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1745.]

HIS INTERVIEWS WITH CHIEFS OF CLANS.

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and brass buckles in his shoes." This is not the heroic costume in which imagination delights to dress up the adventurous prince. He was represented to be " ane English clergyman wha had long been possessed with a desire to see and converse with Highlanders.' The hesitation of the two chiefs was at length overcome by the enthusiasm of a younger brother of Kinloch Moidart. He had watched the eagerness of the tall youth, and the coldness of those whom he sought to convince. "When he gathered from their discourse that the stranger was the prince of Wales; when he heard his chief and his brother refuse to take arms with their prince; his colour went sparkled, he shifted his place, and grasped his sword. demeanour, and turning briskly toward him, called out me?' 'I will, I will,' said Ranald; though no other man in the Highlands should draw a sword, I am ready to die for you.' Without further deliberation the two MacDonalds declared that they also would join." This is dramatic. The narrator of the scene is John Home, the author of "Douglas."+ Gradually more offers of support came by messengers to the prince, who remained on ship-board till the 25th of July. On that day he landed at Borodale; and took up his quarters at a farmhouse belonging to Clanranald.

and came, his eyes Charles observed his Will not you assist

Charles Edward was not altogether unprepared to look to special quarters for assistance. He had combated the objections of MacDonald of Boisdale by the assurance that he could rely for aid upon MacDonald of Sleat, and the laird of MacLeod, two powerful chiefs who could each raise more than his thousand followers. Clanranald, after his adhesion, was sent to the Isle of Skye to secure these personages. On the 3rd of August MacLeod wrote from Dunvegan in Skye, to Duncan Forbes, the lord president, to give information that "the pretended Prince of Wales is come on the coast; " with the intention, with a few followers, " to raise all the Highlands." The chief adds, "sir Alexander MacDonald and I not only gave no sort of countenance to these people, but we used all the interest we had with our neighbours to follow the same prudent method." In a postscript MacLeod says, "Young Clanranald has been here with us, and has given us all possible assurances of his prudence." Young Clanranald did not succeed in his mission to.these cautious chiefs. Charles Edward was more successful with Cameron of Lochiel. He had determined to persuade the prince to withdraw from his rash enterprise, although he had been one of the associates who was in correspondence with the Pretender before the expedition from Dunkirk in 1744. Charles Edward and Lochiel met at Borodale. Lochiel for some time steadily maintained his resolve, although his brother had said to him on his way, “If this prince once sets his eyes upon you, he will make you do whatever he pleases."§ Charles Edward at last declared that with the few friends he had he would raise the royal standard, win the crown of his ancestors, or perish in the attempt: "Lochiel, who my father often told me was our firmest friend, may stay at home, and learn from the newspapers the fate of his prince." Lochiel then passionately declared he would share his prince's fate. This is Home's poetical relation. There is a more prosaic version of this interview, "on the result of which depended peace or war;" for " if Lochiel had persisted

"Lockhart Papers," vol. ii. p. 480.
"Culloden Papers;" p. 203.

+ Home's "Works," vol. ii.
§ Home, vol. iii. p. 7.

p.

427.

124

THE GATHERING AT GLENFINNAN.

[1745. in his refusal, the other chiefs would not have joined."* Bishop Forbes relates that young Glengarry assured him, upon information derived from Charles Edward himself, that Lochiel "had refused to raise a man, or 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."+ Cluny MacPherson "made the same agreement with the prince before he would join the attempt with his following."

