Part 13
A storm of snow rendered the march from Aberdeen both dangerous and tedious. Lord George had above three hundred carriages of artillery to convey, although a great portion of the artillery was sunk in the river Tay, at Perth. In forming a junction at Inverness, the Prince had three objects in view--to reduce Fort-William and Fort-Augustus, on one side; on the other to disperse the army with which Lord Loudon had opposed him in the north; lastly, to keep possession of the east coast, from which quarter reinforcements and supplies were expected to arrive from France. It was, therefore, decided that Lord George Murray should continue along the eastern coast, in order to intercept Lord Loudon's army, in case it came that way. On the sixteenth of February he crossed the river Spey, and proceeded by Elgin, Forres, and Nairn, to Culloden, where he arrived the day before the castle of Inverness surrendered to Charles. Lord George Murray then gave the Prince an account of his march, of which even this hardy General speaks as of a journey of inconceivable trouble and fatigue. Here discussions took place, in which, as usual, the Prince differed in some important points from his Lieutenant-General. The plan which Lord George proposed was, to procure five thousand bolls of meal in Bamff, Murray, and Nairn, laying a tax in an equal manner on these several shires, and to send this supply to the Highlands; so that in case the Duke of Cumberland, who was now proceeding northwards, should follow them thither, they could have subsistence. To this scheme Charles objected; and the meal was lodged in Inverness. His confidence in his General, notwithstanding the incessant displays of his ability, was now wholly undermined. Charles's affairs were indeed rapidly declining; money, the principal sinew of war, was wanting. "His little stock might have held out a little longer," observes Mr. Maxwell, "had it been well managed; but it is more than probable that his principal steward was a thief from the beginning." The Secretary Murray, against whom this charge is levelled, was not, perhaps, more faithless when he appropriated to himself the funds of his unfortunate master, than when he planted in the breast of Charles, misgivings of his friends, and abused his influence to mislead a confiding nature. There was, however, no proof against Murray of Broughton of dishonesty, "but there were very strong presumptions; and his underlings, who suspected that their opportunity would not last long, made the best of it, and filled their pockets with the public money."[172]
By the officers and soldiers at Culloden, Lord George was received with joy. They regretted his absence, and were pleased to say that had he been with them they should have "given a good account of Lord Loudon and his troops, whom they had been prevented from pursuing at Inverness." Lord George soon found that these professions were sincere. The Prince was induced to send him to Dingwall, that he might assist the Earl of Cromartie in pursuing Lord Loudon, who had passed up to Tain. This scheme having proved impracticable, he returned to Inverness.
Meantime the county of Atholl suffered under the unparalleled cruelties of the English soldiery. The Duke of Cumberland had visited that interesting district; and it requires little more to be said, to comprehend that beauty was turned to desolation; that crimes hitherto unheard of among a British army reflected dishonour on the conquerors, and brought misery to the conquered. On the sixth of February, 1746, the Duke had arrived at Perth. His first orders were to seize the Duchess of Perth, the mother of the Duke, and the Viscountess Strathallan, and to carry them to a small, wretched prison in Edinburgh, where they remained nearly a year. The Duke of Cumberland was succeeded at Edinburgh by his brother-in-law, the Prince of Hesse, who had landed at Leith with five thousand infantry and five hundred huzzars in the pay of England. These were stationed in the capital, ready to swarm into the country to subdue its brave inhabitants.
Whilst Lord George Murray was still at Inverness, he heard that his cherished home, the territory of his proud forefathers, the scenes of his youth, were ravaged by a detachment of Cumberland's army. The houses of such gentlemen as had assisted Prince Charles were burned; and their families, after receiving every species of indignity that could palliate the guilt of a future revenge, and that could break honest hearts, were turned out to perish on the hills with cold and hunger. The very nature of Englishmen appears to have been changed during this most mournful, most disgraceful warfare; and never did the British army sink so low in morals, in humanity, as during the German yoke of a Prince whom one rejects as a countryman.[173]
Lord George was instantly ordered to go to Atholl. Little could he suspect the construction afterwards placed on his conduct, and the snare which was laid for him by his enemies, in the events of the next few weeks.
