(1655 - after 1735), Jacobite, b. Fife; in Paris 1689 - 1717 and 1735 - ; sec. of state [J] 1711; m. 1686 Mlle de Compigny.
[1691 Rome]
1717 - 33 Montefiascone, Rome (May - Jun. 1717), Urbino (Jul. 1717 - Jun. 1718), Rome; Florence (Sep. 1733), Bologna (Oct.)
'Little Nairn', with his 'ingenious' conversation1 had joined the exiled Jacobite court at Saint-Germain-en-Laye as a young man in 1689, his fluent French helping him obtain posts as translator and secretary. He was first in Italy in 1691, accompanying the Jacobite ambassador Lord Melfort as his private secretary; he had returned to Saint-Germain by November that year.2
In 1717, when over seventy, he accompanied the Pretender to Rome as one of his closest associates. They arrived late in May and on 11 June Nairne wrote that they had seen 'fine pictures and statues, all of which, old as I am, I am not philosopher enough to despise, especially the music part ... As for the ceremonial part, I canot say I like it, for nobody does'.3 The Pretender then told the Earl of Mar he thought Nairne would 'live a year longer';4 his health was not robust, and he was laid up in Urbino in July.5 In April 1718 he was well enough to fall for a young Bolognese singer who then came to Urbino, but he was then unwell again in June.6 He remained attached to the court in Italy as it moved between Montefiascone, Urbino and Rome, and his name occurs frequently in Jacobite correspondence (HMC Stuart). Later, in September 1733, Stosch said 'Sir David Nairn, the Pretender's treasurer' was in Florence with Lord and Lady Bellew, and was going secretly to England; but they had left for Bologna by 3 October.7 On 7 March 1735 Nairne (described as Sir David Nairne, the King's old secretary) was in Paris with his daughter Marie (who had married the former tutor of the Stuart Princes, Andrew Michael Ramsay).8
1. HMC Stuart, 4:382, 580. 2. See Cour des Stuarts 1992, nos.219 - 20. 3. HMC Stuart, 4:337 - 8. 4. 5 Jun. 1717; Ibid., 317. 5. Ibid., 445. 6. Ibid., 5:205; 6:242. 7. SP 98/32, ff.575, 578 (Walton, 27 Sep., 3 Oct. 1733). 8. Tayler 1939, 102 - 3 and n.