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MEMOIRS

OF

THE JACOBITES

OF 1715 AND 1745.

BY MRS. THOMSON,


AUTHOR OF

"MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF HENRY THE EIGHTH,"
"MEMOIRS OF SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH," ETC.

VOLUME I.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1845.


LONDON:

Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, and FLEY,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.




PREFACE.


In completing two volumes of a work which has been for some years in
contemplation, it may be remarked that it is the only collective
Biography of the Jacobites that has yet been given to the Public. Meagre
accounts, scattered anecdotes, and fragments of memoir, have hitherto
rather tantalized than satisfied those who have been interested in the
events of 1715 and 1745. The works of Home, of Mr. Chambers, and the
collections of Bishop Forbes, all excellent, are necessarily too much
mingled up with the current of public affairs to comprise any
considerable portion of biographical detail. Certain lives of some of
the sufferers in the cause of the Stuarts, printed soon after the
contests in behalf of those Princes, are little more than narratives of
their trials and executions; they were intended merely as ephemeral
productions to gratify a curious public, and merit no long existence. It
would have been, indeed, for many years, scarcely prudent, and certainly
not expedient, to proffer any information concerning the objects of
royal indignation, except that which the newspapers afforded: nor was it
perfectly safe, for a considerable time after the turbulent times in
which the sufferers lived, to palliate their offences, or to express any
deep concern for their fate. That there was much to be admired in those
whose memories were thus, in some measure, consigned to oblivion, except
in the hearts of their descendants; much which deserved to be explained
in their motives; much which claimed to be upheld in their
self-sacrifices, the following pages will show. Whatever leaning the
Author may have had to the unfortunate cause of the Stuarts, it has not,
however, been her intention only to pourtray the bright ornaments of the
party. She has endeavoured to show that it was composed, as well as most
other political combinations, of materials differing in value--some
pure, some base, some noble, some mean and vacillating.

As far as human weakness and prejudice can permit, the Author has aimed
at a strict scrutiny of conduct and motives. In the colouring given to
these, she has conscientiously sought to be impartial: for the facts
stated, she has given the authorities.

It now remains for the Author publicly to acknowledge the resources from
which she has derived some materials which have never before been given
to the Public, and for which she has to thank, in several instances, not
only the kindness of friends, but the liberality of strangers.

A very interesting collection of letters, many of them written in the
Earl of Mar's own hand, and others dictated by him, is interwoven with
the biography of that nobleman. These letters were written, in fact, for
the information of the whole body of Jacobites, to whom they were
transmitted through the agent of that party, Captain Henry Straiton,
residing in Edinburgh. They form almost a diary of Lord Mar's
proceedings at Perth. They are continued up to within a few hours of the
evacuation of that city by the Jacobite army. For these curious and
characteristic letters, pourtraying as they do, in lively colours, the
difficulties of the General in his council and his camp, she is indebted
to the friendship and mediation of the Honourable Lord Cockburn, and to
the liberality of James Gibson Craig, Esq.

To the Right Honourable the Earl of Newburgh, the descendant and
representative of the Radcliffe family, her sincere and respectful
acknowledgments are due for his Lordship's readily imparting to her
several interesting particulars of the Earl of Derwentwater and his
family. She owes a similar debt of gratitude to the Viscount
Strathallan, for his Lordship's communication to her respecting the
House of Drummond. To the Honourable Mrs. Bellamy, the descendant of
Viscount Kenmure, she has also to offer similar acknowledgments, for
information respecting her unfortunate ancestor; and for an original
letter of his Lordship; and she must also beg to express her obligations
to William Constable Maxwell, Esq., and to Mrs. Constable Maxwell, of
Terregles, the descendants of the Earl of Nithisdale, for their
courteous and prompt assistance. To James Craik, Esq., of Arbigland,
Dumfriesshire, she is indebted for a correspondence which continues, as
it were, an account of that family during the later part of the year
1745. To Sir Fitzroy Grafton Maclean, Bart., she owes the account of his
clan and family, which has been printed for private circulation. She is
also grateful to a descendant of the family of Lochiel, Miss Mary Anne
Cameron, for some interesting particulars of the burning of Achnacarry,
the seat of her ancestors.

In some of these instances the information derived has not been
considerable, owing to the total wreck of fortune, the destruction of
houses, and the loss of papers, which followed the ruthless steps of the
conquering army of the Duke of Cumberland. Most of the hereditary
memorials of those Highland families who engaged in both rebellions,
perished; and their representatives are strangely destitute of letters,
papers, and memorials of every kind. The practice of burying family
archives and deeds which prevailed during the troubles, was adopted but
with partial advantage, by those who anticipated the worst result of the
contest.

In recalling with pleasure the number of those to whom the Author owes
sincere gratitude for kindness and aid in her undertaking, the name of
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq. renews the remembrance of that store of
antiquarian information from which others, far more worthy to enjoy it
than herself, have owed obligations. The Author has also most gratefully
to acknowledge the very kind and valuable assistance of Archibald
Macdonald, Esq., of the Register Office, Edinburgh, to whom she is
indebted for several original letters; and of Robert Chambers, Esq., to
whose liberality she is indebted for several of her manuscript sources,
as well as some valuable advice on the subject of her work. To Dr.
Irvine, Librarian of the Advocate's Library, Edinburgh, the Author
offers, with the most lively pleasure, her sincere acknowledgments for a
ready and persevering assistance in aid of her undertaking. Again, she
begs to repeat her sense of deep obligation to Mr. Keats, of the British
Museum, the literary pilot of many years' historical research.

        LONDON,
    _October 27, 1845._




INTRODUCTION.


The history of the Jacobites properly begins with the brave and
conscientious men who followed James the Second to France, or fought and
bled for him in the United Kingdom. Of the few nobles whom that Monarch
had distinguished by his friendship when Duke of York, or graced with
his favours when King, three only in Scotland remained attached openly
to his interests: these were the Duke of Gordon, the Lord Balcarras, and
Claverhouse of Dundee, who may be regarded as the parents of the
Jacobite party in Scotland. "The other nobles of the late King's party,"
remarks a great historian,[1] "waited for events, in hopes and in fears,
from the Old Government and the New, intriguing with both, and depended
upon by neither."

Upon the death of Dundee, a troop of officers who had fought under the
standard of that great General, and who had imbibed his lofty opinions
and learned to imitate his dauntless valour, capitulated, and were
suffered to leave the country and retire to France. Their number
amounted to a hundred and fifty: they were all of honourable birth, and
glorying in their political principles. At first these exiles were
pensioned by the French Government, but, upon the close of the civil
war, those pensions ceased. Finding themselves a burden upon King James,
they formed themselves into a body-guard, which was afterwards
incorporated with the French army. It may fairly be presumed that this
remnant of Dundee's army, four of whom only returned to Scotland, were
instrumental during their abode in France in maintaining a communication
between the Court of St. Germains and their disheartened countrymen who
had remained in their Highland homes. Abroad, they supported their
military character as soldiers who had fought under Dundee: they were
always the foremost in the battle and the last to retreat, and were
distinguished by a superiority in order and discipline, no less than by
their energy and courage.

There can be no doubt but that the majority of the great landholders in
England, as well as the Highland chiefs, continued, through the reign of
William and Mary, disposed to high Tory views; and that had not the
popular cry of the Church being in danger aided the designs of the
Whigs, the Highflyers, or rigid Tories, would not have remained in
quiescence during that critical period, which resembled the settling of
a rushing current of waters into a frothing and bubbling pool, rather
than the calm tenour of a gently-flowing stream. Throughout the
distractions of his reign, it was the wise policy of William the Third
to balance parties; to bestow great posts upon moderate men; to employ
alternately persons of different opinions, and by frequent changes in
his Ministry, to conciliate the good-will of both factions;--and this
was all that that able Monarch could effect, until time should
extinguish political animosity.

Queen Mary, educated in Tory principles, and taught by her maternal
uncle, the Earl of Rochester, to consider every opposition to the
Sovereign's will as rebellion, was scarcely regarded in the light of an
enemy to the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance,
notwithstanding her unfilial conduct;[2] and it is remarkable that,
during her life, great favour was shown at Court to the Highland
partisans of James the Second; distinctions were as much avoided as it
was possible; and the personal prepossessions of the Queen were supposed
to be on the side of the High Church Tories.

During the reign of Anne, notwithstanding the coalition of Godolphin,
Marlborough, and other leaders of the moderate Tories with the Whigs,
and the reputation and glory which their combined abilities and
characters obtained, a conviction was still prevalent that the heart of
the Queen was disposed to the restoration of the ancient race, and that
her days would not close before a design to secure the succession to her
nephew would be matured, and the Act of Succession, which was chiefly
the offspring of Whig policy, should be set aside. There was,
doubtless, not only in the mind of Anne, but in that of her sagacious
predecessor, an apprehension that after the death of the last of their
dynasty, the succession would again be fiercely disputed. Impressed with
this conviction, it was a favourite scheme of William to invite the
child, who afterwards, under the name of the Chevalier St. George, was
the hero, in dumb show, it must be acknowledged, of the Insurrection of
1715, to receive his education in England under his kingly care; to be
bred up a Protestant; and to make that education the earnest of his
future succession. The proposal was rejected by James the Second, to the
great prejudice of his son's interests, and to the misfortune, it may be
presumed, of the British nation. For one can scarcely suppose a more
perfect combination of all the qualities calculated to form a popular
Monarch, in this country, than the natural abilities of the Stuart race,
perfected under the able guidance of so reflective a ruler--so
accomplished a general--so consummate a statesman, as William. The
education which that Monarch had planned for the young Duke of
Gloucester shows how enlarged and practical were his views of the
acquirements necessary for a Sovereign: it presents a scheme of tuition
which, if it may be deemed not wholly adapted to the present day, was on
the most comprehensive and liberal scale. But James, acting, at all
events, with the consistency of a sincere believer, returned, as
Dalrymple expresses it, "slowly and sadly to bury the remembrance of his
greatness in the convent of La Trappe;" and all future attempts on the
part of his posterity to recover the throne of their ancestors were
frustrated by the hollowness of French professions of friendship.

The tranquil demeanour of the Jacobite party during the reign of Anne
may seem surprising, when we consider the avowed favour and protection
which were held out by Louis the Fourteenth to the royal exiles of St.
Germain. During the lifetime of James, who considered that he had
exchanged the hope of an earthly for that of a heavenly Crown, there was
little to wonder at in this inactivity and apparent resignation. Had it
not been for the influence of an enthusiastic, high-minded, and
fascinating woman, the very mention of the cause would probably have
died away in the priest-thronged saloons of St. Germains. To Mary of
Modena the credit is due--if credit on such account is to be
assigned--for maintaining in the friends of her consort, for instilling
in the breast of her son, a desire of restoration;--that word, in fact,
might be found, to speak metaphorically, written in her heart. To her
personal qualities, to her still youthful attractions, to her pure mind,
and blameless career of conjugal duty--to the noble, maternal ambition
which no worthy judge of human motives could refuse a tribute of pity
and admiration--to her disregard of low and unworthy instruments to
advance her means, as in the case of Lovat, even the warmest partisans
of the Revolution were forced to do justice. The disinterested and
sagacious Godolphin is said to have done more: he is supposed to have
cherished such a respectful enthusiasm for the young mother who thus
supported the claims of her son, as might have become the chivalric
Surrey. Whatever were the fact, during the existence of Anne, the
payment of a dowry to Mary of Modena, the favourable understanding
between her son, as he grew up to man's estate, and the English Court,
the small reward offered for his apprehension, the conniving at the
daily enlistment of men in his service, and the indulgence shown to
those who openly spoke and preached against the Revolution, were certain
indications and ample proofs that had the Queen's life been prolonged,
some effectual steps would have been taken to efface from her memory the
recollection of her early failure of duty to King James, and to satisfy
the reproaches of her narrow, though conscientious mind. That such was
the fact, the declaration or manifesto of the Chevalier, dated from
Plombières, August 2, 1714, and printed in French, English, and Latin,
attests; and the assertion was confirmed by a letter from the Duke of
Lorrain to the English Government. This favourable disposition on the
part of Anne proves that she gave no credence to the report of the
supposititious birth of the Prince; although, in her youthful days, and
when irritated against her step-mother, she had entered into the Court
gossip on that subject, with all the eagerness of a weak and credulous
mind.

Nourished in secret by these hopes, the Jacobites in England constituted
a far more important party than our historians are generally willing to
allow. The famous work entitled, "English Advice to the Freeholders of
Great Britain," supposed to be written by Bishop Atterbury, was
extensively circulated throughout the country: it tended to promote an
opposition cry of "the Church in danger!" by insinuating that the Whigs
projected the abolition of Episcopacy. It was received with great
enthusiasm; and was responded to with fervour by the University of
Oxford, which was inflamed with a zeal for the restoration of the
Stuarts; and which displayed much of the same ardour, and held forth the
same arguments that had stimulated that seat of learning in the days of
Charles the First. To these sentiments, the foreign birth, the foreign
language, and, above all, the foreign principles of the King added
considerable disgust: nor can it be a matter of surprise that such
should be the case. It appears, nevertheless, extraordinary that the
opposition to so strange an engrafting of a foreign ruler should not
have been received with greater public manifestations of dislike than
the unorganized turbulence of Oxford under-graduates, or the ephemeral
fury of a London populace.

In Scotland a very different state of public feeling prevailed. In
England men of commerce were swayed in their political opinions by the
good of trade, which nothing was so likely to injure as a disputed
succession. The country gentlemen were, more or less, under the
influence of party pamphlets, and were liable to have their political
prejudices smoothed down by collision with their neighbours. Excepting
in the northern counties, the dread of Popery prevailed also
universally. The remembrance of the bigotry and tyranny of James the
Second had not faded away from the remembrance of those whose fathers or
grandfathers could remember its details. In the Highlands of Scotland
the memory of that Monarch was, on the other hand, worshipped as a
friend of that noble country, as the Stuart peculiarly their own, as the
royal exile, whose health and return, under various disguises, they had
pledged annually at their hunting-matches, and to whose youthful son
they transferred an allegiance which they held sacred as their religion.

Nor had James the Second earned the devotion of the Highland chieftains
without some degree of merit on his own part. The most incapable and
unworthy of rulers, he had yet some fine and popular qualities as a man;
he was not devoid of a considerable share of ability although it was
misapplied. His letters to his son, his account of his own life, show
that one who could act most erroneously and criminally, did,
nevertheless, often think and feel rightly. His obstinate adherence to
his own faith may be lamented by politicians; it may be sneered at by
the worldly; but it must be approved by all who are themselves staunch
supporters of that mode of faith which they conscientiously adopt. In
private society James had the power of attaching his dependents; and
perhaps from a deeper source than that which gave attraction to the
conversation of his good-natured, dissolute brother. His melancholy and
touching reply to Sir Charles Littleton, who expressed to him his shame
that his son was with the Prince of Orange:--"Alas! Sir Charles! why
ashamed? Are not my daughters with him?" was an instance of that
readiness and delicacy which are qualities peculiarly appropriate to
royalty. His exclamation at the battle of La Hogue, when he beheld the
English sailors scrambling up the sides of the French ships from their
boats--"None but my brave English could do this!" was one trait of a
character neither devoid of sensibility, nor destitute of certain
emotions which appear incompatible with the royal patron of Judge
Jeffries, and with the enemy of Monmouth.

During his residence, when Duke of York, at Holyrood, accompanied by
Anne Hyde, when Duchess of York, James became extremely popular in
Edinburgh; in the Highlands his hold of the affections of the chieftains
had a deeper origin. The oppressor of the English had endeavoured to
become the emancipator of the chieftains. The rigour of the feudal
system, which was carried to its utmost extent in the Highlands,
although softened by the patriarchal character of the chiefs, was
revolting to the chieftains or landholders under the yoke of some feudal
nobleman or chief; and they became ambitious of becoming direct holders
from the Crown. It was a scheme of James the Second to abolish this
system of infeudation, by buying up the superiorities,--a plan, the
completion of which was attempted by William the Third, but defeated by
the avarice and dishonesty of those who managed the transaction. The
chieftains, however, never forgot the obligation which they owed to
James:[3] they refused all offers of emolument or promotion from his
successor; and they adhered to the exiled King with a loyalty which was
never shaken, and which broke forth conspicuously in the Insurrection of
1715. "The Highlanders," says Dalrymple, "carried in their bosoms the
high point of honour without its follies."

Without entering into the various reasons which strengthened this
sentiment of gratitude and allegiance; without commenting upon the
partly patriarchal nature of the clan system, and the firm compact which
was cemented between every member of that family by a common
relationship of blood; it is sufficient to remark, that to a people so
retired, in many parts insulated, in all, apart from daily intelligence,
far away from communication with any whose free disquisitions might
possibly stake their opinions, it was not surprising that the loyalty to
James should continue unalloyed during two successive reigns. It burned,
indeed, with a steady though covered flame. The Insurrection of 1715,
which seems, in the pages of history, to break forth unexpectedly, was
long in being organized. From Anne's first Session of Parliament until
the completion of the Union, Scotland was in a state of ferment, and
violent party divisions racked civil society. In 1707, the famous
Colonel Hooke was sent to the northern parts of Scotland from France, to
sound the nobility and chieftains with respect to their sentiments, to
ascertain the amount of their forces, and to inquire what quantity of
ammunition and other warlike stores should be necessary to be sent from
France. A full account of affairs was compiled, and was signed by
fifteen noblemen and gentlemen, amongst whom the Duke of Athole, who
aspired, according to Lockhart, to be another General Monk, was foremost
in promoting the restoration of the youthful son of James the Second.
This mission was followed by the unsuccessful attempt at invasion on the
part of James, in 1708; when, according to some representations, there
was a far more reasonable prospect of success than at any later period.
The nobility and gentry were, at that time, well prepared to receive the
royal adventurer; the regular army was wholly unfit, either in numbers
or ammunition, to oppose the forces which they would have raised. The
very Guards, it is supposed, would have done duty on the person of James
Stuart the night that he landed. The equivalent money sent to Scotland
to reward the promoters of the Union, was still in the country, and a
considerable part of it was in the Castle of Edinburgh; and a Dutch
fleet had recently run aground on the coast of Angus, and had left
there a vast quantity of powder, shot, and cannon, and a large sum of
money, which might have been secured. England was, at this time,
distracted with jealousies and factions; and although the great
Marlborough was then in the vigour of his youth, ready to defend his
country, as well as to extend her dominions, there were suspicions that
the General was not wholly adverse to the claims of James Stuart.[4]

How far these expectations might have been realised, it is difficult to
say. The French newspapers had proclaimed the preparations for invasion,
and Louis the Fourteenth had taken leave of James, wishing him a
prosperous voyage, and expressing, as the highest compliment, "the hope
that he should never see him again," when a slight, accidental
indisposition disturbed the whole arrangement. The royal youth was taken
ill with the measles; upon which the French troops which had embarked at
Dunkirk disembarked. A fatal delay was occasioned; and the French fleet,
after an ineffectual voyage, went "sneakingly home," "doing," as one of
the most active Jacobites remarks, "much harm to the King, his country,
and themselves."

Such was the fate of the attempt, in 1708, to place James Stuart on the
throne of his ancestors; and it will readily be believed that the
ill-starred endeavour did not add to the probable success of any future
enterprise. Scarcely had the accession of George the First, an event
which a certain historian denominates "a surprising turn of Providence,"
taken place, than the removal of Lord Bolingbroke from office announced
to the Tory party that they had lost their best friend at Court. Upon
this intelligence reaching the Highlands, many of the Jacobites took up
arms; but this hasty demonstration of good will to their cause was
instantly suppressed. The Chevalier was, nevertheless, proclaimed King
in the night time, and three noblemen, the Duke of Gordon, the Marquis
of Huntley, and Lord Drummond, were kept prisoners in their own houses.
In the middle of November, the Chevalier's Declaration, asserting his
right and title to the Crown of England, was sent by a French mail to
many persons of rank in this country. For some months the country was in
a state of ferment, such as, perhaps, had never been witnessed since the
days of the Great Rebellion. The Jacobites were centered in Oxford, but
Bristol was also another of their strongholds; the course of justice was
impeded there by riots; and every effort was made, both there and
elsewhere, to influence the elections, which were carried on with a
degree of venom and fury, exasperated by the cry of "the Church in
danger!"

In February, 1715, the Duke of Argyle, Commander-in-Chief of his
Majesty's forces in Scotland, received information that a vessel
containing arms and ammunition had landed in the Isle of Sky, and that
five strangers had disembarked there, and had instantly dispersed
themselves throughout the country. This was the first positive
indication of the combination, which already comprised most of the
ancient and respected names in Scotland. This confederacy, as it may be
called, had existed ever since the peace of Utrecht, under the form of
the Jacobite Association. In 1710, the formation of the October Club had
shewed plainly the bias of the country gentlemen, who, according to a
judge of men's motives who was rarely satisfied, "did adhere firmly to
their principles and engagements, acting the part of honest countrymen
and dutiful subjects."[5]

About the month of May, the report of James Stuart's intended invasion
of Scotland, and particulars of the preparations made for it in England,
Scotland, and France, became public. Measures were, of course, instantly
taken to guard the coasts of England and Scotland, and to augment land
forces. The Habeas Corpus Act was suspended in England, and in Scotland.
An Act, passed in 1701, for preventing wrong imprisonments, and against
undue delay in trials, was also suspended from the twenty-third of July,
1715, until the twenty-fourth of the ensuing January. A fleet, under the
command of Sir George Byng, was ordered to cruise in the Downs; and the
most active and vigilant measures were taken in order to put the nation
into a position of defence. The former intended invasion of 1708 was not
forgotten, and it acted like a warning voice to the English Ministry. A
Whig Association was framed among persons of rank and influence; and in
Edinburgh a body of volunteers was formed, who might daily be seen
exercising in the Great Hall of the College.

Meantime the Jacobites were increasing in strength. During the last six
years collections had been made in the continental nations, purporting
to be for a "gentleman in distress," and the amount was said to have
exceeded twelve millions.[6] Of this sum, one hundred thousand pounds
was entrusted to the Earl of Mar.

The whole scheme of the insurrection was matured, and the Chevalier had
been proclaimed King in different towns in Scotland, when the death of
Louis the Fourteenth cast such a damp over the spirits of the party,
that there ensued a consultation as to the expediency of their
separating and returning to their homes. In this emergency, unhappily
for the brave and ardent men whom he had assembled at Braemar, the
influence of the Earl of Mar, and the arguments which his sanguine
spirit suggested, prevailed; and the assembled chiefs parted, only to
meet again at their appointed places of rendezvous.

The scheme of the Insurrection of 1715 embraced three different
movements. In the north, the Earl of Mar was to possess himself of all
the rich coasts of Fife, and also to maintain, in the name of James the
Third, the northern counties, which, with few exceptions, were soon
under the control of the insurgents. An attempt was made upon the
southern parts of Scotland, by sending Brigadier Mackintosh, with a
strong detachment of men, to cross the Firth of Forth, and to land in
the Lothians, there expecting to be joined by friends on the borders and
from England. In the west, a rising of the south-country Scots, under
the command of Lord Kenmure, was projected; whilst in Northumberland the
English Jacobites, headed by Mr. Forster, with a commission of General
from Lord Mar, and aided by the Earl of Derwentwater, was to give the
signal and incentive to the adherents of James in the sister Kingdom, as
well as to co-operate with the Scottish forces under the commands of
Brigadier Mackintosh and Viscount Kenmure. An attack upon Edinburgh was
also concerted.

Such is the outline of a plan of an insurrection to the effect of which
the Earl of Mar declared the Jacobites had been looking for six and
twenty years. How immature it was in its conception--how deficient in
energy and union was its execution--how unworthy was its chief
instrument--how fatal to the good and great were its results--and, by a
singular fortune, how those who least merited their safety escaped,
whilst the gallant and honest champions of the cause suffered, will be
fully detailed in the following pages. Let it be remembered that the
task of compiling these Memoirs has been undertaken with no party
spirit, nor with any wish to detract from the deep obligations which we
owe to those who preserved us from inroads on our constitution, and
oppression in our religious opinions. It has been, however, begun with a
sincere wish to do justice to the disinterested and the good; and, as
the task has proceeded, and increased information on the subject has
been gained, it has been continued with a conviction that, whatever may
be the nature or merits of the abstract principles on which it was
undertaken, the Insurrection of 1715 forms an episode in the history of
our country as creditable to many of the ill-fated actors in its tragic
scenes, as any that have been detailed in the pages of that history.

        LONDON,
    _October 28, 1845._

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Dalrymple.

[2] Rapin. Dissertation on the Origin and Government of England, vol.
xiv. p. 423.

[3] See Introduction to the Memoirs of Cameron of Lochiel, p. 22.

[4] Lockhart, vol. i. p. 239.

[5] Lockhart, vol. i. p. 324.

[6] Reay, p. 187.




CONTENTS

TO

THE FIRST VOLUME.


                                                                    PAGE
JOHN ERSKINE, EARL OF MAR (with a Portrait)                            1

JAMES RADCLIFFE, EARL OF DERWENTWATER (with a Portrait)              224

THE MASTER OF SINCLAIR                                               282

CAMERON OF LOCHIEL                                                   313




MEMOIRS OF THE JACOBITES.




JOHN ERSKINE, EARL OF MAR.


"The title of Mar," observes Lord Hailes, "is one of the Earldoms whose
origin is lost in its antiquity." It existed before our records, and
before the era of general history: hence, the Earls of Mar claimed
always to be called first in the Scottish Parliament in the roll of
Earls, as having no rival in the antiquity of their honours.

From the time of Malcolm Canmore, in the year 1065, until the fourteenth
century, the family of De Mar enjoyed this Earldom; but on the death of
Thomas, the thirteenth Earl of Mar, in 1377, the direct male line of
this race ended. The Earldom then devolved upon the female
representatives of the house of De Mar; and thence, as in most similar
instances in Scotland, it became the subject of contention, fraud, and
violence.

Isabel, Countess of Mar and Garioch, the last of the De Mar family, was
won in marriage by a singular and determined species of courtship,
formerly common in Scotland; the influence of terror. The heiress of the
castle of Kildrummie, and a widow, her first husband, Sir Malcolm
Drummond, having died in 1403, her wealth and rank attracted the regards
of Alexander Stewart, the natural son of Robert Earl of Buchan, of royal
blood. Without waiting for the ordinary mode of persuasion to establish
an interest in his favour, this wild, rapacious man appeared in the
Highlands at the head of a band of plunderers, and planting himself
before the castle of Kildrummie, stormed it, and effected a marriage
between himself and the Countess of Mar. Alexander Stewart, in cooler
moments, however, perceived the danger of this bold measure, and
resolved to establish his right to the Countess and to her estates by
another process. One morning, during the month of September 1404, he
presented himself at the Castle gate of Kildrummie, and formally
surrendered to the Countess the castle, its furniture, and the
title-deeds kept within its chests; thus returning them to her to do
with them as she pleased. The Countess, on the other hand, holding the
keys in her hand, and declaring herself to be of "mature advice," chose
the said Alexander for her husband, and gave him the castle, the Earldom
of Mar, with all the other family estates in her possession. She
afterwards conferred these gifts by a charter, signed and sealed in the
open fields, in the presence of the Bishop of Ross, and of her whole
tenantry, in order to show that these acts were produced by no unlawful
coercion on the part of her husband. The said honours and estates were
also to descend to any children born in that marriage. Some of her
kindred listened resentfully to the account of these proceedings of
Isabel of Mar.

The next heir to the Earldom, after the death of Isabel, was Janet,
grand-daughter of Gratney, eleventh Earl of Mar. This lady had married
Sir Thomas Erskine, the proprietor of the Barony of Erskine, on the
Clyde, the property of the family during many ages; and she expected, on
the death of the Countess of Mar, to succeed to the honours which had
descended to her by the female line. By a series of unjust and rapacious
acts on the part of the Crown, not only did Robert, Lord Erskine, her
son, fail in securing his rights, but her descendants had the vexation
of seeing their just honours and rights revert to the King, James the
Third, who bestowed them first upon his brother, the accomplished and
unfortunate John Earl of Mar, who was bled to death in one of the houses
of the Canongate, in Edinburgh; and afterwards, upon Cochrane, the
favourite of James the Third. The Earldom of Mar was then conferred on
Alexander Stewart, the third son of King James; and after his death,
upon James Stewart, Prior of St. Andrews, who had a charter from his
sister, Queen Mary, entitling him to enjoy the long contested honour.
But he soon relinquished the title, to assume that of Moray, which had
also been bestowed upon him by the Queen: and in 1565 Mary repaired the
injustice committed by her predecessors, and restored John Lord Erskine
to the Earldom of Mar.

The house of Erskine, on whom these honours now descended, has the same
traditional origin as that of most of the other Scottish families of
note. In the days of Malcolm the Second, a Scottish man having killed
with his own hand Enrique, a Danish general, presented the head of the
enemy to his Sovereign, and, holding in his hand the bloody dagger with
which the deed had been performed, exclaimed, in Gaelic, "Eris Skyne,"
alluding to the head and the dagger; upon which the surname of Erskine
was imposed on him. The armorial bearing of a hand holding a dagger, was
added as a further distinction, together with the motto, _Je pense
plus_, in allusion to the declaration of the chieftain that he intended
to perform even greater actions than that which procured him the name
which has since been so celebrated in Scottish history. The crest and
motto are still borne by the family.

This anecdote has, however, been rejected for the more probable
conjecture that the family of Erskine derived its appellation from the
estate of Erskine on the Clyde:[7] yet it is not impossible but that
tradition may, in most cases, have a deeper source than we are willing
to allow to it. "There are few points in ancient history," observes a
modern writer, "on which more judgment is required than in the amount
of weight due to _tradition_. In general it will be found that the
tradition subsisting in the families themselves has a true basis to rest
upon, however much it may be overloaded with collateral matter which
obscures it."[8]

But that which ennobled most truly the first Earl of Mar, of the house
of Erskine, was his own probity, loyalty, and patriotism. Destined
originally to the church, John, properly sixth Earl of Mar, carried into
public life those virtues which would have adorned the career of a
private individual. In the melancholy interest of Queen Mary's eventful
life, it is consolatory to reflect on the integrity and moderation of
this exemplary nobleman. Too good and too sensitive for his times, he
died of a broken heart, the result of that inward and incurable sorrow
which the generous and the honest experience, when their hopes and
designs are baffled by the selfish policy of their own party. "He was,
perhaps," says Robertson, "the only person in the kingdom who could have
enjoyed the office of Regent without envy, and have left it without loss
of reputation."[9]

From the restoration of John Earl of Mar to his family honours, until
the reign of Charles the First, the prosperity of this loyal and
favoured family increased, interrupted indeed by some vicissitudes of
fortune, but by no serious reverses, until that period which, during the
commotions of the Great Rebellion, reduced many of our proudest nobility
to comparative poverty.

Among other important trusts enjoyed by the family of Erskine, the
government of the Castle of Edinburgh, and the custody of the principal
forts in the kingdom, attested the confidence of their Sovereigns. To
these was added by Mary Queen of Scots, the command of the Castle of
Stirling, and the still more important charge of her infant son. To
these marks of confidence numerous grants of lands and high appointments
succeeded,--obligations which were repaid with a fidelity which
impoverished the family of Erskine; and which produced, towards the
close of the seventeenth century, a marked decline in their fortunes,
and decay of their local influence.

John, ninth Earl of Mar, the grandfather of the Jacobite Earl, suffered
severely for his loyalty in joining the association at Cumbernauld, in
favour of Charles the First. He afterwards raised forces at Brae-Mar for
the King's service, for which he was heavily fined by the Parliament,
and his estates were sequestrated. During all this season of adversity
he lived in a cottage at the gate of his house at Alloa, until the
Restoration relieved him from the sequestration.

His son Charles, who raised the first regiment of Scottish Fusileers,
and was constituted their Colonel, began life as a determined Royalist;
but disapproving of the measures of James the Second, he had prepared
to go abroad when the Prince of Orange landed in England. He appears
afterwards to have pursued somewhat of the same wavering course as that
of which his son has been accused, and, joining the disaffected party
against William, he was arrested, but afterwards released. The heavy
incumbrances upon his estates, contracted during the civil wars, were
such as to oblige him to sell a great portion of his lands, and to part
with the ancient Barony of Erskine, the first possession of the family.
This necessity may almost be considered as an ill omen for the future
welfare of a family; which never seems to be so utterly brought low by
fortune, as when compelled to consign to strangers that from which the
first sense of importance and stability has been derived.

Under these circumstances, certainly not favourable to independence of
character, John, eleventh Earl of Mar of the name of Erskine, and
afterwards Lieutenant-general to the Chevalier St. George, was born at
Alloa, in Clackmannan, where his father resided. He was a younger son of
a numerous family, five brothers, older than himself, having died in
infancy. His mother, the Lady Mary Maule, eldest daughter of George Earl
of Panmure, gave birth to eight sons, and a daughter. Of the sons, the
Earl of Mar and his brothers, James Erskine of the Grange, afterwards
the husband of the famous and unfortunate Lady Grange; and Henry, killed
at the battle of Almanza in 1707, alone attained the age of manhood.
The only sister of Lord Mar, Lady Jean, was married to Sir Hugh Paterson
of Bannockburn, in Stirlingshire.

The Earl of Mar succeeded to the possession and management of estates,
heavily encumbered, in 1696.[10] His qualities of mind and person, at
this early period of his life, were not eminently pleasing. His
countenance, though strongly marked, had none of the attributes of
intellectual strength. In person he is said to have been deformed,
although his portrait by Kneller was skilfully contrived to hide that
defect; his complexion was fair: he was short in stature. In his early
youth the Earl is declared by historians who were adverse to the
Stuarts, to have been initiated into every species of licentious
dissipation, by Neville Payne: and the young nobleman is characterized
as "the scandal of his name."[11] Although his ancestors had been
devotedly attached to the interests of the exiled family, yet, it was to
be shewn how far Mar preferred those interests to his own, or upon what
principles he eventually adopted the cause of hereditary monarchy, which
had already brought so much inconvenience, and so many losses to his
father and grandfather.

The first political prepossessions of the young Earl must certainly have
been those of the Cavaliers; such was the name by which the party
continued to be called who still desired the restoration of James the
Second, and fervidly believed in the fruition of their hopes. His
father had indeed, to use the words of Lockhart of Carnwath, "embarked
with the Revolution;" but had given tokens of his deep contrition for
that act, so inconsistent with his hereditary allegiance. But the
unformed opinions of the young are far more easily swayed by events
which are passing before their eyes than by the cool reasonings of the
closet; and the inclinations of the Earl of Mar's childhood were likely
soon to be effaced by the state of public affairs. The later occurrences
of the reign of William the Third were calculated not only to repress
the spirit of Jacobitism, but to shame even the most enthusiastic of its
partisans out of a scheme which the sagacity of William had defeated,
and which his wisdom had taught him to forgive. It was in the year 1696,
just as the Earl of Mar succeeded to his title, that the projected
invasion of the kingdom, and the scheme of assassinating the King, were
defeated:--that William, hastening to the House of Commons, gave to the
nation an account of the whole conspiracy. The House of Commons, without
rising from their seats, then "declared that William was their rightful
king, and that they would defend him with their lives." It was at this
important æra that James the Second, after long waiting at Calais, and
casting thence many a wishful look towards England, returned to St.
Germains, "to thank God that he had lost his country, because it had
saved his soul."[12] The hopes of the Cavaliers were thus wholly
extinguished: and to these circumstances were the first observations of
the youthful Earl of Mar doubtless directed.

His guardians, seemingly desirous of retrieving the affairs of the
family, had endeavoured to imbue his mind with Revolution
principles;[13] and the famous association which acknowledged the title
of William to the throne of England, framed about this time, was signed
by many who became in after life the friends of the Earl of Mar. This
was precisely the period when that political profligacy, too justly
charged upon the leading men in this country, and which induced them,
under the impression that the exiled family would be eventually
restored, to correspond with the Court of St. Germains, was
tranquillized, although not eradicated by the great policy and
forbearance of William.[14] That single reply of William's to Charnock,
who had trafficked between France and England with these negotiations,
and who offered to disclose to the King the names of those who had
employed him;--these few words, "I do not wish to hear them,"[15] did
more to soothe discontents, and to repress the violence of faction, than
the subsequent executions in the reign of George the First.

The Earl of Mar, left as he was at the early age of fourteen to his own
guidance, very soon displayed a remarkable prudence in his pecuniary
affairs, and a desire to repair by good management the fortunes of his
family,--a point which he accomplished, to a certain extent. His
dawning character shewed him to be shrewd and wary, but possessing no
extended views, and disposed to rest his hopes of elevation and
distinction upon petty intrigues, rather than to look upon probity and
exertion as the true basis of greatness. His great talent consisted in
the management of his designs, "in which," remarks one who knew him
well, "it was hard to find him out when he desired to be incognito; and
thus he shewed himself to be a man of good sense, but bad morals."[16]

On the 8th of September, 1696, the Earl of Mar took his seat in the
Scottish Parliament, protesting, as his forefathers had done, against
any Scottish Earl being called before him in the Roll. He became a
frequent, but indifferent speaker in Parliament; but his continual
activity, and the address which he soon acquired as the fruit of
experience, together with the position which he held, as one generally
understood to be well affected to the new order of things, yet of
sufficient importance to be gained over to the other side, soon made him
an object for party spirit to assail.

During the reign of William, the Earl of Mar continued constant to the
side to which he had declared himself to belong. His pecuniary
embarrassments, acting upon a restless, ambitious temper, rendered it
difficult to a man weak in principle to retain independence of
character: and it must be avowed, that there are few temptations to
depart from the road of integrity more urgent than the desire to raise
an ancient name to its original splendour. No encumbrances are so
likely to drag their victim away from integrity as those by which rank
is clogged with poverty.

In April, 1697, Lord Mar was chosen a privy councillor; and shortly
afterwards invested with the Order of the Thistle; and the command of a
company of foot bestowed upon him. On the death of William his fortune
was rather improved than deteriorated, although he continued to attach
himself to the Revolution Party, who, it was generally understood, were
very far from being acceptable to the Queen. "At her accession,"
declares a Jacobite writer, "the Presbyterians looked upon themselves as
undone; despair appeared in their countenances, which were more upon the
melancholic and dejected than usual." The management of Scottish affairs
was, nevertheless, entirely in the hands of the advocates of the
Revolution; and one of their greatest supporters, the Duke of
Queensbury, was appointed High Commissioner of the Scottish Parliament,
notwithstanding the representations of some of the most powerful
nobility in Scotland.

To the party of this celebrated politician the Earl of Mar attached
himself, with a tenacity for which those who recollected the hereditary
politics of the Erskine family, could find no motives but self-interest.
James, Duke of Queensbury, was, it is true, the son of one of the most
active partisans of the Stuart family, to whom the house of Queensbury
owed both its ducal rank and princely fortune. Possessed of good
abilities, but devoid of application, and with the disadvantage to a
public man of being of an easy, indolent temper, this celebrated
promoter of the union between Scotland and England, had acquired, by
courtesy, and by a long administration of affairs, a singular influence
over his countrymen. His character has been written with a pen that
could scarcely find sufficient invectives for those politicians who, in
the opinion of the writer, were the ruin of their country. The Duke of
Queensbury falls under the heaviest censures. "To outward appearance,"
says Lockhart, "he was of a gentle and good disposition, but inwardly a
very devil, standing at nothing to advance his own interest and designs.
Though his hypocrisy and dissimulation served him very much, yet he
became so well known, that no man, except such as were his nearest
friends, and _socii criminis_, gave him any trust; and so little regard
had he to his promises and vows, that it was observed and notorious,
that if he was at any pains to convince you of his friendship, and by
swearing and imprecating curses on himself and family to assure you of
his sincerity, then, to be sure, he was doing you underhand all the
mischief in his power."[17]

These characteristics must be viewed as proceeding from the pen of a
partisan; nor can we wonder at the contrariety of opinion which prevails
respecting any public man who proposes a great and startling measure.
Honours, places, and a pension were showered down upon this most
fortunate of ministers; and his career is remarkable as having been
cheered by the favour of four sovereigns of very different tempers. In
his early youth, after his return from his travels, the Duke of
Queensbury was appointed a Privy Councillor of Scotland by Charles the
Second. He held the same post under James the Second, but resigned it in
1688. The reserved and doubting William of Orange placed him near his
person, making him a Lord of the Bedchamber, and captain of his Dutch
guard; eventually he became Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, and--to
abridge a list of numerous employments and honours--Lord High
Commissioner of Scotland. So far had Queensbury's fortunes begun with
the Stuarts and continued under the House of Orange. It appeared
unlikely that the successor of William--she who in her first speech
announced that her heart was "wholly English," to mark the distinction
between herself and the foreigner who had sat on the throne before
her,--would adopt as her own representative in Scotland the favourite of
William; yet she continued Queensbury in that high station which it was
believed none could fill so adequately in the disturbed and refractory
kingdom of Scotland.[18]

During the early years of Queen Anne's reign, and in the season of his
own comparative prosperity, the young Earl of Mar entered into his first
marriage, at Twickenham, with Lady Margaret Hay, daughter of John Earl
of Kinnoul. The wife whom he thus selected was the daughter of a house
originally adverse to the principles of the Revolution. William Earl of
Kinnoul, in the time of James the Second, had remained at St. Germains
with that monarch. But the same change which had manifested the
political course of Lord Mar, had been apparent in the father of Lady
Margaret Hay. The Earl of Kinnoul was afterwards one of the
Commissioners for the Union, and supported that treaty in Parliament;
yet, when the Rebellion of 1715 commenced, this nobleman was one of the
suspected persons who were summoned to surrender themselves, and was
committed a prisoner to Edinburgh Castle. His daughter, the Countess of
Mar, was happily spared from witnessing the turmoils of that period.
Married in her seventeenth year, she lived only four years with a
husband whose character was but partially developed, when, in 1707, she
died at the age of twenty-one, having given birth to two sons. She was
buried at the family seat at Alloa Castle, an ancient fortress, built in
the year 1300, one turret of which still remaining rises ninety feet
from the ground. Seven years intervened before Lord Mar supplied the
place of his lost wife by another union.

His days were, indeed, consumed in public affairs, varied by the
improvement of his Scottish estates, embellishing the tower of Alloa by
laying out beautiful gardens in that wilderness style of planting which
the Earl first introduced into Scotland.[19] He had the reward of
seeing his efforts succeed, the gardens of Alloa being much eulogized
and visited. This was by no means Lord Mar's only recreation;
architecture was his delight, and he introduced into London the
celebrated Gibbs, who, out of gratitude, eventually bequeathed a large
portion of his fortune to the children of the Earl.[20] It is refreshing
to view this busy and versatile politician in this light before we
plunge into the depths of those intricate politics which form the
principal features of his life.

It was during the year 1703 that a political association or club was
framed consisting of the chief nobility and gentlemen of fortune and
afterwards known by the name of the _Squadrone Volante_. They acquired
distinguished popularity and influence by the patriotic character of the
measures which they introduced into the Scottish Parliament; and by
their professions of being free from any court interest, they gained the
confidence of the country. They were firm friends of the Revolution
party, great sticklers to the Protestant succession, forming a _separate
band_ distinct from the Whigs, yet opposed to the Cavaliers, or, as they
were afterwards called, Jacobites. The power of the Squadrone was, in a
great measure, the result of those jarring counsels in the Scottish
Parliament, which only coalesced upon one theme,--independence of
England--interference of "foreign" or English counsels, as they were
termed. This combination was headed by the Duke of Montrose, the Marquis
of Tweedale, and several other Scottish noblemen, to whom adhered thirty
commoners.[21]

During the existence of this association, the celebrated "Queensbury
affair," as it was usually called, involved the temporary disgrace of
the Duke of Queensbury, and first brought to view those convenient
doctrines of expediency which afterwards formed so marked a feature in
the character of Lord Mar.

The "sham plot," as it is called by Jacobite writers, was a supposed
intended invasion of Great Britain, disclosed to the Duke of Queensbury
by Simon Fraser of Beaufort, afterwards Lord Lovat; whose very name
seems to have suggested to his contemporaries, as it has since done to
posterity, the combination of all that is subtle, treacherous, and base,
with all that is dangerous, desperate, and remorseless in conduct.

This tool of the court of St. Germains came over from France, in company
with John Murray, who was sent to watch his proceedings, and also to aid
his object in procuring the promises of the most distinguished Highland
chieftains to the furtherance of the projected invasion of England. The
assistance of Captain Murray was conjoined on this occasion, the
fidelity of that gentleman having been ascertained by the court of St.
Germains; whilst there existed not a human being who did not
instinctively distrust Beaufort: to Mary of Modena, who far more
ardently desired the restoration of the Stuarts than her consort James,
he was peculiarly obnoxious.

The exiled Queen's fears proved well founded, for no sooner had Beaufort
landed in England, than he formed the scheme of converting this secret
enterprise into a means of obtaining reward and protection from the Duke
of Argyle, whose mediation with the Duke of Queensbury he required for
private reasons; he therefore notified his arrival to Argyle, who had
been his early and hereditary friend, offering at the same time to make
great disclosures, if he had previous assurances of remuneration.

Such is the account of most impartial writers, and more especially of
those who lean to the Whig party: but, by the Jacobites, the very
existence of a conspiracy to invade England at this time was denied, and
the whole affair was declared to be a scheme of the Duke of Queensbury's
to undermine the reputation of the Cavaliers, and "to find a pretence to
vent his wrath, and execute his malice against those who thwarted his
arbitrary designs," for the completion of a treaty of union between
Scotland and England, which had been in contemplation ever since the
days of William the Third.[22]

After much deliberation the Duke of Queensbury was induced to have
several communications with Fraser of Beaufort, and to listen to the
information which he gave, all of which the Duke transmitted to Queen
Anne, although he concealed the name of his informant. In consequence of
Fraser's disclosures, several persons coming from France to England were
apprehended on suspicion of being engaged in the Pretender's service,
and an universal alarm was spread, as well as a distrust of the motives
and proceedings of Queensbury, who thus acted upon the intelligence of
an avowed spy, and noted outlaw, like Fraser. A temporary loss of
Queensbury's political sway in Scotland was the result, and a consequent
increase of power to the Squadrone Volante.

It was at this juncture that the Earl of Mar came forward as the
advocate of the Duke of Queensbury's measures, and the opponent of the
Squadrone Volante, who had now completely fixed upon themselves that
name, from their pretending to act by themselves, and to cast the
balance of contending parties in Parliament. The opposition of Lord Mar
to the Squadrone was peculiarly acceptable to the Tories, or Cavaliers,
who had recently applied to that faction to assist them in the defence
of their country against the Union, but who had been greeted with an
indignant and resolute refusal.

The Earl of Mar therefore appeared as the champion of the Cavaliers, and
for the first time won their confidence and approbation. "He headed,"
writes the bitter and yet truthful Lockhart, "such of the Duke of
Queensbury's friends as opposed the Marquis of Tweedale and his party's
designs; and that with such art and dissimulation, that he gained the
favour of all the Tories, and was by them esteemed an honest man, and
well inclined to the royal family. Certain it is, he vowed and protested
as much many a time; but no sooner was the Marquis of Tweedale and his
party dispossessed, than he returned as a dog to the vomit, and promoted
all the court of England's measures with the greatest zeal
imaginable."[23] The three parties in the Scottish Parliament, according
to the same authority, consisted of the Cavaliers,--that remnant of the
Jacobite party which remained vigorous, more especially in the
Highlands, since the days of Dundee,--of the Squadrone, "or _outer_
court party," and of the present court party, consisting of true blue
Presbyterians and Revolutioners.[24] With the interests of the latter
party the Earl of Mar was undoubtedly engaged.

Scotland was at this time, and continued for several years, racked with
dissensions regarding the Treaty of Union. No one can form an adequate
idea of the heartburnings, feuds, parties, and tumults, by which that
great measure was preceded, and followed, without looking into the
contemporary writers, whose aim it ever is to heighten the picture of
passing events; whereas the calm historian subdues it into one general
effect of keeping.

The Earl of Mar took a prominent part in seconding the treaty; no man's
commencement of a career could be more opposed to its termination than
that of this politician of easy virtue. The Duke of Queensbury was for
some time so hated in Scotland as scarcely to venture to appear there,
but contented himself with sending the Duke of Argyle as commissioner,
and "using him as the monkey did the cat in pulling out the hot roasted
chesnut." But when he was, after an interval, reinstated in power, Lord
Mar was again his devoted ally. The influence of the Duke over every
mind with which he came into collision was, indeed, almost irresistible.
"I cannot but wonder," remarks the indignant Lockhart, "at the influence
he had over all men of sense, quality, and estate; men that had, at
least many of them, no dependance on him, yet were so deluded as to
serve his ambitious designs, contrary to the acknowledged dictates of
their own conscience."[25]

In 1706, in the beginning of the session of Parliament, the Earl of Mar
presented the draught of an Act for appointing Commissioners, to treat
of an Union of the two kingdoms of Scotland and England. Thus was he the
instrument of first presenting to the Scotch that measure so revolting
to their prejudices, so singularly distasteful to a proud and
independent people. It is impossible to judge how far Lord Mar was
convinced of the expediency of the Treaty, or whether he was, in secret,
one of those who feigned an affection for the measure, whilst, in their
hearts, they wished for the preponderance of the votes against it. The
Treaty of Union was espoused by those in whose opinions Lord Mar had
been nurtured,--and originally, according to De Foe, it had been mooted
by William the Third, who declared that this Island would never be easy
without an union. "I have done all I can in that affair," he once
observed; "but I do not see a temper in either nation that looks like
it: it may be done, but not yet."[26]

The Treaty, retarded by many interests, clashing between nations, but,
more especially, by the burning recollections of massacred countrymen in
the blood-stained valley of Glencoe, was now brought into discussion
just when the Earl of Mar was at that age when a thirst for gain, or an
ambition to rise is unquenched, in general, by disappointment. Differing
in one respect from many Cavaliers, in being of a family strictly
Protestant, Lord Mar had not the inducement which operated upon the
Catholics, in their undiminished, ardent desire to restore the young
Prince of Wales to the throne. Differing, again, in another respect from
many of the Jacobites, Lord Mar had not the tie of a personal knowledge
of the exiled King to fix his fidelity; or, what was considered far more
likely to have sealed his, or any adherent allegiance, he had enjoyed no
opportunities of cultivating the favour of the enthusiastic, bigoted,
and yet intelligent Mary of Modena, whose exertions for her family kept
alive the spirit of Jacobitism during the decline of her royal devotee
and the childhood of her son. Lord Mar seems to have been reared
entirely in Scotland, and he might perhaps come under the description
given by the eloquent Lord Belhaven of a Whig in Scotland:--"A true,
blue Presbyterian, who, without considering time or power, will venture
all for the Kirk, but something less for the State;"[27] but that his
subsequent conduct contradicts this supposition.

The Treaty struggled on through a powerful and memorable opposition. It
is a curious instance of Scottish pride, that one of the objections made
to the Commissioners appointed to treat of the Union, was, that there
were six or eight newly-raised families amongst them, and but few of
the great and ancient names of Hamilton, Graham, Murray, Erskine, and
many others.[28] Never was there so much domestic misery and
humiliation, abroad, for poor Scotland, as during the progress of this
Treaty. The fame of Marlborough, and the fortunes of Godolphin, were now
at their zenith; they were considered as the great arbiters of Scottish
affairs,--the Queen being only applied to for the sake of form. These
two great statesmen treated the Scottish noblemen to whom the Cavaliers
entrusted the success of their representations, with a lofty insolence,
which galled the proud Highlanders, and went to their very hearts.

"I myself," writes the author of Memoirs of Scotland, "out of curiosity,
went sometimes to their levées, where I saw the Commissioners, the Duke
of Queensbury, the Chancellor, the Secretary, Lord Mar, and other great
men of Scotland, hang on near an hour; and when admitted, treated with
no more civility than one gentleman pays another's valet-de-chambre; and
for which the Scots have none to blame but themselves, for had they
valued themselves as they ought to have done, and not so meanly and
sneakingly prostituted their honour and country to the will and pleasure
of the English Ministry, they would never have presumed to usurp such a
dominion over Scotland, as openly and avowedly to consult upon and
determine in Scots' affairs."[29]

At home, the spirit of party ran to an extent which cannot be called
insane, because the interests at stake were those dearest to a
high-spirited people. "Factions," exclaimed Lord Belhaven, "in
Parliament, are now become independent, and have got footing in
councils, in parliaments, in treaties, in armies, in incorporations, in
families, among kindred; yea, man and wife are not free from them."[30]
"Hannibal, my Lord," he cried, in one of what Lockhart calls his long
premeditated harangues, "Hannibal is at our gates; Hannibal is come the
length of this table; he is at the foot of this throne: he will demolish
the throne; if we take not notice, he will seize upon these regalia;
he'll take them as our _spolia opima_, and whip us out of this House,
never to return again."

In order to understand the effect of the Act of Union upon the hopes of
the Jacobite party, it is necessary to take into consideration the
following facts. The Act of the English Parliament, by which the Crown
had been settled on Queen Mary and her sister, extended only to the
Princess Anne and her issue. After the death of the Duke of Gloucester,
and about the end of the reign of William the Third, another settlement
was made, by which the Crown was settled on the House of Hanover; but no
similar Act was passed in Scotland. And at the beginning of Queen Anne's
reign, and until after the Union, the Scottish Parliament were legally
possessed of a power to introduce again the exiled family into Great
Britain.[31]

During the course of the negotiations for the Treaty of Union, the Earl
of Mar formed an alliance with the celebrated Duke of Hamilton. In the
consideration of public affairs at this period, it may not appear a
digression to give some insight into the character of one who headed the
chief party in the Scottish Parliament, and with whom the Earl of Mar
was, at this period of his life, in frequent intercourse.

James Duke of Hamilton was at this period nearly fifty years of age. His
youth had been passed in the gay court of Charles the Second, as one of
the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber of that monarch,--an office which he
only relinquished to become Ambassador Extraordinary to France, where he
remained long enough to serve in two campaigns under Louis the
Fourteenth. Upon the death of Charles the Second, Louis recommended the
young nobleman, then termed Earl of Arran, strongly and essentially to
James the Second, who made him Master of his Wardrobe, and appointed him
to other offices.

Under these circumstances it is not surprising that in the honest and
warm feelings of the Duke of Hamilton, affection for the Stuarts should
form a principal feature. He had the courage to adhere firmly to James
the Second, amid the general obloquy, and to accompany the monarch on
his abdication to his embarkation at Rochester. "I can distinguish," he
said, at a meeting of the Scottish nobility in London, over which his
father, the Duke of Hamilton presided, "between the King's popery and
his person. I dislike the one, but have sworn to do allegiance to the
other, which makes it impossible to withhold that which I cannot forbear
believing is the King my master's right: for his present absence in
France can no more affect my duty, than his longer absence from us has
done all this while."

Notwithstanding these professions, upon the unfortunate conclusion of
the affair of Darien, the Earl of Arran, after twice encountering
imprisonment upon account of the Stuarts, esteemed it his duty to his
country to take the oaths to King William, in order to qualify himself
to sit in Parliament.

The character of the Duke of Hamilton presents a favourable specimen of
the well-principled and well-intentioned Scotchman, with the
acknowledged virtues and obvious defects of the national character. He
was disinterested in great matters, refusing many opportunities of
worldly advantage, and bearing for the first eight years of his public
career, a retirement which is always more galling to an ambitious temper
than actual danger; yet, it was supposed, and not without reason, that,
whilst his heart was with the Cavaliers, or country party, the
considerations of his great estate in England occasioned a lukewarmness
in his political conduct, and broke down his opposition to the Union.
Wary and cautious, he could thus sacrifice his present hopes of a
distinction which his talents would have readily attained, to his
adherence to a lost cause; but his resolution failed when the sacrifice
of what many might deem inferior interests, was required.

The Duke soon formed a considerable party in the Parliament; and his
empire over the affections of his countrymen grew daily. To those to
whom he confided, the Duke was gracious and unbending; but a suspicion
of an insult recalled the native haughtiness attributable to his
house.[32] "Frank, honest, and good-natured," as he was esteemed by
Swift, and displaying on his dark, coarse countenance, the
characteristics of good sense and energy, the Duke was a bitter and
vindictive foe[33]--characteristics of his age, and of a nation
undoubtedly prone to wreak a singular and remorseless revenge on all who
offend the hereditary pride, or militate against the prejudices of its
people.

Endowed with these qualities, the whole career of James Duke of Hamilton
was a struggle between his love for his country, and his consideration
for what he esteemed its truest interests, and his desire to support the
claims of the royal family of Stuart. His political career has been
criticised by writers of every faction; but it must be judged of as
having taken place in times of peculiar difficulty, and a due credit
should be given to the motives of one who displayed, during the greater
portion of his life, forbearance and consistency. "Had not his loyalty
been so unalterable," writes Lockhart, "and that he would never engage
in King William's and his Government's service, and his love to his
country induced him to oppose that King and England's injustice and
encroachments on it, no doubt he had made as great a figure in the world
as any other whatsoever, and that either in a civil or military
capacity."[34] "The Duke of Hamilton's love for his country," observes a
contemptuous, anonymous assailant, "made him leave London, and follow
King James, who had enslaved it. His love to his country had engaged him
in several plots to restore that prince, and with him, tyranny and
idolatry, poverty and slavery."[35] Upon the odious principle of always
seeking out for the lowest and the most selfish motive that can actuate
the conduct of men,--a principle which is thought by weak and bad minds
to display knowledge of the world, but which, in fact, more often
betrays ignorance,--another part of his conduct was misjudged. The
reluctance of the Duke of Hamilton, in 1704, to nominate a successor to
the throne of England, before framing the treaty touching "the Commerce
of Scotland and other Concerns," was ascribed by many to the remote hope
of succeeding to the Crown, since, in case of the exclusion of the
Princess Sophia and her descendants, his family was the next in
succession, of the Protestant Faith. Such was one of the reasons
assigned for the wise endeavour which this nobleman exerted to prevent
an invasion of the kingdom by James Stuart during the reign of Anne, and
such the motive adduced for his advice to the Chevalier to maintain
terms of amity with his royal sister. It was the cause calumniously
assigned of his supposed decline in attachment to the exiled family.[36]

But, notwithstanding the inference thus deduced, the Duke of Hamilton
continued to enjoy, in no ordinary degree, popular applause and the
favour of Queen Anne, until his tragical death in 1712 occurring just
before the Rebellion of 1715, spared him the perplexity of deciding on
which side he should embark in that perilous and ill-omened
insurrection.

This celebrated statesman,--one who never entered into a new measure,
nor formed a project, ("though in doing thereof," says Lockhart, "he was
too cautious") that he did not prosecute his designs with a courage that
nothing could daunt,--now determined to win over the Earl of Mar from
the Duke of Queensbury. The Duke of Hamilton was the more induced to the
attempt, from the frequent protestations made by the Earl of Mar of his
love for the exiled family; and he applied himself to the task of
gaining this now important ally with all the skill which experience and
shrewdness could supply. Hamilton was considered invincible in such
undertakings, and was master of a penetration which no one could
withstand. "Never was," writes Lockhart, "a man so qualified to be the
head of a party as himself; for he could, with the greatest dexterity,
apply himself to, and sift through, the inclinations of different
parties, and so cunningly manage them, that he gained some of all to
his." But the Duke met in Lord Mar with one equally skilled in diving
into motives, and in bending the will of others to his own projects. In
the encounter of these two minds, the Duke is said to have been worsted
and disarmed; and the Earl of Mar, by his insinuations, is suspected to
have materially influenced the conduct of that great leader of party. "I
have good reason to suppose," says Lockhart, "that his Grace's appearing
with less zeal and forwardness in this ensuing than in former
Parliaments, is attributable to some agreement passed between them
two."[37]

For the effect of his newly-acquired influence over the Duke of
Hamilton, and for his other services in promoting the Union, the Earl of
Mar was amply rewarded. During the Parliament of 1705, he was
constituted one of the Commissioners of that Treaty, his name being
third on the list. In 1706, he was appointed one of the Secretaries of
State for Scotland; and afterwards, upon the loss of that office, in
consequence of the Union between the two countries, he was compensated
by being made Keeper of the Signet, with the addition of a pension.[38]
Those who were the promoters of the Treaty must have required some
consolation for the general opprobrium into which the measure brought
the Commissioners. The indignant populace converted the name of
"Treaters" into Traitors: the Parliament Close resounded with "very free
language," denouncing the "Traitors." That picturesque enclosure, since
destroyed by fire, was crowded by a vehement multitude, who rushed into
the outer Parliament House to denounce the Duke of Queensbury and his
party, and to cheer the Duke of Hamilton, whom they followed to his
residence in Holyrood House, exhorting him to stand by his country, and
assuring him of support. The tumults were, indeed, soon quelled by
military force; but the deliberations of Parliament were carried on at
the risk of summary vengeance upon the "Traitors:" and the eloquence of
members was uttered between walls which were guarded, during the whole
session, by all the military force that Edinburgh could command. The
Duke of Queensbury was obliged to walk "as if he had been led to the
gallows,"[39] through two lanes of musqueteers, from the Parliament
House to the Cross, where his coach stood; no coaches, nor any person
who was not a member, being allowed to enter the Parliament Close
towards evening: and he was conveyed in his carriage to the Abbey,
surrounded both by horse and foot guards.

On the 1st of May, 1707, the Articles of Union were ratified by the
Parliament of England. That day has been set down by the opponents of
the measure as one never to be forgotten by Scotland,--the loss of their
independence and sovereignty. Superstition marked every stage of the
measure as happening upon some date adverse to the Stuarts. On the
fourth of November the first Article of the Union was approved; on a
fourth of November was William of Orange born. On the eighth of January
the Peerage was renounced; on an eighth of January was the warrant for
the Murder at Glencoe signed. The ratification of the Article of Union
was on the sixteenth of January. On a sixteenth of January was the
sentence of Charles the First pronounced. The dissolution of the
Scottish Parliament took place upon the twenty-fifth of March, according
to the Old Style, New Year's Day: that concession might therefore be
esteemed a New-year's Gift to the English.