Lord George marched with unheard of dispatch towards Atholl. Already had the Duke of Cumberland placed at different parts, in that district, bands of the Argyleshire Campbells, to the amount of three hundred in number. A thousand more, it was reported, were coming from the same quarter; and it was Lord George's aim to intercept this reinforcement. He set off, followed by his brave "Atholl-men," conducting his march through byeways across the mountains; and in one march, day and night, he traversed a tract of thirty miles. It was, however, impossible to transport cannon through these almost impassable solitudes; yet, with a force not exceeding seven hundred men, Lord George contrived to surprise the enemy at these posts. He entered Atholl in the early part of the night; his detachment then separated, and, dividing itself into small
## parties, each gentleman whose home had been invaded took the shortest
road to his own house. The English soldiers were surprised in their sleep, and, according to the Chevalier Johnstone, lay murdered in their beds; but this is contradicted by many authorities.[174] These Highland gentlemen attacked, during that night, thirty of the posts in question, and all of them were carried. Few of the Government troops were put to the sword; about three hundred were taken prisoners, and between two and three hundred barricaded themselves in the Castle of Blair.[175]
The Marquis of Tullibardine had, it appears, been driven from that fortress some time previously. Misfortune was not new to one who had joined in the insurrection of 1715.
"As the late Rothiemurcus,[176] your father," he writes to a friend,[177] in a letter to which he dared not even state his place of residence, "showed me particular friendship and kindness on just such an unfortunate occasion as the present, makes me hope you will have no less regard for me in taking care of some small concerns of mine; which consists in taking care of two of three of my servants and some baggage, which I send you, rather than it should fall into enemies' hands; so that if you cannot keep it, and get it sent me in time and place convenient, it may be of some use to yourself, whom I esteem on your family and father's account; though we have not had the occasion of a personal acquaintance, which I hope may yet agreeably happen, in whatever bad situation our affairs may at present appear; then I may agreeably be able to return you suitable thanks for such an obligation as will for ever oblige,
"Sir, "Your affectionate humble servant and cousin, "ATHOLL."
14th March, 1746.
* * * * *
The Clan of Atholl was the largest that engaged in Prince Charles's service, and numbered nearly fifteen hundred men. Lord George now collected three hundred more of these vassals, and invested Blair Castle. One difficulty he had in the deficiency of cannon; he obtained, however, some field-pieces from Inverness, but his artillery was too light to make an impression on the walls. There was an alternative, which was, to reduce the castle by famine. Blair, as it happened, was defended by a stout and sturdy veteran, Sir Andrew Agnew, who was resolved only to yield upon extreme necessity his important charge. During the siege, Lord George wrote on the subject of the enterprise to his brother the Marquis of Tullibardine. The letter was answered in a manner which shows that some want of candour had been evinced towards the Marquis, who was regarded by all the Jacobites as the legitimate owner of Blair. The epistle breathes the tone of mournful resentment. "Since, contrary to the rules of right reason, you have been pleased to tell me a sham story about the expedition to Blair," such are the expressions used by the Marquis of Tullibardine, "you may now do what the gentlemen of that country wish with the castle."[178] With the true value of a high-born man for the memorials of his ancestors, the Marquis grieved most for the loss of his great-great-grandfather's grandfather's, and father's pictures. "They will be ane irreparable loss." But every thing that could promote the public service was to be resigned cheerfully and willingly for that cause. Not only did he proffer the sacrifice of his castle, but he pointed out to his brother a gate which had formerly been a portcullis, leading into it. This was at that time half-built up, and boarded, with a hollow large enough to hold a horse at rack and manger; and the Marquis suggested that this place might be more easily penetrated than any other part of the wall, so as to make an entrance into the vaulted room called "the Servants' Hall."
Whether or not Lord George decided to take advantage of this hint is unknown. The attack made upon the Castle of Blair was conducted by him in person, and was begun simultaneously with those headed by his followers upon the various posts at Blairfitty, Kinachie side, and several places near Blair. Upon the persons of the prisoners were found copies of their orders from the Duke of Cumberland, and these were signed by Colonel Campbell, and contained instructions to attack the rebels wherever they should meet them; and in case of resistance, it was the Duke's orders that _they should get no quarter_.[179] Stimulated by these intercepted documents, Lord George, early on the morning of the eighteenth of March, began the siege of Blair.
Many have been the accounts given, and various are the surmises upon the motives of Lord George in not reducing the castle; but in estimating the real difficulties of his undertaking, the testimony of a soldier and a contemporary must be taken in evidence.
Blair was defended by a man of no ordinary character, Sir Andrew Agnew, Lieutenant-Colonel of the Royal North British Fusiliers, who had been sent with a detachment from Perth by the route of Dunkeld, through the pass of Killicrankie, to take possession of the Castle.
When Sir Andrew first posted himself in Blair no apprehensions of a blockade were entertained; and no fear of a supply of provisions being cut off was suggested. The quantity of garrison provisions sent into it was therefore extremely small, as was also the store of ammunition. In regard to water, the garrison were in a better condition. A draw-well in the castle supplied them after the blockade: previously, the inhabitants had usually fetched the water they required from a neighbouring barn or brook, which formed itself into a pool in front of the house.[180]
Blair Castle was then an irregular and very high building, with walls of great thickness, having a great tower, called Cumming's Tower, projecting from the west end of the front of the house, which faces the north. This tower could be defended by musket shot from its windows.
