
32:58But there came a point
32:59when someone
33:00was tired enough
33:02of stepping over
33:02half their babies
33:03found in the gutter
33:05to do something
33:06about it.
33:10That someone
33:11was a 53-year-old
33:13retired merchant
33:14sea captain
33:15called Thomas Coram.
33:20Coram had made
33:21his fortune
33:21in Massachusetts
33:22from the transatlantic
33:24timber trade.
33:25All he wanted
33:26was to settle down
33:27to a quiet life
33:27in Rotherhithe
33:28where he could smell
33:29the Thames
33:30and the sea.
33:31But the sight
33:32of all those
33:33tiny abandoned
33:34corpses
33:35wouldn't leave
33:35him in peace.
33:37Worse,
33:38he knew that
33:38the mortality rate
33:39for infants
33:39born in the workhouse
33:41and sent out
33:42to wet nurse
33:42was close
33:43to 100%.
33:48So Thomas Coram
33:49determined to tap
33:51some of that newfound wealth
33:52to create
33:53a foundling hospital,
33:55a place where babies
33:56could be deposited,
33:57legitimate or illegitimate,
33:59and would be given
34:00a decent chance
34:01of survival.
34:04For nearly 20 years
34:05he made himself
34:06a nuisance
34:07to his friends,
34:08petitioning the king
34:09and everyone else
34:10until the funds
34:11got raised.
34:12In 1741,
34:14the hospital
34:15opened its doors
34:16to its first children.
34:18Not surprisingly,
34:19it couldn't cope
34:20with demand.
34:21To decide
34:22which children
34:22could and couldn't
34:23get places,
34:24there was a
34:24heartbreaking lucky dip.
34:26Mothers lined up
34:28to draw wooden balls
34:29out of a bag.
34:30A white ball
34:31and your baby
34:32was in.
34:33A red ball,
34:34you were on
34:35the reserve list.
34:36A black ball,
34:37well,
34:38you were back
34:39on the streets.
34:41Inside this cabinet
34:42are some of the saddest
34:44things left to us
34:45by the 18th century
34:46because these
34:47are the keepsake tokens
34:49given to their babies
34:51by desperate mothers
34:52just at the point
34:53when they were going
34:54to leave them
34:55to the tender mercies
34:56of the foundling hospital.
34:59There's a whole world
35:01of sorrow
35:02and love
35:03in this extraordinary cabinet
35:05and it speaks
35:06not just of
35:07the very destitute.
35:08Some of the pieces
35:09like this beautiful
35:11mother of pearl heart
35:12with the initials
35:14presumably
35:14of the little baby
35:15on it
35:15suggest that
35:17some of these mothers
35:17were actually
35:18quite well to do.
35:20But in many other cases
35:21the pieces speak
35:22of real hardship.
35:24they were just
35:26the things
35:26that the mothers
35:27found they
35:28happened to have
35:29on them
35:29at the time
35:30they had to
35:31get rid of the children
35:32and some of these mothers
35:33had really nothing
35:34at the last minute
35:35to offer their little babies
35:37except a nut.
35:39A nut
35:39which was meant
35:40to be worn
35:41as a pendant.
35:42Look,
35:42there's a little hole
35:43where the string
35:44was supposed to be
35:44strung through there.
35:46Sometimes things
35:47which had a little work
35:48on them
35:49like this beautiful
35:50sewn heart there
35:52or most desperate
35:55of all perhaps
35:55just this flimsy
35:57little piece of ribbon
35:58you can imagine
35:59a mother
35:59on the point
36:00of saying goodbye
36:01for the last time
36:02to her baby
36:03just taking a bit
36:04of ribbon
36:04from her hair
36:05or her wrist
36:06and giving it
36:07as she hoped
36:08to her child.
36:10Now,
36:11if this wasn't
36:12heartbreak enough
36:13it only gets worse
36:14when you know
36:15that none
36:16of these things
36:17ever found their way
36:18to the children.
36:22And of course
36:23the Foundling Hospital
36:24couldn't hope
36:25to work miracles
36:26overnight.
36:27Nearly half the babies
36:29died in the house
36:30in the first year
36:31but that
36:32was a huge improvement
36:33over the usual figures.
