Lady Rochester was a person of influence, and was besieged by applications for help. A little later she writes again—
“Here is such a doe about providing for burgeses place the nex perlement, I have ben soe trobeled with Solicitors for those places in the children’s estate that it has bin very trobelsome too mee, but I put them all off with telling them that I am already promised as far as my interest goes; I hope that Yates wil be carefull in securing a place for you and my sonne Lee, and those will bee as many as wee can compas. The town of Mamsbery sent too my sonne Lee that if hee would come in person they did hope too chuse him, though there were at least thirteine that did sue to bee choose in that towne, soe my sonne meanes too goe thether at the election for feare of the worst. Sir, if therebe anything wherein I may serve you more then I doe yet understand, bee pleased to command her that is your friend and servant
“Anne Rochester.”
Turning from England to Scotland, we find women playing a notable part at a later period, when the House of Stuart again involved the country in civil war. The Jacobites kept up a political ferment from the time when James II. was impelled to lay down his crown and fly, to the death of his grandson Prince Charlie. The Young Pretender, who has been variously described as the pink of chivalry and a worthless debauchee, was the object of a very real and practical enthusiasm. In Scotland, ladies of rank and wealth enlisted eagerly in his cause. There is very little that is admirable in such partisans of Prince Charlie as Lady Ogilvie and the Duchess of Perth beyond their dauntless courage. But if half the men who flocked to the Young Pretender’s standard had been filled with the fiery spirit of those two notorious Scotchwomen, the course of political events would have been altered. As it was, they materially influenced the action of the leaders of the rebel party. Had it not been for the Duchess, the Duke of Perth would have been but a lukewarm adherent, and certainly would never have bestirred himself to raise a troop for the Prince on his own estate. But the Duchess shamed him into action. She herself went about for three days and nights collecting recruits, and when she had mustered seven hundred and fifty, she caused the Chevalier, as he was called, to be proclaimed by sound of bagpipes and hunting-horns from the walls of Castle Drummond. She accompanied the Scotch army to England, and when the expected reinforcements failed to appear at Carlisle, she told the hesitating Duke that if he turned back she would lead the men herself. She had not only to overcome her husband’s timidity, but to contend with the weakness of the Prince. When he talked of a retreat at Derby, she expressed her disgust in no measured terms, and gave him clearly to understand that she thought him a coward.
“If,” said the indignant lady, “I had as many women in my train as the Prince has men in his, I would not turn my back upon all the power the enemy could bring up.”
Much against her will, she was forced into the rear at the battle of Culloden, and was ultimately taken prisoner.
Her friend, Lady Ogilvie, was likewise always to be found wherever fighting was going on. She was present at the battle of Falkirk and at the siege of Stirling; but, unfortunately, her ferocity of temper marred the excellence of her courage. Her political foes were enemies for whom no measure of retaliation was too harsh. Lady Ogilvie, like the Duchess of Perth, was taken prisoner after Culloden, though she was not present at the battle.
But the heroine of the Jacobite rising was the famous Flora McDonald. The gentle but high-spirited girl, whose name has become a household word, was far from being a politician. When the Prince of Wales visited her in London after her release from the Tower, she said very frankly that she only acted towards Prince Charlie as she would have acted towards his Royal Highness himself had their positions been reversed. Womanly compassion moved her to imperil her life and the prospects of her family to relieve the distresses of a fugitive prince. At the same time she shared the enthusiasm of her country for the house of Stuart. The romantic story of her journey with Prince Charlie attired as her Irish maid-servant has been fully told in other pages.[50] Her want of precaution in not stopping the mouths of the boatmen led to her arrest. Two weary months she spent in prison in Scotland, and was then conveyed to London and confined in the Tower. From this ominous fortress she was removed and placed in charge of a private family, where the Prince of Wales made his totally unexpected visit. Her candour so impressed him that he advised she should be restored to her friends. A free pardon was sent her, and Flora McDonald became the lioness of the London season. To the young Scotch gentlewoman, unaccustomed to the turmoil of fashionable life, and loving the freedom and solitude of the moors, London society soon became oppressive. She writes—
“To be in the fashion in London, the people appeared to me to live more out of their houses than in them; in the afternoon visiting, driving in their family coaches, attending sale-rooms where trumpery articles were sold by auction to the highest bidder, sometimes really scarcely worth taking home; for the principal part of the amusement consisted in the ladies outbidding each other, and generally amongst friends, so that large sums of money used to change hands in this frivolous way, which, no doubt, made their husbands very cross. However, the town ladies would, and I suppose ever will, contrive to have their own way. Then came the formal dinner-parties—oh, how I used to yawn behind my fan!—and often we went to see the play in Drury Lane, and, if it chanced to be a mournful tragedy, I could not help being so silly as to cry, it all seemed so natural and life-like. The best actor was Mr. Garrick, and he certainly was a great man in his profession. Mr. Cibber also was wonderfully clever: these were the first stage performers at that time....”
She goes on to describe how soon she tired of the constant whirl of London fashionable life, out all day driving from house to house, and every night at some place.
“I was sick,” she declares, “of the compliments paid me; indeed, in many cases the attentions of the gentlemen went beyond compliments.”