"This was after dinner, but I lost no time to put everything in readiness with all possible secrecy; and the next morning before day-break, I set off again for London with the same attendants, and, as before, put up at the smallest inns and arrived safe once more."[33]
The report of her journey into Scotland had preceded Lady Nithisdale's return to London; and, if we may credit her assertions, which are stated with so much candour as to impart a certain conviction of their truthfulness, their King was irritated beyond measure at the intelligence. Orders were immediately issued for her arrest; and the Monarch protested that Lady Nithisdale did whatever she pleased in spite of him; that she had given him more trouble than any other woman in Europe. Again driven into obscurity, Lady Nithisdale took the opinion of a very celebrated lawyer, whose name she does not specify, and, upon his opinion, determined to retire to the Continent. The reasons which her legal adviser assigned for this counsel was, that although, in other circumstances, a wife cannot be prosecuted for saving her husband, yet in cases of high treason, according to the rigour of the law, the head of a wife is responsible for that of a husband. Since the King was so incensed against Lady Nithisdale there could be no answering for the consequences, and he therefore earnestly besought her to leave the kingdom.
Lady Nithisdale, conscious of the wisdom of this recommendation, and wearied, perhaps, of a life of apprehension, determined to adopt the plan recommended.
It is evident that she joined Lord Nithisdale at Rome, whither he had retired; for the statement which she has left concludes in a manner which shows that the devoted and heroic wife had been enabled to rejoin the husband for whom she had encountered so much anxiety, contumely, and peril. Her son, it appears, also accompanied her, from her reference to "our young Master," meaning the Master of Nithisdale; since, when she wrote, the Prince Charles Edward could not be endowed with that appellation, his father being then alive. Her narrative is thus concluded:[34]—
"This is the full narrative of what you desired, and of all the transactions which passed relative to this affair. Nobody besides yourself could have obtained it from me; but the obligations I owe you, throw me under the necessity of refusing you nothing that is in my power to do. As this is for yourself alone, your indulgence will excuse all the faults which must occur in this long recital. The truth you may, however, depend upon; attend to that and overlook all deficiencies. My lord desires you to be assured of his sincere friendship. I am, with the strongest attachment, my dear sister, yours most affectionately,
"Winifred Nithisdale."
Little is known of the Earl of Nithisdale after his escape to Rome, where he died in 1744. He thus lived through a period of comparative quiet, till his native country was again on the eve of being embroiled in a civil war, more replete with danger, sullied by greater crimes, and more disastrous to his native country, than the short-lived struggle of 1715. An exile from his Scottish possessions, Lord Nithisdale possibly implanted in the mind of his own son that yearning to establish the rights of the Stuarts which appears not to have been eradicated from the hearts of the Scottish Jacobites until their beloved and royal race had become lineally extinct.
The descendants of William, Earl of Nithisdale, have never been able to ascertain where his Lordship is buried. His noble and admirable wife died at Rome, as well as her husband; but her remains were brought to this country, and they are deposited at Arundel Castle.
John Maxwell, who assumed the title of Earl of Nithisdale, appears to have remained absent from Scotland until the troubles of 1745 began. It was probably on the death of his father in 1744, that he returned to take possession of the family estates,—that this, the representative of the family of Maxwell, ventured to appear in Dumfriesshire.
The following correspondence which passed between the Earl of Nithisdale, popularly so called, and his friend, Mr. Craik, of Arbigland[35] in Dumfriesshire, is a curious commentary upon the motives and reasons which actuated the minds of the Jacobites in the second attempt to re-establish the Stuart family. The first letter from Mr. Craik is dated October the thirteenth, 1745, when Edinburgh Castle was blockaded by Charles Edward, who was publishing his manifestoes from the saloons of Holyrood House. The answer from Lord Nithisdale is written in reply to one of remonstrance addressed to him by his friend. There is no date, but it is obviously written at Edinburgh.