About the same time, and as if in obedience to some word of command from France, there was a general and almost simultaneous outburst of Jacobite demonstration in England, amounting in most places to riot. In London, and all over England, so far as one can judge, the popular feeling appears to have been rather with the Jacobites than against them. Stout Jacobites toasted a mysterious person called Job, who had no connection with the prophet, but whose name contained the initial letters of James, Ormond, and Bolingbroke; and "Kit" was no less popular, because it stood for "King James III.," while the mysterious symbolism of the "Three B's" implied "Best Born Briton," and so the Chevalier de St. George. The Chevalier's birthday—the 10th of June—was celebrated with wild outbursts of enthusiasm in several places. Stuart-loving Oxford in especial made a brave show of its white roses. The Loyalists, who endeavored to do a similar honor to the birthday of King George, were often violently assailed by mobs. In many places the windows of houses whose inmates refused to illuminate in honor of the Chevalier were broken; William the Third was burned in effigy in various parts of London, and in many towns throughout the country. So serious at one period did the revulsion of Jacobite feeling appear to be, that it was thought necessary to form a camp in Hyde Park, and to bring together a large body of troops there. The Life Guards and Horse Grenadiers, three battalions of the Foot Guards, the Duke of Argyll's regiment, and several pieces of cannon were established in the camp. By a curious coincidence the troops were reviewed by King George, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Marlborough, on the 25th of August, 1715, the very day on which, as we shall presently see, the Highland clans set up the standard of the Stuarts at Braemar, in Scotland. The camp had a certain amount of practical advantage in it, independently of its supposed political necessity—it made Hyde Park safe at night. Before the camp was established, and after it was broken up, the Park appears to {122} have been little better than Bagshot Heath or Hounslow Heath. It was the favorite parade-ground of highway robbers and murderers. The soldiers themselves were occasionally suspected of playing the part of highwaymen. "A man in those days," says Scott, "might have all the external appearance of a gentleman, and yet turn out to be a highwayman;" and "the profession of the polite and accomplished adventurer who nicked you out of your money at White's, or bowled you out of it at Marylebone, was often united with that of the professed ruffian who, on Bagshot Heath or Finchley Common, commanded his brother beau to stand and deliver." "Robbers—a fertile and alarming theme—filled up every vacancy, and the names of the Golden Farmer, the Flying Highwayman, Jack Needham, and other Beggars' Opera heroes, were familiar in our mouths as household words." The revulsion of Jacobite feeling actually showed itself sometimes among the soldiers in the camp. Accounts published at the time tell us of men having been flogged and shot for wearing Jacobite emblems in their caps. Perhaps in mentioning this Hyde Park camp it may not be inappropriate to notice the fact that General Macartney, who had figured in a terrible tragedy in the Park two or three years before, returned to England, and obtained the favor of George by bringing over six thousand soldiers from Holland to assist the King. General Macartney was the man who had acted as second to Lord Mohun in the fatal duel in Hyde Park on the 15th of November, 1712, when both Mohun and the Duke of Hamilton were killed. Macartney escaped to Holland, and was charged by the Duke of Hamilton's second with having stabbed the Duke through the heart while Colonel Hamilton was endeavoring to raise him from the ground. Macartney came back and took his trial, but was only found guilty of manslaughter—that is to say, found guilty of having taken part in the duel, and escaped without punishment. Probably Macartney, and Hamilton, and Mohun, and the Duke are best remembered in our time because of the {123} effect which that fatal meeting had upon the fortunes of Beatrix Esmond.
[Sidenote: 1715—John Erskine of Mar]
The insurrection had already broken out in Scotland. John Erskine, eleventh Earl of Mar, set himself up as lieutenant-general in the cause of the Chevalier. Lord Mar was a man of much courage and some capacity. He had held high office under Queen Anne. One of the biographers of that period describes Mar as a devoted adherent of the Stuarts. His career is indeed a fair illustration of the sort of thing which then sometimes passed for devoted adherence to a cause. When King George reached England he dismissed Mar from office, suspecting him of sympathy with the Jacobite movement. Mar had expected something of the kind, and had written an obsequious and a grovelling letter to George, in which he spoke of the king's "happy accession," professed unbounded devotion to the house of Hanover, and promised that "You shall ever find in me as faithful a subject as ever any king had." The new king, however, declined to trust to the faithfulness of this subject; and a year after the faithful subject had returned to his Jacobite convictions, and was gathering the Highland clans in James Stuart's name.