Adjoining to the eastern gavel of the old house a new building had been begun, but had only been carried up a few feet at the time of the siege. Since the year 1745, great alterations have been made in this building, which has been lowered and modernized, and the Cumming's Tower wholly taken away.
It was between nine and ten in the morning when Lord George Murray appeared before Blair Castle, and planted his men so as to prevent the garrison from sallying out, or from getting in provisions.[181] The castle was soon so completely invested by the advanced guard of the Jacobites, that they fired from behind the nearest walls and enclosures at the picket guard of the besieged. Some horses were hurriedly taken into the Castle with a small quantity of provender; and in such haste, that one of these animals was put into the lower part of Cumming's Tower without forage or water.
There was a great entrance and staircase on the east side of the Castle; this was now barricaded, and a small guard placed near it; the garrison, consisting of two hundred and seventy men, were then parcelled out into different chambers, with a charge not to fire until actually attacked. A sort of platform was laid over the new building of the Castle, and an ensign with a guard of twenty-five soldiers placed on this to defend that part from serving as a lodgement to the besiegers. There was also a guard placed over the draw-well, to prevent the water being drawn up except at a certain hour in the morning. Besides the garrison, there were within the Castle, about seven servants of the Duke of Atholl's; namely, a land steward, a female housekeeper, three maid servants, a gardener, and a gamekeeper.
Lord George Murray having established his quarters in the village of Blair, about a quarter of a mile from the north of the castle, soon sent down a summons to Sir Andrew Agnew, Bart. to surrender, intimating that "he should answer to the contrary at his peril."
Now Sir Andrew was reputed to be a man of an outrageous temper; and the Highlanders, who could face the Duke of Cumberland's dragoons, shrank from encountering the sturdy, imperious old soldier. The only person, therefore, who could be prevailed upon to carry the summons, was a maid-servant from the inn at Blair, who being a comely Highland girl, and acquainted with some of the soldiers, conceived herself to be on so friendly a footing with them that she might encounter the risk. The summons was written on a very dirty piece of paper; and corresponded well with the appearance of the herald who conveyed it. Provided with this, the young woman set out; as she approached the Castle, she waived the summons over her head several times, and drawing near one of the windows on the basement story, made herself heard. She was received by the officers with boisterous mirth; they assured her that they should soon visit the village, and her master's house, again, and drive away the Highlanders. But, when entreated by the girl to take her into Sir Andrew's presence, they all at first refused; at last the summons was reluctantly conveyed to the commandant by a lieutenant more venturesome than the rest. This emissary soon, however, fled from the presence of the baronet, who broke out with the most vehement expressions of rage on reading the contents of the paper; uttered strong epithets against Lord George Murray, and threatened to shoot any messenger who might dare to convey any future communication.
The young girl returned to Blair. As she drew near the village, she perceived Lord George Murray, Lord Nairn, Clunie Macpherson and other officers standing in the churchyard of Blair; and observed that they were evidently diverted by her errand, and its result.[182]
From that time Lord George Murray made no attempt to hold any parley with the garrison, but continued to blockade the Castle. His men were even posted close up against the walls, wherever they could not be annoyed with the musketry; particularly at that part on which the scaffold guard was placed, where they stood, heaving up stones from time to time, and uttering their jokes against the veteran, Sir Andrew Agnew.[183]
"The cannon," as Lord George Murray observes in his narrative, "were not only small, but bad. One of them seldom hit the Castle, though not half-musket shot from it."
Various schemes were formed by Lord George during this siege, but many obstacles concurred to check them. It had indeed been proposed before Lord George left Inverness, to blow up Blair Castle; but not only had Lord George no orders to attempt that, but there seemed also to be a difficulty from the situation of the place.
It appeared at one time his intention, also, to have set the building on fire. "On the eighteenth," writes Lord Elcho, "Lord George began to fire against the Castle with two four pounders; and as he had a furnace along with him, finding his bullets were too small to damage the walls, he endeavoured by firing red hot balls to set the house on fire, and several times set the roof on fire, but by the care of the besieged it was always extinguished. A constant fire of small arms was kept against the windows, and the besieged kept a close fire from the castle with their small arms." "As the castle," continues the same writer, "is situated upon rocky ground, there was no blowing it up; so the only chance Lord George had to get possession of it was to starve it, which he had some hopes of, as there were so many mouths in it." From this opinion, the judgment of Lord George Murray, in some measure, differed. "It might, I believe," he says, "have been entered by the old stables, under protection of which the wall could have been undermined, if I had been furnished with proper workmen." But all his efforts, in both these schemes, proved ineffectual. The red hot balls lodging in the solid timbers of the roof, only charred, and did not ignite the beams; and falling down, were caught up in iron ladles brought out of the Duke of Atholl's kitchen, and thrown into water. Disappointed in this attempt, Lord George removed his few field-pieces to a nearer position on the south side of the Castle, where, however, his firing produced no better effect than heretofore.
