Sir Andrew Michael Ramsay (9 July 16866 May 1743), commonly called the Chevalier Ramsay, was a Scottish-born writer who lived most of his adult life in France. He was a baronet in the Jacobite peerage.
Ramsay was born in Ayr, Scotland, the son of a baker. In 1710 he visited François Fénelon in the Netherlands, and in his attraction to quietism converted to Roman Catholicism. He remained in France until 1724 writing politico-theological treatises. One of these was dedicated to the Jacobite claimant to the English and Scottish thrones, James Francis Edward Stuart. In January 1724, Ramsay was sent to Rome as tutor to James' two sons, Charles Edward and Henry. But his appointment was short-lived; Ramsay was associated with the court party of John Erskine, Duke of Mar, who fell from favour that year. By November 1724 Ramsay was back in Paris.
Ramsay was in England in 1730, and received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. The claim was nominally his discipleship to Fénelon, but in reality beyond doubt his connection with the Jacobite party. He died at St Germain-en-Laye (Île-de-France) on 6 May 1743.
He was a Christian universalist, believing that all people would eventually be saved. He wrote "Almighty power, wisdom and love cannot be eternally frustrated in his absolute and ultimate designs; therefore God will at last pardon and re-establish in happiness all lapsed beings."
Biography
Ramsay may have been born in 1681 or 1688, but the most likely date of his birth is 9 July 1686. The son of a baker, he grew up in Ayr, in south west Scotland, and probably studied at Edinburgh University. A devout young man, he seemed destined for the ministry in the Church of Scotland, but in 1708 became tutor to the two children of David Wemyss, 4th Earl of Wemyss.
As a youth Ramsay was attracted to the mysticism of quietism as practised in the circle of George Garden at Rosehearty, centred on the teachings of Antoinette Bourignon in a community along the lines of a similar one in Rijnsburg led by Pierre Poiret, where people from different religious persuasions and social castes lived together.
In 1710 Ramsay travelled to Rijnsburg to meet Poiret and later met Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Motte Guyon known as Mme Guyon; from there he went on to stay with the elder Fénelon at Cambrai (August 1710). He remained in his household for several years and became steady friends with the Marquis de Fénelon, a young relative of the archbishop and an ardent pupil of Mme Guyon. He wrote his Vie de Fénelon in loyal testimony to that period. From 1714 until 1716, Ramsay acted as secretary to Mme Guyon and he was present at Blois on 9 June 1717 when she died.
Although Ramsay himself was converted to Catholicism by Fénelon, conversion was not deemed an option by Mme Guyon, who strongly advised the community around her to stick to the principles of their proper faith while meditating on Pure Love. In his Life of Fénelon (London, 1723) Ramsay stated his own insights of how Mme Guyon's system had affected him. Association with Fénelon, who as preceptor of the grandsons of Louis XIV had retained huge influence at Court, caused Ramsay to be remarked by the nobility, in particular by the Comte de Sassenage, whose son he tutored from 1718 till 1722.
In 1722 Ramsay became active in high level negotiations over a tax on assets of Jacobite exiles proposed by the British government. By then Ramsay was already well acquainted with Cardinal Fleury, who after the death of the Regent Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1723) was to be the power of state behind Louis XV.
In 1723 Ramsay was knighted into the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem, which had originated as a Crusader military order based in France for the protection of pilgrims. In 1724 he entered the Jacobite household in Rome. Court intrigue and the impracticability of his educational task – Bonnie Prince Charlie was only three-and-a-half years old – caused him to return to Paris in the same year.
From 1725 till 1728 he stayed as an invited guest at the Hôtel de Sully under the patronage of Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de Sully, the husband of the widowed Comtesse de Vaux (daughter of Mme Guyon). During this period he was an active member of the Club de l'Entresol, an early modern think tank in Paris, in the company of such luminaries as Rene-Louis Argenson, Lord Bolingbroke and Montesquieu. Against that background he wrote his Travels of Cyrus in 1727, which made him a best-selling author in his time, and for the revised edition of which he travelled to London (1729–30) where he was again in touch with Montesquieu.