Lord Lovat was reconducted to the Tower—that prison on entering which he had boasted, that if he were not old and infirm they would have found it difficult to have kept him there. The people told him they had kept those who were much younger. "Yes," he answered, "but they had not broken so many gaols as I have."
He now met his approaching fate with a composure that it is difficult not to admire, even in Lovat. And yet reflection may perhaps suggest that the insensibility to the fear of death—an emotion incident to conscientious minds—bespeaks, in one whose responsibilities had been so grossly abused, an insensibility springing from utter depravity. Let us, however, give to the wretched man every possible allowance. He wrote, in terms of affection, a letter full of religious sentiments to his son, after his own condemnation. When the warrant came down for his execution, he exclaimed, "God's will be done!" With the courtesy that had charmed and had betrayed others all his life, he took the gentleman who brought the warrant by the hand, thanked him, drank his health, and assured him that he would not then change places with any prince in Christendom. He appears, indeed, to have had no misgivings, or he affected to have none, as to his eternal prospects. When the Lieutenant of the fortress in the Tower asked him how he did? "Do?" was his reply; "why I am about doing very well, for I am going to a place where hardly any majors, and very few lieutenant-generals go."
Some friends still remained warmly attached to this singular man. Mr. William Fraser, his cousin, advanced a large sum of money to General Williamson, to provide for his wants; and, after acting as his solicitor, attended him to the last. But Lord Lovat felt deeply the circumstance of his having been convicted by his own servants: "It is shocking," he observed, "to human nature. I believe that they will carry about with them a sting that will accompany them to their grave; yet I wish them no evil."
He prayed daily, and fervently; and expressed unbounded confidence in the Divine mercy. "So, my dear child," he thus wrote to his son, "do not be in the least concerned for me; for I bless God I have strong reasons to hope that when it is God's will to call me out of this world, it will be by his mercy, and the suffering of my Saviour, Jesus Christ, to enjoy everlasting happiness in the other world. I wish this may be yours." After he had penned this remarkable letter, he asked a gentleman who was in his room how he liked the letter? The reply was, "I like it very well; it is a very good letter." "I think," answered Lord Lovat, "it is a Christian letter."[255]
In this last extremity of his singular fortunes, the wife, whom he had so cruelly treated, forgetful of every thing but her Christian duty, wrote to him, and offered to repair immediately to London, and to go to him in the Tower, if he desired it. But Lord Lovat returned an answer, in which, for the first time, he adopted the language of conjugal kindness to Lady Lovat, and refused the generous proposal, worthy of the disinterestedness of woman's nature. He declared that he could not take advantage of it, after all that had occurred.[256]
Meantime, an application was made in favour of Lovat by a Mr. Painter, of St. John's College, Oxford, in the form of three letters, one of which was addressed to the King, another to Lord Chesterfield, a third to Henry Pelham. The courage of the intercession can scarcely be appreciated in the present day; in that melancholy period, the slightest word uttered in behalf of the Insurgents, brought on the interceder the imputation of secret Jacobitism, a suspicion which even President Forbes incurred. The petitions for mercy were worded fearlessly; "In a word," thus concludes that which was addressed to the King, "bid Lovat live; punish the vile traytor with life; but let me die; let me bow down my head to the block, and receive without fear the friendly blow, which, I verily believe, will only separate the soul from its body and miseries together."[257] In his letter to Lord Chesterfield the Oxonian repeats his offer of undergoing the punishment instead of the decrepid old man: "This I will be bold to say," he adds: "I will not disgrace your patronage by want of intrepidity in the hour of death, and that all the devils in Milton, with all the ghastly ghosts of Scotsmen that fell at Culloden, if they could be conjured there, should never move me to say, coming upon the scaffold, 'Sir, this is terrible.'"[258] To Mr. Pelham he declared, that "the post that he wanted was not of the same nature with other Court preferments, for which there is generally a great number of competitors, but may be enjoyed without a rival."
The observations which Lord Lovat made upon this well-meant but absurd proposal, show his natural shrewdness, or his disbelief in all that is good and generous. "This," he exclaimed, on being told of these remarkable letters, "is an extraordinary man indeed. I should like to know what countryman he is, and whether the thing is fact. Perhaps it may be only some finesse in politics, to cast an odium on some particular person. In short, Sir, I'm afraid the poor gentleman is weary of living in this wicked world; in that case, the obligation is altered, because a part of the benefit is intended for himself."
In his last days, Lovat avowed himself a Roman Catholic; but his known duplicity caused even this profession of faith to be distrusted. It is probable that like many men who have seen much of the world, and have mingled with those of different persuasions, Lord Lovat attached but little importance to different modes of faith. He was as unscrupulous in his religious professions as in all other respects. Early in his career, he thought it expedient to obtain the favour of the Pope's nuncio at Paris by conforming to the Romish faith. He declared to the Duke of Argyle and to Lord Leven that he could not get the Court of St. Germains to listen to his projects until he had declared himself a papist. One can scarcely term this venal conversion[259] an adoption of the principles of any church. The outward symbols of his pretended persuasion had, however, become dear to him, from habit: he carried about his person a silver crucifix, which he often kissed. "Observe," he said, "this crucifix! Did you ever see a better? How strongly the passions are marked, how fine the expression is! We keep pictures of our best friends, of our parents, and others, but why should we not keep a picture of Him who has done more than all the world for us?" When asked, "Of what particular sort of Catholic are you? A Jesuit?" He answered to the nobleman who inquired, (and whose name was not known,) "No, no, my Lord, I am a Jansenist;" he then avowed his intimacy with that body of men, and assured the nobleman, that in his sense of being a Roman Catholic, he "was as far from being one as his Lordship, or as any other nobleman in the House."
"This is my faith," he observed on another occasion, after affirming that he had studied controversy for three years, and then turned Roman Catholic; "but I have charity for all mankind, and I believe every honest man bids fair for Heaven, let his persuasion be what it may; for the mercies of the Almighty are great, and his ways past finding out."
The allusion to his funeral had something touching, coming from the old Highland chieftain. Almost the solitary good trait in Lovat's character was the fondness for his Highland home—a pride in his clan—a yearning to the last for the mountains, the straths, the burns, now ravaged by the despoiler, and red with the blood of the Frasers. "Bury me," he said, "in my own tomb in the church of Kirk Hill; in former days, I had made a codicil to my will, that all the pipers from John O'Groat's house to Edinburgh should be invited to play at my funeral: that may not be now—but still I am sure there will be some good old Highland women to sing a coronach at my funeral; and there will be a crying and clapping of hands—for I am one of the greatest of the Highland chieftains." The circumstance which gave him the most uneasiness was the bill then depending for destroying the ancient privileges and jurisdiction of the Highland chiefs. "For my part," he exclaimed, when referring to the measure, "I die a martyr to my country."