36:36This was the middle class
36:38parish at work
36:40well off
36:41busily charitable
36:42and as much interested
36:43in virtue
36:44as in wit.
36:46There'd been
36:47philanthropy before
36:48of course
36:48but this was the first time
36:50that businessmen
36:50came together
36:51with high profile
36:52artists,
36:53writers
36:54and sculptors
36:55in a campaign
36:56of conscience
36:57to attack
36:58a hideous evil
36:59in what was supposed
37:00to be
37:01a Christian
37:02modern metropolis.
37:08The charges
37:09of the hospital
37:10if they survived
37:11would be employed
37:12would be employed
37:12in the service
37:13of the nation
37:14most likely
37:15in the navy
37:16if they were boys
37:16or in domestic service
37:18if they were girls.
37:19The Foundling Hospital
37:20was philanthropy
37:21with a purpose.
37:27It's charges
37:28would be model
37:30Britons
37:30of the future
37:31not gin-soaked
37:33syphilitic rakes
37:34they were going
37:35to be sober
37:36educated
37:37industrious
37:38God-fearing
37:39and above all
37:40patriotic.
37:44This
37:45was
37:46Britannia's time.
38:05The lyrics
38:06for this
38:07chest-thumping
38:08new song
38:08were written
38:09by two Scots
38:10for a play
38:11about King Alfred
38:12the Great
38:12and they were
38:13sung lustily
38:14by the merchants
38:15and businessmen
38:16who saw Britain's
38:17future lay
38:18with the
38:18Blue Water
38:19Empire
38:19of Trade.
38:24But someone
38:25was in the way
38:26of this
38:27prosperous future
38:28and that someone
38:29was Robert Walpole.
38:31As far as the
38:32merchants were
38:33concerned
38:34Walpole
38:34and his cronies
38:35cared too much
38:36about land
38:37and not enough
38:38about business.
38:39So they were
38:40not amused
38:41when Walpole
38:42raised the taxes
38:43on the kind
38:44of things
38:44that made
38:45money for them
38:45beer and coal
38:47while making
38:48damn sure
38:48to keep
38:49the land tax
38:50low.
38:54Now what
38:55would be
38:55the only thing
38:56that could
38:57raise those
38:57land taxes?
38:58Well war
38:59of course.
39:00So no wonder
39:01Walpole
39:02unforgivably
39:03pussyfooted
39:04around the
39:04Spanish
39:05when they
39:05presumed
39:06interfere
39:07with our
39:08ships.
39:10When he
39:11signed a
39:11treaty with
39:12Spain that
39:13was seen
39:13as an
39:14unpatriotic
39:15sellout
39:15the merchants
39:16were even
39:17more incensed.
39:23Walpole's
39:24effigy was
39:24burned in
39:25the streets
39:26by crowds
39:26roaring for
39:27his political
39:28head.
39:30Walpole's
39:30allies and
39:31time service
39:32in parliament
39:32were suddenly
39:34nowhere to
39:35be seen.
39:36His political
39:37enemies closed
39:38in gleefully
39:39for the kill.
39:40To deprive them
39:42of the satisfaction
39:43Walpole walked
39:44a broken man
39:45back to his
39:46wine and his
39:47dogs at
39:48Houghton.
39:51It was the end
39:52of an era.
39:58Now the
39:59gung-ho patriots
40:00could have
40:01their get-rich war
40:02and it must
40:03have thought
40:03it would be
40:04a breeze.
40:09Britain could
40:10fight abroad
40:11because it was
40:12so united
40:12at home.
40:14But in 1745
40:16that unity
40:18would prove
40:19a bitter
40:20illusion.
40:36The Jacobite cause
40:38had refused
40:39to die,
40:40especially
40:40amongst the
40:41clans of
40:41north-west
40:42Scotland
40:42where it
40:43fed off
40:44continued
40:44opposition
40:45to the
40:45union.
40:48What the
40:49Jacobites
40:49needed was
40:50a figurehead
40:51and in
40:521745
40:52they got
40:53one.
40:54A leader
40:54many saw
40:55as a model
40:56of virile
40:57fearlessness.
40:58The son
40:58of James Edward
40:59Stuart,
41:00the man
41:01known to us
41:02and to
41:02posterity
41:03as Bonnie
41:04Prince
41:04Charlie.