Finally,--The Equivalent, or Compensation Money, that is, "the price of
Scotland," came to Edinburgh on the fifth of August, the day on which
the Earl of Gowrie designed to murder James the Sixth.[40]

The discontents and tumults which attended the progress of the Union ran
throughout the whole country, and pervaded all ranks of people. Yet it
is remarkable, that the nobility of Scotland should have been the first
to fail in their opposition to the measure; and that the middle ranks,
together with the lowest of the people, should have been foremost to
withstand what they considered as insulting to the independence of their
country. The very name and antiquity of their kingdom was dear to them,
although there remained, after the removal of James the First into
England, little more than "a vain shadow of a name, a yoke of slavery,
and image of a kingdom."[41] It was in vain that the Duke of Hamilton
had called, in the beginning of the debates on this measure, upon the
families of "Bruce, Campbell, Douglas," not to desert their country: the
opposition to the Union was bought over, with many exceptions, with a
price;--twenty thousand pounds being sent over to the Lords
Commissioners to employ in this manner, twelve thousand pounds of which
were, however, returned to the English Treasury, there being no more who
would accept the bribe. The Earl of Mar and the Earl of Seafield had
privately secured their own reward, having bargained "for greater
matters than could be agreed upon while the kingdom of Scotland stood in
safety."[42]

Amidst the resentment of the Scotch for their insulted dignity, it is
amusing to find that this Union of the two countries could be deemed
derogatory to English dignity; yet Dean Swift, among others, considered
it in that light. "Swift's hatred to the Scottish nation," observes Sir
Walter Scott, "led him to look upon that Union with great resentment, as
a measure degrading to England. The Scottish themselves hardly detested
the idea more than he did; and that is saying as much as possible."[43]

Swift vented his wrath in the verses beginning with these lines:

    "The Queen has lately lost a part
    Of her entirely-English heart,[44]
    For want of which, by way of botch,
    She piec'd it up again with Scotch.
    Blest Revolution! which creates
    Divided hearts, united states!
    See how the double nation lies
    Like a rich coat with skirts of frize:
    As if a man in making posies,
    Should bundle thistles up with roses!"

That the conduct of Lord Mar throughout this Treaty was regarded with
avowed suspicion, the following anecdote tends to confirm: Lord
Godolphin, at that time First Lord of the Treasury, wishing to tamper
with one of a combination against the Queensbury faction, sent to offer
that individual a place if he would discover to him how the combination
was formed, and in what manner it might be broken. But the gentleman
whose fidelity he thus assailed, was true to his engagements; and
returned an indignant answer, desiring the Lord Treasurer's agent "not
to think that he was treating with such men as Mar and Seafield."[45]

At this time the Earl of Mar was said to be in the full enjoyment of
Lord Godolphin's confidence, and to have been one of those whom the
treasurer consulted, in settling the government of Scotland. The rumour
was not conducive to his comfort or well-being in his native country;
and the Earl appears to have passed much more time in intrigues in
London than among the gardens of Alloa.

It was not long before the effects of the general discontent were
manifested in the desire of the majority of the Scottish nation to
restore the descendant of their ancient kings to the throne, and even
the Cameronians and Presbyterians were willing to pass over the
objection of his being a Papist. "God may convert the Prince," they
said, "or he may have Protestant children, but the Union never can be
good."[46] The middle orders openly expressed their anxiety to welcome a
Prince to their shores, whom they regarded as a deliverer: the nobility
and gentry, though more cautious, yet were equally desirous to see the
honour of their nation, in their own sense of it, restored.
Episcopalians, Cavaliers, and Revolutionists, were unanimous, or, to use
the Scots' proverb, "were all one man's bairns." This state of public
feeling was soon communicated to St. Germains, and Colonel Hooke, famous
for his negotiations, was, according to the writer of the Memoirs,
"pitched upon by the French King, and palmed upon the court of St.
Germains, and dispatched to sound the intentions of the principal
Scottish nobility." This agent arrived in Scotland in the month of March,
1707. The paper containing assurances of aid to James Stuart was signed
by sixteen noblemen and gentlemen; but the Earl of Mar was, at that
time, engaged in a very different undertaking, and was in close amity
with Sunderland, Godolphin, and the heads of the Whig party.

The spring of 1708 discovered the designs of Louis, and the news of
great preparations at Dunkirk spread consternation in England. At this
juncture, the first in which the son of James the Second was called upon
to play a part in that drama of which he was the ill-starred hero, the
usual fate of his race befel him. He came to Dunkirk hastily, and in
private, intending to pass over alone to the Firth of Forth. He was
attacked by the measles; at a still more critical moment of his
melancholy life, he was the victim of ague: both of them ignoble
diseases, which seem to have little concern with the affairs of royalty.
The delay of the Prince's illness, although shortened by the peremptory
commands of the French King to proceed, was fatal, for the English fleet
had time to make preparations. A storm drove the French fleet
northwards; in the tempest the unfortunate adventurer passed the Firth
of Forth and Aberdeen; and although the fleet retraced its course to the
Isle of May, it was only to flee back to France, daunted as the French
admirals were by the proximity of Sir George Byng and the English fleet,
who chased the enemy along the coasts of Fife and Angus. It was shortly
after this event that the Pretender, upon whose head a price of a
hundred thousand pounds was set by the English Government, first
assumed the title of Chevalier of St. George, in order to spare himself
the expense of field equipage in the campaign in Flanders.

The conduct of the Earl of Mar, in relation to conspiracy, has been
alluded to rather than declared by historians. He is supposed not to
have been, in secret, unfavourable to the undertaking. He was,
nevertheless, active in giving to the Earl of Sunderland the names of
the disaffected with whom he was generally supposed to be too well
acquainted. Many of those who were suspected were brought to London, and
were in some instances committed to prison, in others confined to their
own houses. On this occasion the advice of the great Marlborough was
followed, and the guilty were not proceeded against with more severity
than was necessary for the Queen's safety. The same generous policy was
in after times remembered, in mournful contrast with a very different
spirit.

It was the ill-fortune of Mar to give satisfaction to none of those who
had looked on the course of public affairs during the recent
transactions; nor was it ever his good fortune to inspire confidence in
his motives. Some notion may be formed of the thraldom of party in
Scotland by the following anecdote:--

In 1711-12 the Queen conferred upon the Duke of Hamilton a patent for an
English dukedom; but this, according to a vote of the House of Lords,
did not entitle him to sit as a British Peer. Indignant at being
thought incapable of receiving a grace which the King might confer on
the meanest commoner, the Scotch Peers took the first opportunity of
walking out of the House in a body, and refusing to vote or sit in that
House. In addition to the affront implied by their incapacity of
becoming British Peers, it was more than hinted that it would not be
advisable for the independence of the House if the King could confer the
privileges of British Peers upon a set of nobles whose poverty rendered
them dependent on the Crown.

Just when this offensive vote of the House was the theme of general
conversation, Dean Swift encountered the Earl of Mar at Lord Masham's.
"I was arguing with him, (Lord Mar)," he writes, "about the stubbornness
and folly of his countrymen; they are so angry about the affair of the
Duke of Hamilton, whom the Queen has made a Duke of England, and the
Lords will not admit him. He swears he would vote for us, but dare not,
because all Scotland would detest him if he did; he should never be
chosen again, nor be able to live there."[47]

The Earl of Mar continued to be one of the Representative Peers for
Scotland, having been chosen in 1707, and rechosen at the general
elections in 1708, 1710, and 1713.[48]

Upon the death of the Duke of Queensbury in 1711, the office of
Secretary of State for Scotland became vacant, and the Duke of Hamilton
and the Earl of Mar were rival expectants for the high and important
post. Government hesitated for some time before filling up the post,
being disposed rather to abolish it than to offend any party by its
disposal, and deeming it as an useless expense to the Government; nor
was it filled up for a considerable time.

The tragical death of one who, with some failings, deserved the
affection and respect of his country, procured eventually to the Earl of
Mar the chief management of public affairs in Scotland. Whilst on the
eve of embarking as Ambassador Extraordinary to France, upon the
conclusion of the peace of Utrecht, the Duke of Hamilton fell in a duel
with his brother-in-law, Lord Mohun,--a man whose course of life had
been stained with blood, but whose crimes had met with a singular
impunity.

The character of Lord Mohun seems rather to have belonged to the reign
of Charles the Second, than to the sober period of William and Anne. The
representative of a very ancient family, he had the misfortune of coming
to his title when young, while his estate was impoverished. "His quality
introduced him into the best company," says a contemporary writer, "but
his wants very often led him into bad." He ran a course of notorious and
low dissipation, and was twice tried for murder before he was twenty.
His first offence was the cruel and almost unprovoked murder of William
Mountford, an accomplished actor, whom Mohun stabbed whilst off his
guard. The second was the death of Mr. Charles Coote. For these crimes
Lord Mohun had been tried by his peers, and, strange to say, acquitted.
On his last acquittal he spoke gracefully before the Peers, expressing
great contrition for the disgrace which he had brought upon his order,
and promising to efface it by a better course of life. For some time
this able but depraved nobleman kept to his resolution, and studied the
constitution of his country.[49] He became a bold and eloquent speaker
in the House on the side of the Whigs; and he had attained a
considerable popularity, when the affair with the Duke of Hamilton
finished his career before the age of thirty.[50]

A family dispute, exasperated by the different sides taken by these two
noblemen in Parliament, was the cause of an event which deprived the
Jacobite party of one of their most valuable and most moderate leaders;
for had the counsels of the Duke of Hamilton prevailed, the Chevalier
would never have undertaken the futile invasion of 1708, nor perhaps
have engaged in the succeeding attempt in 1715. Upon the fortunes of the
Earl of Mar, the death of the Duke so far operated that it was not until
all fear of offending the powerful and popular Hamilton was ended by his
tragical death, that the appointment of Secretary was conferred upon his
rival. The Whigs were calumniously suspected of having had some unfair
share in the death of the Duke,--an event which took place in the
following manner.

Certain offensive words spoken by Lord Mohun in the chambers of a Master
in Chancery, and addressed to the Duke of Hamilton, brought a
long-standing enmity into open hostility. On the part of Lord Mohun,
General Macartney was sent to convey a challenge to the Duke, and the
place of meeting, time, and other preliminaries were settled by
Macartney and the Duke over a bottle of claret, at the Rose Tavern, in
Covent Garden. The hour of eight on the following day was fixed for the
encounter, and on the fatal morning the Duke drove to the lodgings of
his friend, Colonel Hamilton, who acted as his second, in Charing Cross,
and hurried him away. It was afterwards deposed, that on setting out,
the Colonel, in his haste, forgot his sword; upon which the Duke stopped
the carriage, and taking his keys from his pocket, desired his servant
to go to a certain closet in his house, and to bring his mourning-sword,
which was accordingly done. This was regarded as a fatal omen in those
days, in which, as Addison describes, a belief in such indications
existed.

The Duke then drove on to that part of Hyde Park leading to Kensington,
opposite the Lodge, and getting out, walked to and fro upon the grass
between the two ponds. Lord Mohun, in the mean time, set out from Long
Acre with his friend, General Macartney, who seems to have been a worthy
second of the titled bravo.

Lord Mohun having taken the precaution of ordering some burnt wine to be
prepared for him upon his return from the rencounter, proceeded to the
place of appointment, where the Duke awaited him. "I must ask your
Lordship," said Lord Mohun, "one favour, which is, that these gentlemen
may have nothing to do with our quarrel." "My Lord," answered the Duke,
"I leave them to themselves." The parties then threw off their cloaks,
and all engaged; the seconds, it appears, fighting with as much fury as
their principals. The park-keepers coming up, found Colonel Hamilton and
General Macartney struggling together; the General holding the Colonel's
sword in his left hand, the Colonel pulling at the blade of the
General's sword. One of the keepers went up to the principals; he found
Lord Mohun in a position between sitting and lying, bending towards the
Duke, who was on his knees, leaning almost across Lord Mohun, both
holding each other's sword fast, both striving and struggling with the
fury of remorseless hatred. This awful scene was soon closed for ever,
as far as Mohun was concerned. He expired shortly afterwards, having
received four wounds, each of which was likely to be mortal. The Duke
was raised and supported by Colonel Hamilton and one of the keepers; but
after walking about thirty yards, exclaimed that "he could walk no
farther," sank down upon the grass, and expired. His lifeless remains,
mangled with wounds which showed the relentless fury of the encounter,
were conveyed to St. James's Square, the same morning, while the
Duchess was still asleep.[51]

Lord Mohun, meanwhile, was carried, by order of General Macartney, to
the hackney-coach in which he had arrived, and his body conveyed to his
house in Marlborough Street, where, it was afterwards reported, that
being flung upon the best bed, his Lady, one of the nieces of Charles
Gerrard, Earl of Macclesfield, expressed great anger at the soiling of
her new coverlid, on which the bleeding corpse was deposited.[52]

General Macartney escaped. It appeared on oath that he had made a
thrust at the Duke, as he was struggling with Mohun; and it being
generally believed that it was by that wound that the Duke died, an
address was presented to her Majesty by the Scottish Peers, begging that
she would write to all the kings and states in alliance with her, not to
shelter Macartney from justice.[53]

A deep and general grief was shown for the death of the Duke of
Hamilton. In Scotland mourning was worn, and the churches were hung with
black. It was in vain that the Duchess offered a reward of three hundred
pounds for the apprehension of Macartney; the murderer had fled beyond
seas.

The Cavaliers lost, in Hamilton, an ornament to their party, from the
strict honour and fidelity of his known character. But the crisis which
the unfortunate Duke had in vain endeavoured to avert was now at hand,
and the death of Queen Anne brought with it all those consequences which
a long series of cabals, during the later disturbed years of the Queen's
existence, had been gradually ripening into importance.

The Earl of Mar had openly espoused the High-church party in the case of
Sacheverel; and he had on that account, as well as from the doubt
generally entertained of his fidelity, little reason to expect from the
House of Hanover a continuance in office. No sooner had the Queen
expired, than those whom Lord Mar had long, in secret, been regarding
with interest, expressed openly their disappointment at the result of
the last reign.

"The accession of George the First," remarks Dr. Coxe, "was a new era in
the history of that Government which was established at the Revolution.
Under William and Anne the Stuart family can scarcely be considered as
absolutely excluded from the throne; for all parties, except the extreme
Whigs, looked forward to the possibility of the Stuarts returning to the
throne. But, in fact, the Revolution was not completed till the actual
establishment of the Brunswick line, which cut off all hopes of a return
without a new revolution."[54]

When the news of Queen Anne's dangerous condition reached the Chevalier
de St. George, he was at Luneville; but he repaired instantly to
Barleduc, where he held a council. As he entered the council-chamber, he
was heard to exclaim, "If that Princess dies, I am lost."[55] There was
no doubt that a correspondence with the exiled family had been carried
on with great alacrity, during the last few years of Queen Anne's reign,
with the cognizance of the Sovereign;[56] and that large sums were spent
by Mary of Modena, and by her son, in procuring intelligence of all
that was going on in the English Court.

Immediately after the Queen's death, Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester,
proposed to Lord Bolingbroke to proclaim James at Charing Cross, and
offered, himself, to head the procession in lawn sleeves. But
Bolingbroke shrank from the enterprise; and, with an exclamation of
passion, Atterbury exclaimed,--"There is the best cause in Europe lost
for want of spirit." The boldness of the proposition, and the ardent
temper from which it originated, recall, with regret, the remembrance of
one who, as Lord Hailes in his notes on Atterbury's Correspondence has
remarked, was "incapable of dark conspiracies."[57]

The Chevalier was then residing at Barleduc, with a suite of sixty
persons; some of whom boasted of having taken part in the conspiracies
against William the Third, and were proud of having compassed the death
of that Sovereign. From time to time, Englishmen of distinction
travelled from Paris to Barleduc, under pretext of seeing the country,
but in fact to proffer a secret allegiance to the Prince. The individual
to whom these attentions were addressed, is described by an anonymous
emissary of the English Court, as leading a regular life,--hunting when
the weather permitted, and hearing mass every day with great precision
and devotion. "Il est fort maigre," adds the same writer, "assez grand;
son teint est brun, son humeur et sa personne ne sont pas désagréables."
In another place, it is added, "Il paroit manquer de jugement et de
résolution:" an opinion, unhappily, too correct.[58] On the question
being put by Bolingbroke to the Duke of Berwick, whether the Prince was
a bigot, the answer was in the negative. "Then," said Bolingbroke, "we
shall have no objection to place him on the throne." This anecdote,
which was told by the Chevalier himself to Brigadier Nugent, probably
gave countenance to the rumour spread in England, that James was likely
to renounce the Catholic faith, and conform to the English Church.[59]

The Earl of Mar and his brother, Lord Grange, were now the two most
considerable men in Scotland. Lord Grange had been made Lord of Session
in 1707, and afterwards Lord Justice Clerk, during the three last years
of Queen Anne's reign. His character presents traits even more repulsive
and more dangerous than the time-serving and duplicity of the Earl of
Mar. Lord Grange was one of those men whom the honest adherents to
either party would, doubtless, gladly have turned over to the other
side. His abilities, if we judge of the high appointments which he held,
must have been eminent; but he was devoid of all principle, and was
capable, if the melancholy and extraordinary history of his unhappy
wife be true, of the darkest schemes.

It would be difficult to reconcile, in any other man, the discrepancy of
Lord Grange's real opinions and of his subsequent efforts to restore the
House of Stuart; but, in a brother of the Earl of Mar, the difficulty
ceases, and all hopes of consistency, or rather of its origin,
sincerity, vanish. Lord Grange is declared to have been a "true blue
republican, and, if he had any religion, at bottom a Presbyterian;" yet
he was deeply involved in transactions with the Chevalier and his
friends.[60]

Lord Grange was united to a lady violent in temper, of a dauntless
spirit, and a determined Hanoverian. Their marriage had been enforced by
the laws of honour, and was ill-omened from the first; therefore, where
respect has ceased, affection soon languishes and expires. The daughter
of Cheisly of Dalry, a man of uncontrolled passions, who shot Sir George
Lockhart, one of the Lords of Session, for having decided a law-suit
against him, Mrs. Erskine of Grange, commonly called Lady Grange,
inherited the determined will of her father. It was said that she had
compelled Lord Grange to do her justice by marrying her, and "had
desired him to remember, by way of threat, that she was Cheisly's
daughter." For this menace she suffered in a way which could only be
effected in a country like Scotland at that period, and among a people
held in the thraldom of the clans. Her singular history belongs to a
later period in the annals of those events in which so much domestic
happiness was blasted, never to be recovered.[61]

With his brother, Lord Mar was in constant correspondence, during his
own residence in London; and although Lord Grange was skilful enough to
conceal his machinations, and to retain his seat on the bench as a
Scottish judge, there is very little reason to doubt his secret
co-operation in the subsequent movements of the Earl.

Acting as if "he thought that all things were governed by fate or
fortune,"[62] George the First remained a long time to settle his own
affairs in Hanover, before coming to England. This delay was employed by
the Earl of Mar, in an endeavour to extenuate the tenor of his political
conduct of late years in the eyes of the Sovereign, and in placing
before the King the merit of his services and his claims to favour. The
letter which he addressed to George the First, when in Holland, was
printed by Tonson, during the year 1715, with prefatory remarks by Sir
Richard Steele, whose comments upon this production of a man who,
scarcely a year after it was written, set up the standard of the
Pretender at Braemar, are expressed in these terms:

"It gives me a lively sense of the hardships of civil war, wherein all
the sacred and most intimate obligations between man and man are to be
torn asunder, when I cannot, without pain, represent to myself the
behaviour of Lord Mar, with whom I had not even the honour of any
further commerce than the pleasure of passing some agreeable hours in
his company: I say, when even such little incidents make it irksome to
be in a state of war with those with whom we have lived in any degree of
familiarity, how terrible must the image be of rending the ties of
blood, the sanctity of affinity and intermarriage, and the bringing men
who, perhaps in a few months before, were to each other the dearest of
all mankind, to meet on terms of giving death to each other at the same
time that they had rather embrace!" Thus premising, and declaring that
he could with difficulty efface from his mind all remains of good will
and pity to Lord Mar, Sir Richard Steele subjoins a document, fatal to
the reputation of Lord Mar--the following letter, which Lord Mar
addressed to the King, in explanation of his conduct.


LORD MAR TO THE KING.

    "Sir,

    "Having the happiness to be your Majesty's subject, and also the
    honour of being of your servants, as one of your Secretaries of
    State, I beg leave by this to kiss your Majesty's hand, and
    congratulate your happy accession to the Throne; which I should have
    done myself the honour of doing sooner, had I not hoped to have had
    the honour of doing it personally ere now. I am afraid I may have
    had the misfortune to be misrepresented to your Majesty, and my
    reason for thinking so is, because I was the only one of the late
    Queen's servants whom your Ministers here did not visit, which I
    mentioned to Mr. Harley and the Earl of Clarendon, when they went
    from hence to wait on your Majesty; and your Ministers carrying so
    to me was the occasion of my receiving such orders as deprived me of
    the honour and satisfaction of waiting on them and being known to
    them. I suppose I had been misrepresented to them by some here upon
    account of party, or to ingratiate themselves by aspersing others,
    as one party here too often occasion; but I hope your Majesty will
    be so just as not to give credit to such misrepresentations.

    "The part I acted in bringing about and making of the Union when the
    succession to the Crown was settled for Scotland on your Majesty's
    family, when I had the honour to serve as Secretary of State for
    that kingdom, doth, I hope, put my sincerity and faithfulness to
    your Majesty out of dispute. My family had had the honour for a
    great tract of years to be faithful servants to the Crown, and have
    had the care of the King's children (when King of Scotland)
    entrusted to them. A predecessor of mine was honoured with the care
    of your Majesty's grandmother, when young; and she was pleased
    afterwards to express some concern for our family, in letters I now
    have under her own hand.

    "I have had the honour to serve her late Majesty in one capacity or
    other ever since her accession to the Crown. I was happy in a good
    mistress, and she was pleased to have some confidence in me and
    regard for my services. And since your Majesty's happy accession to
    the Crown, I hope you will find that I have not been wanting in my
    duty in being instrumental in keeping things quiet and peaceable in
    the country to which I belong and have some interest in.

    "Your Majesty shall ever find me as faithful and dutiful a subject
    and servant as ever any of my family have been to the Crown, or as I
    have been to my late mistress the Queen. And I beg your Majesty may
    be so good not to believe any misrepresentations of me, which
    nothing but party hatred and my zeal for the interest of the Crown
    doth occasion; and I hope I may presume to lay claim to your royal
    favour or protection. As your accession to the Crown hath been quiet
    and peaceable, may your Majesty's reign be long and prosperous; and
    that your people may soon have the happiness and satisfaction of
    your presence amongst them, is the earnest and fervent wish of him
    who is, with the humblest duty and respect, Sir, your Majesty's most
    faithful, most dutiful and most obedient subject and servant,

                                                               MAR."

    "Whitehall, August thirtieth, 1714, o. s."

This disgraceful letter was ineffectual. The Monarch, "whose views and
affections were, according to Lord Chesterfield, singly confined to the
narrow compass of his Electorate," and for "whom England was too big,"
acted with a promptness and decision which gave no time for the workings
of faction. An immediate change of ministry was announced by Kryenberg,
the Hanoverian resident, at the first Privy Council; and among other
changes, Lord Townshend was appointed in the place of Lord Bolingbroke.
Well might Bolingbroke exclaim, "The grief of my soul is this; I see
plainly that the Tory party is gone."[63]

For many months Lord Mar continued to maintain such a demeanour as might
blind those of the opposite party to his real intentions. It seems,
indeed, certain that at first he hoped to ensure a continuance in office
by exerting his influence in Scotland to procure the good conduct of the
clans: he was successful in obtaining even from some of those Highland
chieftains who were afterwards the most deeply implicated in the
Rebellion, an address declaring that they were "ready to concur with his
Lordship in faithfully serving King George." "Your Lordship," states
that memorial, "has an estate and interest in the Highlands, and is so
well known to bear good will to your neighbours, that in order to
prevent any ill impression which malicious and designing people may at
this juncture labour to give of us, we must beg leave to address your
Lordship, and entreat you to assure the Government, in our names, and in
that of the rest of our clans, who, by distance of the place, could not
be present at the signing of our letter, of our loyalty to his sacred
Majesty, King George."[64] This address was signed by Maclean of that
Ilk, Macdonald of Glengary, Mackenzie of Fraserdale, Cameron of Lochiel,
and by several other chiefs of clans, who afterwards fought under the
banners of the Earl of Mar. It furnishes a proof of the great influence
which the Earl possessed in his own country, but he had not the courage
to present it to the King. His Majesty, on the contrary, on hearing of
this address was highly offended, believing that it had been drawn up at
St. Germains in order to insult him, and his refusal to receive it was
accompanied by an order to Lord Mar to give up the seals.

The Earl lingered, nevertheless, for some time in London, where he had
now some attractions which to a less ambitious mind might have operated
in favour of prudence. In the preceding year, July, 1714, he had
married, at Acton in Middlesex, the Lady Frances Pierrepoint, the second
daughter of Evelyn, first Duke of Kingston, and the sister of Lady Mary
Wortley. The Countess of Mar was, at the time of her marriage,
thirty-three years of age, being born in 1681. She does not appear to
have been endowed with the rare qualities of her sister's mind; but that
she was attached to her husband, her long exile from England on his
account, sufficiently proves. Her married life was embittered by his
career, and her latter days darkened by the direst of all maladies,
mental aberration.

It is singular that so recently before his final effort, Lord Mar should
have connected himself with a Whig family. The Marquis of Dorchester,
who was created, by George the First, Duke of Kingston, was a member of
the Kit Cat Club, and received early proofs of the good will of the
Hanoverian Sovereign. It is true that Lady Mary Wortley augured ill of
the match between her sister and Lord Mar, detesting as she did the
Jacobite party, and believing that her sister was "drawn in by the
persuasion of an officious female friend," Lord Mar's relation. But
there is no reason to conclude that the Duke of Kingston in any way
objected to a match apparently so dissonant with his political bias.[65]

Whilst Lord Mar remained near the court, the discoveries made by the
Earl of Stair in France, communicated the first surmise of an intended
invasion of England. Several seizures of suspected people warned one who
was deep in the intrigues of St. Germain, not long to delay the open
prosecution of his schemes. The melancholy instance of Mr. Harvey, who
was apprehended while he was hawking at Combe, in Surrey, alarmed the
Jacobite party. Mr. Harvey being shown a paper written in his own hand,
convicting him of guilt, stabbed himself, but not fatally, with a
pruning-knife which he had used in his garden. Upon some hope of his
confessing being hinted, it was answered that his Majesty and the
Council knew more of it than he did. The celebrated John Anstis, the
heraldic writer, was also apprehended, and warrants were issued for the
seizure of other suspected persons.

Notwithstanding his strong family interest, the Earl of Mar could
scarcely consider himself secure under the present state both of the
country and the metropolis. The events of the last year had succeeded
each other with an appalling rapidity. The flight of Bolingbroke had
scarcely ceased to be the theme of comment, before the general elections
excited all the ill blood and fanaticism which such struggles at any
critical era of our history have always produced. Riots, which have been
hastily touched upon in the histories of the period, but which the
minute descriptions of memoirs of that period show to have been attended
with an unusual display of violence and brutality on both sides, broke
out upon every anniversary which could recall the Stuarts to
recollection. On St. George's day, in compliment to the Chevalier, who,
according to an observer of those eventful days, "had assumed the name
of that far-famed Cappadocian Knight, though every one knew he has
nothing of the valour, courage, and other bright qualities of the
saint," a tumult was raised in London, and among other outrages,
passengers through the streets of the City were beaten if they would not
cry "God bless the late Queen and the High Church!" Sacheverel and
Bolingbroke were pledged in bumpers by a mob, who burnt, at the same
time, King William in effigy.[66] A similar contagion spread throughout
the country; Oxford took the lead in acts of destruction; her streets
were filled with parties of Whigs and Tories, both of them infuriated,
until their mad rage vented itself in acts of murder, under the
pretence, on the one hand, of a dread of popery, on the other, on a
similar plea of religious zeal. A Presbyterian meetinghouse was pulled
down, and cries of "An Ormond!" "A Bolingbroke!" "Down with the
Roundheads!" "No Hanover!" "A new Restoration!" accompanied the
conflagration. On the same day similar exclamations were again heard in
the streets of London; and all windows not illuminated were broken to
pieces. The tenth of June, the anniversary of the Chevalier's birthday,
was the signal for a still more decisive manifestation. On that day
three Scottish magistrates went boldly to the Cross at Dundee, and there
drank the Pretender's health, by the name of King James the Eighth, for
which they were immediately apprehended and tried.

The impeachment of Lord Oxford still further exasperated the country,
which rang with the cry, "No George, but a Stuart." The peaceable
accession of the first monarch of the Brunswick line has been greatly
insisted upon by historians; but that stillness was ominous; it was the
stillness of the air before a storm; and was only indicative of
irresolution, not of a diminished dislike to the sway of a foreigner.

It is supposed that an intercepted letter which the Duke de Berwick, the
half-brother of the Chevalier, addressed to a person of distinction in
England, first gave the intelligence of an intended invasion.[67] The
burden of that letter was to encourage the riots and tumults, and to
keep up the spirits of the people with a promise of prompt assistance.
The impeachment of Viscount Bolingbroke and of the Duke of Ormond
followed shortly afterwards; and although these noblemen provided for
their own safety by flight, they were degraded as outlaws, and in the
order in Council were styled, according to the usual form of law, "James
Butler, yeoman," and "Henry Bolingbroke, labourer," and the arms of
Ormond were taken from Windsor Chapel, and torn in pieces by the Earl
Marshal.

The English fleet, under the command of Sir George Byng, was stationed
in the Downs, in case of a surprise. Portsmouth was put in a state of
defence; and, during the month of July, the inhabitants of London beheld
once more a sight such as had never been witnessed by its citizens since
the days of the Great Rebellion. In Hyde Park the troops of the
household were encamped, according to the arrangements of General
Cadogan, who had marked out a camp. The forces were commanded by the
Duke of Argyle. In Westminster the Earl of Clare reviewed the militia,
and the trained bands were directed to be in readiness for orders. At
the same time fourteen colonels of the Guards, and other inferior
officers were cashiered by the King's orders, on suspicion of being in
James Stuart's interest; so deep a root had this cause, which many have
pretended to treat as a visionary scheme of self-interest, taken in the
affections even of the British army.

A proclamation ordering all Papists and reputed Papists to depart from
the cities of London and Westminster, was the next act of the
Government. All persons of the Roman Catholic persuasion were to be
disarmed and their horses sold; a declaration against transubstantiation
was to be administered to them, and the oath of abjuration to
non-jurors.[68] After such mandates, it seems idle to talk of the
tyranny of Henry the Eighth.

There is no doubt but that the greatest alarm and consternation reigned
at St. James's. The stocks fell, but owing to the vigilance of the
Ministry, information was obtained of the whole scheme of the invasion,
in a manner which to this day has never been satisfactorily explained.

The Earl of Mar must have trembled, as he still lingered in the
metropolis. It is probable that he waited there in order to receive
those contributions from abroad which were necessary to carry on his
plans. He was provided at last with no less a sum than a hundred
thousand pounds; and also furnished with a commission dated the seventh
of September, 1715 appointing him Lieutenant General and Commander in
Chief of the forces raised for the Chevalier in Scotland.[69] Large sums
were already collected from Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and France, to
the amount, it has been stated, of twelve millions. It has been well
remarked by Sir Walter Scott, in his notes on the Master of Sinclair's
MS., that "when the Stuarts had the means, they wanted a leader (as in
1715); when (as in 1745) they had a leader, they wanted the means."

With the eye of suspicion fixed upon him, his plans matured, his friends
in the north prepared, the Earl of Mar had the hardihood, under such
circumstances, to appear at the court of King George. A few weeks before
the Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended; but the Earl trusted either to
good fortune, or to his own well-known arts of insinuation. He braved
all possibility of detection, and determined to carry on the game of
deep dissimulation to the last moment.

On the first of August, 1715, the Earl of Mar attended the levee of King
George. One can easily suppose how cold, if not disdainful, must have
been his reception; but it is not easy to divine with what secret
emotions, the subject on the eve of an insurrection could have offered
his obeisance to the Monarch. Grave in expression, with a heavy German
countenance, hating all show, and husbanding his time, so as to avoid
all needless conversation; without an idea of cultivating the fine arts,
of encouraging literature, or of even learning to speak English, George
the First must have presented to his English subjects the reverse of all
that is attractive. A decided respectability of character might have
redeemed the ungainly picture; but, although esteemed a man of honour,
and evincing liberal and even benevolent tendencies, the Monarch
displayed not only an unblushing and scandalous profligacy, but a love
for coarse and unworthy society. His court is said to have been modelled
upon that of Louis the Fifteenth; but it was modelled upon the grossest
and lowest principles only, and had none of the elegance even of that
wretched King's depraved circles; and public decency was as much
outraged by the three yachts which were prepared to carry over King
George's mistresses and their suite,[70] when he visited Hanover, as by
the empire of Madame de Pompadour. It must, independent of every other
consideration, have been galling to Englishmen to behold, seated on
their throne, a German, fifty-four years of age, who from that very
circumstance, was little likely ever to boast, like Queen Anne, "of an
English heart." "A hard fate," observes a writer of great impartiality,
"that the enthronement of a stranger should have been the only means to
secure our liberties and laws!"[71]

A week after he had been received at the levee of King George, the Earl
embarked at Gravesend in a collier, attended by two servants, and
accompanied by General Hamilton and Captain Hay. They were all
disguised, and escaping detection, arrived on the third day afterwards
at Newcastle. It has been even said, that in order the better to conceal
his rank, the Earl of Mar wrought for his passage.[72] From Newcastle
Lord Mar proceeded northward in another vessel; and landing at Elie, in
Fifeshire, went first to Crief, where he remained a few days. He then
proceeded to Dupplin, in the county of Perth, the seat of his
brother-in-law, the Earl of Kinnoul, and thence, on the eighteenth of
August, crossing the river Perth, he proceeded to his own Castle of
Kildrummie, in the Braes of Mar. He was accompanied by forty horse.

On the day after the arrival of the Earl at Kildrummie, he despatched
letters to the principal Jacobites, inviting them to attend a grand
hunting-match in Braemar on the twenty-seventh of August. This summons
was couched in this form, for fear of a more explicit declaration being
intercepted, revealing the design; but the great chiefs who were thus
collected together were aware that "hunting" was but the watchword.

A gallant band of high-spirited chieftains answered the call. It is
consolatory to turn to those who, unaffected by the intrigues of a
Court, came heartily, and with a disinterested love, to the cause of
which the Earl of Mar was the unworthy leader.

First in rank, was the Marquis of Huntly, eldest son of George, the
first Duke of Gordon, and of that daring Duchess of Gordon, a daughter
of the house of Howard, who, in 1711, had presented to the Dean and
Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh a silver medal, with the head of the
Chevalier on one side, and on the other the British Islands, with the
word "Reddite." The learned body to whom the Duchess had proposed this
dangerous gift, at first hesitated to receive it: after a debate,
however, among their members, it was agreed that the donation should be
accepted, and a vote was passed to return thanks to the Duchess. The
Advocates then waited in a body upon the Duchess, and expressed their
hopes that her Grace would soon have occasion to present the Faculty
with a second medal on the _Restoration_.[73] The Duke of Gordon,
notwithstanding his having been brought up a Roman Catholic, was neutral
in the troubles of the Rebellion of 1715, but his son took a force of
three thousand men into the field,--the clan siding with the young
Marquis rather than with their chief. The Marquis of Huntly was,
probably for that reason, spared in the subsequent proceedings against
the Jacobites, his participation in their schemes being punished only by
a brief imprisonment.

William Marquis of Tullibardine, one of the most constant friends to the
House of Stuart, the Earl of Nithisdale, and the Earl Marischal, also
appeared at the time appointed. It was the fortune of the Marquis of
Tullibardine, like that of the Marquis of Huntly, afterwards to appear
in the field unsanctioned by his father, the Duke of Athol, who either
was, or appeared to be, in favour of Government, whilst his son headed
the clan to the number of six thousand. Lord Nairn, the younger brother
of the Marquis, also joined in the undertaking. Of these distinguished
Jacobites, separate lives will hereafter be given in this work: it
therefore becomes unnecessary any further to expatiate upon them here.
Of some, whose biography does not present features sufficiently marked
to constitute a distinct narrative, some traits may here be given.

Charles Earl of Traquair, who hastened to Braemar, was one of those
Scottish nobles who claimed kindred with royalty. He was descended from
Sir James Stewart, commonly called the Black Knight of Lorn, and from
Jane, daughter of John Earl of Somerset, and widow of King James the
First. One of Lord Traquair's ancestors, the first Earl, had levied a
regiment of horse, in order to release Charles the First from his
imprisonment in the Isle of Wight; but, marching at the head of it at
the battle of Preston, he and his son, Lord Seatoun, were taken
prisoners and conveyed to Warwick Castle, where they languished four
years in imprisonment, with the knowledge that their estates had been
sequestered.

Connected with the family of Seatoun, on his mother's side, the Earl of
Traquair had married the sister of Lord Nithisdale, being thus nearly
related to two of those chiefs who gladly obeyed the summons of Lord Mar
to the hunting-field. The Earl of Traquair appears to have escaped all
the penalties which followed the Rebellion of 1715, perhaps because he
does not appear to have taken any of his tenantry into the field.

Less prudent, or less fortunate, William Mackenzie, Earl of Seaforth,
joined the standard of James Stuart with a body of three thousand men.
He was attainted when the struggle was over, and his estates, both in
Scotland and England, forfeited. He escaped to the Continent; but, in
1719, again landed with the Spaniards at Kintail; and was wounded at the
battle of Glenshiels, but being carried off by his followers, again fled
to the Continent, with the Marquis of Tullibardine and the Earl
Marischal. Lord Seaforth was one of those to whom the royal mercy was
shown. George the First reversed his attainder, and George the Second
granted him arrears of the feu duties due to the Crown out of the
forfeited estates. The title has been eventually restored.

James Livingstone, Earl of Linlithgow, was amongst the many who
experienced less clemency than the Earl of Traquair. He had been chosen
one of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland, on the death of the
Duke of Hamilton; and enjoyed the possession of considerable family
estates, which were eventually forfeited to the Crown. He led a band of
three hundred clansmen to the field.

Perhaps one of the most sturdy adherents of the Chevalier St. George was
James Maule, fourth Earl of Panmure. In his youth this nobleman had
served as a volunteer at the siege of Luxembourg, where he had
signalized his courage. In 1686, he succeeded his brother, and added to
the honours of a peerage those of a character already established for
bravery. To these distinctions was added that of being a Privy
Councillor to James the Second; but he was removed upon his opposing the
abrogation of the penal laws against Popery. Whilst thus protesting
against what might then be deemed objectionable innovations, Lord
Panmure was a firm adherent of James, and vigorously supported his
interests in the convention of estates in 1689.

The accession of William and Mary drove this true Jacobite from the
Scottish Parliament. He never appeared in that assembly after that
event, having refused to take the oaths. Of course he disapproved of the
Union; and the next step which he took was to join the standard of the
Chevalier.

After that decisive proceeding, the course of this unfortunate
nobleman's life was one of misfortune, in which his high spirit was
sustained by a constancy of no ordinary character. At the battle of
Sherriff Muir, the brave Panmure was taken prisoner, but was rescued by
his brother Harry, who, like himself, had engaged in the rebellion.
Panmure escaped to France: he was attainted of high treason,--his
estates, which amounted to 3456_l._ per annum, and were the largest of
the confiscated properties, were forfeited, as well as his hereditary
honours. Twice were offers made to him by the English Government to
restore his rank and possessions, if he would take the oath of
allegiance to the House of Hanover; but Panmure refused the proffered
boon, and preferred sharing the fortunes of him whom he looked upon as
his legitimate Prince. When he joined the Jacobites at Braemar, Lord
Panmure was no longer a young, rash man: he was in the sixty-fifth year
of his age. His wife, the daughter of William Duke of Hamilton, was,
after his attainder, provided for by act of Parliament in the same
manner as if she had been a widow. His brother, Harry Maule, of Kellie,
a man of considerable accomplishments, was so fortunate as to be enabled
to return to his native country, and died in Edinburgh in 1734. But Lord
Panmure, like most of the other brave and honest men who preferred their
allegiance to their interest, finished his days in exile, and died at
Paris, in 1723.[74]

Kenneth Lord Duffus was another of those noblemen who had already
established a character for personal bravery. He was a person of great
skill in maritime affairs, and was promoted by Queen Anne to the command
of the Advice ship of war, with which, in 1711, this gallant Highlander
engaged eight French privateers, and after a desperate resistance of
some hours, he was taken prisoner, after receiving five balls in his
body.

He was, however, released in time to engage in the Rebellion of 1715;
and though it does not appear that he took any followers to fight
beneath the Chevalier's standard, he was included in the Act of
Attainder. The intelligence was communicated to Lord Duffus when he was
in Sweden. He resolved immediately to surrender himself to the British
Government, and declared his intention to the British Minister at
Stockholm, who notified it to Lord Townshend, Secretary of State.
Notwithstanding this manly determination, Lord Duffus was arrested on
his way to England, at Hamburgh, and was detained there until the time
specified for surrendering had expired. He thence proceeded to London,
where he was confined more than a year in the Tower, but released in
1717, without being brought to trial. Lord Duffus died, according to
some accounts, in the Russian service; to others, in that of France. He
married a Swedish lady, and attained to the rank of Admiral.[75]

Such were some of those Jacobite chieftains whose history has sunk into
obscurity, partly from the difficulty of obtaining information
concerning their career, after the contest was at an end. Amongst those
who met Lord Mar in the hunting-field, but who afterwards became
neutral,[76] although most of his clan joined in the Rebellion, was the
Earl of Errol, one of a family whose fame for valour was dated from the
time of the Danish invasion. The origin of the House of Errol is
curious, and marks the simplicity of the times. An aged countryman,
named Hay, and his sons, had arrested the progress of the ruthless
conquerors in a defile near Lanearty in Perthshire. The old man was
rewarded by Kenneth the Third with as much land in the Carse of Gowrie
as a falcon from a man's hand flew over until she lighted. The bird flew
over a space of six miles, which was thence called Errol, and which is
still in possession of the family; and the old man and his sons were
raised from the rank of plebeians by the assignment of a coat of arms,
on which were three escutcheons, gules, to denote that the father and
the two sons had been the shields of Scotland. The family grew in wealth
and estimation, and the office of Hereditary High Constable of Scotland
was added to their other honours.

The Countess of Errol, the mother of the High Constable, and sister of
the Earl of Perth, had already taken a decided part in the affairs of
the Jacobite party. When Colonel Hooke had been sent over in 1707 to
Scotland, she had met him at the sea-coast, and had there placed in the
hands of that emissary several letters from her son, expressing his
earnest intention to support the cause of the Chevalier. The Earl of
Errol had also received Hooke at his castle, and had entertained him
there several days, and employed that time in initiating Hooke into the
various characteristics and views of the Jacobite nobility in Scotland.
He was thus deeply pledged to aid the undertaking at that time (the year
1707); and in a letter to the Chevalier, the Earl expressed his hopes
that he might have the happiness of seeing his Majesty, "a happiness for
which," he adds, "we have long sighed, to be delivered from oppression."
The Countess of Errol also addressed a letter to the mother of James
Stuart, as the Queen of England, declaring that the delays which the
Scotch had suffered had not "diminished their zeal, although they had
prolonged their miseries and misfortunes."[77] Whether, upon the rising
in 1715, the views of Lord Errol were altered, or that female influence
had been lessened by some circumstance, does not exactly appear. He kept
himself neutral in the subsequent outbreak, notwithstanding his
appearance at Braemar, and although his clan were for the most part
against the Government.[78] The Earl of Errol died, unmarried, in 1717:
his adherence to his Jacobite principles were not, therefore, put to the
test in 1745.

To these noblemen were united Seaton, Viscount of Kingston, whose
estates were forfeited to the Crown; Livingstone Viscount of Kilsyth,
one of the representative peers, who died an exile at Rome in 1733; Lord
Balfour of Burleigh; Lord Ogilvy, afterwards Earl of Airly, and Forbes,
Lord Pitsligo. This last-mentioned nobleman was a man of a grave and
prudent character, whose example drew many of his neighbours to embark
in an enterprise in which so discreet a person risked his honours and
estate. He was the author of essays, moral and philosophical; and either
from respect to his merits, or from some less worthy cause, his
defection in 1715 passed with impunity. But, in 1745, the aged nobleman
again appeared in the field, infirm as he was: and one of the most
pleasing traits in Charles Edward's noble, yet faulty character was his
walking at the head of his forces, having given up his carriage for the
use of this tried adherent of his father. Attainder and forfeiture
followed this last attempt, but the sentence was reversed by the Court
of Session, from a misnomer in the attainder; and the venerable Lord
Forbes, surviving many who had set out on the same course with him, had
the comfort of breathing his last in his native country. He died at
Auchiries in Aberdeenshire, in 1762.[79]

Several of these noblemen had been long contemplating the possibility of
James's return to Scotland. Like the Earl of Errol, they had been
dissatisfied with the prudence of the Duke of Hamilton, whose policy it
had been to postpone the risk of a precarious undertaking, and whose
foresight was acknowledged when it was too late. Lord John Drummond,
Lord Kilsyth, and Lord Linlithgow, had been all deeply concerned in the
schemes and speculations which had been formed in 1707, on the subject
of the Restoration; but the zeal of Lord Kilsyth had been doubted, from
his intimacy with the Duke of Hamilton, who was then objectionable to
the violent Jacobite leaders.[80]

These chieftains were not unworthy to come into the same field with
Tullibardine, Nithisdale, Marischal, and their brave associates. A still
nobler band of associates was formed in the different members of the
house of Drummond, a family who could boast of being derived from "the
ancient nobility of the kingdom of Hungary:" and from the daughters of
whose house Charles the Second was lineally descended in the ninth and
sixth degree. Well may it be called "the splendid family of Drummond,"
even if we regard only its proud antiquity, or the singular
"faithfulness of the family, or the accomplishments and virtues which
characterised many of its members." Nothing can be finer than the manner
in which the claims of birth are placed before us, in the address of
William Drummond of Hawthornden to "John Earle of Perthe," in his
manuscript "Historie of the Familie of Perthe:"

"Though, as Glaucus sayes to Diomed (in Homer),

                        'Like the race of leaves
    The race of man is, that deserves no question: nor receaves
    His being any other breath; the wind in autumn strowes
    The earth with old leaves; then the spring the woods with new endowes,'

"yet I have ever thought the knowledge of kindred and genealogies of the
ancient families of a country a matter so far from contempt, that it
deserveth highest praise. Herein consisteth a part of the knowledge of a
man's own selfe. It is a great spurr to vertue to look back on the worth
of our line. In this is the memory of the dead preserved with the
living, being more firm and honourable than any epitaph. The living know
that band which tyeth them to others. By this man is distinguished from
the reasonless creatures, and the noble of men from the base sort. For
it often falleth out (though we cannot tell how) for the most part, that
generositie followeth good birth and parentage."[81] The two members of
the Drummond family who attended Lord Mar in his famous hunting-field
were James Earl of Perth, and William Drummond, Viscount Strathallan.

The Earls of Southesk and Carnwath, the Viscounts Kenmure and Stormont,
and the Lord Rollo, complete the list of Scottish peers who were present
on this memorable occasion. But perhaps the more remarkable feature of
the hunting-match was the arrival of twenty-six gentlemen of influence
in the Highlands, men of sway and importance, of which it is impossible,
without a knowledge of Highland manners, to form an adequate notion. The
constitution of the clans is thus pourtrayed by one who knew it well.

"In every narrow vale where a blue stream bent its narrow course, some
hunter of superior prowess, or some herdsman whom wealth had led to
wealth and power to power, was the founder of a little community who
ever after looked up to the head of the family as their leader and their
chief. Those chains of mountains which formed the boundings of their
separate districts had then their ascents covered with forests, which
were the scene of their hunting-excursions: when their eagerness in
pursuit of game led them to penetrate into the districts claimed by the
chief of the neighbouring valleys, a rash encounter was the usual
consequence, which laid the foundation of future hostilities."[82]

These petty wars gave room for a display of valour in the chiefs, and
led to a mutual dependence from the followers. Alliances offensive and
defensive were formed among the clans, and intermarriages were
contracted between the confederated clans, who governed their followers
by a kind of polity not ill regulated. The chief had the power of life
and death over his large family, but it was a power seldom used. A
chieftain might be cruel to his enemies, but never to his friends. Nor
were those paternal rulers by any means so despotic as they have been
represented to be; of all monarchs their power was the most limited,
being allowed to take no step without permission of their friends, or
the elders of their tribe, including the most distant branches of their
family. The kind and conciliatory system adopted towards their clansmen
accounts for the warm attachment and fidelity displayed towards their
chiefs; and these sentiments were heightened to enthusiasm by the songs
and traditions of the bards, in which the exploits of their heroes were
perpetuated. Still there is nothing, as it has been justly said, so
remarkable in the political history of any country, as the succession of
the Highland chiefs, and the long and uninterrupted sway which they held
over their followers.[83] The system of clanship gives all the romantic
interest which the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745 inspire;--it perfects a
picture which would only otherwise be a factious contention for power;
it was annihilated only after the last of the Stuarts had fled for ever
from the mountains of Scotland.

It was at the head of the clans that the Earl of Mar frequently placed
himself, at the battle of Sherriff Muir: he now welcomed their
chieftains to the field. Among these were General Hamilton, General
Gordon, Glengary, Campbell of Glendarvel, and the lairds of Auchterhouse
and Aldebar.

So great an assembly of those whom the Chevalier afterwards not inaptly
termed "little kings," was by no means unusual at that period. It was
the custom among the lords and chieftains in the Highlands to invite
their neighbours and vassals to a general rendezvous to chase the deer
upon the mountains, and after the diversion was over, to entertain the
persons of note in the castle hall. This expedient would, therefore,
have excited but little attention, had it not been for several years
the practice of the Jacobites to hold these hunting-parties annually, in
order to maintain the spirit of the association, which had been carried
on since the peace of Utrecht.

The halls of Kildrummie received the noblemen and chieftains that day
beneath its roof, and the Earl of Mar addressed his guests in a long,
premeditated harangue. He is described as having little pretension to
eloquence; but his hearers were probably not very fastidious judges, and
from the influence which the Earl acquired over those whom he led on to
the contest, it may be inferred that he understood well how to address
himself to the passions of a Highland audience.

At first the Earl was heard with distrust,--at least if we may credit
the account of one on whom, perhaps, too great a reliance has been
placed.[84]

"It is true, that at first," says Mr. Patten, "he gained little or no
credit among them, they suspecting some piece of policy in him to
ensnare them; but some were weak enough to suck in the poison, and
particularly some of those who were with him at his house, called
Brae-Mar. These, listening to him, embraced his project, and, as is
reported, engaged by oath to stand by him and one another, and to bring
over their friends and dependants to do the like."[85]

The Earl began his harangue by expressing a deep regret for having
promoted the Union, which had delivered his countrymen into the hands of
the English, whose power to enslave them was far too great, and whose
intentions to do so still further were manifest from the proceedings of
the Elector of Hanover ever since he ascended the throne. That Prince
regarded, according to Lord Mar, neither the welfare of his people, nor
their religion, but solely left the management of affairs to a set of
men who made encroachments in Church and State. Many persons, he said,
were now resolved to consult their own safety, and determined to defend
their liberties and properties, and to establish on the throne of these
realms the Chevalier St. George, who had the only undoubted right to the
Crown, who would hear their grievances, and redress their wrongs. He
then incited his hearers to take arms for the Chevalier, under the title
of King James the Seventh; and told them, that for his part, he was
determined to set up his standard and to summon all the fencible men of
his own tenants, and with them to hazard his life in the cause. To this
declaration he added the assurance, that a general rising in England and
assistance from France would aid their undertaking; that thousands were
in league and covenant with him to establish the Chevalier and depose
King George.

To these inducements were added others. Letters from the Chevalier were
read to the assembly, promising to come over in person; with assurances
that ships, arms, and ammunition would be dispatched to their aid.[86]

The proposals of Lord Mar were unfolded with such address, and his
popularity was at that time so great, that one might have supposed an
immediate assent to his schemes would have followed. On the contrary
some degree of persuasion was required: the Highlanders are slow to
promise, but sure to fulfil. The very chieftains who hung back from a
too ready consent, never deserted the cause which they once undertook.
The universal fidelity to the part which they espoused was violated in
no instance during the first Rebellion.

At length the assembled chiefs swore an oath to stand by the Earl of
Mar, and to bring their friends and dependants to do the same. However,
no second meeting was at that time determined upon: every man went back
to his own estate, to take measures for appearing in arms after again
hearing from the Earl of Mar, who remained among his own people with few
attendants. But the Jacobites were not idle during that interval. They
employed themselves in collecting their servants and kindred, but with
the utmost secrecy, until everything was ready to break out. Nor were
they long kept in suspense. On the third of September, another meeting
at Abbone, in Aberdeenshire, was held, and there the Earl directed his
adherents to collect their men without loss of time. He returned to
Braemar, and continued for several days gathering the people together,
until they amounted, according to Reay, to two thousand horse; although
some have said that there were only sixty followers at that time
assembled.[87]

On the sixth of September, the standard of the Pretender was set up at
Braemar, by the Earl of Mar, in the presence of the assembled forces.
The superstitious Highlanders remarked with dismay, that, as the
standard was erected, the ball on the top of it fell off; and they
regarded this accident as an ill omen. "The event," says a quaint
Scottish writer, "has proven that it was no less."[88]

This grave accordance in the verification of the omen, was a feature of
the times and country. "When a clan went upon any expedition," observes
Dr. Brown in his valuable work upon the Highlands, "they were much
addicted to omens. If they met an armed man they believed that good was
portended. If they observed a deer, fox, hare, or any four-footed beast
of game, and did not succeed in killing it, they prognosticated evil. If
a woman, barefooted, crossed the road before them, they seized her, and
drew blood from her forehead." This mixture of fear of visionary evils,
and courage in opposing real ones, of credulity and distrust, strength
and weakness, presents a singular view of the Highland character. It
had, however, in many respects, no inconsiderable influence upon the
contests of 1715 and 1745.

From Braemar the Earl proceeded to Kirk Michael, a small town, where he
proclaimed the Chevalier, and set up his standard. He then marched to
Moulin in Perthshire, where he rested some time, collecting his forces.

It is a remarkable fact, that up to this period the Earl of Mar was
acting without a commission from the Chevalier. The disposition which is
too predominant in society, and which leads men always to add the
bitterness of invective to the mortification of failure, has attributed
to the Earl of Mar, relatively to this commission, a line of conduct
from which it is agreeable to be able to clear his memory. It was not
very long after the meeting in Braemar, that Lord Mar discovered that
there was what he called "a devil" in his camp, in the person of the
Master of Sinclair, whose manuscript strictures upon the unfortunate and
incompetent leader of the Jacobites have contributed to blacken his
memory.

According to the Master of Sinclair, the Earl of Mar produced at the
meeting a forged commission; but this statement is not only contradicted
by Lord Mar's own account, but completely invalidated by the fact that
the commission is in existence, among various other curious documents
and letters, many of which place the character of Lord Mar in a much
fairer light than that in which it has hitherto been viewed. The Earl of
Mar, in a justification of his conduct, printed at Paris, and added to
Patten's History of the Rebellion, gives the following account of the
affair:

"It was near a month after the Earl of Mar[89] set up the Standard
before he could produce a commission, and it is no small proof of the
people's zeal for their country that so great a number followed his
advice and obeyed his orders before he could produce one. It must,
though, be owned, and it is the less to be wondered at, that his
authority being thus precarious, some were not so punctual in joining
him, and others performed not so effectually the service they were sent
upon, which, had they done, not only Scotland, but even part of England,
had been reduced to the Chevalier's obedience, before the Government had
been in a condition to make head against us."[90]

The commission was, however, at that time written, although it had not
been sent over to Scotland. It is dated the seventh of September, 1715,
and is superscribed James R.[91] The Earl of Mar was doubtless aware
that such an instrument was in preparation.

When the Earl had first arrived in Scotland, he found, as he himself
alleges, the people far more eager to take arms than his instructions
allowed him to permit; but before actual steps were commenced, that
ardour was cooled by two circumstances: first, by the Chevalier's not
landing in England, as the Jacobites had confidently hoped; and,
secondly, by the Duke of Berwick's not coming to Scotland.[92] The
vigorous measures adopted by Government made, therefore, a far greater
impression on the public mind than could have been expected had the Earl
of Mar been boldly seconded by him who was most of all interested in the
event of the contest. The Lord Advocate summoned all the principal
Jacobites to appear at Edinburgh within specified periods, in order to
give bail to Government for their allegiance. "Many," says Lord Mar,
"seemed inclined to comply." Yet the number of those who did comply with
the summons was inconsiderable; the rest, including the most honoured
names in Scotland, rushed into the insurrection. The different heads of
noble houses dispersed, and each in the district in which he had most
power, and in the principal towns proclaimed the Chevalier King. The
Fiery Cross was sent throughout the country, with blood at one end, and
fire at the other; and it was afterwards asserted by some of the rebels
who were tried at Liverpool, that they were forced into the service of
the Chevalier, the person who bore that cross assuring them that, unless
they hastened to Mar's camp, they were to perish by blood and fire.[93]

Intelligence of the death of Louis the Fourteenth, which had happened
during the preceding August, reached Scotland at this time, and cast an
universal gloom over his party. It was even disputed whether the
Jacobite leaders should not disperse until news of the Chevalier's
landing should reassure them, or the certainty of a rising in England
should give vigour to their proceedings. At this critical moment Lord
Mar published a declaration which has been printed in most of the
histories of the period, exhorting all those who were well-affected to
the good cause to put themselves under arms, and summoning his
confederates to the Tower of Braemar, on the eleventh of September,
promising them, in the name of the King, their pay from the moment of
setting out.

"Now is the time," said the Earl, "for all good men to show their zeal
for his Majesty's service, whose cause is so deeply concerned, and the
relief of our native country from oppression and a foreign yoke too
heavy for us and our posterity to bear.

"In so honourable, good, and just a cause," he added, "we cannot doubt
of the assistance, direction, and blessing of Almighty God, who has so
often rescued the royal family of Stuart, and our country from sinking
under oppression.

"Your punctual observance of these orders is expected, for the doing of
all which, this shall be to you, and all you employ in the execution of
them, a sufficient warrant."

In a very different tone was a letter, written the same night by the
Earl to his baillie of Kildrummie: from this epistle, so characteristic
of the politic Earl of Mar, it was manifest that his own followers were
more tardy in the field than those of the other chieftains of the
Highlands. The means taken to intimidate and compel them are strongly
characteristic of the state of society in Scotland at that period.[94]
The reluctance of his clan must have been a subject of deep
mortification to Lord Mar, when, in one evening, the summons of the
Fiery Cross, paraded round Loch Tay, a distance of thirty-two miles,
could assemble five hundred men, at the bidding of the Laird of
Glenlyon, to join the Earl of Mar.[95]

A few days after the assembling of the forces, the Earl of Mar, assisted
by his Jacobite friends, published a manifesto, asserting the right of
James the Eighth, by the grace of God, King of Scotland, &c., and
pointing to the relief of the kingdom from oppression and
grievances.[96]

Whilst the adherents of James were thus assembling in the North, a brave
but unsuccessful attempt was made to surprise the castle of Edinburgh.
Ninety chosen men, under the command of Lord Drummond, were engaged in
this undertaking, of which the design was, to seize the citadel and to
place it under the command of Lord Drummond; then the artillery within
the castle was to be employed in firing their rounds by way of signal to
different posts, in concert. Fires were to be lighted up on the hills as
a signal to Lord Mar to march and take possession of the city. The
failure of this design was owing to the disclosure of one Dr. Arthur, a
physician in Edinburgh, to his wife, who gave information of the whole
plan to the Lord Justice Clerk, to whom she sent an unsigned letter the
evening she had gained from her unwilling husband intelligence of the
scheme. This failure, the first of those adverse events which
disheartened the spirits of the Jacobites, was, however, less deplored
than it would have been, had not the progress of the Earl of Mar's
exertions borne the most flattering aspect. In September, the Earl
marched to Logaret, where his forces still increased, and thence into
the beautiful region around Dunkeld; here he was joined, with fourteen
hundred men, by the Marquis of Tullibardine, and by five hundred
Campbells from the Breadalbane territory, headed, not by their chief,
but by Campbell of Glenderule, Campbell of Glenlyon, and John Campbell,
the Earl's chamberlain. Enforced also by the addition of two hundred
Highlanders from different quarters, the Earl of Mar resolved to make
the town of Perth his head-quarters.

This was a wise resolution: the situation of that fine city presented
the most important advantages to the General of the Jacobite forces.
Seated on the river Tay, and near the sea-coast, it gave the Earl the
control of the East Lowlands, of the rich counties of Angus, the Carse
of Gowrie, Mearns, Murray, Aberdeen, and Banff, and also of the Shire of
Fife. It also cut off the communication between the north and the south
of Scotland, so that the friends of Government could neither act nor fly
from the enemy. Thus all the usual posts were stopped. The revenues of
the public fell into the hands of the insurgents who gave receipts for
them in the name of James the Eighth, and the landowners in the counties
subject to the Earl were taxed at whatever rate he chose to impose.
Perth continued to be the head-quarters of the Lieutenant General until
a few days before this disastrous contest was finally closed.

At the first general review at Perth, the forces of Lord Mar amounted
only to five thousand men; but a few weeks afterwards, by the accession
of his friends in the north, they were increased to the number of twelve
thousand, both horse and foot, of well appointed men. That Lord Mar's
hopes were high, and, at this period, not without reason of, at any
rate, a partial success, the following letter addressed by him to
Captain Henry Straiton,[97] at Edinburgh, is a proof. It relates, in the
first instance, to the insurrection in Northumberland, under the
guidance of Mr. Forster, a gentleman of suspected zeal and little
discretion, to whom Lord Mar unwisely trusted the conduct of the gallant
but ill-fated bands who fell at Preston:--

                      "From the Camp of Perth, October 12th, 1715."[98]

    "Sir,

    "It was yesterday afternoon as I got yours of the ninth, which you
    may be sure was very acceptable, and also the others you sent me.
    Tom Forster tells me in his of the sixth, that they had taken the
    field that day with a hundred and sixty horse; that he had sent to
    the gentelmen of Lancaster who he expected to join him, and also the
    gentilmen from the scots side, that he expected two thousand foot
    from my camp and five hundred horse, that the town of Newcastle had
    promist to open their gates to them, and that they intended to take
    possession of Tinmouth.

    "They have been better than their word in coming together so soon,
    and I would fain hope it has been occasioned by some consort with
    our friends further south, who are to join them, and that the Duke
    of Ormond is in England before this time, as I have reason to
    believe he is.

    "My letters by M^{r}. E----ne[99] had not then reached those on the
    boarder, but when they do, I hope it will put the project of
    shooting themselves up in Tinmouth out of their thoughts; what good
    could they do there? I have wrote so fully by M^{r}. E----ne upon
    the subject of the way of their disposeing of themselves, that I
    need say little of it now. You certainly know of the detachment of
    two thousand foot, lying these severall dayes on the coast of Fife,
    to get over, if possible; but now that there's five men of warr in
    the Firth, I'm afraid it is not; however, they are stile about it,
    and will do what they can: but for finding horse that way, you will
    easily see is impracticable, unless the passage were open, and I
    hope our friends on the boarder will not want horse from us. I was
    very fond of the project of getting the passage of the whole armie
    opened, when I wrote by Mr. E----ne; but since that time, beside
    that of more men of warr comeing into the Firth, there's another
    thing I know since, which makes me alter my thoughts about it, at
    least of doing it soon, were it in my power. Mr. Ogilvie of Boin
    arrived here from France on the sixth, as perhaps you have heard,
    with my new commission, of which I send you a copie inclosed, and
    letters from Lord Bolingbroke; but I know you have accounts of a
    latter date at Edinb. so I need say the less of them. Lord
    Bolingbroke tels me, that in all probability, the King wou'd land
    very quickly in the north of Scotland; so until we be so happie that
    he comes to us, or at least we hear from him again, which by those
    letters I expect every day, I judge it were not prudent for me to
    pass the armie at Leith or Queensferry, were it in my power, for
    that wou'd be leaveing the enimie bewint the King and us, and he
    might have difficulty in passing over to us, and being in danger of
    the enimie; but this of passing the whole armie at any of these
    places seems not likely to be in our power.

