The wayward political apostle: Andrew Michael Ramsay

Andrew Michael Ramsay was a Scots-born naturalised Frenchman, whose search for spiritual fulfilment led him from Scotland to the European continent and eventually to France. When Ramsay initially arrived in France he stayed at Cambrai with the Archbishop François Fénelon, who not only converted Ramsay to Catholicism but helped to inadvertently shape Ramsay’s political theory. After the death of Fénelon in 1715 Ramsay became the editor of his papers and works and he used this opportunity to not only publish the some of the prelate’s works but to also promulgate his own political thought ostensibly based upon the political principles of Fénelon. Ramsay’s Essay philosophiquesur le government civil (1721) and his biography of Fénelon, the Vie de Fénelon (1723), were used by Ramsay to promote a Jacobite restoration in Britain while creating an inaccurate demonstration of the Archbishop’s political legacy.