The Earl was justified in forsaking a Cause which Charles had made morally impossible. But he believed, in spite of Charles’s contradiction, that he had threatened to betray his adherents. This prejudice is the single blot on a character which, once animated against a man, never forgave.
The correspondence of Frederick with his Governor of Neufchâtel is scanty: he had other business in hand—the struggle for existence. On July 8, 1757, he writes from Leitmentz, thanking the Earl for a present of peas and chocolate. On October 19, 1758, he sends the bitter news of the glorious death of Marshal Keith, and on November 23 offers his condolences, and speaks of his unfortunate campaign.
Probus vixit, fortis obiit, was the Earl’s brief epitaph on his brother. His one close tie to life was broken. That younger brother, who had fished and shot with him, had fought at his side at Sheriffmuir, had shared the dangers of Glenshiel and the outlaw life, who had voyaged with him in so many desperate wanderings, to save whom he had crossed Europe—the brother who had secured for him his ‘philosophic repose’—was gone, leaving how many dear memories of boyhood in Scotland, of common perils, and common labours for a fallen Cause!
And there followed—oh philosophy!—a squabble with Keith’s mistress about the frugal inheritance of one who scorned to enrich himself! ‘My brother had just held Bohemia to ransom, and he leaves me sixty ducats,’ wrote the Earl to Madame Geoffrin. In December 1758, Frederick determined to send the Earl to Spain, where ‘nobody is so capable as you of making himself beloved.’ He wanted peace, but peace with honour. The Earl was merely to watch over Frederick’s interests, and to sound Spain as to her mediation. The King feared a separate Anglo-French peace, with Prussia left out.
By January 6, 1759, Frederick was trying to secure the Earl’s pardon in England, and wrote to Knyphausen and Michell in London. The death of Lord Kintore, the Earl’s cousin, devolved an estate upon him. This Marischal wished to obtain, but he had not changed sides in hope of gaining these lands. Andrew Mitchell wrote to Lord Holderness, on January 8, 1759, from Breslau, saying that Frederick had remarked, ‘I know Lord Marischal to be so thorough an honest man that I am willing to be surety for his future conduct.’ He enclosed a letter to be discreetly submitted to George II., submitting Frederick’s desire for the Earl’s pardon. By February 5, news reached Prussia that George had graciously consented.
There must have been a delay caused by formalities, for the Earl did not send his letter of thanks from Madrid to Sir Andrew Mitchell ‘gratefully acknowledging the goodness of the King’ till August 24, 1759.
So there was ‘the end of an auld sang.’ Charles was hanging about the French coast, for the expedition under Conflans was preparing to carry him, as he hoped, to England: James, in Rome, was receiving his sanguine letters. It was 1744 over again; but the Earl was now of the other party, and James must have felt the loss severely. The bell which was regularly rung at home for the Earl’s birthday, cracked when the news came to Aberdeenshire. ‘I’ll never say “cheep” for you again, Earl Marischal!’—so some local Jacobite translated the broken voice of the old bell. But the Earl manifestly did not win his pardon by discovering and betraying the secret of the family compact between France and Spain, as historians have conjectured. Dates render this, happily, impossible.[27]
The Earl took a humorous view of Jacobite French adventures. ‘The conquest of Ireland by M. Thurot has miscarried,’ he writes to Mitchell (April 2, 1760).[28] Thurot had but two small ships.
The Earl now desired to visit England on his private affairs, and Frederick granted permission. He went in peace, where he had gone in war, but Scotland no longer pleased him. True, his Bill was carried through Parliament, admitting him to the Kintore estates, and, from the Edinburgh newspapers, he heard of a new honour—he was elected Provost of Kintore!