Part 12

Meantime, General Ligonier, with three regiments of dragoons, began to move towards the Highlanders: whilst Lord George Murray, riding along the ranks of the Macdonalds, was forbidding them to fire until he gave orders. The English came at last, on full trot, almost close up to the line: then Lord George Murray gave the word of command to fire; the dragoons were instantly repulsed and fled back; upon which Lord George commanded the Macdonalds to keep within ranks, and stand firm. A total rout of the King's troops ensued; and the field of battle presented a strange spectacle. The English troops were, during the whole of the battle, severely incommoded by the storm of wind and rain, which almost blinded the enemy; but, independent of this accidental cause, their usual valour was, on this day, called into question. They fled in every direction. This famous battle did not last more than twenty minutes from the first fire of the Macdonalds to the retreat of the last regiment of dragoons. Before it grew dark General Hawley gave orders that his tents should be burned; he then retreated to Linlithgow.

Many brave English officers fell in this ill-conducted engagement, and their defeat was attributed at once to the arrogant confidence of Hawley, and to the courage and discipline of the Macdonalds of Keppoch, who, under the skilful command of Lord George Murray, are considered to have won the day. "If the bravery of the Macdonald regiments were put out of view," observes Mr. Chambers, "it might be said that the storm had gained the Jacobites the battle."

But the rain, which lasted during the whole of the battle, prevented a full advantage of the defeat being taken. The Highlanders, who do not use cartridges, were unable to load again, but were forced to have recourse to their broadswords; they were, however, out-lined by one-half of the enemy's infantry, and one of the battalions wheeling about, they were thrown into disorder by the force of a flank fire. They retreated up the hill, and before they could be rallied, the English, who could not be prevailed upon to stand a second attack of the Highland broadswords, had begun an orderly retreat. Had the whole of the Jacobite army been at hand, to rush headlong upon the enemy the moment they turned their backs, few of their infantry would have escaped being killed or taken.[162]

Lord George Murray, advancing with the Atholl men, who had kept the line in perfect order, pursued the retreating army towards Falkirk. He had arrived at the foot of the hill just as the English troops entered the town, which was at the distance of a musket-shot from the place where he stood. It was then proposed by most of the officers to retire towards Dunnipace, in order to shelter the men from the incessant rain; but Lord George opposed this proposition. He had observed the disorder of the English: "Let them not have time," he remarked, "to rally, and to line the houses, and clean their guns, so as to defend the town of Falkirk; there is not a moment to be lost." He concluded with the expression of Count Mercy at the battle of Parma--"I will either lie in the town, or in Paradise."

Prince Charles coming up at the instant, approved of the resolution. A singular difficulty now occurred; there were no bag-pipes to inspirit the men with a warlike air; the pipers, as soon as a battle began, were in the practice of giving their pipes into the keeping of boys, who had to take care of themselves, and often disappeared with the instruments. "The pipers, who," as Lord George remarks, "were commonly as good men as any," then charged with the rest. This circumstance, which might appear trifling, was in fact the cause why the Macdonalds and other Clans had not rallied from the first.[163] Such was the importance of the national music at this critical moment. In ancient days the bards shared the office of encouragement to the Clans. It was their part to stimulate valour, and, before the battle began they passed from tribe to tribe, giving exhortations, and expatiating on the dishonour of retreat. They familiarized the people with a notion of death, and took from it, in one sense, its sting. When their voices could no longer be heard, they were succeeded by the pipes, whose wailing and powerful strains kept alive the enthusiasm which languished when those notes ceased to be heard.[164]

Lochiel, Lord Ogilvy, Colonel Roy Stewart, and several other chiefs, followed Lord George Murray into the town. On the ensuing day Charles and most of the army entered it. All were disappointed not to overtake the enemy; and Lord George Murray has left on record proofs of his bitter disappointment at the fruitless issue of this gallant encounter, much of which he attributes to want of decision and arrangement. Early on the morning of the battle, he had given the Prince a scroll of the line of battle, which was approved; he had requested that it might be filled in with the names of officers appointed to command. "I never," he observes, "heard that there was any appointment made that day." When it was agreed to march towards the enemy between twelve and one, he asked the Prince whether, since there was no other Lieutenant-General there, he should march at the head of the army? He was answered in the affirmative, after which he never received any other instructions until the action was over. The difficulties which Lord George had, therefore, to encounter, without knowing who were to command in the different stations; with only two aides-de-camp, both on foot, whilst his personal enemies were near the Prince in the time of the action, and did little to advise or suggest, are strongly insisted upon in his narrative. "I believe," he adds, after firmly but dispassionately stating all these unhappy mistakes, "that my conduct was unexceptionable, and that in the advantages we gained I had a considerable share."[165]