    "Lord Huntly and Earl Marishall are come up to us with their people
    in very good order, but Lord Seafort is not, being deteaned by
    forceing Earl Sutherland to submitt before he left that country,
    which he has done by this time, and will be with us soon. I make
    his not being come up the reason of our lying still here, but that
    of our expecting the King or one from him, is the true one; and I
    think we must do, until that happen, so as long as we loose no
    credit by it. I thought it was necessary to let you know this, the
    better to advise our friends in the South what meassurs to take;
    which they had best determine by the success of our detachment
    getting over to them,--what expectation they have of friends in
    England joining them, and what is to be expexted about Edinburgh. If
    they should be prest in England, which I hope will not be the case,
    and could do nothing at Edinbrugh, they can march throw the south
    and west of Scotland to Dumbartonshire, where before they can be,
    Generall Gordon's armie or a considerable detachment of it, will be
    before they can reach it, which they will aply join and be saif til
    we meet them. Glengarry is actually marcht from Auchalator that way
    alreddy. I have taken care to have detachments at all the places on
    the coasts, where I judge the King can land, so I hope all is safe
    for him when he comes on it; and so many of the cruisers being in
    the Frith make the coast pretty clear, which is one good our
    detachment in Fife has done, should they do no more. We have this
    day sent two gentelmen to France (I hope) a safe way with a letter
    to the Regent from the noblemen and gentelmen here, which we had
    resolved on before Boin arrived; but should the King be come off
    before it arrives in France it can do no hurt and may do good.

    "I have wrote to Lord Bolingbroke (who is to remain in France to
    negotiate the King's affairs there during his absence,) a full
    account of things here; and if the King be come off, which I hope in
    God he is, he is to lay it before the Queen, to whom I have likewise
    wrote. I'm exceeding sorry for the loss of honest Keith's son, but
    these gentelmen will have it yet payd home to them.

    "As to your going to the South, or staying at Edinbrugh, I scarce
    know what to say. I wish you could be in both places; but since that
    cannot be, I leave it to yourself to do which you think will be of
    most use to the service. If you go South I beg you may settle a
    correspondence 'twixt Edin^{b} and this, and acquaint me with it.

    "I heard to-day that my letters to our friends in the West,
    desireing they might go immediately South to join Lord Kenmore, came
    safe to hand, so I hope they will be with him soon. I have sent you
    some of the manifestos which were printed at Aberdeen, and are
    finely done: I wish they may come to you saif. I also send you
    encloset a letter to Sir Rich. Steele, which I leave open for you to
    read and take a copie of. Pray seal it and get it put into the
    post-house; and I wish you could get it printed at Edinburgh, tho'
    let me not seen it; and if you send a copie to any of your
    correspondants at London and Newcastle, to get if printed there it
    would do no hurt. I'm endeavouring to get a correspondence settled
    by barks from the point of Fife to Newcastle, which may be of use
    to us, especially if the communications twixt us and Ed^{r} should
    be stopt."

On the very day of the Earl's arrival at Perth, Mr. James Murray, second
son of Lord Stormont arrived from St. Germains, bringing assurances of
support, and letters from the Chevalier, who had appointed him Secretary
of State for the affairs of Scotland. Mr. Murray is said also to have
presented the Earl of Mar with a patent, creating him Duke of Mar,
Marquis of Stirling and Earl of Alloway: "And though," observes an
historian, "there was little more said about it, yet the relation seems
justified by this, that in some of the papers printed at Perth, he is
styled the Duke of Mar."[100]

Extensive preparations were also declared to be in progress for the
invasion of England. Twelve large ships were actually at that time at
anchor in Havre, St. Malos, and other places. These vessels, with
several frigates of good force, were loaded with ammunition, and manned
with generals, officers, and soldiers. A particular account of the
"Pretender's Magazine" is extant. But these preparations were all
frustrated by the remonstrances of the Earl of Stair at the Court of the
Regent of France. Admiral Byng was sent with a squadron to cruise on the
coast of France, and the ships ready to sail for the enterprise against
England were obliged, by command of the Regent, in order not to
implicate the French Government, to declare that they were thus
employed without the sanction or knowledge of the Regent. Thus, even
whilst Mr. Murray was raising the sanguine hopes of the Jacobites to the
highest pitch, their evil star had again prevailed. They were, indeed,
singularly unhappy in those in whom they placed confidence. Their
schemes perpetually got wind: whether it were owing to the irresolution
of some of their partisans, or to the great participation which the
female sex took in the affairs of the Chevalier's party, it is difficult
to determine.

The Jacobite ladies were as fearless as they were persevering. The
Duchess of Gordon, whose present of a medal to the Faculty of Advocates
denoted her principles, and whose son, the second Duke of Gordon
suffered a brief imprisonment on account of his share in the
insurrection, was one of the most approved channels of communication
between the two parties. She generally resided in Edinburgh, where she
occupied herself as a mediator between some of the Presbyterians and the
friends of James. Colonel Hooke mentions her as one of the depositories
of all that was going on during his mission.

The Earl of Mar, in his letters, refers repeatedly to different ladies
with approval of their zeal and courage, and mentions one of his fair
confederates in the north of Scotland, through whose hands many of his
letters were sent to different chieftains; but these channels may not,
in all cases, have been so secure as the Earl conceived.[101]

The proceedings of the English Government were, meantime, marked with
energy and judgment. The various movements of the insurgent party were
met in every direction by a systematic resistance, the details of which
have been minutely detailed by historians, and belong not to a narrative
which is chiefly of a personal nature.

On the fourteenth of September, the Duke of Argyle, Commander in Chief
of his Majesty's Forces in Scotland, and General of the army, arrived in
Edinburgh. The interest of this able and powerful nobleman in the
Western Highlands, his zeal for the Protestant succession, were
sufficient reasons for his appointment to this important office. The
following original letter from George the Second, then Prince of Wales,
gives an insight into the views which were entertained by George the
First upon the mode of conducting the warfare in Scotland. It is among
various other papers in the Mar Correspondence.

                                      "St. James's, 7th October, 1715."

    "I have learned, my dear Duke, by your two last expresses, the
    embaras you are in through the want of regular troupes. We have used
    such efforts that the King has consented last Wednesday to detach to
    you four batallions from Ireland, to reinforce your camp. Orders
    have been given to cause those marche who are nearest, and to cause
    them embarque as they come up, without waiting for their conjunction.
    It appeares yet by the departure of the Duke of Ormond, from Paris,
    that the malcontents continue in their wicked design of raiseing up
    troubles in this kingdom here, which is the cause that hinders me
    from sending you Campbell yet, untill that I see if he will not be
    necessary for his post, where I think that it is best every body
    should be fixed. As soon as all appearance of Rebellion is ended
    here, I shall dispatch you him, if you shall have need of him there.
    With respect to the orders you demand, it would be very difficult to
    give you them positive, not knowing the situation of your affairs,
    as you may judge yourself. The King remits himself entirely to your
    judgment, and to your conduct. All that I can say to you is not to
    hazard an action without a probable appearance of carrying it,--rather
    to shune an engadgment, and to yeild to them the ground, than to
    expose the affairs of the King to such ill consequences as would
    follow from a defeat. In case that my Lord Mar march into England
    before that you receive your reinforcement, I think you would do
    very well to allow him at least with your cavalery, and to harass
    him untill that we march to meet him. This last reasoneing is my own
    properly, but which you will judge yourself, if practicable or not.
    Farewell, my dear Duke; be assured of my esteem, and my sincere
    friendship."

            (Signed) "GEORGE P."

The Earl of Mar now began to fortify Perth, and brought up fourteen
pieces of cannon for that purpose from Dundee and Dunotter Castle. His
time and thoughts were at this time occupied in concerting and
encouraging the movements of the southern insurrection conducted by
Viscount Kenmure. There can be no better means of showing the state of
the Earl's hopes and feelings at this time, than by giving them in his
own words.


TO VISCOUNT KENMURE.

    "My Lord,

    "I wish your Lordship and Mr. Forster may have gott my letters,
    which I took all the care I could to send safe. I wrote last by a
    lady on the twenty-third, and she is so discreet and dextrous, that
    I make little doubt of its going right. I have since had two from an
    indisposed friend of ours on your side the water, and with them one
    of the twenty-second from Brigadier Mackintosh to him, where he
    tells of his being joined by your Lordship and five hundred horse
    with you,--Lords Withrington and Derwentwater, Mr. Forester, and
    about six hundred English gentlemen. Your Lordship may be sure this
    was very agreeable news to me, and now, with the blessing of God, if
    we do not mismanage, I think our game can scarce fail. By Brigadier
    Mackintosh's letter, it seems the English are all for your going to
    England in a body to put into execution a certain design, and our
    countrymen are for first having the Pass of Stirling opened, and our
    armies joined. I apprehended there would be difference about this
    before I saw that letter, as your Lordship would easily see by what
    the lady carried. It is indeed a difficult point to know or advise
    which of the two is the best for the King's affairs; and we on this
    side Forth being so ignorant of your situation on the other side,
    and also of the condition of England, that I could not take it upon
    me to determine in it, or to give any positive orders what your
    Lordship should do; but after stating the advantages of both, and
    what might happen according as the enemy should act, I left it to be
    advised and determined among yourselves on that side, who could not
    but know a great deal more, as you should judge it best for the
    King's interest in generall.

    "I know our indisposed friend, for whose judgment I have a very
    great regard, advised coming to Dalkeith, and we have a report from
    Fife last night that you have done so.

    "I long impatiently to know what resolution your Lordship and the
    noblemen and gentlemen with you have come to. It is of great
    consequence and deserves to be well weighed. If you are now come to
    Dalkeith, I will adventure to tell my thoughts in it, which I was
    not quite so clear in before when you were at a greater distance
    from it. That place was a far way from the other, where I judge the
    secret design was to be put in execution; and I am afraid before you
    can get there they'll have so strengthened the place, and filled it
    with troops, that the design would prove impracticable with the
    small army you have,--and it might prove, too, (especially if the
    Dutch troops come to England,) that you could not penetrate farther
    into that country with safety, and retiring back into Scotland would
    have many inconveniences.

    "Dalkeith is but a short way from Stirling, where we on this side
    must pass (I mean near it), and I hope we shall attempt it very
    soon; and when we do, your being in the rear of the enemy could not
    but very much incommode them, and be of great advantage to us. The
    Duke of Argyle would be so hemmed in at Stirling by your being on
    the one hand of him and our being on the other, that I scarce see
    what I can do but to intrench myself, and by that our passage over
    Forth and joining of you might be very easy; nor do I see how the
    Duke of Argyle in those circumstances can subsist long there. Were
    we once past Forth and joined on the south side, we should soon make
    our way good to England, and then should be much more able to put in
    execution the project of our English friends, without being in any
    danger of returning back to Scotland. It would be of great consequence
    to have possession of Edinburgh, but I hear just now that the Duke
    of Argyle has sent two regiments of dragoons, so tho' perhaps that
    may prevent your getting possession of that town, yet I scarce
    believe that they will be able with all the detachments that the
    Duke of Argyle dare adventure to send from Stirling to make any
    attempt against you at Dalkeith, which is so strong a place naturally;
    and should the enemy return again from Stirling, you might either
    follow them in their rear without danger, or take possession of
    Edinburgh. Were once Lord Seaforth come up to us and General Gordon
    with the clans which I expect every day, I shall not be long of
    leaving this place, and I shall likewise be able to send more foot
    over the water, as I sent the last, if you want them, and your being
    at Dalkeith, they could easily join you. Should most of the Dutch
    troops come to Scotland, as is probable they will, it would be very
    hard for us here to pass Forth without your assistance, which would
    be a great loss and a grateing thing. I hear to-day from about
    Stirling that Sir William Blacish is upon the head of several
    thousands in the North of England, but your Lordship and our English
    friends will know the truth of this better: be it as it will, I do
    not think it alters the case much. The main and principal thing is
    for us to get soon joined all in one body, then I am sure we should
    be more considerable than all the force the Government, with the six
    thousand Dutch, can bring against us, and when once the British
    troops see so considerable a force together, asserting their King's
    and their country's cause, I cannot believe they will, but rather
    join us, and restore their country to peace and liberty.

    "These, my Lord, are my humble thoughts, but they are with
    submission to your Lordship's and the King's friends with you who
    are equally concerned with us, and I know equally zealous, and you
    all certainly know a great deal more than me here.

    "I beg your Lordship may make my compliments to our countrymen, with
    you, and to those noblemen and gentlemen of England who have so
    handsomely and generously joined you. I long impatiently to be with
    you, and with all the haste I can.

    "I send copies of this three different ways, that one or other of
    them may certainly come to your hands.

    "I also send by one of them, if not two, a power for your Lordship
    to raise money for the use of your armie, which my commission for
    the King fully empowers me to do and give.

    "I wish this may come to your hand, and I long to hear from your
    Lordship, which it being necessary I should soon, I am, with all
    respect, my Lord, your Lordship's most obedient humble servant,

                                                        "MAR."[102]

It was the intention of Lord Mar to remain at Perth until all the
Jacobite clans should have joined his army; but having gained the
intelligence that some arms for the use of the Earl of Sutherland were
put on board a vessel at Leith, to be taken northwards, he determined to
take possession of them. The master of the vessel had dropped anchor at
Brunt Island, for the purpose of seeing his wife, who was there: Lord
Mar sent a detachment to surprise the harbour, which succeeded in
carrying off the spoil, back to Perth. A report was at the same time
raised in Stirling: that the Earl was marching to Alloa, the Duke of
Argyle forthwith ordered out the picquets of horse and foot, and, also,
all the troops to be ready to march out to sustain them, if required.
But the Jacobite army did not appear; and the report of their advance to
Stirling was believed to be a false alarm, contrived by Mar in order to
draw off the attention of the Duke of Argyle from the expedition to
Brunt Island.

The insurgents were now masters of the eastern coasts of Scotland from
Brunt Island to the Murray Frith, an extent of above one hundred and
sixty miles along the shore. On the western side, the Isle of Skye,
Lewis, and all the Hebrides were their own, besides the estates of the
Earl of Seaforth, Donald Mac Donald, and others of the clans. So that
from the mouth of the river Lochie to Faro-Head, all the coast of
Lochaber and Ross, even to the north-west point of Scotland, was theirs:
theirs, in short, was all the kingdom of Scotland north of the Forth,
except the remote counties of Caithness, Strathnaver and Sutherland
beyond Inverness, and that part of Argyleshire which runs north-west
into Lorn, and up to Lochaber, where Fort William continued in
possession of the Government.

The Earl of Mar had resolved to impose an assessment upon the large
extent of country under his sway, to raise money for the use of his
army. It was of course an unpopular, though doubtless a necessary
measure. The sum of twenty shillings sterling was to be paid by each
landholder upon every hundred pounds Scots of valued rent; and, if not
paid by a certain day, the tax was to be doubled. In levying this
assessment, the friends of the Government were far more severely treated
than those of the Chevalier; and the Presbyterian Ministers, who had
dared to raise their voices in their churches against the Pretender, as
they called the Chevalier, were commanded to be silent on that subject;
their houses were plundered, and many of them were driven by tyranny
from their homes.[103]

The northern clans were now on their march to join the camp at Perth.
First came the famous Laird of Mackintosh, better known as Brigadier
Mackintosh, chief of that numerous clan in Invernesshire. His regiment,
composed of five hundred men, whom he had persuaded to join in the
insurrection, was considered the best that the Earl of Mar could boast.
The Marquis of Huntley, with five hundred horse and two thousand foot,
next arrived; and the Earl Marischal shortly afterwards brought a
thousand men to the camp. But Lord Seaforth, afraid lest in his absence
the Earl of Sutherland should invade his country, was still absent; and
the anxiety of the Earl of Mar for his arrival is expressed in more than
one of his letters. The whole strength of the army amounted to sixteen
thousand seven hundred men; this number was afterwards diminished by the
detachment sent southwards by the Earl, and by the number of three
thousand who were dispersed in garrisons. But it was no common force
that was now encamped at Perth.

At this critical moment where was the individual for whom these great
and gallant spirits had ventured their all, the hills so dear to them,
their homes, the welfare of their families, to say nothing of that which
Highlanders least consider, their personal safety? At this moment, the
ill-advised and irresolute James Stuart, was absent. What could have
been his counsels? who were his advisers? of what materials was he made?
why did he ever come? are questions to which the indignant mind can
scarcely frame a reply. The fact, indeed, seems to be that his heart was
never really in the undertaking; that he for whom the tragedy was
performed, was the only actor in it who did not feel his part; it was
reserved for a nobler and a warmer nature to experience the ardour of
hope, and the bitter mortifications of disappointment.

It was not until the middle of October that the Earl of Mar took any
personal share in the contest between the Jacobite army and that of the
Government. Hitherto he had remained at Perth, acting with an ill-timed
caution, and apparently bestowing far more attention upon the ill-fated
insurrection in Northumberland, aided by the low country Scots under
Lord Kenmure, than upon the proximate dangers of his own army. The
detachment of a body of troops under Brigadier Mackintosh, sent in order
to assist the Lowlanders, who were marching back into Scotland,
accompanied by the forces under Mr. Forster and the Earl of
Derwentwater, was the immediate cause of the two armies coming to an
engagement. The Earl of Mar in his narrative thus explains his plans and
their failure.

The detachment under Brigadier Mackintosh having been sent, "occasioned,"
Lord Mar says, "the Duke of Argyle's leaving Stirling, and going with a
part of his army to Edinburgh. Now, had the Scots and English horse, who
were then in the south of Scotland, come and joined the fifteen hundred
foot, (under Brigadier Mackintosh) as was expected; had the Highland
clans performed, as they promised, the service they were sent upon in
Argyleshire, and marched towards Glasgow, as the Earl of Mar marched
towards Sterling, he had then given a good account of the Government's
army, the troops from Ireland not having yet joined them, nor could they
have joined them afterwards. But all this failing by some cross
accidents, Lord Argyle returned with that part of his army to Scotland,
and the Earl of Mar could not then, with the men he then had, advance
further than Dumblane, and for want of provisions there, was soon after
obliged to return to Perth."

"But immediately after that we had got provisions, and that the clans
and Lord Seaforth had joined us, we marched again towards the enemy; and
notwithstanding the many difficulties the Earl of Mar had upon that
occasion with some of our own people, he gave the enemy battle: and, as
you saw in our printed account of it, had not our left wing given way,
which was occasioned by mistake of orders and scarcity of experienced
officers, that being composed of as good men, and marched as cheerfully
up to the field of battle as the other, our victory had been complete.
And as it was, the enemy, who was advanced on this side the river, was
forced to retire back to Sterling."[104]

Such is the Earl of Mar's comment upon the battle of Sherriff Muir, of
which the friends of Government gave a very different representation.

The Earl had, it is evident, no disposition to risk a general engagement
before the Chevalier arrived in Scotland. He had sent two gentlemen to
the Prince to learn his determination, and had resolved to remain at
Perth until their return. During his continuance in that city he
employed himself not only in throwing up entrenchments round the town,
but in publishing addresses to the people, to keep up the spirits of the
Jacobites. Since the Earl was never scrupulous as to the means of which
he availed himself, we may not venture to reject the declaration of an
historian of no good will to the cause, that he ordered "false news" to
be printed and circulated; and published that which he hoped would
happen, as having already taken place. "The detachment," he related,
"had passed the Forth, had been joined by the army in the South, were
masters of Newcastle, and carried all before them; and their friends in
and about London had taken arms in such numbers, that King George had
made a shift to retire." These falsehoods were printed by Freebairn,
formerly the King's printer at Edinburgh, whom the Earl had established
at Perth, and provided with the implements brought by the army from
Aberdeen.[105]

In the beginning of November, the Earl of Seaforth arrived at Perth, and
the Mac Invans, the Maccraws, the Chisholmes of Strath-Glass, and
others, completed all the forces that Lord Mar expected to join him.
Truly might the Earl say, "that no nation in such circumstances, and so
destitute of all kind of succour from abroad, ever made so brave a
struggle for restoring their prince and country to their just
rights."[106] But the usual fate of the Stuarts involved their devoted
adherents in ruin: or rather, let us not call that fate, which may be
better described by the word incapacity in the leaders of their cause.

The want of ammunition, which was to have been supplied from abroad, was
now severely felt. "I must here add one thing," says Lord Mar, "which,
however incredible the thing may appear, is, to our cost, but too true:
and that is, that from the time the Earl of Mar set up the Chevalier's
standard to this day, we never received from abroad the least supply of
arms and ammunition of any kind; though it was notorious in itself, and
well known, that this was what from the first we mainly wanted; and, as
such, it was insisted upon by the Earl of Mar, in all the letters he
writ, and by all the messengers he sent to the other side."[107]

On the ninth of November it was determined, at a great council of war,
to march straight to Dumblane with the ultimate view of following the
Brigadier Mackintosh into England, with the main body of the army,
amounting to nine thousand men, whilst a detachment of three thousand
should, if possible, gain possession of Stirling.

The engagement which ensued, and which was called the battle of Sherriff
Muir, was fought on a Sunday; after both armies had been under arms all
night. No tent was pitched for the Duke of Argyle's men, either by
officer or soldier, on that cold November evening. Each officer was at
his post, nor could they much complain whilst their General sat on
straw, in a sheepcote, at the foot of the hill, called Sherriff Muir,
which overlooks Dumblane, on the right of his army. In the dead of the
night, the Duke, by his spies, learned where the enemy were; for,
although on account of the hills and broken ground, they could not be
seen, they were not at two miles' distance. This was at Kinback; at
break of day, the army of Argyle was completely formed, and the General
rode up to the top of the hill to reconnoitre the foe.[108]

The Earl of Mar, meantime, had given orders for his army to form to the
left of the road that leads to Dumblane, and whilst they were forming
in front of the town of Dumblane, they discovered the enemy on the
height of the west end of the Sherriff Muir. A council of war was then
held, and it was resolved, _nemine contradicente_, to fight.

The Earl of Mar's forces had also been ready for combat during the whole
of the night. To the Highlanders the want of shelter was of little
consequence. It was usual to them, before they lay down on the moor to
dip their plaids in water, by which the cloth was made impervious to the
wind; and to choose, as a favourite and luxurious resting-place, some
spot underneath a cover of overhanging heath. So late as the year 1745,
they could not be prevailed on to use seats.[109] It was therefore with
unimpaired vigour that they rushed on to the combat.

The Earl of Mar placed himself at the head of the clans: perhaps a
finer, a more singular, a more painful sight can rarely have been
witnessed than the rush of this great body of Highlanders to the
encounter. It was delayed by the Earl of Mar's despatching his
aide-de-camp, Colonel Clephan, to Lord Drummond, and to General Gordon,
with orders to march and attack immediately. On their return, pulling
off his hat, he waved it with an huzza, and advanced in front of the
enemy's formed battalions. Then was heard the _slogan_ or war-cry, each
clan having its own distinctive watch-word, to which every clansman
responded, whether his ear caught the sound in the dead of night, or in
the confusion of the combat. Distinguished by particular badges, and by
the peculiar arrangement and colours of the tartans, these devoted men
followed the Earl of Mar towards the foe.

But the action cannot be described in a manner better adapted to this
narrative, than in the words of Lord Mar himself, in his letter on the
very day of the engagement, to Colonel Balfour, whom he had left in
command of the garrison at Perth. It is dated Ardoch, November 13th,
1715.

                                              "Ardoch, Nov. 13th, 1715."

    "I thought you would be anxious to know the fate of this day. We
    attacked the enemy on the end of the Sherriff Muir, at twelve of the
    clock this day, on our right and centre; carried the day entirely;
    pursued them down to a little hill on the south of Dumblane; and
    there I got most of our horse and a pretty good number of our foot,
    and brought them again into some order. We knew not then what was
    become of our left, so we returned to the field of battle. We
    discerned a body of the enemy on the north of us, consisting mostly
    of the Grey Dragoons, and some of the Black. We also discovered a
    body of their foot farther north upon the field where we were in the
    morning; and east of that, a body as we thought of our own foot, and
    I still believe it was so. I formed the horse and foot with me in a
    line on the north side of the hill, where we had engaged and kept
    our front towards the enemy to the north of us, who seem'd at first
    as if they intended to march towards us; but upon our forming and
    marching towards them, they halted and marched back to Dumblane. Our
    baggage and train-horses had all run away in the beginning of the
    action. But we got some horses and brought off most of the train to
    this place where we quarter to-night about Ardock, whither we
    march'd in very good order: and had our left and second line behaved
    as our right and the rest of the first line did, our victory had
    been compleat: but another day is coming for that, and I hope ere
    long too.

    "I send you a list of the officers' names who are prisoners here,
    besides those who are dangerously wounded and could not come along,
    whose words of honour were taken. Two of these are the Earl of
    Forfar, who I'm afraid will die, and Captain Urquhart, of Burn's
    Yard, who is very ill wounded. We have also a good number of private
    men prisoners; but the number I do not exactly know.

    "We have lost, to our regret, the Earl of Strathmore and the Captain
    of Clan Ranald. Some are missing, but the fate we are not sure of.

    "The Earl of Panmure, Drummond of Logie, and Lieutenant Colonel
    Maclean are wounded.

    "This is all that I have to say now, but that I am,

                                               "Yours, &c.    MAR."

    "P.S. We have taken a great many of the enemy's arms."

Lord Mar, on this occasion, showed a degree of personal bravery worthy
of the great name which he bore. He had placed himself on the right,
and, as he was giving orders to the Macdonalds to charge that battalion
of the enemy opposite to them, he encountered a very close fire. "The
horse on which my Lord was," writes an eye-witness on the Jacobite side,
"was wounded, for he fell down with him upon the fire, and got away, and
my Lord immediately mounted another horse: he exposed his person but too
much, and showed a great deal of bravery, as did the other lords about
him."[110]

The army of the Duke of Argyle lay on their arms all night, expecting
that the next day the battle would be resumed; but, on Monday the
fourteenth of November, the Duke went out with the piquet guard to the
field to view the enemy, but found them gone: and leaving the piquet
guard on the place, he returned to Dumblane, and thence to Stirling,
carrying off with him fourteen of the enemy's colours and standards, and
among them the royal standard called the Restoration, besides several
pieces of artillery, and many prisoners, some of them men of rank and
influence.

Both sides claimed the victory of Sherriff Muir as their own; but,
however it may be argued, it is certain that with only three thousand
effective troops, Argyle had contrived "to break the heart of the
rebellion," and to subdue an army such as could never again be
reassembled. Between six and eight hundred of the Jacobites are stated
to have fallen on the field,[111] and several, among whom was the brave
Earl of Panmure and Colonel Maclean, were among the wounded. Lord Mar,
nevertheless, celebrated the engagement as if it had been a victory.

Thanksgiving-sermons were ordered to be preached at Perth, and a Te Deum
sung in the church; and ringing of bells, and other demonstrations
deceived the hearts of those who knew little of the real injury done to
the cause, or amused others whose nearest interests had not suffered in
the Sherriff Muir. A paper was also circulated containing a report of
the battle, of course highly favourable to the Earl of Mar's part in
what he called his victory. The following is the statement which he sent
to the Chevalier.


THE EARL OF MAR TO THE CHEVALIER.[112]

                                                         "Nov. 24, 1715.

    "Sir,

    "It was but yesterday that I had accounts of your being at sea, and
    I thought myself obliged to do all in my power to let you know the
    state of affairs in this island before you land in it, so that you
    may not be disapointed upon your comeing.

    "I had the certain account yesterday of those who had appear'd in
    arms besouth Forth, and in the north of England, all being made
    prisoners at Preston in Lancashire, which I'm affraid will putt a
    stop to any more riseings in that country at this time.

    "Your Majesty's army, which I have the honour to command, fought the
    enime on the Shirreff-Muir, near Dumblain, the thirteenth of this
    moneth. Our left behav'd scandalously and ran away, but our right
    routed the enimies left and most of their body.

    "Their right follow'd and pursued our left, which made me not
    adventure to prosecute and push our advantage on our right so far as
    otherwayes wee might have done, however wee keept the field of
    battle, and the enimie retir'd to Dumblain.

    "The armie had lyen without cover the night before, and wee had no
    provisions there, which oblidg'd me to march the armie back two
    milles that night, which was the nearest place where I could get any
    quarters. Next day I found the armie reduced to a small number, more
    by the Highlanders going home than by any loss wee sustained, which
    was but very small. So that and want of provisions oblidg'd me yet
    to retire, first to Auchterarder, and then here to Perth. I have
    been doing all I can ever since to get the armie together again, and
    I hope considerable numbers may come in a little time; but now that
    our friends in England are defeated, there will be troops sent down
    from thence to reinforce the Duke of Argyle, which will make him so
    strong, that wee shall not be able to face him, and I am affraid wee
    shall have much difficultie in makeing a stand any where, save in
    the Highlands, where wee shall not be able to subsist.

    "This Sir, is a melancholy account, but what in duty I was oblidg'd
    to let you know, if possibly I can, before you land; and for that
    end I have endeavour'd to send boats out about those places where I
    judg'd it most probable you would come.

    "Ther's another copie of this upon the West Coast, and I wish to God
    one or other of them may find you if your Majesty be upon the coast.

    "By the strength you have with you, your Majesty will be best able
    to judge if you will be in a condition, when join'd with us, to make
    a stand against the enimie. I cannot say what our numbers will be
    against that time, or where wee shall be, for that will depend on
    the enimie, and the motions they make; but unless your Majesty have
    troops with you, which I'm affraid you have not, I see not how wee
    can oppose them even for this winter, when they have got the Dutch
    troops to England, and will power in more troops from thence upon us
    every day.

    "Your Majestie's coming would certainly give new life to your
    friends, and make them do all in their power for your service; but
    how far they would be able to resist such a formed body of regular
    troops as will be against them, I must leave your Majestie to judge.

    "I have sent accounts from time to time to Lord Bolingbroke, but I
    have not heard once from any of your Majestie's servants since Mr.
    Ogilvie of Boin came to Scotland, nor none of the five messengers I
    sent to France are return'd, which has been an infinite loss to us.
    I sent another, which is the sixt, to France, some days ago, with
    the account of our victory, who I suppose is sail'd ere now.

    "May all happiness attend your Majestie, and grant you may be safe,
    whatever come of us. If it do not please God to bless your kingdoms
    at this time with your being settled on your throne, I make no doubt
    of its doing at another time; and I hope there will never be wanting
    of your own subjects to assert your cause, and may they have better
    fortune than wee are like to have. I ask but of Heaven that I may
    have the happiness to see your Majestie before I die, provided your
    person be safe; and I shall not repine at all that fortune has or
    can do to me.

    "Your Majestie may find many more capable, but never a more faithful
    servant than him who is with all duty and esteem, Sir, your
    Majestie's most dutiful, most faithfull and most obedient subject
    and servant,

                                                              "MAR."

    "From the Camp of Perth, Nov. 24, 1715."


A fortnight previously the Earl of Mar had addressed the following
curious letter to Captain Henry Straiton,[113] at Edinburgh, to whom
many of Lord Mar's epistles are written. The allusion to Margaret Miller
refers to Lady Nairn, the sister-in-law of the Marquis of Tullibardine,
and wife of Lord Nairn, who, in compliance with a Scottish custom, took
his wife's title, she being Lady Nairn in her own right. The allusion
to "a dose" which will require the air of a foreign country to aid it,
seems to offer some notion of the Earl's subsequent flight.

                                                   "Novemb. 8th, 1715.

    "Sir,

    "I had yours of the fourth this forenoon, which was very wellcome.
    And I hope we shall soon see the certainty of what the accounts
    makes us expect of these folks' arivall. I sent of a pacquet
    yesterday with an answer to Margaret Miller's of the second, and in
    it I sent a copie of my last to Mr. H----n, which was dated the
    second and third, of which I sent him copies two different wayes, so
    I hope he'll get one of them at least. They were pressing them to go
    into England; and now that they are actually gone their, and in so
    good a way, I am easie as to that. I hope God will direct and assist
    them.

    "I thought to have marcht from this to-day. The foot are mostly
    gone, and I march with the horse to-morrow morning. Our generall
    revew is to be at Auchterardor on Thursday morning, and then to
    march forward immediately. It is of great use to hear often from
    you, and to have accounts of our friends in the north of England,
    and what is doing in England beside; so I know you'll write as often
    as you can find occasions. I fancie I may hear to-day from our
    friends in the north of England, for I hope they had some days ago a
    way of sending directly. It seems the Duke of Argyll's absence from
    London is not like to do his own court of interest there much good.
    I hope our manifesto's being disperced at London, will have good
    effect; and I long to see what the prints call the Pretender's
    declaration, and the declaration of the people of England. The run
    upon the bank, I hope, will not lessen. The public credit must not
    be once ruined to make it raise again, and I hope that time may be
    sooner than we think of. We have rainy weather, but that is an
    inconveniencie to the enimie as well as to us. My humble service to
    Margaret Miller: I thank her for the information she gives me, of
    one about me giving intelligence; but other friends may be easie
    about it, for I am sure there is nothing in it; and I know what made
    them belive, which I confess had colour enough. I wish she would get
    the Doctrix to send a new dose to the patient she knows of, for
    there was a little too much of one of the ingredients in the last,
    which toke away the effect of the whole. It is the ingredient that
    has the postponeing quality in it; and the patient's greatest
    distemper is the apprehentions he has of a perfect cure being long
    of comeing, and that it is not to be til he get the air of another
    country. The dose must be carefully made up, and no appearance of
    its comeing from any other hand but the Doctrix' own. Ther's some
    copies herewith sent of a paper printed on this side the water, of
    which I hear severall are at Stirling. The other two papers I got
    to-day are given to revise, and are to be printed soon. I send you a
    copie of a letter was wrote t'other day, and sent to the Cameronians
    in the west. I wish you could send this one to some of them in the
    south. This is all I will trouble you with; but I hope both to get
    from you and give you good news soon, and I ever am, with all
    sincerity and truth, yrs. &c.

    "Perhaps Capt. R----n will not be found to have done so much hurt as
    was thought he designed; but this is not to bid trust him yet."

By two manuscript letters among the Mar papers, it appears, however,
that the account soon afterwards published by Lord Mar was not so full
of artifice and untruths as his enemies represented. "He kept the field
of battle until it was dark," says one writer, in a letter dated from
Perth (November the 19th, 1715); "and nothing but want of provisions
prevented us from going forward the next day. We hear the Whigs give
various accounts of the battle, to cover the victory; but the numbers of
the slain on their part being eleven or twelve hundred, and ours not
above fifty or sixty, and our keeping the field when they left it, makes
the victory incontestable. Your friends that I know here mind you often,
and they and I would be glad to have the opportunity to drink a bottle
with you beyond the Forth."

Another eye-witness gives a still more detailed account.[114] "I have
yours of the seventeenth, with the paper inclosed, wherein that
gentleman has taken the liberty to insert many falsehoods relative to
the late action, a true and impartial account of which I here send you,
which is but too modest on our side, and many things omitted that will
be afterwards made publick, particularly their murdering Strathmoir,
after he had asked quarters, and the treatment they gave to Panmuir and
several others, who, I hope, will be living witnesses against them. The
enclosed is so full that I have little to say, only that we have not
lost a hundred men in the action, and none of note, except Strathmoir,
and the Captain of Clan Ronald."

The cruel spirit of party destroyed the generous characteristics of the
soldier, during the excitement of the combat: but how can we palliate
the conduct of one of the King's generals, Lord Isla, after the
fierceness of the encounter was over? The letter referred to discloses
particulars which were hushed up, or merely glanced at, in the partial
annals of the time.

    "So soon as they saw us coming down upon them, they marched off in
    great haste towards Dumblain, and left several of our people they
    had taken, among which was Lord Panmuir, who offered to give his
    parole, not knowing what had passed upon the eighth; but he was told
    by the person he sent to Lord Isla, that he could not take a parole
    from a rebel, and they were in such haste that they lost him in a
    little house, with several others near the field, where we found
    them when we advanced and brought him along with us to Ardoch, two
    miles furder, where we stayed all night and next day, until that we
    heard the enemy were marched off to Stirling. He is now pretty well
    and in no danger. Earl Loudoun passed him as he lay in the field,
    without taking any notice of him, and he was wounded there by the
    dragoons after he had surrendered to them; but I hope there will be
    one other day of reckoning for these things. My Lord Mar sent off
    two or three people to take care of Lord Forfar when he heard he was
    wounded, and one of them waited of him to Stirling. He expressed a
    good dale of consern that he should have been ingadged against his
    countrymen, and sent a breslet off his arm to Lord Mar, so that we
    all wish he may live. A good pairt of our baggage and the provisions
    we had, were distroyed by our own people who went of from our left.
    We are now getting provisions and every thing ready as soon as
    possible; and I am hopefull we will be in a condition in a very few
    days to pass forth without oposition.

    "We have got accounts this day of a victorie obtained by our friends
    in the south, the particulars of which we long for. I have sent you
    some copies of the printed account of the action to give our
    friends.

                                                        "So adieu."

Notwithstanding the humane attentions shewn by the Earl to Lord Forfar,
that brave and generous nobleman died of his wounds. After lingering
more than three weeks, he expired at Stirling on the eighth of
December. He was wounded in sixteen different places, but a shot which
he received in his knee seems to have been the most fatal injury. The
conduct of the Earl appears in strong contrast with that of the Earl of
Isla; but we must remember that each party had its own chroniclers. It
is, nevertheless, a result of observation, more easily stated than
explained, that through the whole of the two contests, both in 1715 and
1745, the generous and somewhat chivalric bearing of the Jacobites was
acknowledged; whilst a spirit of cruel persecution marked the conduct of
some of the chief officers on the opposite side. The Duke of Argyle
indeed, in his own person, presented an exception to this remark, which
chiefly applies to those secondary to him in command and influence.

The conduct of Lord Mar, in retreating to Perth after the affair of
Sherriff Muir, has been severely censured. But, as Sir Walter Scott has
observed, he met with that obloquy which generally follows the leader of
an unsuccessful enterprise. According to Lord Mar's own account (and it
has been corroborated by others), his retiring to Perth was unavoidable.
The Highlanders, brave as they were, had a custom of returning home
after a battle; and many of them went off when the engagement was ended.
The Earl of Mar was not, therefore, in a condition to pursue the
advantage which he had gained, but was forced to await at Perth the
arrival of the Chevalier, or of the Duke of Berwick; on the notification
of which, the Highlanders would have rallied to his standard. No
supplies had been sent; the gentlemen of the army, as well as the men,
had been long absent from their homes, and were living at their own
expense; and therefore were impatient for leave of absence. To add to
the general discouraging aspect of affairs, the fatal result of the
English insurrection, under the command of Mr. Forster, was communicated
at this time.

At first the result of the battle of Preston was represented to the
Jacobites at Perth in a very different light to that in which the defeat
of the English Jacobites afterwards appeared. The following is an
extract of a letter from Lord Mar, dated the twentieth of November.
"This day we hear from good hands that they (the English Jacobites) have
had a victory, for which we have had rejoicings, and I hope in God they
are in a good way by this time. Let me hear from you often, I beg it of
you, and I'll long for the particulars of that affair.

"I am doing all I can to get us again in a condition to march from home.
It will not be so soon as I wish, which is no small mortification to me,
but our friends; you may depend on it, that it shall be as soon as I
can, and no time shall be lost. It is wonderfull that neither the King
nor the Duke of Ormond comes, nor that I have not accounts from them.
Now that there is so considerable a party appearing in England, I hope
they will put it off no longer. I hope all your friends in England are
well in particular, but pray let me have an account of it.

"Lord Tullibardin and Lord George are well; they are gone again to
Atholl to bring back their men, who went off that they might retrieve
their honour, as I doubt not but they will. It is a great pity if poor
Strathmore and Clanronald, and I'm afraid honest Auchterhouse, is
killed, for we can get no account of him.

"I wish our prisoners may be as civilly treated as theirs are with us.
They are all sent to Dundee (the officers I mean), where they have the
liberty of the town, and wear their swords. My compliments to our sick
friend, who I am sorry is still so; but he has had a good second and
secretary.

"Pray let us have some good news now, and I am with all truth and
esteem,

                                                         Yours, &c."

"Perth, November 20, 1715."

"Lord Panmure recovers pritty well. The enimie give out that he gave his
parole when he was prisoner, but it was not so, he off'red it them but
they wou'd not take it from a rebel as they call'd him, and neither did
Strewan; so they were both resqued."

       *       *       *       *       *

These letters place Lord Mar in a somewhat more estimable light than the
usual statements have done. The truth is, that we ought never to judge
of a man's actions before we have had an insight into his real motives
and circumstances at the time. Few individuals had greater difficulties
to contend with than Lord Mar.

Harassed by cabals among the adherents of the Chevalier; unable to
account for the continued reserve and absence of that Prince; and
weakened greatly both by the secession of the clan of Fraser, who had
joined the Insurgents with Mackenzie of Fraserdale, but who now went
away, and joined him whom they considered as their real chieftain, the
infamous Simon Fraser, of Beaufort, Lord Lovat; the Earl began to listen
to those who talked of capitulating with the enemy. He found, indeed,
that he was forced to comply with the wishes of the chieftains, some of
whom were making private treaties for themselves. It must have been a
bitter humiliation to Lord Mar to have sent a message to his former
rival in politics, the Duke of Argyle, "to know if he had power to treat
with him;" but the measure appears from the following letter to have
been unavoidable. It was written after the news of the defeat at Preston
had reached Perth. It bespeaks some degree of compassion and
consideration for a man whose councils were distracted by dissensions,
and who was embarrassed beyond measure by the absence of the Chevalier,
to whose arrival he looked anxiously to give some hopes of revival to a
sinking cause. The Master of Sinclair, to whom Lord Mar refers as a
"devil," and who, since the disaster at Preston was known, "appeared in
his own colours," was the eldest son of Henry, eighth Baron Sinclair, a
devoted adherent of the House of Stuart, and one of those who had
withdrawn from the Convention of 1689 when the resolution to expel James
the Second was adopted. John, Master of Sinclair, was afterwards
attainted, and never assumed the title of his father, although pardoned
in 1726.

                                                 "November 27th, 1715.

    "Sir,

    "I had yours of the twenty-second, the twenty-fifth, and also spoke
    with the person you mention in it; I suppose he wou'd see you, as he
    returned. The disaster of our friends in England is very unlucky,
    both to affairs there and here. Since we knew of it here a _devil_,
    who I suspected for some time to be lurking amongst us, has appeared
    openly in his own colours. I forsaw this a-comeing some days ago. I
    have endeavoured to keep people from breaking amongst themselves,
    and was forced to go into the first step of it; but I hope we shall
    be able to have the manadgement of it, and prevent its doing any
    hurt, but to confounde in time comeing the designs of those who were
    the promoters of it. It was by the advise of all your friends what I
    have done, so let not our folks be alarmed when they hear of it from
    I----g. It is odd where the K----[115] can be all this time, since,
    by all appearance and all the accounts we have, he has left France
    long ago; but that must quickly appear, and I hope to get things
    staved off til it does. But without his comeing what can be done?
    Tho' I hope that will not be the case. It is odd that others write
    of Col. H----y and Doctor Abor--y, both at Parise, and that they do
    not write themselves, tho' I'm told to-day that there's a letter
    from them to me at Edinburgh, which I long for. We are told of
    troops comeing from Englande, both English and Dutch. I doubt if
    they'll ventur to quitt with both, and I would fain hope that none
    of them will come soon. God grant that the K---- be safe. If he go
    to England, as we are told he designed, I doubt not but he knows of
    support there. I confess there's a great deal lost by his long
    delay, but that certainly was not in his power to help, else it
    wou'd not have been so. If he still come here, I hope we will yet be
    able to make a stand for him this winter, but I thought I was
    obledged to let him know the true situation before he land, which I
    have done to the best of my pow'r, and lodged letters for him in the
    places where I thought it most likely he wou'd come, so that he may
    not be dissapointed by expecting to find things better than they
    are. He has been so long by the way that it wou'd seme he is not
    comeing to England, but that he is comeing round about Ireland to
    Scotland; and neither he nor D---- O----d[116] be in England. It
    wou'd seem that they will not stir there, which would make it a very
    hard task here; but I hope Providence will protect him, and yet
    settle him on his throne.

    "I find it will be sometime before I can stirr from hence, and if
    the enemy get not reinforcments, I judge they will not stirr either;
    but as soon as they get them they certainly will, and I'm afraid we
    shall be oblidged to take the hills, which is a could quarter now.
    I wish you knew a great many particulars I have to tell you, but it
    is not safe writing them; there are some people with us who it had
    been good for the King they had stay'd at home, where they want not
    a little to be, and will leave us at last, but we must make the best
    of them, tho' there be but ill stuff to make it of as the saying is.
    Never had man so plaguie a life as I have had o' late; but I'll do
    the best I can to go threw it, and not be unworthy of the trust
    reposed in me. My service to Mr. Hall, and I hope he'll make my
    compliments to his correspondent at P----se,[117] who he mentions in
    his to me; but its odd that I have heard from none there myself ever
    sine B----n came, especially since other letters come through. I
    must own I have not had many encouragements, but that should be
    nothing if I had encouragements for others. Should it please God
    that the King's affairs should not succeed, but that people
    capitulated, I do not purpose to be a Scots or Englishman if they
    would let me, and all that I wou'd ask for myself is liberty to go
    abroad, for in that case I wou'd rather live in Siberia than
    Britain. If the King does not come soon, I find people will not hold
    out long; but if he does, there are honest men enough to stand by
    him and not see him perish. Pray let me hear from you as often as
    you can, and when you write to Mrs. Miller[118] make my compliments
    to her. I wish some of our men here had her spirit. I hope you are
    now perfectly recover'd, but pray take care that you fall not ill
    again. Adieu.

    "Pray cause give the enclosed to my brother as soon as it comes to
    your handes. I beg you may apprise our friends at London and Parise
    of what has been done hear to-day; the sending to Argle at Stirling
    a message about articles of treaty, as appears from other papers,
    which I tel you I was forced to go into;--that they may not be
    surprised at it and think we have given all over, which might have
    very bad consequences in both places. Do this by the first post. All
    will come right again if the King come soon to Britain."

The answer returned by the Duke of Argyle to Lord Mar's overture was
this: that "he had no sufficient powers to treat with the Earl of Mar
and his Council as a body, but that he would write to Court about it."

To this reply, which was sent with much courtesy by the Duke, a
rejoinder was made, "That when the Duke should let the Earl of Mar and
his Council know that he had sufficient power, then they would make
their proposition." The proposal was sent up to St. James's, but no
further notice was taken of it, nor were the powers of the Duke of
Argyle extended to enable him to come to any terms with Lord Mar. But
although the negotiation thus died away, the weakness it betrayed among
the Jacobite party was highly prejudicial to their cause.

James, during all the recent events, had been engaged in making several
attempts to leave St. Maloes. He had gone openly on board ships which
were laden with arms and ammunition for his use, but had withdrawn when
he found that his embarkation was known. He therefore changed his plans,
and crossing to Normandy, resolved to embark at Dunkirk. Having lurked
for several days, disguised as a mariner, on the coast of Brittany, he
went privately to Dunkirk, where he embarked, attended by the Marquis of
Tynemouth, the eldest son of the Duke of Berwick, Lieutenant Cameron,
and several other persons, on board a French ship, which, according to
some accounts, "was laden with brandy, and furnished with a good
pass-port." Thus at length having ventured on the ocean, the Prince set
sail towards Norway; but changed his direction, and steered towards
Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire. During all this time, the Earl of Mar
suffered from the utmost anxiety and perplexity for one who was unworthy
of the exertions made for his restoration. This is evident from the
following letter, dated November the thirtieth, to Captain Straiton:

    "The accounts of that person's[119] way of going on, and the danger
    he is in, confound me; but I hope Providence has not preserved him
    all this while to destroy him at last. I am doing all I can to make
    it safe; and perhaps what we thought our misfortune, (the men going
    home after Sheriff Muir,) may prove our happiness, they being where
    that person is to come, and I send troops there immediately."

    "I knew before I got yours that the Dutch troops were coming
    here.[120] Those by sea may come soon, but those by land cannot be
    here a long time. They will now power in all the troups from England
    on us; but I hope we may hold it this winter in spite of them, tho'
    we shall have hard quarters in the Highlands. In case of what Mr.
    H----ll writes me prove true, and happen, for fear of accidents
    after it does, were it not fitt that you should write to France to
    send some ships to cruise up and down the north-west coast to save
    the person Mr. H----ll writes of, if things should not prove right?
    and our friends in France can either send them from thence or Spain,
    round Ireland? I hear of but two little ships of warr on that coast;
    and the ships I would have sent may pass as marchant ships tradeing
    and putting in by accident therabouts, which they often do. Pray
    think of this, and write of it soon to France, as I intend to do
    to-night by an express I am sending; and were it not fitt you should
    write of it too to some trusty friend at London? But it must be done
    with the utmost caution, for fear of disheartning the English. Tho'
    the safty of that person is of such consequence that all ways is to
    be taken for it, and all accidents guarded against.

    "I wrote to you the twenty-seventh, and in it I gave you account of
    an affair which happened amongst us, which obliged us to send a
    message to the Duke of Argyll. I hope this came safe to your hand.
    His answer was very civil, and our return was in the words
    following, viz: 'We are obliged to the Duke of Argyll for his
    civility; that, since he has no powers to treat with us, we can say
    no more now; but if at any time he shall have them, and let us know
    it, we shall give our answer.'

    "I hope this affair has been so manadgd that all the spirit of
    division amongst us is crusht; and pray take care to informe our
    friends at London and Parise about it, that it may not alarme them.
    I am affraid of its alarmeing the Regent, and keeping him from doing
    anything for the King; for which reason I send an express to Lord
    Bolingbroke to-night. I suppose it will be ten or twelve dayes at
    least before the Duke of Argyll will have a return, and we may know
    much before that time. If they agree to a treaty, it is still in our
    own power; and if not, I hope people will stand together for their
    own sake.

    "You speak in your two last as if you were opresst about our
    divisions. All I shall trouble you further in relation to
    this,--there are odd people amongst us, and those of whom it should
    not have been expected; they had instild their spirit so farr into
    many, that there was no steming the tide but by going into it, or
    else breaking amongst ourselves, and, like them, make a seperat
    peace; but now those wise folk are ashamed of themselves, and are
    disclaimed by those who they said comissioned them. I do all I can
    to make others forgett this behaveour of those people, and I hope we
    shall be as unite as ever. If the King come, I am sure we shall; and
    if God is not pleased to bless us with his presence, whatever we do
    shall be in consert.

    "I beg to hear often from you, and particularly what you can learn
    of the motion of the enimie and their designs.

    "I send a reinforcement to-night to Bruntisland of a hundred men,
    and there was fifty in it before.

    "Lord Seaforth went north some time ago, and severall of Lord
    Huntly's people; so I hope they togither will be able to keep Lord
    Sutherland from doing much mischife, and e'er long to reduce him and
    all the King's enimies there. We are not yet in so much apprehention
    of them as Mr. H----ll seems to be. I am mightily pleased you are so
    much recovered, which I know by your hand-writeing; but I can scarce
    conceave how you get yourself keept free of our enimies,--may you do
    long so, and

            "I am sincearly yours, &c. Adieu."

On the first of December, the Earl having still heard no tidings of the
Chevalier, and being ignorant of his real movements, again writes in all
the uncertainty, and with the circumspection of one who knows not
whether his letter will be received. He seems always to have sent
duplicates of his letters.

    "I am in the utmost pain about the K----,[121] and I have done all
    in my power to make him safe, but I hope Providence will protect
    him. I sent one for France this morning, and I hope he may sail in a
    day or two, but let that not keep you from writeing there too. I
    would fain hope that the Regent has altered his measurs, and is
    comeing into the K----'s intrest, else I do not see how it had been
    possible for him to get thro' France: if so, I have good hopes, and
    I wish he may come to us; but if not, and that England do nothing, I
    wish he were safe again where he formerly was, for we shall never be
    able alone to do his bussiness, and he will be in the utmost danger
    after starveing a winter in the Highlands. Lord Huntley is still
    very much out of humour and nothing can make him yet believe that
    the K----'s a-comeing. He intends to go north, under the pretext of
    reduceing Lord Sutherland, and his leaving us at this time I think
    might have very bad effects, which makes me do all I can to keep
    him. The Master of Sinclair is a very bad instrument about him, and
    has been most to blaim of any body for all the differences amongst
    us. I am plagued out of my life with them, but must do the best I
    can. I expect now to hear every day of the K----'s landing; but
    should he be any time of comeing, and the Duke of Argyll get his
    powers and send us word of it before he come, our old work will
    begin again, and I am sure I shall be deserted by a great many. Some
    people seem so farr from being pleased with the news of the K----'s
    comeing, that they are visiblie sorry for it; and I wish to God
    these people had never been with us for they will be our undoing!
    and what a plague brought them out, since they could not hold it out
    for so short a time? I shall be blamed, I know, over all Europe for
    what I am entirely innocent of. It will be my own ruin beside, but
    if that could advance the K----'s affairs I am contented. In time I
    shall be justified when my parte in all this affair comes to be
    knowen, and I bless God I have witnesses enough who have seen all;
    and if accidents do not happen them, my papers will show it to
    conviction, for I have been pretty exact in keeping copies and a
    journall.

    "Since I have wrote so fully to you, I do not write to Mr. H----ll,
    for which I hope he'll forgive me.[122]

    "I am anxious to know if my brother got my note that was inclosed to
    you in that of the twenty-seventh, which was to caution him in a
    thing that I was affraid his over great concern for me might make
    him do, and which would vex me extreamly if he did.

    "I long to hear from you again, as I suppose you will from me; and
    as soon as I know of what you'll expect to hear of from me, you
    shall. Adieu."

In a few days afterwards Lord Mar had gained more precise intelligence
of the Prince's movements; on the delay at St. Maloes he puts the
favourable construction of the vessel's having been wind-bound, as will
be seen by the following letter. The dissensions in his counsels, aided,
as he hints, by the influence which the Master of Sinclair exercised
over the Marquis of Huntley, were, still, not among the least of his
difficulties.

                                                  "December 6th, 1715.

    "Sir,

    "Last night one of the messengers I had sent to France returned, and
    there came with him to Montrose, Mr. Charles Fleeming and General
    Eclin; but they are not yet come here, nor some money that came
    along with them. I have a letter from the King, the fifteenth of
    November, N. S. from St. Malos; severall from Lord Bolingbroke, the
    last of which was the twenty-seventh, and he belived the King then
    to be saild, and he had been wind bound there three weeks; but he
    did not sail, as I understand from the messenger til the eighteenth
    inst., he having seen a letter from Col. Hay at St. Maloes, to Mr.
    Arbuthnot, two dayes after he sailed. God send him safe to us, for
    which I have done all in my power! It is in the hands of Providence,
    and I hope God will protect him. It is not to be known where he is
    to land, and indeed it cannot be known certainly. Even this has not
    quite cured all the whims amongst us. Lord grant a safe landing, and
    I hope that will. The Duke of Ormond is gone to England, and I
    believe he has some troops with him and arms and ammunition.

    "I hear from Fife to-day that there landed at Leith on Sunday last
    four hundred of the Dutch troops. I hope that's all that are comeing
    by sea. I have the King's Declaration, which is to be reprinted
    here, and shall be dispers'd in a few days. The less that it be
    spoke that the King is to land soon, I believe the better, until he
    actually does, for that but make the Government more alert. Were he
    but once landed, I have reason to belive that there will be a new
    face of affairs seen abroad as well as at home in the King's favour,
    which is all I dare yet adventure to trust of it to paper; but I
    hope in God were the King once with us all will be well.

    "There are more officers comeing to us from abroad different wayes,
    so it's likely they may be dropping in every day. The Duke of
    Berwick stays behind for a very good reason, and is to follow. The
    King has been pleased to confer new honours on me, but I do not
    think it fitt to take it on me til he comes, and if it pleases not
    God he come to us safe, I am indifferent what becomes of all I ever
    had, and this may go with the rest. It is goodness in him, and more
    than I askt or deserve. I will long to hear from you; and tho' I
    desire you not to let the news I write you be much talkt of, yet I
    suppose it will be no secret, for I am obliged to communicate what I
    get to so many that it cannot possible be keept, and yet I cannot
    help this. Tho' Lord Huntley said little to me to-day upon my
    shewing him my letters, yet I know it from good hands he is not a
    bitt in better humour and that he will now positively go north;
    which I suppose he'll write of to me to-morrow, for 'tis seldom now
    he'll either see me or let me see him, tho' I take all the ways I
    can to please and humour him, but all will not do: however, I hope
    will not have many followers. Master of Sinclair is gone this day to
    see his father upon a sharp letter he had from him yesterday about
    his behaviour. Some others are ashamed of the part they acted, but
    if the King come not soon all of them will relapse again. The clans
    stand firm, and I hope will to the last.

    "Pray try to get notice of what private letters from London say upon
    our proposeing terms, and let me know as soon as you can. Adieu."

It is curious to trace the revival of the Earl's hopes, and the increase
of his confidence. The following letter contains, among other
circumstances, a reference to the supposed attempt of the Earl of Stair,
in France, to assassinate James.

                                                 "December 10th, 1715.

    "Sir,

    "Yesterday I had yours of the fourth and fifth, for which I thank
    you. I wrote to you on the eighth, which I hope you got safe, and
    in it I told you of one of the messengers I had sent to France being
    returned, and with him General Eclin and Mr. Charles Fleming, and
    some money: since that Doctor Abercromby is returned and Lord Edward
    Drummond is come with him and brought some more money. They come off
    the same day with the others, and landed the same day at Aberdeen
    the others did at Montrose. They only brought duplicates of the
    dispatches I had by the others, and a letter to me from the Q----
    with a pacquet from her to the K----, by which you may be sure he is
    sail'd, and we hourly expect to hear of his landing. Since those
    people came, those amongst us who had been uneasy, are now comeing
    to be in good humour again, particularly Lord Huntley; and I have
    agreed to his going north with some of his horse to get all his
    people there together to suppress those about Inverness, and also to
    have them in readiness against the K. comes. Pray God send him safe
    and soon, and then I do not despair of things going right still. Our
    whole prisoners almost, I mean the private men, are like to take on
    since they heard of the K----g's being certainly a-comeing; and
    since they saw the two enclosed papers, they say that were he once
    come, there will be news of their armie and all those prisoners.
    Even those who do not lift with us, pray openly for the K----, and
    that God may keep him out of the hands of his enimies.

    "The two enclosed are sent about to a great many places: it is
    better to delay dispersing the K----'s declaration til he arrive,
    since I hope that is near.

    "I admear we hear no certain accounts of the Duke of Ormond, for the
    fifteenth inst. the K---- and Q---- too write to me that he was
    saild a second time for England.

    "Pray God it may be well with him, and if he do not, then I wish he
    may come here with all my heart.

    "We have heard nothing as yet of the Duke of Argyle's return from
    London, and I imagine we shall hear nothing from him upon it, when
    he does get it and I hope he shall never be askt for it more by us.
    The Duke of Atholl will himself send his men against Crafourd.

    "I believe I forgot to tell you in my last that Colonel Hay mist
    very narrowly being murdered in France, takeing him for the K----
    (being in one of his cheases), by Lord Stair's gang, and in their
    pockets Lord Stair's orders were found to go to such a place, and
    there obey what orders they should receive from Count Douglass[123]
    (Lightly), let them be never so desperate. This is something so
    horrid that I want words to express it. I tell it you just as those
    from France tell me. The fellow was imprisoned by the government
    there and reclaimed by Lord Stair. Lord Clairmont was actually
    reclaimed by the Regent before they come away; so his being brought
    to England after, may work something. I have just now a packet of
    news sent me by A. M., for which I thank you. Notwithstanding this
    great new General's being come, I see not how they can do anything
    at Stirling till the Dutch join them, and that cannot be yet for
    some time; pray Heavens the K---- come before them! I know by other
    accounts as well as yours, from abroad, that they are not above four
    thousand complete and some of these are lost. Our Highlanders have
    got in their heads a mighty contempt for them, which may do good.
    This goes by the Hole,[124] from when your packet yesterday was sent
    me. I have nothing further to add now, but I hope soon to send you
    agreable news. Pray give my service to I. H. and desire him to make
    my compliments to his landlady and tel her, I hope she is now right
    with her son, which I am exceeding glad of. Adieu."

At length, on the twenty-second of December, James landed at Peterhead,
after a voyage of seven days. His arrival dispelled many doubts of his
personal courage, since, after all his deliberations, he adopted by no
means the least hazardous course by traversing the British ocean, which
was beset by British men-of-war. He had sailed from Dunkirk in the
small vessel in which he had embarked, and which was followed by two
other vessels, containing his domestics, and stores for the use of his
army. His immediate attendants were disguised as French officers, and his
retinue as seamen. It had been the Chevalier's original intention to
have landed in the Frith of Tay; but observing a sail which he suspected
to be unfriendly, he altered his course, and landed at Peterhead, where
the property of the Earl Marischal was situated. The ship in which the
Chevalier sailed was, however, near enough to the shore to be able, by
signals, to make signs to his friends of his approach. At Perth the
intelligence was received with the utmost joy, and produced a most
favourable effect, even among the prisoners of war, which Lord Mar
describes in the following letter. Up to the twenty-eighth of the month
he had not seen the Prince:

                                                   "The 28th December.

    "Yours of the twenty-second I have got just now by the Hole, and I
    sent one that way to you yesterday from our friend here, in which
    you have the joyfull news of the King's safe arival, which I hope in
    God will effectually sement what you recomend to us. Our friend went
    yesterday morning to meett his master, who I hope will be here with
    us again Friday; I pray God turn the hearts of his enemies, both for
    the sake of him and their poor country! It will be a monstruous
    crime never to be forgiven, if they now draw their swords against
    him, since he has been pleased to give them a most gratious
    indemnity for all that is past, without exception. All will now soon
    be dispersed in the North that opose him. Sutherland's men are
    deserting him, and the Frasers are all gone home. I make no doubt
    but that we are masters of Inverness, and so consequently the whole
    North before this time. I make no doubt but that the King's presence
    will forward everything: it has already had great effects here: and
    those that were for separate measurs have reason to be ashamed, and
    I hope they will make amends by their future behaveor. We have sent
    over some of the declarations, and ane other paket of them is gone
    this night. Now is the time for every body to bestir themselves, and
    that all resort here to their master. I ame persuaded you'l not be
    idle. Those that made a pretext of the King's not being landed, are
    now left unexcusable; and if those kind of folks now sit still and
    look any more on, they ought to be worse treated than our worst
    enemies. I beg of you to send us what accounts you can learn on your
    side, and what they are now to do upon this news. I hope in God we
    shall now be soon ready to give them a meeting! It will be of
    consequence for us to hear often from your side, and we have little
    other accounts than from you. I have sent yours by ane express this
    day to our friend, and I hope to hear from you soon in return to the
    last that went on Munday. The K---- lay on Saturday night at the
    Earl of Marischall's house; he had a very good and safe passage,
    and has given them fair slip, for I supose they did never rekon on
    his comeing the near way. I hear there is a great resort to him,
    since he landed, of all ranks.

