The English troops at that time in Scotland were under a second rate commander, Sir John Cope. He moved north to Inverness and left Edinburgh undefended. The Pretender captured Edinburgh, and entered it the 17th of September. He began his march on foot, but, on account of the crowd who pressed upon him to kiss his hand, he was compelled to call for his horse as he approached the eastern entrance of the palace. His personal appearance was prepossessing. His graceful manners, noble mien and ready courtesy “seemed to mark him no unworthy competitor of the crown. His dress was national. A short tartan coat, a blue bonnet with a white rose, and the order and emblem of the thistle, seemed all chosen to identify him with the ancient nation he summoned to arms.” It was indeed a proud moment, but the bubble was soon to burst. After a few successful battles, and an ill-timed excursion into England, the army was disbanded, and the unfortunate Wanderer was compelled to flee for his life, disguised as a servant. He sought refuge in a cavern where seven outlaws had taken up their abode. With these men he remained about three weeks, and when the hour of his departure came they said: “Stay with us; the mountains of gold which the government have set upon your head may induce some gentleman to betray you, for he can go to a distant country and live on the price of his dishonor; but to us there exists no such temptation. We can speak no language but our own—we can live nowhere but in this country, where, were we but to injure a hair of your head, the very mountains would fall down to crush us to death.” On the 20th of September he embarked in a French frigate, and reached Morlaix in Brittany the 29th of September.
If there ever was truth in the words, “there is a divinity that doth hedge a king” it finds illustration in the thirteen months that Charles Edward spent on this expedition in Scotland. No history or romance recounts such perils of flight, concealment and escape. The secret of his concealment was known to persons of every age, sex, and condition, but no individual from the proudest Earl to the meanest outlaw would stoop to give up their leader, even for the promised reward, which would have purchased the half of Scotland north of the Forth. That the Prince was bold and generous, in this campaign, no person can doubt; and if Charles the First had possessed as much humor as his amiable descendant, he might have preserved his head which was an “unco’ loss” to the whole Stuart line. After the victory at Preston, the Pretender sent word to the Edinburgh preachers to preach the next day, Sunday, as usual; and the Rev. Neil M’Vicar offered the following prayer: “Bless the king! Thou knowest what king I mean. May the crown sit long on his head. As for that young man who has come among us to seek an earthly crown, we beseech thee to take him to thyself and give him a crown of glory.” It is said that when the Prince heard of M’Vicar’s prayer he laughed heartily, and expressed himself quite satisfied.
I have spoken of this novel being true to history. It could hardly have been otherwise when we consider the opportunities Scott had for studying all the facts. In the closing chapter of “Waverley” he says: “It was my accidental lot, though not born a Highlander, to reside, during my childhood and youth, among persons who cherished a lingering though hopeless attachment, to the House of Stuart; and now, for the purpose of preserving some idea of the ancient manners of which I have witnessed the almost total extinction, I have embodied in imaginary scenes, and ascribed to fictitious characters, a part of the incidents which I then received from those who were actors in them. Indeed, the most romantic parts of this narrative are precisely those which have a foundation in fact. There is scarce a gentleman who was ‘in hiding,’ after the battle of Culloden, but could tell a tale of wild and hair-breadth ’scapes, as extraordinary as any which I have ascribed to my heroes. The accounts of the battle at Preston and skirmish at Clifton are taken from the narrative of intelligent eye-witnesses, and corrected from the ‘History of the Rebellion’ by the late venerable author of ‘Douglas.’ The Lowland Scottish gentlemen, and the subordinate characters, are not given as individual portraits, but are drawn from the general habits of the period, of which I have witnessed some remnants in my younger days, and partly gathered from tradition.”
“Guy Mannering,” the next in sequence, is rather a portrayal of character than a historic picture. It gives us a glimpse of gipsey-life in Galloway true to fact, and also reveals the traits of the hardy smugglers that invested its shores. The characters stand out by themselves with little or no background. Here is Dandie Dinmot, with his numerous dogs and children; Attorney Pleydell, with his old-time courtesy; Dominie Sampson, a cyclopædia of worthless erudition—a man to be laughed at and loved—possessing a fund of knowledge, but no wisdom; Guy Mannering, a courtly gentleman, deep and undisturbed as a tropic sea; two sweet young ladies and their lovers, who are at last happily married; Meg Merrilies, as generous and sensible a gipsey as ever lived; Dirk Hatterick, as false a sea rover as ever hoisted sail; and Glossin, a fawning scoundrel, whose course through life was like the trail of a serpent. The book is in fact a drama rather than a novel, or rather both in one—a dramatic romance. Coleridge regarded it as one of the greatest of Scott’s novels, and mentions it in this connection with “Old Mortality.”