41:05The fact
41:06that the
41:06prince's
41:07full name
41:07was
41:08Charles,
41:08Edward,
41:09Louis,
41:10Casimir,
41:10Sylvester,
41:11Severino,
41:11Mariah
41:12Stuart should
41:13tell us
41:14that the
41:15prince was
41:15less the
41:16incarnation
41:16of the
41:17old
41:17Scotland
41:17of the
41:18clans
41:18and much
41:19more a
41:20fully-fledged
41:20graduate of
41:21the pan-European,
41:22Italo-Polish,
41:24Franco-Irish,
41:25Catholic
41:25international
41:26community.
41:29But still,
41:30he was a
41:31steward and
41:32that blood
41:32certainly mattered
41:33to the prince
41:34himself,
41:35who at the
41:36age of 24
41:36sailed from
41:37France to
41:38Scotland to
41:39win back
41:39the throne
41:40for his
41:40father.
41:45On the
41:4619th of
41:46August,
41:471745,
41:48Prince
41:49Charles Edward
41:49Stuart stood
41:50here at
41:51Glenfinnan,
41:52watched his
41:53family standard
41:54being raised
41:55and told the
41:55assembled
41:56clansmen he'd
41:57come to
41:58make Scotland
41:58happy.
41:59Well, that
42:00would have
42:00been news to
42:01some of the
42:01crofters who'd
42:02already been
42:03threatened with
42:04having their
42:04cottages burned
42:05unless they
42:06joined the
42:06Jacobite army.
42:08But the
42:08sight of
42:09Bonny Prince
42:09Charlie,
42:10and compared
42:11to George
42:12II and to
42:13his own
42:13embittered
42:14ageing father,
42:15he certainly
42:16was Bonny,
42:17standing here
42:18in the Glen
42:19at the head
42:20of Loch
42:20Shield in
42:21his tartan
42:21plaid did
42:22seem to
42:23promise,
42:24if only for
42:24a moment,
42:25a new
42:26Scottish future,
42:27or at the
42:28very least,
42:29the end of
42:30the miserable
42:30captivity of
42:31the Union.
42:32But happiness,
42:33well, that was
42:34going to prove
42:35a lot harder
42:36to come by.
42:38The structure
42:39of clan
42:39society meant
42:40that support
42:41for the
42:41prince gathered
42:42quickly.
42:44In England,
42:45families were
42:46more and more
42:46becoming a
42:47kind of business.
42:48In the
42:49highlands of
42:49Scotland,
42:50though,
42:50kinship was
42:51really much
42:51more a
42:52matter of
42:52blood.
42:53Clan
42:54loyalty was
42:55built around
42:55the idea,
42:56even when it
42:56was a mythical
42:57idea,
42:58of a common
42:58ancestor.
43:00Now, the
43:01grandest
43:02landlords in
43:03the highlands,
43:03just like their
43:04lowlands counterparts,
43:05were becoming
43:06connoisseurs of
43:07fine claret and
43:08chamber music.
43:10But as far as the
43:11local Laird was
43:12concerned, well, he
43:13had a lot in
43:13common with his
43:14crofters.
43:15They both spoke
43:15Gaelic, they both
43:17wore tartan plaid and
43:18sporran, and they
43:19both made sure they'd
43:20have broadswords and
43:21daggers at the ready
43:22when the chief
43:23called.
43:31Boyd by the
43:32prince's claim that
43:33the French were
43:34behind the
43:34rebellion and
43:35planned an imminent
43:36invasion.
43:38Bonnie Prince
43:38Charlie and his
43:39army moved
43:40swiftly, catching
43:41the woefully
43:42inadequate Hanoverian
43:43forces in
43:44Scotland completely
43:45unprepared.
43:47But when the
43:48prince finally took
43:49what was the big
43:50prize, Edinburgh,
43:51he hadn't won
43:52over the whole
43:53of Scotland.
43:54The lowlands were
43:55overwhelmingly loyal
43:57to King George.
43:58In fact, it's quite
43:59possible that more
43:59Scots fought against
44:01Bonnie Prince
44:01Charlie than for
44:07him.
