The issue of this affair was mournful. At the battle of Sherriff Muir where the Earl of Southesk appeared with three hundred men, the unfortunate nobleman was supposed to be slain. His faithful, though reluctant attendant, James Carnegie, was taken prisoner as he was looking over the field of battle in order to find the body of his lord. He was carried into prison at Carlisle, whence considerable exertions were made for his release, not only by his own representations, but by the mediation of Sir James Stewart, the governor of the castle. What was the result, whether the blameless victim of the will of others was released, or whether he sank among the many who could not sustain the hardships of their fate, does not appear.[238]
The Earl of Southesk, although it was reported he had been killed, rallied his men, and retreated with the Marquis of Tullibardine, the Earl Marischal and several heads of clans to the mountains, to shelter themselves from the pursuit of the Government troops. Some of these chieftains afterwards made their escape to Skye, Lewis, and other of the north-western islands, till ships came to their relief and carried them abroad.[239] What was the fate of the Earl of Southesk afterwards is not known: neither what became of his descendant.[240] He had married the Lady Margaret Stewart, daughter of the Earl of Galloway, and by her, according to some accounts, he had two sons; according to a contemporary Scottish peerage, he had one child only. His widow also went on the Continent, and the mention of her name by her brother, the Earl of Galloway, in a letter written at Clery in France,[241] without that of her husband, in May 1730, appears to indicate that she was then a widow, and not married again.[242]
How long Lady Southesk lived, the wife of the Master of Sinclair, is dubious. He survived her, and married afterwards, Emilia the daughter of Lord George Murray, brother of the Duke of Atholl. This intimate connection with one of the principal leaders of the Rebellion of 1745, did not, however, induce the Master to enter a second time into a course towards which he had, perhaps in truth, no sincere good will.
Upon his flight to the Continent, the Master of Sinclair was outlawed, and attainted in blood for his share in the Insurrection of 1715. His father being still alive, and not having taken an active part, his estates escaped forfeiture, and Lord Sinclair endeavoured so to dispose of them as to prevent their becoming the property of the Crown. It was necessary, on this account, that Lord Sinclair should disinherit his eldest son; and "as it would," says Sir Walter Scott, "have been highly impolitic to have alleged his forfeiture for treason as a cause of the deed, the slaughter of the Schaws was given as a reason for his exheredation." The following is a clause of the deed by which the end was to be accomplished:
"This new diposition of the family estate is explained and qualified by the second deed, being a back bond running in the names of the said James and William Sinclairs, which set forth that their father had been induced to grant a disposition of his estate in their favour, and to pass over their elder brother, to prevent all inconvenience and hazard whatsoever which the rents of the said Lord Sinclair, his heritable estate, or his moveables, might be liable to, if they were settled in the said Master's person, 'on accompt of the said Master of Sinclair his present circumstances, by means of an unfortunate quarrel that some years ago fell out between the said Master and two sons of the deceased Sir John Schaw of Greenock; therefore," the deed proceeds to state, "it was reasonable that they, James and William Sinclair, should grant a back bond of settlement, binding themselves to manage the property, when they should respectively succeed to it by advice of friends, overseers, and managers,—viz. Sir John Erskine of Alva, Bart., Sir William Baird of New Baith, Bart., Mr. John Paterson, eldest lawful son to the deceased Archbishop of Glasgow, their brother-in-law—Sir John Cockburn of that Ilk, Bart., and Mr. Mathew Sinclair of Hermiston, their uncles. The said James and William Sinclair, as they should respectively succeed to the estate, were obliged to make certain necessary expenditure to the family for behoof of the Master; and the said James and William Sinclair became also bound, in case the Master, their brother, should become free of his present inconveniences, or should have a family of lawful children, then, and in that case to convey the estate to the said Master, or to his said children, at the sight of his trustees."[243]
In the year 1726, the Master of Sinclair received pardon, as far as his life was concerned, but the forfeiture of his estates was not taken off, nor certain other incapacities reversed. He then returned to the family estate of Dysart in Fife, of which he was, by his father's disposition of affairs, the actual proprietor; and although the rents of the property were levied in his brother's name, they were applied and received by the Master. General James Sinclair, the second brother of the Master, was then the nominal owner only of the estates. But although thus returning to his patrimonial inheritance, the Master never recovered the good will of his former friends, nor the blessings of security, and of a calm and honoured old age. He seldom visited Edinburgh, living in seclusion and never going from home without being well guarded and attended for fear of the Jacobites, or of his enemies the Schaws. Under these circumstances it seems to have been a relief to his bitter and mortified spirit to have vented itself, in like manner with Lord Lovat, in composing memoirs of his own life. "These memoirs," says Sir Walter Scott, who long had a copy of them in his possession, "are written[244] with talent, and peculiar satirical energy: so much so indeed, that they have been hitherto deemed unfit for publication. The circumstances attending the slaughter of the Schaws argue a fierce and vindictive temper, and the frame of mind which Sinclair displays as an author exhibits the same character. They are, however, very curious, and it is to be hoped will one day be made public, as a valuable addition to the catalogue of royal and noble authors. It is singular that the author seems to have written himself into a tolerably good style, for the language of the Memoirs, which at first is scarcely grammatical, becomes as he advances disengaged, correct, and spirited."[245]
On the whole, it must be acknowledged that qualities more repulsive and a career more culpable, have darkened no narrative connected with the Jacobites so unpleasantly as the biography of the Master of Sinclair. A disgrace to every party, he appears to have joined the adherents of the Stuarts, only in order to disturb their councils, and to vilify their memory with personal invective. He has extorted no compassion for the errors and crimes of his earlier years by the courage and magnanimity of a later period: his character stands forth, unredeemed by a single trait of heroism, in all the darkness of violence and revenge.
The Barony of Sinclair, lost to the family in consequence of the attainder of the Master of Sinclair, was not assumed either by him, after his pardon in 1726, nor by his brother General James Sinclair. At the death of General Sinclair in 1762, the title reverted to Charles Sinclair, Esq., of Herdmanstown, a cousin, and after him to his son Andrew, who also allowed his claim to the Barony to lie dormant. It was, however, revived at his death in 1776, by his only son Charles, who is the present Lord Sinclair.[246]