    "The Duke of Athol[125] sent a pairty of two hundered of his men
    yesterday morning, under the comand of his brother Lord Edward, and
    his son Lord James, to Dunkeld to have surprised our garison there,
    which consisted of about one hundred men of the clans; but it seems
    the garison had notice of it some hours before they came, and gave
    them such a warm reception, that they retired in great haste with
    the loss of two men killed by our out-sentinels and five or sixe
    wounded. I belive his Grace's men had no good will to the work, and
    were brought their against their inclinations. They had nott then
    gott the account there of the King's arival, els I belive they had
    not atempted it. I wish our garison were now at Brunt Island, but I
    hope that loss soon be made up. I hope you'll omitte no occasion in
    letting us hear from you. Adieu.

    "The above is writte to H. S.,[126] but it will serve you both to
    forward it to him. I got the money and the cloas safe. I expect to
    hear from you soon. I have yours of the twenty-third. I have sent
    over a paket to be dispersed, and some ane other way. Your letters
    are longer be the way than they need so order it. Fall on some
    proper way to gett the enclosed delivered by some person, but be not
    seen in it yourself. If ane answer can be got, send it."

The Chevalier slept in the town of Peterhead on the first night of his
landing, but on the second he was received at Newburgh, a seat of the
Earl Marischal; and the adherents who welcomed him as their Prince, had
there an opportunity of forming a judgment of one whom they had hitherto
known only by the flattering representations of those who had visited
the young adventurer, at his little Court in Lorraine.

In person, James is reported by the Master of Sinclair to have been
"tall and thin, seeming to incline to be lean rather than to fill as he
grows in years." His countenance, to judge by the most authentic
portraits[127] of this Prince, had none of the meditative character of
that of Charles the First, whom the Chevalier was popularly said to
resemble: neither had it the sweetness which is expressed by every
feature of that unhappy Monarch, nor had his countenance the pensiveness
which wins upon the beholder who gazes upon the portraits of Charles.
The eyes of the Chevalier were light-hazel, his face was pale and long,
and in the fullness of the lips he resembled his mother, Mary of Modena.
To this physiognomy, on which it is said a smile was rarely seen to
play, were added, according to the account of a contemporary, from whose
narrative we will borrow a further description, "a speech grave, and not
very clearly expressive of his thoughts, nor over much to the purpose;
his words were few, and his behaviour and temper seemed always composed.

"What he was in his diversions we know not; here was no room for such
things. It was no time for mirth. Neither can I say I ever saw him
smile. Those who speak so positively of his being like King James the
Seventh, must excuse me for saying that it seems to say they either
never saw this person or never saw King James the Seventh; and yet I
must not conceal that when we saw the man whom they called our King, we
found ourselves not at all animated by his presence; and if he was
disappointed in us, we were tenfold more so in him. We saw nothing in
him that looked like spirit. He never appeared with cheerfulness and
vigour to animate us: our men began to despise him; some asked if he
could speak. His countenance looked extremely heavy. He cared not to
come abroad among us soldiers, or to see us handle our arms to do our
exercise. Some said the circumstances he found us in dejected him. I am
sure the figure he made dejected us; and had he sent us but five
thousand men of good troops, and never himself come, we had done other
things than we have done. At the approach of that crisis when he was to
defend his pretensions, and either lose his life or gain a Crown, I
think, as his affairs were situated, no man can say that his appearing
grave and composed was a token of his want of thought, but rather of a
significant anxiety grounded on the prospect of his inevitable ruin,
which he could not be so void of sense as not to see plainly before
him,--at least, when he came to see how inconsistent his measures
were--how unsteady the resolution of his guides, and how impossible it
was to make them agree with one another."[128]

       *       *       *       *       *

It was at Glammis Castle, the seat of the Earl of Strathmore, that the
Earl of Mar drew up a flattering account of the Prince, which he caused
to be printed and diligently circulated.[129] The whole is here given,
as affording an insight into all that was going on:--

    "I have had three of yours since I left Perth, but I wonder I have
    no letters from London. I mett the King at Fetteresso on Tuesday
    se'night, where we stayed til Friday; from thence we came to
    Brichan, then to Kinnaird, and yesterday here. The King designed to
    have gone to Dundee to-day, but ther's such a fall of snow that he
    is forced to put it off til to-morrow, if it be practicable then;
    and from thence he designs to go to Scoon. There was no haste in his
    being there sooner, for nothing can be done in this season, else he
    had not been so long by the way. People every where as we have come
    along, are excessively fond to see him and express that duty they
    ought. Without any compliment to him, and to do him nothing but
    justice, set aside his being a prince, he is realie the finest
    gentelman I ever knew. He has a very good presence, and resembles
    King Charles a great dele. His presence, tho', is not the best of
    him; he has fine partes, and dispatches all his buissiness himself
    with the greatest exactness. I never saw any body write so finely.
    He is afable to a great degree w^{t}out looseing that majestie that
    he ought to have, and has the sweetest temper in the world. In a
    word, he is even fitted to make us a happie people, were his subjects
    worthie of him. To have him peaceablie settled on his thron is what
    these kingdomes do not deserve; but he deserves it so much, that I
    hope ther's a good fate attending him. I am sure ther's nothing
    wanting to make the rest of his subjects as fond of him as we are,
    but thus knowing as we now have the happiness to do. And it will be
    odd if his presence amongst us, after his running so many hazards to
    compass it, do not turn the hearts of even the most obstinat. It is
    not fit to tel all the particulars, but I assure you, since he
    arived, he has left nothing undone that well could be to gain every
    body, and I hope God will touch their hearts. His Majestie is very
    sensible of the service you have done him and he desires you may
    continue, for which he hopes he may yet be able to reward you. He
    wrote to France as soon's he landed, and sent it with the shipe he
    came in, which we hope got safe there long ago. It is not often that
    we can have opportunity of writeing or sending there, and the Queen
    and others will be mighty impatient to hear frequently; therefore
    his Majestie expects you should write there frequently, and give
    them all the accounts you can. I have reason to hope we shall very
    quickly see a new face on affairs abroad in the King's favour, which
    is all I dare comitt to paper. The Government will nott certainly
    send all the strength against us they can, but e'er long, perhaps,
    they may have ocasion for their troups else where.

    "I belive one wou'd speak to you lately of a kind of comisary of the
    Dutch, that may be spoke to, which by no means ought to be
    neglected, and he being on your side the watter, it is left to you,
    and you must not stick at offering such a reward as he himself can
    desire, which I shall see made good: there should no time be lost in
    this, and I'll be glad to know soon if there be any hopes that way.

    "Tho' the way of sending letters betwixt us be now much more
    difficult than ever, yet you must write as often as you possiblie
    can get any probable way of sending of them safe; and pray give us
    all the accounts you can. I have ordred some of the King's
    declarations for England to be sent you, and when they come to your
    hands you wou'd get some way of sending them to London and other
    places of England. Send the enclosed for my wife under a cover, as
    you used to do; by my not hearing from her, I am affraid my last has
    not come to her hands. When any comes from her for me, pray take
    care that you send them a safe way. We long to know what effects the
    news of the King's arivall had at London, Stirling, and Edinburgh. I
    suppose you still hear from Kate Bruce. I do not understand what she
    means by going to the country, which she mentions in her letter to
    you.

    "I see in one of the prints that Lawrance is come off from London,
    so by this time he must certainly be in Scotland; pray let me know
    what you hear of him. If he be come, I suppose he'll understand
    himself so well as our prisoner, that he will immediately give
    himself up to us again.

    "The King wears paper caps under his wige, which I know you also do;
    they cannot be had at Perth, so I wish you could send some on, for
    his own are near out.

    "We are in want of paper for printing; is there no way to send us
    some from your side?

    "Pray, send my wife one of the Scots and one of the English
    declarations at the same time my letter goes, but under another
    cover. Adieu.

    "Since writeing I have yours of the thirty-first and first, for
    which I thank you, and am just going to read them to my master."

Little dependance can be placed on the entire accuracy of either of
these varying descriptions,--the one penned by a disappointed, and
perhaps wavering, adherent, the other by a man whose personal interests
were irrevocably involved with those of James. We must trust to other
sources to enable us to form a due estimate of the merits of this
ill-starred Prince.

James Stuart was at this time in his twenty-seventh year. From his very
cradle he had been, as it might seem to the superstitious, marked by
fate for a destiny peculiarly severe. His real birth was long disputed,
without the shadow of a reason, except what was suggested by a base
court intrigue. This slur upon his legitimacy, which was afterwards
virtually wiped away by the British Parliament, was nevertheless the
greatest obstacle to his accession, there being nothing so difficult to
obliterate as a popular impression of that nature.

Educated within the narrow precincts of the exiled court, James owed the
good that was within him to a disposition naturally humane, placable,
and just, as well as to the communion with a mother, the fidelity of
whose attachment to her exiled consort bespoke a finer quality of mind
than that which Nature had bestowed on the object of her devotion. By
this mother James must doubtless have been embued with a desire for
recovering those dominions and that power for which Mary of Modena, like
Henrietta Maria, sighed in vain, as the inheritance of her son; but the
stimulus was applied to a disposition with which a private life was far
more consonant than the cares of sovereignty. Rising as he does to
respectability, when we contrast the good nature and mild good sense of
the Chevalier with the bigotry of James the Second,--or view his career,
blameless with some exceptions, in contrast with the licentiousness of
Charles the Second, there were still no high hopes to be entertained of
the young Prince; his character had little energy, and consequently
little interest: he was affable, just, free from bigotry although firm
in his faith, and capable of great application to business; but he
wanted ardour. From his negative qualities, the pitying world were
disposed to judge him favourably. "He began the world," says Lockhart,
"with the general esteem of mankind; but he sank year by year in public
estimation: his Court subsequently displayed the worst features of the
Stuart propensities, an intense love of prerogative; and his mind, never
strong, became weaker and weaker under the dominion of favourites."

The ship in which James had sailed returned to France immediately to
give the news of his safe arrival, and at the same time Lieutenant
Cameron, the son of Cameron of Lochiel, was dispatched to Perth to
apprise the Earl of Mar of the event. Upon the spur of the moment the
Earl, accompanied by the Earl Marischal and General Hamilton, and
attended by twenty or thirty persons of quality, on horseback, set out
with a guard of horse to attend him whom they considered as their
rightful Sovereign. The cavalcade met the Chevalier at Fetteresso, the
principal seat of the Earl Marischal. "Here," says Reay, "the Chevalier
dressed, and discovered himself," and they all kissed his hand, and
owned him as their King, causing him to be proclaimed at the gates of
the house. At Fetteresso the Prince was detained during some days by
that inconvenient malady the ague. Meantime, the declaration which he
had prepared, and which was dated from Commercy, was disseminated, and
was dropped in some loyal towns by his adherents in the night-time,
there being danger in promulgating it openly.[130]

On the second of January, 1715-16, the Chevalier proceeded to Brechin,
and thence to Kinnaird; and on Thursday to Glammis Castle, the seat of
the Earl of Strathmore. On the sixth of January he made his public entry
into Dundee on horseback, at an early hour. Three hundred followers
attended him, and the Earl of Mar rode on his right hand, the Earl
Marischal on his left. At the suggestion of his friends, the Prince
shewed himself in the market-place of Dundee for nearly an hour and a
half, the people kissing his hands. The following extract from a letter
among the Mar Papers affords a more minute and graphic account of the
Chevalier's demeanour than is to be found in the usual histories of the
day.

    "I hear the Pretender went this day from Glams to Dundee, and comes
    to Scoon to-morrow; and I am shourly informed that your old friend
    Willie Callender went to Glams on Wensday and kissed the Pretender's
    hand, of whom he makes great speeches, and says he is one of the
    finest gentlemen ever he saw in his life. Its weell that his landing
    is keept up from the army, for he has gained so much the good will
    of all ranks of people in this country that have seen him, that if
    it was made publick it's thought it might have ill effects among
    them. He is very affable and oblidging to all, and great crowds of
    the common people flok to him. When he toke horse this morning from
    Glams, there was about a thousand country people at the gate, who
    they say, gave him many blessings: he has tuched several of the
    ivil, as he did some this morning. He is of a very pleasant temper,
    and has intirely gained the hearts of all thro' the places he has
    passed. He aplyes himself very closs to business, and they say might
    very weell be a Secretarie of State. He has declared Lord Marischall
    one of his bedchamber. The toun of Aberdeen made him ane address, as
    did all the other touns as he passed; and I hear he is, at the
    request of the episcopal clergy in this country, to apoint a day of
    thanksgiving for his safe arival, and likeways a proclamation, to
    which will be referred his declaration, with something new, which
    shall be sent to you with first ocasion. There came a battalion of
    Bredalbins men to Perth on Tuesday, and ane other of Sir Donald
    M^{c}Donalds this day; and they are now daily getting in more men.

    "This is all the intelligence I can give you, and I hope to hear
    from you again soon, and lett me know what certain number are now
    come over, and what more designed. Deliver the enclosed and tell him
    these papers could not be gott him just now, but shall per next. I
    ame affraid poor W. Maxewell wild be dead before you get this, of a
    fever and a flux: he is given over this two days. Write soon."

After the display at Dundee, the Chevalier rode to the house of Stewart
of Grandutly, in the neighbourhood, where he dined and passed the day.
On the following day he proceeded along the Carse of Gowrie to Castle
Lyon, a seat of the Earl of Strathmore, where he dined, and went thence
to Fingask, the seat of Sir David Threipland. On the eighth of January
he took up his abode in the royal palace of Scoon, where he intended to
remain until after his coronation.

For this event preparations were actually made by the Earl of Mar, whose
sanguine spirit appears to have been somewhat revived by the presence of
the Chevalier. The addition of a new dignity to his own ancestral
honours had marked the favour and confidence of James. Before the
arrival of the Chevalier in Scotland, the Earl of Mar had been informed
that a patent of dukedom was made out for him; on which he thus
expressed himself in a letter, written before the Chevalier's landing,
full of gratitude and professions.[131]

"Your Majesty has done me more honour than I deserve. The new dignity
you have been pleased to confer on me is what I was not looking for; and
coming from your Majesty's hands is what gives it the value. The patent
is not yet come, but tho' it had, I think I ought not to make use of it
till your Majesty's arrival."

The Earl of Mar had now had an opportunity of throwing himself at the
feet of the King, which, as he expressed, "is the thing in the world he
had longed most for." But still, the difficulties in his path seemed to
be rendered more insurmountable than ever by the arrival of James.

In the first place, the landing of the Chevalier evidently sealed the
doom of those gallant and unfortunate noblemen who had been taken
prisoners at Preston; and rendered all hopes of mercy futile. The
sixteenth of January, which witnessed the forming of the Chevalier's
council at Perth, was the day on which the unfortunate Derwentwater,
Nithisdale, Kenmure, Wintoun, and Widdrington, petitioned for two days'
delay to prepare for their trials. Their doom was hurried on in the
general panic; and in the addresses from both Houses of Parliament to
King George, it was declared by the members of those assemblies "that
the landing of the Pretender in this kingdom had greatly encreased
their indignation against him and his adherents."

It is impossible that the Earl of Mar could have heard, without deep
commiseration, and perhaps remorse, of the peril in which those
ill-fated adherents of James were placed, although he may not have
anticipated the full severity of the law. In one of his subsequent
letters he remarks: "By the news I see the Parliament is to have no
mercie on our Preston folks: but I hope God will send them salvation in
time." One of his greatest sources of anxiety had been respecting the
movements of the Duke of Ormond, upon whose making a diversion in favour
of James, in England, Mar had counted. The news that Ormond, after
having been seen on the coast of England, had returned, disheartened,
was brought by the Chevalier, who heard of it at St. Maloes. The only
chance of success, the last hope, were centered in this resource. The
failure of this expectation was fatal, as Lord Mar conceived, to the
cause, and on it he grounded his own subsequent withdrawal from England.

The entrance of the Chevalier into Perth, on the ninth of January, was
attended with far less enthusiasm than the previous portion of his
progress. His reception was comparatively cold. On asking to see their
"little kings" (the chieftains) with their armies, the Highlanders,
diminished in numbers by the secession of the Marquis of Huntley and the
absence of Lord Seaforth and others, were marched before him. James
could not help admiring their bearing; but the small amount of troops in
the camp filled him with a dejection which he could not conceal. When, a
few days afterwards, the unfortunate Prince addressed his council for
the first time, he said, with mournful truth, these words. "For me it
will be no new thing if I am unfortunate: my whole life, even from my
cradle, has been a constant series of misfortunes." This sentiment of
ill-presage was re-echoed in the address of the Episcopal clergymen.

"Your Majesty has been trained up," said these divines, at Fetteresso,
"in the School of the Cross, in which the Divine grace inspires the mind
with true wisdom and virtue, and guards it against those false
blandishments by which prosperity corrupts the heart." And as this
school has sent forth the most illustrious princes,--Moses, Joseph, and
David, it was hoped that a similar benefit would accrue to the character
of the Prince whom the Episcopal Clergy thus welcomed to their country.

Meantime the project of crowning the Chevalier at Scone amused the minds
of the people, and continued to be the subject of diligent preparation
by the Earl of Mar. Unhappily a ship laden with money and other aids,
had been lost on its passage from France, close to the Tay, for want of
a pilot.[132] The difficulties which were augmented by this misfortune,
are alluded to in the following extract from one of Lord Mar's letters.

                                               "January 15th, 1715-16.

    "Sir,

    "I wrote to you yesterday by one that used to come here from Mr.
    Hall, which I hope will come safe to your hands. At night I had
    yours of the fourteenth, and this night that of the tenth. The caps
    do pritty well, and I have orders to thank you for them. I send you
    one of his own; if you can get such paper t'is well, and if not, the
    other is what he likes best of any that you sent; so let some of
    either one or other come when you have an occasion.

    "I am sorry Mr. Brewer[133] is ill, for his presence here wou'd be
    of great use; and as soon as he is able I wish he wou'd come, which
    I am ordered to tel you, and also that you may endeavour to get a
    copie of the coronation of King Charles the First and Second, which
    certainly are to be had in Edinburgh. Willie Wilson had them, and
    perhaps some of his friends may have got copies of them from him,
    which may be had.

    "I spoke to one some time ago about makeing a crown in pices at
    Edinburgh and bringing it over here to be put togither, who, I
    believe, talkt to you of it. That man was here some days ago, but
    went away before I knew it is wisht that such a thing could yet be
    done, which is left to your care.

    "In case there be occasion for it here, as I wish there may, bulion
    gold is what I'm afraid will be wanting, but it will not take much.
    Had not the misfortune I wrote to you of hapn'd to Sir J.
    Erskine[134] there had been no want of that. We have got no farther
    account of that affair, tho' we have people about it; but if they do
    not succeed this night or to-morrow when the spring tide is, it is
    lost for ever. There is more by the way tho', and I hope will have
    better fate. I have ordered more papers to be sent you, and
    certainly you have more of them before now. It is mighty well taken
    what that lady (the letters from London say) has ordered, as to
    those you sent her, which you are desired to let her have; and I do
    not doubt she will do the same as to those concerning E----d.
    Adieu."

By the next letter it appears that the good opinion entertained by Lord
Mar of the Chevalier was real; since the whole of the epistle has the
tone of being a natural effusion of feeling, and is a simple statement
of what actually took place, and not the letter of a diplomatist.

    "Sir,

    "I have seen a letter from Mr. S----g, who had spoke with you on the
    subject I formerly wrote to you of, concerning that fo--f--y of the
    D----h to a gentleman with us, Mr. S----q's friend, and upon it our
    master has thought fit to write the enclosed to him, and orders me
    to tell you that you must cause give him an hundred guineas at the
    delivery of the letter. The letter is left open for your perusal,
    and I wish it may have effect, as perhaps it may. There's no time
    to be lost in it, and I'll long to know what passes in it, and what
    hopes you have of him. I sent you credit for five hundred pounds,
    which I hope you got safe; but if by any accident it should not come
    to your hands, Mr. S----q there, is a certain goldsmith that will
    advance what there is occasion for this way. I send you enclosed a
    letter, which may be of use in an affair I wrote of in my last.

    "We have got severall deserters since the K. came and last night
    nine came in with their clothes and arms, and says many more will
    follow soon, which I wish we may see. They say, too, that the two
    regiments of dragoons are marcht from Glasgow for England, and that
    two are to go from Stirling to replace them. Were they designing to
    march against Scoon, sure they would not do this, nor is it possible
    they can do anything in this weather; but if they, notwithstanding,
    attempt it, perhaps they may find frost in it.

    "As I am writing I have received yours of the thirteenth. I read it
    to the K----g, and delivered him the enclosed letter from Mr.
    Holmes, which was very well taken, as you will see by the enclosed
    return, which you'll take care to forward safely; and pray do me the
    favour to make my compliments there.

    "Perhaps you'll hear things of the two northern powers[135] that
    will look odd to your other friends, as no wonder; but all will come
    right again--the time they had taken being out in a few days.
    There's one sent some days ago to assist them, so I hope things will
    be soon right there, tho' they have done much to spoil them, and
    each of them makes an excuse of one another as they have done from
    the begining. The K----, you will see by all the enclosed, is not
    spareing of his pains. You must fall on the right way of having them
    all delivered.

    "That to Seaforth he writes upon the great professions he made when
    in France; he is such a fellow that I'm afraid it will do little
    good.

    "I have nothing else material to say just now, but I cannot give
    over without telling a thing which I'm sure will please you--that
    the longer one knows the King the better he's liked, and the more
    good qualities are found in him; that of good-nature is very
    eminent, and so much good sense that he might be a first minister to
    any king in Europe, had he not been born a king himself. He has
    allowed Neil Campbell to go to Edinburgh t'other day on his parole,
    he being ill, and it was with so much good nature that was evident
    in his doing of it, that it charmed me. I wish you could get notice
    how Neil represents it or expresses himself when he gets there; for
    I wrote it at length to the gentleman who wrote to me about him.
    Adieu.

    "If people from S----q be designing to come to us, they should
    either do it soon or give us assurances of doing it soon as we are
    in view of each other; and these assurances must be such that we can
    depend on, for our conduct must in a great measure be regulated by
    what we expect that way.

    "It were highly necessary that methods and measures were concerted
    for the right way of doing this, which you should let such of them
    as you know are so trusted know, and it is absolutely necessary that
    they either send one to me about this, or let me know it certainly
    some other way, that we may not be drawing different ways when we
    are designing the same thing.

    "We have no return of the last message which was sent to the good
    man of the house you wrote of, and t'is above eight days ago. I
    believe he designs right, tho' t'is odd."

The enthusiasm which was at first displayed towards the Chevalier was
soon cooled, not only by his grave and discouraging aspect, but by his
fearless and impolitic display of his religious faith. He never allowed
any Protestant even to say grace for him, but employed his own confessor
"to repeat the Pater nosters and Ave Marias:" and he also shewed an
invincible objection to the usual coronation oath,--a circumstance which
deferred the ceremony of coronation,--Bishop Mosse declaring that he
would not consent to crown him unless that oath were taken. This
sincerity of disposition--for it cannot be called by a more severe
name--especially diminished the affections of the Chevalier's female
episcopal friends, who had excited their male relations to bear arms in
his favour. But the circumstance which weighed the most heavily against
James, was the order which he published, on hearing that the Duke of
Argyle was making preparations to march against him, for burning the
towns and villages, and destroying the corn and forage, between Dumblane
and Perth. This act of destruction, from the effects of which the
desolate village of Auchterarder has never recovered, was determined on,
in order that the enemy might be incommoded as much as possible upon
their march; it added to the miseries of a people already impoverished
by the taxes and contributions which the Jacobites had levied. It
appears, however, from a letter of James's, since discovered, or
perhaps, only suppressed at the time, to have been an act which he
bitterly regretted, and the order for which he signed most unwillingly.
He was desirous of making every reparation in his power for the ravages
which were committed in his name.[136]

On the ninth of January a council of war was held by the Duke of Argyle
at Stirling, where, by a singular coincidence, the council sat in the
same room in which James the Second, then Duke of York, had, in 1680,
been entertained by the Earl of Argyle, to whom he had proposed the
repeal of the sanguinary laws against Papists. The refusal of Argyle to
concur in that measure, the consequences of his conduct, and his
subsequent death, are circumstances which, doubtless, arose to the
remembrance of his descendant, as he discussed, in that apartment, the
march towards Perth.

The country between Stirling and Perth was covered with a deep snow; the
weather was one continual storm; it was therefore impossible for the
army of Argyle to proceed until the roads were cleared,--a process which
required some time to effect. It is asserted, nevertheless, by an
historian, that upon Colonel Ghest being sent with two hundred dragoons
to reconnoitre the road leading to Perth, that the greatest panic
prevailed in that town: immediate preparations were made for defence,
and nothing was to be seen except planting of guns, marking out
breastworks and trenches, and digging up stones, and laying them with
sand to prevent the effects of a bombardment.[137] The Earl of Mar,
nevertheless, does not appear, if we may accredit his own words, to have
even then despaired of a favourable issue. The following letter betrays
no fear, but speaks of some minor inconvenience, which is far from being
of a melancholy description. The difficulty of procuring the right sort
of ribbon for the decoration of the Garter, is altogether a new feature
among the adversities of royal personages. It seems strange that James
should not have provided himself, before quitting France, with all that
was necessary to preserve the external semblance of majesty.

                                               "January 20th, 1715-16.

    "Sir,

    "I wrote to you the eighteenth, and sent severall others enclosed,
    which I hope will come safe to you. The inclosed, markt D. F., is
    from the King to Davie Floid at London, which he desires you may
    take care to gett conveid to him safly and soon, it being of
    consequence. The other is for my wife, which I beg you may forward
    as usewall.

    "We are told that ther's some foot come to Dumblain, and that ther's
    more expected there. And they still talk as if they designed to
    march their whole armie against us nixt week. Perhaps they intend
    it, but with this weather I see not how 'tis in their power. If they
    do tho', upon their expecting we are to abandon Perth upon their
    aproach, as I'm told they believe, they will find themselves
    mistaken, for all here are resolved to stand it to the last, and
    perhaps we will not wait their comeing the lenth, but meet them by
    the way. We might have left it indeed, some time ago; but that time
    is past, and the King's being with us alters the case in every
    respect. After all, I cannot get myself to belive that they will
    actually come to us in haste, and if they do they may mistake their
    reckning. Sure I am, it were impossible for us to march to them in
    this snow, and our folks are as good at that as they. The snow puts
    me in mind of the children of Israel's pillar of smoke and pillar of
    fire; and to say truth, ther's something in the weather very odd
    and singular; I never saw such.

    "My cloathes are almost all worn out, haveing left some at the
    battle: I know not if you could get me any made and sent from
    Edinburgh; but if you could, I should be glad of it. Ther's one Bird
    was my tayler and I belive has my measur, or some old cloathes of
    mine, that he could make them by. Perhaps he's a whig tho', and will
    not do it. I would have them deep blew, laced with gold, but not on
    the seams. I have but one starr and no riban, but 'tis no great
    matter for that, a better man than I is in the same case; he has
    only one scrub, one which he got made since he came, and no right
    riban. I believe ther's neither of that kind of blew nor green riban
    to be got at Edinburgh; but if you could get some tolorablie like
    it, you send some of both. Wine is like to be a more sensible want.
    We got a little Burgundy for the King, but it is out; and tho' we
    know of a little more, I'm affraid we shall scarce get it brought
    here; and he does not like clarit, but what you'l think odd, he
    likes ale tolorably well. I hope they will send us some from France,
    but with this wind nothing can come from thence. George Hamilton
    saild on Saturday last, and I belive is there long e'er now, which I
    heartily wish he may, and I hope you shall soon see the effects of
    his going with what he caried with him.

    "I am affraid Macintosh's men in England may be in hard
    circumstances for want of money. The King has ordred some for them,
    which is this daye given to a friend of theirs who was sent to me
    from the North, who sayes he knows how to get it remitted to them.

    "By the news I see the Parliament is to have no mercie on our
    Preston folks, but I hope God will send them salvation in time.

    "I wish you would send us the newspapers oftner for we get them but
    seldome; the soonest way of sending them is by A. W. at Kirkaldy,
    who will find some way of sending them to us, notwithstanding of
    their garisons in Fife.

    "I'm affraid what I wrote to you of formerly to be in danger will
    never be recovered, for it could not at this time, tho' it was
    try'd; and I fear shall not the next either, tho' we are to do all
    we can about it, and it was too much to go that way.

    "We have heard nothing further as yet from the goodman of the house,
    as you call him, which I am surprized at. I can say no more now, so
    Adieu."

If we may believe the public prints of the day, dissensions now arose
between the Chevalier and the Earl of Mar: the former blaming his
general for having urged him to come over, when he had so small a force
to appear in his favour; the latter, recriminating that the failure of
aid from the Continent had discouraged the Chevalier's friends. The Earl
of Mar was severely blamed, to quote from the same source, for having
deceived the Chevalier in making him believe that the forces in
Scotland were more considerable than they really were, and for giving
his Scottish friends reason to suppose that the Chevalier would bring
over foreign auxiliaries. That the former part of these allegations
against Mar was untrue, is shewn by the letter which has been given,
explaining to the Prince the state of affairs; and rather discouraging
him from his attempt.[138] That the whole report was groundless, was
manifested by the favour and confidence which James long continued to
extend to the Earl after his exile abroad.

For some time, the Earl of Mar and his party contrived to keep up their
hopes. The season was indeed in some respects their friend, since it
necessarily impeded the movements of Argyle's army against them. The
winter of 1715-16 was one of the most severe that had been felt for many
years, not only in Scotland, but abroad. In France and Spain the cold
was so excessive, and the snow so deep, that the country people could
not go to the market towns to buy provisions, whilst the plains were
infested with bears and wolves, emboldened by the desolation, and
ranging over the country in great numbers.[139]

Whilst the intense frost lasted, the three thousand Highlanders who were
encamped at Perth were able to defy the English army, although now
supplied with artillery and ammunition from Berwick. Their security was
furthermore increased by a heavy fall of snow succeeding a partial thaw,
and followed by a frost, which rendered the roads more impracticable
than ever, especially for the foot-soldiers. This circumstance had even
occasioned some deliberation whether it would not be advisable for the
Duke of Argyle to defer his march to Perth until the winter should be
ended. Until the middle of January, it was the full intention of the
Highlanders, and also that of the Earl of Mar, to stand the event of a
battle, let the enemy's force be what it might. That they purposed thus
to maintain their ancient character for valour, was, even as those most
adverse to them allow, the prevalent report. It is borne out by the Earl
of Mar's correspondence. On the twenty-third of January he thus writes
to Captain Straiton:

                                                    "The 23rd January.

    "I have yours of the seventeenth and the twentieth both togather
    last night, and a paket from H. in the last. I wrote to you on
    Saturday the old way, and sent you a paket enclosed, which I belive
    is of consequence, so I hope it's come safe, and that H. has gott
    it. He has had two or three sent him from this of late, different
    ways, and one goes of this day by the near way he sometimes uses. We
    hear from all hands of the preparations against us, but we resolve
    to stand it, cost what it will, and if they come out we will
    certainly give them battle, lett their number be never so great. It
    must now be plain to all that will allow themselves to see, that
    nothing less is designed by the present managers than the intire
    ruin and destruction of this poor country, and of every honest man
    in it; and if this will not be an awakened people, I know nothing
    that will. Since this then is plainly the case, there can be no
    choise in dying honourably in the field for so just a cause, or
    leving to see the ruin and intire destruction of our country, our
    King, and our friends and relations. For my part, I shall prefer the
    first with all cheerfulness, and never desire to live to be a
    witness to the latter, which certainly will be the case if it please
    God our King should be defeat."

The next paragraph of this letter speaks mournfully of disappointment in
those on whose aid the Earl had counted.

    "It must be a strange infatuation that has gott amongst people,
    especially those that always pretended to be friends to our cause,
    many of whom told before the King came that they wad certainly joyn
    him when he landed, and made his not being with us the only
    objection, and now when he is come they make some other shift;--I
    must say such people are worse than our greatest enemies; and if any
    misfortune should befal the King or his cause, (which God forbid!) I
    think they that pretended to be our friends have very much to count
    for, and are more the cause of it than any others, since no doubt
    the ashourances that many gave to joyn us when the King landed was
    a chief motive for his comming to us. I hope in God we shall be able
    to opose them tho' their numbers should be greater, and to their
    shame and confusion be it if they come against us. I hope very soon
    the King will have such assistance as will defeat all their designs,
    and that his affairs will take a sudden turn in other pairts."

The most serious defection from the Jacobite cause was the submission of
the Marquis of Huntley and the Earl of Seaforth to the victorious arms
of the Earl of Sutherland, aided by Lord Lovat, in Invernesshire.
Seaforth had collected, on the Moor of Gilliechrist, twelve hundred men,
the remnant of those whom he had been able to save from Sherriff Muir;
but finding that Lord Sutherland had resolved to force him into an
engagement, he owned King George as his lawful Sovereign, and promised
to lay down his arms. This had occurred early in December, and,
according to Lord Mar, before the Earl of Seaforth, in those remote
regions, could have heard of the Chevalier's landing. Mar therefore
regarded it as a temporary cessation on the part of Seaforth and
Huntley, for a given period, of hostilities against the Government.

As far as related to Lord Seaforth, the belief of Lord Mar was correct.
At the end of the days agreed upon for the cessation of arms, Seaforth
drew his people together, the influence of clanship enabling him to
summon them at will, like a king; and again appeared in arms. This was
the consequence of the news that James had landed having reached
Inverness. But Seaforth could not retrieve the cause of James in the
North, nor repair the effects of even a temporary submission. Eventually
he returned to the party which he had espoused, and escaped to France.
The Marquis of Huntley made his own terms with the Government.

At this critical juncture, unanimity still prevailed, according to Lord
Mar, among the assembled chieftains at Perth. "I do assure you," he
writes, "that since the arms came here, there has not been a quarrel of
any kind happened among us--not even among the Highland men, which is
very extraordinary; and you may depend upon it there is the greatest
unanimity here just now, and all fully resolved to stand to it, let what
will come. I pray God preserve our King from the wicked and hellish
designs of his enemies! I hope we will be apprized of their motions, so
as to be in readiness to receive them."

These expressions were written, but the letter which contained them was
not sent, on the twenty-third of January. The postscript, written in a
hurried hand, shows that the camp at Perth was not unprepared for the
coming attack.

    "Since writing of the inclosed, I have two from which I gott last
    night with the paket; and ane account of that detachment of horse
    comming out, who we hear came the lenth of Acterardie,[140] upon
    which account the whole army here were ordred to be in a readyness
    to march this morning, and we have no account they are returned: we
    hear it was to vew the roads, and to try if it was practicable to
    march their army, which they will find very hard to doe while this
    weather holds. The account you gave in yours of their motions and
    that detachment was very distinct. The K. read it himself,--it came
    prety quick. I entreat you fail not to lett us have what accounts
    you can learn, for what comes from you are among the best we can
    gett.

    "The K. ordered a review of the whole army here this morning, and
    they are all to hold themselves ready at one half ane hour's
    advertisment. Lett me hear from you soon. Adieu."

Again, on the twenty-fourth of January:

    "What is above should have gone this morning, but was delyed. Six
    hundered of the clans are gone out this night to reinforce the
    garison of Braco and Crief. I hear they have orders to destroy the
    corn-yards and barns about Achterardir and Black Ford, which we hear
    were revewed by the enemy yesterday. The King signed thir orders, I
    can ashour you, most unwillingly; and caused put it in the order
    that every thing should be made good to the poor people, with a
    gratuity; and if any of them pleased to come to Perth, they should
    be maintained and all care taken of them. This you may take for
    truth, for no doubt they will make a great noise about it.

    "We have just now got ane account of a ship being come into
    Montross, but we know not yett what she brings. Adieu,--writte soon.
    I am in haste."

    "Eleven att night."

On the twenty-fourth of January, the Duke of Argyle marched to Dumblane,
with two hundred horse, to reconnoitre the roads. The report that the
enemy was approaching, was quickly conveyed to Perth; and now was the
order to burn and destroy the village of Auchterarder, the contents of
the houses, all stores of corn and forage, mournfully and promptly
executed. It was supposed by this, that the march of Argyle's forces
would be impeded; but it produced no other inconvenience to that army
than obliging them to lie one night in the open air; whilst the
unpopularity it brought on James and his advisers, was long the subject
of comment to their enemies. It is consolatory to those who wish to
judge favourably of James to find this declaration in Lord Mar's
correspondence.

    "The King was forced, sore against his will, to give these burning
    orders, as all of us were, could we have helped it; but this
    extraordinary manœuvre of the enemy made it absolutely necessary.
    A finger must be cut off to save the whole body. I have ordered some
    copies of a proclamation to be sent you. There is about two of the
    places burnt, and there's another ordred about the rest. Adieu.

    "It was not amiss that this proclamation were sent to London."

In pursuance of the cruel and impolitic commands to which Lord Mar
refers, three thousand Highlanders were sent forth to the act of
destruction. Auchterarder, Crieff, Blackford, Denning and Muthel, were
mercilessly burned; and the wretched inhabitants turned out at that
inclement season to destitution without a roof to shelter them. Many
decrepid people and children perished in the flames.[141] Had James
sought, in truth, to prepare a way for the Government in the hearts of
the people, he could not have adopted a more suitable means. In the Duke
of Argyle, he had a generous and humane adversary to deal with,--one
whose forbearance laid him under the imputation of a want of zeal for
the cause of the Government, and rendered him no favourite at the
English Court. The fashion at the Court of St. James's, according to a
letter in the Mar Papers, was, to rail against the Duke, and even George
the First and those about him joined in the unjust and ungrateful abuse.

Even so late as Sunday, the twenty-ninth of January, when Argyle's
troops left Stirling and advanced to Braco Castle, Lord Mar appears to
have been in ignorance of their actual movements. Perhaps, like the busy
world of London politicians, he regarded the project of an attempt upon
Perth in such weather as impracticable. Such was the opinion at St.
James's. "Argyle's friends here," writes one near the Court, "speak of
the march and the attempt at present as madness." And another individual
writes, that "one half of their people must die of cold, and the other
be knocked o' the head. So it seems Argyle is dragg'd to this matter. We
cannot perceive, by all the letters that come up, any particular
certainty as to Lord Mar's number and his designs. The Court are
positive he will not stand; and they, as well as Ridpeath, assert
strongly that the Pretender is gone already as far as Glammis. The
Jacobites fancy that if he went thither, it was to meet and assemble
these officers that were landed."[142]

Whilst in this state of perplexity Lord Mar thus writes:

                                                       "Jan. 29th.

    "Sir,

    "I have keept the man that brought yours of the nineteenth and
    twentieth, from A. W., on Saturday, till now, that I might have a
    sure and speedy way of writeing to you when anything of consequence
    happened, which we were expecting every minut last night. I wrote
    one to you when I belived the enemie's front to be at Auchterarder,
    and despatcht it; but late at night getting intelligence of that
    party of the enemie who were marching towards Aucterarder haveing
    marcht back without comeing the lenth of that place to Dumblain, if
    not to Stirling, without halting by the way, I stopt my letter and
    kepp it till they actually march, and then perhaps I may yet send it
    to you, there being some other things in it necessary for you to
    know upon that emergance which is needless other wayes.

    "In it I told you of my haveing received yours of the eighteenth on
    Sunday, and last night those of the fifteenth and twenty-first both
    togither.

    "By all appearance the enemie resolve to march against us, as one
    might say, whether it be possible or not. They sent a party of horse
    and foot to Dumblain on Sunday, which came near to Auchterarder
    yesterday, I belive to try if the thing was practicable, but they
    returned to Dumblain as above. We shall be forced to burn and
    distroy a good deal of the country to prevent their marching, which
    goes very, _very_ much against the King's mind, as it does mine and
    more of us; but ther's an absolat necessity for it, and I believe it
    will be put in execution this night or to-morrow morning, which
    grieves me. Could it be helpt? this way of their makeing warr in
    this, I may say, impracticable season, must have extraordinary
    methods to oppose it. And I hope in God, any that suffers now, it
    shall soon be in the King's power to make them a large reparation.
    After all, when they have no cover left them, I see not how it is
    possible for them to march. We are like to be froze in the house;
    and how they can endure the cold for one night in the fields, I
    cannot conceive; and then the roads are so, that but one can go
    abreast, as their party did yesterday; and ther's no going off the
    road for horse and scarce for foot, without being lost in the snow;
    but if, after all, they do march, we must do our best, and I hope
    God will preserve and yet prosper the King, who is the best prince I
    belive in the world.

    "As for news in the kingdome of Fife, I suppose you wou'd hear that
    a party of the M^{c}Grigors some dayes ago from Faulkland attacquet
    a party of Swise and militia from Leslie and beat them, takeing
    thirty-two prisoners, wherof eleven horse, as I hear. I have not
    time to say more, so adieu."

    "January 29th, 1715-16."

Again, in another letter on the same day, the Earl still seems to
consider the game as not then lost. It is amusing to find how, in the
carrying on of his projects, he availed himself of the aid of ladies,
and how troubled he sometimes found himself with "busie women." Whilst
this letter was being penned, Argyle was employing the country people
around Auchterarder in clearing the roads of snow: and on the following
day, he had advanced towards Tullibardine, within eight miles of Perth.
On that very Sunday, Lord Mar thus writes: it is evident he had at this
time formed no plan of retreat.

                  "Sunday, 11 o'clock forenoon, Janū 29th, 1715-16.

    "Sir,

    "Since I wrote to you I have got yours of the twenty-second, one of
    the twenty-third, and two of the twenty-fifth; the last of which,
    tho' the first wrote, I got not til this morning. I wou'd have wrote
    to you these two dayes by post, but we have had so many alarms of
    the enimie's marching towards us, that I had not time, as I have
    very little to say anything just now, for I expect ivery minut to
    hear of their being marcht from Dumblain, where a considerable
    number of them have been these two dayes this way.

    "The enclosed you must take care to send by the first post which is
    opened again on purpose for you to read, but I'm affraid you will
    not understand it all. As to that paper you sent me which came from
    England, there can be nothing said to it from hence just now, only
    that they are to do the best they can; and I hope shortly that
    country shall have sent them where withall to enable them to make a
    better figur than they have hitherto done. We are not in a condition
    here to give them any help just now. Ther's one Mrs. Lawson, who
    seems to be a diligent body, that complains a little that you do not
    allow her to see you often enough, which I take to be the complaint
    of an over busie woman, than which ther's nothing more uneasie; but
    just now such people must be humoured, and she has really been
    usefull. Before this goes 'tis very likely I may have occassion to
    inclose one I formerly wrote to you upon a certain occasion, but
    did not then send as I told you in another, the thing not then
    hapning, but we expect it every minut. Deserters of all kinds come
    in to us pritty fast, foreigners as well as subjects; and if they
    but give them time, I am perswaded great numbers will.

    "'Tis now five o'clock and we have no accounts of any of the enimie
    being come further than Dodoch, where a partie of them came last
    night, so I'll detain the messenger. This goes by no stranger.
    Perhaps they may find the roads impracticable, and by the burning
    that they can advance no further,--at which, indeed, I shall not be
    much surprised; and if so, may be forced to delay their extraordinary
    march til more human weather for making warr. The King was forced,
    sore against his will, to give these burning orders,--as all of us
    were, could wee have helpt it; but this extrodinar manuver of the
    enimie made it absolutly necessary: a fingor must be cut of to save
    the whole body. I have ordered some copies of a proclamation to be
    sent you, there is about two of the places burnt, and ther's another
    order about the rest. Adieu.

    "It were not amiss that this proclamation was sent to London. The
    little young letter enclosed is for Lady Wigton, which pray cause
    deliver."

On Tuesday, the last day of January, the Duke of Argyle passed the river
Eru, and took possession of Tullibardine. It has been stated by several
historians that the Jacobites fled from Perth on the same day; but the
following letter from Lord Mar, dated the first of February, shows that
the flight could not have taken place until the following day. This
curious letter, which was written at the early hour of six in the morning,
is unfinished. It is the last in the series of that correspondence which
has formed of itself a narrative of Lord Mar's life, from his first
taking upon himself the office of General and Commander-in-Chief, to the
hour when he virtually resigned that command. In the midst of pressing
danger his sanguine nature seems not to have deserted him: his love of
the underplots of life, the influence of "Kate Bruce," and the
arrangements for a coronation, were as much in his thoughts as in the
more hopeful days before Sherriff Muir and Preston.

                  "Wednesday, about six forenoon, ffebruary 1st, 1716.

    "On Monday evening I gave you the trouble of a greatly long letter,
    mostly on indifferent subjects, and sent it off yesterday to A. W.
    If I was too tedious upon what concerned a woman and a Prince, it
    was with a good intent, and to make matters plain. By what I hear
    from R. B., and the Hole, that Argyle's forces were yesterday
    forenoon at Stirling, and so was the regiments of dragoons there and
    St. Ninian's, for accounts of motions there and thereabouts, on both
    sydes of the river,--you may expect it best sent from R. B., the
    Hole, and a grave gentleman.

    "By yesternight's post I sent of M^{c}Quart's letter; and indeed, in
    most or all letters I write to that quarter for ten weeks past, I
    alwayes requested that whatever was to be done might be quickly
    done. I lykeways sent to London between fyve or six, several honest
    hands, to put off the proclamation declaration about burning, and
    that paper of which I some days ago sent you two copies. And now I
    begin to think I have been in the wrong to Mr. S----g, in the short
    character I gave you of him, at least, if it be true that I am told,
    that he is not only author of that paper I sent you the two copies
    of, but has got a very great number of them printed; and tho' I may
    be an insufficient judge, I must acknowledge I am very well pleased
    with the paper, for I think it full of plain truths; and besydes
    other dispersings, I did indeed yesterday cause putt in fiftein
    copies of it in the Lords of Session's boxes.

    "The litle letter to my good Lady W.[143] I caused carefully to be
    delivered. I wish all women had some share of her good, sweet, easie
    temper, for, as you will observe, over-busied women are most
    uneasie; and I have had much experience of it within these four
    months past in many instances, and with more persons than one or
    two. The only inconvenience I had by Kate Bruce lodging in the same
    house with me was, it brought in too many women upon me, and some
    of these brought in others, and to this minute I cannot with
    descretion get quit of them.

    "A good time ago you were pleased to tell me you could not well
    conceive how I got myself keept free, but if you now knew what a
    multitude knows where I lodge, you would wonder more; and indeed it
    is no litle admiration to myself: but as soon as I have so much
    strenth, and can fynd a convenient place (which is not easie), I
    will change my quarters, if it were for no other reason than to be
    quit of useless people of both sexes, that interrupt me from
    busieness, or trouble with impertinent questions. And whyle I am
    accuseing others of indescretion, I wish I am not so myself in so
    much insisting upon and troubling you with such matters.

    "At Perth I have gott a collection of all papers relating to the
    coronation of King Charles the First and Second, and shall send them
    whenever you think fitt; but I suppose it may be convenient to lett
    the present hurrie a little over before I send them to you.

    "How the great Generalls can imploy their hors to great purpose in
    the deep snow, or how men and hors will long hold out in such
    weather, is what I do not understand. I hope a shorter time than
    they imagine will destroy, even without the help of an enemy,--at
    least, make many, both men and hors, inserviceable."

Much had been going on in the meantime, to which Lord Mar, perhaps from
the fear of spreading a panic, does not even allude to his correspondent
in Edinburgh. When it became known in Perth that Argyle had left
Stirling, the advisers of the Chevalier were dismayed and distracted by
contending counsels. But the mass of the army expressed a very different
sentiment, rejoicing that the opportunity of a rencontre with the enemy
was so near: congratulations were heard passing from officers to their
brother officers, and the soldiers, as they drank, pledged their cups to
the good day near at hand. The council, meantime, sat all night: the
irresolution of that body, towards morning, was disclosed to the
impatient soldiery: the indignation of the brave men, and more
especially of the Highlanders, burst forth upon the disclosure of what
had passed in the council. The gentlemen volunteers resented the
pusillanimity of their leaders: and one of them was heard to propose
that the clans should take the Chevalier out of the hands of those who
counselled him to retreat, and added that he would find ten thousand
gentlemen in Scotland that would risk their lives for him. A friend of
Mar, after remonstrating with these malcontents, asked "What they wished
their officers to do?" "Do!" was the reply; "what did you call on us to
take arms for? was it to run away? What did the King come hither for?
was it to see his people butchered by hangmen and not strike a note for
their lives? Let us die like men, and not live dogs."[144]

On the thirtieth of January the Chevalier himself opened another council
in the evening, and in a few words proposed a retreat. Lord Mar then
addressed the meeting, and advocated the measure with a degree of
ingenuity and eloquence which, at that moment, we are disposed rather to
condemn than applaud; yet, his reasons for abandoning Perth were such,
as in cool reflection were not devoid of justice, and they might be
founded upon a humane consideration for the brave adherents of a lost
cause. He stated, first, as the cause of his proposal, the failure of
the Duke of Ormond's invasion of England. Secondly, the accession of
foreign troops to the Duke of Argyle's force. Lastly, the reduced number
of the Chevalier's troops, which then amounted to four thousand, only
two thousand three hundred of which were properly armed. Even in that
weak condition the Chevalier would, according to Lord Mar's subsequent
statement, gladly have maintained Perth, or ventured a battle; but when
the enemy with an army of eight thousand men were actually advanced near
to the place, it was found impracticable to defend Perth, the town being
little more at that time than an open village; and the river Tay on one
side, and the fosse on the other, being both frozen over, it would have
been easy to enter the town at any quarter. Added to this, the mills had
been long stopped by the frost, so that there were not above two days'
provision in the town. There were no coals to be procured: the enemy had
possession of the coal mines in Fife, and wood was scarce. The Earl also
contended that the Highlanders, however able in attack, were not
accustomed to the defence of towns.

Reasons equally cogent were employed against going out to fight the
enemy, and a retreat northwards was at length proposed. But it was no
easy task to bring the brave spirits who had hailed the approach of
Argyle, to accord in sentiments which might spring from discretion, but
which ill agreed with the Highland notions of honour. The council, after
a stormy debate, was broken up in confusion, and adjourned until the
next morning.

Some hours afterwards, a few, who were favourable to the abandonment of
Perth, were summoned privately by Lord Mar; and it was then agreed not
to fight, but to retreat. For a time this determination was concealed
from the bulk of the army, but it gained wind; and on the evening of the
thirty-first of January, eight hundred of the Highlanders indignantly
left Perth, and retired beyond Dunkeld, to their homes. That very night,
also, the Chevalier, who had far less of the Scottish Stuart within him
than of that modified and inferior variety exemplified in the British
line of the family, disappeared from the town, and repaired to Scone. He
supped and slept in the house of the Provost Hay; and on the following
morning, at an early hour, was ready for retreat. To do the Chevalier
justice, there was, according to Lord Mar's journal, much difficulty in
persuading him to this step: it was found necessary to convince him that
it had become a duty to retire from the pursuit of the Government,
which, as long as he was in the country, would never cease to persecute
his followers, who could not make any terms of capitulation so long as
he remained. He was obliged, at last, to consent: "And, I dare say,"
adds Lord Mar, "no consent he ever gave was so uneasy to him as this
was."[145] Of that point it would be satisfactory to be well assured.

On the first of February, four hours after the unfinished letter of Lord
Mar was written, the Jacobites abandoned Perth, and crossing the frozen
stream of the Tay, took their route to Dundee. They went forth in such
precipitation, that they left their cannon behind them,--a proof that
they never hoped to oppose again the victorious arms of Argyle. About
noon the Chevalier, accompanied by Lord Mar, followed his people towards
the North. He is said to have been disconsolate,--and, shedding tears,
to have complained "that instead of bringing him a crown, they had
brought him to his grave." This murmur and these tears having been
reported to Prince Eugene, of Savoy, that General remarked "that weeping
was not the way to conquer kingdoms."[146]

The Jacobites marched direct for Dundee, along the Carse of Gowrie. The
Duke of Argyle's forces entered Perth only two hours after the Highland
army had entirely cleared the Tay, which, happily for their retreat, was
frozen over with ice of an extraordinary thickness. At Dundee the
Chevalier rested one night only; but leaving it on the second of
February, was again succeeded by Argyle and his squadrons, who arrived
there on the following day.

The unfortunate Prince pursued his way to Montrose. His route along the
sea-coast gave credence to a report which had now gained ground, of his
intention of embarking for France. The loudest murmurs again ran through
the Highland forces, worthy of a noble leader, and the sight of some
French vessels lying near the shore confirmed the general suspicion.
This was, nevertheless, somewhat allayed by an order to the clans to
march that evening at eight o'clock to Aberdeen, where, in accordance
with the crooked policy and deceptive plan of Lord Mar, it was
represented that large supplies of troops and arms would meet them from
France. But a very different scheme was in agitation among those who
governed the feeble James, and perhaps, with right motives, guided him
to his safety.

A small ship lay in the harbour of Montrose, for the purpose,
originally, of carrying over an envoy from James to some foreign court.
This vessel was now pitched upon to transport the Chevalier; the size
being limited, she could accommodate but few passengers: and therefore,
to avoid confusion, the Chevalier "himself thought fit to name who
should attend him." "The Earl of Mar, who was the first named, made
difficulty, and begged he might be left behind; but the Chevalier being
positive for his going, and telling him that, in a great measure, there
were the same reasons for his going as for his own,--that his friends
could more easily get terms without him than with him,--and that, as
things now stood, he could be of no more use to them in their own
country, he submitted."[147]

The Chevalier then chose the Marquis of Drummond to accompany him: this
nobleman was lame from a fall from his horse, and was not in a condition
to follow the army. He, as well as the Earl of Mar, the Lord
Tullibardine, and the Lord Linlithgow had a bill of attainder passed
against them. The Chevalier on that account was desirous of taking these
other Lords with him; but both were absent: Lord Tullibardine was at
Brechin with a part of the foot, and Lord Linlithgow at Berire with the
horse. He ordered the Earl Marischal, General Sheldon, and Colonel
Clephan to accompany him.

After these arrangements the Chevalier issued several orders which
reflect the utmost credit upon his disposition. After appointing General
Gordon Commander-in-chief, with all necessary powers, he wrote a paper
containing his reasons for leaving the kingdom, and, delivering it to
the General, gave him at the same time all the money in his possession,
except a small sum which he reserved for his expenses and those of his
suite; and desired, that after the army had been paid, the residue
should be given to the impoverished and houseless inhabitants of
Auchterarder. He then dictated a letter to the Duke of Argyle, in which
he dwelt at some length upon his distress at being obliged "among the
manifold mortifications which he had had in this unfortunate
expedition," to burn the villages. The letter, which was never delivered
to the Duke of Argyle, is in the possession of the Fingask family.[148]

Having completed these arrangements, the Chevalier prepared to take
leave for ever of the Scottish shores. The hour had now arrived which
was appointed for the march of the troops, and the Chevalier's horses
were brought before the door of the house in which he lodged: the guard
which usually attended him whilst he mounted, were in readiness, and all
was prepared as if he were resolved to march with the clans to Aberdeen.
But meantime, the Chevalier had slipped out of his temporary abode on
foot, accompanied only by one servant; and going to the Earl of Mar's
lodgings, he went thence, attended by the Earl, through a bye-way to the
water side, where a boat awaited him and carried him and the Earl of Mar
to a French ship of ninety tons, the Marie Therese, of St. Malo. About a
quarter of an hour afterwards two other boats carried the Earl of
Melfort and Lord Drummond, with General Sheldon and ten other gentlemen,
on board the same ship: they then hoisted sail and put to sea; and
notwithstanding that several of the King's ships were cruizing on the
coast, they sailed in safety, and after a passage of seven days, arrived
at Waldam, near Gravelines, in French Flanders.

The Chevalier sailed at nine o'clock. Some hours afterwards, Earl
Marischal and Colonel Clephan arrived at the shore, but they could get
no boat to convey them, for fear of the men-of-war that were cruizing
near. The Marie Therese, nevertheless, got out of reach of these vessels
before daylight.

With what reflections Lord Mar left his native country a prey to the
power of an irritated Government, cannot readily be conceived. That he
left it at such a moment, is a fact which for ever stamps his memory
with degradation. The deserted adherents of James, being in no condition
to make a stand against the Duke of Argyle, betook themselves to holes
and caves, mostly in the remote parts of the Highlands, where many
lurked until they could safely appear; but such as were most obnoxious
took the first opportunity of ships to carry them into foreign
countries; and vessels were, to this end, provided by the Chevalier with
such success, that many escaped from the pursuit of justice.

James, accompanied by the Earl of Mar, proceeded to his former residence
at St. Germains, where, in spite of the wishes of the French Government
that he should repair to his old asylum in Lorraine, he wished to
remain. In Paris, the Chevalier met two of his most distinguished
adherents,--the faithless Bolingbroke, and the popular Duke of Ormond.
Although aware of the unsoundness of Bolingbroke's loyalty, James
received him cordially. "No Italian," says Bolingbroke, "ever embraced
the man he was going to stab with a greater show of affection and
confidence."

For some time the Chevalier lingered in Paris, hoping to see the Regent.
"His trunks were packed, his chaise was ordered at five that afternoon,"
writes Lord Bolingbroke, "and I wrote word to Paris that he was gone.
Instead of taking post for Lorraine, he went to the little house in the
Bois de Boulogne, where his female ministers resided; and there he
continued lurking for some days, pleasing himself with the air of
mystery and business, while the only real business which he should have
had at heart he neglected."[149]

Avignon was now fixed on as the retreat of the Chevalier; and thither,
after some delay, he retired, to an existence politically forgotten by
the Continental powers, until the war with Spain and the consequent
declaration of the Spanish King in his favour recalled him to
importance.

Lord Mar, meantime, occupied himself in fruitless endeavours to excite,
once more, the struggle which had just ended so fatally. As far as
France was concerned, all those schemes upon which Mar successively
built were futile: no aid could ever be expected during the Regency. "My
hopes," said Bolingbroke, speaking of the Jacobite cause, "sunk as he
[Louis the Fourteenth] declined, and died when he expired. The event of
things has sufficiently shown that all those which were entertained by
the Duke [of Ormond], and the Jacobite party under the Regency, were the
grossest delusions imaginable."[150]

Some of the remaining years of Lord Mar's life were, nevertheless,
devoted to chimerical projects for which he received in return little
but disappointment, ingratitude, and humiliation. One of his schemes was
to engage Charles the Twelfth of Sweden on the side of the Chevalier. In
a letter to Captain Straiton, the Chevalier's agent in Edinburgh, he
signified that if five or six thousand bolls of meal could be purchased
by the King's friends and sent to Sweden, where there was then a great
scarcity, it would be of service to his master in conciliating the good
will of Charles. This proposal was communicated by Mar's desire to
Lockhart of Carnwath, to Lord Balmerino, and to the Bishop of Edinburgh.
But it was the sanguine disposition of Mar which alone could lead him to
suppose such a scheme practicable. It was, in the first place, found
impossible to raise so large a sum from men, many of them exiles, or
involved in difficulties from the expenses of the recent insurrection.
It was also deemed folly to conceive that so large a quantity of Scotch
meal as necessary could be exported without exciting the suspicion of
Government.

The next plan which Lord Mar contrived was not so fully unfolded as the
project of which Charles the Twelfth was to be the object. He wrote to
Edinburgh soon after the failure of the first scheme, to this effect:
that a certain foreign prince had entered into a design for the
restoration of James: that it "would look odd if his friends at home did
not assist him;" and he wished they would fall on some means to have in
readiness such a sum as they could afford to venture in his cause when a
fair opportunity occurred. The hint was taken up seriously by the
zealous Lockhart of Carnwath, and assurances were sent from "several
persons of honour, that they would be in a condition to answer his
Majesty's call." Among these, the Earl of Eglintoun offered three
thousand guineas; and the others "would have given a good round sum."
The conduct of the English Government to the Duke of Argyle, who had
been superseded as Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, and the strong
personal friendship between Lockhart and the Duke, emboldened Mar to
hope that a negotiation might be entered into with Argyle, and that he
might be persuaded to join in their schemes. At the same time, Lord Mar
enjoined the strictest secrecy in all these affairs, and with reason,
for the letters of the exiled Jacobites abounded in false hopes and
plans; many of their correspondents at home had not the discretion to
conceal their delight, when the sanguine expectations of their party
prevailed over despair.

The agent employed by Lockhart to treat with the Duke of Argyle was
Colonel John Middleton. By him Lockhart was, however, assured that his
Grace would neither directly nor indirectly treat with Mar for "he
believed him his mortal enemy, and had no opinion of his honour; and,"
added Middleton, "I cannot think Mar does, more seriously now than
before, desire to see Argyle in the King's measures, lest he eclipsed
him." It was therefore resolved by Lockhart, that the correspondence
between the Chevalier and Argyle should be contrived without Mar's
cognizance. A letter was written to James, and was forwarded by Captain
Straiton, enclosed, to the Earl of Mar, who was, in another epistle from
Lockhart, "entreated not to be offended that the contents of the letter
were not communicated to him, because he was bound to impart the same
alone to the King."

This letter, containing a proposal so important to the interests of
James, is supposed never to have reached the Chevalier. Mar, distrustful
and offended, is suspected of having broken it open, and given it his
own answer in a letter to the Duke of Argyle, which tended to affront
and repel the Duke rather than to invite him to allegiance. When, some
time afterwards, Lockhart's son spoke on the subject to the Chevalier at
home, and represented what a fair opportunity had been lost, the Prince
replied, "that he did not remember ever to have heard of it
before."[151] Whether Mar was misjudged or not must be a matter of
doubt, but this anecdote proves how little respect was entertained for
his good faith, or even for his possessing the common sentiments of
gentlemanly propriety, when the suspicion of breaking open a letter
which had been entrusted to him was attached to his conduct.

In consequence of the difficulty of bringing any scheme to bear, from
the want of a head, Lockhart had contrived a plan of having trustees in
Scotland to conduct it, to be empowered by James to act during his
absence, and in his behalf. This plan had the usual obstacles to
encounter among a set of factious partisans, who were only united when
the common danger pressed and common services were required, but
discordant and selfish in the calmer days of suspense. Mar, perhaps,
with greater wisdom than he was allowed to display, did not advance the
scheme; his reluctance to promote it was ascribed to his love of power
in Scotland; but since the plan was resented by Tullibardine, Seaforth,
and Penmure,[152] as infringing upon their dignity, there is as good
reason for believing that it was the suggestion of an intriguing
ambition on the part of the proposer, as that Mar resisted it on selfish
grounds. The notion was excellent, but the difficulty was to find men of
sufficient fidelity, honesty, and prudence to exercise functions so
delicate.