44:08Nonetheless, it
44:09seemed that the
44:10prince couldn't put
44:11a foot wrong, and
44:12when his army faced
44:13the Hanoverians at the
44:14Battle of Preston
44:15Pans, they won a
44:17resounding victory.
44:23At Holyrood House,
44:25debate raged as to
44:27what to do next.
44:27The Highland chiefs,
44:29sceptical of finding
44:31support in England,
44:32advised Charles to
44:33make the Stuarts
44:34masters of the north,
44:36but to go no further.
44:37But for Charles,
44:39nothing less than a
44:40conquest of England
44:41would do, and he won
44:43the day by a single
44:44vote.
44:46The Jacobites were on
44:48their way south.
44:50In rapid succession,
44:52Carlisle, Lancaster,
44:54Preston and Manchester
44:55all fell to the
44:57prince's army without a
44:58shot being fired in
44:59their defence.
45:01With the Jacobites
45:02approaching Derby at the
45:03beginning of December,
45:04and with the bulk of
45:05His Majesty's forces off
45:07fighting in Europe,
45:08there was something close
45:09to pandemonium in London
45:11and the south.
45:12There was a run on the
45:14Bank of England, and
45:15all the shops in London
45:16closed.
45:17The handful of soldiers
45:19left behind to protect
45:20the capital were not,
45:22shall we say, of the
45:23kind of calibre to
45:24inspire much confidence.
45:27But just as in 1715,
45:29it could be said the
45:30Jacobites defeated
45:31themselves.
45:33And they didn't do it
45:34on the field of battle,
45:35but in this room at
45:36Exeter House in Derby on
45:38December 5th, 1745.
45:42The prince and his
45:44chiefs argued bitterly
45:46whether to go forward
45:47or retreat.
45:49London is just 130 miles
45:51away, said the prince.
45:52Move on the capital,
45:54and the French will come.
45:56Besides, we've got
45:57precious little time.
45:58The redcoats will be
46:00back from Europe soon.
46:03No, said Lord George
46:05Murray, joint commander
46:07of the prince's army,
46:08I no longer believe the
46:10French are coming.
46:11It's time to cut our
46:12losses.
46:13It's time to go home.
46:16This time, the prince
46:18lost the vote by a
46:19substantial margin.
46:23The Jacobites turned
46:24about and headed north,
46:26beginning the long tramp
46:28back to Scotland through
46:29dreadful winter weather,
46:31pursued by those newly
46:33returned British regiments.
46:34their retreat turned into a
46:37nightmare.
46:39It was hard to know which
46:40was more murderous, the
46:42snows of December and January
46:44or the vengeful pursuing
46:45troops of George II's son,
46:48the Duke of Cumberland.
46:51Cumberland gave a taste of what
46:53he was capable of at Carlisle.
46:56The garrison had been captured by
46:58Jacobites on their march south,
47:00but they were unable to hold out
47:01against Cumberland's advance.
47:10Into this tiny space were crammed
47:13hundreds of Jacobite soldiers,
47:16locked up without any air
47:18or any water.
47:21What they did have
47:22were these shiny stones,
47:25smooth, damp, slimy,
47:29a terrible memento of their distress.
47:31To this day, they're called
47:34licking stones because
47:36the imprisoners were brought to
47:38such horrible extremities
47:41that they were forced and reduced
47:42to sliding their tongues
47:45in these cavities to try and
47:47collect the pathetic amount
47:48of moisture gathered on the rock.
47:52This really was Hanoverian
47:54Britain's black hole of Calcutta.
48:04By the time that winter
48:06turned into spring in the
48:07highlands, it was unmistakably
48:09clear that whatever its
48:10temporary successes, the
48:12Jacobite War was lost.
48:14With every week that passed,
48:16the Hanoverian advantage
48:17in men, money and guns told.
48:23The two armies
48:24eventually faced each other
48:26at Culloden, near Inverness.
48:28Cumberland's force
48:29was only a third a big again
48:31as the prince's,
48:32but it was lethally better equipped.
48:34A new verse
48:36of the national anthem
48:37proved to be prophetic
48:38as the big guns
48:40began to fire.
