A Jacobite abroad: Queer lives in the archives

In the clinical calm of the National Library of Scotland's Reading Room, opening James Byres' archive file feels like dropping into the middle of his life: vivid, complex, and far removed from the order of the storage shelves. A young Jacobite from Aberdeenshire, exiled after the failure of the 1745 Rising, James reinvented himself as an art dealer and expert Grand Tour guide in eighteenth-century Rome.

His archive contains a scatter of materials that map his life in the Eternal City. Pages of an inventory recording his apartment room by room, a sketchbook, a pair of reading glasses, and bundles of correspondence. They reveal his ties to wealthy patrons, his friendships with leading artists, and the vibrant social and professional world he inhabited.

And yet, strikingly, they are almost silent on his long-term partnership with the English engraver Christopher Norton. Seen through a queer historical lens, James's archive invites us to consider what is present, and what has been deliberately obscured. From this perspective, the silence feels deliberate. Evidence of same-sex relationships between men was often purposefully hidden from the record. Letters destroyed, details withheld, careful omissions made in what Oscar Wilde would later describe as "a love that dare not speak its name." This silence is precisely what makes such relationships so difficult to trace in the archive. But if we look closely, and reflect on what the archive is telling us as well as what is missing, traces begin to emerge.

A Jacobite in exile

The first document I pull out of the archive file is a small scrap of paper, covered on both sides with James's hurried notes. It lists the contents of three travelling cases, including paintings by Nathaniel Dance, Pompeo Batoni, and Angelica Kauffmann. They are artworks from his private collection, also copied down in an inventory James made of his apartment the night before he left Rome for Scotland, marking the end of a forty-five-year exile.

James's early life was shaped by his family's Jacobite sympathies, a world in which truth and appearance often diverged. At just twelve years old, he fled with his family to Europe following the catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746.

The archive shows how deeply connected James remained to Scotland. Among many artworks by Scottish artists listed in his travelling cases is a painting by Solomon Delane, described by James in the inventory as "a Storm with Mackbeth & the Witches on the Heath". His father, Patrick, expressed the same attachment to home, comparing the landscapes of Italy unfavourably to those of Scotland, declaring that Lake Nemi, near Rome, could not rival Loch Lomond. These sentiments reveal a strong sense of identity even amid the uncertainty of displacement.

In Rome, Byres joined a cluster of displaced Jacobites centred around the Scottish court-in-exile. He attended the Accademia di San Luca, first studying art, and later architecture. It was during this period that he met Christopher, who had won a premium from the Society of Arts in 1760 to study art in Rome. Together they were immersed in an education of the ancient world. Surrounded by a rich landscape of classical ruins, they were free to explore the male gaze on the male form as part of their academic pursuits.

James's archive preserves the manuscript of his posthumously published book on the Etruscans. Inspired by site visits to caves in Tarquinia, Christopher’s engravings bring to life this ancient civilization. The inky handwriting from James's research notes now bleed through the pages bundled in the archive. I have wondered if James's fascination with this ancient civilisation grew from a sense of affinity with their story. The suppression and cultural erasure of the Etruscans by Rome echoed the Jacobite defeat and its aftermath, and there are numerous depictions of homosexual intimacies in Etruscan art.

Finding little success as an artist or architect, Byres turned to more lucrative work as an art dealer and cultural guide for tourists. The Grand Tour was an essential rite of passage for Britain’s wealthy elite. James's tours offered a classical education centred on visiting ruins and connecting with the artistic heritage of the ancient world. He was one of the most sought after guides in Rome and was well connected to many notable Scottish artists, including Henry Raeburn, Allan Ramsay, and Gavin Hamilton.

Alongside his tour groups, James cultivated a network of private clients. He and Christopher lived in the 'English quarter', the area stretching from the Spanish Steps to the Villa Doria Pamphili. Dominated by British hotels and cafes, it was a convenient location for visitors seeking cultural guidance or artistic purchases. He frequently entertained potential clients in his home, where artworks from his personal collection were displayed and, not coincidentally, available for sale.

Allan Ramsay's son recalls that he was invited for breakfast at James’s home:

"After brakfast Mr Byres carried us into his Room of Antiquity's in which he show'd us some valuable things. Particularly a very fine picture of Corregio (Venus rising out of the Sea) & a very fine landskape by Claud Lorrain".

We get an idea of the extent of this collection from the inventory, in what is called 'the Paint's Room'.

It is often unclear whether James distinguished between the originals, copies, and outright fakes he dealt to clients. This suggests a certain comfort with ambiguity. To me, this mirrors a life spent navigating the shifting space between appearance and truth. The same is true of his personal life, though it is far harder to trace in the Library's archive.

Queer coding at home

If we look closely, hints begin to emerge. The second document I pick up from the archive is several pages of an inventory James made of the contents of his Roman apartment. The subtle choices in how items were recorded and arranged in the inventory invite a deeper reading that raises many questions. Personal belongings and the subtle repetition of Christopher's presence gesture toward a relationship that fell outside the typical.

James met Chistopher at art school around 1760 and by 1762 they were living together in an apartment on the Strada Paolina. Though the records are incomplete, just shy of thirty years later they are again recorded as living together on this street. We know from the inventory that at some point James's mother also lived with them, as well as his nephew, Patrick Moir.

