While these various interests gathered under the banner of restoring the House of Stuart, they also had a common streak against the scientific and secular democratic norms of the time.

Some even planned (but did not execute) a military overthrow of the Hanoverian monarchy, with the aim of putting Princess Maria Theresa on the British throne.

[5][6] The exhibition itself showed some distinctive Jacobite tendencies, as Guthrie points out in his book:"It is clear that the point of the whole exhibition in the New Gallery ... was a Stuart restoration and to bring the Jacobite fact and the modern succession to the Stuart claim to the attention of the British public"[2]In 1890, Vivian and Erskine founded a literary weekly newspaper The Whirlwind, A Lively and Eccentric Newspaper, with Vivian as editor.

He wrote a number of articles attacking Henry Morton Stanley, was scathing of London's tramway system on individualist grounds, and published his series "Letters to Absurd People" skewering various political figures including Arthur Balfour,[16] George Goschen[17] and Henry Edward Manning, the Archbishop of Westminster.

In 1891, they split from The Order of the White Rose, and along with Massue they formed the Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland.

Wilkins argued in favour of replacing the royal prerogative with popular referendums, to solve constitutional issues like Irish Home Rule and the Disestablishment of the Church of England.

[19] In October 1890, the printers of The Whirlwind refused to complete one issue due to the inclusion of an inflammatory piece title "Young England".

While duly deploring the discontinuance of his collaboration, we feel so deeply the importance of what is before him that we refrain from further regret and wish him Godspeed upon his delicate mission, in the full confidence that his brilliant success will shed additional lustre upon our own triumphs during his absence".

It had fewer pages than most previous issues, and it led with a note from Vivian entitled "Not Dead but sleepy" which read, in part: "There will not be a Christmas number of The Whirlwind, but a large extra-special edition will be published on the birthday of the Proprietor-Editor, 3rd.

[24] Its 26 issues had proved lively and eccentric indeed, filled with polemic, scurrilous personal attacks, political essays and drawings from some of the leading artists of the day.

The young men appear to be far from lacking in ideas", the Dramatic Review called it "A monument of youthful audacity...To give anything like a comprehensive description of this extraordinary publication, is impossible" and the Nottingham Daily Express wrote "I like bare unflushing cheek—sometimes; and I am very much interested in the first number of The Whirlwind... for a more impudent little publication it would be difficult to turn out.

[26] In September 1890, The Star newspaper described it as "Rank Treason", and the Southampton Observer said it was "at once preposterously pretentious and absurdly paradoxical", while the Huddersfield Examiner reported: "For pertness and flippancy in full swing, you need to no more than invest a penny in a copy of The Whirlwind.