The spirit of Jacobitism seems scarcely, at this period to have been
checked in the bosoms of the resolute people who had suffered so much;
and the Netherbow and the High Street of Edinburgh still resounded at
times with the firing of musquetry, directed against a harmless rabble
of boys who betrayed the popular feeling by the white roses in their
hats.[153] Nor was the lingering enthusiasm for the Jacobite cause
confined to the lower classes in either country. It is almost incredible
that men of Whig principles, who held high offices in the Government,
should, at various times, have engaged in correspondence with the agents
of James; yet such is the fact.

Among those who were involved in these dangerous negotiations, Charles
Earl of Sunderland, the son-in-law of Marlborough, and at that time
Prime Minister of George the First, was one with whom Lord Mar treated.
Among the Sunderland Papers is to be found a singular letter from the
Earl of Mar to the Earl of Sunderland, urging that nobleman to assist in
inducing his royal master to accede to a proposal from which he might
himself derive a suitable advantage. "We find," says Dr. Coxe,
"unequivocal proofs that Lord Sunderland, who was considered at the head
of the new administration formed in 1717, was in secret correspondence
with the Pretender and his principal agents."[154]

The letter referred to from Lord Mar, on which Dr. Coxe has inscribed
the word "curious," began with professions of respect and confidence on
the part of his Lordship, to whom it was quite as easy to address those
expressions to a man of one party as of the other. It contained also a
promise of secrecy, and an exaction of a similar observance on the part
of Lord Sunderland. He then alluded to the misfortunes into which the
British nation was thrown by the disputed succession, and the violence
of party spirit in consequence. The subtle politician next touched on
the subject of George the First, whom he delicately terms, "your
master."

"Whatever good opinion you may have of _your master_, and the way that
things are ordered there at present, does not alter the case much; his
health is not so good as to promise a long life, and he is not to live
always even if it were good, nor will things continue there as they are,
any longer than he lives at most."

He then suggests that the Earl would have it in his power to prevent the
dangers resulting from a disputed succession, "which can only be
prevented by restoring the rightful and lineal heir."

"I can assure your Lordship," he continues, "my master has so many good
qualities, that he will make the nation happie, and wants but to be
known to be beloved; and I dare promise in his name, that there is not
any thing you could ask of him, reasonable, for yourself and your
friends, but he would agree to. My master is young, in perfect good
health, and as likely to live as any who has pretensions to his crown,
and he is now about marrying, which, in all appearance, will perpetuate
rightfull successors to him of his own body, who will ever have more
friends in those kingdoms, as well as abroad, than to allow the house of
Hanover to continue in possession of their right without continual
disturbance."

The Earl then suggests that George the First should secure to himself
the possession of "his old and just inheritance, and by the assistance
of '_his master_,' and those who would join, acquire such new ones on
the Continent as would make his family more considerable than any of its
neighbours.

"Britain and Ireland will have reason to bless your master for so good
and Christian an action; and Europe no less for the repose it would have
by it: and your master would live the remainder of his life in all the
tranquillity and splendour that could be required, and end his days with
the character of good and just."

Lord Mar was at this time on the borders of France, where he proposed to
wait until he received Lord Sunderland's reply, in hopes that the
Minister of George the First might be induced to give him a meeting,
either in France or Flanders. "If you approve not of what I have said,"
he adds, "let it be buried on your side, as, upon my honour, it shall be
on mine." "I am afraid," he adds in a postscript, "you know not my hand;
but I have no other way of assuring you of this being no counterfeit
than by writing it myself, and putting my seal to it."

The following remarks on this letter are interesting; they were penned
by Dr. Coxe:

"Singular as this overture, made at such a period, may appear, we have
strong proofs that it was not discouraged by Sunderland; for he not only
procured a pension for the exiled nobleman, but even flattered the
Jacobites with hopes that he was inclined to favour their cause. This we
find by intelligence given at a subsequent period by the Jacobite
spies."

The following addition to the above-stated remark of Dr. Coxe is even
yet more astonishing:

"On the death of Lord Sunderland the secret of this correspondence
became by some means known to the Regent Duke of Orleans, and he
hastened to make so important a communication to the King of England.
The letter written on this occasion by the British agent at Paris, Sir
Luke Schwaub, and the reply of his friend Lord Carteret, then Secretary
of State, are highly curious, because they prove, not only the
correspondence, but the fact that it was known and approved by the
King."[155]

How near were the unfortunate Stuarts to that throne which they were
destined never to ascend!

Upon the disgrace of Bolingbroke, and on his return to England, the
Seals had been offered by James Stuart to Lord Mar, who refused them on
the ostensible ground that he "could not speak French." The actual
reason was perhaps to be sought for in a far deeper motive.[156]

In 1714 the celebrated Lord Stair had been sent as Ambassador to France,
chiefly to watch over the proceedings of the Jacobites, and to cement a
friendship with the Duke of Orleans, on whom King George could not rely.
The brilliant and spirited manner in which Lord Stair executed this
commission, the splendour by which his embassy was distinguished, and
his own personal qualities, courtesy, shrewdness, and diligence,
contributed mainly to the diminution of the Jacobite influence, which
declined under his exertions. It was from Lord Stair's address that
Bolingbroke, or, as Stair calls him in his correspondence, Mr. York, was
confirmed in his disgust to the Jacobite cause.

Between Lord Stair and the Earl of Mar an early acquaintance had
existed. Agreeably to the fashion of the period, which led Queen Anne
and the Duchess of Marlborough to assume the names of Morley and
Freeman, Lord Stair and Lord Mar, in the early days of their confidence,
had adopted the familiar names of Captain Brown, and Joe Murray.

Lord Mar had remained in Paris until October 1717; he then went into
Italy with the Duke of Ormond; but previous to his departure he called
on Lord Stair, and remained in the house of the Ambassador for four or
five hours. He appears to have declared to Lord Stair that he then
looked upon the affairs of his master as desperate. "He flung out," as
Lord Stair wrote, "several things, as I thought, with a design to try
whether there was any hopes of treating." Lord Stair, not liking to give
an old friend false hopes, declined "dipping into particulars;" adding
at the same time, in his account of the interview, "he would not have
dealt so with me: but in conversation of that kind there is always
something curious to be learned."

They parted without explanation, and Lord Mar proceeded to Rome. The
correspondence between these two noblemen ceased for nearly two
years.[157] During that interval, James had married the Princess
Clementina Maria, a daughter of Prince Sobieski, elder son of John King
of Poland. The marriage could scarcely have been solemnized, since it
took place early in May 1719, before we find Lord Mar at Geneva, on his
way from Italy, resuming his negotiations with Lord Stair.


LORD MAR TO LORD STAIR.

                                                       "May 6th, 1719.

    "Good Captain Brown will not, I hope, take amiss his old acquaintance
    Jo. Murraye's writing to him at this time; and when he knows the
    occasion, I am persuaded he will forgive him, and comply, as far as
    he can, with what he is to ask him. My health is not so good just
    now nor for some time past, as you would wish it; and I am advised
    to drink the waters of Bourbon for it, as being the likest to those
    of the Bath of any this side the sea, of which I formerly found so
    much good. The hot climate where I have been for some time past, by
    no means agrees with my health; and I am persuaded that where some
    of our company is gone will still do worse with me.

    "The affair in which it might be thought my Captain would employ me
    being now, I suppose, over for this bout, there needs be, I should
    think, no objection to what I should ask.

    "I am come part of the way already; but I would not go much further,
    without acquainting you with it. And now I beg that on the
    consideration of the health of an old friend, you will give me
    allowance or furlo to go to the waters of Bourbon, and to continue
    there so long as I may have occasion for them during the two seasons
    this year; and I promise to you I shall do nothing in any way, the
    time of my being there, but as you would have me; so that this
    allowance can be of no prejudice to the service. If you cannot give
    me the furlo yourself, I imagine your Colonel will not refuse it, if
    you will be so good as to ask it for me.

    "But because the first season of the waters is going fast away, I
    should be glad you could do it without waiting to hear from your
    Colonel about it, who, I should think, will not take it amiss when
    you acquaint him with your having ventured to do so. Do not, I beg
    of you, think there is any fetch in this, or anything but what I
    have told you, which, upon honour, is nothing but truth, and all the
    truth.

    "I hope there will be no occasion of your mentioning your having had
    this trouble from me to any, unless it be to your Colonel and one or
    two about him, and the person, it is like, you must speak to where
    you are. There is one with me, an old school acquaintance of yours
    too, Mr. Stuart of Invernethy, whom you have seen dance very merrily
    over a sword; and if the allowance is granted me, I hope it will not
    be refused to him, for whom I promise as I do for myself.

    "When I have done with the waters, I hope there will be no objection
    to my returning to Italy again, if I have a mind; but I judged it
    fit to mention this to you.

    "The person who delivers you this, will get conveyed to me what you
    will be so good to write."

Whilst he was thus in treaty with his former friend, Lord Mar was
stopped on his way to St. Prix, near Geneva, by the orders of the
Hanoverian Minister: his papers were seized and sealed up; and among
them, a copy of that which was written to Lord Stair as Captain Brown.
Lord Mar, who had borne an assumed name, disclosed his real rank, and
wrote to Lord Stair for assistance,--again urging permission to go to
the waters of Bourbon, or, if not allowed to go into France, the liberty
to return to Italy, "where," he said, "I may end my days in quiet; and
those, probably, will not be many in that climate." Whilst awaiting the
reply of Lord Stair, the Earl was treated with respect by the
authorities of Geneva; and "had only to wish that he had a little more
liberty for taking air and exercise." He expected that Lord Stair's
answer could not arrive in less than a fortnight: in the meantime, he
adds, "I shall be obliged, on account of my health, to ask the
Government here a little more tether."[158]

His indulgent friend, Lord Stair, was, meantime, urging his cause by
every means in his power. "I wish Lord Mar," he wrote to the English
Ministry, "was at liberty upon his parole to the town of Geneva, or he
had permission to go to the waters of Bourbon. I should be glad to know
what pension you would allow him till he be restored?"

Lady Mar was now in Rome, whither she had followed her husband soon
after his leaving Scotland. Her jointure, it appears, was stopped by
the Commissioners, and she was unable, without that supply, to travel
from Rome to Geneva. She was, probably, aware of Lord Mar's intention to
leave the Chevalier's service, for the Earl had written a long letter,
explanatory of his situation and intentions, to her father the Duke of
Kingston. "I have offered him for Lady Mar's journey," says Lord Stair,
"credit upon me for a thousand pounds." Yet notwithstanding this
liberality, Lord Mar now began to be extremely uneasy at Geneva, and to
fear that the Government meant "merely to expose him." In vain, for some
time, did Stair plead for him, with Secretary Craggs and Lord Stanhope.
They were evidently, from Lord Stair's replies to their objections,
afraid to have any dealings with him. "As to Lord Mar," writes Stair,
"the things that shock you, shock me; but our business is to break the
Pretender's party by detaching him from it, which we shall effectually
do by letting him live in quiet at Geneva or elsewhere, and by giving
him a pension. Whatever his Lordship's intentions may be, it is very
certain, in a few months, that the Jacobites will pull his throat
out,--you know them well enough not to doubt of it. The Pretender," he
adds, "looks upon Mar as lost, and has had no manner of confidence in
him ever since Lady Mar came into Italy. They looked upon her as a spy,
and that she had corrupted her husband. This, you may depend on it, is
true." Little more than a week afterwards, Lord Stair informed his
friends that "Lord Mar was _outré_ at the usage he had met with. He says
our Ministers may be great and able men, but that they are not skilful
at making proselytes, or keeping friends when they have them. I am
pretty much of his mind."

It was, doubtless, as Lord Stair declared, the full determination of
Lord Mar at that time to leave the Chevalier's interests. "The
Pretender, I know," said Stair, "wrote him the kindest letter imaginable
since his [the Pretender's] return into Italy from Spain, with the
warmest invitations to return to his post."

The letters which Lord Stair had received, in the course of this
negotiation, from Lord Mar, were instantly sent to Hanover. They were in
some instances written in his own hand, but without signature, and in
the third person. In the first which he wrote to Lord Stair, Mar
announced that he had quitted the service of James, and was desirous of
making peace with King George upon the promise of a pardon, and the
restoration of his estates.

"You are to consider," says Lord Stair, writing to the Secretary of
State at home concerning this proposal, "whether it will be worth the
while to receive him. In my humble opinion the taking him on will be the
greatest blow that can be given to the Pretender's interest, and the
greatest discredit to it. And it may be made of use to show to the world
that nobody but a Papist can hope to continue in favour with the
Pretender. I wish," adds the Ambassador, "you may think as I do. I own
all his faults and misfortunes cannot make me forget the long and
intimate friendship and familiarity that has been between him and me."
It is consoling to find any politician acting upon such good
old-fashioned maxims, the result of honest feeling.

Lady Mar having now joined her husband, Lord Mar resolved to make his
escape from Geneva. Lord Stair advised him against it; but adds, in his
letters to his friends at home, "I could hardly imagine that a man of
his temper, and in his circumstances, will refuse his liberty when he
sees he has nothing but ill usage and neglect to expect from us."[159]

Thus ended this negotiation, the main conditions of which were, provided
Lord Mar kept himself free from any plots against the Government, an
offer of the family estate to his son; and, in the interim, till an act
of Parliament could be obtained to that effect, a pension of two
thousand pounds sterling, over and above one thousand five hundred
pounds paid of jointure to his wife and daughter.[160]

It was the fortune of Lord Mar on this, as on many other occasions, to
reap the ignominy of having accepted this pension, without ever
receiving the profits of his debasement.

During the absence of Lord Mar at Geneva, his Countess, who remained in
Rome, received the following letters from the Chevalier and his
Princess, Maria Clementina: these epistles show how desirous the
Chevalier still was to retain Lord Mar in his interests.[161]

                                        "Montefiascony, Sept. 9, 1719.

    "The Duke of Mar's late misfortunes and my own situation for some
    months past, hath occasioned my being much in the dark as to his
    present circumstances, which touche me too nearly not to desire you
    will inform me particularly of them. The last letter I had from him
    was in the begining of May, from Genua, in which he mentioned to me
    his ill state of health, and something of your comeing to meet him
    at Bourbon waters; but the season for them now advanceing, or rather
    passeing, I reckon that whether he had gone thither or not, he will
    soon be here on ye receipt of the note I sent you t'other day for
    him, and by consequence that what measures he may have taken with
    you about your meeting him will be altered on sight of that. I
    thought it necessary to inform you of these particulars to prevent
    any thoughts you might have of a journey so expensive and now
    useless: for as to his liberty, I make no doubt but that it will
    immediately follow the certainty of my return to this country. I
    should think it not prudent to write any politicks to him now, not
    knowing what fate my letters might meet with; but there is no secret
    in your sayeing all that is kind from me to him. If you cannot
    exagerate as to my impatience to see him, after all our mutual
    misfortunes and adventures, and I am sure he will be glad to know
    and see me more happy in a wife than I can be otherwayes, in most
    respects.

    "I hope soon to have the satisfaction of seeing you at Rome, when I
    believe I shall soon convince you that if you and your lord have in
    the world many false friends, I am and ever shall be a true one to
    you both.

                                                           JAMES R."


LETTER FROM THE PRINCESS CLEMENTINA TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR.

                                           "Montefiasconi, 23rd. Sept.

   [162]"Je vien de recevoire, votre chère letre par Mr. Clepen, et vous
   sui bien obligé, de l'attention que vous avé eu, de mervoyer dutée,
   lequell ne sauroit que étre bon venant de vous; vous me marquez
   avoire de la peine á ecrire le fransoi, mai votre esprit vous,
   laprendera bientot. Le Roi me charge de vous faire, se compliment et
   soy et aussi persuadez, de l'estime que j'auray toujour pour votre
   merite.

                                                        "CLEMENTINE R.

    "J'ambrase de tous mon coeure la charman petite, J'espere dan peu de
    le pouvoire faire personnellement, et a vous de même. Nous nous
    porton très bien; l'aire d'icy est foie bonne."

A subsequent letter is addressed "A ma cousine La Duchesse de Mar"--and
subscribed "votre affectionée cousine, Clementine;" yet notwithstanding
these professions of confidence and affection, the seeds of distrust
were, it seems, soon sown between James and the Earl and Countess of
Mar. At first the suggestions to their disadvantage were repelled,
"There has been enough pains," writes James, "taken from Rome within
these few days to do you ill offices with me, but I can assure you with
truth they have made no impression upon me, nor will they produce any
other effect than to make me, if possible, kinder to you. But when I see
you I shall say more on this head, for 'tis fitt you should know your
false from your true friends; _and among the last you shall ever find
me_.[163]

                                                          "JAMES R."

An order, dated the ninth of October, 1719, that all such boxes "as are
in the Duchesse of Mar's custody should be first naled by her, and then
delivered with their keyes to Sir William Ellis," written in the
Chevalier's own hand, shews either that Lady Mar was on the eve of her
departure from Italy, or that a breach of confidence had taken
place.[164]

Lord Mar, with impaired health, and writhing under the rejection of his
offers, returned to Italy. There, had he adhered to a resolution which
he had formed, of not interfering in public affairs, he might still have
closed his days in tranquillity.

Notwithstanding the apparent continuance of the Chevalier's regard, he
never forgot the treaty between Lord Stair and the Earl of Mar. The
whole of this intrigue, discreditable as it was, has been reprobated by
all who have touched upon this portion of Lord Mar's history. His
accepting the loan of a thousand pounds from Stair, an old friend, for
the purpose of ensuring Lady Mar's journey, has been censured, I think,
with too great severity. But, although it be desirable to set to rights
matters of fact, yet, it is always unsatisfactory to begin the defence
of a bad cause. There is no evidence to show that Lord Mar ever received
a pension: he was not thought worth conciliating; but that circumstance,
in this case, and after a display of his willingness to receive all that
could be granted, assists very little in his vindication, and rather
adds to the degradation of one whom no party could trust.

Soon after Lord Mar's return to Rome, the seeds of disunion between
James and his young and high-spirited wife began to disturb the minds of
all who were really well wishers to the Stuarts.

Maria Clementina, reported by Horace Walpole to have been "lively,
insinuating, agreeable, and enterprising," had encountered, soon after
her marriage with James, the too frequent fate of many who were
sacrificed to royal marriages. She had quickly perceived that her
influence was inferior to that of the Prince's favourites: she was
shortly made aware of his infidelities: she became jealous, without
affection; and her disappointment in her consort was that of a proud,
resentful woman, to whom submission to circumstances was a lesson too
galling to be learned.

The Prince, after the fashion of his forefathers, was governed by
favourites: like Charles the First, he had his Buckingham and his
Strafford; and his miniature Court was rent with factions. But the
Chevalier had neither the purity of Charles the First, nor the charm of
character which gilded over the vices of Charles the Second. His
household was an epitome of the worst passions; and his melancholy
aspect, his want of dignity and spirit, his bigotry and even his
unpopular virtue of economy, cast a gloom over that turbulent region. It
was bitterly, but perhaps truly said of him, "that he had all the
superstition of a capuchin, but none of the religion of a Prince."[165]
Like most of his immediate family, his character deteriorated as he grew
older. He did not rise under the pressure of adversity; and his timid,
irresolute nature was crushed by the effects of his cruel situation.

Colonel John Hay, of Cromlix, the brother of the Earl of Mar's first
wife, and of George, seventh Earl of Kinnoul, succeeded in obtaining
mastery over his subdued nature. The lady of Colonel Hay, Margery, the
third daughter of Viscount Stormont, was said, also, to have possessed
her own share of influence over the mind of the Chevalier. Of the real
existence of any criminal attachment between the Prince and Mrs. Hay,
there is, however, considerable doubt; and it has been generally
regarded as one of those amours raised for a purpose, during the
continuance of a fierce contention for power.

Clementina had also her favourites; and a certain Mrs. Sheldon, who had
had the charge of Prince Charles Edward, had acquired her confidence.
This choice was peculiarly infelicitous.

Mrs. Sheldon was reported to be about as unworthy a favourite as the
unhappy Princess could have selected. According to Colonel Hay, she was
the mistress of General Dillon, one of the most ardent adherents of the
Stuarts, and the spy of the Earl of Mar.[166] For four or five years,
nevertheless, after Prince Charles's birth, she continued to be his
governess, and to sway the feelings of his mother, in the same manner as
confidants and dependants usually direct the angry passions of their
mistresses into the most dangerous channels.

During the height of Colonel Hay's favour, the confidence of the
Chevalier in Lord Mar visibly declined, as appears in the following
letter to one of his adherents in Scotland.

"I have always been unwilling to mention Marr, but I find myself
indispensably engaged at present to let my Scots friends know that I
have withdrawn my confidence entirely from him, as I shall be obliged to
doe from all who may be any ways influenced by him. This conduct is
founded on the most urgent, strongest, and most urging necessity, in
which my regard to my faithfull subjects and servants have the greatest
share.

"What is here said of Marr, is not with a view of its being made
publick, there being no occasion for that, since, many years ago, he put
himself under such engagements, that he could not serve me in a publick
capacity, neither has he been publickly employed by me."

To this it was answered, by the confidential friend to whom the remarks
were addressed, "It is some time agoe since your friends here had doubts
of the Earl of Marr; and thence it was that I was directed to mention
him in the manner I did in my last two letters, it being matter of no
small moment to us to know in whom wee might confide thorowly, and of
whom beware,--especially when a person of his figure was the
object."[167]

Affairs were in this state; the Chevalier distrustful of Lord Mar, and
devoted to his rival, Colonel Hay; the Princess heading an opposite
faction, nominally commanded by Mrs. Sheldon, but secretly instigated by
Lord Mar; when, in 1722, the conspiracy of Atterbury was discovered by
the British Government.

The Earl of Mar was at that time in Paris, and Lord Carteret who was at
the head of affairs in England, remembering the Earl's former
negotiations with Lord Stair, dispatched a gentleman to Mar, with
instructions to sound that nobleman as to his knowledge of the plot.
Lord Mar happening to be in Colonel Dillon's company when the messenger
reached Paris, and soon divining after one interview the nature of the
embassy, it was agreed between him and Dillon that they would do James's
cause a service by leading the British Government off the right scent.
They therefore drew up, in conjunction, an answer to Lord Carteret. What
was the nature of that reply,[168] does not appear; but its result was
such as to cast upon Lord Mar a degree of odium far greater than that
which he had incurred in Lord Stair's business. He was accused by
Atterbury with having, on that occasion, written such a letter as had
been the cause of his banishment; with having betrayed the secrets of
the Chevalier St. George to the British Government; and of several other
charges of "base and treacherous practises, discovered by the Bishop of
Rochester, that the like had scarce been heard of, and seem'd to be what
no man, endued with common sense, or the least drop of noble blood,
could perpetrate; and that the King's friends were at a loss in not
knowing what credit to give to such reports, tho' they apprehended the
worst, from the directions he had lately given of having no
correspondence with Mar or his adherents, from whom he had withdrawn all
confidence."

Shortly after this declaration the Chevalier declared Colonel Hay to be
his Secretary, and created the favourite Earl of Inverness; between whom
and the Earl of Mar an antipathy, which had now become open hostility,
prevailed. "The Duke of Mar," wrote the Earl of Inverness to Lockhart,
"has declared himself my mortal enemy, only because I spoke truth to
him, and could not, in my conscience, enter into his measures nor
approve his conduct, tho' I always shunned saying any thing to his
disadvantage, but to the King alone, from whom I thought I was obliged
to conceal nothing."[169]

With respect to the treachery towards Atterbury, the justification of
Lord Mar rests upon the testimony of Colonel Dillon, and other persons
who saw the Earl's letter to Carteret. It is also certain that James
accorded his approval to Mar's conduct in that affair. No positive
intention of mischief can be made out against Mar; but his habit of
rarely acting a straightforward part, his insatiable love of
interference, and his mistaking cunning for policy, brought upon him the
mournful indignation of the exiled Atterbury, and fixed upon him a grave
imputation which it were almost impossible to wipe away.

Another charge brought by Atterbury against Lord Mar, was his advising
James to barter his pretensions to the Crown for a pension. But this
accusation is refuted by the two letters, of which vouchers are given in
the Lockhart Papers, on which the allegation is founded. These letters
were written from Geneva to the Prince and to Colonel Dillon.[170]

Lastly, Lord Mar stood charged with a scheme, discovered to Atterbury
by Lord Inverness, for the restoration of the Stuarts, which, under
pretence of replacing them on the throne, would for ever have rendered
that restoration impracticable. From this allegation Lord Mar justified
himself by referring to the scheme itself, which he was declared to have
laid before the Regent of France with the intent to ruin James. Of this
scheme, the two main features were, first to re-establish the ancient
independence of Scotland and Ireland: secondly, that a certain number of
French troops should remain in England, and that five thousand Scots,
and as many Irish troops, should be sent to France and kept in pay by
the French King, for a certain number of years. There is certainly a
great deal of Mar's double policy, his being all things to all men, in
such a scheme. He declared, however, and proved that he acquainted James
with his plan in confidence, and that Colonel Hay sent a copy of it to
the Bishop of Rochester. Little as one can approve of Mar's conduct, it
is manifest that, by a deeply-laid intrigue, it was resolved for ever to
uproot him from the confidence of James.

But the public career of Lord Mar had now drawn to its ignoble close.
That he had his partisans, who repelled the charges against him by
counter allegations, Lord Inverness soon found; and he began to think
that "the less noise that was made about Mar," the better.[171]

During the year 1725, James further evinced his distrust of Lord Mar, by
dismissing Mr. Sheldon, his supposed spy, and placing Mr. James Murray,
a Protestant, as preceptor to the young Prince.

The retirement of the Princess Clementina into a convent, followed this
last step. The correspondence of the royal couple, their recriminations,
furnished, for some months, conversation for the continental courts, and
even for St. James's, until the dismissal of Colonel Hay and his wife
appeased the resolute daughter of the Sobieski, and produced an apparent
reconciliation.

From the close of this altercation, and after the disgrace of Colonel
Hay, the name of Lord Mar occurs no more in the history of the period.
He resided at Paris until 1729, when, falling into ill health, he
repaired to Aix la Chapelle, where he died in May 1732.

His wife survived him twenty-nine years, only to be the victim of mental
disease, and, as it has been said, of cruelty and neglect. She became
insane, and was placed under the charge of her sister, Lady Mary W.
Montague, who, it has been reported, from avarice, stinted her
unfortunate sister of even the common necessaries of life, and
appropriated the allowance to herself. But this statement has been
disproved.[172]

The latter years of Lord Mar were passed neither in idleness, nor wholly
in the intrigues of the Court at Albano. His amusement was to draw plans
and designs for the improvement of Scotland, which he had loved "not
wisely," but to which his warmest affections are said to have ever
recurred. In 1728 he composed a paper, in which he suggested building
bridges on the north and south sides of the city of Edinburgh: he
planned, also, the formation of a navigable canal between the Forth and
the Clyde. His beloved Alloa was sold by the Commissioners of the
forfeited estates to his brother, Lord Grange, who, in 1739, conveyed it
to Lord Erskine, his nephew. Lord Mar's children were enriched by the
gratitude of Gibbs, the architect, who bequeathed to the offspring of
his early patron the greatest part of his fortune.

The Earl of Mar was succeeded by his son, Thomas Lord Erskine, who was
deprived of the famed title of Mar by his father's attainder. Lord
Erskine was appointed by Government, Commissary of Stores at Gibraltar.
His marriage with Lady Charlotte Hope being without issue, the title was
restored to the descendant of Lord Grange, and consequently to the
children of the unfortunate Lady Grange, whose sufferings, from the
effects of party spirit, seem to belong more properly to the page of
romance, than to the graver details of history.

The conduct of John Erskine, Earl of Mar, has afforded a subject of
comment to two men of very different character, John Lockhart of
Carnwath, and the Master of Sinclair. Neither of the portraits drawn by
these master-hands are favourable; and they were, in both instances,
written under the influence of strong, yet transient impressions of
disappointment and suspicion. The mind naturally seeks for some safer
steersman to guide opinion than the intemperate though honest Jacobite,
Lockhart, or the sarcastic and slippery friend, Sinclair. The worst
peculiarity in the career of Mar was, that no one trusted him; towards
the latter portion of his life he had even lost the power of deceiving:
it had become impossible to him to act without mingling the poison of
deception with intentions which might have been honest, and even
benevolent. The habits of a long life of intrigue had warped his very
nature. When we behold him fleeing from the coasts of Scotland, leaving
behind him the trusting hearts that would have bled for him, we fancy
that no moral degradation can be more complete. We view him soliciting
to be a pensioner of England, and we acknowledge that it was even
possible to sink still more deeply into infamy.

With principles of action utterly unsound, it is surprising how much
influence Lord Mar acquired over all with whom he came into collision.
He was sanguine in disposition, and, if we may judge by his letters,
buoyant in his spirits; his disposition was conciliatory, his manners
were apparently confiding. At the bottom of that gay courtesy there
doubtless was a heart warped by policy, but not inherently unkind. He
attached to him the lowly. Lockhart speaks of the love of two of his
kinsmen to him:--his tenantry, during his exile, contributed to supply
his wants, by a subscription. These are the few redeeming characteristics
of one made up of inconsistencies. He conferred, it must be allowed, but
little credit on a party which could number among its adherents the
brave Earl Marischal, the benevolent and honourable Derwentwater, and
the disinterested Nithisdale. When we contrast the petty and selfish
policy of the Earl of Mar with the integrity and fidelity of those who
fought in the same cause, and over whom he was commander, his character
sinks low in the estimate, and acts like a foil to the purity and
brightness of his fellow sufferers in the strife.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] See Wood's Peerage of Scotland.

[8] Histories of Noble British Families by Henry Drummond, Esq. Preface
to Part I.

[9] Robertson's History of Scotland, ii. 32.

[10] Wood's Peerage. The year of his birth is not stated.

[11] Cunningham's History of Great Britain, i. 326.

[12] Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 100.

[13] Chambers's Biography, art. Erskine.

[14] See Dr. Coxe's MSS. in the British Museum, vol. iii.

[15] Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 98.

[16] Lockhart's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 114.

[17] Lockhart, vol. i. p. 45.

[18] Granger, vol. ii. p. 31. Somerville's Queen Anne, p. 184.

[19] Of Alloa the following account is given. "Alloa House, situated in
the immediate neighbourhood of the town, in the midst of a fine park,
the seat of the Earl of Mar, and the subject of a fine Scottish song, is
a place worthy of visit. The principal part of the building was
destroyed some years ago by fire, and with it the only certain original
portrait of Queen Mary existing in the kingdom. The original tower, a
building of the thirteenth century, the walls of which are eleven feet
thick, and ninety feet high, alone remains. In it James the Sixth and
his eldest son, Henry, were successively educated under the care of the
Mar family. The cradle of the former, and his little nursery-chair,
besides Prince Henry's golfs, were preserved in the tower till a recent
period, when they fell into the possession of Lady Frances Erskine,
daughter of the late venerable Earl of Mar, who, we understand, now
preserves them, with the care and veneration due to such valuable
heirlooms, in her house in Edinburgh. The country in every direction
round Alloa is extremely level and beautiful, interspersed with numerous
fine seats, and abounding in delightful little old-established
bower-like villages. Among the latter we would particularize one called
the Bridge of Allan as everything which a village ought to be--soft,
sunny, and warm--a confusion of straw-roofed cottages, and rich massy
trees; possessed of a bridge and a mill, together with kail-yards,
bee-skeps, colleys, callants, old inns with entertainment for man and
horse, carts with their poles pointing up to the sky, venerable dames in
drugget knitting their stockings in the sun, and young ones in gingham
and dimity tripping along with milk-pails on their heads.

"Besides all these characteristics as a village, the Bridge of Allan
boasts of a row of neat little villas for the temporary accommodation of
a number of fashionables who flock to it in the summer, on account of a
neighbouring mineral well."--_Chambers's Picture of Scotland._

[20] Wood's Peerage.

[21] Somerville's Queen Anne, p. 167.

[22] Somerville, p. 177. Memoirs of Scotland, London, 1714. Defoe's
History of the Union, p. 64.

[23] Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 114.

[24] Lockhart.

[25] Lockhart, p. 116.

[26] Daniel De Foe on the Union, p. 64.

[27] De Foe, p. 322.

[28] Lockhart. Letter to one English Lord concerning the Treaty, 1702,
vol. i. p. 272.

[29] Memoirs, p. 74. De Foe, p. 321.

[30] Memoirs, p. 74. De Foe, p. 371.

[31] Introduction to De Foe's History of the Union, p. 16.

[32] Memoirs of Scotland, p. 31.

[33] Mackay.

[34] Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 54.

[35] Memoirs of North Britain, p. 113.

[36] Wood's Peerage, vol. i. pp. 714, 717; also Mackay's Memoirs, p.
178.

[37] Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 115.

[38] Wood's Peerage, art. Erskine of Mar.

[39] Memoirs of Scotland, p. 224.

[40] Memoirs of Scotland, p. 340.

[41] Cunningham's Hist. Great Britain, p. 257.

[42] Ibid. p. 61.

[43] Swift's Works, edited by Sir W. Scott, pp. 14, 72.

[44] The motto on Queen Anne's coronation medal.

[45] Cunningham, p. 71.

[46] Memoirs of Scotland. Cunningham, p. 157.

[47] Swift's Letters, vol. ii. p. 488; also p. 487, note by Sir W.
Scott.

[48] Wood's Peerage. Swift's Letters, p. 475. See note.

[49] Mackay's Characters, p. 94.

[50] Swift added, in his own hand, to this eulogium, this remark: "He
was little better than a conceited talker in company."

[51] The following letter shows that the Duke anticipated the result of
the duel.

                                                London, Nov. 14, 1712.

    My dear Son,

    I have been doing all I could to recover your mother's right to her
    estate, which I hope shall be yours. I command you to be dutiful
    towards her, as I hope she will be just and kind to you; and I
    recommend it particularly to you, if ever you enjoy the estate of
    Hamilton, and what may, I hope, justly belong to you, (considering
    how long I have lived with a small competence, which has made me run
    in debt,) I hope God will put it into your head to do justice to my
    honour, and pay my just debts. There will be enough to satisfy all,
    and give your brothers and sisters such provisions as the state of
    your condition and their quality in Scotland will admit of.

    I pray God preserve you, and the family in your person. My humble
    duty to my mother, and my blessing to your sisters. If it please God
    I live, you shall find me share with you what I do possess, and ever
    prove your affectionate and kind father, whilst

                                                           HAMILTON.

    I again upon my blessing charge you, that you let the world see you
    do your part in satisfying my just debts.

    Addressed thus: "To my dear Son the Marquis of Chilsdale."

    _Memoirs of the Life and Family of James Duke of Hamilton._

[52] The Lady Elizabeth Gerrard, the sister of Lady Mohun, and Duchess
of Hamilton, is said to have been "a lady of great wit and beauty, and
all the fine accomplishments that adorn her sex." Through her the great
estates in Lancashire and Staffordshire came into the family of
Hamilton.

[53] Wood's Peerage; also "Life of the Duke of Hamilton," a scarce
tract, p. 102.

[54] Coxe MSS. 9128. Plut. cxxxviii. H. British Museum.

[55] Ibid. See a Letter in French, dated April 5, 1714, p. 1.

[56] Coxe MSS.

[57] Lord Mahon's Hist. England, vol. i. p. 139. See also a scarce
little book to be met with in the Advocate's Library in Edinburgh
(Atterbury's Correspondence, with marginal notes by Lord Hailes): "By
what accident these Letters have been preserved," says the noble Editor,
"I know not: by what means they are now brought to light, I am not at
liberty to explain."

[58] See the Letter before quoted.

[59] Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 440.

[60] Lockhart of Carnwath, vol. i. p. 446; also "Notices of Lady
Grange," by Dr. Mackay.

[61] See "Notices of Lady Grange," by K. Mackay, M.D., 3rd edition.
Glasgow, 1819.

[62] Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 441.

[63] Lord Mahon, vol. i. p. 152.

[64] "A Collection of Original Letters relating to the Rebellion of
1715." Edinburgh, 1730.

[65] Introductory Anecdotes to Lord Wharncliffe's Edition of Lady M.
Wortley's Letters, p. 26.

[66] Reay, p. 135.

[67] Reay, p. 152.

[68] Reay, p. 171.

[69] This commission was long doubted, and was even denied by the
Chevalier. It is, nevertheless, signed by his Secretary, and is among
the valuable papers which, belonging to Mr. Gibson Craig of Edinburgh,
have been liberally placed at the service of the author.

[70] Caledonian Mercury, 1722.

[71] Lord Mahon, p. 147.

[72] Lord Mahon; from the Master of Sinclair's MS.

[73] Burke's Peerage.

[74] Buchan's History of the Keith Family.

[75] Buchan's History of the Keith Family; also Scottish Peerage.

[76] See Patten's List of Chieftains.

[77] Secret History of Colonel Hooke's Negotiations, pp. 26, 110.

[78] Patten, p. 232.

[79] Buchan's History of the Keith Family, p. 153.

[80] Colonel Hooke's Negotiations.

[81] See "Genealogie of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Drummond, by
the First Viscount Strathallan," Appendix. For this curious and
elaborate work I am indebted to the Rev. Arthur Drummond.

[82] MS. Account of Several Clans, by Mrs. Grant, of Laggan.

[83] Brown's Highlands, vol. i. p. 131.

[84] The Rev. Robert Patten, from whose animated narrative many other
writers have implicitly copied, was a man of indifferent character, who
accompanied Mr. Forster, in the insurrection in Northumberland, as his
chaplain. He afterwards turned king's evidence, and appeared against
those whom he had served. For this act of treachery his pension was
raised (as I find by the Caledonian Mercury for 1722) from 50_l._ to
80_l._ a-year. He dedicates his History of the Rebellion to Generals
Carpenter and Wills.

[85] Patten, p. 151.

[86] Mar Papers.

[87] Reay, p. 191.

[88] Reay, p. 191.

[89] It seems to have been the custom of that period to write in the
third person when in memoirs and statements. Lord Lovat's manifesto is
in the same style.

[90] Patten, p. 257.

[91] A copy from the original, for which I am indebted to Mr. Gibson
Craig, is given for the confirmation of Lord Mar's assertion:--

    "James the Eighth, by the grace of God King of Scotland, England,
    France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., to our right trusty
    and well-beloved Cousin and Counsellor, John Earl of Mar, &c. We
    reposing especial trust & confidence in your loyalty, courage,
    experience, and good conduct, doe by these * * constitute and
    appoint you to be our General and Commander in Cheif of all our
    forces, both by sea and land, in our antient kingdom of Scotland.
    Whereupon you are to take upon you the said command of General and
    Commander in Cheif, and the better to support you in the said
    authority, our will and pleasure is, that you act in consert with
    and by our * * * * We doe likeways hereby empower you to grant
    commissions in our name to all officers, both by sea and land, to
    place and displace the same as you shall think fitt and necessary
    for our service, to assemble our said forces, raise the militia,
    issue out orders for all suspected persons, and seizing of all forts
    and castles, and putting garrisons into them, and to take up in any
    part of our dominions, what money, horses, arms, and ammunition and
    provisions you shall think necessary for arming, mounting, and
    subsisting the said forces under your command, and to give recepts
    for the same, which we hereby promise to pay. By this our Commission,
    we likeways here empower you to make warr upon our enemies, and upon
    all such as shall adhere to the present government and usurper of
    our dominions. Leaving entirely to your prudence and conduct to begin
    the necessary acts of hostility when and where you think most
    advantageous conducing to our restoration; and we doe hereby command
    all, and require all officers and souldiers, both by sea and land,
    and all our subjects, to acknowledge and obey you as our General and
    Commander as Cheif of our army; and you to obey such furder orders
    and directions as you shall from time to time receive from us. In
    pursuance of the great power and trust we have reposed in you.

    "Given at our Court at Bar le duc, the seventh day of September,
    1715, and in the fourteenth year of our reign.

        "By His Majestie's command,
            Sic Subscribitur,
                THOMAS HIGGINS."


[92] Patten, p. 256.

[93] Note in Reay. From the _Weekly Journal_, Feb. 4th, 1715-16.

[94] Reay, p. 193.

[95] Brown's Highlands, vol. i. p. 129.

[96] Mar Papers. In these there is a copy of this Manifesto; but since
it has been printed in Reay's History of the Rebellion, and others, I do
not think it necessary to insert it here.

[97] The Chevalier's agent there.

[98] The orthography of this letter is copied from the original, with
the exception of the abbreviations usual at that period.

[99] Erskine.

[100] Reay, p. 221.

[101] Mar Papers.

[102] Mar Papers, communicated by Mr. Gibson Craig.

[103] Reay, pp. 236, 237.

[104] The Earl of Mar's Journal, as printed at Paris. At the end of
Patten's History of the Rebellion, and addressed by Lord Mar to Colonel
Balfour, p. 259.

[105] Reay, p. 197.

[106] Earl of Mar's Journal.

[107] Earl of Mar's Journal.

[108] Reay, p. 308.

[109] Brown's Highlands.

[110] Mar Papers.

[111] Reay, p. 309.

[112] From the MS. letter in the possession of Archibald Macdonald, Esq.

[113] The agent of the Jacobites in Edinburgh.

[114] Mar Papers, in the possession of Gibson Craig, Esq.

[115] King.

[116] Duke of Ormond.

[117] Paris.

[118] Lady Nairn.

[119] The Chevalier.

[120] The Dutch auxiliaries, to the amount of 6000, demanded by the
English government, as accorded by treaty, arrived, to the number of
3000, in the Thames, on the 16th of November, expressly to assist in
suppressing the rebellion, and proceeded to Scotland on the 25th. They
were afterwards followed by 3000 more, who, being obliged to put in at
Harwich, marched on by land. Reay, p. 327.

[121] The King.

[122] Lord Grange.

[123] The following note is annexed to this letter. It is in the
hand-writing of Bishop Keith:--"Son of Sir Wm. Douglass, colonel of a
regiment, and who had come over with the Prince of Orange to England,
and was made Knight and Colonel by the said Prince, as says my Lady
Bruce. The story Wm. Erskine, brother to the Earl of Buchan, told me, as
the King and he were travelling through France at this period, they saw
the Chevalier's picture set up in some of the post-houses, and they were
told this was done by the desire of the English Ambassador, who had
promised a reward to those who should stop and apprehend the person whom
the picture resembled."

[124] A concealment in the House of Kineil, near Borrostowness.

[125] The younger brother of the Marquis of Tullibardine, but assuming
the forfeited title as head of the house.

[126] Henry Straiton.

[127] I have had the advantage of seeing an original crayon portrait of
the Chevalier, in the possession of Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., of
Edinburgh; also, a miniature painted at Rome, belonging to Mr. Sharpe.
In the miniature the eyes are darker, and have more animation than in
the crayon drawing. The portrait lately placed at Hampton Court gives a
much more pleasing impression of James Stuart than either of these
likenesses: the countenance is animated and benevolent.

[128] "A True Account of the Proceedings at Perth," by a Rebel, supposed
to be the Master of Sinclair.

[129] That portion of the letter only which refers to the Chevalier
appears to have been printed. I have given the entire letter from which
the account was taken. A portion of this letter is published in Brown's
History of the Highlands, vol. iv. p. 332.

[130] Reay, p. 352.

[131] MS. Letter in the possession of Alexander Macdonald, Esq., of the
Register Office, Edinburgh.

[132] Mar Papers.

[133] Thomas Bruce, afterwards Earl of Kincardine.

[134] The loss of the ship from France.

[135] An allusion to the Marquis of Huntley and Lord Seaforth.

[136] Mar Papers.

[137] Reay, p. 364.

[138] Flying Post, or the Post Master, for January 28 and 31, 1716.

[139] Evening Post, Feb. 2, 1716.

[140] Auchterarder.

[141] Reay, p. 364.

[142] Mar Correspondence.

[143] Probably Wigton.

[144] Brown's Highlands, vol. iv. p. 337.

[145] Patten, p. 248.

[146] Reay, p. 367.

[147] Lord Mar's Journal.

[148] A copy is given of the Prince's letter in Dr. Brown's work on the
Highlands, vol. iv. p. 340. It is a sort of expostulation with the Duke,
but mildly and sensibly expressed. "I fear," he said, alluding to the
British people, "they will find yet more than I the smart of preferring
a foreign yoke to the obedience they owe me."

[149] Bolingbroke's Letter to Sir William Wyndham.

[150] Letter to Sir Wm. Wyndham, p. 139.

[151] Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 17.

[152] Ibid.

[153] Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 64.

[154] Coxe's Papers in the British Museum, MS. 9129. Plut. cxxxviii. II.

[155] I find that the biographers of Lord Mar, in the short lives given
of him, (see Chambers's Scottish Biography, Georgian Era, &c.) have
overlooked this correspondence. The letter from Sir Luke Schwaub, in
French, with a translation, and the answer of Lord Carteret, in the Coxe
Papers, although not exactly relevant to my subject, are interesting. "A
thousands thanks," writes the generous Lord Carteret, in reply to
Schwaub, "for your private letter, which affords me the means of
obviating any calumny against the memory of a person who will always be
dear to me." [That is, Lord Sunderland.] "I have shown it to the King,
who is entirely satisfied with it." The anxiety on the part of
Government to secure the papers of Lord Sunderland, was extreme, and
affords a collateral proof of this connivance. The mysterious documents
were seized by order of the King, and inspected by Lord Townshend, and
not a trace of the correspondence was left when the papers were restored
to the family. The seizure occasioned a suit between the executors of
the Earl of Sunderland and the two Secretaries of State.--_Coxe MSS._

[156] Hardwicke Papers, vol. ii. p. 252.

[157] Hardwicke Papers, vol. ii. p. 565.

[158] Hardwicke Papers, p. 586.

[159] Hardwicke Papers, vol. ii. p. 600.

[160] Chambers, art. _Erskine_.

[161] From original letters, for which I am indebted to Alexander
Macdonald, Esq., of the Register Office, Edinburgh.

[162] The spelling is preserved as in the original.

[163] These words were written in the Chevalier's own hand.

[164] Letters in the possession of A. Macdonald, Esq.

[165] Bolingbroke.

[166] Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. p. 221.

[167] Lockhart Papers.

[168] See various papers in the State Paper Office. Collections for
1722.

[169] Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 149.

[170] Id. p. 183.

[171] Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 198.

[172] Mr. C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe was good enough to inform me that he had
seen some letters on this subject, which exculpated Lady Mary W.
Montague. The correspondence was destroyed, but it conveyed to the mind
of that accomplished and erudite gentleman, who saw it, the impression
that the charge against Lady Mary Wortley was groundless.




JAMES, EARL OF DERWENTWATER.


In the vale of Hexham, on the summit of a steep hill, clothed with wood,
and washed at its base by a rivulet, called the Devil's Water, stand the
ruins of Dilstone Castle. A bridge of a single arch forms the approach
to the castle or mansion; the stream, then mingling its rapid waters
with those of the Tyne, rushes over rocks into a deep dell embowered
with trees, above a hundred feet in height, and casting a deep gloom
over the sounding waters beneath their branches.

Through the arch of the bridge, a mill, an object ever associated with
peace and plenty, is seen; and, beyond it, the eye rests upon the bare,
dilapidated walls of the castle. Its halls, its stairs, its painted
chambers, may still be traced; its broken towers command a view of
romantic beauty; but all around it is desolate and ruined, like the once
proud and honoured family who dwelt beneath its roof.

This was once the favourite abode of the Ratcliffes, or Radcliffes,
supposed to be a branch of the Radcliffes in Lancashire,[173] from whom
were, it is said, descended the Earls of Sussex,[174] who became the
owners of Dilstone in the days of Queen Elizabeth.

During several generations after the Conquest, a family of the name of
Devilstone was in possession of Dilstone, until the time of Henry the
Third. The estates then passed to many different owners; the Tynedales,
the Crafters, the Claxtons, were successively the masters of the castle;
and it was not, according to some accounts,[175] until the tenth year of
Queen Elizabeth's reign, that it first owned for its lord one of that
unfortunate race to whom it finally belonged, until escheated to the
Crown. But certain historians have asserted that, so early as the reign
of Henry the Sixth, Dilstone was the seat of Sir Nicholas Radcliffe.[176]
At this period, too, other estates were added to those already enjoyed
by the Radcliffes. Sir Nicholas married the heiress of Sir John De
Derwentwater, to whom had belonged, for several centuries, the manors of
Castlerigg and Keswick, and who, since the time of Edward the First, had
enjoyed great consideration in the county of Cumberland. This alliance
with the Derwentwater family, although it brought to the Radcliffe the
possession of a territory, which, for its beauty and value, monarchs
might envy, did not for many years, entice them to a removal to the
mansion of Castlerigg. That old dwelling-place, a gloomy fortress, among
"storm-shaken mountains and howling wildernesses," was far less commodious
than the castle at Dilstone, then in great fame from the flourishing
monastery which reared its head in the Vale of Hexham. Castlerigg,
being, eventually, abandoned by the Radcliffes, went utterly to decay;
the materials of the old manor-house are supposed to have been employed
in forming a new residence on Lord's Island, in Keswick Lake; and the
estate was divided into tenancies, which, in process of time, were
infranchised. The ancient demesne of the De Derwentwaters has now passed
into the hands of the Trustees of Greenwich Hospital, and the oaks of
the park which skirts the lake have of late years supplied much valuable
timber.

The family of Radcliffe continued, during several centuries after the
intermarriage with the De Derwentwaters, to increase in wealth and
importance. It was not, however, ennobled until the reign of James the
Second, in 1688, when, in consequence of the eldest son of Sir Francis
Radcliffe having married during his father's life time the Lady Mary
Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles the Second, by Mistress Mary Davis,
Sir Francis was created Earl of Derwentwater, Baron Dilstone, and
Viscount Langley.[177] "This alliance to the royal blood," says the
biographer of Charles Radcliffe, "gave them a title to match with the
noblest families in the kingdom, and was likewise the occasion of that
strict attachment which the several branches of the Derwentwater family
have inviolably preserved for the line of Stuarts ever since."[178]
There was also another reason for this act of royal favour on the one
hand, and for this devotion on the other: Sir George Radcliffe, we find
by the Macpherson papers, was Governor of James the Second when he was
Duke of York, and during the troubles of the Great Rebellion; and, under
his care, the young prince remained some time in the city of
Oxford.[179]

Whatsoever may be thought of the effect of this connection with royalty,
in ennobling an ancient and loyal race, the marriage produced a lasting
influence on the fortunes of the family. That they were proud of the
alliance appears from the circumstance that the children of that
marriage used to wear the prince's feather, that plume which has, since
the days of Edward the Black Prince, distinguished the heir apparent to
royalty. But the consanguinity in blood to the Stuarts produced another,
and a far more serious result. The sons of the Lady Mary Tudor and of
Francis, second Earl of Derwentwater, were educated, like brothers, with
the son of the abdicated monarch. James Radcliffe, who was born about
the year 1692, and who afterwards became Earl of Derwentwater, passed
his childhood at St. Germains with his royal namesake, James Stuart. The
brother of the Earl, Charles, was also brought up in France; both of
these youths, whose fate was afterwards so tragical, were reared in the
faith of the Church of Rome, and under the tuition of the Roman Catholic
clergy. They thus grew up, without perhaps hearing, certainly without
entertaining, a doubt of those rights which they died to assert. "The
late Earl of Derwentwater," writes the biographer of Charles Radclyffe,
"and his brother Charles were so strongly attached to the Pretender's
party, that their advice or consent was not so much as asked in those
consultations that were held among the disaffected previous to the
Rebellion; neither did the party think it necessary, because they were
always sure of them whenever they should come to action."

In 1705, Francis, Earl of Derwentwater, died; and during a season of
domestic tranquillity, whilst as yet the Jacobites were full of hopes
that the succession would be restored to the Stuart line, his son James
succeeded to the Earldom, and to the vast estates which had accumulated
to give dignity and influence to rank. Besides the castle of Dilstone
and Castlerigg, which Leland, who visited Cumberland in 1539, describes
as still being the "head place of the Radcliffes," many other valuable
properties, had been gradually added to the patrimonial possessions.

It was the disposition of Lord Derwentwater to employ the advantages of
wealth and birth to the benefit of others. He returned to England,
English in heart, and became the true model of an English nobleman. "He
was a man," said a contemporary writer, "formed by nature to be beloved;
for he was of so universal a beneficence, that he seemed to live for
others."[180] Residing among his own people, among them he spent his
estate, and passed his days in deeds of kindness, and in acts of
charity, which regarding no differences of faith as obstacles to the
course of that heavenly virtue, were extended alike by this unfortunate
nobleman to Protestant and to Roman Catholic. In his days, Dilstone was
the scene of an open-hearted hospitality, "which," observes the renegade
Jacobite who has chronicled the events of the period, "few in that
country do, and none can, come up to." That castle-hall, now ruined and
for ever deserted, was thronged by the distressed, who, whether the poor
denizens of the place or the wanderer by the way side, found there
relief, and went away consoled. The owner of the castle gave bread to
thousands, who long remembered his virtues, and mourned his fate. He
conciliated the good will of his equals, and disarmed the animosity of
those who differed from him in opinion. Beloved, trusted, almost
reverenced in the prime of youth, James Earl of Derwentwater held, at
the period of the first Rebellion, the enviable position of one whose
station was remembered only in conjunction with the higher dignity of
virtue. To the solid qualities of integrity, he added a sweetness and
courtesy of manner which must have lent to even homely features their
usual charm.[181] Blessing and blest, he thus dwelt amid the romantic
scenery of the Vale of Hexham.

Lord Derwentwater married Anna Maria, one of the five daughters of Sir
John Webb, Baronet of Odstock in Wiltshire. An ancestor of Sir John Webb
had first acquired the title in the reign of Charles the First for "his
family having both shed their blood in the King's cause, and
contributed, as far as they were able, with their purses, in his
defence," as is expressed in their patent.[182]

During the reign of Queen Anne, Lord Derwentwater took no part in the
various intrigues which were carried on by the Jacobite party. He lived
peaceably at Dilstone, where his name was long honoured after the
tragical events which hurried him into an early grave had occurred. But
this tranquil demeanour does not argue, as it has been supposed, that
the early playmate of James had become indifferent to the cause of the
Stuarts. The friends of the exiled family founded their hopes of its
restoration on the well-known partiality of Queen Anne for her brother,
and on the circumstance of her having seen the last of her children
consigned to the tomb. There seems no reason to doubt but that, had Anne
lived longer, she would have taken measures, in unison with the wishes
of the bulk of the nobility, and in conjunction with her confidential
ministers, to have placed the Chevalier St. George the next in
succession. In this hope, the wishes of the most respectable portion of
the Jacobite nobility were tranquillized.[183]

The sudden decease of Queen Anne disconcerted the hopes of those who had
been thus waiting for the course of events; and the immediate change of
ministry depriving those who were favourable to the house of Stuart of
power, the succession of George the First was secured, under the aspect,
for a few weeks, of the most perfect national repose. It has been well
explained, that, unless some circumstances connected with the birth and
education of the Chevalier had favoured the interests of Hanover, a very
different result would have appeared. The notion so diligently spread
abroad, of a supposititious birth--the foreign education of the young
Prince--above all, the pains which had been taken to inculcate in his
heart a devotion to the faith of both his parents, were considerations
which strongly favoured the accession of the Elector of Hanover.[184]

A year passed away, and that tranquillity was succeeded by an
ill-concerted, immature enterprise, headed by a man of every talent
except the right sort; and chilled, rather than aided, by the presence
of that melancholy exile who presented himself for the first and last
time, to sadden by the gloom of his aspect, and the inertness of his
measures, the hearts that yearned to welcome him back to Britain.

It was towards the latter end of August, in 1715, in the shire of Perth,
that the people first began to assemble themselves in a body, until they
marched to a small market town, named Kirk Michael, where the Chevalier
was first proclaimed, and his standard set up.[185] Meantime several
noblemen and gentlemen, both in England and in Scotland, influenced by
the Earl of Mar, began to collect their servants and dependants from
different places, and under various pretexts, for their proceedings.
There were also measures concerted in London by the Chevalier's friends;
and among the more active of the partisans, was a certain Captain Robert
Talbot, an Irish officer, who, upon being acquainted with the projected
insurrection, took shipping and sailed for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. By this
agent, the resolutions which had been adopted by the Jacobites in London
were conveyed to their friends in the north of England. This was part of
the scheme of the Jacobites; London was the centre of all their
conferences, and from the metropolis intelligence was secretly conveyed
in various directions: measures were concerted; the parties who were to
engage were furnished with means to act, and brought together; letters
were carried by private hands to various confederates, and debates and
correspondence were carried on some months before the Rebellion actually
broke out.

The plot was managed with care and address. The common conveyance of
letters was dangerous, and the office of delivering them was undertaken
by gentlemen of Jacobite principles, who rode from place to place as
travellers, pretending merely that they were viewing the country, and
making inquiries to gratify curiosity: these travellers were all Irish
and Papists.

Another class of agents, consisting of Mr. Clifton, a brother of Sir
Gervase Clifton, and of Mr. Beaumont, both gentlemen of Nottinghamshire,
and attended by Mr. Buxton, a clergyman of Derbyshire, rode like
gentlemen, with servants, but were armed with swords and pistols. These
emissaries also continued moving from place to place, and kept up a
constant intercourse between the disaffected parties, until all things
were ready for action.

Under these circumstances, Government took a decided step, which, as it
turned out, brought the whole concerted plot into action sooner than the
confederates had originally intended. Means were taken for the
apprehension of several suspected Jacobites. Towards the end of
September, Lord Derwentwater, among others, received notice that there
was a warrant issued by the Secretary of State to apprehend him, and
that messengers were actually arrived at Durham in order to seize his
person.[186]

On receiving this information, Lord Derwentwater, who had at that time
taken no ostensible part in the consultations of the Jacobites, and who,
as it was thought by many who knew him intimately, was undecided whether
to join the insurgents or not, adopted the line of conduct most suitable
to innocence. He repaired to the house of a neighbouring justice of the
peace, whose name has not been given at length and boldly placed himself
in his hands. He demanded what were the grounds of his accusation.
Unhappily the magistrate's loyalty was not unimpeachable. Had this
gentleman been zealously affected to the Government, or had he been a
true friend to Lord Derwentwater, he would either have persuaded that
nobleman to surrender to the messengers of Government, or he would have
detained him, and thus prevented the rash outbreak which afterwards
ensued. Such is the opinion of one who knew all the parties concerned in
the insurrection well. Such is the statement of Mr. Robert Patten,
himself a Jacobite, and chaplain to Mr. Forster. He afterwards turned
King's evidence, and received for that treachery, or, as he is pleased
to call it, penitence, a suitable remuneration.[187]

Lord Derwentwater unfortunately adopted a course which could but have
one termination. He concealed himself from those who were employed to
apprehend him. Clear from any direct imputation, had he then given
himself up, he would have been released; and he might have been deterred
from a participation in the disastrous scenes which ensued. He had now
two children, a son and a daughter. He had many valuable considerations
to forfeit for the one abstract principle of indefeasible right to the
throne. Few men had more to venture. Many of the Jacobites went into the
field with tarnished characters, and with ruined fortunes: they might
gain,--they could not lose by the perilous undertaking. Amid the bands
of high-born and highly principled men who co-operated in both the
Rebellions, adventurers would appear, whose previous lives shed
dishonour upon any cause; but the irreproachable, the prosperous, the
beloved, could desire little more for themselves than what they already
possessed: they ventured their rich and glorious barks upon the
current; and let those who sully every motive with suspicion, say that
there was no virtue, no patriotism, in the Jacobite party.

By his own descendant, Lord Derwentwater is believed to have hesitated
upon the verge of his fate, but to have been urged into it by his
brother Charles. Young and ardent, courageous even to rashness, the
first to offer himself where an enterprise was the most hazardous,
seeming to set no value upon his life where glory was to be obtained,
the darling of his party, and, to sum up the whole, only twenty-two
years of age, Mr. Radcliffe rashly drew his brother into a confederacy,
so agreeable to his own ambitious and fearless spirit. But there was
another individual on whom the responsibility of that luckless movement
in the North must chiefly rest. This was Mr. Thomas Forster the younger,
of Etherston in the county of Northumberland, and member for the county.
During the first thirty years of his life, this gentleman had scarcely
been known beyond the precincts of his paternal estate. He became a
member of Parliament, and was drawn into the vortex of party without
talents to adorn or judgment to guide his conduct. Although a Protestant,
Mr. Forster soon made his house the place of rendezvous for all the
non-jurors and disaffected people of the county in which he lived; and
he became involved in the dangers of their schemes, almost before he was
aware of the perils which he was about to encounter. The party of the
Jacobites was composed of very dissimilar materials. Whilst some adopted
its projects to retrieve character, or to attain, as they vainly hoped,
fortune, whilst others were actuated by genuine motives, there were many
who mingled in the mazes of the intricate politics of that day from
vanity, and the love of being at the head of faction: such was Forster;
and his career was unsatisfactory and inglorious as his character was
weak.

A warrant for Mr. Forster's apprehension having been sent forth, he was,
like Lord Derwentwater, obliged to fly from place to place, until he
arrived at the house of Mr. Fenwick, at Bywell. Lord Derwentwater,
meantime, had been secreted under the roof of a man named Lambert, in a
cottage, where he had remained in safety. His horses had been seized by
one of the neighbouring magistrates, and had been detained in custody
for several weeks, pursuant to an order in council; yet, when he had
need of them they were returned. "I afterwards asked that lord," Mr.
Patten relates, "how he came so quietly by his horses from the justice's
possession, whom the believing neighbourhood esteemed a most rigid Whig.
I was answered thus, by that lord's repeating a saying of Oliver
Cromwell's, 'that he could gain his ends with an ass-load of gold,' and
left me to make the application."[188]

Mr. Fenwick, of Bywell, was a secret, though not an avowed Jacobite; and
it was soon agreed that at his house should be collected all those who
were favourable to the cause. A meeting of the party was accordingly
held: it was decided that finding there was now no longer any safety in
shifting from place to place, and that since, in a few days they might
all be hurried up to London, and secured in prisons, where they might be
separately examined, and induced to betray each other;--it was now time
to appear boldly in arms, and to show the loyalty of the confederates to
King James.

In pursuance of this resolution, the place and hour of meeting were
appointed the very next morning; the sixth of October was named, and all
were to assemble at Greenrig. Here those who rode from Bywell were met
by Mr. Forster, with a party of twenty gentlemen. The meeting might have
recalled the days of the Cavaliers: the winding of the river Tyne in the
valley; the rural village of Bywell; on the rising ground to the right a
ruin, once the fortress of the vale, and held in former times by the
Baliols, presented a scene of tranquil beauty, which some who met that
day were destined never to look upon again.