The day succeeding the victory of Falkirk was passed by the insurgents in burying the slain, and in collecting the spoils. A deep pit was dug by the country people, into which the English soldiers and the Highland clansmen were precipitated into one common grave. The former were easily distinguished by the frightful gashes of the broad-swords on their breasts and limbs. The tomb contained a heap of human bodies; and long after the event the spot of this rude sepulchre might be traced by a deep hollow in the field.[166]

Charles Edward had now arrived at another crisis of his singular destiny. The fate of a single day had once more rendered him victorious, but it requires a superior and matured judgment to profit by success. "One thing is certain," remarks an eye-witness of this contest, and that is, "that the vanquished will always have great resources in the negligence of the victorious party."

The battle of Falkirk struck terror into every English heart, and the panic of the Black Monday again spread like a contagion throughout the country. After the retreat from Derby, the higher ranks of society in England, who had betrayed an unwonted degree of alarm, concluded that they had nothing more to fear even from "a band of men so desperately brave who had done so much with such little means." The victory at Falkirk was, therefore, received with redoubled alarm; and at court, during a ball which was held instantly after the event, only two persons appeared with calm and cheerful countenances. These were the King, whose personal courage was undoubted, and General Cope, who rejoiced that Hawley's failure might in some measure excuse his own.[167]

Under these circumstances, and being assured that the panic in Edinburgh equalled that in London, Prince Charles was strongly advised to repair to Edinburgh and to resume the possession of the capital. He hesitated, and the delay proved fatal to his interests. There was no time to be lost;--the conduct of Hawley had inspired universal contempt not only for his abilities, but for his cowardice. "General Hawley," wrote General Wightman to Duncan Forbes, "is much in the same situation as General Cope, and was never seen in the field during the battle; and everything would have gone to wreck in a worse manner than at Preston, if General Huske had not acted with judgment and courage, and appeared everywhere."

Lord George Murray remained at Falkirk with the Clans until apprised, through the secretary Murray, that the Duke of Cumberland was expected at Edinburgh on the twenty-eighth of the month; and that it was Charles's intention to attack him as soon as he arrived at Falkirk. At the first news of the project, Lord George seemed to approve of it; he drew up a plan of the battle, which he submitted to the ardent young Chevalier, who was delighted to think that he was to have to oppose the Duke of Cumberland in person. But this hope was transient; for on the very same evening, a representation, signed at Falkirk, by Lord George Murray and all the commanders of Clans, begging him to retreat, was presented to the disappointed and indignant Charles Edward. The great desertions which were daily taking place since the battle, was made the chief plea of this unexpected address; two thousand men, it was alleged, had gone off since that action, whilst the army of the enemy was reinforced. Some of the battalions were said to be one-third weaker than before the engagement at Falkirk.

The Prince received this address with a dissatisfaction even more apparent than that which he had shown at Derby, when persuaded to retreat. He dashed his head against the wall with violence, exclaiming, "Good God! have I lived to see this?" As the event showed, it had perhaps been wiser to have risked the event of an action at that time, than to have awaited the mournful catastrophe of Culloden. At length, although he never could be brought to approve of the step, Charles gave a reluctant and sorrowful consent to that which all his chieftains called upon him to adopt. The burden of the censure which was afterwards cast upon this decision, was thrown upon the Lieutenant-General. "I was told," writes Lord George, "that I was much blamed for it. I really cannot tell who was the first that spoke of it, but this I am sure, every one of us were unanimously of the same opinion." The siege of Stirling had proved, indeed, wholly unsuccessful; that very morning the battery, although it had been long in preparation, was silenced in a few hours after it began to play. It was therefore determined to abandon it; and it was decided that the time of the army would be more profitably employed in driving Lord Loudon from Inverness, and in taking the forts in the north, than in a rash engagement, or a hopeless siege. The spirit of the enterprise was, indeed, gone; otherwise such a retreat could never have been proposed and entertained. It was, however, fully determined on. The deepest dejection prevailed among the army when it was announced.