48:43God grant
48:46that
48:47martial
48:49weight
48:50May
48:51by
48:53thy
48:54mighty
48:56aid
48:57victory
48:59bring
49:04May he
49:08sedition
49:09hush
49:10And like a
49:14torrent rush
49:19Rebellious
49:20scots
49:22to crush
49:25God
49:26God
49:26save
49:27the
49:29king
49:35Just an hour
49:37after the firing
49:38had started,
49:38there were
49:391,500 Jacobite highlanders
49:41lying slaughtered.
49:43Only 50
49:44of the Hanoverians
49:45had perished.
49:47And it was perhaps
49:48better to be one of those
49:50felled by the Hanoverian guns
49:51as it spared you the sight
49:53of the British soldiers
49:54coming at you
49:55while you lay wounded
49:56to finish you off
49:58with their newfangled
49:59bayonets.
50:00As one Hanoverian officer
50:02noted,
50:03Our men,
50:04what with killing the enemy,
50:05dabbling their feet in blood
50:07and splashing it about
50:08one another,
50:10look like so many butchers
50:11rather than Christian soldiers.
50:16Charles Edward
50:17survived the battle
50:18and gave the order
50:20every man
50:21for himself.
50:23He went on the run
50:24until it was safe
50:25to be shipped back
50:26to France.
50:28In England,
50:30the victory
50:30was riotously celebrated.
50:33Effigies of
50:33Bonnie Prince Charlie
50:34were burned
50:35at the stake.
50:36But many in Scotland
50:37too were pleased
50:38to see the end
50:39of the Jacobite threat,
50:41delighted, in fact,
50:41the prince had gone.
50:43But in the heartland
50:44of his support
50:44in north-west Scotland,
50:46Charles Edward
50:47left behind
50:48a population
50:49prostrate
50:50before the avenging
50:51army of the Duke
50:52of Cumberland,
50:53determined to break
50:54the Jacobite clans
50:56forever.
51:08Villages were burned
51:09to the ground,
51:10captured men
51:11hanged or shot,
51:13cattle were stolen,
51:14thousands driven
51:15from their homes.
51:17Even the wearing
51:18of highland dress
51:19was banned
51:19in an effort
51:20to strip the clans
51:21not just
51:22of their possessions
51:23but of their identity.
51:31The hopes and dreams
51:32of the Jacobites
51:33had to live
51:34in the secret world
51:35of things now,
51:36things that could be
51:38hidden or disguised,
51:39a lock of Bonnie
51:41Prince Charlie's hair
51:42or the mysterious
51:43emblems engraved
51:45on wine glasses.
51:46Take a look
51:47at this board,
51:47for example.
51:48At first sight
51:49it seems
51:50an indecipherable
51:52smudge of paint.
51:53But if you look
51:54at it the right way,
51:55reflected against
51:57the silvered mirror
51:58of a cylinder,
51:59it turns into
52:00the lost love,
52:01the boy born
52:02to be king,
52:03the saviour
52:04across the water.
52:08Unhappily for the keepers
52:10of the Jacobite flame,
52:12Charles Edward
52:12in exile
52:13went rapidly
52:14downhill.
52:15Too many mistresses,
52:17far too much drink,
52:18years of indolence
52:20made him prematurely
52:21decrepit.
52:25Will ye know
52:27come back again?
52:30But the romantic myth
52:32of Bonnie Prince Charlie
52:33would survive
52:35the wreckage
52:36of his real history.
52:37It would live
52:38in the poems
52:39and popular ballads,
52:40where he would always be
52:42the dashing,
52:43charismatic boy prince.
52:45can I be
52:48way
52:49no
52:51come
52:53back
52:55again?
52:58But Jacobitism
52:59as a political force
53:01was spent.
53:03In the decays
53:04following Culloden,
53:05a transformation
53:06would take place
53:07in Scotland.
53:09the Jacobite warriors
53:10who'd been unable
53:11to break Britannia
53:13were given
53:13an alternative
53:14to returning
53:15to their old
53:16obsessions
53:17of clan loyalty.
53:19Join the future.
53:20Join the army
53:21of the British Empire.
53:23Many thousands
53:23took the offer.
53:25Instead of being
53:26the perennial victims
53:27of that empire,
53:28they now colonised it.
53:30In the cities, too,
53:32a new Scotland
53:33was being born.
