FROM SIMON FRASER TO THE LAIRD OF CULLODEN.
"Nov. 23rd, 1697.
"Sir,
"I pray you receive the inclosed acompt of my business, and see if your own conscience, in sight of God, doth not convince you that it is literally true. I hade sent it to you upon Saturday last, but you were not at home; however, I sent it that day to the Laird of Calder, who, I hope, will not sitt down on me, but transmitt it to my best friends; and I beseech you, Sir, for God's sak, that you do the like. I know the Chancellour is a just man, notwithstanding his friendship to my Lord Tilliberdine. I forgive you for betraying of me; but neither you, nor I, nor I hope God himself, will forgive him that deceived you, and caused you to do it. I am very hopeful in my dear wife's constancey, if they do not put her to death. Now I ad no more, but leaves myself to your discretion; and reste, Sir, your faithful friend and servant,
Sim. Fraser."
Lady Lovat lived to hear her husband deny that he had ever sought her in marriage, and to see him married to two different wives; and he scrupled not to represent the unfortunate Lady Lovat as the last possible object of his regard—as a "widow, old enough to be his mother, dwarfish in her person, and deformed in her shape."[150] This, as far as related to disparity of years, was untrue; the Dowager was only four years older than the Master of Lovat.
Meantime justice had not slumbered; and one morning, a charge "against Captain Simon Fraser, of Beaufort, and many others, persons mostly of the clan Fraser, for high treason, in forming unlawful associations, collecting an armed force, occupying and fortifying houses and garrisons, &c.," was left by the herald, pursuant to an old Scottish custom, in a cloven stick which was deposited at the river side, opposite to the Isle of Aigas.[151] Of this no notice was taken by Simon, except to renew his addresses to his clan, and to hasten, as far as he could from his secluded retreat, a systematic resistance to the Marquis of Athole, and even to the royal troops, whose approach was expected. But his fears were aroused. Again he sought to avert the coming danger by concession; and he determined, in the first instance, on restoring Lady Lovat to her friends.
It is stated by Mr. Arbuthnot, but still on the authority of the Master of Lovat, that Lady Lovat had now become reluctant to return to her relations. Nor is it improbable that this statement is true, without referring that reluctance to any affection for the wretch with whom her fate was linked. She complied, nevertheless, with the proposal of the Master; and leaving the Island of Aigas, she proceeded first to Castle Downie, and afterwards to Dunkeld, where, according to Arbuthnot, she was obliged by her brother, the Marquis, to join in a prosecution against her husband, for a crime which she had forgiven. According to a letter from the Duke of Argyle, addressed to the Rev. Mr. Carstares, chaplain to King William, she fully exculpated the Master from the charges made against him on her account.[152] This exculpation was doubtless given when the unhappy woman was under the influence of that subtle and powerful mind, which lent its aid to its guilty schemes. Simon Fraser himself, as we have seen, in writing to Duncan Forbes, declared—"I am very hopeful in my dear wife's constancy, if they do not put her to death." This might be only a part of his usual acting,—a trait of that dissimulation which was the moral taint of his character; or it may have been true that the humiliated being whom he called his wife had really learned to cherish one who seemed born to be distrusted, hated, and shunned.
The return of Lady Lovat to her family was of no avail in mitigating the indignation of the Marquis of Athole. By his influence with the Privy Council, who were, it is said, completely under his control, he procured an order from King William for the march of troops against the clan of Fraser, with instructions, according to Simon Fraser, to overrun the country, to burn, kill, and to destroy the whole clan, without exception; and, without issuing a citation to Thomas Fraser of Beaufort, or to his son, to appear—without examining a single witness—a printed sentence was published against all the Frasers, men and women and children, and their adherents. Even the sanctuary of churches was not to be respected: "in a word," says Lord Lovat's Manifesto, "history, sacred or profane, cannot produce an order so pregnant with such unexampled cruelty as this sentence, which is carefully preserved in the house of Lovat, to the eternal confusion and infamy of those who signed it."[153] The Government which sanctioned the massacre of Glencoe was perfectly capable of issuing a proclamation which confounded the innocent with the guilty, and punished before trial.
The Master of Lovat assembled his clan. That simple and faithful people, trusting in the worth and honour of their leader, swore that they would never desert him, that they would leave their wives, their children, and all that they most valued, to live and die with him. An organized resistance was planned; and the Master of Lovat intreated his father, as he himself expressed it, with tears, "to retire into the country of his kinsmen, the Macleods of Rye." The proposal was accepted, and Thomas of Beaufort, for he never assumed the disputed title of Lord Lovat, took refuge among that powerful and friendly clan.
