Domestic annals of Scotland

by Robert Chambers

The government, in order to encourage loyalty at this dangerous crisis, obtained an act, adjudging the estates of the insurgents to such vassals, holding of them, as should remain at peace. The state-officers were also very active in apprehending suspected persons, especially in England. Some gentlemen in the northern counties, fearing that this would be their fate, met on the 6th of October at Rothbury, and soon increased to a considerable party. Among them were Mr Forster, member of parliament for Northumberland, and Lord Widdrington. They made an advance to Newcastle, but were deterred from attacking it. They then concentrated themselves at Hexham, and opened a communication with Lord Mar. About the same time, the Viscount Kenmure, and the Earls of Nithsdale, Wintoun, and Carnwath appeared in arms in the south of Scotland, with a considerable band of followers, and a junction was soon after effected between the two parties.

As the Earl of Mar was loath to leave the Highlands, where immense bands were mustering to join him, he resolved to make no attempt upon the Duke of Argyle, who had now posted his small force at Stirling Bridge, which forms the only free pass between the north and south of Scotland. The earl, however, thought it expedient to send a detachment of upwards of two thousand of his infantry across the Firth of Forth, in order to co-operate with him, when the proper time should arrive, by falling upon the duke in flank. This party was placed under the command of Brigadier Mackintosh of Borlum, an old officer, who had been regularly trained under Marlborough. By making a feint at Burntisland, to which point they attracted the war-vessels on the firth, about sixteen hundred got safely over to East Lothian, and immediately marched upon Edinburgh, which was then defenceless. The provost, however, had time to call the Duke of Argyle to his aid, who entered the west gate of the city with five hundred horse, at the same time that Mackintosh was approaching its eastern limit. The insurgent chief turned aside to Leith, and barricaded his men in the old dismantled citadel of Cromwell. There he was called to surrender next day by the duke, but returned a haughty defiance, and the assailing party had to retire to wait for cannon. The brigadier took the opportunity that night to march back to East Lothian, where for a day or two he garrisoned Seton House, the princely seat of the Earl of Wintoun. The Duke of Argyle was obliged to leave him unmolested, in order to return to Stirling, upon which he learned that the Earl of Mar was marching with his whole force. The insurgent general was in reality only anxious to call him off from the party under Mackintosh. The capital being now protected by volunteers, that officer, in obedience to the commands of the Earl of Mar, marched to Kelso, where he formed a junction with the English and Lowland cavaliers.

There were now two Jacobite armies in Scotland—one at Perth, and another at Kelso. It was the obvious policy of both to have attempted to break up the Duke of Argyle’s encampment, which was the sole obstacle to their gaining possession of Scotland; but this the Earl of Mar either found inconvenient or imprudent, and the party at Kelso was soon diverted to another scene of action. After a delay of some days, and much unhappy wrangling among themselves, it was determined by the leaders of this body to march into the west of England, where, as the country abounded with Jacobites, they expected to raise a large reinforcement. They therefore moved along the Border by Jedburgh, Hawick, and Langholm, followed by a government force much inferior to themselves in numbers, under the command of General Carpenter. On the 31st of October they entered England, all except a few hundred Highlanders, who had determined to go home, and who were mostly seized by the country people upon the march.

Hitherto, the insurrection had been a spontaneous movement of the friends of the Chevalier, under the self-assumed direction of the Earl of Mar. It was now put into proper form by the earl receiving a commission as generalissimo from the royal personage in whose behalf he was acting. Henceforth the insurgent forces were supported by a regular daily pay of threepence in money, with a certain quantity of provisions, the necessary funds being raised by virtue of the earl’s commission, in the shape of a land-tax, which was rendered severer to the enemies than to the friends of the cause. The army was now increased by two thousand five hundred men brought by the Marquis of Huntly, eldest son of the Duke of Gordon, and nearly four thousand who arrived, under the charge of the Earl of Seaforth, from the North Highlands. Early in November, there could not be fewer than sixteen thousand men in arms throughout the country for the Stuarts, a force tripling that with which Prince Charles penetrated into England at a later and less auspicious period. Yet even with all, or nearly all this force at his command, the Earl of Mar permitted the Duke of Argyle to protect the Lowlands and the capital with about three thousand men.