In “Redgauntlet” we find a continuation of the smuggler trade, and are also introduced to the Pretender, who has not improved either in appearance or character since we last saw him in “Waverley.” His friends and supporters for the most part consist of the very dregs of society. In his blind adoration for a person not to be named with respect, the Prince lost the confidence of friends who had risked their all to support his title. In a cup of dissolute pleasure he dissolves the pearl of his good name. If he had died at the head of his army of adherents in Scotland, or after his return to France, he would have survived in history as a worthier man. “He proved to be one of those personages who distinguish themselves during some singular and brilliant period of their lives, like the course of a shooting star at which men wonder, as well on account of the briefness, as the brilliancy of its splendor. A long trace of darkness overshadowed the subsequent life of a man who, in his youth, shewed himself so capable of great undertakings; the later pursuits and habits of this unhappy Prince are those painfully evincing a broken heart, which finds refuge from its own thoughts in sordid enjoyments.”
The man was also in the hands of persons full of wild plots and political impatience. They formed schemes wholly impracticable. They invited him in 1750 to London; but he was soon convinced that he had been deceived, and after a stay of five days he returned to the place from which he came. He died at Rome the 31st of January, 1788, and was royally interred in the Cathedral Church of Frescati, of which his brother was bishop.
After his death his brother, the last direct male heir of the House of Stuart, made no assertion of his right to the British throne, but had a beautiful medal struck, in which he was represented in kingly garb with the motto in Latin, “King by the grace of God, but not by the will of the people.” He finally received an annuity of 4,000 pounds a year given to him by George the Third, and on his death he bequeathed to George the Fourth all the crown jewels, which James the Second had carried along with him to the Continent in 1688. He died at Rome, June 1807, in the eighty-third year of his age. The volumes of “Waverley” and “Redgauntlet,” taken in connection with Scott’s “Tales of a Grandfather,” give the most complete history of this unfortunate struggle.
“The Antiquary” and “Saint Ronan’s Well” present a postscript of manners and customs, which seems tame from a historic standpoint, after living so many centuries in the company of heroes and princes. Scott speaking of “The Antiquary” says: “It wants the romance of ‘Waverley’ and the adventure of ‘Guy Mannering;’ yet there is some salvation about it, for if a man will paint from nature he will be likely to amuse those who are daily looking at it.” He also says in his introduction of “The Antiquary:” “‘Waverley’ embraced the age of our fathers, ‘Guy Mannering’ that of our youth, and ‘The Antiquary’ refers to the last ten years of the eighteenth century. I have in the last two narratives especially, sought my principal personages in the class of society who are the last to feel the influence of that general polish which assimilates to each other the manners of different nations. Among some of the same class I have placed some of the scenes, in which I have endeavored to illustrate the operation of the higher and more violent passions; both because the lower orders are less restrained by the habit of suppressing their feelings, and because I agree with my friend Wordsworth, that they seldom fail to express them in the strongest and most powerful language. This is, I think, peculiarly the case with the peasantry of my own country, a class with whom I have been long familiar. The antique force and simplicity of their language, often tinctured with the oriental eloquence of Scripture, in the mouths of those of an elevated understanding, give pathos to their grief, and dignity to their resentment.” The pathos and eloquence in the homes of the fishermen justify Scott’s criticism, and the picture which he has drawn of the old grandmother will survive in our memory as one of the most dramatic in the Waverley series.
There are two references in “The Antiquary” to contemporary history, which ought not to be entirely overlooked; one where the Antiquary describes the excitement of preparation in Edinburgh against the anticipated French invasion, when almost every individual was enrolled either in military or civil capacity. Beacons were erected along the coast to summon the newly organized army of defense when occasion required, and Scott humorously refers, in one of his letters, to the appearance he himself made decked out in regimentals. Near the close of “The Antiquary” the signal light blazes out by mistake the 2d of February, 1804; the person, who kept watch on the commanding station of Home Castle, being deceived by some accidental fire in the county of Northumberland. The only historical allusion in “St. Ronan’s Well” relates to the Reign of Terror and to Napoleon Bonaparte at Acre.