On the 19th of August, the prince proceeded to a general gathering of the friendly clans at Glenfinnan, a valley on the border of Loch Shiel. A day or two before, the first blood had been spilt in a skirmish between the Keppoch Macdonalds and a party of the Scots Royals, proceeding to Fort William. The advantage was on the side of the daring band of Highlanders. When Charles Edward and his friends arrived at Glenfinnan the valley bore its usual aspect of a few poor inhabitants. But before noon the bagpipe was heard from the hills; and before evening fifteen hundred Highlanders were assembled. Tullibardine then raised a banner of red silk, with a white space in the centre. "The appearance of the standard was hailed by a storm of pipe-music, a cloud of skimmering bonnets, and a loud and enduring shout." The attainted heir of the dukedom of Athol then read the declaration in the name of James VIII., dated from Rome in 1743, and the commission to his eldest son as Prince Regent. The "loud huzzas and skimming of bonnets up into the air, appearing like a cloud,"§ which followed the rearing of the standard, was the tribute of simple men who obeyed the command of their chief, little heeding the arguments of the Stuart declaration, even if they understood its language. That declaration, promising redress of grievances under a lawful king, was to have its effect upon the general discontent of Scotland, in its denunciation of the Union and of the fiscal exactions which the Union was held to have entailed. The government of an usurper was pronounced to be the cause of national miseries which a free parliament was to redress. The religious institutions of the country were to be respected. The Regent promised indemnity for past treasons to all who should now take arms in his cause. Such arguments and promises were judicious. Nevertheless, "if the phraseology of these documents is examined, it is found that the royal prerogative, as the embodiment of legislative power, is carefully though not offensively or conspicuously reserved." || Few of the discontented in Scotland would carefully examine the phraseology of these documents. The rebellion was begun. Its first success would make the timid bold, and the prudent rash. But in England, every man not ignorant of the history of his country in the past century, could scarcely fail to see that the real question at issue was, whether the whole course of government since the expulsion of James II. had been a series of unlawful usurpations; or whether the national will was not something higher than the principle of divine right, asserted by the descendants of a bigoted tyrant. These declarations treated the whole contest for the throne of England as a personal question between the elector, * Home, vol. iii. p. 7. "Jacobite Memoirs," p. 22. Robert Chambers. 'History of the Rebellion of 1745-6"-a work of the highest value in which the author's nationality does not betray him into any partisanship incompatible with a conscientious desire for historical truth.

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§ "Culloden Papers," p. 387. Letter of Ter. Mulloy, an eye-witness.

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|| Burton. 'History of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 439.

125

1745.] MILITARY RESOURCES OF THE GOVERNMENT-SIR JOHN COPE. of Hanover and the son of James II. Officers and soldiers were called upon to desert their colours, and violate their oaths, "since they cannot but be sensible that no engagements entered into with a foreign usurper can dispense with the allegiance they owe to their natural sovereign." The British Parliament rightly designated these proclamations as seditious and presumptuous declarations against the Constitution of the United Kingdom.

When Charles Edward landed in Scotland, George II. was in Germany, and the government of Great Britain was directed by a Regency. The administration regarded, as most official persons are inclined to regard, only the material means which the adventurer had at his command. They despised the chances of that popular enthusiasm for the exiled family, which the apparent hopelessness of the young prince's cause carried forward into a personal admiration for his daring confidence. Had the descendant of their ancient kings landed in Scotland with ten thousand Frenchmen, he would have been eventually less powerful to overthrow the established government than when he set foot on Eriska with his seven followers. The sagacity and experience of the Lord President could not see the effect which such undoubting trust has ever produced in converting cold friends into zealous partizans. Forbes wrote to the marquis of Tweeddale, the Scotch Secretary of State in London :-"I am confident that young man cannot expect to be joined by any considerable force in the Highlands. Some loose lawless men, of desperate fortunes, may indeed resort to him; but I am persuaded that none of the Highland gentlemen who have aught to lose will, after the experience with which the year 1715 furnished them, think proper to risk their fortunes in an attempt which to them must appear desperate."* Tweeddale wrote to Forbes in reply, dating from Whitehall:-" I own I have never been alarmed with the reports of the Pretender's son landing in Scotland. I consider it as a rash and desperate attempt, that can have no other consequence than the ruin of those concerned in it."† This indifference was the narrow view of a professional statesman. Charles Edward knew his own power, when he wrote to his father that he was joined by brave people, of whose numbers he could not judge, as he had not yet set up his standard; but manfully adding, "The worst that can happen to me, if France does not succour me, is to die at the head of such brave people as I find here, if I should not be able to make my way; and that I have promised to them.” ‡ The enterprise was not altogether so rash and desperate as the members of the government chose to think. The attempt was made when there were few troops in England and Scotland; when the British army in the Low Countries had been seriously crippled in the battle of Fontenoy; when no statesman who possessed the prudence of Walpole, or the energy of Pitt, was at the head of the British councils. In Scotland, in the August of 1745, there were less than three thousand troops, of which number only fourteen hundred were available to oppose the hostile clans. The commander-inchief in Scotland was sir John Cope, an officer of the routine school, scarcely able of himself to deal with a great emergency. Tweeddale expresses his hope that if sir John Cope should speedily obey the orders he had received, there

"Culloden Papers," p. 204.

"Stuart Papers," in Mahon, vol. iii. Appendix, p. xxii.