At length, on the 10th of November, having gathered nearly all the forces he could expect, he resolved to force the pass so well guarded by his opponent. When the Duke of Argyle learned that Mar was moving from Perth, he resolved to cross the Forth and meet his enemy on as advantageous ground as possible on the other side, being afraid that the superior numbers of the insurgents might enable them to advance upon more points of the river than he had troops to defend. He drew up his forces on the lower part of a swelling waste called the Sheriffmuir, with the village of Dunblane in his rear. His whole force amounted to three thousand three hundred men, of whom twelve hundred were cavalry. Mar, reinforced on the march by the West Highland clans under General Gordon, advanced to battle with about nine thousand men, including some squadrons of horse, which were composed, however, of only country gentlemen and their retainers. Although the insurgents thus greatly outnumbered their opponents, the balance was in some measure restored by Mar’s total ignorance of the military art, and the undisciplined character of his troops; while Argyle, on the other hand, had conducted armies under the most critical circumstances, and his men were not only perfectly trained, but possessed that superiority which consists in the mechanical regularity and firmness with which such troops must act. On the night of the 12th, the two armies lay within four miles of each other. Next morning, they were arranged by their respective commanders in two lines, the extremities of which were protected by horse. On meeting, however, at the top of the swelling eminence which had been interposed between them, it was found that the right wing of each greatly outflanked the left wing of the other army. The commanders, who were stationed at this part of their various hosts, immediately charged, and as in neither case there was much force opposed to them, they were both to some extent successful. The Duke of Argyle beat back the left wing of the insurgents, consisting of Highland foot and Lowland cavalry, to the river Allan. The Earl of Mar, in like manner, drove the left wing of the royal army, which was commanded by General Whitham, to the Forth. Neither of these triumphant parties knew of what was done elsewhere, but both congratulated themselves upon their partial success. In the afternoon, the Earl of Mar returned with the victorious part of his army to an eminence in the centre of the field, whence he was surprised, soon after, to observe the Duke of Argyle leading back the victorious part of his army by the highway to Dunblane. The total want of intelligence on each side, and the fear which ignorance always engenders, prevented these troops mutually from attacking each other. The duke retired to the village; the earl drew off towards Perth, whither a large part of his army had already fled in the character of defeated troops: and thus the action was altogether indecisive. Several hundreds were slain on both sides; the Earl of Strathmore and the chieftain of Clanranald fell on the side of the insurgents; the Earl of Forfar on that of the royalists. The Duke of Argyle reappeared next morning on the field, in order to renew the action; but finding that Mar was in full retreat to Perth, he was enabled to retire to Stirling with all the spoils of the field, and the credit of having frustrated the design of the insurgent general to cross the Forth. Even that part of his army which was discomfited by the Earl of Mar, had nevertheless become possessed of the principal standard of the enemy.

This day was fatal to the cause of the Chevalier in another part of the kingdom. The large party of united Scots and English, under Forster, had penetrated to Lancashire, without gaining any such accessions of force as had been expected. On the 12th of November they were assailed in the town of Preston by a considerable force under General Willis, who had concentrated the troops of a large district in order to oppose their march. For this day, they defended themselves effectually by barricading the streets; but next day the enemy was increased by a large force under General Carpenter, and the unfortunate Jacobites then found it necessary to surrender, upon the simple condition that they should not be immediately put to the sword. Forster, Kenmure, Nithsdale, Wintoun, and Mackintosh, with upwards of a hundred other persons of distinction, including a brave and generous young nobleman, the Earl of Derwentwater, were taken prisoners. The common men, in number about fourteen hundred, were disposed about the country in prisons, while their superiors were conducted to London, and, after being exposed in an ignominious procession on the streets—a mark of the low taste as well as of the political animosity of the time—imprisoned in Newgate on a charge of high treason.