The Prince still remained at Bannockburn. On the thirty-first of the month it was determined to have a general review of the troops; the retreat was not to begin until ten o'clock. Early in the morning Charles Edward, still hoping that the desertions were not so numerous as had been represented, and that the "odious retreat" might be prevented, came out to view his troops. There was hardly the appearance of an army to receive him. On hearing the decision of the Prince, the men had risen at day-break and had gone off to the Frews, many of them having arrived by that time at that ford. There was nothing to be done; Lord George Murray, who had now joined the Prince from Falkirk, and who was quartered with some troops in the town of Stirling, was summoned. The Prince marched off with some of the chiefs and the few troops he had with him, and Lord George brought up the rear. A great portion of the artillery was left behind; the heaviest pieces being nailed up and abandoned. The retreat was thus precipitately commenced, and presented a very different aspect to the withdrawal of the Prince's troops from Derby.

Of this disorderly and disreputable march, Lord George Murray knew nothing until it was begun. The very morning on which it took place, the church of St. Ninian's, where the powder was lodged, was blown up. Lord George Murray was in his quarters when he heard the great noise of the explosion, and thought it was a firing from the Castle. "My surprise," he thus writes, "is not to be expressed.[168] I knew no enemy was even come the length of Falkirk; so that, except the garrison of Stirling Castle, nothing could hurt us. I imagined they had sallied, and made the confusion I observed. I shall say no more about this; a particular account of it is wrote. I believe the like of it never was heard of."

The destruction of St. Ninian's tower is attributed by most historians to the awkwardness of the Highlanders, in attempting to destroy their ammunition. "I am apt to think it was an accident," observes Maxwell, "or, at least, the design of some very private person, for there was no warning given to any body to get out of the way. Nine or ten country people, and five of the Jacobite soldiers, perished from the explosion; and the Prince, over whose existence a special Providence appeared to have watched, was within being hurt when the explosion took place."[169]

The Highland army was quartered on the first night of their march at Doune and Dumblain; and assembled the next day at Crieff. Here Charles Edward again reviewed them, and to his surprise found that they had mostly re-assembled, and that scarcely a thousand of the troops were wanting. The young Prince, who had reluctantly consented to the retreat upon the supposition that he had lost one half of his army, reproached Lord George Murray with having advised that step. Many were the censures heaped upon the General for his councils; and it must be acknowledged, that the caution apparent in his character was, in this instance, carried to an extreme. He excused himself on the plea of his opinion having been that of the whole army; but exonerated himself from any

## participation in the sudden departure, or, as he calls it, "the flight"

from Stirling. At the council which was then called, heats and animosities rose to a height which had never before been witnessed, even among the vehement and discordant advisers of the Prince. After many fierce altercations, it was determined that Prince Charles should march to Inverness by the Highland road; and that Lord George Murray, with his horse, and the low country regiments, should proceed along the coast road, by Montrose and Aberdeen to the same place.

During the last few months the Marquis of Tullibardine had been stationary, employing himself in the fruitless endeavour to stimulate the tenantry and the neighbourhood to join the army of Charles Edward. After leaving Bannockburn he remained at Polmaise, a small village in Stirlingshire, until urged by Lord George to repair to Blair Castle, to garrison that place; for which purpose, according to his opinion, a body of fifty men would be sufficient. In his letters to his brother, Lord George recommends a degree of severity towards deserters which was not consonant with the mild temper of Tullibardine: "Those who have gone home without a special licence on furlough, must be exemplarily punished, either in their persons or effects, or in both; for when our all depends, lenity would be folly." After urging the Marquis to send off the men to Blair by dozens, he adds, "If rewards and punishments do not, I know not what will. By the laws of God and man you have both in your power and your person:" thus alluding to the Marquis's position as a chief.

But these decisive measures were impracticable. "I was ordered by the Duke of Atholl" writes David Robertson from Blair, to his brother, an officer in Lord George's regiment, "to take up and imprison all deserters; but I might as well attempt to move a mountain, being left here without money, or men capable of being made officers." Nor was the Marquis's power more effectual. The most sincere desire to comply with every wish or counsel of Lord George Murray's, actuated, indeed, this estimable man. He seems, from his letters, to have felt the most unbounded and affectionate admiration for his brother; a sentiment only inferior to his devotion to the Prince; yet we can perceive a covert allusion in some of his injunctions to those frequent disagreements with Charles, of which the Marquis was probably not ignorant. "Pray, take care of our young master's glory as well as your own, and the King's service, which ought to be dear to all honest men who are above selfish views. Excuse me," adds the aged nobleman, whose anxieties and sufferings were soon to close in a prison, "for not writing with my own hand; since seeing you, excessive rheumatick pains has rendered it almost impossible."