Never was there an officer more insensible to fear than the defender of Blair. Whilst Lord George was thus ineffectually battering the walls of the house, Sir Andrew Agnew looked out over the battlements; and seeing the little impression that was made on the walls, he exclaimed, "Hout! I daresay the man's mad, knocking down his own brother's house."
Meantime the siege lasted nearly a fortnight, and the garrison were reduced to the greatest extremity for provisions. One hope, however, the commandant had, and that was of sallying forth, and escaping. The Castle of Menzies was then occupied by Colonel Webster, who was posted there in order to secure the passage of the river Tay; and, as an alternative to starvation, a scheme was suggested for stealing out from Blair in the night time, and marching through a mountainous part of country to join the king's troops at Castle Menzies.
Whilst this project was in contemplation, the brave garrison were threatened with a new danger. During the blockade, there was heard a noise of knocking, seemingly beneath the floor of the Castle, as if miners were at work in its deep vaults, to blow it up. All the inmates of Blair thought such must indeed be the case: for Lord George had now gained possession of a bowling-green near the Castle, and also of a house in which the bowls were kept: from this bowl-house a subterranean passage might easily have been dug to the very centre of the ground underneath the building, and a chamber or mine formed there for holding barrels of gunpowder, sufficient to complete the work of destruction. This scheme must have occurred to the mind of Lord George Murray, who was born at Blair, and well acquainted with its construction. His objections to pursue it appear, as has been stated, to have been perceived and controverted by the Marquis of Tullibardine. They arose, as he has himself declared, and as the English also appear to have considered, from his want of workmen to perform the attempt. The plan of undermining was not thought practicable; and the noise which so greatly alarmed the garrison was proved to be only the reverberation of strokes of an axe with which a soldier was cutting a block of wood which lay on the floor of one of the uppermost rooms. The most unfavourable suspicions were, however, eventually affixed to Lord George's neglect of this mode of attack. Whether such conduct proceeded, on his part, from an aversion to destroy the home of his youth, and his birthplace; whether he had still hopes of reducing Sir Andrew to capitulate; or whether, as it has been often vaguely asserted, a secret agreement existed between himself and James, Duke of Atholl, that the Castle should be saved, can only be determined by a far closer insight into motives than human power can obtain. We may accord to Lord George Murray, without a blemish on his fidelity, a pardonable reluctance to level to the dust the pride of his family; that every effort was made to subdue Blair, except the last, is evident from the testimony of all contemporary historians.
Meantime the garrison had one source of confidence in their extremity, on which sailors are more apt to reckon than landsmen. They trusted to the _luck_ of their commandant. Never had the stout veteran who had fought, in 1706, at Ramilies, been either sick, or wounded. He had never been in any battle that the English did not win. Yet it was deemed prudent not to allow any means of aid to be neglected, in so pressing a danger as the state of the siege presented.
The Earl of Crawford was then supposed to be at Dunkeld, having the command both of the British troops and of a body of Hessians who had lately been marched from Edinburgh. It was resolved to send to that nobleman for aid. The Duke of Atholl's gardener, a man named Wilson, undertook that dangerous embassy; he was charged with a letter from Sir Andrew to the Earl, and was allowed to take his choice of any horse in the Castle.[184]
Before Sir Andrew and his starving garrison could gain intelligence of the fate of Wilson, or could have heard the result of his enterprise, a strange reverse in their affairs took place. On the morning of the first of April, not a single Highlander was to be seen by any of the guards on duty. All had vanished; and a visit from the young woman from the inn at Blair shortly followed their disappearance. From her, the garrison heard that Lord George had, in fear of the arrival of troops from Dunkeld, suddenly withdrawn with all his followers. The old Sir Andrew, nevertheless, fearful of some stratagem, would not allow his garrison to sally out: they were shut up until the following day, when the Earl of Crawford appeared before the castle, and relieved all fears. The officers and soldiers were then drawn out, with Sir Andrew at the head of it. "My Lord," cried the old soldier, "I am very glad to see you; but, _by all that's good_, you are come too late, and we have nothing to give you to eat!" To which Lord Crawford answered courteously; and laughing, begged of Sir Andrew to partake of such provisions as he had brought with him. That day Sir Andrew and the Earl, and their officers, dined in the summer-house of the garden at Blair, in high spirits at the result of the siege.