The Prince, it is affirmed, rushed into the chamber where Lovat, supported by men, for he could not stand without assistance, awaited his approach. The unhappy fugitive broke into lamentations. "My Lord," he exclaimed, "we are undone; my army is routed: what will become of poor Scotland?" Unable to utter any more, he sank fainting on a bed near him. Lord Lovat immediately summoned assistance, and by proper remedies the Prince was restored to a consciousness of his misfortunes, and to the recollection that Castle Downie, a spot upon which the vengeance of the Government was sure to fall, could be no safe abiding place for him or for his followers.[248]
Such was the commencement of those wanderings, to the interest and romance of which no fiction can add. After this conference was ended, Prince Charles went to Invergarie; Lord Lovat prepared for flight.
His first place of retreat was to a mountain, whence he could behold the field of battle; he collected his officers and men around him, and they gazed with mournful interest upon the plain of Culloden. Heaps of wounded men were lying in their blood; others were still pursued by the soldiers of an army whose orders were, from their royal General, to give no quarter; fire and sword were everywhere; vengeance and fury raged on the moor watered by the river Nairn. Here, too, the unhappy Frasers and their chief might view Culloden House, a large fabric of stone, graced with a noble avenue of great length leading to the house, and surrounded by a park covered with heather. Here Charles Edward had slept the night before the battle. The remembrance of many social hours, of the hospitality of that old hall, might recur at this moment to the mind of Lovat. But whatever might be his reflections, his fortitude remained unbroken. He turned to the sorrowful clan around them, and addressed them. He recurred to his former predictions: "I have foretold," he said, still attempting to keep up his old influence over the minds of his clans, "that our enemies would destroy us with the fire and sword; they have begun with me, nor will they cease until they have ravaged all the country." He still, however, exhorted his captains to keep together their men, and to maintain a mountain war, so that at least they might obtain better terms of peace. Having thus counselled them, he was carried upon the shoulders of his followers to the still farther mountains, from one of which he is said, by a singular stroke of retributive justice, to have beheld Castle Downie, the scene of his crime, to maintain the splendour of which he had sacrificed every principle, and compassed every crime, burned by the infuriated enemy. Nine hundred men, under Brigadier Mordaunt, were detached for this purpose.
In one of the Highland fastnesses Lovat remained some time; but the blood-thirsty Cumberland was eager in pursuit. Parties of soldiers were sent out in search of Lovat, and he soon found that it was no longer safe to remain in the vicinity of Beaufort. He fled, in the first instance, to Cawdor Castle. In this famous structure, with its iron-grated doors, its ancient tapestry hanging over secret passages and obscure approaches, he took refuge. In one of its towers, in a small low chamber beneath the roof, the wretched old man concealed himself for some months. When he was at last obliged to quit it, he descended by means of a rope from his chamber.
He had still lost neither resolution nor energy. On the fourth of May, fifteen of the Jacobite chieftains, Lord Lovat among the number, met in the Island of Mortlaig, to concert measures for raising a body of men to resist the victorious troops. On this occasion Lord Lovat declared that they need not be uneasy, since he had no doubt but that they should be able to collect eight or ten thousand men to fight the Elector of Hanover's troops. Cameron of Lochiel, Murray of Broughton, and several other leaders of distinction were present; Lord Lovat was attended by many of his own clan, who were armed with dirks, swords, and pistols, and marked by wearing sprays of yew in their bonnets. But the conference broke up without any important result. The leaders embraced each other, drank to Prince Charles's health, and separated. On this occasion Lord Lovat headed that party among the Jacobites who still looked for aid from France, and abjured the notion of surrendering to the conqueror.[249] Still hunted, to use his own expression, "like a fox," through the main land, Lovat now got off in a boat to the Island of Morar, where he thought himself secure from his enemies; but it was decreed that his iniquitous life should not close in peaceful obscurity. It was not long before he heard that a party of the King's troops had arrived in pursuit of him, and a detachment of the garrison of Fort William, on board the Terror and Furnace sloops, was also despatched, to make descents on different parts of the island. Lovat retreated into the woods; Captain Mellon, who commanded the detachment searched every town, village, and house; but not finding the fugitive, he resolved to traverse the woods, planting parties at the openings to intercept an escape. In the course of his researches he passed a very old tree, which, from some slits in its trunk, he and his men perceived to be hollow. One of the soldiers, peeping into the aperture, thought he saw a man's leg; upon which he summoned his captain, who, on investigating farther, found on one side a large opening, in which stood a pair of legs, the rest of the figure being hidden within the hollow of the tree. This was, however, quickly discovered to be Lord Lovat, for whom this party had then been three days in search. He was wrapped in blankets, to protect his aged limbs from the cold.
