LORD LOVAT.
From a drawing made by Hogarth the morning before his Lordship’s execution.
When the Duke of Cumberland learned of the retreat of the rebels, he hastened against them with all his cavalry; but their rear-guard, under Lord George Murray, gallantly repelled all attacks; and on 20th December, the prince’s army was again on Scottish ground. After levying contributions on Glasgow and Dumfries, he proceeded towards Stirling, making the historical village of Bannockburn his headquarters. Here he was joined by considerable reinforcements, including the clans Frazer, Farquharson, MacKenzie, and Macintosh. Simon, Lord Lovat, the aged chief of the Frazers, had been playing fast and loose, negotiating with the Prince for a dukedom as the price of his support; at the same time assuring the government of his loyalty, and asking for arms to enable his clan to act against the rebels. In the end, he sent his son with 750 Frazers to join the princes standard; the crafty old fox himself remaining at home in pretended neutrality. By the middle of January the prince’s muster-roll reached its maximum—about 8,500 men.
The prince had opened trenches for a regular siege of Stirling Castle, when he learned that General Hawley with 8,000 men, most of them veterans from the French wars, was marching against him. Lord George Murray—knowing that with such an army as that of the rebels, the chances of success lay more in attack than defence—made a rapid march on Hawley. On the afternoon of January 17th, a battle was fought on Falkirk Moor. It was a wild fight, in a blinding storm of wind and rain. The darkening mists prevented combined operations on both sides. Divisions of each army drove back their immediate opponents, but themselves got into disorder in pursuit. Hawley in belief of defeat, fired his tents, fell back on Linlithgow, and next morning took his army to Edinburgh.
After the battle of Falkirk, the prince was for continuing the siege, but such plodding work did not suit the Highlanders, and the chiefs addressed a memorandum to him, advising retreat. He fumed and protested, but had again to yield. On February 4th, the Forth was forded, and the retreat began; it was a leisurely one, no royalist force of any magnitude being in the Highlands. Inverness was occupied by the prince on February 18th. Forts George and Augustus surrendered; Lord Loudon took what royalist troops he could collect into Ross-shire, where they were joined by the Whig MacDonalds.
The Duke of Cumberland came to Edinburgh, and organized an army. In addition to his British troops, 6,000 Hessians were landed at Leith. The army marched by Perth to Aberdeen. On the 8th of April, the Duke left Aberdeen; on the 14th, he was at Nairn, 16 miles north of Inverness. His troops numbered 9,000 men,—a compact, well-fed, well-disciplined army, with full confidence in their leader, as a man of courage and large military experience.
The prince had not expected that the duke would leave Aberdeen before May, and his troops were scattered about. They had been for weeks in a state of semi-starvation, and had to roam the country to find food for a bare subsistence. The men were discontented for lack of pay; the leaders were jealous and suspicious of each other; some of the clans claimed special rights and precedences. It was a divided, a disheartened, almost a demoralized army of 7,000 men which, on April 15th, stood, with barely one ration for each man in the commissariat, upon Culloden Moor, about four miles north-east of Inverness.
Unequally matched as the two armies would have been if they had met on the 15th, they were much more so on the next day, when the battle joined. For in the intervening night, a strategical misadventure prostrated the spirit and weakened the efficiency of the prince’s army. There was an abortive attempt at a night attack on the royalist camp. After a long weary march, the rebel army failed to concentrate in time for a night surprise; and, disheartened and fatigued, it marched back to Culloden Moor. Here, many at once lay down to sleep, others scattered in search of food. At noon of the 16th, the two armies confronted each other.
Lord George Murray was watching for the proper moment to attack, but, without waiting for orders, the clans in the centre and right wings rushed down with their broadswords, and in spite of a galling fire broke through the front line of the enemy. But the second line had been trained to resist a Highland onset; they reserved their fire until the clansmen had almost reached the points of the bayonets, and then it told with deadly effect. The broadswords could not penetrate the steady line of bayonets; for the assailants it was either flight or death.
The three MacDonald regiments had been placed in the left wing of the rebel army. They claimed the right wing, and even in the supreme moment of battle, Highland pride predominated over military duty. They did not respond to the order to advance, and retired upon the second line. And now, a boundary wall on the prince’s right had been thrown down by the Argyleshire Campbells, and a way made for the duke’s cavalry to operate on the flank and rear. His main army advanced in compact order, and it became a panic, and “save himself who can,” with the clansmen. The MacDonalds and a portion of the second line retired in fair order; but the duke’s cavalry cut off all stragglers; and all the wounded rebels on the battlefield, even those who were next morning found alive, were—by the duke’s orders it is said—savagely put to death.