page_title: David Wemyss, Lord Elcho
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: David Wemyss, Lord Elcho / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Winchester College from the Clarendon Way. Looking across Ridding Meads. Part of a series of pictures that illustrates a walk in my Inheritance Walks. www.tinyurl.com/clarendonone Previous: 1467866 Next: 1467905
context_page_description: David Wemyss, Lord Elcho and de jure 6th Earl of Wemyss, was a Scottish peer and Jacobite, attainted for his part in the 1745 Rising and deprived of titles and estates.
  One of the few Jacobites excluded from the 1747 Act of Indemnity, his attempts to return home were unsuccessful and he spent the rest of his life in France and Switzerland. His wife Sofia died in childbirth; Elcho left no legitimate children and when he died in Paris in 1787, his property passed to a younger brother.
  His record of the 1745 Rising or A short account of the affairs of Scotland in the years 1744, 1745, 1746, is now considered a key contemporary source for the Rising.
context_section_description: Like many Jacobite sympathisers, Elcho had a background of Non-Juring Episcopalianism, Freemasonry and opposition to the 1707 Union; like the Jacobite peer Earl Kilmarnock, his father was Grand Master of Scotland, as was his brother Francis. However, the family were not considered activists and had not been involved in previous Risings.
  After his parents separated in 1732, he was sent to Winchester College in England, three weeks journey from his home in Fife; Elcho later recorded he met his father only once between 1734 and 1741. One of his classmates was James, later 6th Duke of Hamilton, whose father claimed to be the senior Scottish Jacobite. A biographer claimed Winchester turned Elcho into a fervent Scots patriot and that he 'disliked all Irishmen, most Englishmen, and a good many Scots.' During the Rising, he allegedly referred to Prince Charles as 'that damned, cowardly Italian', although this is disputed.
  Elcho left Winchester in 1738 for Reims, followed by a period at the French military academy in Angers, a popular location for young British noblemen. He then went on the 18th century cultural excursion known as the Grand Tour and visited Rome in October 1740, one of whose attractions was the exiled James Stuart and his sons. After the failed 1719 Rising, many Jacobite exiles accepted pardons and returned home, among them Lord George Murray. By 1737, Jacobitism seemed little more than nostalgia and James was reportedly "living tranquilly in Rome, having abandoned all hope of a restoration."
caption: Winchester College, which Elcho attended from 1734 to 1738
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