53:35In just 20 years
53:37or so
53:37after Culloden,
53:38it became commonplace
53:39to refer to
53:40Edinburgh and Glasgow
53:41as hotbeds
53:43of genius.
53:44The collapse
53:45of the backward-looking
53:46cult of honour
53:47had made room
53:48for the flowering
53:50of the forward-looking
53:50cult of modernity.
53:54In the academies,
53:55drawing rooms
53:56and reading clubs
53:57of the Scottish cities,
53:58hopeless dreams
53:59were replaced
54:00by the appetite
54:01for hard facts
54:03and hard cash.
54:08The first British
54:09theory of progress
54:10was sketched out
54:12by Scottish philosophers
54:13like Adam Ferguson
54:14and David Hume.
54:16They looked at the tragedy
54:17of their own country
54:18and saw in its history
54:20the entire arc
54:21of human social evolution,
54:23from hunting
54:24and gathering societies
54:26to settled farmers
54:27and finally
54:28to true civilisation,
54:30the world of commerce,
54:32science and industry.
54:33the world
54:34of the towns.
54:41It was another Scot,
54:43Robert Adam,
54:44who became
54:45the first British king
54:46of architectural style.
54:48Less than 20 years
54:49after Bonnie Prince Charlie
54:51had retreated
54:52from Derby,
54:53a different kind
54:54of Scottish conqueror
54:55came back to Derbyshire
54:56and this time
54:57he was invincible.
55:10At Kedleston Hall,
55:12Robert Adam built in
55:13a new style
55:14for a new kind
55:15of aristocrat.
55:16Its owner,
55:17the First Lord Scarsdale,
55:19was a true New Britain,
55:21rich not just from land
55:22but from the coal mines
55:24of Derbyshire.
55:26What he wanted
55:28was a house
55:29that would not
55:29overpower the visitor
55:31with vulgar displays
55:32of swaggering wealth
55:34but somewhere
55:35that would speak
55:36instead of Roman grandeur,
55:38of noble classical austerity,
55:40of loftiness of mind,
55:42of purity of taste,
55:44a palace of contemplation,
55:45a temple of virtue.
55:52Could the accumulation
55:53of private riches
55:54somehow be a force
55:56for general happiness?
56:01The Scot who made
56:02the deepest mark
56:03on the future of Britain
56:04certainly thought so.
56:07In 1746,
56:09while the last survivors
56:10of Cumberland's butchery
56:11were being hunted down,
56:13Adam Smith,
56:14the son of a customs officer,
56:15had an exhilarating vision
56:17of the future.
56:18That vision was based
56:19on Smith's rejection
56:21of guilt and sin.
56:22But it would be
56:23his revolutionary book,
56:24The Wealth of Nations,
56:26which would mark
56:27Scotland's farewell
56:28to sentimental self-destruction.
56:31Upbeat and optimistic
56:32about the happiness
56:33of material life,
56:35Smith laid out,
56:36as a matter of scientific fact,
56:38mankind's natural drive
56:40to self-betterment.
56:43Allowed to follow
56:44their natural urges,
56:46men would create
56:47without even willing it
56:48a better world,
56:50richer,
56:51freer,
56:52more educated.
56:53The best thing
56:53that government could do
56:55was get out of the way
56:56and allow the invisible hand
56:58of the market
56:58to do its work.
57:05The economic world
57:06was like a watch,
57:08he wrote,
57:08its springs and wheels
57:10all admirably adjusted
57:11to the ends
57:12for which it was made.
57:14So, too,
57:15the countless movements
57:16of men
57:16would perfectly interact
57:18for the purposes
57:19for which God
57:20had made them.
57:21That purpose
57:22was progress
57:23and it was one
57:24of history's sweetest
57:26ironies
57:26that it had fallen
57:27to Scotland,
57:29poor-blooded,
57:30mutilated Scotland,
57:31to show Britannia
57:32the way ahead.
57:34So if you want
57:35to see the future,
57:36forget the pompous monuments
57:38of England's past.
57:40Come north instead
57:41to the new towns
57:42of Glasgow and Edinburgh
57:43and see the future
57:45of Britain,
57:47the future,
57:48perhaps,
57:49of the world.
57:50and see the future.