The full strength of the Scottish contingent was three thousand seven hundred and sixty-three men. Douglas was in command, with Claverhouse under him at the head of the cavalry, which mustered eight hundred and forty-one sabres, including his own regiment, Livingstone's troop of Life Guards, and Dunmore's dragoons, a regiment which, as the Scots Greys, has since earned a reputation second to none in the British Army. The infantry was made up of Douglas's own regiment of Foot Guards, now the Scots Guards: Buchan's regiment, now the Twenty-first of the Line, or, to give them their latest title, the Royal Scots Fusiliers; and Wauchope's regiment:—two thousand nine hundred and twenty-two men in all.[74] They left Scotland in the beginning of October, the foot marching by way of Chester, the horse by way of York, on London. Early in November they reached the capital, where they lay for a few days: Claverhouse, with his own regiment and the Horse Guards, being quartered in Westminster, the dragoons in Southwark, and Douglas, with his Foot Guards, in Holborn. On the tenth of the month they marched for Salisbury, where the King's army was now gathered. During the march Claverhouse received the last and most signal proof of favour James was to give him. On November 12th he had been created Viscount of Dundee.
In the royal camp all was confusion and doubt. William was at Axminster, and not a single enemy was in his rear. Many of the great English houses had already joined him, and each hour brought news to Salisbury of fresh disaffection in every part of the kingdom. James was at first anxious to fight, but Feversham warned him that, though the men were steady, few of his officers could be depended on. Before leaving London the King had called his chief captains together and offered passes to all who were desirous to leave him for the Prince of Orange, "to spare them," he said, "the shame of deserting their lawful sovereign." All were profuse in professions of loyalty, and among them were Churchill, Grafton, and the butcher Kirke. Churchill, we know, continued these professions up to the eleventh hour. On the evening of the 24th James held a council of war, in which Churchill's voice was loudest for battle. That night he left Salisbury for Axminster, and Grafton went with him. Some of the Scottish officers stood firm, but not all. Dumbarton offered to lead his regiment alone against the enemy. Dundee urged James to do one of three things: to fight the Prince, to demand from him in person his business in England, or to retire into Scotland with his faithful troops. But the King still hesitated, and while he hesitated the moment passed. Kirke, who commanded the advance guard at Warminster, flatly refused to obey the orders sent him from Salisbury, and a rumour spread that he had gone over to William with all his men. The King broke up the camp and began his retreat to London; and before he had got farther on his way than Andover, Ormonde and Prince George had joined the deserters, taking with them young Drumlanrig. Douglas did not himself go over; but one of his battalions did, without any attempt on his part to stop them. He had sounded Dundee on the expediency of making terms for themselves with William; but as he had done so under an oath of secrecy, Dundee felt himself bound in honour to keep silence, and we may suppose made it a part of the bargain that Douglas should stay where he was.
James left no orders behind him, and after his retreat the movements of his army are somewhat confused. Dundee marched his cavalry to Reading, where he was joined by Dumbarton. Thence they were ordered to Uxbridge to consult with Feversham on the chances of a battle. But hardly had they got there when the latter received orders to disband the army, and heard at the same time of the King's flight from London. The Scottish troops clamoured for Dundee to lead them back to their country. He marched them to Watford, and while there, it is said, received a letter from William, who had now advanced to Hungerford, bidding him stay where he was and none should harm him.[75] According to Balcarres, Dundee made at once for London on the news of the King's flight, and was still there on his return. But the fact is that few of these contemporary writers descend to dates, and it is almost impossible therefore to track any one man's movements through those troubled days. It is, however, certain that a meeting of the Scottish Council was summoned in London by Hamilton at some period between James's first flight and his return, and that Dundee attended it. That Hamilton meditated declaring for William is certain, and that he would have taken all his colleagues with him, except Dundee and Balcarres, is probable; but the King's sudden return to Whitehall postponed matters for a time.
James reached London from Rochester on the afternoon of Sunday, December 16th. William was then at Windsor, and James expressed a wish to meet him in London, offering St. James's Palace for his quarters. William sent an answer that he could not come to London while there were any troops there not under his command. On the 17th a council was held at Windsor, with Halifax in the chair, to determine what should be done with James. William himself would not be present. It was decided that James must, at any rate, leave London, and the decision was brought to him that night as he lay asleep in bed. No resistance was possible, had any been intended. The Dutch had occupied Chelsea and Kensington early in the afternoon; and when Halifax, Shrewsbury, and Delamere arrived with their message from Windsor, three battalions of foot, with some troops of horse, were bivouacked in St. James's Park, and Dutch sentinels were posted at Whitehall.
Early on the morning of the 17th Dundee and Balcarres had waited on the King. None were with him but some gentlemen of his bedchamber. Balcarres told him that he had orders from his colleagues to promise that, if the King would give the word, an army of twenty thousand men should be ready within four-and-twenty hours. "My lord," replied James, "I know you to be my friend, sincere and honourable: the men who sent you are not so, and I expect nothing from them." It was a fine morning, and he said he should like a walk. Balcarres and Dundee attended him into the Mall. When they had got there the King asked them, how came they still to be with him when all the world had forsaken him for the Prince of Orange? Both answered that their fidelity to so good a master would be ever the same, and that they had nothing to do with the Prince of Orange. "Will you two," then asked the King, "say you have still attachment to me?" "Sir," was the answer, "we do." "Will you give me your hands upon it as men of honour?" They did so. "Well," said the King, "I see you are the men I always took you to be; you shall know all my intentions. I can no longer remain here but as a cypher, or to be a prisoner to the Prince of Orange, and you know there is but a small distance between the prisons and the graves of kings. Therefore I go for France immediately; when there you shall have my instructions—you, Lord Balcarres, shall have a commission to manage my civil affairs, and you, Lord Dundee, to command my troops in Scotland."
They then parted. On the next morning, the morning of the 18th, in dark and rainy weather, the royal barge was ready at Whitehall stairs, under an escort of boats filled with Dutch soldiers. Halifax, with his colleagues from Windsor, attended the King to the water-side. Dumbarton, Arran, and a few others followed him down the river, and stayed by him during the few painful days he lingered at Rochester. At dawn of the 23rd James left England for ever.
Dundee stayed on in London. His regiment had been disbanded, and the rest of the Scottish forces, after a spirited but futile attempt to take matters into their own hands, had settled quietly down under their new colonels, some of the most doubtful ones being sent out of harm's way to Holland. Dunmore had thrown up his command, and his dragoons were now in the charge of Sir Thomas Livingstone. Schomberg was placed, to their intense disgust, at the head of Dumbarton's infantry, once James's favourite regiment. Some of his old troopers, however, still kept by the captain whom they had known as Claverhouse.
Hamilton and his party pressed William to exempt from the general amnesty certain members of the Scottish Council whom they named as particular and unscrupulous instruments of James's tyranny, and unsafe to be let go at large. But the Prince with his usual good sense refused to drive any man into opposition: the past even of the most guilty should, he said, be forgotten till he was forced to remember it. Against Dundee and Balcarres he had been especially warned. He remembered both well: Balcarres had married a lady of his family, and Dundee had fought by his side. He asked them both to enter his service. They refused, and Balcarres, plainly avowing the commission entrusted to him by James, asked if, in such circumstances, he could honourably take service with another. "I cannot say that you can," was the answer, "but take care that you fall not within the law, for otherwise I shall be forced against my will to let the law overtake you." Dundee was told that if he would live quietly at home, no allegiance should be exacted from him and no harm done to him. He answered that he would live quietly, if he were not forced to live otherwise. Early in February the two friends left London for Edinburgh.[76]