The inventory paints a vivid picture of their domestic set up. It also provides additional detail about where the items included in the packing cases were once displayed in their home. Dance's portrait of Christopher is listed in the Drawing Room, the portrait Battoni made of Byres' sister hung in the Dining Room and Kauffmann's 'Old Mans Head' is listed in the bedroom previously used by James's mother.

Within the apartment, I believe James and Christopher shared the Writing Room as a study. I imagine them poring over books and maps to plan their research trips. Working on the manuscript and engravings for their publication on the Etruscans. Maybe they even wrote the inventory for the apartment and the packing list that followed in this room too.

The inventory records that pastel portraits of James and Christopher by their friend Hugh Douglas Hamilton hung in this room. They are listed together, suggesting they were conceived as a pair. Hamilton was well known for miniature pairs, often made for married couples or family members. The title appears squeezed between the neatly composed lines of the inventory. Were they included as an afterthought? Was the initial decision not to include them an act of self-censoring?

Perhaps they reasoned the portraits would be overlooked because they depicted two men. Their domestic setup could also be easily interpreted as a practical arrangement between two unmarried business partners. Was this James and Christopher deliberately creating dual meanings, where appearance and truth didn't align? 'Partner' was used ambiguously by the couple's friends and colleagues to describe their relationship, leaving room for a public explanation to cover a more private reality.

James also lists in the inventory two copies of a family portrait painted around the same time by Franciszek Smuglewicz. He describes the scene as "a family piece, five portraits"'. Included in the scene are his sister, father, mother, himself - and Christopher.

In the copy that now hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, James gestures toward a map of Rome, marking his chosen home. In the background of the painting are two additional portraits: on the right, a portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie, a nod to his enduring Jacobite loyalties, and, in the centre, a large relief depicting a classical myth.

The relief shows Zeus, disguised as an eagle, abducting his young lover Ganymede. The scene is copied from a roundel at the Villa Albani. James worked closely with the villa's curator, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, who openly had a preference for men. Given that James commissioned the portraits, it seems likely that he intentionally included this reference, layering familial, political, and personal meanings into the composition. The inventory lists this portrait in the Drawing Room, where guests were entertained. A clear intention to publicly include Christopher as part of the family. And for those with an informed eye, acknowledge a deeper connection between them.

Return to Scotland

The last document I pick out from the archive file is a copied advertisement from the 'London Gazette', dated 4th September 1813. It warns that three travelling cases, "containing books, prints and paintings," would be sold off if they were not collected from a warehouse in London. The notice makes clear that the travelling cases James and Christopher packed the contents of their home into, did not return to Scotland until twenty years after they left Rome.

The pair had made plans to return to Scotland as grumblings of revolution in France began to roll across Europe. James's nephew Patrick, who had been living with them since the Scottish artist Henry Raeburn visited in 1784, took over the business and was entrusted with their extensive art collection.

Before Byres left Rome he made a payment to the master of the house of Henry Benedict Stuart, in favour of the Duchess of Albany, the illegitimate daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Marking forty five years of allegiance to the Jacobite cause.

James and Christopher left behind their apartment, a close circle of friends and colleagues, and a socio-cultural context that had made their partnership possible. They pivoted to a much different future.

James returned to his ancestral family seat at Tonley in Aberdeenshire. At this time, not only was it socially unacceptable for two men to live together, but homosexual acts were punishable by death and would not be decriminalised in Scotland until 1981. In this context, Christopher marrying into the family may have been the best option to retain proximity but also respectability. In 1792 in Scotland, Christopher married James's niece Janet, the sister of Patrick, meaning he became James's nephew-in-law. A strategic move that formally integrated him into the wider family network. They moved to Peterhead in North East Scotland, less than half a day's ride from Tonley. Together they had a son and two daughters.

But a joint letter from James and Christopher sent to Patrick in 1797 offers a rare glimpse into the ways their lives remained intertwined. The letter concerns Patrick's efforts to protect his uncle's art collection as the threat of a French invasion of Rome loomed, by depositing it at the Scotch College in Rome. This is one of the few pieces of correspondence that survives between James and Christopher in the Library's collection.

Revealing a sentimental attachment to the life he had built in Rome, Christopher writes:

"I cannot help feeling very much for a country where I have spent so many happy years and which I look'd upon in some measure as my own"

Christopher's will notes that he was "residing at Tonley" when he died a few years later. It names James as a primary executor. James is also a major benefactor, having been bequeathed personal possessions from Christopher such as "all his pictures, paintings, drawings, rings and trinkets."

I can’t help but reflect on this along with the contents of those cases, filled with the art, literature and curiosities that enriched the life James and Christopher carved out for themselves.

Reading between the lines

As a Jacobite and exiled Scot living in Italy, James's multiple positions of outsiderness gave him the skill to carve out his own future as a successful art dealer in a same-sex partnership. Although the National Library of Scotland's collection largely documents his professional life, looking beyond the surface allows glimpses to emerge of self-fashioning, intimacy, and chosen family. They reveal traces of a relationship that could not be openly acknowledged or safely recorded. It was from these margins that James and Christopher created a world of their own.

James's life and work challenge us to rethink how we interpret relationships in the past, and to recognise how queer lives often surface indirectly in the archive. These histories have long been overlooked, and the Library collection makes clear how much remains to be discovered. The ways in which individuals navigated constraint, ambiguity, and silence to make space for relationships that fell outside the norm offer a rich and vital resource for deepening our understanding of the past.