Spectacle, Secrecy, and Silver: James VII and II's Altar Plate for Scotland's Catholic Chapel Royal

In December 1687 James VII/II wrote to the Scottish Privy Council requesting that the Abbey-chapel at Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh "be fitted in all things for being our owne Catholick Chappell." A spectacular set of altar plate was commissioned for the chapel (now on display at National Museums Scotland), though it is unlikely that it was ever used. Days after the chapel was completed, it was ransacked by an anti-Catholic "mob" responding to the invasion of William of Orange and the Protestant Revolution of 1688/9. Rescued and preserved by a priest, this altar plate is all that remains from James VII's Catholic project in Scotland. This paper investigates how these objects of ceremonial religious display functioned within the confines of a predominantly Presbyterian Scotland. This altar plate was intended to project an image of Catholic authority, an embodiment of James VII's imagined Catholic future, and yet it had to be created, imported, and used in relative secrecy. By considering its dispersed production, design, material resonances and afterlife, this paper will argue that the altar plate can be viewed as an embodiment of Scottish Catholicism in this period, operating upon the boundary between concealment and spectacle.