William, having landed, occupied Exeter with his army of 14,000, of whom over 3,000 were British infantry. For a week there was hesitation, for he had not been expected, and the memory of the Bloody Assize hung over the West. But soon the Western gentry, both Whigs and Tories, began pouring into Exeter, while all over England revolt blazed up. The royal officers deserted in a manner that can only be described as utterly shameless. William entered London on December 16 without any fighting on the route, except a skirmish at Wincanton, in which one of his Scottish battalions roughly handled Colonel Patrick Sarsfield’s Irish regiment. James fled to France, and England was lost and won almost without a blow. Not only this, but Jacobitism was never again, except in one or two remote localities, a real militant force. From the military point of view, one may almost say that everything was prearranged, and the main lesson to be learnt from the English Revolution is that, when public opinion is not dormant and the defensive services are amenable to its influence, it is impossible for the mere official administration to maintain itself.
CHAPTER XVI
THE ‘FIFTEEN’ AND THE ‘FORTY-FIVE’
The efforts of the dispossessed Stuart dynasty to re-establish itself in the British Isles produced the last land invasions of England by way of Scotland. That of 1715 was insignificant. It cannot be said that either had the faintest chance of success unaided. Still, they were invasions in the true sense of the word and, as such, merit some notice.
Though the Stuart James II. had been expelled in 1688, the dynasty continued in a sense to reign in the female branch until 1702, though with a gap caused by the death of Queen Mary II. in 1695. But the male branch was now to all intents a foreign family with foreign ideas, and it was also Roman Catholic in its religion. It is unquestionable that the last Stuarts suffered for the misdeeds of their ancestors, but no one who studies impartially the record of the family as kings of Great Britain can well avoid the conclusion that the men who governed the country in 1714 were wise not to recall them.
It does not appear that there was any widespread Jacobite feeling in England. Certainly it assumed no practical form. That there was sympathy with the exiled family is probable, but it was largely the product of the chivalrous strain in the English national character which has so often impelled Englishmen to side with a losing cause.
In Scotland matters were somewhat different. There was a great deal of dislike to the Union of the two countries on the part of narrow Scottish patriots. At the same time the Presbyterian Lowlanders were thoroughly opposed to Stuart rule, and active Jacobite sympathy was practically confined to a few nobles and their tenants. That section of the Highlands which was at feud with the Campbells was the only part even of Scotland which sided with the exiled dynasty, and in this case self-interest had more to do with the action of the clans than loyalty.
On September 6, 1715, John Erskine, Earl of Mar, a shifty politician, nicknamed ‘Bobbing John’ by his contemporaries, raised the Stuart banner at Braemar. The ‘Royalist’ clans rose, and the Hanoverian general, John Campbell, Duke of Argyll, could only hold the line of the Forth and await reinforcements from England. The Hanoverian Government, ably directed by General Stanhope, was active to nip in the bud any Jacobite risings, and eventually the revolt broke out in the farthest corner of England.
It was not until October 6 that Mr. Thomas Forster, the son of a Cumberland landowner, rose in arms for the Stuart claimant, and was joined by Lords Derwentwater and Widdrington. They hoped to seize Newcastle and its coal-mines, but they were far too weak; and even when joined by the few Jacobite sympathizers in south-western Scotland, under Lords Kenmure, Nithsdale, Wintoun, and Carnwath, they mustered only 600 horsemen.