Daily advancement QC writes
W
e know from expense accounts kept by Thomas Coke, later Lord Lovel, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of England (1731), that while in Italy on his Grand Tour in 1716 he purchased prints and antiquities from a William Dugood. What is less clear is whether Dugood, a Scottish jeweller, was in Rome on his own account or part of Coke’s entourage. The Stuart papers at Windsor indicate that Dugood remained in Rome where he was associated with the exiled James Stuart and his court in exile. Francis Paton, another Scot, introduced Dugood to John Erskine, Earl of Mar, a senior figure in Rome’s Jacobite circles. Mar was influential. He had slipped into Scotland in 1715 and raised the Stuart standard at Braemar, proclaiming him king, an act that set off the Rising. When it failed the following year, Mar fled Scotland to return to exile in Europe with the Jacobites granted sanctuary in Rome under the protection of Pope Clement XI. On Mar’s recommendation, Dugood became court jeweller and received a Stuart warrant. He also became a trusted intermediary. His access made him a target for Philip von Stosch, a Prussian in Rome who had been recruited as a spy by the British. Stosch was a valued source on Jacobite activities and his reports under the alias ‘John Walton’ circulated at a senior level in London. Stosch persuaded Dugood to work for him and became his best source. But Dugood came under
Jeweller to the exiled Jacobite court in Rome, Scot and Freemason William Dugood escaped multiple inquisitions for his role in government espionage, as Dr Ric Berman explains
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FMT Winter 2021
Image: National Galleries of Scotland. Purchased with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund 2001
TREASURES AND TREASON
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