The place in question was that singular natural curiosity, the islet of the Bass, situated a couple of miles off the coast of East Lothian, in the mouth of the Firth of Forth. As well known, while rising a column of pure trap straight out of the sea, it shelves down on one side to a low cliff, where there is a chain of fortifications, with a difficult landing-place underneath. The late government had employed this fortalice as a state-prison, chiefly for troublesome west-country clergymen. After the |1694.| Revolution, the new government sent some of Dundee’s officers to undergo its restraints. On the 15th of June 1691, while most of the little garrison were employed outside in landing coal, four of these prisoners, named Middleton, Halyburton, Roy, and Dunbar, closed the gates, and took possession of the fortress. Next evening, they were joined by Crawford younger of Ardmillan, with his servant and two Irish seamen. The Privy Council at Edinburgh was greatly enraged, but it had no means of reducing the place. It could only put a guard on the shore to prevent intercourse with the land, and make a couple of armed boats cruise about to intercept marine communications.
Months elapsed. The Jacobite garrison led a merry life amidst the clouds of sea-birds which were their only associates. There was no lack of stirring adventure. Young Ardmillan went off in a boat, and brought in a load of provisions. Others contrived to join them, till they were sixteen men in all. A Danish galliot came under their guns one day, ignorant of what had happened, and was sacked of all it contained. Predatory boat-parties, which went out by night, laid all the coast between the Tyne and the Tay under contribution. The government, for a time, seemed powerless. The island was too far from the land to be thence bombarded; ships’ cannon could not mark at its cliff-built towers. The garrison, having plenty of ammunition, were on their own part formidable. After an ineffectual beleaguerment of upwards of two years, a small war-vessel called the Lion, with a dogger of six guns, and a large boat from Kirkcaldy, came to cruise off the island; but by this time their friends in France were interested in their welfare, and in August 1693, a frigate of twelve guns came up to the Bass, and anchored under its cannon. At sight of it, the government vessels disappeared. Large succours were thus given. Some months after, a Dunkirk privateer came in like manner, but was attacked by the Lion, and beaten.
The only very painful occurrence for the besieged was the seizure of a person named Trotter, who had supplied them with provisions. To frighten them, his execution was ordered to take place at Castleton, in sight of the isle. While the preparations were making, a shot from the Bass broke up the assemblage, but did not prevent the sacrifice being made at another place.
It was not till the spring of this year that the measures of the government for cutting off supplies from the Bass began sensibly to tell upon the besieged. When reduced to a point near starvation, and treating with the enemy, Middleton and his companions |1694.| contrived still to appear well off, and full of good spirits. When the commissioners came to the rock, the governor gave them what appeared a hearty lunch of French wine and fine biscuit, telling them to eat and drink freely, as there was no scarcity of provisions. On their departure, he had the walls bristling with old muskets, with hats and coats, as if there had been a large garrison. The consequence was, that the cavaliers of the Bass finally came off with life, liberty, and property—even with payment of their arrears of aliment as prisoners—and, it is needless to say, the unmixed admiration and gratitude of the friends of King James.
May 3.
The Hon. William Livingstone of Kilsyth, after enduring almost every form of captivity for several years, was now at length liberated, along with the Lord Bellenden, both on similar conditions—namely, that they should leave their native land for ever within little more than a month, under security to the extent of a thousand pounds sterling each, and engage thereafter in no movement of any kind against the existing government. We hear of the two gentlemen soon after asking a short respite, as the Dutch vessel in which they had hired a passage from Leith for Holland, was not yet ready to sail; and this grace they obtained, but only till the vessel should be ready.
Livingstone, in his forlorn voyage, was accompanied by his wife, Jean Cochrane, of the Ochiltree family, and the widow of Lord Dundee. This union had happened about a year after Killiecrankie, in consequence of Mr Livingstone meeting the lady on a visit at Colzium House, in Stirlingshire. As a pledge of his love, he presented her with a ring, which, unluckily, she lost next day while walking in the garden. This was considered an evil omen. A reward was offered to any one who should find the bijou, but all in vain.
The pair now went with their only child, an infant, to Rotterdam. One afternoon, the lady attended the Scotch church there, when Mr Robert Fleming, the minister, was officiating. This is a divine of some celebrity, on account of a singular work he published in 1701 on The Rise and Fall of the Papacy, in which he announced the likelihood that the French monarchy would experience a humbling about the year 1794. On the present occasion, if we are to believe a story reported by Wodrow, he stopped in the middle of his discourse, and declared that ‘he was, he knew not how, impressed with the thought that some heavy |1694.| and surprising accident was, within a few hours, to befall some of the company there present.’[[122]]
This vaticination, if it ever was uttered, was sadly fulfilled. That afternoon, Kilsyth, his wife, and another gentleman, went into the room where the child lay with its nurse, Mrs Melville. Suddenly, the roof, which was thickly covered with turf-fuel, fell down, and buried the whole party. Kilsyth and his male visitor got out alive and unhurt, after being under the ruins for three-quarters of an hour. The lady, the nurse, and child, were all found dead. The bodies of Lady Dundee and her infant were carefully embalmed, and sent to be interred in their own country.[[123]]
Much interest was felt a century after, when it was announced (May 1795) that the body of this unfortunate lady and her babe had been found in perfect preservation in the vault of the Viscounts of Kilsyth in Kilsyth Church. Some idle boys, having made their way into the vault, tore up a lead coffin, and found a fresh one of fir within, enclosing the two bodies embalmed, and looking as fresh as if they were only asleep. The shroud was clean, the ribbons of the dress unruffled, not a fold or knot discomposed. The child, plump, and with the smile of innocence arrested on its lips, excited pity and admiration in every beholder. A patch on the lady’s temple concealed the wound which had caused her death. When the face was uncovered, ‘beautiful auburn hair and a fine complexion, with a few pearly drops like dew upon her face, occasioned in the crowd of onlookers a sigh of silent wonder;’ so says the contemporary account. There was no descendant of the family to enforce respect for these remains: the husband of the lady had, as Viscount Kilsyth, forfeited title and estate in the insurrection of 1715,[[124]] and his name was no more. But after public curiosity had been satisfied, a neighbouring gentleman caused the vault to be again closed.