The low situation of Greenrig was deemed inconvenient for the purpose of
the insurgents, and the party ascended a hill called the Waterfalls,
from which they could see the distant country. This spot is thus
described: "As you look upon Bywell from the most pleasing point of
view, the landskip lies in the following order:--from the road near the
front of the river, the ruined piers of a bridge become the front
objects; behind which, in a regular cascade, the whole river falls over
a wear, extended from bank to bank, in height above eight feet
perpendicular; a mill on the right hand, a salmon lock on the left: the
tower and the two churches stretch along the banks of the upper basin of
the river, with a fine curvature; the solemn ruins of the ancient castle
of the Baliols lift their towers above the trees on the right, and make
an agreeable contrast with the adjoining mansion-house. The whole
background appears covered with wood."[189]

On this height Mr. Forster and his party paused; but they had not been
long there before they saw the Earl of Derwentwater, who came that
morning from Dilstone, advancing. He was attended by several friends and
by all his servants, some mounted on his coach-horses, and all well
armed. As they marched through Corbridge, this gallant troop drew their
swords. They were reinforced by several other gentlemen at the house of
Mr. Errington, where they stopped; and they then advanced to the spot
where their friends awaited their approach. They now mustered sixty
horse, mostly composed of gentlemen and their attendants. After a short
council it was decided that they should proceed towards the river
Coquet, to Plainfield: here they were joined by several stragglers: they
marched that evening to Rothbury a small market-town, where they
remained all night, and continued their march on the following morning,
the seventh of October, to Warkworth Castle.

In thus assembling his friends and his tenantry, Lord Derwentwater was
not blameless of undue influence and oppression. The instances, indeed,
of threats and absolute compulsion being used to augment the forces of
the Jacobites, and to draw unwilling dependants into participation, are
very numerous; they may be collected from various petitions, borne out
by evidence, among the State Papers for 1715 and 1716. It is true that
such excuses were certain to be alleged by many persons unjustly; but,
where the charges were substantiated, we must with pain confess that the
virtues of the Earl of Derwentwater, as well as those of other
Jacobites, are sullied by a violent exercise of power over their
tenantry. One man, named George Gibson, afterwards, in memorialising
Lord Townshend from Newgate, affirms that upon his refusal to carry a
message from Lord Derwentwater to Mr. Forster, two days before the
insurrection, and returning to his own house instead, he was one night
dragged out of bed by seven or eight men, and hurried off to serve in
the said insurrection without a single servant of his own attending him.
It was proved also, by King's evidence, that the unfortunate man did all
in his power to escape from Kelso, and really made the attempt; but it
was defeated, for he was ever an object of suspicion to the Earl of
Derwentwater and Mr. Forster, whose watchfulness kept him among the
rebel troops.[190] Party may do much to blunt the feelings; yet there
was too much of what was good in the character of Lord Derwentwater for
him, in the solitude of his own prison, not to remember in after days
the heavy responsibilities which even by one act of this nature he had
incurred, in compelling a man to act against his will and conscience.

Warkworth was probably chosen as a resting-place for the insurgents, on
account of its strength. Situated only three-quarters of a mile from the
sea, on the river Coquet, over which is thrown a bridge, guarded by a
lofty tower, the Castle of Warkworth, which guards the town, commands a
view both varied with objects of interest and importance.

From a lofty turret of the castle a great extent of land and ocean is to
be seen. The great Tower of the Percys, from which this turret rises, is
decorated with the lion of Brabant, and is seated on the brink of a
cliff above the town. From this lofty structure the eye, stretching
along the coast, may discern the castles of Dunstanbrough and
Bamborough: the Fern Islands, dotted upon the face of the waters, the
Port of Alemouth, and, at a little distance, the mouth of the river
Coquet, with its island and ruined monastery. To the north, a richly
cultivated country extends as far as Alnwick; to the south lies a plain,
interspersed with villages and woods; the shore, to which it inclines,
is indented with many ports and creeks; the smoke rising from many
scattered hamlets, and the spires of churches enliven the smiling
prospect.

In this secure station the rebels remained for two days; and here Mr.
Forster assumed the rank of General of the Forces in the North, a title
which had been bestowed on him by the Earl of Mar. On the day after his
arrival at Warkworth, Mr. Forster sent Mr. Buxton, who was chaplain to
the troops to desire Mr. Ton, the parish clergyman, to pray for the
Chevalier as King; and, in the Litany, for Mary, the Queen Mother, and
to omit the petition for King George, the Prince and Princess of Wales,
&c. Mr. Ton declining to make this alteration, Mr. Buxton took
possession of the reading-desk, and performed the service, whilst the
deposed clergyman took flight, and, hastening to Newcastle, gave notice
there of what had occurred. This was the first place where the Chevalier
was prayed for in England; and Mr. Buxton's sermon, observes our
historian, "gave mighty encouragement to his hearers, being full of
exhortations, flourishing arguments, and cunning insinuations to be
hearty in the cause." These incentives were aided by a "comely
personage," and considerable eloquence and erudition.

On the following day, after proclaiming James King of England with all
due formality and with the sound of trumpet, Mr. Forster attending the
ceremony in disguise, the troops marched to Morpeth, their numbers
increasing as they went. At Felton Bridge, they were joined by seventy
horse, composed of gentlemen from the borders; and by the time they
reached Morpeth, their number had augmented to three hundred: these were
all horse-soldiers: Mr. Forster refused the foot as auxiliaries,
otherwise the increase would have been considerable. The reason assigned
for this rejection was the impossibility of supplying the men with arms;
but the fairest assurances were given to the friends of the cause that
arms and ammunition would soon be procured, and regiments listed
forthwith.

The spirits of the Jacobite army were now high; their hopes were raised
by the daily increase of their party. Newcastle was their next object,
and thither they prepared to march, having first proclaimed the
Chevalier,--Mr. Buxton taking upon himself the office of herald.
Newcastle was, however, on her defence: the city gates were closed
against the troops, and they turned towards Hexham, and thence marched
to a moor near Dilstone Castle, and here they halted for some days. This
was a feint, as they intended, it is thought, to have surprised the town
of Newcastle. But the news they received from that place were far from
encouraging. The gentry in the neighbourhood had rallied for its
defence; and Lord Scarborough, the lord-lieutenant of the county, had
entered the town with a body of men. Still there was a powerful High
Church party, who, as the Jacobites hoped, would declare for the
Chevalier. It was from Newcastle that Lord Derwentwater had been
apprised, in the first instance, that there were messengers sent to
apprehend him. The insurgents therefore, continued near Hexham, where
they seized on all the horses and arms they could, read prayers in the
churches for King James, and proclaimed him in the market-place.

The Earl of Derwentwater had appointed his brother to the command of his
troop, whilst Captain Shaftoe was under Mr. Radcliffe. This, in some
respects, was an unfortunate step: the young and brave commander had
never even seen an army before: he was inexperienced, and ignorant of
all military discipline: what he wanted in knowledge, he is said,
however, to have made up for by the influence he acquired over his men,
and by the power he had of inciting them to great exploits.[191]

Whilst the rebel forces lay at Hexham, they received the intelligence
that Lord Kenmure, the Earls of Nithisdale, of Carnwath, and Wintoun,
had risen in Nithisdale, and had marched thence to England to join the
troops in Northumberland, and had even advanced as far as Rothbury. On
the nineteenth of October, Mr. Forster joined the Scottish army at
Rothbury, and afterwards marched with an increasing force to Kelso. Here
prayers were read in the great kirk by Mr. Buxton; "and I," relates Mr.
Patten, "preached on these words, Deut. xxi. 17,--the latter part of the
verse: 'The right of the first-born is his.'" The service of the Church
of England was then read for the first time on that side of the
Tweed.[192]

William Gordon, Viscount Kenmure, had the command of the Jacobite army
until they had crossed the Tweed. Like the Earl of Derwentwater, this
unfortunate nobleman is declared to have shewn reluctance to take up
arms. On having been solicited by the Earl of Mar to command the forces,
and assured that he would join him, he at first refused the offer, but
had finally acceded, and had set up the standard of the Chevalier at
Moffat, in Annandale. The standard was made, for this occasion, by Lady
Kenmure, the sister of Robert, sixth Earl of Carnwath. It was very
handsome; one side being blue, with the arms of Scotland wrought in
gold; on the other side a thistle,--the words so often uttered during
the Rebellion, and re-echoed in many a Scottish heart, "No Union," were
wrought underneath the thistle. Above it were the words NEMO ME IMPUNE
LACESSIT; white pendants were attached to the standard, on which were
inscribed--"For our Wronged King and Oppressed Country!" "For our Lives
and Liberties!"

But the nobleman who had taken this prominent part in the Rebellion of
1715, although possessed of extraordinary knowledge in politics and
civil affairs, was an utter stranger to all military business. His mild
temper and his unoffending character inspired compassion for his
subsequent fate, but unfitted him for the office of command: his
gentler qualities were united, nevertheless, to a resolute and lofty
mind. The fate of this nobleman, like that of his most distinguished
friends, was a brief tragedy.

Lord Kenmure had a troop of gentlemen with him, the command of which he
gave to the Hon. Bazil Hamilton of Beldoun, and a nephew of the Duke of
Hamilton.

Among other characters who were conspicuous on this occasion, was the
celebrated Brigadier Mackintosh. The sixth regiment, named after the
Brigadier as chief of the clan, was commanded by a kinsman. The
Brigadier had served in Germany, and had there gained his military rank.
Descended from the ancient house of Fife, the chieftain had increased
his influence by marrying, while a minor, the heiress of Clanchattan, in
right of whom he became chieftain of that clan, comprising many others.
His motto, "Touch not the cat without a glove," and the coat-of-arms
supported by two wild cats, with a cat for the crest, were not
inappropriate. No suspicion had been entertained of Mackintosh's
adherence to the Chevalier, with whom he became acquainted abroad, until
he actually joined the party.

The Earl of Carnwath, Lord Nairn, Lord Charles Murray, and the Earl of
Wintoun, commanded the other Scottish regiments, which were generally
better armed than those of the English. The Earl of Derwentwater, and
the Lords Widdrington had the two principal English regiments, of which
there were four.[193]

On the twenty-fifth of October, the united army of Scots and English
left Kelso, and marched to Jedburgh. On their march, some of the Scots,
taking umbrage, left the army under the guidance of the Earl of Wintoun;
and although that nobleman afterwards returned with his troop, above
four hundred Highlanders deserted, and returned to their country.

During the progress of the insurgent forces, there is little reason to
conclude that Lord Derwentwater took a very active or important part in
the various consultations which were held, always with great disunion,
and with a melancholy want of judgment, between the General, Mr.
Forster, and his military council. The amiable nobleman appears to have
assigned to his less discreet brother the entire guidance of his troop.
"His temper and disposition," as he expresses it in his defence,
"disposed him to peace. He was totally inexperienced in martial affairs;
that he entered upon the undertaking without any previous concert with
its chief promoters,--without any preparation of men, horses, and arms,
or other warlike accoutrements," was at once an instance of his
imprudence and a mitigation of his error.[194] There was, indeed, no
doubt but that Lord Derwentwater might have brought many hundreds of his
followers to the field, even from one portion of his estate only; for he
possessed the extensive lead mines on Alstone Moor, where a large body
of men were daily employed, and received from him their sole means of
support.[195]

But whether or not this unfortunate nobleman failed in energy or in
zeal; whether he entered with his whole heart into the cause of James
Stuart; or whether, with the conscientious scruples of a gentle nature,
he shrank from involving in the risk of this insurrection the majority
of his humble dependants, he acted throughout the whole of this brief
campaign with the consideration for others so characteristic of his
mind. He truly affirmed on his trial, that no one could charge him with
any cruel, severe, or harsh action during his continuance in arms: and
his conduct in the last extremity corresponded to his previous
forbearance. Such dispositions appear to have been cherished, indeed, by
the rest of the Jacobite party. The merciful temper of the Chevalier,
and his known aversion to destructive measures, may have had its
influence over those who asserted his claims. There was something like
the spirit of the cavalier of the Great Rebellion in Mr. Forster's reply
to some of his officers, who wished to put down or burn a Presbyterian
meetinghouse at Penrith: "It is by clemency, and not by cruelty, that we
are to prevail."[196]

After the insurgent troops had marched from place to place for some
time, it was decided that the English regiments should recross the
border; and after many disputes and much loss of time, they resolved on
a march into Lancashire, a country abounding at that time in Roman
Catholic gentry, and strongly Jacobite.[197] This decision, like most of
the other military movements of the unfortunate Jacobites, was the work
of a strong party in the camp, and was founded upon the alleged
authority of private letters, which gave the assurance of a general
insurrection taking place on the appearance of the insurgent force. The
unlucky change of plans superseded a meditated attack upon the town of
Dumfries. "Nothing," observes Mr. Patten, "could be a greater token of a
complete infatuation,--that Heaven confounded all their devices, and
that their destruction was to be of their own working, than their
omitting such an opportunity." After a rapid march from Langholm in the
west of Scotland, across the borders, and through Penrith, Appleby, and
Kendal, to Kirby Lonsdale, the combined force entered the county of
Lancaster; and having entered Lancaster without opposition, they
resolved to proceed to Preston. It is now that the last disastrous
events of Lord Derwentwater's brief career brought to light his
excellent qualities, his pure and amiable motives of action. It is not
possible to read the account of the battle of Preston, in which he was
engaged, without a deep regret for the personal misfortunes of one so
young, so well intentioned, and so esteemed, as this ill-fated nobleman.

The forces of the Jacobites amounted, after being joined by a party of
volunteers under the Lords Rothes and Torpichen, and since their
separation from the Highlanders, to about two thousand men. The foot was
commanded by Brigadier Mackintosh; and six hundred Northumbrian and
Dumfriesshire horsemen, by Lord Kenmure and Mr. Forster.[198]

On the ninth instant the march to Preston was commenced; the cavalry
troops reached that town on the same evening; but the day proving rainy,
and the roads heavy, the foot regiments were left at a small market-town
called Garstang, half-way between Manchester and Preston. Two troops of
Stanhope's dragoons, formerly quartered at Preston, having retired as
the rebels approached, the spirits of the Jacobite officers and the
ardour of their men were greatly encouraged. On the following day,
Thursday the tenth of November, the Chevalier was proclaimed at Preston,
and here the rebels were joined by many country gentlemen, their tenants
and servants: this was the first accession to the party since their
entrance into Lancashire. The new allies were chiefly Roman Catholics, a
circumstance which aroused the instinctive dread of the Scottish
volunteers to persons of that persuasion. The High Church party hung
back from joining the cause. The Roman Catholics began, according to
the historian of the Rebellion of 1715, "to show their blind side,"
being never right hearty for their cause until they are "mellow," as
they call it "over a bottle or two."[199]

The town of Preston seated on the river Ribble, was a place from which
an enemy might, in the year 1715, have been easily repulsed. About a
mile and a half from the town, a bridge over the river offered an
admirable stand for a besieged garrison; it might have been so easily
barricadoed, that it would have been impracticable to pass that way if
the commonest precautions had been adopted. The river in this part was
not fordable for a considerable distance on either side of the bridge,
and it could have been easily rendered impassable. From the Ribble
bridge to the town, the road ran between two steep banks; and this way,
or lane, was then so narrow, that in several places two men could not
ride abreast. It was here that Oliver Cromwell had met with a famous
resistance from the King's forces in 1648, large mill-stones having been
rolled down upon him from the rising grounds, so that the republican
general was in considerable danger, and he only escaped with life by
making his horse plunge into a quicksand.

This lane formed a curious natural outwork; and might easily have been
barricadoed, but the deficiencies of Mr. Forster's generalship were
fatal to so simple and obvious a plan of defence. He confined his
exertions to the town, barricadoed the streets, and posted men in the
bye-lanes and houses. The Jacobite troops formed four main barriers: one
in the churchyard, commanded by Brigadier Mackintosh. This barrier was
to be supported by four noblemen, who, at the head of the volunteer
horse, (as in many instances in the army of Charles the First,) composed
of gentlemen solely, was planted in the churchyard of Old St. Wilfred,
as the parish-church of Preston was then called: their leaders were the
Earl of Derwentwater, Lord Kenmure, the Earl of Nithisdale, and the Earl
of Wintoun,--a truehearted band as ever braved the terrors of an
encounter with their countrymen. At a little distance from the
churchyard and at the extremity of a lane leading into the fields, Lord
Charles Murray defended another post. The third was at a windmill, and
that Colonel Mackintosh was appointed to command. The fourth was in the
town.

Lord Derwentwater and his brothers were the objects, even before the
action began, of universal approbation. Whatever may have been the real
or supposed reluctance of the former to engage in the cause, it vanished
as he came into action. There he stood, having stripped off his clothes
to his waistcoat, encouraging the men, giving them money to induce them
to cast up the trenches, and animating them to a vigorous defence. His
brother addressed the soldiers also, and displayed all the ardour of his
fearless spirit. "No man of distinction," wrote a Scottish prisoner in
the Marshalsea to his friend in the North, "behaved himself better than
the Earl of Derwentwater. He kept himself most with the Scots,
abundantly exposing himself."[200] But all this was in vain, if we dare
to call any manifestations of heroic devotion in vain.

With singular incapacity, Mr. Forster had failed in procuring the
necessary intelligence of the movements of the enemy. He had been
assured by the Lancashire gentlemen, that General Wills, who headed the
King's forces, could not come within forty miles of Preston without
their knowledge. On Saturday, the twelfth of November, after he had
ordered the forces to march toward Manchester, the intelligence reached
him that General Wills had advanced as far as Wigan to attack the
rebels. Even at this crisis affairs might have been retrieved: a body of
the Jacobites was, indeed, sent forward to defend the Ribble bridge,
whilst Mr. Forster went on with a party of horse to reconnoitre. He soon
saw the enemy's dragoons; but instead of disputing the bridge, or
allowing Colonel Farquharson, belonging to Mackintosh's battalion, to
keep the pass, he ordered a retreat to the town. Then all was confusion,
slaughter, disgrace. General Wills advanced; he remembered the disaster
of Oliver Cromwell; he looked carefully around him, and caused the
hedges and fields to be viewed; but no enemy appeared to dispute his
progress. The dragoons advanced towards the town; at first, their
General conjectured that it must have been abandoned. When he
discovered his mistake, he ordered his troops to pass through a gate
which leads into the fields at the back of the town, and immediately
disposed his forces so as to prevent either a sally or a retreat.

The insurgents, meantime, were prepared to receive him. The ancient
church of St. Wilfred, which has since 1814 been replaced by a modern
structure, and endowed with another name, that of St. John, must have
been shaken to its foundations with the explosion of the cannon, as it
was discharged beneath its ancient walls. The besieged formed four main
barriers; one a little below the church, commanded by Brigadier
Mackintosh: the Earl of Derwentwater and his gallant volunteers were
commanded to support that barrier in particular, and here the first
attack was made; but it met with so fierce a reception, and such a fire
upon the assailants, that the dragoons were obliged to retreat to the
entrance of the town. Of this repulse Lord Derwentwater and his youthful
brother gained the chief credit. The scene that followed is a detail of
fruitless gallantry, and of an agonised but ill-concerted resistance.
The fatality which attended the Stuart cause, and which rendered the
bloodshed of its gallant champions unavailing to promote it, was here
conspicuous. That fatality was doubtless resolvable into a want of
common sense, in entrusting the command of the forces into incompetent
hands. All night, indeed, the Jacobite forces met their opponents with
a determined resistance, that made up, in some measure, for inequality
of numbers: the besieged were in many instances sheltered from the
enemy's shot, and they had also the advantage on their side of cannon,
with which General Wills was not supplied. In the course of that night
of horrors, whilst the brave were carried away, mangled or dying, Lord
Charles Murray, who was attacked late in the evening, wanted a
reinforcement of men. He sent Mr. Patten to the Earl of Derwentwater to
ask for aid; it was granted; Mr. Patten passing in safety on account of
his black coat, upon which neither party would fire, conducted a troop
of fifty volunteers to Lord Charles, who maintained his post, and
obliged the enemy to retire with loss. Had it not been for another of
Mr. Forster's fatal blunders, the insurgents would still have remained
in possession of the town of Preston, which has always, from its
commanding situation, been deemed, in all the civil commotions of the
kingdom, as a military post of great importance.

All Saturday night, the platoons of the King's forces were incessantly
playing upon the insurgents from two principal houses which the
besiegers had taken, but few persons of importance were killed. Several
houses were set on fire by both parties, but the wind was still,
otherwise the inhabitants and the Jacobite troops must have perished in
the flames. Towards morning the information arrived in the town through
some of the King's soldiers who had been made prisoners, that General
Carpenter, with three regiments of dragoons was marching towards
Preston, and that he had arrived at Clithero. This intelligence spread
great consternation among the Jacobites; and a capitulation began to be
mentioned among them; yet it is probable they would still have held out,
had not one of the avenues into Preston, by an inexcusable oversight of
the Jacobite General, been left unguarded.

It was discovered by some of the King's men that the street leading to
Wigan had not been barricadoed. This weak point was thereupon attacked
by Lord Forrester, at the head of that brave and old regiment, called
Preston's regiment. The assailants marched into a straight passage
behind the houses: then Lord Forrester came into the open street, and
faced Mackintosh's barrier; there were many shots fired at him, and he
was wounded; yet he went back, and lead his men fearlessly into the
street, where many of that regiment fell a sacrifice to this dauntless
assault. It prevailed; and from that time the fate of the heroes of the
churchyard of Preston, of Derwentwater and his noble comrades was
determined. But, during that appalling conflict, whilst the blood of the
valiant was tinging the streets of Preston, where was the General, who
should have shared the dangers with his officers? "I had almost forgot
to tell you," writes the plain-spoken Scottish soldier above referred
to, "that in the hottest time of our little action, which was about
eleven on Saturday night, Lord Charles Murray's men falling short of
ammunition, Robertson of Guy, and another gentleman, were sent to the
General, Mr. Forster, for a recruit. When they got access, they found
him lying in his naked bed, with a sack-posset, and some confections by
him; which I humbly judge was not a very becoming posture at that time
for a General. He took all along particular care of himself."[201]

Towards morning Mr. Forster in conjunction with Lord Widdrington and
Colonel Oxburgh, proposed a capitulation. It was considered, that by
submission, terms of mercy might be procured by the insurgent troops.
Those who thus argued had had no experience of the temper of those to
whom they trusted, or they would have willingly died sword in hand
rather than have confided in such slender hopes of clemency. The Earl of
Derwentwater was among those who counselled the surrender. From his
general character, the reasons which he assigned afterwards in his
defence, for such advice, have ever been credited. When the fury of the
action was over, the amiable nobleman perceived that it was his duty to
coincide in a step by which the lives of his countrymen might be spared:
he trusted to the mediation of Colonel Oxburgh, who offered to go to the
King's forces, and to request a cessation of arms; and who also
promised, by his personal influence, to obtain fair terms of
capitulation. As a guarantee for the suspension of hostilities, Lord
Derwentwater volunteered to become one of the hostages until the
morning, should General Wills require it. It appears that his offer was
accepted, and that while the Earl was in the camp of General Wills, he
received assurances of King George's being a prince of known
clemency,--a virtue which was said to form a distinguishing mark in his
character.[202] But Mr. Radcliffe, young and ardent, opposed the
capitulation with the vehemence natural to his character. During the
whole of the action, he had been in the midst of the fire, and had
displayed the utmost intrepidity; and now he declared, that "he would
rather die with his sword in his hand, like a man of honour, than be
dragged like a felon to the gallows, there to be hanged like a dog." He
was, of course, obliged to submit to the majority.[203] The common
soldiers joined in his declamations. "Never," writes the Scottish
soldier, "was a handful of men more ready to fight than those at
Preston." It was with difficulty that the gallant Highlanders could be
restrained from sallying forth, with their claymores, at all hazards,
upon the enemy. They chafed under the disappointment and humiliation of
that day; but all was to little purpose. Perhaps no power of words could
express the bitter feelings of that hour better than the homely phrases
of an eye-witness of the scene.

"On Sunday, to our surprise, about three in the afternoon," writes the
Highlander from his prison, "we saw a drum of the enemy beating a
chamade in the street. In an instant we were all called from our posts
to the Market-place: the horsemen were ordered to mount. This made us
believe the parley had been proposed by General Wills, and that we were
to break out and attack them sword in hand,--at least, break through
them at that end of the town; but we soon found it was proposed by Mr.
Forster, and that there was a cessation till nine next morning, and a
capitulation to be made. This was very choaking to us all, but there was
no helping of it; for no sooner had we left our posts, than they made
themselves master of them, and of our cannon."[204]

Whilst the chamade was beating, Colonel Cotton, sent by General Wills,
rode up the street, and alighted at the sign of the Mitre: the firing
meantime had not ceased from several of the houses: the common soldiers
were ignorant of the real state of the case, and believed that General
Wills had sent to offer honourable terms, not knowing that the offer of
a capitulation had proceeded from their own party.

Still there were obstacles to the capitulation raised by the Scottish
party, who were represented by Brigadier Mackintosh. "He could not," he
replied, when urged for his consent, "answer for the Scotch, for they
were people of desperate fortunes, and he had been a soldier himself,
and knew what it was to be a prisoner at discretion." When this demur
was stated to General Wills, "Go back to your people again," was his
answer to those who stated it: "I will attack the town, and I will not
spare a man of you." At the subsequent trial of the rebels General Wills
was able, with truth, to deny the charge of having given his unhappy
prisoners any hopes, to induce them to sign the capitulation. "All the
terms he offered them," such was his assertion, "was, that he would save
their lives from the soldiers till further orders, if they surrendered
at discretion: (the meaning of which was, that by the rules of war it
was in his power to cut them all to pieces, but he would give them their
lives till further orders;) and if they did not comply, he would renew
the attack, and not spare a man."[205]

No sooner had the news of the capitulation been bruited about the
streets, than it was received with a sorrow and indignation almost past
description. Had the unlucky and pusillanimous Mr. Forster appeared at
that moment, he "would certainly," as Mr. Patten relates, "have been cut
to pieces." Even in his chamber, the General was attacked by his own
Secretary, Mr. Murray, and a pistol which was aimed at him only averted
by Mr. Patten's hand. The truth is, even Forster's fidelity has been
doubted; and subsequently, the mild treatment which he received during
his imprisonment, and his escape from prison, have been construed, with
what justice it is difficult to say, into a confirmation of this charge.

On the morning after the surrender, the rebels were all made prisoners
and disarmed, soon after daybreak. That day, so fatal to the Jacobites
of 1715, witnessed also the battle of Sherriff Muir under Lord Mar, and
the retaking of the town of Inverness by Lovat. It must have aggravated
the regrets of those who then laid down their arms, to see the
townspeople of Preston plundered, in despite of every hope to the
contrary, by the King's forces, as they dislodged the dejected Jacobites
from their quarters. But these irregularities were soon checked.

At last the sound of trumpets and the beating of drums were heard: the
two Generals were entering the town in form. They rode into the
Market-place, around which the Highlanders were drawn up with their
arms. The lords and gentlemen among the rebels were first secured, and
placed severally under guard in separate rooms at the inn. Then the poor
Highlanders laid down their arms where they stood, and were marched off
to the church, under a sufficient guard. Here the thrifty Scots amused
themselves by making garments of the linings of the pews, which they
ripped off from the seats.

Seven noblemen, besides one thousand four hundred and ninety others,
including gentlemen and officers, were taken at Preston.[206] Generally
speaking, they were treated well by the military: "The dragoons were
civil to us," writes the Highlander, "their officers choosing rather to
want beds themselves than we should."[207] At Wigan the prisoners were
allowed to commune together, under the inspection of sentinels; and a
warm altercation occurred between Lord Widdrington and Brigadier
Mackintosh, in the presence of Lord Derwentwater, who took little notice
of the Brigadier, but turning to another gentleman, said: "You see what
we have brought ourselves to by giving credit to our highborn Tories--to
such men as Fenwick, Tate, Green, and Allgood. If you outlive misfortune,
and return to live in the North, I desire you never to be seen in
converse with such rogues in disguise, who promised to join us, and
animated us to rise with them." The gentleman promised that he would
observe his Lordship's counsels. "Ah!" said Lord Derwentwater, "I know
you to be of an easy temper."[208]

The prisoners were now carried on towards London by easy marches, Mr.
Patten accompanying his patron, Mr. Forster. As they went, the undaunted
Highlanders called out to the country people who came to gaze at them,
"Where are all your high-church Tories? If they would not fight with us,
let them come and rescue us." This indiscretion redoubled the vigilance
of the watch put upon the rebels. From Daventry to London, Mr. Forster
and Mr. Patten were greeted by the common people with encomiums upon a
warming-pan, in allusion to the supposed birth of the Pretender. When
the prisoners arrived at Barnet, messengers came to meet them, and to
pinion their arms with cords,--"More for distinction," adds the
subservient Mr. Patten, "than for any pain that attended." Yet the
indignity must have been cruelly galling to the highborn and gallant men
who were thus mercilessly paraded to their doom amid the cries of the
populace.

At Highgate a strong detachment of horse-soldiers and dragoons received
the prisoners from Lumley's Horse, which had hitherto guarded them; and
now they were separated into pairs, a foot-soldier holding the bridle of
each horse; and in this manner the Jacobite peers, Lord Derwentwater
among the rest, were conducted to London through "a hedge of a mob," as
the Highland soldier declares, hired, as he hints, at Lord Pelham's
charge, to muster that day. Cries of "Long live King George!" and "Down
with the Pretender!" greeted the ear as they passed on to their several
destinations. A Quaker, fixing his eyes on Mr. Patten, and seeing his
black dress, remarked, "Friend, thou hast been the trumpeter of
rebellion to those men,--thou must answer for them." The moralizer was
touched by a grenadier with the butt end of his musket, so that the
"spirit fell into the ditch." But the Quaker was not rebuffed. "Friend,"
he said to the soldier, "thou art, I fear, no true friend to King
George."

Even at the last, Mr. Forster had hopes, it is said, of being released
by a Tory mob. The Jacobite noblemen had been, indeed, all along misled,
or ignorant of the real inclinations of the mass of the people. The
dread of what they term "popery" is a deep and engrossing passion in
the hearts of the lower and even of the middle classes, and it formed an
effectual barrier against the restoration of the Stuarts. The cause of
those unfortunate Princes was never, in this country, as it was in
Scotland, the cause of the people. The personal attachment of the
Highlanders to the ancient race of Stuart, and their devotion to their
clan, superseded their religious scruples;[209] but that was not the
case in the South.

The Earl of Derwentwater and his brother were consigned to different
prisons,--the former to the Tower, the latter to Newgate; a very strict
guard was set upon the Earl, and no one was allowed to see him or speak
to him.[210]

On the seventh of January, 1716, the case of the seven rebel lords[211]
was brought before the House of Commons; and Mr. Lechmere moved that
they should not be left to the ordinary method of prosecutions, but
should be proceeded against by way of impeachment.[212] In a long and,
as far as the report enables a reader to judge, able speech, he referred
to the declaration of the Pretender, given under his sign manual and
privy seal at Commercy, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1715. "This
paper," Mr. Lechmere observed, "which he held in his hand, was
sufficient to fire the thoughts of every gentleman there; and the House
could do no more than to resent this so far as to make themselves the
prosecutors of those who avowed the cause of the Pretender, and set
themselves at the head of armies, in the heart of his Majesty's
dominions." In conclusion, "he impeached James, Earl of Derwentwater, of
high treason, which impeachment he undertook to make good."

Six other members then severally impeached the other six Jacobite lords;
and an impeachment was carried up to the Bar of the House of Lords, with
an assurance "that articles to make good the charge against the Earl of
Derwentwater and the other noblemen would shortly be exhibited."

A committee of the House of Commons, with Mr. Lechmere as their
chairman, was therefore formed; and the articles were framed, and read
before the Bar of the House of Lords. On the tenth of January the
Jacobite lords were summoned to hear the articles of impeachment: a few
days were allowed to them to prepare their replies. On the following
Saturday, the Earl of Derwentwater was brought by the Gentleman Usher of
the Black Rod before the Bar, where he knelt, until told by the Lord
Chancellor to rise. He then delivered his answer.

Those who, in perusing the annals of these times, look for strength of
character in the state prisoners who were now brought before the
tribunal of the House of Lords, or for consistency in those principles
which had led them into the field, will be painfully disappointed. In
two instances alone was there displayed an undaunted demeanour, and a
resolute adherence to the cause which they had avowed; and these were
shewn in the subsequent rebellion, by the brave and admirable Lord
Balmerino, and by the unfortunate Charles Radcliffe.

The Earl of Derwentwater expressed, in his reply, the "deepest concern
and affliction to a charge of so high and heinous a nature as that
brought against him." He acknowledged with sorrow that he had been in
arms, and did march through and invade several parts of the kingdom; and
that he was thereby guilty of the offence whereof he was charged in the
articles. "But," he continued, "if any one offence of that kind was ever
attended with circumstances which might move compassion, the said Earl
hopes he may be entitled to it." He then referred to his peaceable
disposition, and pleaded his youth and inexperience; the absence of all
malice, of all concerted conspiracy; his having made no warlike
preparations. He pleaded also, that he could not be justly reproached
with any cruel or harsh conduct while he bore arms: he specified his
advice to those with him to submit at Preston, and to trust to the
King's mercy. He adduced his anxiety to save the lives of his Majesty's
subjects by avoiding further bloodshed, and brought in proof a letter
which he had written to those of his own party, conjuring them to
capitulate. Under such circumstances, the Earl implored the mediation
both of their Lordships and of the Commons for mercy on his behalf,
"which will lay him," so he declared in conclusion, "under the highest
obligations of duty and affection to his Majesty, and perpetual
gratitude to both Houses."

The answer not appearing to the Lords to be sufficiently "express and
clear," the Earl was then asked by the Chancellor, whether he meant to
plead guilty to the articles of the impeachment. The Earl replied that
he did, and that he submitted to the King's mercy. His answer and plea
were entered accordingly, and the Earl then withdrew.[213]

On Thursday, February the ninth, the Lords came from their own House
into the hall erected in Westminster Hall, to pass sentence upon James,
Earl of Derwentwater, and upon the five other noblemen who had pleaded
guilty with him; the Earl of Wintoun, who had pleaded not guilty, being
reserved for trial.

The Lord High Steward who presided on this occasion was William Earl
Cowper, Lord Chancellor, who, for the time of trial, was called "your
Grace," and had the privilege of walking uncovered, his train borne,
except whilst the commission was read by the Clerk of the Crown.

The usual proclamation rang through the Court, and the Sergeant-at-Arms,
saying "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!" enforced silence. Then another proclamation
was made, commanding the Lieutenant of the Tower to bring forth his
prisoners to the Bar, and accordingly the six rebel lords were brought
to the Bar by the Deputy-Governor of the Tower, having the axe carried
before them by the Gentleman Jailer, who stood with it on the left hand
of the prisoners, with the edge turned from him. The prisoners after
kneeling before the Bar, bowed to his Grace the High Steward, and also
to the Peers, whose sad privilege it is to try those of the same rank in
the scale of society as themselves, and often, from extensive
intermarriages, connected by ties of blood. The articles of impeachment
against James Earl of Derwentwater were read, and the prisoner's reply.

He was then asked if he pleaded guilty to the high treason in the said
articles of impeachment. His Lordship replied, "I do." He was ordered to
withdraw; but was called before the Bar the same day to receive
judgment. Upon being asked by the Lord High Steward "Why judgment should
not be passed upon him according to law?" the Earl repeated a few
circumstances mentioned in his answer to the articles. His voice was
scarcely articulate as he proceeded to say, "But the terrors of your
Lordship's just sentence, which at once deprive me of my life and
estate, and complete the misfortunes of my wife and innocent children,
are so heavy upon my mind, I am scarcely able to allege what may
extenuate my offence, if any thing may do it." He then again besought of
their Lordships the mediation in his behalf.

After the Lords Widdrington, Kenmure, Nithisdale, and Carnwath had been
severally addressed, and had replied to the Court, proclamation for
silence was again made, and judgment was given. It was prefaced by a
long and elaborate address; which, however elegant, however
explanatory, however just, it may be considered, was strongly tinctured
by the adulatory spirit of the day, and was calculated to wound and to
harden the offending prisoners, rather than to unfold with dignity the
reasons for condemnation. In conclusion, since nothing could, in the
narrowing view of party, be too dictatorial for the unfortunate
Jacobites, they were exhorted not to rely any longer on the usual
directors of their consciences, but to be assisted by some of the pious
and learned divines of the Church of England. This was addressed to men
who were, with two exceptions, of the Church of Rome, and whose chief
reliance must naturally be upon those of their own persuasion.

The terrible sentence of the law was then recorded. It was that usually
given against the meanest offenders in like kind, the most ignominious
and painful parts being remitted by the grace of the Crown to persons of
quality. Judgment was, however, pronounced, according to the usual form
for high treason.[214]

The prisoners were then reconducted to the Tower; the Lord High Steward,
standing up uncovered, broke the staff of office, and declared the
present commission to be ended. The Peers returned to the House of
Lords.

Little is known of the dreary and solemn hours which intervened between
the judgment and the execution of the sentence. But one brief
expression, in an old newspaper, relative to the young and unhappy Earl
of Derwentwater, speaks volumes: "The Earl of Derwentwater is so
desponding, that two warders are obliged to sit up with him during the
night."[215] He was visited in his prison by Thomas Townshend, Viscount
Sydney, then Under Secretary of State for George the First;[216] one of
the most amiable men, as well as refined and elegant scholars of the
day, and a nobleman whose sensibility and delicacy of feeling, which
prevented his taking a share in the more active parts of public
business, must have caused an interview with the Earl of Derwentwater to
have been deeply touching. The Duke of Roxburgh also visited the
condemned nobleman; but no record is left of these communications. The
Duke was at that time Keeper of the Privy Seal for Scotland, and
Lord-Lieutenant of the counties of Roxburgh and Selkirk. He had recently
distinguished himself at Sherriff Muir: he was at this time a young man
of twenty-five years of age, and one whom all parties have commended.
"Learned, without pedantry, he was, perhaps," says Lockhart of Carnwath,
"the best accomplished young man of Europe." To these acquirements were
added a singular charm of manner.[217] One can hardly suppose the visits
of two such men not to have had their source from some motive of
kindness.

To the credit of the House of Lords, an address was voted to the King,
petitioning that his Majesty would reprieve such of the rebel lords as
deserved his mercy. The royal answer was couched in these terms: that
"the King on this, and all occasions, would do what he thought consistent
with the dignity of the Crown and the safety of his people."[218] It was
unfortunate that, both at this time and in the Rebellion of 1745, there
was no Queen Consort. A woman's heart would, one may trust, have pleaded
for the young, gallant, and beloved Derwentwater. The English Court was,
at that time, insulted by the audacious intrigues of foreign mistresses.
These women had no interest in the King's real fame, nor in the national
credit. Such was the case in the first Rebellion.[219] In 1745 Queen
Caroline, the wife of George the Second, was dead.

Accompanied by two courageous ladies, the young Countess of Derwentwater
threw herself at the feet of the King, and implored mercy on her
husband.[220] In the House of Commons, the First Lord of the Treasury
declared, that he had been offered a bribe of sixty thousand pounds to
save Lord Derwentwater. Sir Richard Steele spoke loudly in favour of the
condemned lords, but the declaration of Walpole suppressed all hopes of
mercy. "He was moved with indignation," he said, "to see that there
should be such unworthy members of this great body as to open their
mouths, without blushing, in favour of rebels and parricides." He
adjourned the House until the first of March, it being understood that
the peers would be executed in the mean time. It is some consolation to
reflect that the Minister had, on this occasion, only a majority of
seven.

At this juncture, when all hope seemed lost, Mary, Dowager Countess of
Derwentwater, proffered the following petition in behalf of her sons.
One can hardly suppose how it could have been disregarded; but the
Monarch had few sympathies with his people of England.

    "The humble Petition of Mary Countess of Derwentwater, 1716, to the
    King's most excellent Majesty, sheweth,

    "That the Earl of Derwentwater and Charles Radcliffe (your
    petitioner's two and only sons) having been unfortunately engaged
    and surprised into a horrid and open Rebellion against your most
    sacred Majesty, have surrendered themselves at Preston, and
    submitted to your Majesty's great clemency and mercy.

    "Their crimes are so enormous, that your petitioner can scarce hope
    for a pardon; yet the greatness of their offence doth not make your
    petitioner lay aside all hopes of mercy, when your petitioner and
    they, who are both very young, throw themselves, absolute and
    entirely, at your Majesty's feet for it; and as they have a just
    abhorrence and a sincere and true repentance for what is past, so
    they will give undoubted security and proof of their most dutiful
    behaviour to your Majesty's Government for the future.

    "Wherefore your petitioner most humbly prays that your Majesty will,
    out of your royal clemency and boundless mercy and compassion, spare
    the lives of your petitioner's sons, and grant them your most
    gracious pardon.

    "And your petitioner shall ever, as in duty bound, &c."[221]

The petition was unavailing, and the unfortunate young nobleman prepared
to meet his doom.

On the twenty-fourth of February, at ten o'clock, the Earl of
Derwentwater, with Lord Kenmure, was carried in a hackney-coach from the
Tower to the Transport Office in Tower Hill, where there was a room
prepared for their reception, hung with black, and a passage or gallery
railed in, which led to the place of execution. The scaffold was
surrounded with the Guards. Lord Derwentwater suffered first. He was
observed to turn very pale as he proceeded through the gallery and
ascended the steps; but there was a modest composure observable in his
demeanour. He held a book in his hand, from which he read prayers for
some time; then, requesting leave of the Sheriffs to read a paper to the
people, he went to the rails of the scaffold, and there delivered the
following touching and beautiful address, which, how different soever
may be the sentiments and opinions with which it is perused, can hardly
fail to impress the reader as coming from a conscientious mind:--

    "Being in a few minutes to appear before the Tribunal of God, where,
    though most unworthy, I hope for mercy, which I have not found from
    men now in power, I have endeavoured to make my peace with His
    Divine Majesty, by most humbly begging pardon for all the sins of my
    life; and I doubt not of a merciful forgiveness, through the merits
    of the passion of my Saviour Jesus Christ; for which end I earnestly
    desire the prayers of all good Christians.

    "After this, I am to ask pardon of those whom I might have
    scandalized by pleading guilty at my trial. Such as were permitted
    to come to me, told me that, having been undeniably in arms,
    pleading guilty was but the consequence of having submitted to
    mercy, and many arguments were used to prove there was nothing of
    moment in so doing,--among others, the universal practice of signing
    leases, whereof the preambles ran in the name of the persons in
    possession.

    "But I am sensible that in this I have made bold with my loyalty,
    having never owned any other but King James the Third for my lawful
    King: him I had an inclination to serve from my infancy, and was
    moved thereto by a natural love I had to his person, knowing him to
    be capable of making his people happy; and though he had been born
    of a different religion to mine, I should have done for him all
    that lay in my power, as my ancestors have done for his
    predecessors, being thereto bound by the laws of God and man.

    "Wherefore, if in this affair I have acted rashly, it ought not to
    affect the innocent; I intended to wrong nobody, but to serve my
    King and my country, and that without self-interest,--hoping, by the
    example I gave, to have induced others to their duty; and God, who
    sees the secrets of my heart, knows I speak the truth. Some means
    have been proposed to me for saving my life, which I looked upon as
    inconsistent with honour and innocence, and therefore I rejected
    them; for, with God's assistance, I shall prefer any death to the
    doing a base unworthy action. I only wish now, that the laying down
    my life might contribute to the service of my King and country, and
    the re-establishment of the ancient and fundamental constitution of
    these kingdoms; without which, no lasting peace or true happiness
    can attend them. Then I should, indeed, part with my life even with
    pleasure; as it is, I can only pray, that these blessings may be
    bestowed upon my dear country; and since I can do no more, I beseech
    God to accept of my life as a small sacrifice to it.

    "I die a Roman Catholic: I am in perfect charity with all the world
    (I thank God for it), even with those of the present Government, who
    are most instrumental in my death. I freely forgive all such as
    ungenerously reported false things of me; and hope to be forgiven
    the trespasses of my youth by the Father of Mercies, into whose
    hands I commend my soul.

                                                     J. DERWENTWATER."

    P.S. "If that Prince who now governs had given me my life, I should
    have thought myself obliged never more to have taken up arms against
    him."

After delivering this address, the unfortunate nobleman thus spoke to
the executioner: "You will find something for you in my pocket [this was
two half-guineas], and I have given that gentleman [pointing to a person
who held his hat and wig] somewhat more for you. Let me lie down once,
to see how the block fits me." This he did. Then, kneeling down again,
and uttering a short prayer with the executioner, he arose, and
undressed himself for execution, the headsman assisting him. After
which, the Earl desired the executioner to take notice, that "when he
heard the words 'sweet Jesus!' then he should do his office so soon as
he pleased." After which, his Lordship laid himself down on the block,
and said, "I forgive my enemies, and hope that God will forgive me;" and
then, turning his head up towards the executioner, he exclaimed, "After
the third time I cry '_sweet Jesus!_' strike then, and do what is most
convenient to you."

A solemn and appalling scene then ensued. The voice of Lord Derwentwater
was heard to exclaim, and the watchful ear of the executioner caught
these words: "_Sweet Jesus_, receive my spirit; _sweet Jesus_, be
merciful unto me; _sweet Jesus_"--he seemed to be going on, when the
sentence was broken and the voice for ever hushed, the executioner
severing his Lordship's head from his body, which he did at one stroke.
Then the executioner took up the head, and at the several quarters of
the scaffold elevated it with both his hands, crying with a loud voice,
"Behold the head of a traitor! God save King George!" When he had done
so, the friends of the Earl not being provided with hearse or coffin,
Sir John Fryer, the Sheriff, ordered the body to be wrapped in black
baize, to be conveyed to a hackney coach, and delivered to his friends,
one of whom had wrapped up his head in a handkerchief.[222]

On the day of the execution, Mary, Countess of Derwentwater, accompanied
by another female, dressed herself as a fishwoman, and in a cart drove
under Temple Bar, having previously bribed some people to throw the head
of her lord into her lap, as she passed under the pinnacle on which it
was placed.[223]

Various accounts have been given of the interment of the Earl of
Derwentwater. He is generally believed to have been buried in the church
of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, near the altar. But a popular tradition has
found credence, that he was buried at Dilstone. This has arisen from
the Jacobite ditty, called "Derwentwater's Good Night," or has probably
given origin to that lay, in which the Earl is made to say:--

    "Albeit that here in London town
      It is my fate to die,
    O carry me to Northumberland,
      In my father's grave to lie:
    There chaunt my solemn requiem,
      In Hexham's holy towers,
    And let six maids of fair Tynedale,
      Scatter my grave with flowers."[224]

This is said to have been his last request, but to have been refused,
for fear of any popular tumult in the North. Either a pretended burial
in the church of St. Giles took place, or the Earl's body was removed,
"for it was certainly," says Mr. Hogg, "carried secretly to Dilstone,
where it was deposited by the side of the Earl's father, in his chapel."
"A little porch before the farm-house of Whitesmocks," adds the same
authority, "is pointed out as the exact spot where the Earl's remains
rested, avoiding Durham." The coffin is said to have been opened during
the present century, and the body of the Earl recognized, both by his
appearance of youth, his features, and the suture round his neck. It is
seldom satisfactory to state what has no other source than common
report. In the North, the aurora borealis is still said to be called
"Lord Derwentwater's lights," because, on the night of his execution, it
appeared remarkably vivid. It is, any rate, pleasant to reflect, that
one who "gave bread to thousands" is remembered by this beautiful
appearance in the county which he loved, and where his virtues are
remembered and his errors forgotten.

His fate was hard. Let us not, contrary to nature, call up motives of
state policy to vindicate the death of this brave and honourable man.
The Earl of Derwentwater was one upon whom clemency might safely have
been shown. Generous, liberal, sincere, a prince might have relied upon
his assurance that, had mercy been shown to him, it would never have
been repaid by treachery. His youth and inexperience,--his wife, his
children,--should not have been forgotten: nor should it have been
forgotten, that the principles of loyalty for which his life was
forfeited, have dictated some of the most important services which have
been rendered to the state, and have secured the existence of an
hereditary government.

Of what the Earl of Derwentwater might have become, in character, in
intellect, his early fate has prevented our judging. In person he was
noble and elegant; his portraits do not give the impression of that
beauty of feature which has been ascribed to him. In character he was
irreproachable. He was, in one sense, one of those noblemen of whom it
were well for this country to have more: he lived among those from whom
he drew his fortunes--their benefactor and their friend.

The widowed Countess of Derwentwater died at Brussels in August,
1723.[225] The descendants of the Earl are now extinct, a son and
daughter who survived him having both died. His Lordship's brother
married a Scottish peeress, and is the ancestor of the present Earl of
Newburgh, the rightful representative of the Earl of Derwentwater.

"The domains of the Derwentwater family in Cumberland are," says Lord
Mahon, "among the very few forfeitures of the Jacobites which have never
been restored by the clemency of the House of Hanover." In 1788, a clear
rent of two thousand five hundred pounds was, however, granted out of
these estates to the Newburgh family. "They were first," says the same
authority, "settled on Greenwich Hospital, but have since been sold to
Mr. Marshall, of Leeds."

The deeds of the Derwentwater estates were preserved in the following
manner: "On the night when Preston surrendered, Lord Derwentwater found
means," as Mr. Hogg relates, "to send messengers to Capheaton, to
prevent the family there from appearing in arms. By his orders, the
family papers were removed to Capheaton, and they were laid between two
walls and a chimney. A slater employed about the house discovered
several chests with the Derwentwater arms engraved on the lids. Being a
rigid Presbyterian, he informed old Sir Ambrose Middleton, of Belsay,
who being Deputy-Lieutenant for the Duke of Somerset, searched Capheaton
for arms, and under that pretence broke open the walls, and found the
deeds, from the concealment of which Greenwich Hospital had been put to
some difficulties."

Such was the fate of the last memorial of the unfortunate Earl of
Derwentwater. It is impossible to help regretting that a name once so
honoured should have become extinct; and there appears to be an
unaccountable injustice in that oblivion, whilst most of the Scottish
forfeited titles have been restored.

FOOTNOTES:

[173] I write it Radcliffe, because the most careful historians and
genealogists have given the preference to that mode of spelling the
name.

[174] The fact has been rather surmised than proved.

[175] Hutchinson's View of Northumberland, vol. i. p. 171.

[176] Lysons' Magna Britannia, vol. ii. p. 85.

[177] Burke's Extinct Peerage, art. _Radcliffe_; also Wood's Peerage,
309. It has been erroneously stated, that Francis Radclyffe himself, who
married Mary Tudor, was first ennobled. It was his father, Sir Francis
Radclyffe.

[178] Life of Charles Radcliffe. "By a gentleman of the family, to
prevent the public being imposed upon by any erroneous or partial
accounts to the prejudice of this unfortunate gentleman." London, 1746.

[179] Macpherson Papers, vol. ii.

[180] Patten's Hist. Rebellion, p. 47.

[181] In personal appearance the Earl is declared to have been
distinguished for grace and comeliness. Neither the prints of this
nobleman, nor an original picture in the possession of the Earl of
Newburgh, at Hassop in Derbyshire, give the impression that the Earl was
handsome. Yet he obtained the appellation of "handsome Derwentwater."

[182] Kimber's Baronetage, vol. i. p. 517.

[183] Encyclopædia Metropolitana.

[184] Id. Annals of George I.

[185] Patten, p. 3.

[186] The following is a copy of the warrant, and affords a specimen,
which may be novel to some readers, of the form in which such affairs
are couched. The original is still preserved by the present Earl of
Newburgh, the descendant of Charles Radcliffe. I am indebted to the
courtesy of the Earl of Newburgh for permission to copy this document,
and also for several particulars concerning the family of Radcliffe,
which I have interwoven with this biography:--

    "_James Stanhope, Esq., one of his Majesty's most Honourable Privy
               Council, and Principal Secretary of State._

    "These are in his Majesty's name, to authorise and require you,
    taking a constable to your assistance, forthwith to make strict and
    diligent search in such places as you shall have notice, for the
    Right Honourable James, Earl of Derwentwater; and him having found,
    you are to seize and apprehend for suspicion of Treason, and to
    bring him, together with his papers, before me to be examined
    concerning the Premisses, and to be further dealt with according to
    law: for the due execution whereof, all Mayors, Sheriffs, Justices
    of the Peace, Constables, and all his Majesty's officers, Civil and
    Military, and loving subjects whom it may concern, are to be aiding
    and assisting to you as there shall be occasion. And for so doing,
    this shall be your warrant.

    "Given at Whitehall the two-and-twentieth day of September, 1715.

                                                     "JAMES STANHOPE."

    "To Richard Shorman, John Hutching, and John
        Turner, three of his Majesty's Messengers
        in Ordinary."

[187] His pension was raised for his services from fifty to eighty
pounds per annum.--See Caledonian Mercury, 1722.

[188] Patten, p. 19.

[189] Hutchinson's History of Northumberland, vol. i. p. 131.

[190] State Papers. Domestic, No. 4, 1716.

[191] Life of Charles Radcliffe, p. 15.

[192] Patten, p. 31.

[193] Patten. Smollett.

[194] Parliamentary History, 2 Geo. I. vol. vii. p. 269.

[195] Patten, p. 47.

[196] Id. p. 65.

[197] An instance of this spirit is related by Lord Sunderland in the
case of a Mr. Crisp, a Lancashire gentleman, who acted with such zeal
for the Government during the Rebellion, that he was never able to live
in his native country afterwards.--Lord Mahon's History of England since
the Peace of Utrecht, vol. i. p. 253.

[198] Lord Mahon, vol. i. p. 248.

[199] Patten, p. 79.

[200] Letter from a Scots Prisoner.--See Weekly Journal, or British
Gazette, for 1716.

[201] Weekly Journal, p. 354.

[202] Parliamentary History, p. 269.

[203] Life of Charles Radcliffe, p. 23.

[204] Patten.

[205] Patten, p. 96.

[206] Patten, p. 103.

[207] Weekly Journal.

[208] Patten.

[209] Patten.

[210] Caledonian Mercury for 1716.

[211] Earls of Derwentwater, Nithisdale, Carnwath, and Wintoun; Viscount
Kenmure, and Lords Widdrington and Nairn.

[212] State Trials, vol. xv. p. 762.

[213] Parliamentary History, vol. vii. p. 269.

[214] State Trials.

[215] Caledonian Mercury for 1716.

[216] Beatson's Political Index.

[217] Douglas's Peerage of Scotland.

[218] State Trials, vol. xv. p. 802.

[219] Lord Mahon's History, vol. i. p. 291.

[220] Id.

[221] State Papers, 1716, No. 4; now, for the first time, printed.

[222] Or rather, a piece of red cloth, which is still preserved at
Hassop, the seat of the Earl of Newburgh, the marks of blood being still
visible.

[223] From a tradition current in the descendants of this family.

[224] Hogg's Jacobite Relics, vol. i. p. 31.

[225] See Caledonian Mercury, 1723.




THE MASTER OF SINCLAIR.


John Sinclair, called, in compliance with the custom of Scotland in
regard to the eldest sons of Barons, the Master of Sinclair, was
descended from the ancient family of Saint Clare, in France, on whom
lands were bestowed by Alexander the Third of Scotland. In early times,
the titles of Earls of Orkney and Caithness had been given to the first
settlers of the Saint Clares; and the possession of the islands of
Orkney and Shetland had been added to certain royal donations, by a
marriage with an heiress of the sirname of Speire. One of the Sinclairs
had even borne the dignity of Prince of Orkney; but this distinction was
lost by an improvident member of the house of Sinclair, called William
the Waster; and the prosperity of his descendants was due only to the
favour of James the Sixth, who created Henry Sinclair, of Dysart in
Fife, a Baron.

The family continued in honour and estimation, until the subject of this
memoir, John, brought upon it disgrace, and incurred to himself lasting
self-reproach.

The Master of Sinclair was the eldest son of Henry, seventh Lord
Sinclair, and the representative, therefore, of an honourable family.
But it was his fate to forfeit his birthright, not so much by his
adherence to an ill-fated cause, as by the violence and brutality of his
own temper and conduct.

He was, at an early age, engaged in the military profession, and bore
the commission of Captain-Lieutenant in Preston's regiment under the
great Marlborough. At the battle of Wynendale, fought on the
twenty-eighth of September, 1708, the events which stamped the future
character of the Master of Sinclair's destiny occurred.

Two brothers of the name of Schaw, Scotchmen, of an ancient race, and
ancestors, collaterally, of the present family of Shaw-Stewart of
Renfrew, had commissions also in Preston's regiment. These unfortunate
young men were of the chief family of the Schaws, or Sauchie, who had
flourished since the reign of Robert the Second.

By that singular coincidence which sometimes occurs, and which seems to
stamp certain races with misfortune, the Schaws had already been nearly
exterminated in feudal times by the violence of a neighbouring clan, the
Montgomeries of Skellmorlie; and had been preserved from total
destruction by what seemed to human comprehension to be the merest
chance. By one of the Montgomeries, the Tower of Greenock was invaded
and taken, and the Laird of Schaw and four or five of his sons were put
to death. One child, then in his cradle, alone escaped, and grew up to
manhood, with the resolution to avenge his father and his brothers
rankling at his heart. Accordingly, he collected his friends and
dependants, and invested, during a period of repose and security, the
house of his enemy. Montgomery, finding his castle attacked, stood forth
on the battlements, and, after demanding a parley with the besieger,
"Are you not," he cried out, "an ungrateful man to come hither with bow
and brand to take the life of the man who made you young laird and auld
laird in the same day?" Young Schaw, struck by the argument, drew off
his forces, and left the castle of Skellmorlie standing, and its inmates
uninjured.

The family of Schaw were zealous Whigs, the father of the two young
officers in Preston's regiment having raised a regiment at the time of
the Revolution, without any other expense to the Government than that of
sergeants and drummers.

The eldest brother, Sir John Schaw, had been an active promoter of the
Union; and, upon a threatened invasion of the French, and a consequent
alarm of the Jacobites, Sir John had offered to join the army with five
or six hundred of his followers. This decided political bias may, perhaps,
in some measure, account for the disposition to affront on the side of
Sinclair, and the quickness to resent on the other hand, which was shown
between the parties.

During the battle of Wynendale, in the midst of the fire, it appeared,
in evidence afterwards taken, that Ensign Hugh Schaw, the first of the
victims to the Master of Sinclair's wrath, was heard to call out to the
Master "to stand upright;" it was afterwards publicly stated by Ensign
Hugh Schaw, that he had done so upon seeing Sinclair bow himself down to
the ground for a considerable time. This alleged act of cowardice on the
part of Sinclair appears, however, not to have really taken place; but
it was made the groundwork of a calumnious imputation. It must, however,
be acknowledged, that there was nothing in the subsequent conduct of the
Master of Sinclair, as far as the battle of Sherriff Muir was concerned,
to raise his character as a man of personal bravery.

Upon hearing of this injurious report, Sinclair sent a challenge to
Ensign Schaw. It was dispatched through the medium of a brother officer,
to whom the Ensign replied, at first, that he had just heard of his
brother George's being wounded before Lisle, and that it was of far
greater importance that he should go to him than accept the Master of
Sinclair's challenge; besides, the young man added, that since his last
misfortune, probably a fatal duel, he had pledged himself neither to
receive nor to give a challenge. Should a rencontre happen, he would
defend himself as he could; that, after all, he had said nothing but
what he could prove. Upon these words being repeated to the Master of
Sinclair, he fell into a violent passion, and swore that he would not
give Schaw fair play; that his honour was concerned. The second whom he
had employed then threatened to take the challenge to Colonel Preston;
upon which the Master told him "he was a rascal if he did it."

On the following day, the Master met Ensign Schaw, and taking a stick
from underneath his coat, struck the Ensign two blows over the head with
it. They both drew, and fought with such fury that the Master's sword
was broken, and that of the Ensign bent; upon which Sinclair retired
behind a sentinel, desiring him "to keep off the Ensign, as his sword
was broken." Schaw then said, "You know I am more of a gentleman than to
pursue you when your sword is broken." But the young soldier Schaw had
at this time received a mortal wound, of which he died; but not until
after the verdict of the court-martial ultimately held on Sinclair.

In the course of three days a second fatal rencontre succeeded this
deadly contest; and another brother, Captain Alexander Schaw, fell a
victim to the vindictive and brutal notions at that period considered in
the army to constitute a code of honour.

Captain Schaw was naturally indignant at the death of his brother; he
expressed his anger openly, and said, that the Master of Sinclair had
"paper in his breast," against which his brother's sword was bent; and
that he had received the fatal wound after his sword had thus become
useless. The Master of Sinclair having heard of these assertions,
resolved to avenge himself for these imputations cast upon him. On the
thirteenth of September, as Captain Schaw was riding at the head of
Major How's regiment, the sound of his own name, repeated twice,
announced the approach of the hated Sinclair. Captain Schaw turned, and
inquired of the Master what he wanted. Sinclair replied, by asking him
to go to the front, as he wanted to speak to him; to which Captain Schaw
rejoined, that he might speak to him there. "Yes," returned Sinclair,
"but if I fire at you here, I may shoot some other body." Captain Schaw
answered, that he might fire at him if he pleased, he bore him no
ill-will. "If you will not go to the front," returned Sinclair, "beg my
pardon." This was refused, some words of further aggravation ensued;
then the Master of Sinclair drew his pistol and fired at Schaw. The
Captain was also preparing to fire; his hand was in the act of drawing
his pistol when it was for ever checked, whether employed for good or
evil; the aim of Sinclair was certain, and Schaw fell dead from his
horse. Sinclair, without waiting to inquire how far mortal might be the
wound he had inflicted, rode away.

Thus perished two young officers, described by their brother, Sir John
Schaw, as "very gallant gentlemen." To complete the tragedy, a third,
wounded at Lisle, was brought to the camp at Wynendale, and expired in
the same room with his brother, Ensign Schaw, partly of his wounds,
partly of grief for his brother's death; so that the offender, as the
surviving brother remarked, "was not wholly innocent even of his blood:"
yet both these rencontres, to adopt the mild term employed by Sir Walter
Scott, were viewed in a very lenient manner by the officers of the
court-martial which afterwards sat upon the case, and even by
Marlborough himself. The Master of Sinclair speaks of them in his
narrative in terms which imply that one, whose hands were so deeply dyed
in crime, regarded himself as an injured man; there can scarcely be a
better exemplification of the deceitfulness of the heart than such a
representation.

On the seventeenth of October, 1708, a court-martial upon the Master of
Sinclair was held at Ronsales by the command of the Duke of Marlborough.
Upon the first charge, that of challenging Ensign Hugh Schaw (in breach
of the twenty-eighth article of war), Sinclair was acquitted, the court
being of opinion that the challenge was not proved.

Of the second accusation, that of killing Captain Alexander Schaw, the
Master of Sinclair was found guilty, and sentenced to suffer death. He
was, however, recommended to the mercy of the Duke of Marlborough, in
consideration of the provocation which he had received,--the prisoner
having declared that, not only on that occasion, but upon several, and
in different regiments, Captain Schaw had defamed him; that he was
forced to do what he did, and that he had done it with reluctance.

