A history of England

by Charles Oman

Disaffection in Scotland.

But the wilder and more excitable spirits in the party were ready to follow Bolingbroke. They saw all their hopes of political advancement cut away by George's alliance with the Whigs, and determined to make a bold stroke for power. In Scotland more especially did the emissaries of the Pretender meet with encouragement. The Scots were still very sore over the passing of the Act of Union in 1707, and nursed their ancient grudge against England. But the most active source of discontent was the hatred which the minor clans of the Highlands felt for the powerful tribe of the Campbells.

Ascendency of the Campbells.

The rule of George I. in England implied the domination of that great Whig clan, and its chief the Duke of Argyle, over the lands north of Forth and Clyde. For now, as in 1645 and 1685, the chief of the Campbells, the MacCallain Mor, as his clansmen called him, was at the head of the Presbyterian or Whig party in Scotland. The chiefs of the other Highland tribes were as bitterly hostile to the present Duke of Argyle as their ancestors had been to his father and grandfather.

The Earl of Mar in the Highlands.

The Lowland Jacobites.

The English Jacobites.

The head of the Jacobite plotters in the north was John Erskine, Earl of Mar, who had been Bolingbroke's Secretary of State for Scotland in the Cabinet of 1714. He was a busy and ambitious man, who was bitterly vexed at seeing his prospects of political advancement at an end. Under the pretence of gathering a great hunting-party, he assembled a number of the leading chiefs of the Highlands at Braemar Castle. On his persuasion they resolved to take arms for King James. Among the clans which joined in the rising were the Gordons, Murrays, Stuarts, Mackintoshes, Macphersons, Macdonalds, Farquharsons, and many more. In the Lowlands a simultaneous rising was arranged by some of the lords of the Border, headed by the Earls of Nithsdale, Carnwath and Wintoun, and Lord Kenmure. Meanwhile England was also to be stirred up. The Duke of Ormonde was to land in Devonshire with some refugees from France. Lord Derwentwater and Mr. Forster, a rich Northumbrian squire, undertook to raise and organize the northern counties. A third rising was to take place in Wales.

The Highlanders as a military force.

In the autumn of 1715 the Jacobites struck their blow. On September 6th Mar raised the royal standard of Scotland at the Castletown of Braemar. Immediately a score of chiefs joined him, and an army of 5000 or 6000 men was at his disposal. Nor were the Highlanders to be despised as a military force. The ancient Celtic turbulence and tribal feuds yet survived in the lands beyond the Tay, and the clansmen were still reared to arms from their youth up. Their fathers had fought under Dundee, and their grandfathers had served Montrose in the old civil wars of Charles I. The Scottish Government had never succeeded in pacifying the Highlands, and the clans were still wont to lift each other's cattle, and to engage in bloody affrays. They were blindly devoted to their chiefs, and would follow them into any quarrel; the cause in which they armed was indifferent to them—it was enough for them to know their master's will, and to carry it out. When called to arms, they came out with gun, broadsword, and shield. The force and fury of their charge were tremendous, and none but the best of regular troops could stand against them. But they were utterly undisciplined; it was difficult to keep them to their standards, since they were prone to melt home after a battle, to stow away their plunder. Moreover, their tribal pride was so great, and their ancient tribal feuds so many, that it was very hard to induce any two clans to serve side by side, or to help each other loyally.