A Short History of Scotland
Andrew Lang
CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LAST JACOBITE RISING. Page 1
While the Kirk was vainly striving to assuage the tempers of Mr Erskine and his friends, the Jacobites were preparing to fish in troubled waters. In 1739 Walpole was forced to declare war against Spain, and Walpole had previously sounded James as to his own chances of being trusted by that exiled prince. James thought that Walpole was merely angling for information. Meanwhile Jacobite affairs were managed by two rivals, Macgregor (calling himself Drummond) of Balhaldy and Murray of Broughton. The sanguine Balhaldy induced France to suppose that the Jacobites in England and Scotland were much more united, powerful, and ready for action than they really were, when Argyll left office in 1742, while Walpole fell from power, Carteret and the Duke of Newcastle succeeding. In 1743 Murray found that France, though now at war with England over the Spanish Succession, was holding aloof from the Jacobite cause, though plied with flourishing and fabulous reports from Balhaldy and the Jacobite Lord Sempill. But, in December 1743, on the strength of alleged Jacobite energy in England, Balhaldy obtained leave from France to visit Rome and bring Prince Charles. The Prince had kept himself in training for war and was eager. Taking leave of his father for the last time, Charles drove out of Rome on January 9, 1744; evaded, in disguise, every trap that was set for him, and landed at Antibes, reaching Paris on February 10. Louis did not receive him openly, if he received him at all; the Prince lurked at Gravelines in disguise, with the Earl Marischal, while winds and waves half ruined, and the approach of a British fleet drove into port, a French fleet of invasion under Roqueville (March 6, 7, 1744).
The Prince wrote to Sempill that he was ready and willing to sail for Scotland in an open boat. In July 1744 he told Murray that he would come next summer "if he had no other companion than his valet." He nearly kept his word; nor did Murray resolutely oppose his will. At the end of May 1745 Murray's servant brought a letter from the Prince; "fall back, fall edge," he would land in the Highlands in July. Lochiel regretted the decision, but said that, as a man of honour, he would join his Prince if he arrived.
On July 2 the Prince left Nantes in the _Dutillet_ (usually styled _La Doutelle_). He some money (he had pawned the Sobieski rubies), some arms, Tullibardine, his Governor Sheridan, Parson Kelly, the titular Duke of Atholl, Sir John Macdonald, a banker, Sullivan, and one Buchanan--the Seven Men of Moidart.
On July 20 his consort, _The Elizabeth_, fought _The Lion_ (Captain Brett) off the Lizard; both antagonists were crippled. On (July 22/August 2) Charles passed the night on the little isle of Eriskay; appealed vainly to Macleod and Macdonald of Sleat; was urged, at Kinlochmoidart, by the Macdonalds, to return to France, but swept them off their feet by his resolution; and with Lochiel and the Macdonalds raised the standard at the head of Glenfinnan on August (19/30).
The English Government had already offered 30,000 pounds for the Prince's head. The clans had nothing to gain; they held that they had honour to preserve; they remembered Montrose; they put it to the touch, and followed Prince Charlie.
The strength of the Prince's force was, first, the Macdonalds. On August 16 Keppoch had cut off two companies of the Royal Scots near Loch Lochy. But the chief of Glengarry was old and wavering; young Glengarry, captured on his way from France, could not be with his clan; his young brother AEneas led till his accidental death after the battle of Falkirk.
Of the Camerons it is enough to say that their leader was the gentle Lochiel, and that they were worthy of their chief. The Macphersons came in rather late, under Cluny. The Frazers were held back by the crafty Lovat, whose double-dealing, with the abstention of Macleod (who was sworn to the cause) and of Macdonald of Sleat, ruined the enterprise. Clan Chattan was headed by the beautiful Lady Mackintosh, whose husband adhered to King George. Of the dispossessed Macleans, some 250 were gathered (under Maclean of Drimnin), and of that resolute band some fifty survived Culloden. These western clans (including 220 Stewarts of Appin under Ardshiel) were the steel point of Charles's weapon; to them should be added the Macgregors under James Mor, son of Rob Roy, a shifty character but a hero in fight.
To resist these clans, the earliest to join, Sir John Cope, commanding in Scotland, had about an equal force of all arms, say 2500 to 3000 men, scattered in all quarters, and with very few field-pieces. Tweeddale, holding the revived office of Secretary for Scotland, was on the worst terms, as leader of the _Squadrone_, with his Argathelian rival, Islay, now (through the recent death of his brother, Red Ian of the Battles) Duke of Argyll. Scottish Whigs were not encouraged to arm.
The race for Edinburgh now began, Cope bringing his troops by sea from Aberdeen, and Charles doing what Mar, in 1715, had never ventured. He crossed the Forth by the fords of Frew, six miles above Stirling, passed within gunshot of the castle, and now there was no force between him and Edinburgh save the demoralised dragoons of Colonel Gardiner. The sole use of the dragoons was, wherever they came, to let the world know that the clans were at their heels. On September 16 Charles reached Corstorphine, and Gardiner's dragoons fell back on Coltbridge.