The case was, however, afterwards referred to the Attorney General and
the Solicitor General, who gave it their opinion that Sinclair was
guilty of murder; for had the trial taken place in England before a
common jury, the judge must have directed the jury to find him guilty of
murder, no provocation whatever being sufficient to excuse malice, or to
make the offence of killing less than murder, when it is committed with
premeditation. How far the provocation was to be considered as a ground
of mercy, these legal functionaries declined to judge.

Upon the publication of this sentence, Sir John Schaw addressed a
petition to Queen Anne, praying for justice on the murderer of his
brothers, and appealing to his Sovereign against the extraordinary
recommendation of the court to mercy. He also wrote urgent letters to
the Earl of Stair and the Duke of Argyle, praying for their intercession
with the Duke of Marlborough that the murderer of his brothers might be
punished. He next wrote to the Duke of Marlborough himself. The
following letters show the earnestness of the pleader, and prove the
caution and subtlety of the General. Some deep political motive lay
beneath the mercy shown to Sinclair, otherwise it seems impossible to
account for the conduct of so great a disciplinarian as Marlborough in
this affair.


SIR JOHN SCHAW TO THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH.

    "May it pleas your Grace,

    "Amongst the misfortunes that attend the murthers of my two
    brothers, I thinck it's one to be constrain'd to appear importunate
    with your Grace. The case, by the depositions of the witnesses,
    being in the opinion of the learn'd lawyers of the most atrocius
    nature, and not pardonable by the law of the country whereof we are
    subjects, and such as indispensable requires my utmost applications
    for redress, I cannot forbear the repeating of my submissive prayers
    to your Grace for speedy justice. The blood of my brothers, the tyes
    of nature, and the sentiments of friendship, would render the least
    negligence on my part inexcusable with the world and with my own
    conscience.

    "I should deliver my petition personally, rather than venture to
    give your Grace the trouble of letters, were I not sufficiently
    assured of your Grace's justice, and at the same time willing to
    gratifie my wellwisshers desires in staying here. Hoping your Grace
    wil, with a condescending compassion to my present circumstances,
    favourably admit the bearer, Capt. James Stuart, in Coll. M'Carty's
    regiment, who is my faithfull friend and near relation, to deliver
    this letter, and represent my case, that the whole matter may be
    sett in a true light for a finall decision, in the meantime, I
    remain, with a profound respect, my Lord, Your Grace's most humble,
    etc."

    "To the Duke of Marlborough, London, the 29th November, 1708."


THE DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH TO SIR JOHN SCHAW.[226]

    "Sir,

    "Captain Stewart has delivered me your letter of the twenty-first of
    November; I had before, from the Secretary at Warr, the opinion of
    the Attorney and Sollicitor General upon the proceedings of the
    court-martiall, with the copie of the petition you had presented to
    the Queen, but no positive directions from hir Majesty, which I
    should have been very glad to have received, being without it under
    very great uneasiness, as Captain Steward will tell you; however,
    you may be sure I shall have all the regard you can desire for your
    just resentment against Mr. Sinclair, being truly, Sir,

    "Your most humble servant,
        (_Sic subscribitur_)
            "MARLBOROUGH."

    "Copie letter Duke of Marlborrough to Sir
        John Schaw, dated at the Camp at
        Melle, the 16th December, 1708."

After this correspondence, the unhappy brother of the two young officers
had every reason to conclude that the delinquent would very soon be
brought to justice. He wrote to Mr. Cardonnel, secretary to the Duke of
Marlborough, in grateful terms for the kind intercession employed for
him. What was afterwards his astonishment to find that Sinclair was
allowed to serve in the British army in the sieges of Lisle and Ghent,
and eventually received in the Prussian service! The evident favour of
the Duke is fully shown in the following passage from the Master of
Sinclair's narrative:

"I was obliged to quit [the army] for two misfortunes which happened in
a very short time, one after the other, notwithstanding of the
court-marshall's recommending me to the General, his Grace the Duke of
Marlborough's mercy, which was always looked on as equal to a pardon,
and which I can aver was never refused to any one but myself. Nor was
his allowing me to serve at the sieges of Lisle and Ghent precedented on
my giving my word of honour to return to arrest after these sieges were
over, which I did and continued (prisoner) till his Grace the Duke of
Marlborough sent his repeated orders to make my escape, which I
disobeyed twice; but at last being encouraged by his promise to
recommend me to any prince that I pleased, for these were his words, I
went off, and procured his recommendation to the King of Prussia, from
whose service, which I may say is of the strictest, I came back to serve
in the Low Countries, where I continued until the end of the war, at
which time her Majesty Queen Anne having, as it is said, turned Tory,
vouchsafed me her pardon."

These marks of indulgence to Sinclair fell heavily upon the heart of him
who still mourned two promising brothers, sent to an untimely grave by
brutal revenge. The following letter from Sir John Schaw is beautifully
and touchingly expressed.[227] What effect it produced upon the great
but not faultless man to whom it was addressed, can only be known by the
impunity with which Sinclair, his hands being imbued in the blood of his
countrymen, continued in the Prussian army, and afterwards returned to
Scotland.

    "It is with very great regrate that I give your Grace any further
    trouble on account of the melancholy story of my two brothers, who
    had the misfortune to be murthered in the space of three dayes by
    Lieutenant Sinclair, then in the regiment of Prestoun, in the year
    1708. Your Grace was at the paines to be informed of the whole case,
    and the murtherer, being a man of quality, had many to intercede for
    him; your justice did overcome all other considerations and indeed
    nothing could be more worthie of the great character your Grace has,
    and the glorious name you must leave to posterity, than the
    punishment of so cruel and bloodie a fact; but the criminal escaped,
    and the sentence of death pronounced by the court-martial, and
    confirmed by your Grace, was not executed; and I, having done all I
    could to bring the murtherer of my unfortunate brothers to condign
    punishment, was satisfied to pursue him no further, tho' the
    atrocity of the crime committed against the law of nations would
    have affoarded me ground to have prosecuted him in any country where
    he could have been found. But to my surprize and sorrow, I have of
    late been informed that Lieutenant Sinclair has added to the
    repeated murthers the impudence of returning, an officer in a
    Prussian regiment, to the army, where he was condemn'd, as it were
    to affront justice, and glory in what he has done. I am wel
    persuaded, that if his guilt had been known to the King of Prussia
    or his Generals, his Majesty would not have suffered so odious ane
    offender to be entertained in his service. Nor can the Generals or
    Ministers of Prussia have anything to plead, why a sentence
    pronounced by a British court-martial against one of hir Majesty's
    subjects, and confirmed by your excellency her Generall should not
    now be executed. I am confident your Grace will not sufferr publick
    justice to be insulted in that affair, and I doe in the most humble
    and earnest manner begg that your Grace would cause apprehend the
    murtherer, that justice may be done upon him for his barbarous and
    bloodie crimes. I had about two years ago four brothers, of whom I
    may without vanity say, they were very gallant gentlemen; two were
    murthered by Lieutenant Sinclair; the third died in the roome with
    one of these, partly of his wounds received before Lille, and
    pairtly out of griefe for his brothers' misfortunes, so that the
    offender is not innocent even of his blood; the fourth was killed at
    the battle of Mons. The blood of these that were barbarously slain,
    call for vengeance; the law of God and nature requires it. They had,
    and I in their name have a claime, in a particular manner, to your
    Grace's justice, they having been all four under your Grace's
    command; forgive it to my natural affection, if I use arguments with
    your Grace to do an act of justice when the whole world, and I in
    particular, have such proofs of the greatness of your minde and
    virtue, I shall only add my most sincere and humble acknowledgement
    of your Grace's justice and dispatch in the melancholie affair, of
    which I shall ever retain the most gratefull sense; and remain under
    the strictest tyes of dutie, with the most profound respect, my
    Lord, your Grace's most humble, most obedient, obliged, and faithful
    servant," &c.

With this letter, and some memorials of Sir John Schaw's public service,
end all known appeals for justice on the murderer. But conscience
avenged the crime. Many years afterwards, when living in opulence upon
his patrimonial estate at Dysart in Fife, the Master received from an
humble individual a bitter, though involuntary reproach. When preparing
to cross the Frith, he stopped at an inn in order to engage a running
footman to attend him. Detested by his neighbours, and ever in dread of
the Schaws, Sinclair preserved a sort of incognito. A youth was
presented for his approval. The Master inquired of the young candidate
what proof he could give of his activity, on which this remarkable reply
was given: "Sir, I ran beside the Master of Sinclair's horse when he
rode post from the English camp to escape the death for which he was
condemned for the murder of the two brothers." "The Master," adds Sir
Walter Scott, "much shocked, was nearly taken ill on the spot."[228]

During the insurrection of 1715, the Master of Sinclair took at first an
active part, and became the commander of a company of Jacobite gentlemen
of Fife. He joined the Earl of Mar at Perth,[229] and was employed in an
expedition which gained some credit to the Jacobites. Some arms having
been brought out of Edinburgh for the use of the Earl of Sutherland, and
being put on board a ship at Leith, the Earl of Mar resolved to
intercept these supplies. The wind being contrary, the master of the
vessel thus loaded had dropped into Brunt Island, and had gone into the
town on that island to see his family. A party of four hundred horse and
as many foot was meantime detached on the second of October, 1715, and
arrived at the island about midnight. They pressed all the boats in the
harbour, and boarded the vessel, carrying off three hundred and six
complete stand of arms, together with a considerable number which they
found in the town. This expedition was skilfully contrived and managed,
the horse surrounding the town whilst the foot ransacked it; and the
invasion was made so silently that the Duke of Argyle gained no tidings
of it.[230]

After this exploit the Master of Sinclair returned to the camp at Perth,
there to promote, if not actually to originate, divisions which were
fatal to the cause which he had espoused. Lord Mar, in his letters,
charges him, indeed, distinctly with being the very source of the
dissensions which soon sprang up among the Jacobite chiefs.[231] The
temper of Sinclair could ill brook submission to the Earl of Mar, whom,
as a General, he soon ceased to respect; and for whose difficult
situation he had no relenting feelings. "The Master," writes Sir Walter
Scott, "who was a man of strong sense, acute observation, and some
military experience, besides being of a haughty and passionate temper,
averse to deference and subordination, soon placed himself in opposition
to the general, whom he seems to have at once detested and
despised."[232]

The unfortunate result of the siege of Preston, soon brought to light
the discontents which the Master had nourished among the followers of
Mar. Parties had, indeed, for some time agitated the camp. When the
disasters in England gave them a fresh impulse, and Lord Mar feelingly,
and perhaps not too severely, described the influence of Sinclair when
he bitterly describes him as "a devil in the camp, known in his true
colours when calamity had befallen those with whom he was in
conjunction." It was henceforth in vain that Mar, to use his own
expression, "endeavoured to keep people from breaking among themselves
until the long-expected arrival of the Chevalier should, it was hoped,
check the growing jealousies in the camp;" a party arose, headed by Lord
Huntley, Lord Seaforth, and the Master of Sinclair, who soon obtained
the name of the Grumbler's Club, and who rendered themselves odious to
the sincere and zealous Jacobites.

Lord Huntley appears from Lord Mar's representations, "to have been
completely under the influence of the Master." "Lord Huntley," writes
Lord Mar, "is still very much out of humour, and nothing can make him
yet believe that the King is coming. He intends to go north, under the
pretext of reducing Lord Sutherland, and his leaving us at this time, I
think, might have very bad effects, which makes me do all I can to keep
him. The Master of Sinclair is a very bad instrument about him, and has
been most to blame for all the differences amongst us. I am plagued out
of my life with them, but must do the best I can."[233]

Lord Huntley, however, continued to manifest the greatest disgust and
suspicion of Lord Mar, often refusing to see him, and, though still
lingering at Perth, threatening continually to leave the camp and go
northward.

Lord Sinclair, meantime, having heard of these factions, and being
sincerely affected to the cause of the Stuarts, wrote to his son "a
sharp letter about his behaviour," and a visit of explanation from the
Master instantly followed. During his absence there was a revulsion of
feeling among the Grumblers, and some contrition was expressed by them
for the part that they had acted; but the fiend returned, and the
malcontents quietly relapsed.[234]

The news of James's certain arrival silenced, for a time, all
complaints; but again they revived. Lord Mar seems to have had some
misgiving of this, when he wrote, "Those that made a pretext of the
King's not being landed, are now left inexcusable, and if those kind of
folks now sit still and look any more on, they ought to be worse treated
than our worse enemies." Yet it appears by a subsequent letter, that the
grievances of which the General complained so bitterly, were not cured
even by the presence of the Chevalier; that those who had made a
pretext of his absence to complain and despond, desponded still, and
that, in fact, the malady was so deep-seated as to be incurable.

It may be urged, in vindication of the Master, who obviously aggravated
the spirit of the Grumblers, that the event proved that his
apprehensions were well founded. It was, indeed, natural for an
experienced officer who had served under Marlborough, to view with
dissatisfaction and suspicion the feeble and tardy movements of Lord
Mar. Yet a hearty well-wisher to any cause would have abstained from
infusing distrust into those counsels which, whether wise or foolish,
were destined to guide the adherents of the party. A man of honour will
enter, heart and soul, into what he undertakes, or not enter at all. The
conduct of Sinclair was that of a mean, morose spirit; and it is but
fair to conclude that his motives for adopting the name of Jacobite were
either those of personal advancement, or arose out of an enforced
compliance with the wishes of his father.

Whilst Sinclair was thus undermining the welfare of the party to which
he nominally belonged, his determined enemy, Sir John Schaw, after
assisting the Duke of Argyle in defending Inverness against the
insurgent troops, was marching with Lord Isla to rejoin the Duke of
Argyle in his march towards Perth. It so happened that Lord Isla and his
friends reached Sherriff Muir at the very moment when the Government
troops and the Jacobites were about to join in battle. "Sir John," says
Sir Walter Scott, "though he had no command, engaged as a volunteer; and
we may suppose his zeal for King George was heightened by the
recollection that the slayer of his brothers fought under the opposite
banners." He behaved himself with distinguished courage, receiving a
wound on his arm, and another in his side.[235] He was, at this time,
the only surviving brother out of four, his brother Thomas having been
slain at the siege of Mons a year after the death of the others. A month
before Sir John Schaw had joined the Duke, Lady Schaw, the daughter of
Sir Hugh Dalrymple, and a woman of singular energy and spirit, assembled
the Greenock companies in arms, and telling them that the Protestant
religion, with their laws, liberties, and lives, and all that was dear
to them as men and Christians, were in hazard by that unnatural
rebellion, exhorted them to conduct themselves suitably to the occasion.

The conduct of Sinclair at the battle of Sherriff Muir was not
inconsistent with his former life. He remained, in that engagement,
stationary, with the Marquis of Huntley, at the head of the cavalry of
Fife and Aberdeen; hence the lines in the old song on Sherriff Muir.

        "Huntly and Sinclair
        They baith play'd the Tinkler,
    With consciences black as a craw, man."

Upon the return of the Jacobite army to Perth, where they waited, as
Scott remarks in a tone of mournful reprobation of Mar, "until their own
forces should disperse, those of their enemy advance, and the wintry
storm so far subside as to permit the Duke of Argyle to advance against
them," Sinclair was the chief promoter of a scheme formed by the
Grumblers for a timely submission to Government. Instigated by their
wishes, an attempt was made by Lord Mar to procure, through the Duke of
Argyle's mediation, some terms with Government; but it failed, and those
who had embarked in the cause were obliged to provide, as they best
might, individually for their safety. The whole tenour of Sinclair's
conduct was such as to draw down upon him the severest invectives of his
party. In one of the poems of the day he is thus described:

    "The master with the bully's face,
      And with the coward heart,
    Who never fail'd, to his disgrace,
      To act a coward's part,
    Did join Dunbogue, the greatest rogue,
      In all the shire of Fife,
    Who was the first the cause to leave,
      By counsel from his wife."

The Master quitted the insurgent party at Perth, and joined the Marquis
of Huntley at Strathbogie; thence he proceeded as a fugitive through
Caithness and Orkney, with a few friends, who, like himself, were
hopeless of pardon. After wandering in these remote districts for some
time, the Master and his friends seized upon a small vessel and fled to
the Continent. The Marquis of Huntley, more fortunate than his
political ally, obtained his full pardon in consideration of his having
left the rebels in time.[236]

The Master of Sinclair married, afterwards, the widowed Countess of
Southesk, whom he probably met when on the Continent, since it appears
that the Countess, for some time subsequent to the death of her husband,
lived at Brussels. In referring to this union, it may not be improper to
give some account of the family into connection with which it brought
the Master of Sinclair.

James Carnegie, Earl of Southesk, the first husband of the lady whom the
Master of Sinclair married, was descended from David Carnegie, an
eminent lawyer, who in 1616 was raised to the dignity of Lord Carnegie
of Kinnaird, and in 1623 was created, by Charles the First, Earl of
Southesk. Like most of those families who had been elevated by the
Stuarts to the peerage, the house of Carnegie retained a strong sense of
their duty of allegiance to the Crown; and the first Earl of Southesk
suffered for his principles by imprisonment and the extortion of a fine
of three thousand pounds from his estates in the time of Cromwell.

James, the fifth Earl of Southesk, although nearly allied by his
mother's side to the Maitlands, Earls of Lauderdale, had retained as
great an affection for the Stuarts as his ancestors had manifested. Of
the personal qualities of this nobleman little is generally known,
except that he has been designated, "Brave, generous Southesk!"--of his
fate, and of the subsequent fortunes of his family, still less is to be
ascertained. Some few particulars which are to be derived from the State
Papers are discreditable to the memory of this nobleman. Like several
other Jacobite noblemen who have been mentioned elsewhere, Lord Southesk
did not hesitate to summon his tenants to follow him to the field in the
most peremptory terms. His commands fell heavily, in one instance, upon
a poor man who lived on the Earl's estate, and bore also the name of
James Carnegie. This unlucky man was a natural son of Charles, the late
Earl of Southesk, and was therefore a brother of the present Earl James.
Like all dependants in those days, he seems to have entertained a deep
sense of his obligation to serve and to obey the head of the family; and
his obedience was probably ensured by the tie of blood, however
unacknowledged as constituting a claim between him and the Earl of
Southesk. James Carnegie exercised the profession of a surgeon in the
neighbourhood of Kinnaird, then the territory of Lord Southesk, and was
employed by the Earl, who appears to have entertained considerable
opinion of his skill. When the Insurrection of 1715 broke out, it would
have been consistent with the character of a "brave and generous man" to
have left this humble practitioner free to follow his own wishes, and
not to have embroiled him in the dangers of that disastrous undertaking.
A further claim upon the Earl's forbearance was the personal defect of
the poor surgeon, who was lame, and short in stature. He was
nevertheless ordered to meet Lord Southesk, at a certain place of
rendezvous, on a certain day. A compliance was expected as a matter of
course, for James Carnegie was a yearly pensioner of his noble and
powerful brother, and refusal was ruin.[237] Nevertheless, the surgeon
ventured on this occasion to judge for himself. He had, it appears, from
his subsequent declaration, been ever well affected to the reigning
Government and attached to the Revolution interest and, by his
disapprobation of the Insurrection of 1715, had given umbrage to his
nearest relations. Upon the command of Lord Southesk being issued to
follow him to the camp at Perth, Carnegie would have fled and hidden
himself but for the illness of his wife; he afterwards took refuge in
the house of Lord Northesk, but his seclusion was of no avail. The
following letter from Lord Southesk, the original of which is in the
State Paper Office, affords a curious insight into the despotism
exercised by the little kings of the Highlands over their subjects:--

    "James,--

    "After what I both wrote and spoke to you, I did not think you would
    have made any furder difficultys of going to Perth with me. I know
    very well your wife's circumstances are to be pityd; however, since
    you have a pension from me, and served me since you have had any
    business, there is nobody of your employment in this country that I
    can put any confidence in, whatever may happen to me. Therefore I
    desire you may make no furder excuses; and if you can't be ready to
    wait upon me from Kinnaird upon Monday, I desire you may follow me
    upon Teusday; if you do not, you will for ever disoblige

                                                         "SOUTHESQUE."

    "Kinnaird, Sept. 17, 1715."

    "I desire you may come and speak with me this night, or to-morrow,
    at furdest."

"The Case of James Carnegie," also in the State Paper Office, furnishes
a supplement to this peremptory summons.

"The Case of James Carnegie showeth, that though he lived in a country
and amongst men the most notoriously disaffected of any in Scotland, he
had, ever since his appearance in the world, espoused the Revolution
interest, and given proofs of his affection to it, as would appear more
fully in a declaration from the Presbytery of Brichen, in whose bounds
he resided, and from another from Mr. John Anderson, his parish
minister. That upon the first suspision of the treasonable designs of
the rebells, Mr. James Carnegy would have set off and gone south, had
not his wife's dangerous state (thought to be dying) obliged him to
remain. That after the rebellion broke out, he firmly withstood all
solicitations to join it, his neighbours and friends there threatening
to burn house and land. He being disappointed of going south, attempted
to retire to Ethie, Lord Northesk's house in Forfarshire. He could not
remain concealed, the rebells being possessed of all the passes in the
country. Finding himself blocked up amongst his enemies, to avoid the
execution of the threatenings against him, he was induced, to his shame
and regret, to go to Perth, but permitted none of his dependants or
tennents to accompany him, and went with no arms but what gentlemen were
in the habit of wearing. In order to give no support to those traiterous
designs, he feigned illness at Coupar of Angus, but they forced him to
go."

The issue of this affair was mournful. At the battle of Sherriff Muir
where the Earl of Southesk appeared with three hundred men, the
unfortunate nobleman was supposed to be slain. His faithful, though
reluctant attendant, James Carnegie, was taken prisoner as he was
looking over the field of battle in order to find the body of his lord.
He was carried into prison at Carlisle, whence considerable exertions
were made for his release, not only by his own representations, but by
the mediation of Sir James Stewart, the governor of the castle. What was
the result, whether the blameless victim of the will of others was
released, or whether he sank among the many who could not sustain the
hardships of their fate, does not appear.[238]

The Earl of Southesk, although it was reported he had been killed,
rallied his men, and retreated with the Marquis of Tullibardine, the
Earl Marischal and several heads of clans to the mountains, to shelter
themselves from the pursuit of the Government troops. Some of these
chieftains afterwards made their escape to Skye, Lewis, and other of the
north-western islands, till ships came to their relief and carried them
abroad.[239] What was the fate of the Earl of Southesk afterwards is not
known: neither what became of his descendant.[240] He had married the
Lady Margaret Stewart, daughter of the Earl of Galloway, and by her,
according to some accounts, he had two sons; according to a contemporary
Scottish peerage, he had one child only. His widow also went on the
Continent, and the mention of her name by her brother, the Earl of
Galloway, in a letter written at Clery in France,[241] without that of
her husband, in May 1730, appears to indicate that she was then a widow,
and not married again.[242]

How long Lady Southesk lived, the wife of the Master of Sinclair, is
dubious. He survived her, and married afterwards, Emilia the daughter of
Lord George Murray, brother of the Duke of Atholl. This intimate
connection with one of the principal leaders of the Rebellion of 1745,
did not, however, induce the Master to enter a second time into a course
towards which he had, perhaps in truth, no sincere good will.

Upon his flight to the Continent, the Master of Sinclair was outlawed,
and attainted in blood for his share in the Insurrection of 1715. His
father being still alive, and not having taken an active part, his
estates escaped forfeiture, and Lord Sinclair endeavoured so to dispose
of them as to prevent their becoming the property of the Crown. It was
necessary, on this account, that Lord Sinclair should disinherit his
eldest son; and "as it would," says Sir Walter Scott, "have been highly
impolitic to have alleged his forfeiture for treason as a cause of the
deed, the slaughter of the Schaws was given as a reason for his
exheredation." The following is a clause of the deed by which the end
was to be accomplished:

"This new diposition of the family estate is explained and qualified by
the second deed, being a back bond running in the names of the said
James and William Sinclairs, which set forth that their father had been
induced to grant a disposition of his estate in their favour, and to
pass over their elder brother, to prevent all inconvenience and hazard
whatsoever which the rents of the said Lord Sinclair, his heritable
estate, or his moveables, might be liable to, if they were settled in
the said Master's person, '_on accompt of the said Master of Sinclair
his present circumstances, by means of an unfortunate quarrel that some
years ago fell out between the said Master and two sons of the deceased
Sir John Schaw of Greenock_; therefore," the deed proceeds to state, "it
was reasonable that they, James and William Sinclair, should grant a
back bond of settlement, binding themselves to manage the property, when
they should respectively succeed to it by advice of friends, overseers,
and managers,--viz. Sir John Erskine of Alva, Bart., Sir William Baird
of New Baith, Bart., Mr. John Paterson, eldest lawful son to the
deceased Archbishop of Glasgow, their brother-in-law--Sir John Cockburn
of that Ilk, Bart., and Mr. Mathew Sinclair of Hermiston, their uncles.
The said James and William Sinclair, as they should respectively succeed
to the estate, were obliged to make certain necessary expenditure to the
family for behoof of the Master; and the said James and William Sinclair
became also bound, in case the Master, their brother, should become free
of his present inconveniences, or should have a family of lawful
children, then, and in that case to convey the estate to the said
Master, or to his said children, at the sight of his trustees."[243]

In the year 1726, the Master of Sinclair received pardon, as far as his
life was concerned, but the forfeiture of his estates was not taken off,
nor certain other incapacities reversed. He then returned to the family
estate of Dysart in Fife, of which he was, by his father's disposition
of affairs, the actual proprietor; and although the rents of the
property were levied in his brother's name, they were applied and
received by the Master. General James Sinclair, the second brother of
the Master, was then the nominal owner only of the estates. But although
thus returning to his patrimonial inheritance, the Master never
recovered the good will of his former friends, nor the blessings of
security, and of a calm and honoured old age. He seldom visited
Edinburgh, living in seclusion and never going from home without being
well guarded and attended for fear of the Jacobites, or of his enemies
the Schaws. Under these circumstances it seems to have been a relief to
his bitter and mortified spirit to have vented itself, in like manner
with Lord Lovat, in composing memoirs of his own life. "These memoirs,"
says Sir Walter Scott, who long had a copy of them in his possession,
"are written[244] with talent, and peculiar satirical energy: so much
so indeed, that they have been hitherto deemed unfit for publication.
The circumstances attending the slaughter of the Schaws argue a fierce
and vindictive temper, and the frame of mind which Sinclair displays as
an author exhibits the same character. They are, however, very curious,
and it is to be hoped will one day be made public, as a valuable
addition to the catalogue of royal and noble authors. It is singular
that the author seems to have written himself into a tolerably good
style, for the language of the Memoirs, which at first is scarcely
grammatical, becomes as he advances disengaged, correct, and
spirited."[245]

On the whole, it must be acknowledged that qualities more repulsive and
a career more culpable, have darkened no narrative connected with the
Jacobites so unpleasantly as the biography of the Master of Sinclair. A
disgrace to every party, he appears to have joined the adherents of the
Stuarts, only in order to disturb their councils, and to vilify their
memory with personal invective. He has extorted no compassion for the
errors and crimes of his earlier years by the courage and magnanimity of
a later period: his character stands forth, unredeemed by a single trait
of heroism, in all the darkness of violence and revenge.

The Barony of Sinclair, lost to the family in consequence of the
attainder of the Master of Sinclair, was not assumed either by him,
after his pardon in 1726, nor by his brother General James Sinclair. At
the death of General Sinclair in 1762, the title reverted to Charles
Sinclair, Esq., of Herdmanstown, a cousin, and after him to his son
Andrew, who also allowed his claim to the Barony to lie dormant. It was,
however, revived at his death in 1776, by his only son Charles, who is
the present Lord Sinclair.[246]

FOOTNOTES:

[226] See Proceedings of the Court Martial held upon John, Master of
Sinclair, with Correspondence, p. 27. 1828. Printed by Ballantyne and
Company. Presented to the Roxburgh Club by Sir Walter Scott.

[227] It is printed in the interesting little collection before referred
to, p. 35.

[228] Life of the Master of Sinclair, p. ix.

[229] His name is not among those who were assembled on the
hunting-field of Braemar.

[230] Reay, p. 234.

[231] See Lord Mar's Life and Letters.

[232] Life of the Master of Sinclair, page v.

[233] See Lord Mar's Life, from the Mar Papers.

[234] Mar Papers.

[235] Reay's History of the Rebellion, p. 218.

[236] Reay, p. 387.

[237] See the certificate of the Justices of Forfar, in the State Paper
Office, respecting the case of James Carnegie. Dated, Montrose, the
first of October, 1716.

[238] See Papers in the State Paper Office for 1715 and 1716.

[239] Reay, p. 372.

[240] The title has remained in abeyance ever since. A mystery hangs
over the fate of this family.

[241] See Letter.

[242] The letter from Lord Garlies, in which Lady Southesk is mentioned,
is to be seen in the Murray MS. in the Advocate's Library at Edinburgh.
It is addressed to the eccentric and imprudent Sir Alexander Murray of
Stanhope. These papers were found on a floor of a room in Herriot's
Hospital, and were rescued from destruction by Dr. Irvine of the
Advocate's Library. After some remarks of no moment, Lord Garlies,
afterwards the Earl of Galloway, observes--

    "But now I hope that yours and all honest men's misfortunes are to
    have a turn, and since my cheif has had the good fortune to gett a
    young prince, I pray God his and all honest men's misfortunes may be
    at an end; and I hope before my young cheif dies, he shall have the
    name of Charles the Third. I beg of you to let me hear from you, and
    when I may expect to have the happinesse of seeing you in this
    countrey, which is what I both long mightily for, and expect as soon
    as you can conveniently. Besides, it will be a mighty obligation
    added to the many you have already done me, who am, dear Sandy,

    "yours entirely whylst
                                                            "GARLIES."

    "May 12, 1730."

    "Sister Southesque and my spouse make their compliments to you."

[243] Life of Master of Sinclair, page viii.

[244] The manuscript from which the life of the Master of Sinclair was
taken, was found by Sir Walter Scott among the papers of his mother, who
was distantly related to the family of Greenock. The proceedings of the
court-martial were attested by the subscription of John Cunningham,
probably a clerk of the court.

[245] The MS. Memoirs of the Master of Sinclair are at present in the
possession of the Countess of Rosslyn.

[246] Burke's Peerage.




CAMERON OF LOCHIEL.[247]


The clan Cameron, from whom were descended the chieftains who took an
active part in the Jacobite cause, had its seat in Lochaber, of which
one of their ancestors had originally received a grant from Robert
Bruce. They sprang, according to some accounts, from the same source as
that of the clan Chattan: they became, nevertheless, in the course of
the fourteenth century, an independent state. In a manuscript history of
the clan Cameron, they have been traced so far back as to the year 404;
and their origin in Scotland ascribed to the arrival of a younger son of
the royal family of Denmark, their progenitors acquiring the name of
Cameron from his crooked nose.

The clan consisted of three septs; but the family of Lochiel were
acknowledged as the chief, and, according to the singular system of
clanship, the Camerons freely gave up their wills to that of their
head. The history of this family, whilst it shows by what decision of
character and intrepidity of conduct this superiority was maintained,
presents little else than a tissue of successive feuds between the clan
and its neighbours, until, during the seventeenth century, the events of
history brought forth qualities of still greater importance to
distinguish the house of Lochiel. From henceforth the disputes with the
clan Chattan, and the long-standing feuds with the Mackintoshes, merged
into obscurity compared with the more stirring interests into which the
chieftains were now, fatally for their prosperity, intermingled.

The celebrated Sir Ewan Dhu of Lochiel, one of the finest specimens of
the Highland chieftains on record, had passed a long life in the service
of the Stuart family, for whom, even as a boy, he had manifested a sort
of intuitive affection. This cherished sentiment had repelled the
efforts of his kinsman, the Marquis of Argyle, to mould his youthful
mind to the precepts of the Puritans and Covenanters. Sir Ewan Dhu
combined a commanding personal appearance with a suitable majesty of
deportment, and with a shrewd, dauntless, honourable, generous mind. His
very sirname had an influence upon the good will of his superstitious
and devoted followers. It denoted that he was dark, both in hair and
complexion; and so many brave achievements had been performed by
chieftains of the clan Cameron, who were of this complexion, that it had
been foretold by gifted seers, that never should a fair Lochiel prove
fortunate. Endowed with this singular hold upon the confidence of his
people, Ewan Dhu eclipsed all his predecessors in the virtues of his
heart and the strength of his understanding. His vigilance, his energy,
and firmness were the qualities which had distinguished him as a
military leader when, in the close of his days, the hopes and designs of
the modern Jacobites began to engage the attention of the Highland
chiefs.

The career of Ewan Dhu Cameron had been one of singular prosperity. At
the age of eighteen, he had broken loose from the trammels of Argyle's
control, and joined the standard of the Marquis of Montrose. He had
contrived to keep his estate clear, even after the event of that
unsuccessful cause, from Cromwell's troops. He next repaired to the
royal standard raised in the Highlands by the Earl of Glencairne, and
won the applause of Charles the Second, then in exile at Chantilly, for
his courage and success. The middle period of his life was consumed in
efforts, not only to abet the cause of Charles the Second, but to
restore peace to his impoverished and harassed country. Yet he long
resisted persuasions to submit and swear allegiance to Cromwell, and at
length boldly avowed, that rather than take the oath for an usurper, he
would live as an outlaw. His generous and humane conduct to the English
prisoners whom he had captured during the various skirmishes had,
however, procured him friends in the English army. "No oath," wrote
General Monk, "shall be required of Lochiel to Cromwell, but his word to
live in peace." His word was given, and, until after the restoration,
Lochiel and his followers, bearing their arms as before, remained in
repose.

At Killicrankie, however, the warrior appeared again on the field,
fighting, under the unfortunate Viscount Dundee, for James the Second.
As the battle began, the enemy in General Mackay's regiment raised a
shout. "Gentlemen," cried the shrewd Lochiel, addressing the
Highlanders, "the day is our own. I am the oldest commander in the army,
and I have always observed that so dull and heavy a noise as that which
you have heard is an evil omen." The words ran throughout the
Highlanders; elated by the prediction, they rushed on the foe, fighting
like furies, and in half an hour the battle was ended.

Although Sir Ewan Dhu was thus engaged on the side of James, his second
son was a captain in the Scottish fusileers, and served under Mackay in
the ranks of Government. As General Mackay observed the Highland army
drawn up on the face of a hill, west of the Pass, he turned to young
Cameron and said, "There is your father and his wild savages; how would
you like to be with him?" "It signifies little," replied the Cameron,
"what I would like; but I would have you be prepared, or perhaps my
father and his wild savages may be nearer to you before night than you
may dream of." Upon the death of Dundee, Sir Ewan Dhu, disgusted by the
deficiencies of the commander who succeeded him, retired to Lochaber,
and left the command of his clansmen to his eldest son, John Cameron,
who, with his son Donald, form the subjects of this memoir.

Sir Ewan Dhu lived until the year 1719, enjoying the security which his
exploits had procured for him; and maintaining, by his own dignified
deportment, the credit of a family long upheld by a previous succession
of able and honourable chieftains. The state and liberality of the
Camerons were not supported, nevertheless, by a lavish expenditure;
their means were limited: "Yet," says Mrs. Grant of Laggan in her MS.
account of the clan, "perhaps even our own frugal country did not afford
an instance of a family, who lived in so respectable a manner, and
showed such liberal and dignified hospitality upon so small an income,"
as that of Lochiel.

The part which Sir Ewan Dhu had taken in the action at Killicrankie
would, it was naturally supposed, draw down upon him the vengeance of
those who visited with massacre the neighbouring valley of Glencoe. The
forbearance of Government can only be accounted for by the supposition
that King William, with his usual penetration, decreed it safer to
conciliate, than to attempt to crush a clan which was connected by
marriage with the most powerful of the Highland chieftains.

No arts could, however, win the allegiance of the Camerons from those
whom they considered as their rightful sovereigns. Towards the end of
William's reign, the young chieftain John was sent privately to France,
where his early notions of loyalty were confirmed, and his attachment
to the court of James enhanced, by the influence of the Duke of Berwick,
who formed with him a sincere and durable friendship.

The character of the chieftain was softened in the young Lochiel. He was
intelligent, frank, and conciliating in his manners, and had associated
more generally with the world than was usually the case with the
chieftains of those days. Among the circles with whom the young Lochiel
mingled, Barclay Urie, the well known apologist of the Quakers, was also
accustomed to appear. An attachment was thenceforth formed between John
Cameron and the daughter of Barclay, and a matrimonial alliance was soon
afterwards decided upon between the daughter of that gentleman and the
young chieftain.

The choice was considered a singular one on the part of the young man.
It was the customary plan to intermarry with some of the neighbouring
clans; nor was it permitted for the chieftain to make a choice without
having first ascertained how far the clan were agreeable to his wishes.
This usage proceeded, in part, from the notion of consanguinity between
every member of a clan, even of the lowest degree, to his chieftain, and
the affability and courtesy with which the head was in the habit of
treating those over whom he ruled. The clans were even known to carry
their interference with the affairs of their chief so far as to
disapprove of the choice of their abodes, or to select a site for a new
residence.[248]

The sway which Sir Ewan Dhu had acquired over his followers was such
that he dispensed with the ordinary practice, and, without the consent
of the clans, agreed to receive the young Quakeress as his daughter. The
marriage was completed, and eventually received the full approbation of
the whole clan Cameron.

Meantime, great efforts had been made on the part of the English
Government to detach Sir Ewan Dhu from his faith to James the Second.
But the monarch who could attempt so hopeless a task as the endeavour to
cause a Highlander to break his oath of fidelity, very faintly
comprehended the national character, then existing in all its strength
and all its weakness,--in its horror of petty crimes and its
co-operation of great outrages,--in its small meannesses and lofty
generous traits,--in its abhorrence of a broken vow or of treachery to a
leader. The temptation offered was indeed considerable. Sir Ewan Dhu was
to have a pension of three hundred a-year, to be perpetuated to his son,
whom the Government were particularly anxious to entice back to
Scotland. The old chieftain was also to be appointed Governor of Fort
William.[249] But the emissaries of William the Third could not have
chosen a worse period than that in which to treat with the brave and
wary Cameron. The massacre of Glencoe was fresh in the remembrance of
the people, and the stratagem, the fiendish snares which had been
prepared to betray the unsuspecting Macdonalds to their destruction,
were also recalled with the deep curses of a wronged and slaughtered
people. The game of cards, the night before the massacre, between the
villain Campbell, and the two sons of Glencoe,--the proffered and
accepted hospitality of the chieftain, whose hand was grasped in seeming
friendliness by the man who had resolved to exterminate him and his
family, were cherished recollections--cherished by the determined spirit
of hate and revenge which contemplated future retribution.

Sir Ewan Dhu therefore rejected these dazzling offers; he neither
recalled his son from France, nor accepted the command offered to him,
but busied himself in schemes which eventually swayed the destinies of
the Camerons.

Not many miles from Achnacarry, the seat of Lochiel, rose, on the border
of Loch Oich, the castle of Alaster Dhu, or Dusk Alexander, of
Glengarry. The territories of this chieftain were contiguous to those of
Lochiel; and his character, which was of acknowledged valour, wisdom,
and magnanimity, formed a still stronger bond of union than their
relative position. Glengarry was the head of a very powerful clan,
called Macdonnells, in contradistinction to the Macdonalds of the Isles,
whose claim to superiority they always resisted; declaring, by the voice
of their bards and family historians, that the house of Antrim, from
whom the Macdonalds of the Isles were descended, owed its origin to the
Macdonnells of Glengarry.

The clan Glengarry was now at its height of power under the heroic
Alaster Dhu, its chieftain, whose immediate predecessor had risen to be
a Lord of Session, at a time when that office brought no little power
and influence to its possessors: he had gained both wealth and credit in
his high seat; and, upon retiring, had visited Italy, had brought back a
taste for architecture to his native country, and the castle of
Invergarrie, part of the walls of which remain undemolished, rose as a
memento of his architectural taste.

The Lord of Session had cherished sentiments of loyalty for the exiled
family; these were transmitted to Alaster Dhu. The gallant Lochiel and
the chief of Glengarry were therefore disposed to smother in their
feelings of loyalty the feuds which too often raged between clans nearly
approximate. They therefore formed a compact to promote, in every way,
the interest of the royal exiles; and in this vain attempt at
restoration which ensued, the fate of their clansmen was sealed.[250]
That of the Camerons is yet to be told; a slight digression respecting
their gallant allies may here be excused.

When the feudal system which subsisted between the Highland chieftains
and their clansmen was dissolved, it became the plan of many of the
landholders to rid themselves of their poor tenantry, and to substitute
in their place labourers and farmers from the south of Scotland. The
helpless population of the glens and hill-sides were thus sent to
wander, poor and ignorant of anything but their own homes, and speaking
no language but their mother tongue, and wholly unskilled in any
practical wisdom. Some emigrated, but many were pressed into service on
board the emigrant ships, although the commanders of those vessels could
not, in some instances, prevail upon themselves to tear the Highlanders
away from their wives and families.

To remedy this melancholy state of affairs, and to employ the banished
mountaineers, it was proposed about the year 1794, to embody some of the
sufferers, the Macdonnells of Glengarry in particular, into a Catholic
corps, under their young chieftain, Alexander Macdonnell, and employ
them in the service of the English Government. This scheme, after many
difficulties, was accomplished. At first, it worked well for the relief
of the destitute clan; but, in 1802, in spite of their acknowledged good
conduct, the Glengarry regiment was disbanded.

The friend of the unfortunate, who had originally proposed the
consolidation of the corps, was Dr. Macdonald, who had been afterwards
appointed chaplain to the regiment. He now projected another scheme for
the maintenance of the clan Glengarry; and, after some opposition, his
plan was effected. It was to convey the whole of the Macdonnells, with
their wives and families, to a district in Upper Canada, where the clan,
at this moment, is permanently established. The place in which they live
bears the name of their native glen, and the farms they possess are
called by the loved appellations of their former tenements: and, when
the American war tried the fidelity of the emigrants, the clan gave a
proof of their loyalty by enrolling themselves into a corps, under the
old name of the Glengarry Fencibles.[251]

In the battle of Killicrankie, Glengarry had led his forces to fight for
James the Second; and after that engagement, in which Glengarry had had
a brother killed, he had become very obnoxious to the Government, and
had found it necessary to retire for some time, whilst his more favoured
friend Lochiel tranquilly occupied his own house of Achnacarrie, a place
wholly undefended. The retreat in which Glengarry hid himself was a
small wooded island in Lochacaig; and in this seclusion a manœuvre
was planned, highly characteristic of the subtlety, and yet daring of
the Highland chieftains who were engaged in it. It shows, also, the
state of the national feeling towards the English Government, at a time
when comparative quiet appeared to be established in the Highlands.

Attached to certain regiments which were then lying at Fort William,
there were a number of young volunteers, men of good family, who had a
soldier's pay, if they wished it, and were considered as pupils in the
art of war, "at liberty to retire if they chose, and eligible, being
often persons of family, to fill the vacancies which war or disease
occasioned among the subalterns."[252] This regiment was now about to
occupy the garrisons, and on their way to the Tyendrum or Black Mount,
the officers engaged in conversation, little dreading an assault in a
country inhabited only by a few herdsmen, and considered by them as
wholly subdued. But they were deceived in their sense of safety. Among
the heath and bushes in a narrow pass, circumscribed, on the one side,
by a steep mountain, and on the other by a small lake, which skirted the
path, for road there was not, lay in ambush two hundred well-armed and
light-footed Highlanders. The youths, or volunteers, were in the rear of
the regiment; as they marched fearlessly through the deep solitude of
this wild district, the Highlanders sprang forwards from their
ambuscade; and before the young soldiers could recover their surprise or
have recourse to their arms, eight or ten young men of family were
seized on and hurried away. With these were mingled others, among these
volunteers of less importance, who were carried away in the confusion by
mistake. A few shots were fired by the soldiery, but without any effect,
for the Highlanders had disappeared. This sudden attack excited the
utmost consternation among the officers of the regiment, nor could they
discover the object of this aggression; nor did they know either how to
pursue the assailants, or in what terms to report to Government so
ignominious a loss. They marched, therefore, silently to Dumbarton
without attempting to pursue an enemy whose aim it might be to lure
them into some fastness, there to encounter a foe too powerful, from the
nature of the country, to be resisted. On arriving at Dumbarton the
mystery was explained. There the commander of the corps found a letter,
stating that "certain chiefs of clans had no objection to King William's
ruling in England, considering that nation as at liberty to choose its
own rulers; but that they never could, consistently with what they had
sworn on their arms, take an oath to any other sovereign while the
family of St. Germains remained in existence. They were," the writers
continued, "unwilling either to perjure themselves, or to hold their
lands in daily fear, and subject to the petty instruments of power. They
were willing to live peaceably under the present rule, but were resolved
neither to violate the dictates of conscience, nor to have their
possessions disturbed. In the meantime, to prevent encroachments upon
their lands, and to prevent the necessity of rushing into hostilities
with the Government, they had taken hostages to ensure their safety, and
with these they would never part until Sir Ewan Dhu and Alaster Dhu had
obtained assurances that they should never be disturbed for their
principles whilst they lived peaceably on their estates."

This declaration was accompanied by a powerful remonstrance upon the
folly and danger of exasperating clans powerful from their union, and
from the inaccessibility of the country which they inhabited. The
tenderness of conscience, the fidelity to an exiled monarch, were made,
the writers urged, a plea for every species of oppression and petty
tyranny. The late massacre of Glencoe justified, they said, the measures
of precaution they were taking; and, finally they threatened, should
their petition be refused to take refuge in France, carrying with them
their young hostages, there to proclaim the impolicy and injustice of
the English Government. This address was dispatched, not to the Privy
Council, but to the relations and friends of the young prisoners, who
were interested in procuring a favourable reception for its negotiation;
and the chiefs who subscribed to this address reasonably expected that
the fear of their power, exaggerated in the sister kingdom, where a
total ignorance of the manners and character of the Scottish
mountaineers existed, would prevail to lend force to their arguments.
This negotiation was never made public; it proved, however, effectual,
as far as the comfort of some of the parties engaged in it were
concerned.

By the influence of the rising party, who, espousing the interests of
the Princess Anne, were gaining ground in the country during the decline
of William, Sir Ewan Dhu and Glengarry, who were jointly considered as
the promoters of this affair, remained unpunished for a manœuvre on
which public opinion in England was not inclined to pass a very severe
judgment, after the recent massacre of Glencoe.[253] Some secret
negotiations placed everything on a secure footing; and, during the
reign of Queen Anne; the two chieftains lived in tranquillity, their
mutual regard continuing undiminished during their lives, and becoming
the subject, after their deaths, of the lays composed in their honour by
their native bards.

During his latter days, Sir Ewan Dhu had the consolation of seeing his
son happy in the choice of a wife. Beautiful and good, the young
Quakeress soon established herself in the good opinions of all those who
were acquainted with her; and there seems every reason to conclude that
she inherited the virtues, without the peculiarities of her father,
Robert Barclay of Urey. That eminent man was descended from a Norman
family which traced its ancestry to Thomas de Berkley, whose descendants
established themselves in Scotland. By his mother's side, Barclay was
allied to the house of Huntley; and by his connection with the heiress
of the mother's family, a considerable estate in Aberdeenshire was added
to the honours of antiquity. Unhappily for the lovers of the old Norman
appellations, the name of de Berkley was changed, in the fifteenth
century, into that of Barclay. One of Robert Barclay's sons, who became
a mercer in Cheapside, had the rare fortune of entertaining three
successive monarchs when they visited the City on the Lord Mayor's
Day,--George the First, George the Second, and George the Third; whose
heart, as it is well known, was touched by the beauty of one of the fair
descendants of Robert Barclay.

Previously to the marriage between Lochiel and the young Quakeress, the
family into which he entered had been impoverished, and the estate of
Mathers, from which the Barclays derived their name, sold to defray
debt.

The career of Robert Barclay was singular. He was first converted to
Popery during his residence in Paris, when he was fifteen; and he
changed that faith for the simple persuasion of the Quakers when he had
attained his nineteenth year. He adopted the tenets of the Friends at a
period when it required much courage to adhere to a sect who were
vilified and ridiculed, not only in England but in Scotland. It was to
refute these attacks against the Quakers that Barclay wrote the book
entitled, "Truth cleared of Calumnies." His ability and sincerity have
never been doubted; but some distrust of his reason may be forgiven,
when we find the Quaker, a grave and happily married man, walking
through the streets of Aberdeen, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, under
the notion that he was commanded by the Lord to call the people unto
repentance; he appealed to witnesses to prove the "agony of his spirit,"
and how he "had besought the Lord with tears, that this cup might pass
away from him."

This singular act of humiliation was contrasted by frequent visits to
the Court of Charles the Second, and to Elizabeth of Bohemia. To the
house of Stuart, Barclay was ever fondly attached. His father had
suffered in the civil wars; and the doctrines of non-resistance and
passive obedience, avowed by the Quakers, were favourable to the Stuart
dynasty. The last visit which Barclay paid to London was rendered
memorable by the abdication of James the Second. As he was standing
beside that monarch, near a window, the King looked out, and remarked
that "the wind was fair for the Prince of Orange to come over." "It is
hard," replied Barclay, "that no expedient can be found to satisfy the
people." James answered, that "he would do anything becoming a
gentleman, except parting with liberty of conscience, which he would
never do while he lived." Barclay only survived that eventful period two
years. His children, singular as it may seem, were all living fifty
years after their father's death.

To the daughter of this inflexible and courageous man was Cameron of
Lochiel united. During the first years of their marriage, even before
the death of Sir Ewan Dhu, they lived peacefully in the home of their
ancestors; and whilst Anne reigned, that happy tranquillity was
undisturbed. The name of Anne was long cherished in the Highlands on
account of the rare intervals of peace and plenty which her rule, and as
it was thought, her pious prayers, afforded to a ravaged and oppressed
country. Seven years' famine, during the reign of William, were charged
upon the monarch's head: plenteous crops and peaceful abundance were
ascribed to the merits of Queen Anne.[254] Meantime, the gentle and
happy Lady of Lochiel won all hearts: she was distinguished, as
tradition reports, for prudence, activity and affability. "One great
defect," adds Mrs. Grant, "she had, however, which was more felt as such
in the Highlands than it would have been in any other place. She did
not, as a certain resolute countrywoman of hers was advised to do,
'bring forth men-children only;' on the contrary, daughters in
succession, a thing scarce pardonable in one who was looked up to and
valued in a great measure as being the supposed mother of a future
chief. In old times women could only exist while they were defended by
the warriour and supported by the hunter. When this dire necessity in
some measure ceas'd, the mode of thinking to which it gave rise
continued. And after the period of youth and beauty were past, woman was
only consider'd as having given birth to man. John Locheil's mind was
above this illiberal prejudice: he loudly welcomed his daughters and
caress'd their mother on their appearrance as much as if every one of
them had been a young hero in embryo. His friends and neighbours us'd on
these occassions to ask in a sneering manner, "What has the lady got?"
To which he invariably answered, "A lady indeed:" this answer had a more
pointed significance there than with us. For in the Highlands no one is
call'd a lady but a person named to the proprietors of an estate. All
others, however rich or high-born, are only _gentlewomen_. How the
prediction intentionally included in the chief's answer was fulfill'd,
will hereafter appear.

"Besides the family title, every Highland chieftain has a patronymic
deriv'd from the most eminent of their ancestors, probably the founder
of the family, and certainly the first who confer'd distinction on it.
Thus Argyle is the son of Colin, Breadalbane the son of Archibald, &c.;
and the chief of the Camerons was always stil'd son of Donald Dhu, Black
Donald, whatever his name or complexion may be, as well as the
appellation deriv'd from it, because it would appear hereditary in the
family, and at length it became a tradition or prophesy among the clan
that a fair Lochiel should never prosper."

At length, after the birth of twelve daughters, a son and heir made his
appearance. But the satisfaction of the clans was dashed by hearing that
the ill-starred little laird was fair, like his sisters. The prophecy
that a fair Lochiel should never prosper, was recalled with dismay; and,
unhappily, the fears of superstition were too mournfully realized by
fact. The young Cameron was named Donald: his birth was followed by the
appearance of two other boys,--Archibald, afterwards the ill-fated Dr.
Cameron, and John, who was called Fassefern, from an estate. "The proud
prediction of their father," continues Mrs. Grant, "was soon amply
fulfilled with regard to the daughters of this extraordinary family."
"Their history," she adds, "unites the extravagance of romance with the
sober reality of truth."

The twelve daughters of Lochiel were admirably educated, and the fame of
their modest virtues soon extended through the Highlands. The great
point in matrimonial alliances in those rude regions was to obtain a
wife well born, and well allied; and little fortune was ever expected
with the daughter of a chief. Ancestry was the great point with a
Highlander, for he believed that defects of mind, as well as of person,
were hereditary. All, therefore, sought the daughters of Lochiel, as
coming of an untainted race. The elder ones were married early, and
seemed, as Mrs. Grant expresses it, by the solicitude to obtain them, as
ever to increase, like the Sibyl's leaves, in value, as they lessened in
number. Of the daughters, one, the youngest and the fairest, was
actually married to Cameron of Glendinning, in the twelfth year of her
age. She became a widow, and afterwards married Maclean of Kingasleet,
so that she was successively the wife of two heads of houses. Another,
Jean Cameron, who was the least comely of her family, but possessed of a
commanding figure and powerful understanding, was married to Clunie, the
Chief of the Clan Macpherson. She is said to have been celebrated in the
pathetic poem, entitled "Lochaber no More," the poet, who laments his
departure from Lochaber, and his farewell to his Jean, having been an
officer in one of the regiments stationed at Fort William.

By the marriage of his twelve daughters with the heads of houses, the
political importance of Lochiel was considerably enhanced, and a
confederacy, containing many noted families who were bound together by
opinion and kindred, formed a strong opposition to the reigning
Government. The sons-in-law of Lochiel were the following chiefs:
Cameron of Dungallan, Barclay of Urie, Grant of Glenmoriston, Macpherson
of Clunie, Campbell of Barcaldine, Campbell of Auchalader, Campbell of
Auchlyne, Maclean of Lochbuy, Macgregor of Bohowdie, Wright of Loss,
Maclean of Ardgour, and Cameron of Glendinning. All the daughters became
the mothers of families; "and these numerous descendants, still,"
observes Mrs. Grant, "cherish the bonds of affinity, now so widely
diffused, and still boast their descent from these female
worthies."[255]

Among most of the influential chieftains who espoused the daughters of
Lochiel, was the celebrated Macpherson of Clunie, who afterwards took a
very important part in the Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. The career of
Clunie affords a melancholy, but rare, instance of indecision, if not of
double dealing, in the Jacobites. Before the battle of Culloden, anxious
to retrieve his affairs and to ensure his safety, he took the oaths to
the English Government, and was appointed to a company in Lord Loudon's
Highlanders. His clan, nevertheless, were eager to join Charles Edward,
and urged him to lead them to his standard. Clunie hesitated between
the obligation to his oath, and his secret devotion to the Stuarts. His
defection irritated the British Government: he became one of those whose
life was forfeited to the laws. After the battle of Culloden he secreted
himself, and lived for nine years in a cave, at a short distance from
the site of his own house, which had been burned by the King's troops.
The cave was in front of a woody precipice, the trees, &c., completely
concealing the entrance. It was dug out by his own people, who worked at
night, or when time had slackened the rigour of the search. Upwards of
one hundred persons knew of this retreat, and one thousand pounds were
offered as a reward to any who would discover it. Eighty men were
stationed there to intimidate the tenantry into a disclosure, but it was
all in vain; none could be found so base as to betray their chief.[256]

For two years Sir Hector Monro in vain remained in Badenoch, for the
purpose of discovering Clunie's retreat. The Macphersons remained true
to their chieftain. At times he emerged from his dark recess, to mingle
for awhile in the hours of night with his friends, when he was protected
by the vigilance and affection of his clansmen, unwearied in their work
of duty. At last, broken-spirited, and despairing of that mercy which
was accorded by the English Government to so few of the insurgents,
Clunie escaped to France, and there died, ten years after the fatal
events of 1745.[257] The estate of this unfortunate chieftain was
restored to his family, who claim to be the ancient representatives of
the clan Chattan; with what justice it would be dangerous to declare,
since no risk could be more rashly encountered than that which is
incurred in discussing Highland prerogative.

Surrounded by his powerful relatives and fair daughters, Lochiel hailed
with no very sanguine spirit the coming troubles which quickly followed
the accession of the house of Hanover. Already was the Jacobite
association busily at work in the south of Scotland; and it was
impossible, from the temper of the populace in both nations, not to
augur, in a short time, some serious popular outbreak. In the minds of
the Highland chieftains a hatred of English dominion, and a desire of
independence, constituted even a more potent source of adherence of the
Stuarts than any personal feeling towards that line. Most of these
chiefs languished to see a king of their own nation reign over them. To
such a ruler they would, as they considered, be viewed not as a
secondary object. Their interests had been neglected in the Treaty of
Darien,--a settlement which had inspired the landholders of the Low
Country with aversion to William.

Expectations had also been raised, tending to the belief that Anne,
secretly well affected to her brother, had made such provisions in her
will as would ensure the descent of the Crown in the direct line; and
nothing could exceed the disgust and amazement of the Highlanders when
they beheld a foreigner seated on a throne, from which, they well knew,
it would be impossible to dispossess him. "To restore," as Mrs. Grant
observes, "their ancient race of monarchs to the separate Crown of
Scotland, was their fondest wish. This visionary project was never
adopted by the Jacobites at large, who were too well informed to suppose
it either practicable or eligible. But it serv'd as an engine to excite
the zeal of bards and sennachies, who were still numerous in the
Highlands, and in whose poetry strong traces of this airy project may
still be found."

Soon after the accession of George the First, certain of the Highland
chieftains dispatched a letter to the Earl of Mar, desiring that
nobleman to assure the Government of their loyalty and submission. Among
the names subscribed are those of Lochiel, of his friend Glengarry, and
of Clunie. The address is said to have been a stratagem of Mar's to gain
time, and to give him an opportunity of ripening his schemes.[258] But
it appears more probable that there was, at first, a spirit of
moderation and a desire for peace in the chieftains, until they were
afterwards stimulated by the intrigues of the disappointed and baffled
Earl of Mar. Lochiel, as well as many others, had little to gain, but
much to lose, in any change of dynasty or convulsion in the state.
Prosperous, beloved, secure, his fidelity to that which he believed to
be the right cause was honourable to the highest degree to his
character. That he was not sanguine in his hopes, is more than probable.
Before he went to the battle of Sherriff Muir, he arranged his affairs
so as to be prepared for the worst result that might befal his family.
The frequent occurrence of feuds and civil wars in Scotland had taught
the higher classes the use of stratagem and manœuvre in these
domestic disturbances. It was not unusual for a son and a father often
to affect to take opposite sides, in order that the estate, happen what
might, should be preserved to the family; and this was considered as
consulting the general good of the clan. Lochiel, although he did not
pursue this plan, yet left his affairs so arranged that, in the most
fatal results of the Rebellion of 1715, his estate might be protected.
His sons-in-law, powerful and devoted to the same cause, were well
qualified to aid and to protect those members of the family who were
entrusted to their friendly guidance. John Cameron was still styled
"Cameron the younger, of Lochiel," for the renowned Sir Ewan Dhu was
living when Mar summoned the chieftains to the hunting-field of Braemar.
The aged chieftain had, at this time, attained his eighty-seventh year;
it had been his glory, in early life, to defend a pass near Braemar
against Cromwell's troops, until the royal army had retired; and, in
fact, to be the instrument of saving Glencairn's troops, keeping himself
clear of those cabals which at that time fatally harassed the
disorganized Royalists. It was now his fate to send forth, under the
guidance of his son, his gallant Camerons, to the number of eight
hundred, to espouse the cause of the Stuarts.[259] No jealousies
disturbed the confidence reposed on the one side, nor alienated
affection on the other. The affection of the Highlanders for their
children was one of the softened features in the national character. It
was usually repaid with a decree of reverence, of filial piety, which,
however other qualities may have declined and died away in the Highland
character, have remained, like verdant plants amid autumnal decay. The
appalling spectacle of a parent forsaken, or even neglected, by a child,
is a sight never known in the Highlands: nor is the sense of duty
lessened by absence from the mountains where first the sentiment was
felt. The Highland soldier, far from his country, is accompanied by this
holy love, this inexhaustible stimulus to exertion, which induces him to
save with what may be unjustly called a niggard hand his earnings, to
support, in their old age, those who have given him birth. "I have
been," says General Stewart, "a frequent witness of these offerings of
filial bounty, and the channel through which they were communicated; and
I have generally found that a threat of informing their parents of
misconduct, has operated as a sufficient check on young soldiers, who
always received the intimation with a sort of horror."[260]

Blessed, doubtless, with the approval of his father, Sir Ewan Dhu,
Lochiel quitted his home. He left a wife whom he loved, a parent whom
he reverenced, and whose span of life could not be long extended; he
left a numerous and prosperous family, upon a sense of duty, a principle
of loyalty, an adherence, so fixed and so sure among the Highlanders, to
his engagements. The name of Cameron does not appear among the
chieftains who were assembled at Braemar; but it appears probable that
he attended the Earl of Mar's summons, since he was cited, by the
authority of an act passed on the thirtieth of August, to appear at
Edinburgh, as well as a number of other disaffected chieftains and
noblemen, to give bail for his allegiance to the Government. The summons
was not answered by a single individual, and the preparations for the
fatal insurrection continued in unabated activity.

The details of the hopeless struggle contain no especial mention of John
Cameron of Lochiel; but, from manuscript sources, we learn that, after
the battle of Sherriff Muir, he continued with the Jacobite army,
conducted by General Gordon, to whom James Stuart had entrusted the
command of that remnant of his gallant and deserted adherents. The
Jacobite army having marched to Aberdeen, were there informed by General
Gordon of the flight of the Chevalier, of that of Lord Mar, and of the
other principal leaders. A letter was then read to them from James,
declaring that the disappointments which he had met with, especially
from abroad, had obliged him to leave the country. He thanked his
subjects for their services, and desired them to advise with General
Gordon, and to consult their own safety, either by keeping in a body,
or separating, and encouraged them to hear from him again in a very
short time. A singular scene ensued. General Gordon and the chief
officers of the army, are said to have pretended surprise at this
disclosure, although they were previously in the secret; but the
indignation of the soldiers was extreme.

"We are basely betrayed," they cried out; "we are all undone; we have
neither King nor General left!"

Shortly after this crisis, the Jacobite army dispersed; two hundred of
them, amongst whom were many chieftains, went towards Peterhead,
intending to embark, in vessels which they knew were waiting for them,
for France; but the main body of the army marched westward, to
Strathspey and Strath-dore to the Hills of Badenoch, where they
separated. The foot-soldiers dispersed into the mountains, near Lochy,
and the horse went to Lochaber, agreeing to reassemble, such was their
undaunted fidelity and courage, on receiving notice from the
Chevalier.[261] But such a summons never came, to arouse those brave men
from the repose of their glens and fortresses.

