It was there, in the autumn of the year, that two pleasant acts of grace occurred. The Earl of Seaforth, attainted for his share in the rebellion of 1715, was there, by arrangement, presented to the king. The Jacobite peer went on his knees and confessed his treason. The king granted him his pardon, and gave him his hand to kiss; but the great Scottish earldom has never been restored to the noble house of Mackenzie. A similar scene took place when Sir Hugh Paterson, of Bannockburn, received the royal pardon.
SEAFORTH’S PARDON.
Nevertheless, who was serving or betraying King George at the Chevalier’s Court, or King James in London, is, among other official secrets, locked up in State papers. One illustration of the state of affairs in London was afforded, unpleasantly, to Atterbury, by the pardon of Lord Seaforth. That Jacobite peer had been made a Marquis by James III., and wished to be further made a Duke. At the same time Seaforth was negotiating with the British Government for his pardon and a grant out of his forfeited estate. Both were accorded, and the ex-Jacobite became a courtier at St. James’s. Mr. F. Williams, the apologist of Atterbury, says, that such Jacobites caused endless anxiety to the ex-bishop, and that their heart was not in the cause: all they had nearest at heart was their own pride, selfishness, and vanity!
The above acts of grace increased the general goodwill which was entertained towards the royal family. The Prince of Wales showed especial tact in obtaining popular suffrage. When the water-pageant of the Lord Mayor, Sir John Eyles, Bart., passed along the river, the Prince and Princess of Wales, with the little Duke of Cumberland, stood in the river-side gardens of old Somerset House, to see the procession pass. It was not pre-arranged; but when the family group was seen, the state barges pulled in towards the garden-terrace, and there the chief magistrate offered wine to the prince who, taking it, drank to ‘The Prosperity of the City of London.’ Colonel Exelbe, Chief Bailiff of the Weavers, brought up the company’s state barge, as the others were pulling out to the middle stream, and, say the daily chroniclers, ‘in a manly, hearty voice, drank to the health of the Prince, the Princess, and the little Duke.’ The prince delighted the weavers by drinking to them ‘out of the same bottle.’
The autumn brought pleasant news to London, namely, that the disarmament of the Highlands had been successfully accomplished by General Wade. This brings, in connection with London, a well-known personage on the stage.
ROBERT MACGREGOR CAMPBELL.
Robert Macgregor, having been compelled to drop the prohited surname, had taken that of Campbell, but he was familiarly known as Rob Roy. He was in arms against King George at Sheriff Muir, but he betrayed the Jacobite cause by refusing, at a critical moment, to charge and win a victory for King James. Romance has thrown a halo round this most contemptible rascal. He wrote to Wade, when the disarmament was going on: ‘I was forced to take part with the adherents of the Pretender; for, the country being all in arms, it was neither safe nor indeed possible for me to stand neuter. I should not, however, plead my being forced into this unnatural Rebellion against his Majesty, King George, if I could not at the same time assure your Excellency, that I not only avoided acting offensively against his Majesty’s forces, on all occasions, but, on the contrary, sent his Grace the Duke of Argyle all the intelligence I could, from time to time, of the strength and situation of the rebels, which I hope his Grace will do me the justice to acknowledge.... Had it been in my power as it was in my inclination, I should always have acted for the service of his Majesty King George; and the one reason of my begging the favour of your intercession with his Majesty, for the pardon of my life, is the earnest desire I have to employ it in his service, whose goodness, justice, and humanity are so conspicuous to all mankind.’ This precious letter, signed Robert Campbell, is quoted by Scott (Introduction to ‘Rob Roy,’ edit. 1831), from an authentic narrative, by George Chalmers, of Wade’s proceedings in the Highlands, which narrative is incorporated into the Appendix to Burt’s ‘Letters from the North of Scotland.’ ROB ROY’S LETTER TO WADE. Scott remarks on the letter from Rob Roy to Marshal Wade: ‘What influence his plea had on General Wade we have no means of knowing.... Rob Roy appears to have lived very much as usual.’ The London newspapers show, on the contrary, that the usual tenour of this thief and traitor’s life was very seriously interrupted. Of the disaffected chiefs of clans who had been ‘out and active’ on the Jacobite side in 1715, a good number at the time of the disarmament were seized and brought to London, with intimation that their lives would be spared. What became of them is told in the ‘Weekly Journal’ for January 24th, 1727, namely, that ‘His Majesty, with his usual clemency, had pardoned the following Jacobites who had been convicted capitally of high treason in the first year of his reign, for levying war against him.’ The pardoned traitors were: ‘Robert Stuart of Appin, Alexander Macdonald of Glencoe, Grant of Glenmorrison, Machinnin of that Ilk, Mackenzie of Fairburn, Mackenzie of Dachmalnack, Chisholm of Strathglass, Mackenzie of Ballumukie, MacDougal of Lorne,’ and two others, more notable than all the rest, ‘James, commonly called Lord, Ogilvie,’ and ‘Robert Campbell, alias MacGregor, commonly called Rob Roy.’ ROB ROY IN NEWGATE. They had been under durance in London, for it is added that ‘on Tuesday last, they were carried from Newgate to Gravesend, to be put on shipboard for transportation to Barbadoes,’ Rob Roy marching handcuffed to Lord Ogilvie through the London streets, from Newgate to the prison barge at Blackfriars, and thence to Gravesend is an incident that escaped the notice of Walter Scott and of all Rob’s biographers. The barge load of Highland chiefs and of some thieves seems, however, to have been pardoned, and allowed to return home.[1]
The Highland ‘Bobadil,’ MacGregor, is said to have appeared publicly in London, both in street and park, and that, as he was walking in front of St. James’s Palace, the Duke of Argyle pointed him out to George I., or according to another version, George II.; and that at the sight, the king declared, he had never seen a handsomer man in the Highland garb. This was probably one of the floating stories of the time, lacking foundation, save that a plaided Scotsman may have been seen near the palace; thence came the story. ROB ROY IN LONDON. With a fictitious story of Rob’s exploits, the Londoners, however, were familiar. This appeared in a history called the ‘The Highland Rogue.’ Scott describes it as ‘a catchpenny publication. In this book, Rob is said to be a species of ogre with a beard of a foot in length; and his actions are as much exaggerated as his personal appearance.’ It seems to have been made up of details in which there was much inaccuracy and still more invention. Seven years after the release from Newgate, Rob Roy died at Innerlochlarig-beg, on the 28th of December, 1734. He was buried in Balquhidder churchyard, half a dozen miles from where he died, and he was, at the time of his death, sixty-three years and some odd months old.
An honest man, one who served his country well, but who has not been celebrated in romance like Rob Roy, was missed from the Southwark side of the Thames, where his figure had been daily familiar for a long period to the inhabitants, namely, Sir Rowland Gwyn. On the last Monday in January, this venerable baronet died. The ultramontane Jacobites had little respect for him. When Sir Rowland was M.P. for Radnor, in King William’s reign, he brought in the Bill for settling the Protestant Succession in the House of Hanover. For some time Sir Rowland was our ‘Resident’ in Hanover; but he displeased Queen Anne’s Ministry, withdrew to Hamburg, and did not return to England till the accession of George I. After figuring in London for a time, hard circumstances drove him to live in the Liberties of the King’s Bench, and there, after having been familiarly known to, and diversely treated by, both Whigs and Tories, the old ultra-Protestant Baronet died, somewhat miserably.
A NOTE OF ALARM.