The clans were got together at Braemar. The white cockade was mounted there by clan after clan, the Macintoshes being the first to display it as the emblem of the Stuart cause. Inverness was seized. King James was proclaimed at several places, notably at Dundee, by Graham, the brother of "conquering Graham," Bonnie Dundee, the fearless, cruel, clever Claverhouse who fell at Killiecrankie. Perth was secured. The force under Mar's leadership grow greater every day. He had begun with a handful of men. He had now a little army. He had set up his standard almost at hap-hazard at Braemar, and now nearly all the country north of the Tay was in the hands of the Jacobites.
The Duke of Argyll was put in command of the royal forces, and arrived in Scotland in the middle of September 1716. He hastened to the camp, which had been got {124} together somehow at Stirling. He came there almost literally alone. He brought no soldiers with him. He found few soldiers there to receive him. Under his command he had altogether about a thousand foot and half as many dragoons, the latter consisting in great measure of the famous and excellent Scots Grays. His prospect looked indeed very doubtful. He could expect little or no assistance from his own clan. They had work enough to do in guarding against a possible attack from some of the followers of Lord Mar. Glasgow, Dumfries, and other towns were likewise in imminent danger from some of the Highland clans, and were kept in a continual agony of apprehension. It seemed likely enough that Argyll might soon be surrounded at Stirling. If Mar had only made a forward movement it is impossible to say what degree of success he might not have accomplished. It seems almost marvellous, when we look back and survey the state of things, to see what a miserable force the Government had to rely upon. In the whole country they had only about eight thousand men. They had more men abroad than at home, and in the critical condition of things which still prevailed upon the Continent, it did not seem clear that they could, except in the very last extremity, bring home many of the men whom they kept abroad. Of that little force of eight thousand soldiers they did not venture to send a considerable proportion up to the North. They had, perhaps, good reason. They did not know yet where the serious blow was to be struck for the Stuart cause. Many of George's counsellors still looked upon the movement in Scotland as something merely in the nature of a feint. They believed that the real blow would yet be struck by Ormond in the West of England.
[Sidenote: 1715—Sheriffmuir]
But the evil fortune which hung over the Stuart cause in all its later days clung to it now. There was no conceivable reason why Mar should not have marched southward. The forces of the King were few in number, and were not well placed for the purpose of making any considerable resistance. But in an enterprise like that of {125} Mar all depends upon rapidity of movement. What we may call the ultimate resources of the country were in the hands of the King and his adherents. Every day's delay enabled them to grow stronger. Every day's delay beyond a certain time discouraged and weakened the invaders. Mar might, at one critical moment, have swept Argyll's exhausted troops before him, but he was feeble and timorous; he dallied; he let the time pass; he allowed Argyll to get away without making an effort to attack him. It was then that one of the Gordon clan broke into that memorable exclamation, "Oh for one hour of Dundee!"—the exclamation which Byron has paraphrased in the line,
Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo!
Certainly one hour of Dundee might, at more than one crisis in this melancholy struggle, have secured for the time the cause of the Stuarts, and won for James at least a temporary occupation of the throne of his ancestors. Mar's little force remained motionless long enough to allow the Duke of Argyll to get sufficient strength to make an attack upon it at Sheriffmuir. Sheriffmuir was not much of a victory. Each side, in fact, claimed the conqueror's honor. Mar was not annihilated, nor Argyll driven back. The Duke of Argyll probably lost more of his men, but, on the other hand, he captured many guns and standards, and he re-appeared on the same field the next day, while Mar showed there no more. Tested in the only practical way, it is clear that the Duke of Argyll had the better of it. Lord Mar wanted to do something, and was prevented from doing it at a time when to him everything depended on advance and on success. The Duke of Argyll successfully interposed between Mar and his object, and therefore was clearly the victor.
It is on record that no small share of Mar's ill-success was due to the action, or rather the inaction, of the famous Highland outlaw, Rob Roy. He and his clan had joined Mar's standard, but his sympathies seem to have been with Argyll. He had an unusually large body of {126} men under his command, for many of the clan Macpherson had been committed to his leadership, in consequence of the old age of their chief; but at a critical moment he refused to lead his men to the charge, and stood on a hill with his followers unconcernedly surveying the fight. It is said that had he kept faith he could have turned the fortunes of the day.