Thus discovered, Lovat was forced to surrender, but his spirit rose with the occasion: he told Captain Mellon that "he had best take care of him; for if he did not, he should make him answer for his conduct before a set of gentlemen the very sight of whom would make him tremble." He was taken, in the first instance, to Fort William, where he was treated with humanity, in obedience to the express orders of the Duke of Cumberland. From this prison Lovat wrote a letter to the Duke, reminding his Royal Highness of the services which he had performed in 1715, and of the favour shown him by George the First. "I often carried your Royal Highness," pursues the unhappy old man, "in my arms, in the palaces of Kensington and of Hampton Court, to hold you up to your royal grandfather, that he might embrace you, for he was very fond of you and the young princesses." He then represented to the Duke that if mercy were shown him, and he "might have the honour to kiss the Duke's hand, he might do more service to the King and Government than destroying a hundred such old and very infirm men like me, (past seventy, without the least use of my hands, legs, or knees,) can be of advantage in any shape to the Government."
He was conveyed soon after this letter, which is dated June the twenty-second, 1746, to Fort Augustus. He had requested that a litter might be prepared for him, for he was not able either to stand, walk, or ride. On the fifteenth of July he was removed, under a strong guard, to Stirling, where a party of Lord Mark Ker's dragoons received him. After a few days rest he passed through Edinburgh for the last time; thence to Berwick, and on the twenty-fifth he began his last journey under the escort of sixty dragoons commanded by Major Gardner. His journey to London was divided into twenty stages, and he was to travel one stage a day. It was, indeed, of importance to the Government that he should reach London alive, since many disclosures were expected from Lovat. On reaching Newcastle three days afterwards he appeared to be in a very feeble state, and walked from his coach to his lodgings supported by two of the dragoons. As he travelled along in a sort of cage, or horse-litter, the acclamations and hisses of the populace everywhere assailed him; but his spirits were unbroken, and he talked confidently of his return.
But as he drew near London this security diminished. He happened to reach London a few days before the unhappy Jacobite noblemen were beheaded on Tower Hill. On his way to the Tower he passed the scaffold which was erected for their execution. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "I suppose it will not be long before I shall make my exit there."
He was received in the Tower by the Lieutenant-Governor, who conducted him to the apartment prepared for his reception. Here, reclining in an elbow chair, he is said to have broken out into reflections upon his eventful and singular career. He uttered many moral sentiments, and expressed himself, as many other men have done on similar occasions, perfectly satisfied with his own intentions. Such was the self-deception of this extraordinary man.[250]
In this prison Lovat remained during five months without being brought to trial. But the delay was of infinite importance; it prepared him to quit, with what may be almost termed heroism, a life which he had employed in iniquity. Without remembering this interval, during which ample time for preparation had been afforded, the hardihood which could sport with the most solemn of all subjects, would shock rather than astonish. In consideration of the conduct of many of our state prisoners on the scaffold, we must recollect how familiarized they had previously become with death, in those gloomy chambers whence they could see many a fellow sufferer issue, to shed his blood on the same scaffold which would soon be re-erected for themselves.