+ Ibid., p. 209

126

THE HIGHLAND ARMY MARCHES TO PERTII.

[1745.

would be an end of the affair.* These orders were to attack the rebels in the mountains; and they assumed that the general would receive important aid from the well-affected clans. Cope marched from Stirling on the 20th of August towards Fort Augustus; and soon in his progress northward he discovered that he could rely little upon Highland auxiliaries. He heard of the successful gathering of the clans round the standard of the Stuarts; of the rapid increase of their forces as they marched onwards. On the 28th Charles Edward was at the foot of Corriaraic, near Fort Augustus. Cope prudently declined to encounter him in the mountain-passes, which the traditional victories of Highlanders over disciplined troops made well-trained veterans regard with something like apprehension. Cope resolved to march to Inverness-an extraordinary resolution, by which he left the Lowlands open to the advance of the rebels. The prince was urged to follow him. One account says, "I am assured that their young forward leader called for his Highland clothes; and that, at tying the latchets of his shoes, he solemnly declared that he would be up with Mr. Cope before they were unloosed.” † A wiser resolution was taken. The Highland army crossed the Grampians; and by the road of Blair Athol and Dunkeld, reached Perth on the 4th of September. Blair castle was left by the duke of Athol free to its ancient possessor; and Tullibardine became the host of his prince, and summoned the tenantry, not without threats of vengeance for disobedience, to repair to the Stuart banner.

On the 3rd of September, the prince made his public entry into Perth. A fair was proceeding in the city, which brought traders from the West of Scotland, and from England. He gave passports to the travelling merchants, and told a London linendraper to inform his fellow-citizens that in two months he should see them at St. James's. There was little at Perth to excite these sanguine hopes. There were remembrances of 1716, when the father of the young man who now commanded the popular applause had fled from his camp, after issuing proclamations, and fixing the date of his coronation. The grandson of James II. had a far less formidable array of adherents than were in arms for the same cause within the memory of living witnesses of his father's regal pomp, and his unheroic retreat. But the bold bearing, the cordial trust, of this young man, won him some supporters; yet not enough to make him feel that the enthusiasm of the Highlands would attend him in the Lowlands. Still he went on. The road was open before him. Two important men joined him-James Drummond, styled duke of Perth, and lord George Murray. Lord George had seen something of war, and was a man of ability. He had been opposed in 1719 to the Hanoverian dynasty, but had made his peace, though he was not trusted or employed. When he joined Charles Edward his qualifications gave him a high place in council, and in military arrangements; but he did not speak the language which hereditary right claims as its absolute due. When the prince used the antiquated tone of the Stuarts of the seventeenth century, lord George Murray pointed out its unsuitableness to a people who had forgotten to recognize such high pretensions; and he was coldly looked upon. Suspicion + Ibid., p. 216. The title of Duke was conferred by James II., after his abdication, upon the earl of Perth, who had been Lord-Chancellor of Scotland. (See vol. v. p. 87.)

"Culloden Papers," p. 209.

1745.1

PREPARATIONS FOR DEFENCE AT EDINBURGH.

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and jealousy soon divided the rebel camp into factions. But whatever were the dissensions, the great prize of the capital of Scotland was to be attempted to be won. It was won without much difficulty.

On the 11th of September the little army marched southward. They crossed the Forth at the fords of Frew, about eight miles westward of Stirling. The passage was not disputed by Colonel Gardiner's dragoons,

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who retired before them. At Callender House, near Falkirk, Charles Edward received the adhesion of lord Kilmarnock, the first Lowland man of rank who joined his banner. He went on to Corstorphine, within four miles of Edinburgh, without opposition. There was division in the municipal councils of the Scottish capital. Provost Stewart acted in a spirit of corporate rivalry against an able and zealous loyalist, George Drummond, who was for organizing a vigorous resistance. Even if the civic authorities had agreed amongst themselves, they had to defend old walls which could be easily clambered over or broken down; and all the force which could be mustered was not more than eleven hundred men, not a third of whom were disciplined soldiers. The greater number were rapidly embodied volunteers. On Sunday, the 15th, the citizens were called to arms by the alarming toll of the great firebell. The volunteers mustered; but there was no one to command them. They manned the town-walls on that night. On the Monday, the dragoons, who, with the town-guard, were very near the advancing rebels at Colt Bridge, were seized with a sudden panic as their pickets fled before some mounted

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