Jacobite history: Thomas Carte’s General History

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the analysis of finances and commerce developed by the Jacobite historian Thomas Carte in his General History (1744–51). Economic arguments, it is shown were at the heart of Carte's work; indeed, underpinning his commentary on England's history was a desire to demonstrate that the sort of absolutism practiced by the Stuart Kings had the capacity to bring both order and commercial wealth to the nation. The discussion traces the origins of this approach to Carte's work as a pamphleteer in the early 1740s, before examining the ways in which it shaped his analyses of both ancient and modern history.