The prosecution against the Master of Lovat was, in the mean time, commenced in the Court of Justiciary; "the only case," so it has been called, "since the Revolution, in which a person was tried in absence, before the Court of Justiciary, a proof led, a jury inclosed, a verdict returned, and sentence pronounced; forfeiting life, estate, honours, fame, and posterity."[154] None of the parties who were summoned, appeared. The jury returned a verdict finding the indictment proved, and the Court adjudged Captain Fraser and the other persons accused, to be executed as traitors; "their name, fame, memory, and honours, to be extinct, and their arms to be riven forth and deleted out of the books of arms; so that their posterity may never have place, nor be able hereafter to bruite or enjoy any honours, offices, titles, or dignities; and to have forfeited all their lands, heritages, and possessions whatsoever."[155]
After this sentence, a severer one than that usually passed in such cases, the Master of Lovat, for the period of four years, led a life of skirmishes, escapes, and hardships of every description. He retired into the remote Highlands, then almost impenetrable; and, followed by a small band of his clansmen, he wandered from mountain to mountain, resolved never to submit, nor yield himself up to justice. Since his father's estates were forfeited, and he could draw no means of subsistence from them, he was often obliged to the charity of the hospitable Highlanders for some of their coarse fare; and when that resource failed, or when he had lived too long on the bounty of a neighbourhood, he and his companions made nightly incursions into the Lowlands, and, carrying off cattle and provisions, retreated again to their caverns, there to satisfy hunger with the fruits of their incursions.[156]
During the four years of misery and peril in which the Master of Lovat continued to evade justice, his father died, among his relations in the island of Skye. His decease was caused, according to the representation of his son, by a hasty march made to escape the King's troops, who, he heard, were coming to the islands to pursue him. Among the few humane traits in the character of Simon Fraser, the habitual respect and affection borne by the Highlanders to parents appears to have been perceptible. He speaks of Thomas of Beaufort in his Life with regret and regard; but seals those expressions of tenderness with an oath that he "would revenge himself on his own and his father's enemies with their blood, or perish in the attempt." Such were his notions of filial piety.
The Master of Lovat had now attained the rank for which he had made such sacrifices of safety and of fame; and had the hollow satisfaction of a disputed title, with an attainted estate, and a life over which the sword of destiny was suspended.
A sentence of outlawry followed that of condemnation, and letters of fire and sword were issued against him. He was forbidden all correspondence or intercourse with his fellow subjects: he was cast off and rejected by his friends, and in constant danger either of being captured by the officers of justice, or assassinated by his enemies. The commission for destroying the clan of Fraser was not, indeed, put into execution; but that wild and beautiful district which owned him for its lord, was ravaged by the King's troops stationed at Inverness, or intimidated by the Highland army, commanded by Lord Lovat's early companions, but now deadly foes,—Lord James and Lord Mungo Murray. At length, after gaining a complete victory, according to his own account, at Stratheric, over the tributaries of Lord Athole, and extracting from the prisoners an oath by which they "renounced the claims on our Saviour and their hopes in Heaven if ever they returned to the territories of his enemy, the guilty and unfortunate man grew weary of his life of wandering, penury, and disgrace."
He was always fertile in expedients, and audacious in proffering his petitions for mercy. During his father's life, a petition in the form of a letter, written by Thomas of Beaufort, and signed by seven Frasers, had been addressed to the Duke of Argyle, appealing to his aid at Court, upon the plea of that "entire friendship which the family of Lovat had with, and dependence upon, that of Argyle, grounded upon an ancient propinquity of blood, and zealously maintained by both through a tract and series of many ages."[157] The Duke of Argyle had, it was well understood, made some applications on behalf of the Frasers; and Lord Lovat now resolved to push his interest in the same friendly quarter, and to endeavour to obtain a remission of the sentence out against his head.
His efforts were the more successful, because King William had by this time begun to suspect the fidelity of Lord Tullibardine, and to place a strong reliance upon the integrity and abilities of the Duke of Argyle. The Duke represented to his Majesty not only the ancient friendship subsisting between the house of Campbell and that of Fraser, but also that the King might spend "a hundred times the value of the Fraser estate before he could reduce it, on account of its inaccessible situation and its connection with the neighbouring clans."[158] The Duke's account of his success is given with characteristic good sense in the following letter:—