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] Encyclopaedia 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 manoeuvre 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 manoeuvre 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 manoeuvre 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,