Origins of the 'Forty-five

by Unknown

The Concert of Scots Jacobites.

Glenbucket’s message had convinced James of the devotion of the Highlanders and the Jacobites of north-eastern Scotland, but he wished to know more of the spirit of the Scottish Lowlands. At the same time that he wrote to the English Jacobites, he despatched William Hay, a member of his household, to Scotland to make inquiries and to report. Hay overtook Murray who was lingering in Holland, and induced him to accompany him, as he was anxious to be introduced to Murray’s cousin, Lord Kenmure, an ardent Kirkcudbrightshire Jacobite. The acquaintance was duly made, and although no record is yet known of Hay’s actual transactions in Scotland, they can be conjectured with a fair amount of certainty from the results which followed them in spite of Murray’s disparaging remarks on his mission.[29] Hay visited the leading Jacobites, and it is difficult to doubt that he set in motion a scheme for concerted action. What is known is that he returned to Rome after three months’ absence greatly satisfied with what he had found. In the same year, presumably as the outcome of Hay’s mission, an Association of Jacobite leaders was formed, sometimes termed ‘the Concert,’ designed with the object of bringing together Highland chiefs and lowland nobles,[30] pledged to do everything in their power for the restoration of the exiled Stuarts. These Associators, as they were called, were: the Duke of Perth; his uncle, Lord John Drummond; Lord Lovat; Lord Linton, who in 1741 succeeded as fifth Earl of Traquair; his brother, the Hon. John Stuart; Donald Cameron, younger of Lochiel; and his father-in-law, Sir John Campbell of Auchenbreck, an Argyllshire laird. The position of manager was given to William Macgregor (or Drummond), the son of the Perthshire laird of Balhaldies.[31] In contemporary documents Macgregor[32] is generally termed ‘Balhaldy,’[33] and that designation has been used in this volume. Murray of Broughton did not belong to the Association, nor was he taken into its confidence until 1741. He, however, attached himself to Colonel Urquhart, the official Jacobite agent, and assisted him with his work. In 1740, when Urquhart was dying of cancer, Murray was appointed to succeed him.

In December 1739 Balhaldy was sent by the Associators to Paris, and from thence he went on to Rome. The Chevalier, greatly cheered by what he had to tell, instructed him to return to Paris and there to meet Sempill, who had become one of James’s most trusted agents. Sempill would introduce him to Cardinal Fleury, before whom they would lay the views of both the English and Scottish Jacobites.

Balhaldy returned to Paris, made the acquaintance of Sempill, an acquaintance which subsequently ripened into a strong political, perhaps personal, friendship. The interview with Fleury was obtained, and negotiations commenced in the beginning of 1740, about three months after the war with Spain, forced upon Walpole, had broken out.[34]

It is no part of my task to follow the intricacies of the negotiations between the French Ministry and the English Jacobites, except when they affect the affairs of the Scots, but here it is necessary to turn back for a moment to relate what took place after the English Jacobites received the Chevalier’s communication of Glenbucket’s message from Scotland.

English reception of Scots Proposals.

Sempill, who had gone from England to Rome in the spring of 1738, was sent back in October with the Chevalier’s instructions to his English adherents to arrange for concerted action with the Scots. The English Jacobites formed a council of six members to serve as a directing nucleus. This council communicated the English views on the Scottish proposal to the Chevalier as follows. Although the Government, they said, had only 29,000 regular troops in the British Isles, of which 13,000 were in England, 12,000 in Ireland, and 4000 in Scotland, yet the rising of the Scots could not take place, as the King hoped, without foreign assistance. It would be a difficult matter to provide the Scots with sufficient arms and munitions, and even if this difficulty could be surmounted, it would take two months after they had been supplied before their army could assemble and establish the royal authority in Scotland; that it would take another month before the Scots could march into England. Meantime the English leaders would be at the mercy of the professional army of the Government which their volunteer followers, entirely ignorant of discipline, could never oppose alone. The principal royalists would be arrested in detail, and their overawed followers would hold back from joining the Scots. There were 13,000 regular soldiers in England. Government would probably transfer 6000 from Ireland, and the army would be further augmented by the importation of Dutch and Hanoverian troops. Probably 8000 men would be sent to the frontier of Scotland. From this they concluded that a rising in Scotland without foreign assistance would involve possible failure and in any case a disastrous civil war, while, on the other hand, the landing of a body of regular troops would provide a rallying point for the insurgents. This force should be equal to the number of troops generally quartered about London and able to hold them, while the volunteer royalists would march straight to the capital which was ready to declare in their favour. They would then acquire the magazines and arsenals at the seat of government, and almost all the treasures of England (‘presque toutes les richesses d’Angleterre’). If at that juncture the Scots would rise, the Hanoverians would be driven to despair. No ally of the Elector, however powerful, would venture to attack Great Britain reunited under her legitimate sovereign. The requirement of the English would be 10,000 to 12,000 regular troops sent from abroad; without such a disciplined force the English Jacobites would not risk a rising.[35]

Sempill was sent by the Chevalier to Paris to lay these views before Cardinal Fleury. The Cardinal, peace lover though he was, felt that it would be absurd to neglect the assistance that the Jacobites might afford him in the complications which were certain to arise when the death of the Emperor Charles VI., then imminent, should occur.[36] When the English views of requirement were presented to him he received them sympathetically; said that the King of France would willingly grant the help the English Jacobites desired, but two things were absolutely necessary: he must have more exact information than had been given him with regard to what royalist adherents would join his troops on landing, and also as to those who would rise at the same time in the provinces. If the English leaders could satisfy His Majesty on these two points they might expect all they asked for.[37]

Balhaldy’s interview with Fleury.

Such was the state of Jacobite affairs at the French Court when Sempill introduced Balhaldy to Fleury. I know of no categorical statement of the requirements that Balhaldy was to lay before the Cardinal, but from a memorandum he wrote[38] it may be inferred that the Associators had asked for 1500 men with arms, ammunition, and money. Fleury replied that his sovereign was greatly pleased with the proposals of the Scots, and that he approved of their arrangements on behalf of their legitimate king. France, however, was at peace with Great Britain, while Spain was at open war. King Louis would ask the Spanish Court to undertake an expedition in favour of King James to which he would give efficient support.[39] Shortly afterwards, the Cardinal was obliged to tell Balhaldy that Spain declined to entertain the proposal. The Spanish Court disliked the war with England, and was quite aware that it had been forced on Walpole by the Jacobites and the Opposition.[40] Spain was not going to embarrass the British Government by embarking on a Jacobite adventure.