After joining the insurgent army, Lord Balmerino engaged in all the various movements of that enterprise. After the siege of Carlisle he entered that city at the head of his troop, with pipes playing, and colours flying, having been at twelve miles' distance when the town was taken; he then proceeded in the fatal expedition to Derby, and returned a second time to Carlisle, preceding in his march the main body of the army towards Scotland. He was present at the battle of Falkirk, but did not engage in it: some of the cavalry having been kept as a corps de reserve in that engagement. His participation in that day's victory was, however, afterwards imputed to him as an act of rebellion, although he was merely drawn up in a field near the field of battle, in company with Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Pitsligo. The body which he commanded, went by the name of Arthur Elphinstone's Life Guards.[357]
A few weeks before the battle of Culloden, the elder brother of Arthur Elphinstone, James Lord Balmerino, died, leaving the title which he had enjoyed for so short a period, to the brother, who was then engaged in so perilous a course. This accession of honour brought with it little increase of fortune, but rather the responsibility of succeeding to encumbered estates. Of these most had, indeed, passed into other families. To the first Lord Balmerino charters of numerous lands and baronies had been given; Barntoun, Barrie, Balumby, Innerpeffer, Balgregie, Balmerino, Dingwall, &c., were among his possessions. In 1605, the barony of Restalrig, in South Leith, was sold to Lord Balmerino by the noted and profligate Robert Logan, Baron of Restalrig, to whose family that now valuable property, including the grounds lying near the river, had belonged, until the days of the Queen Regent, Mary. This estate, on which Lord Balmerino's father resided, appears to have been almost the only vestige of the former opulence of this branch of the Elphinstone family.[358] His embarrassed circumstances are deemed by some writers to have had a considerable share in deciding Lord Balmerino to join in a contest in which he had so little to lose; but it appeared, in the hour of trial, that his principles of allegiance to the Stuarts had been unaltered since the days of his youth, and that they were alone sufficient to account for the part which he adopted. At the battle of Culloden Lord Balmerino was made prisoner by the Grants, to whom, as one of the witnesses on his trial affirmed, he surrendered himself. He was conveyed to Castle Grant, and from thence to London, to the same dreary fortress in which Lord Kilmarnock was likewise immured. The fate of these two unfortunate men, hitherto but little dependant on each other, was henceforth associated, until the existence of both was closed on the scaffold.
George, the third Earl of Cromartie, was the only one of their fellow-prisoners who was arraigned and tried with Kilmarnock and Balmerino. He had taken even a more decided part in the insurrection than Balmerino, having raised four hundred of his clan, who were with him in the battle of Falkirk. His son, the young Lord Macleod, was also in the Jacobite army, and both father and son were surprised at Dunrobin, by a party of the Earl of Sutherland's militia, on the fifteenth of April, and taken prisoners. Lord Cromartie had, as well as Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, strong ties to life, strong claims upon his reason to have withheld him from a hazardous participation in a cause of peril. He had been married more than twenty years to Isabel, daughter of Sir William Gordon, and had by her a numerous family. For this nobleman, a powerful interest was afterwards successfully exerted.
These three noblemen were brought to London early in June. They were shortly afterwards followed by about eight hundred companions in misfortune. Of these, who arrived in the Thames on the twenty-first of June, about two hundred were left at Tilbury Fort; while six hundred were deposited in the various prisons of the metropolis. From henceforth scenes of distress, and even of horror, were daily presented to the prisoners. The Marquis of Tullibardine expired soon after his arrival at the Tower; Lord Macleod, with happier fate, rejoined his father; Mr. Murray of Broughton, who was treated with a distinction, at that time, unexplicable, was also lodged in the same fortress. Those who were led to expect the severest measures, might envy the calm departure of the good old Marquis of Tullibardine; but all hearts bled when the gallant Colonel Townley, a Roman Catholic gentleman of distinction, was dragged on a sledge, along with other prisoners, to Kennington, his arms pinioned; insulted by a brutal multitude, and there hanged. The horrid barbarities of this sentence being fulfilled on his body, which was still breathing, the hangman preparing to take out the heart and bowels, struck it several times on the chest, before life (and perhaps consciousness) was wholly extinct.
Day after day, the awful tragedies were repeated, exceeding any similar displays of power since the days of the Tudors. Each of these martyrs, as the voice of their own party pronounced them, in their last moments declared, that "they died in a just cause—that they did not repent of what they had done—that they doubted not their deaths would be avenged." When, after nine executions had taken place in one morning, the heart of the last sufferer was thrown into the fire, a savage shout from the infuriated multitude followed the words "God save King George!" The unfortunate man who had just perished was a young gentleman, named Dawson, a graduate of St. John's College, Cambridge. He had for some time been engaged to a young lady of good family, and great interest had been made to procure his pardon. The lovers were sanguine in their expectations, and the day of his release was to have been that of their marriage.
When all hope was at an end, the young lady, not deterred by the remonstrances of her kindred, resolved upon following Mr. Dawson to the place of execution. Her intention was at length acceded to: she drove in a hackney-coach after the sledges, accompanied by a relative, and by one female friend. As the shout of brutal joy succeeded the silence of the solemn scene, the words "My love,—I follow thee,—I follow thee!" burst from the lips of the broken-hearted girl. She fell on the neck of her companion, and, whilst she uttered these words, "Sweet Jesus!—receive our souls together!" expired.[359] Recitals of these domestic tragedies, proofs of the unrelenting spirit of government, tended to break the firmness of some of those who survived.
Lord Cromartie sank into dejection; Kilmarnock's fine and gentle nature was gradually purified for heaven. Balmerino rose to heroism.
The prisons were crowded with captives; the noblemen alone were committed to the Tower; even two of the Scottish chiefs were sent to Newgate; the officers were committed to the new gaol, Southwark; the common men to the Marshalsea. Meantime, strong and prompt measures were determined upon by Government.
Bills of indictment for high treason were found against Lord Kilmarnock, the Earl of Cromartie, and the Lord Balmerino, by the grand jury of the county of Surrey: a writ of certiorari was issued for removing the indictments into the House of Peers, on the twenty-sixth of June, and their trial was appointed to take place on the twenty-eighth of July following. Westminster Hall was accordingly prepared for the trials, and a high steward appointed in the person of the justly celebrated Lord Hardwicke.