By Robertson of Strowan, a man noted for his eccentricities, a very gloomy view was taken of the proceedings of the generals and courtiers who surrounded Charles. He was ordered by the Prince to stay at home, and to stop all the deserters who came in his way. He obeyed the command; but obeyed with the observation, that "all were running to the devil, except the Duke of Atholl and the Laird of Strowan." He hinted in his letters, that he could disclose much to the "Duke," respecting his nearest relations, both as to their dislike to himself, and their disrespect to his Grace. The friendly intercourse between Lord George and his brother continued, nevertheless, unabated. The former on one occasion congratulates his brother on the valour of the "Atholl men," at the battle of Falkirk. The encomium was answered by the Marquis's complaints of the sad change in the spirit and loyalty of the Clan since the defection of their "unnatural brother James" from the Stuart cause. Nothing but vexations and disappointments occurred to the Marquis on his return to Blair. His rents were refused by his tenants on account of their expenditure in the Prince's service, and the country around Perth was left exposed to the enemy. For some time entreaties from Lord George to his brother, that he would send men to replace those who were killed at Falkirk of the Atholl men, were met by excuses too well grounded in reason. All the "corners of the country" were searched by the Marquis's agent, to raise the men in an "amicable way," but without avail. The exertions of poor Tullibardine, nevertheless, continued indefatigable, notwithstanding the truly Scottish complaints, sciatica and rheumatic pains. "I omit," he writes, "nothing that lies in my power that can contribute towards the public service. God knows what dilatory and imposing evasions one has to struggle with amid a multitude of refractory people in these parts." At length the sum of three hundred pounds was sent to him by Secretary Murray in order to maintain the recruits whom he had raised on his own estates.

Eventually the seeds of dissension were sown between Lord George Murray and his brother. Nor can we wonder, however we may grieve, at such an event. The aim of the one was personal glory, fame. The whole heart of the other was centred in the success of the cause. When he suspected that the intentions of that brother, of whom he was so proud, were less disinterested than his own, a mild, but earnest and mournful reproof was wrung from his kind and trusting heart.[170]

Until, however, the seat of war was transferred to the paternal home of Lord George Murray--whilst his immediate interests were spared--the Marquis of Tullibardine evinced the most sincere confidence in his intentions, and admiration for his talents. Afterwards, suspicions, which have been in a great measure dissipated by the testimony of brave and honourable men, might disturb the repose, but could not, eventually, sully the fame of Lord George Murray. In thus reverting to the domestic concerns of this celebrated man, the position of his lady and children naturally recur. Lady George Murray had resided during the troubles of 1745 at Tullibardine, in the parish of Blackford, in Perthshire. The castle of Tullibardine had been fortified by a portion of the Earl of Mar's army in 1715: but was taken by the Earl of Argyle. Until after the close of the last insurrection it was inhabited by Lady George Murray; but when the fate of her husband was involved in the general wreck, the old building was suffered to fall to ruin. From this residence, such of Lady George Murray's letters to her husband as are preserved in the Atholl correspondence are dated. They are chiefly addressed to the Marquis of Tullibardine, and form the medium of correspondence between him and his brother. Here, too, she gave birth, after the battle of Falkirk, to a daughter named Katherine; and during the confinement which followed this event, her Ladyship's office as correspondent was fulfilled by her young daughter, who bore the name of Amelia. To the letter of this child, Lord Tullibardine replies with his accustomed courtesy and kindly feeling. "With extreme satisfaction I received," he says, "a mighty well wrote letter from you, which could not but charm me with your endearing merit. I rejoice in being able to congratulate your mother and you on the glorious share my brother George has again had in the fresh victory which Providence has given the Prince Regent over his proud Hanoverian enemies! Dear child, I thank you kindly for enquiring after my health." To these near, and, as it appears, cherished ties, Lord George was probably re-united during the march to Crieff. But whatever of domestic happiness he may have enjoyed, its duration was transient; and he passed on to a service full of the hardships of war, but in which he was doomed never more to possess the laurels of victory.

From Crieff, Lord George Murray marched to Perth, and thence by Montrose and Aberdeen to Inverness. During the inclemency of the winter many of the cavalry lost their horses; but the troopers being, as Sir Walter relates, "chiefly gentlemen, continued to adhere with fidelity to their ill-omened standards."[171]