The affairs of the Chevalier now began to decline in Scotland. The Earl of Sutherland, having established a garrison at Inverness, afforded to the Earl of Seaforth and the Marquis of Huntly an excuse for withdrawing their forces from Perth. Some of the other clans went home to deposit their spoil, or because they could not endure to be taunted for their bad behaviour at Sheriffmuir. The army being thus reduced to about four thousand men, various officers began to think of capitulating with the Duke of Argyle. To this there was one serious objection. In compliance with a pressing invitation which they had despatched in better times, they were daily expecting their prince to arrive amongst them. Nevertheless, the Earl of Mar was compelled to open a negotiation with the royalist general. In answer to their message, the duke informed them that he had no power to treat with them as a body, but would immediately send to court to ask for the required instructions. They were in this posture when the unfortunate son of James VII. landed (December 22) at Peterhead, and advanced to the camp to put himself at their head. The Earl of Mar and some other officers went to Fetteresso to meet him, and to apprise him of the present state of his affairs. Although greatly dejected by what he heard, and much reduced in health by a severe ague, he resolved to establish himself in royal state at Perth, in the hope of reanimating the cause. Advancing through Brechin and Dundee, he entered Perth in a ceremonious manner on the 9th of January; but he could not conceal his mortification, on finding how much his forces were reduced in number. It was, nevertheless, determined that he should be crowned at Scone on the 23d. If he was disappointed with his adherents, they were no less so with him. Whether from natural softness of character, or through the influence of his late malady, or from despair of his present circumstances, he appeared exceedingly tame and inanimate; quite the reverse, in every respect, of the bold and stirring chief required for such an enterprise.

The Duke of Argyle, having now received large reinforcements from England, besides three thousand Dutch troops, sent in terms of the treaty of Utrecht, found himself as superior in numbers to the Earl of Mar as that general had been to him in the early part of the campaign. On the 23d of January, the day on which the Chevalier was to have been crowned, the royalist troops commenced their march upon Perth, through deep snow. To retard their progress, all the villages upon the road were burned by the insurgents. It was now debated at Perth whether they ought to remain within the town and defend themselves against the royal forces, who, in this weather, must suffer severely in the fields, or to march northward and disperse. A great part of the clans were anxious in the highest degree for a battle with the duke; but the safety of the Chevalier’s person was a consideration which precluded all desperate hazards. It was resolved to vacate Perth. Accordingly, on the 30th of January, a day ominous to the House of Stuart, from its being the anniversary of the death of Charles I., the remains of the Highland army deployed across the river, then covered with thick ice, and marched to Dundee. The duke entered the town with his vanguard, only twelve hours after the rear-guard of the insurgents had left it. But the state of the roads rendered it impossible for him, with all the appurtenances of a regular army, to overtake the light-footed mountaineers. He followed on their track towards Aberdeen, at the distance of one or two marches behind them. At Montrose, the Chevalier and the Earl of Mar provided for their own safety by going on board a French vessel. The army, which had been fast declining by the way, was finally disbanded on the 7th of February at Aberdeen, after which every man shifted for himself. Thus ended the insurrection of 1715, an enterprise begun without concert or preparation, and which languished so much throughout all its parts, that it could hardly be considered in any other light than as an appearance of certain friends of the House of Stuart in arms.

The Earl of Derwentwater and the Viscount Kenmure were the only individuals of distinction who suffered death for this rebellion. They were beheaded on Tower Hill on the 24th of February. All the rest of the noblemen and gentlemen taken at Preston either made their escape from Newgate, which on this occasion manifested a peculiar irretentiveness, or were pardoned. About twenty inferior persons were executed. There were, however, at least forty families of distinction in Scotland whose estates were forfeited. It is to be mentioned, to the honour of the Argyle family, that they counselled lenient measures, and set the example by not taking advantage of the law against such of their vassals as had forfeited their estates into their hands as superiors.

The miserable failure of this effort for the House of Stuart, and its dismal consequences, neither allayed the wishes nor extinguished the hopes of the Jacobite party. Firm in the principle of hereditary right, convinced that the prosperity and happiness of the country could only be secured through their legitimate prince, seeing in every shortcoming and error of the reigning house and ministry confirmation of their doctrines, they never once faltered in believing that a restoration was worthy of a civil war. They only admitted now, that, for success, the assistance of some foreign state was indispensable.