On the previous day the town had been terribly perturbed. The old walls, never sound, were dilapidated, and commanded by houses on the outside. Volunteers were scarce, and knew not how to load a musket. On Sunday, September 15, during sermon-time, "The bells were rung backwards, the drums they were beat," the volunteers, being told to march against the clans, listened to the voices of mothers and aunts and of their own hearts, and melted like a mist. Hamilton's dragoons and ninety of the late Porteous's Town Guard sallied forth, joining Gardiner's men at Coltbridge. A few of the mounted Jacobite gentry, such as Lord Elcho, eldest son of the Earl of Wemyss, trotted up to inspect the dragoons, who fled and drew bridle only at Musselburgh, six miles east of Edinburgh.
The magistrates treated through a caddie or street-messenger with the Prince. He demanded surrender, the bailies went and came, in a hackney coach, between Charles's quarters, Gray's Mill, and Edinburgh, but on their return about 3 A.M. Lochiel with the Camerons rushed in when the Nether Bow gate was opened to admit the cab of the magistrates. Murray had guided the clan round by Merchiston. At noon Charles entered "that unhappy palace of his race," Holyrood; and King James was proclaimed at Edinburgh Cross, while the beautiful Mrs Murray, mounted, distributed white cockades. Edinburgh provided but few volunteers, though the ladies tried to "force them out."
Meanwhile Cope was landing his men at Dunbar; from Mr John Home (author of 'Douglas, a Tragedy') he learnt that Charles's force was under 2000 strong. He himself had, counting the dragoons, an almost equal strength, with six field-pieces manned by sailors.
In the grey dawn the clans waded through the marsh and leaped the ditch; Charles was forced to come with the second line fifty yards behind the first. The Macdonalds held the right, as they said they had done at Bannockburn; the Camerons and Macgregors were on the left they "cast their plaids, drew their blades," and, after enduring an irregular fire, swept the red-coat ranks away; "they ran like rabets," wrote Charles in a genuine letter to James. Gardiner was cut down, his entire troop having fled, while he was directing a small force of foot which stood its ground. Charles stated his losses at a hundred killed and wounded, all by gunshot. Only two of the six field-pieces were discharged, by Colonel Whitefoord, who was captured. Friends and foes agree in saying that the Prince devoted himself to the care of the wounded of both sides. Lord George Murray states Cope's losses, killed, wounded, and taken, at 3000, Murray, at under 1000.
The Prince would fain have marched on England, but his force was thinned by desertions, and English reinforcements would have been landed in his rear. For a month he had to hold court in Edinburgh, adored by the ladies to whom he behaved with a coldness of which Charles II. would not have approved. "These are my beauties," he said, pointing to a burly- bearded Highland sentry. He "requisitioned" public money, and such horses and fodder as he could procure; but to spare the townsfolk from the guns of the castle he was obliged to withdraw his blockade. He sent messengers to France, asking for aid, but received little, though the Marquis Boyer d'Eguilles was granted as a kind of representative of Louis XV. His envoys to Sleat and Macleod sped ill, and Lovat only dallied, France only hesitated, while Dutch and English regiments landed in the Thames and marched to join General Wade at Newcastle. Charles himself received reinforcements amounting to some 1500 men, under Lord Ogilvy, old Lord Pitsligo, the Master of Strathallan (Drummond), the brave Lord Balmerino, and the Viscount Dundee. A treaty of alliance with France, made at Fontainebleau, neutralised, under the Treaty of Tournay, 6000 Dutch might not, by that treaty, fight against the ally of France.
The Prince entertained no illusions. Without French forces, he told D'Eguilles, "I cannot resist English, Dutch, Hessians, and Swiss." On October (15/26) he wrote his last extant letter from Scotland to King James. He puts his force at 8000 (more truly 6000), with 300 horse. "With these, as matters stand, I shal have one decisive stroke for't, but iff the French" (do not?) "land, perhaps none. . . . As matters stand I must either conquer or perish in a little while."
Defeated in the heart of England, and with a prize of 30,000 pounds offered for his head, he could not hope to escape. A victory for him would mean a landing of French troops, and his invasion of England had for its aim to force the hand of France. Her troops, with Prince Henry among them, dallied at Dunkirk till Christmas, and were then dispersed, while the Duke of Cumberland arrived in England from Flanders on October 19.
On October 30 the Prince held a council of war. French supplies and guns had been landed at Stonehaven, and news came that 6000 French were ready at Dunkirk: at Dunkirk they were, but they never were ready. The news probably decided Charles to cross the Border; while it appears that his men preferred to be content with simply making Scotland again an independent kingdom, with a Catholic king. But to do this, with French aid, was to return to the state of things under Mary of Guise!
On October 31, Charles, reinforced by Cluny with 400 Macphersons, concentrated at Dalkeith. On November 1, the less trusted part of his force, under Tullibardine, with the Atholl men, moved south by Peebles and Moffat to Lockerbie, menacing Carlisle; while the Prince, Lord George, and the fighting clans marched to Kelso--a feint to deceive Wade. The main body then moved by Jedburgh, up Rule Water and down through Liddesdale, joining hands with Tullibardine on November 9, and bivouacking within two miles of Carlisle. On the 10th the Atholl men went to work at the trenches; on the 11th the army moved seven miles towards Newcastle, hoping to discuss Wade at Brampton on hilly ground. But Wade did not gratify them by arriving.