Lochiel had entrusted the guidance of his clan to his son, afterwards
well known by the name of "gentle Lochiel," and the faithful promoter of
Charles Edward's ill-starred enterprise. Persuaded that the safety and
honour of his house were safe in the hands of this promising young man,
who had been purposely kept in ignorance of the projected rising, and
had taken no part in it, Lochiel resolved to consult his own safety, and
to follow his royal master to France. After wandering for some time near
Braemar, and in Badenoch, he escaped by means of one of the French
frigates which were cruising near the coast of Scotland.[262]

In 1719 Sir Ewan Dhu expired, having witnessed the rise and fall of that
attempt to restore the Stuarts, which was only succeeded by a more
desperate and melancholy undertaking. He lived to see his son an exile,
but he had the consolation of reflecting that the honour of his clan,
the great desideratum with a chieftain, was yet unstained either by
cowardice or disloyalty.

The Camerons do not appear to have had any participation in the abortive
attempt in 1718 to revive the Stuart claim. Considered by the English
Government as a proscribed rebel, and deemed of too much importance to
be forgiven, Lochiel passed henceforth most of his days in the
melancholy court of St. Germains, where he soon perceived how little
faith there was to be placed in the energy and determination of James
Stuart. At times his weary exile was relieved by secret visits to his
own home at Achnacarry, where he found his son, dutiful and amiable,
holding his possessions as in trust for his father. Lochiel was enabled
by the power and alliance of his sons-in-law to remain in safety, as
long as he pleased, during these visits; yet he professed to renounce
Scotland until a change of Government should facilitate his return as a
chieftain to his clansmen. In every district he found kindred ready to
protect him, and he derived much importance from the influence he
possessed through his children. His sons-in-law were mostly the heads of
clans, and they all looked up to Lochiel with affectionate reverence.
Had Lochiel been a remorseless partisan of James, instead of a true
lover of his country, he might easily have stimulated his kindred, and
set into motion the whole of that powerful connection of which he was
the centre. But he perceived too plainly the risk of such a proceeding,
and wisely declined involving the peaceful and the prosperous in the
dangers of another contest. His moderate sentiments were confirmed by
the early wisdom of his son,--one of those bright patterns of human
excellence, gifted with every charm which attends a noble and gallant
chieftain.

During the early part of the Rebellion of 1745, John of Lochiel remained
in France; but, when the battles of Falkirk and of Preston Pans raised
the hopes of his party, he came over to Scotland, and landed on the
coasts of Lochaber, a short time before the fatal blow to the Stuart
cause was given at Culloden. After taking a last look at his house, and
visiting, with what feelings can well be conceived, the scenes of his
childhood, the haunts of his ancestry,--the house of Achnacarry, which
was soon, as he well might conjecture, to be the object of vengeance to
a foe more ruthless and brutal than ever party spirit had infuriated in
this country before,--Lochiel, embarking in the vessel which had brought
him to Scotland, elate with hope, returned to France. His exile was
cheered by the friendship of the Duke of Berwick, but his heart seems
ever to have been in Scotland. A few years afterwards he came over again
privately to Edinburgh, and there his eventful life was closed.[263] His
estates were included, after the year 1745, in the numerous forfeitures
which followed the Rebellion; but they were eventually restored, and
they have remained in possession of the family. Intrepid and amiable as
John of Lochiel appears to have been, and perilous as was his career,
his character bears no comparison in interest with that of one who was
one of the brightest ornaments of his party--his gallant unfortunate
son.

Donald Cameron of Lochiel, had long exercised the authority of a
chieftain, before the Rebellion of 1745 entailed upon him a
participation in occupations still more arduous. He had, in short,
arrived at middle age when he was called upon to support the claims of
Charles Edward.

To the virtues and intentions of this chieftain, even his enemies have
borne tribute. He was accomplished, refined, and courteous; yet brave,
firm, and daring. The warlike tribes around him, unaccustomed to such a
combination of qualities, idolized the gallant and the good Lochiel. His
father, reposing on his honour and prudence, relied with security upon
his son's management of the family estates, and this confidence was
never disturbed by presumption on the one hand, nor by suspicion on the
other.

Donald Cameron had imbibed the principles of his father; and there is
little doubt but that, during the furtive visits of John Lochiel to
Scotland, a tacit understanding had been formed between them to support
the "good old cause," as they termed it, whenever circumstances should
permit. But Donald Cameron, although "he loved his King well, loved his
country better;" nor could he be persuaded to endanger the peace of that
country by a rash enterprise, which could never, as he justly thought,
prosper without foreign aid, and the hearty co-operation of the English
Jacobites. His own clansmen were, he well knew, prepared for the
contest, come when it might; for the conversation of the small gentry
and of the retainers consisted, to borrow a description from a
contemporary writer, entirely of disquisitions upon "martiall
atchievements, deer huntings, and even valuing themselves upon their
wicked expeditions and incursions upon their innocent low-country
neighbours. They have gott," adds the same author,[264] "a notion and
inviollable maxim handed down to them from their forefathers, that they,
being the only ancient Scotsmen, that whole nation belongs to them in
property, and look on all the low-country-men as a mixture of Danes,
Saxons, Normans, and English, who have by violence robbed them of the
best part of their country, while they themselves are penned up in the
most mountainous and barren parts thereof to starve; therefore think it
no injustice to commit dayly depredations upon them, making thereby
conscience to interrupt their illegal possession (as they call it) in
case it should prescribe into a right."[265]

It would not have been difficult to have blown such combustible
materials into a flame; but Donald Cameron adopted a different policy,
and endeavoured to allay the angry passions of the tribe over which he
ruled: nevertheless, his own conduct was perfectly consistent with his
principles; and such was the notion entertained of his integrity and
moderation, that though he never took the oaths to the reigning family,
he was indulged in that tenderness of conscience and permitted to remain
in peace, even though residing in the immediate neighbourhood of a great
military station.[266]

Donald Cameron had indeed a more valuable stake in the country than
houses or lands. He was married in the year 1723 to the daughter of Sir
James Campbell of Auchinbreck, a lady of whom it is high praise to say,
that she was worthy of being the companion of such a man.

Thus situated, the nominal holder of an estate which, though long
maintained in the family, is said never to have exceeded in value five
hundred pounds a-year, and less prejudiced against the English and the
ruling powers than his predecessors, Donald Cameron felt, it is
asserted, little desire to promote a second invasion of the country by
the Chevalier. The slightest intimation of his father's wish to revive
that cause would have been sufficient to set the whole family
confederacy into motion; but the wisdom of the younger Lochiel had been
ripened by the cautious and critical part which he had had to perform in
life; and that prudent disposition, enforced by his father's
circumspection, prevented any precipitate measures.

Of the favour and confidence of the Chevalier, Donald Cameron was well
assured. In 1729, the following letter was addressed to him, under the
name of Mr. Johnstone, by James.[267]

    "I am glad of this occasion to let you know how well plessed I am to
    hear of the care you take to follow your father's and uncle's
    example in their loyalty to me; and I doubt not of your endeavours
    to maintain the true spirit in the clan. Allan is now with me, and
    I am always glad to have some of my brave Highlanders about me, whom
    I value as they deserve. You will deliver the enclosed to its
    address, and doubt not of my particular regard for you, which I am
    persuaded you will always deserve.

            (Signed) "JAMES R."

    "April 11, 1727."

In addition to these instructions, Donald Cameron received a letter from
his uncle, Allan Cameron, (in 1729,) who attended the Chevalier during
his residence at Albano; from which it appears that a full commission
had been sent to Lochiel to treat with "such of the King's friends in
Scotland," as he thought were safe to be trusted concerning his affairs.
It was also intimated that James had conceived a high opinion of the
good sense and prudence of Lochiel, from his letters; and encouragement
was given to any future exertions. The uncle then instructed his nephew
how to answer the King's letter in the following explicit manner. These
directions are tolerably minute:[268]

    "I think it proper you should write to the King by the first post
    after you receive his letter. I need not advise you what to say in
    answer to such a gracious letter from your King, only let it not be
    very long. Declare your duty and readiness to execute his Majesty's
    commands on all occasions, and your sense of the honour he has been
    pleased to do you in giving you such a commission. I am not to chuse
    words for you, because I am sure you can express yourself in a
    dutiful and discreet manner without any help. You are to write, Sir,
    on a large margin, and to end, Your most faithful and obedient
    subject and servant; and to address to the King and no more; which
    inclose to me sealed. I pray send me a copy of it on a paper
    inclosed, with any other thing that you do not think fit or needful
    the King should see in your letter to me, because I will shew your
    answer to this, wherein you may say that you will be mindful of all
    I wrote to you, and what else you think fit."

To these instructions assurances were added, that the elder Lochiel, who
had, it seems, been in necessitous circumstances after his attainder,
and during his exile, should be relieved at the Chevalier's expense; "so
that," adds the uncle, "your mind may be pretty easy upon that point."
Donald had, it appears, expressed some discontent at the comparative
comfort in which some of the exiled Jacobites lived, and the poverty of
his father's circumstances, which he had observed when in Paris a few
years previous to this correspondence. Allan Cameron further advised his
nephew to keep on good terms with Glengarry and all other neighbours; to
let "byganes, be byganes," as long as such neighbours continue firm to
the "King's interests;" to avoid private animosities, and yet to keep a
watch over their fidelity to the cause. "As to Lovat," adds the uncle,
"be on your guard, but not so as to lose him; on the contrary, you may
say that the King trusts a great deal to the resolution he has taken to
serve him, and expects he will continue in that resolution. But, dear
nephew, you know very well that he must give true and real proof of his
sincerity by performance, before he can be entirely reckoned on, after
the part he has acted. This I say to yourself, and therefore you must
deal with him very dexterously; and I must leave it to your own judgment
what lengths to go with him, since you know he has always been a man
whose chief view was his own interest. It is true, he wishes our family
well; and I doubt not he would wish the King restored, which is his
interest, if he has the grace to have a hand in it, after what he has
done. So, upon the whole, I know not what advice to give you, as to
letting him know that the King wrote you such a letter as you have; but
in general, you are to make the best of him you can, but still be on
your guard; for it is not good to put too much in his power before the
time of executing a good design. The King knows very well how useful he
can be if sincere, which I have represented as fully as was necessary.

"This letter is of such bulk, that I have inclosed the King's letter
under cover with another letter addressed for your father, as I will not
take leave of you till next post. I add only, that I am entirely yours,

            (Signed)    "A. CAMERON."

       *       *       *       *       *

Eight years afterwards (in 1736), when inquiries were made by the
Chevalier concerning the temper of the people, and the state of the
clans, it was stated that the most leading men among the clans were
Cameron of Lochiel and Sir Alexander Macdonald. The Cameronians were, it
was stated, well armed, and regularly regimented among themselves, but
"so giddy and inconstant" that they could not be depended on; only that
they were strongly enraged against the Government. "The leading men
among the loyalists were reported much diminished; nor was it easy, from
the necessity of concealing their sentiments, since the last rising, to
make any estimate of the amount of those who would enter into any second
scheme."[269] Considering Cameron of Lochiel as thus empowered to give
information of the first movements of James, the Jacobites in the
Highlands were in continual communication with Cameron; yet, perhaps
considering that those who engaged in the last insurrection, being
nearly superannuated, would rather wish well to the cause than engage
again, he still kept the fervent spirits of that political party whom he
thus regarded in an equable state,--ready to act, yet willing to wait
for a favourable occasion. In 1740 Donald Cameron signed, nevertheless,
the association of seven carried by Drummond of Bochaldy to Rome; but
when the Court of France, after the disaster at Dunkirk, withdrew its
aid, he was one of those who sent over Murray to dissuade Charles from
coming to Scotland, unless accompanied by a body of foreign troops:--so
true were his professions of fidelity, and so finely was that fidelity
tempered with prudence. Holding these opinions, which were amply
verified by the result of the Rebellion of 1745, when Donald Cameron
received a letter from Prince Charles, written at Borodale, and desiring
to see him immediately, it was in sorrow and perplexity that he received
the summons. He sent his brother, the unfortunate Dr. Archibald Cameron,
to urge the Prince to return, and to assure him that he should not join
in the undertaking. But the Prince persisted in the resolution he had
formed of persevering in his attempt, and gave to Dr. Cameron the same
reply that he had already given to others, and then, addressing himself
to Macdonald of Scothouse, who had gone to the coast to pay his respects
to the Prince, he asked him if he could go to Lochiel and endeavour to
persuade him to do his duty. Young Scothouse replied, he would comply
with the Prince's wishes, and immediately set out for Achnacarry. Such a
message from such a quarter could not be resisted, and Lochiel prepared
to accompany young Scothouse to Borodale. Lochiel's reluctance to assent
was not, however, overcome: his mind misgave him. He knew well the state
of his country, and he took this first step with an ominous foreboding
of the issue. He left his home, determined not to take arms. On his way
to Borodale he called at the house of his brother, John Cameron of
Fassefern, who came out and inquired what had brought him from home at
that early hour? Lochiel replied that the Prince had arrived from
France, and had sent to see him. Fassefern inquired what troops the
Prince had brought? what money? what arms? Lochiel answered that the
Prince had brought neither money, nor arms, nor troops, and that he was
therefore resolved not to be concerned in any attempt, and to dissuade
Charles from an insurrection. Fassefern approved of his brother's
decision, but recommended him not to proceed to Borodale, but to
communicate his resolution by letter. "No," rejoined Lochiel; "it is my
duty to go to the Prince, and unfold to him my reasons, which admit of
no reply." "Brother," returned Fassefern, "I know you better than you
know yourself; if the Prince once sets his eyes upon you, he will make
you do whatever he pleases."[270]

Lochiel, nevertheless, proceeded to Borodale.

The gallant chief found the Prince surrounded by those who, like
himself, had consented, unwillingly, to join in the ill-starred
enterprise. The personal courage of Charles Edward has been doubted; but
his determination and fearlessness at this critical moment, afford an
ample contradiction of the charge. Whilst on board the ship which
brought him to Scotland, it was represented to him that he must keep
himself very retired, as the garrison at Inverlochie was not far off,
and as the Campbells in the neighbourhood would be ready to take him. "I
have no fear about that at all," was his reply. "If I could get six
stout trusty fellows to join me," he said, on another occasion, "I would
rather skulk about the mountains of Scotland than return to France."[271]

The Prince was in this temper of mind when Lochiel reached him. Upon his
arrival at Borodale, the Prince and he immediately retired to a long and
private conference.

The conversation began, upon the part of Charles, by complaints of the
treatment which he had received from the Ministers of France, "who had
long," he said, "amused him with vain hopes, and deceived him with
promises:" "their coldness in his cause," he added, "but ill agreed with
the confidence which he had in his own claims, and with the enthusiasm
which the loyalty of his father's brave and faithful subjects had
inspired in him." Lochiel acknowledged the engagements of the chiefs,
but remarked that they were not binding, since his Highness had come
without the stipulated aid; and, therefore, since there was not the
least prospect of success, he advised the Prince to return to France,
and reserve himself and his faithful friends to some more favourable
opportunity.[272]

This counsel was extremely distasteful to Charles Edward; already had
the young and gallant Prince declared to one of the Macdonalds, who had
urged the same opinion, that he did not choose to owe the restoration
of his father's throne to foreigners, but to his own friends, to whom he
was now come to put it in their power to have the glory of that
event.[273] He therefore refused to follow Lochiel's advice, asserting
that there could not be a more favourable moment than the present, when
all the British troops were abroad, and kept at bay by Marshal Saxe. In
Scotland, he added, there were only a few regiments, newly raised, and
unused to service. These could never stand before the brave Highlanders;
and the first advantage gained would encourage his father's friends to
declare themselves, and would ensure foreign aid. He only wanted "the
Highlanders to begin the war."

"Lochiel," to use the words of Mr. Home, "still resisted, entreating
Charles to be more temperate, and consent to remain concealed where he
was, till he (Lochiel) and his other friends should meet together and
concert what was best to be done." Charles, whose mind was wound up to
the utmost pitch of impatience, paid no regard to this proposal, but
answered, that he was determined to put all to the hazard. "In a few
days," said he, "with the few friends that I have, I will erect the
royal standard, and proclaim to the people of Britain that Charles
Stuart is come over to claim the crown of his ancestors, to win it, or
to perish in the attempt: Lochiel," continued he, "who my father has
often told me was our firmest friend, may stay at home, and learn from
the newspapers the fate of his Prince; and so shall every man over whom
nature or fortune hath given me any power." Such was the singular
conversation on the result of which depended peace or war; for it is a
point agreed among the Highlanders, that if Lochiel had persisted in his
refusal to take arms, the other chiefs would not have joined the
standard without him, and the spark of rebellion must have instantly
expired.[274]

To the details of this interview are added others, which somewhat
reflect upon the disinterestedness of Lochiel. They rest, however, upon
hearsay evidence; and, since conversations repeated rarely bear exactly
their original signification, some caution must be given before they are
credited: yet, even if true, one can scarcely condemn a man who is
forced into an enterprise from which he shrinks, screening himself from
all the consequences of defeat, and striving to preserve an inheritance
which he might justly regard as a trust, rather than a property. It must
also be remembered that Donald Cameron was at this time only nominally
the proprietor of the patrimonial estates. The following is the extract
from Bishop Forbes's diary, from which the information is supplied:--

                                      "Leith, Thursday, April 9, 1752.

    "Alexander Macdonnell, the younger, of Glengary, did me the honour
    to dine with me. In the course of conversation, I told young
    Glengary, that I had oftener than once, heard the Viscountess
    Dowager of Strathallan tell, that Lochiel, junior, had refused to
    raise a man, or to make any appearance, till the Prince should give
    him security for the full value of his estate, in the event of the
    attempt proving abortive. To this young Glengary answered, that it
    was fact, and that the Prince himself (after returning from France)
    had frankly told him as much, assigning this as the weighty reason
    why he (the Prince) had shown so much zeal in providing young
    Lochiel (preferably to all others) in a regiment. 'For,' said the
    Prince, 'I must do the best I can, in my present circumstances, to
    keep my word to Lochiel.' Young Glengary told me, moreover, that
    Lochiel, junior, (the above bargain with the Prince notwithstanding,)
    insisted upon another condition before he would join in the attempt,
    which was, that Glengary, senior, should give it under his hand to
    raise his clan and join the Prince. Accordingly Glengary, senior,
    when applied to upon the subject, did actually give it under his
    hand, that his clan should rise under his own second son as colonel,
    and Mac Donell, of Lochgary, as lieutenant-colonel. Then, indeed,
    young Lochiel was gratified in all his demands, and did instantly
    raise his clan.

    "Glengary, junior, likewise assured me that Cluny Mac Pherson,
    junior, made the same agreement with the Prince, before he would
    join the attempt with his followers, as young Lochiel had done,
    viz. to have security from the Prince for the full value of his
    estate, lest the expedition should prove unsuccessful; which the
    Prince accordingly consented unto, and gave security to said Cluny
    Mac Pherson, junior, for the full value of his estate. Young
    Glengary declared that he had this from the young Cluny Mac
    Pherson's own mouth, as a weighty reason why he, Cluny, would not
    part with the money which the Prince had committed to his care and
    keeping."

Lochiel, after these arrangements with the Prince, returned to
Achnacarry, in order to prepare for the undertaking. A deep sadness
pervaded his deportment when he began thus to fulfil his promise to the
Prince; but having once embarked in the enterprise, he exerted himself
with as much zeal and perseverance as if he had engaged in it with the
full approbation of his judgment. We cannot wonder at his dejection, for
his assent was the assent of all the clans. It was a point agreed among
the Highlanders, that had Lochiel not proceeded to take arms, the other
chiefs would not have joined the standard without him; and the "spark of
rebellion," thus writes Mr. Home, "must instantly have expired." "Upon
this," says an eye-witness of the Rebellion, "depended the whole
undertaking; for had Lochiel stood out, the Prince must either have
returned to France on board the same frigate that brought him to
Scotland, or remained privately in the Highlands, waiting for a landing
of foreign troops. The event has shown that he would have waited for a
long time."[275]

From henceforth the career of Lochiel was one of activity and of
exertions which it must have been almost melancholy to witness in one
whose heart was sorrowing and foreboding. He arranged his papers and
affairs as a man does before setting out on a journey from which he was
not to return,[276] and he summoned his followers to give aid to a cause
which as Mrs. Grant remarks, "a vain waste of blood adorned without
strengthening."[277] He sent messengers throughout Lochaber and the
adjacent countries in which the Camerons lived, requiring his chieftains
to prepare and to accompany their chief to Glenfinnin. Before, however,
the day appointed had arrived, a party of the Camerons and the
Macdonalds of Keppoch had begun the war by attacking Captain John Scott,
at High Bridge, eight miles from Fort William. The chief glory of this
short but important action is due to Macdonald of Keppoch; the affair
was over when Lochiel with a troop of Camerons arrived, took charge of
the prisoners, and carried them to his house at Achnacarry.

On the nineteenth of August (old style), Lochiel, followed by seven
hundred men, marched to Glenfinnin, where Charles was anxiously awaiting
his approach. When the Prince landed from one of the lakes in the glen,
Lochiel was not to be seen; and the adventurer, entering one of the
hovels, waited there two hours, until the sound of the bagpipes
announced the approach of the Camerons. These brave men who were thus
marching to their destiny advanced in two lines of three men deep,
whilst between the lines were the prisoners taken at High Bridge,
unarmed, trophies of the first victory of the Jacobites. The Camerons
were reputed to be as active and strong and as well skilled in the use
of arms as any of the clans of Scotland, and as little addicted to
pilfering as any Highlanders at that time could be; for Lochiel had
taken infinite pains to make them honest, and had administered justice
among them with no little severity. "He thought," says a writer of the
time, "his authority sufficient to keep his clan in subjection, and
never troubled his head whether they obeyed him out of love or from
fear."[278] Lochiel had not been able to prevail upon any of his
brothers-in-law to accompany him, although they wished well to the
undertaking, and, in some instances, afterwards joined it. One member of
his family made, however, a conspicuous figure in the vale of
Glenfinnin.

This was the celebrated Jenny Cameron, daughter of Cameron of
Glendessery, and a kinswoman of Lochiel. She is reported to have been a
widow, and upwards of forty, according to one account,--to another, of
fifty years of age. Her father, whose estate did not exceed in value one
hundred and fifty pounds a year, had endeavoured to improve it by
dealing in cattle, a business frequently followed even by men of good
family in the Highlands. He had been some time dead, and the estate had
devolved upon his grandson, a youth of weak intellect, to whom Miss
Cameron acted as curatrix or guardian. The young man, although then of
age, left all matters of business entirely to his aunt; and she came,
therefore, to the standard of Prince Charles, as the representative of
her nephew.

Her appearance, if we are to accredit contemporary statements, must have
been extremely singular. Having collected a troop of two hundred and
fifty men, she marched at the head of it to the camp at Glenfinnin. She
was dressed in a sea-green riding-habit, with a scarlet lappet, laced
with gold; her hair was tied behind in loose curls, and surmounted with
a velvet cap, and a scarlet feather. She rode a bay gelding, with green
furniture, richly trimmed with gold; in her hand she carried a naked
sword instead of a riding-whip. Her countenance is described as being
agreeable, and her figure handsome;[279] her eyes were fine, and her
hair as black as jet. In conversation she was full of intelligence and
vivacity.[280] The Prince, it is said, rode out of the lines to receive
her, and to welcome the addition to his army, and conducted her to a
tent with much ceremony. It was reported that Mrs. Cameron continued in
the camp as the commander of her troop, and accompanied the Prince into
England. But this account is contradicted by Bishop Forbes. "She was so
far," he says, "from accompanying the Prince's army, that she went off
with the rest of the spectators as soon as the army marched; neither did
she ever follow the camp, nor was ever with the Prince but in
public,[281] when he had his Court in Edinburgh."[282]

The Prince remained at Glenfinnin two days, and was observed to be in
high spirits. Here he was presented by Major Macdonell with the first
good horse that he had mounted in Scotland. Charles Edward then marched
his little army to Lochiel, which is about five miles from Glenfinnin,
resting first at Fassefern, the seat of Lochiel's brother, and then
proceeded to a village called Moidh, belonging to Lochiel.

From this time the fate of Lochiel was inevitably bound up with that of
the Prince. At the siege of Edinburgh he distinguished himself at the
head of his Camerons in the following manner:--When the deputies who
were appointed by the town council to request a further delay from
Charles set out in a hackney coach for Gray's Mill to prevail upon Lord
George Murray to second their application, as the Netherbow Port was
opened to let out their coach, the Camerons, headed by Lochiel, rushed
in and took possession of the city. The brave chief afterwards obtained
from Prince Charles the guard of the city, as he was more acquainted
with Edinburgh than the rest of the Highland chiefs; and his discipline
was so exact that the city guns, persons, and effects were as secure
under his care as in the time of peace. There was indeed some pilfering
in the country, but not more than was to be expected in the
neighbourhood of an army of undisciplined Highlanders.

Lochiel remained in Edinburgh while the Prince continued there, and
witnessed the brief splendour of the young Chevalier's Court: it is thus
described by an eye-witness:[283]--"The Prince's Court at Holyrood soon
became very brilliant. There were every day, from morning till night, a
vast affluence of well-dressed people. Besides the gentlemen that had
joined or come upon business, or to pay their court, there were a great
number of ladies and gentlemen that came either out of affection or
curiosity, besides the desire of seeing the Prince. There had not been a
Court in Scotland for a long time, and people came from all quarters to
see so many novelties. One would have thought the King was already
restored, and in peaceable possession of all the dominions of his
ancestors, and that the Prince had only made a trip to Scotland to show
himself to the people and receive their homage. Such was the splendour
of the Court, and such the satisfaction that appeared in everybody's
countenance."

At the battle of Falkirk, Lochiel was slightly wounded, as well as his
brother Archibald.[284] Throughout that engagement, as well as during
the whole of the unhappy contest of 1745-6, Lochiel distinguished
himself by his clemency, gallantry, and good faith. An incident which
happened after the battle of Falkirk, shows the respect paid to the head
of the clan.

While Charles Edward was standing at an open window at his house in
Falkirk, reading a list of prisoners just presented by Lord Kilmarnock,
a soldier in the uniform of one of King George's regiments made his
appearance in the street below. He was armed with a musket and bayonet,
and wore a black cockade in his hat, as it appeared, by way of defiance.
Upon perceiving this, Charles directed the attention of Lord Kilmarnock,
who was standing near him, to the soldier. Lord Kilmarnock ran down
stairs immediately, went up to the soldier, struck the hat off his head,
and set his foot on the black cockade. At that instant a Highlander came
running across the street, and laid hands on Lord Kilmarnock, and pushed
him back. Lord Kilmarnock pulled out a pistol and presented it at the
Highlander's head: the Highlander drew out his dirk and pointed it at
Lord Kilmarnock's heart. After remaining in this position a few seconds
they were separated: the man with the dirk took up the hat and put it on
the head of the soldier, who was marched off in triumph by the
Highlanders.

This little scene was explained to some of the bystanders thus: The man
in the King's uniform was a Cameron, who, after the defeat of the
Government army, had joined his clan. He was received with joy by the
Camerons, who permitted him to wear his uniform until others could be
procured. The Highlander who pointed the dirk at Lord Kilmarnock's
breast, was the soldier's brother; the crowd who surrounded him were his
kinsmen of the clan. No one, it was their opinion, "could take that
cockade out of the soldier's cap, except Lochiel himself."[285] Lochiel
accompanied the Prince in his disastrous expedition to Derby.

At the end of February 1746, he was sent with General Stapleton to
besiege Fort William. He left that enterprise when summoned by Charles
Edward to assemble around his standard on the field of Culloden. On the
eventful fourteenth of April, the day before the battle, Lochiel joined
the Prince's army: that night, the Highlanders, who never pitched a
tent, lay among the furze and trees of Culloden Wood, whilst their young
leader slept beneath the roof of Culloden House.

The following extract from the Duke of Cumberland's orderly-book shows
how closely that able general and detestable individual had studied the
habits of those whom it was his lot to conquer; and mark also his
contempt for the "Lowlanders and arrant scum" who sometimes made up the
lines behind the Highlanders.[286]

                     "Edinburgh, 12 Jan. 1745-6. Sunday Parole, Derby.

    "Field-officer for the day: to-morrow Major Willson. The manner of
    the Highlander's way of fighting, which there is nothing so easy to
    resist, if officers and men are not prepossessed with the lyes and
    accounts which are told of them. They commonly form their front rank
    of what they call their best men, or true Highlanders, the number of
    which being allways but few, when they form in battallions they
    commonly form four deep, and these Highlanders form the front of the
    four, the rest being Lowlanders and arrant scum; when these
    battallions come within a large musket-shott, or three-score yards,
    this front rank gives their fire and immediately throw down their
    firelocks and come down in a cluster with their swords and targets,
    making a noise and endeavouring to pearce the body, or battallions
    before them. Becoming twelve or fourteen deep by the time they come
    up to the people, they attack. The sure way to demolish them is at
    three deep to fire by ranks diagonally to the centre where they
    come, the rear rank first, and even that rank not to fire till they
    are within ten or twelve paces; but if the fire is given at a
    distance you probably will be broke, for you never get time to load
    a second cartridge; and if you give way, you may give your foot for
    dead, for they being without a firelock, or any load, no man with
    his arms, accoutrements, &c. can escape them, and they give no
    quarters; but if you will but observe the above directions, the are
    the most despicable enemy that are."

On the following day when the army, being drawn up on Drumossie Moor,
waited in vain till mid-day for the approach of the enemy, Charles
addressed his generals and chiefs, and proposed to attack the Duke of
Cumberland's camp at Nairn that evening.

His proposal was, unfortunately for his brave followers, not seconded by
the powerful voice of Lord George Murray. Lochiel, who was not a man
given to much elocution, recommended delay, and urged that the army
would be at least fifteen hundred stronger on the following day. The
return of the army to Culloden, fatigued and famished, between five and
six o'clock on the following morning, was the result of that ill-advised
attempt. At eight o'clock the alarm was given at Culloden House by one
of the clan Cameron, that the Duke's army was in full march towards
them.

When the army was formed into two lines, Lochiel's regiment was placed
on the left, next to the Athole Brigade. The Camerons, with the
Maclaclans and Macleans, the Mackintoshes, the Stuarts, attacked sword
in hand. Most of the chiefs who commanded these five regiments were
killed, and Cameron of Lochiel, advancing at the head of his regiment,
was so near Burrel's regiment[287] that he had fired his pistol, and was
drawing his sword when he fell wounded with grape-shot in both ankles.
His two brothers, afterwards more unfortunate even than himself, were on
each side of him; they raised him up, and bore him off the field in
their arms. The Camerons, at the field of Culloden, sustained the
greatness of their fame; nor have the imputations which were cast upon
other clans, perhaps had a just foundation of truth. No reliance can be
placed upon the opinions of the English press at the time.[288]

The blood of Cameron of Lochiel was sought, as Mrs. Grant expresses it,
with the "most venomous perseverance." His own country, to which he was
at first removed, affording him no shelter,[289] he sheltered himself in
the Braes of Bannoch. He suffered long from his wounds, until in June,
his friend Clunie Macpherson brought from Edinburgh a physician, Sir
Stewart Threipland, who gave him the benefit of his aid. Meantime the
spirit of Lochiel remained undaunted; and he who had entered into the
insurrection unwillingly, was almost the last to give up the cause. A
resolution was taken on the eighth of May by the chieftains to raise
each a body of men, for the service of the Prince; and the rendezvous
was appointed at Achnacarry on the fifteenth instant. We find a letter
addressed by Lochiel on May the twenty-fifth to the chiefs, accounting
for his not having met them according to promise, by the risk of a
surprise, and recommending them to keep quiet until a promised succour
from France. The letter speaks the language of hope; but whether that
was the real feeling of the writer, or only intended to keep up
exertion, cannot be ascertained. In the postscript Lochiel states his
regret that many had given up their arms without his knowledge. "I
cannot," he adds, "take upon me to direct in this particular, but to
give my opinion, and let every one judge for himself."

During May, Lochiel continued at Loch Arkeg, preparing for a summer
campaign, and corresponding with Clunie Macpherson and with the
treacherous Murray of Broughton on the subject. He was, at this time, in
want of food and money. "I have scarcely a sufficiency of meal," he
writes, "to serve myself and the gentlemen who are with me for four
days, and can get none to purchase in this country."[290] After the
breaking up of the scheme of fresh cooperations in May, and when
Lochaber was occupied by the Government troops, Lochiel became anxious
to retire to Badenoch. This district is one of the wildest parts of the
Highlands; though destitute of wood, it afforded shelter in its rocky
dens and in the sides of its rugged hills. Not only did Lochiel desire
repose and safety, but he longed to be beyond the reach of those
heartrending accounts which were ever brought to him of the sufferings
of his people, and of the dwellers in Lochaber. The severities and
cruelties of the military, licensed by the Duke of Cumberland to every
atrocity, to use the simple language of Mr. Forbes, "bore very hard upon
him." One day[291] when accounts were brought to Lochiel, in Badenoch,
that the poor people in Lochaber had been so pillaged and harassed that
they had really no necessaries to keep in their lives, Lochiel took out
his purse and gave all the money he could well spare to be distributed
among such in Lochaber. "And," said a friend who was with him, "I
remember nothing better than that Sir Stewart Threipland at that time
took out his purse and gave five guineas, expressing himself in these
words: "I am sure that I have not so much for myself; but then, if I be
spared I know where to get more, whereas these poor people know not
where to get the smallest assistance!""

Meantime the news reached Lochiel of the total destruction of his house
at Achnacarrie. Previously to the demolition of the house, the family
had buried or concealed many things in the earth. The English soldiers,
encamping round the smoking ruins, are said, on tradition, to have
actually boiled their kettles at the foot of each of a fine avenue of
plane-trees. The avenue remains, and fissures can still be traced
running up the stem of each tree. Not a memorial of the House of
Achnacarrie remained. For this, and other acts of wanton barbarity, the
pretext was that the Camerons, as well as other tribes, had promised to
surrender arms at a certain time, but had broken their word. "His Royal
Highness, the Duke of Cumberland," to borrow from a contemporary writer,
"began with the rebels in a gentle, paternal way, with soft admonitions,
with a promise of protection to all the common people that would bring
in their arms, and submit to mercy." Since, however, some equivocated,
and others broke their word, the Duke was obliged to lay "the rod on
more heavy." Fire and sword were therefore carried through the country
of the Camerons; the cattle were driven away; even the cotter's hut
escaped not: the homes of the poor were laid in ashes: their sheep and
pigs slaughtered: and the wretched inmates of the huts, flying to the
mountains, were found there, some expiring, some actually dead of
hunger. The houses of the clergy were crowded with the homeless and
starving: whole districts were depopulated: the Sabbath was outraged by
acts of destruction, which wounded, in the nicest point, the feelings
of the religious mountaineer; and the goods of the rebels were publicly
auctioned, without any warrant of a civil court. During all these
proceedings, the "jovial Duke," as he was called, was making merry at
Fort Augustus in a manner which, if possible, casts more odium on his
memory even than his atrocious and unpunished cruelties.[292]

Achnacarrie was razed to the ground. A modern structure, suitable in
splendour to the truly noble family who possess it, has arisen in its
place; but no erection can restore the house of Sir Ewan Dhu, and the
home of his "gentle" grandson, Donald Cameron. As the plunderers
ransacked the house, they found a picture of Lochiel, and one which was
accounted a good likeness. This was given to the soldiers, who were
dispatched over Corryarie in search of the wounded and unfortunate
original. On the top of that mountain the military encountered
Macpherson of Urie, who, being of a fair and pleasing aspect, was
mistaken by them for Lochiel.

"Urie," writes Mrs. Grant, who had the story from himself, "was a
Jacobite, and had been _out_, as the phrase was then. The soldiers
seized him, and assured him he was a d----d rebel, and that his title
was Lochiel. He, in turn, assured them that he was neither d----d, nor a
rebel, nor by any means Lochiel. When he understood, however, that they
were in search of Lochiel, and going in the very direction where he lay
concealed, he gave them reason finally to suppose he was the person they
sought. They returned to Fort Augustus where the Duke of Cumberland then
lay, in great triumph with their prisoners; Urie, as he expected, from
the indulgence of some who were about the Duke, was very soon set at
liberty."

This temporary captivity of Urie had, however, the effect of allowing
Lochiel time to contrive means of escape from the country. There was
one, however, dear to him as his own life, whose continuance in Scotland
ensured that of Lochiel. This was Prince Charles, who evinced for
Lochiel a regard, and displayed a degree of confidence in his fidelity,
which were amply merited by the tried affection of the chieftain. For
nearly three months Lochiel remained ignorant of the fate of Charles,
until the joyful tidings were brought of his being safe at Loch-Arkeg.
Lochiel was at Ben Aulder, a hill of great circumference in Badenoch,
when he received this intelligence from one of his tenants named
Macpherson, who was sent by Cameron of Clunes to find out Lochiel and
Clunie, and to inform them that their young master was safe.

Upon the return of Macpherson to Cameron of Clunes, the Prince, being
informed where Lochiel was, sent Lochgarry and Dr. Archibald Cameron
with a message to them. Since it was impossible that Lochiel could go to
the Prince on account of his wounds, it was agreed between Lochiel and
these friends, that Charles should take refuge near Achnacarrie, as the
safest place for him to pass some time; and Dr. Cameron and Lochgarry
returned to Charles to impart the details of this arrangement. The
attachment of Charles to Lochiel was shown in a very forcible manner:
when he was informed that the chief was safe and recovering, he
expressed the greatest satisfaction, and fervently returned thanks to
God. The ejaculation of praise and thanksgiving was reiterated three or
four times.

Charles now crossed Loch Arkeg, and took up his abode in a fir-wood on
the west side of the lake, to await the arrival of Clunie, who had
promised to meet him there. The impatience of the Prince to behold his
friends Clunie and Lochiel was so great, that he set out for Badenoch
before Clunie could arrive.

Lochiel had, during the months of June and July, remained on Ben Aulder,
under which name is comprehended a great chase belonging to Clunie. His
dwelling was a miserable shieling at Mellamir, which contained him and
his friend Macpherson of Breackachie, also his principal servant, Allan
Cameron, and two servants of Clunie. Here Clunie and Lochiel, who were
cousins-german, were chiefly supplied with provisions by Macpherson of
Breackachie, who was married to a sister of Clunie. The secret of their
retreat was known to many persons; but the fidelity of the Highlanders
was such, that though the Earl of Loudon had a military post not many
miles from Ben Aulder, he had not the slightest knowledge of the place
of Lochiel's concealment. The same high principle which guarded Prince
Charles in his wanderings, and resisted the temptation of a large
reward, protected Lochiel in his retirement.

In this retreat he was found by the Prince, who had missed Clunie, and
had gradually made his way through Badenoch to the Braes of Bannoch,
accompanied by five persons. When Lochiel from his hut beheld a party
approaching, all armed, he concluded that a troop of militia were coming
to seize him. Lame as he was, it was in vain to think of retreating: he
held a short conference with his friends, and then resolved to receive
the supposed assailants with a general discharge of fire-arms. He had
twelve firelocks and some small pistols in the botine or hut; these were
all made ready, the pieces levelled, and planted; and Lochiel and his
friends trusted to getting the better of the searchers, whose number did
not exceed their own. Thus Charles Edward, after the unparalleled
dangers of his recent wanderings, ran a risk of being killed by one of
his most devoted adherents! "But," observes Clunie, in relating this
circumstance, "the auspicious hand of God, and his providence, so
apparent at all times in the preservation of his Royal Highness,
prevented those within from firing at the Prince and his four
attendants, for they came at last so near that they were known by those
within."[293]

It was, indeed, no difficult matter to discern in the person of Charles
Edward the handsome and princely youth who had presided over the Court
at Holyrood. He had discarded the old black kilt, philibeg, and
waistcoat which he had worn at Loch Arkeg, for a coarse, brown, short
coat: a new article of dress, such as a pair of shoes and a new shirt,
had lately replenished his wardrobe. He had a long red beard, and wore a
pistol and dirk by his side, carrying always a gun in his hand. Yet "the
young Italian," as the Whigs delighted to call him, had braved the
rigours of his fate, and thriven beneath the severities of the Scottish
climate. His spirits were good; his frame, originally slender, had
become robust: he had fared in the rudest manner, and had acquired the
faculty of sleeping soundly, even with the dread of a surprise ever
before him.

Lochiel, on the other hand, was lame, and had suffered long from his
close quarters, and from anxiety and sorrow. Tradition has brought down
to us the accounts of the chief's personal beauty. Though fair, he was
not effeminate; his countenance was regular and expressive. But those
attributes which completed the romance of Lochiel's character must have
been almost obliterated during these months of trial, infirm health, and
uncured wounds. His spirit was not yet subdued. Eventually that noble
heart was broken by all that it had endured, but, at that epoch of his
eventful life, it still throbbed with hope.

When Lochiel perceived that it was Charles Edward who approached, he
made the best of his way, though lame, to receive his Prince. "The joy
at this meeting," writes Clunie, "is much easier to be conceived than
described." Lochiel attempted to kneel. "Oh no, my dear Lochiel!" cried
the Prince; "we do not know who may be looking from the top of yonder
hills; and if they see any such motions, they will conclude that I am
here." Lochiel then shewed him into his habitation, and gave him the
best welcome that he could: the Prince, followed by his retinue, among
whom were the two outlaws, or "broken men," who had succoured him, and
whom he had retained in his service, entered the hut.[294] A repast,
almost amounting to a feast in the eyes of these fugitives, was prepared
for them, having been brought by young Breackachie. It consisted of a
plentiful supply of mutton; an anker of whiskey, containing twenty
Scots' pints; some good beef sausages, made the year before; with plenty
of butter and cheese, besides a well-cured ham. The Prince pledged his
friends in a hearty dram, and frequently (perhaps, as the event showed,
too frequently) called for the same inspiring toast again. When some
minced collops were dressed with butter, in a large saucepan always
carried about with them, by Clunie and Lochiel, Charles Edward,
partaking heartily of that incomparable dish, exclaimed, "Now,
gentlemen, I live like a prince." "Have you," he said to Lochiel,
"always lived so well here?" "Yes, sir," replied the chief; "for three
months, since I have been here with my cousin Clunie, he has provided me
so well, that I have had plenty of such as you see. I thank Heaven your
Highness has been spared to take a part!"

On the arrival of Clunie two days afterwards, the royal fugitive and his
friend Lochiel removed from Mellamur, and went two miles further into
Ben Aulder, until they reached a shiel called Uiskchiboa, where the hut
was peculiarly wretched and smoky; "yet his Royal Highness," as Clunie
related, "put up with everything." Here they remained for two or three
nights, and then went to a habitation still two miles further into Ben
Aulder, for no less remote retreat was thought secure. This retreat was
prepared by Clunie, and obtained the name of the Cage. "It was," as he
himself relates, "a great curiosity, and can scarcely be described to
perfection." It is best to give the account of the edifice which he had
himself constructed, in Macpherson's own words. "It was situated in the
face of a very rough, high, and rocky mountain, called Lettemilichk,
still a part of Ben Aulder, full of great stones and crevices, and some
scattered wood interspersed. The habitation called the Cage, in the face
of that mountain, was within a small but thick wood. There were first
some rows of trees laid down, in order to level a floor for the
habitation; and, as the place was steep, this raised the lower side to
an equal height with the other; and these trees, in the way of joists
or planks, were levelled with earth or gravel. There were betwixt the
trees, growing naturally on their own roots, some stakes fixed in the
earth, which, with the trees, were interwoven with ropes, made of heath
or birch-twigs, up to the top of the Cage, it being of a round or rather
oval shape, and the whole thatched and covered over with bog. This whole
fabric hung, as it were, by a large tree, which reclined from the one
end, all along the roof to the other, and which gave it the name of the
Cage; and by chance there happened to be two stones, at a small distance
from one another, in the side next the precipice, resembling the pillars
of a chimney, where the fire was placed. The smoke had its vent out
here, all along the face of the rock, which was so much of the same
colour that one could discover no difference in the clearest day. The
Cage was no larger than to contain six or seven persons, four of whom
were frequently employed playing at cards, one idle looking on, one
baking, and another fixing bread and cooking."[295]

Charles and Lochiel remained six or seven days in this seclusion, which
was one of several to which Clunie was in the habit of retiring, never
even informing his wife or his most attached friends whither he was
going. But the deliverance of the Prince and Lochiel was now at hand.
Several small vessels had arrived from France, and touched on the west
coast, expressly to carry away the Prince, but not being able to find
him out, they had returned. By the fidelity of the Highlanders and the
connection between every member of the different clans, the Prince had
been able to keep up a continual communication with persons on the
coast, without discovery. This was managed by some of his adherents
skulking near the shore; and though they knew not where Charles was, yet
they conveyed the intelligence to others, who imparted it to persons in
the interior, who again told it to those who were acquainted with the
obscure place of his retreat. At last two French vessels, l'Heureux and
la Princesse de Conti, departed under the command of Colonel Warren,
from St. Malo, and arrived at Lochnarmagh early in September. This event
was communicated to Cameron of Clunes, who, on the other hand, learned
where the Prince was from a poor woman. A messenger was immediately
dispatched to the Cage, and he reached that place on the thirteenth of
September. Charles Edward and Lochiel now prepared to bid Scotland a
final adieu. Notices were sent round by the Prince to different friends
who might choose to avail themselves of this opportunity of escape; and
it was intimated to them that they might join him if they were inclined.

The place of embarkation was Borodale, whence Charles had first summoned
Lochiel to support his cause. The party travelled only by night, and
were six days on their road. They were joined by Glengary, John Roy
Stewart, Dr. Cameron, and a number of other adherents. On the twentieth
of September they left Lochnarmagh, and had a fair passage to the coast
of France. The Prince had intended to sail direct for Nantes, but he
altered his course in order to escape Admiral Lestoch's squadron; and
after being chased by two men-of-war, he landed at Morlaix, in Lower
Bretagne, in a thick fog, on the twenty-ninth of September.

Lochiel was accompanied in his flight to France by his wife, the
faithful and affectionate associate of his exile. His eldest son was
left in the charge of his brother Cameron, of Fassefern. In Paris
Lochiel found his father, who was then eighty years of age; and to this
aged chief the Prince paid the well-merited compliment of placing him in
the same carriage with himself and Lord Lewis Gordon, when he first went
to the Court of Louis the Fifteenth in state. The Prince was followed on
that occasion by a number of his friends, both in coaches and on
horseback. Lord Ogilvy, Lord Elcho, and the Prince's secretary Kelly,
preceded the royal carriage: the younger Lochiel and several gentlemen
followed on horseback. Amid this noble train of brave men, the Prince
appeared pre-eminent in the splendour of his dress. A coat of
rose-coloured velvet, lined with silver tissue, presented a singular
contrast to the brown short coat in which some of his adherents had
formerly seen him. His waistcoat was of gold brocade with a spangled
fringe, set out in scollops, and the white cockade in his hat was
studded with diamonds. The order of St. Andrew and the George on his
breast were adorned with the same jewels: "he glittered," as an
eye-witness observed, "all over like the star which they tell you
appeared at his nativity." But all this display, and the feigned
kindness of his reception, were but the prelude to a heartless
abandonment of his cause on the part of Louis the Fifteenth.

Lochiel was, eventually, provided for by the French Monarch. He was made
Colonel of a French regiment, and having a peculiar faculty of attaching
others to him, he soon became beloved by those under his command. The
Prince showed him affectionate respect; and, blessed in the society of
his wife, and in a daughter whom he called Donalda, Lochiel might have
passed the rest of his days in tranquil submission to the course of
events: but his heart yearned for Scotland; he could not give up the
hopes of another expedition, which he desired to undertake with any
force that could be collected. Cherishing this scheme, the coldness of
the Court of France, and the rashness of the Prince, gave great sorrow
to his harassed mind. Soon after his arrival in Paris he opened a
correspondence with the Chevalier St. George, and represented to him
that the misfortunes which had befallen the cause were not
irretrievable, and that if ten regiments only could be landed in
Scotland before the depopulating system adopted by the English
Government had taken effect, an insurrection might again be raised with
good grounds for the hope of success.

Still hoping thus to return to his country, and again to take arms in
her service, as he deemed it, it was long before Lochiel consented to
accept the command of the French regiment, "intending still," as he
said, "to share the fate of his people." "I told his Royal Highness," he
wrote to the Chevalier St. George, "that Lord Ogilvy or others might
incline to make a figure in France, but my ambition was to save the
crown and serve my country, or perish with it. His Royal Highness said,
he was doing all he could, but persisted in his resolution to procure me
a regiment. If it is obtained, I shall accept it out of respect to the
Prince; but I hope your Majesty will approve of the resolution I have
taken to share in the fate of the people I have undone, and, if they
must be sacrificed, to fall along with them. This is the only way I can
free myself from the reproach of their blood, and show the disinterested
zeal with which I have lived, and shall dye.

"Your Majesty's most humble, most obedient, and most faithful
servant."[296]

When Prince Charles, disheartened at the growing indifference of the
French Court to his interests, contemplated leaving Paris, Lochiel
objected to a proposal which seemed to imply an abandonment of the
cause which he had pledged himself to support. His representations to
the Prince were ineffectual, for a stronger influence had arisen to
baffle the endeavours of Charles's friends; and he was under the sway of
one who was, not inaptly, termed "his Delilah." He left Paris and
arrived at Avignon, to which place Lochiel addressed to him a letter
full of the most cogent reasons why he should not leave Paris. From his
arguments it appears that the English Jacobites had expressed their
willingness to rise, had the Prince either supplied them with arms or
brought them troops to support them.

"For Heaven's sake, sir," wrote Lochiel,[297] "be pleased to consider
these circumstances with the attention that their importance deserves;
and that your honour, your essential interest, the preservation of the
royal cause, and the bleeding state of your suffering friends, require
of you. Let me beg of your Royal Highness, in the most humble and
earnest manner, to reflect that your reputation must suffer in the
opinion of all mankind, if there should be room to suppose that you had
slighted or neglected any possible means of retrieving your affairs."

These remonstrances were at last so far effectual, that Charles returned
to Paris, and was only again removed from that capital by force.

The spirit of Lochiel was meantime broken by the mournful tidings which
reached him of the death of friends on the scaffold, the cruelties
enacted in Scotland, and, more than all, of the Act which took effect
in August 1747, disarming the Highlanders and restraining the use of the
Highland garb. By this statute it was made penal to wear the national
costume: a first offence was punished with six months' imprisonment; a
second, with transportation for seven years. Such were the efforts made
to break the union of a fiery but faithful people, and such the attempt
to produce a complete revolution in the national habits!

Many were the projects which amused the exiled Jacobites into hopes that
ended in bitter disappointment, and many the fleeting visions of a
restoration of the Stuarts. During one of these brief chimeras, Lochiel
and Clunie visited Charles at a retreat on the Upper Rhine, whither he
had retired after the perfidious imprisonment at the Castle of
Vincennes. They found the Prince sunk in the lassitude which succeeds a
long course of exciting events, and of smothered but not subdued misery.
The visit yielded to neither party satisfaction. Charles was deaf to the
remonstrances of Lochiel, and Lochiel beheld his Prince wholly devoted
to Miss Walkinshaw and her daughter, afterwards Countess of Albany, and
completely under the influence of his mistress, who was regarded by
Lochiel and Clunie as a spy of Hanover.

Lochiel left the Prince, and they never met again. The health of the
chief began to decline; his malady was a mental one, and admitted of no
cure but a return to those vassals who had been so faithful and so much
attached to him, and to friends with whose misfortunes he seems to have
blamed himself. Of the affection of the clansmen he received frequent
proofs. "The estates of Lochiel," says Mrs. Grant, "were forfeited like
others, and paid a moderate rate to the Crown, such as they had formerly
given to their chief. The domain formerly occupied by the Laird was
taken on his behoof by his brother. The tenants brought each a horse,
cow, colt, or heifer, as a free-will offering, till this ample
grazing-farm was as well stocked as formerly. Not content with this,
they sent a yearly tribute of affection to their beloved chief,
independent of the rents they paid to the commissioners for the
forfeited estates. Lochiel's lady and her daughters once or twice made a
sorrowful pilgrimage among their friends and tenants. These last
received them with a tenderness and respect which seemed augmented by
the adversity into which they were plunged."

At last the suffering spirit was released. Lochiel is conjectured to
have died about the year 1760, and is generally thought to have sunk
under the pressure of hopeless sorrow, or, to use the words of one who
spoke from tradition, "of a broken heart." His daughter Donalda, who was
about fourteen at the time of his death, had attached herself so fondly
to her father, that after his decease she pined away, and never
recovered. She died soon after her father, and the mother did not long
survive her daughter. Never, perhaps, did a brave and unfortunate man
sink to rest more honoured by society at large, more admired and
respected by his friends, more revered by his vassals, than the gentle
Lochiel. The beauty of his character showed itself also in the close
ties of domestic life: and in some of these, more particularly as a
brother, his warm and constant affections were destined to be severely
wounded. He felt deeply the banishment of his brother Cameron of
Fassefern; and still more severely the cruel fate of another brother,
Dr. Archibald Cameron. The fate of that young man, who attended Charles
Edward in most of his wanderings, presents, indeed, one of the saddest
episodes of this melancholy period. Dr. Cameron, after sharing the
dangers which the Prince ran, and following him to France, returned to
Scotland in 1749. Charles Edward had left a large sum of money in the
charge of Macpherson of Clunie, upon leaving Scotland; and Dr. Cameron
was privy to the concealment of the money. He visited Clunie, and
obtained from him six thousand louis-d'ors, for which, however, Clunie
took Dr. Cameron's receipt. In 1753, Dr. Cameron made another visit,
which is conjectured to have had a similar object. The money was
concealed near Loch Arkeg, to the amount of twenty-two thousand
louis-d'ors. Some degree of obscurity rests upon this transaction, which
undoubtedly throws a degree of discredit on the memory of Dr. Cameron.
Among the Stuart papers there is a letter from Mr. Ludovick Cameron to
Prince Charles, alluding to the "misfortune" of his nephew, Dr. Cameron,
in taking away a good round sum of his Highness's money, and clearing
himself from the imputation. This proves that there was no commission,
as it has been suggested,[298] to Dr. Cameron, but that the transaction
was regarded in a disgraceful light, even by the relative of the
unfortunate young man.

A severe retribution awaited the offender, who intended, it is said, to
enter into a mercantile concern at Glasgow with the money thus procured.
He was taken prisoner in the house of Stewart of Glenbuckie, by a party
of soldiers from the garrison at Inversnaid. He was carried to London,
arraigned upon the Act of Attainder in 1745, in which his name was
included, and sentenced to the death of a traitor. His wife, who then
resided at Lisle, hurried to London to proffer fruitless petitions for
mercy. Whatever may have been Dr. Cameron's errors, his death was worthy
of the name he bore, and he sustained his fate with calmness and
resignation. Seven children were left to deplore his loss. The Chevalier
St. George, kindly passing over his fault, wrote of him in these terms.
"I am a stranger to the motives which carried poor Archibald Cameron
into Scotland; but whatever they may have been, his fate gives me the
more concern, as I own I could not bring myself to believe that the
English Government would carry their rigour so far." The French
Government settled a pension of one thousand five hundred livres upon
Mrs. Cameron, and an annual allowance of two hundred livres to each of
her sons, who were in their service. The unfortunate Dr. Cameron was
buried in the Savoy in London. The family of the man who betrayed him is
said, in the Highlands, to have been visited with a severe retribution,
having, ever since, had one of its members an idiot. Such is the notion
of retributive justice in the Highlands.

The death of this brother, and still more the stain upon the honour of
Dr. Cameron, must have added greatly to the burden of sorrow which fell
so heavily upon Lochiel. His son was, however, spared for some years,
and was cherished by the Scots as the representative of their ancient
chiefs. He was, it is true, what they called a "landless laird," yet the
clansmen paid him all the honours due to the eldest son of Lochiel. He
received a good education, and was prevented by his friends from taking
any part in the various schemes set on foot at certain intervals for the
return of Charles. He married at an early age. Government was at that
time engaged in levying men for the American war, and found it
convenient to use the influence of the clans for that purpose; Lochiel
was offered a company in General Fraser's regiment, the seventy-first,
provided he could raise it among his clan. Poor and broken as they were,
the clansmen, true to their bond of fidelity, mustered around their
landless laird; and Lochiel marched at the head of his company to
Glasgow, in order to embark for America.

It happened that whilst here, he was taken ill of the measles, a
disorder which prevented his marching. It was therefore arranged that
the first lieutenant should take his place. When, on the point of
marching to Greenock in order to embark, the clansmen discovered this,
they laid down their arms, declaring that they had not engaged with King
George, but with Lochiel; and they refused to move. The chief hearing of
this dilemma, ill as he was, arose, dressed himself, and went down to
his people. He harangued them, and represented that unless they went on
board, their conduct would be imputed to disaffection, and might injure,
if not ruin his interests. The men immediately took up their arms,
huzzaed their chief, and began to march. The result is melancholy.
Enfeebled by this effort, Lochiel again took to his bed; the day on
which he had made this fatal exertion was a raw November morning. He
never recovered from that exposure, but died in a few days afterwards.

Most of the company of Camerons perished in the contest which ensued.
Thrice during the American war was General Fraser's regiment
renewed.[299] Such was the devotion of this gallant race of men to their
chief; and such were the services which those whose fathers had fought
at Culloden, devoted to the cause of the English Monarch.

Late in the eighteenth century, the estates of Lochiel were restored to
the grandson of Lochiel; and the descendants of that race, in which so
much honour, such disinterested exertion, such kindness and heroism
existed, are again the Lords of Achnacarry.

FOOTNOTES:

[247] I am indebted to a MS. account of Cameron of Lochiel for the most
interesting facts in the following memoir. It was communicated to me by
R. Chambers, Esq., and was written by Mrs. Grant of Laggan. In her
letters unpublished, she declares the source of her information to have
been some papers in the possession of a Scotch clergyman, "which," says
Mrs. Grant, "it appears he did not give to John Home, who would scarcely
have asked the favour, keeping very shy of his old brethren."

[248] Brown's History of the Highlands, part ii. p. 141.

[249] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[250] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[251] Brown's Highlands.

[252] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[253] "The credit of this feat," writes Mrs. Grant, "rests merely on the
country tradition: and the silence concerning it, in the publications
and records of those times, is accounted for, first, by the shame which
the commanders of the party felt at being thus surprised and outwitted
by an inferior number of those whom they had been accustomed to style
barbarians and to treat as such."--_MS._

[254] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[255] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[256] Sketches of the Highlands, vol. i. pp. 60, 61.

[257] Brown's Highlands.

[258] Reay, p. 88.

[259] See Culloden Papers.

[260] Stewart's Sketches, vol. i. p. 86.

[261] Reay, p. 271.

[262] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[263] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[264] Conjectured to be Lord Lovat.

[265] Appendix to the Memoirs of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, p. 177.

[266] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[267] Appendix to Home's History of the Rebellion, No. II.

[268] See Appendix, No. II.

[269] Home. Appendix. From the papers of Cameron of Fassefern, Lochiel's
nephew.

[270] In the year 1781, Fassefern repeated this conversation to Mr.
Home. History of the Rebellion, p. 7.

[271] Forbes, p. 19.

[272] Home, p. 5.

[273] Forbes, p. 19.

[274] Home, p. 6.

[275] Maxwell of Kirkconnel's Narrative, p. 23.

[276] The beautiful poem of Campbell, entitled "Lochiel," is founded on
this circumstance.

[277] Mrs. Grant's MS.

[278] Life of Jenny Cameron. London. Printed for C. Whitefield, in White
Friars, 1746.

[279] Life of Jenny Cameron.

[280] Forbes, p. 23.

[281] The poem entitled "Jeanie Cameron's Lament," is, with other
inedited Jacobite songs, likely soon to be given to the world, arranged
to true Scottish airs, and published in parts. These songs are collected
by a member of one of the most ancient Jacobite families. The
accomplished young lady who has engaged in this undertaking is Miss
Charlotte Maxwell, the sister of Sir William Maxwell, Bart., of
Menteith, Wigtonshire, and a descendant of the Earl of Nithisdale. The
ballad of Sherriff Muir, is among the first of the interesting
collection.

[282] Forbes, p. 23.

[283] Maxwell of Kirkconnel, p. 45.

[284] Maxwell, p. 105.

[285] Home, p. 164.

[286] Dated, Edinburgh, 12th Jan. 1745-6. This extract, for which I am
indebted to Mr. Macdonald, who possesses the orderly-book, was
considered an extremely curious passage by Sir Walter Scott.

[287] Burrell's regiment was so broken, that not two men were left
standing. Home, Appendix.

[288] In a letter among the papers of Mr. Murray of Abercairney, the
imputations upon the Highlanders are strongly and ably refuted. For
obvious reasons I have not given the extract, nor gone more closely into
a subject which belongs to the province of history.

[289] See Mrs. Grant's MS.

[290] Home, Appendix, p. 373.

[291] See note 2 in Chambers's History of the Rebellion, p. 121.

[292] See History of the Rebellion, taken from the Scots' Magazine, p.
353.

[293] Cluny Macpherson's Narrative. Home, Appendix, p. 365.

[294] Of one of these there is an interesting anecdote in the Tales of a
Grandfather, vol. iii. p. 295, note.

[295] Home's History of the Rebellion, Appendix, p. 146.

[296] Brown's History of the Highlands, Part II. App. CVII. from the
Stuart Papers.

[297] Brown's History of the Highlands. No. LXX.

[298] Chambers, p. 145.

[299] Mrs. Grant's MS.


END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.




LONDON:

Printed by S. & J. BENTLEY, WILSON, AND FLEY,

Bangor House, Shoe Lane.


       *       *       *       *       *

Transcriber's Note: The following errors in the original have been
corrected.

Page 24 - missing quote mark added: in Scots' affairs."[B]

Page 36 - missing quote mark added: Scottish nobility."

Page 47 - from Paris to Boisleduc changed to from Paris to Barleduc

Page 54 - missing quote mark added: faithfully serving King George."

Page 66 - few duties changed to feu duties

Page 88 - disastrous contest changed to diastrous contest

Page 94 - missing footnote marker added: Earl conceived.[101]

Page 101 - extra comma removed from after harbour, which succeeded

Page 111 - extra quote mark removed from before MAR.

Page 126 - Footnote marker with no associated footnote after pardoned in
1726.

Page 158 - at Fetterosso changed to at Fetteresso

Page 163 - missing quotation mark added after Ave Marias:

Page 183 - Porbably (in footnote) changed to Probably

Page 258 - missing quotation mark added before we saw a drum

Page 266 - against him." missing closing quote after him added

Page 300 - missing quotation mark added after black as a craw, man.

Page 309 - extra quotation mark removed from after their uncles.

Page 310 - missing quotation mark added after his possession,

Page 369 - missing quotation mark added after the smallest assistance!"

Page 383 - In this rereat changed to In this retreat

Page 387 - from the imputation. extra quotation mark removed from after
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