Origins of the 'Forty-five

by Unknown

On July 25th he landed in Arisaig,—the ’Forty-five had begun.

PAPERS OF JOHN MURRAY OF BROUGHTON

These papers, picked up after Culloden, are fragmentary and are not easy reading without a knowledge of their general historical setting, and this I have endeavoured to give in brief outline in the preceding pages. They are particularly interesting as throwing glimpses of light on the origins of the last Jacobite rising. They were written before the collapse of that rising and before Murray, after the great betrayal, had become a social outcast. Murray’s Memorials, edited for the Scottish History Society by the late Mr. Fitzroy Bell, were written thirteen years after Culloden as a history and a vindication. These papers may be considered as memoranda or records of the business Murray had been transacting, and they view the situation from a different angle.

Some of the events mentioned in the Memorials are told with fuller detail in these papers; they also contain thirteen hitherto unpublished letters, consisting for the most part of a correspondence between Murray and the Chevalier de St. George and his secretary James Edgar. But to my mind the chief interest of the papers lies in the fact that they present a clue to the origin of the Jacobite revival which led up to the ’Forty-five; that clue will be found in Murray’s note on page 25.

In 1901 the Headquarters Staff of the French Army issued a monograph based on French State Papers, giving in great detail the project for the invasion of Great Britain in 1744, and the negotiations which led up to it. The book is entitled Louis XV. et les Jacobites, the author being Captain Jean Colin of the French Staff. In his opening sentence Captain Colin tells how the Chevalier de St. George was living tranquilly in Rome, having abandoned all hope of a restoration, when about the end of 1737 he received a message from his subjects in Scotland informing him that the Scottish Highlanders would be able, successfully, to oppose the Government troops then in Scotland. In no English or Scottish history, so far as I am aware, has this message from Scotland been emphasised, but in the French records it is assumed as the starting-point of the movement on the part of the French Government to undertake an expedition in favour of the Stuarts. Murray refers to Glenbucket’s mission in the Memorials (p. 2), though very casually, and as if it were a matter of little moment, but the insistence in French State Papers of the importance of the Scottish message made it necessary to investigate the matter further.

The first step to discover was the date of the sale of the estate of Glenbucket, the price of which was probably required for the expenses of the mission, and it was found from Duff family papers, kindly communicated by the authors of The Book of the Duffs, that Glenbucket sold his estate to Lord Braco in 1737. The next step is told in the pages of James Francis Edward, where it is narrated that Glenbucket was in Paris about the end of that year, that he there presented to Cardinal Fleury a scheme for a rising in Scotland, which he proposed should be assisted by the Irish regiments in the service of Louis XV. The same work tells how Glenbucket went on to Rome in January 1738, and there conveyed to the Chevalier satisfactory assurances from the Highlands, but few from the Lowlands.[56] The result was that William Hay was sent to Scotland on the mission which eventuated in the ‘Concert’ of Jacobite leaders, Highland and Lowland, and Balhaldy’s subsequent mission to Paris and Rome.

It would be interesting to know who the Highlanders were who entrusted Glenbucket with the message to Rome. Murray, in his jealous, disparaging way, remarks that it could only be Glengarry and General Gordon, but either he did not know much about Glenbucket or he was prejudiced. In an account of the Highland clans preserved in the Public Record Office, and evidently prepared for the information of the Government after he had turned traitor, Murray writes: ‘I have heard Gordon of Glenbucket looked upon as a man of Consequence, whereas, in fact, he is quite the reverse. He is not liked by his own name, a man of no property nor natural following, of very mean understanding, with a vast deal of vanity.’[57] But this word-portrait does not correspond with that drawn by a writer who had better opportunities of knowing Glenbucket. The author of the Memoirs of the Rebellion in the Counties of Aberdeen and Banff particularly emphasises the affection he inspired in the Highlanders, and significantly adds:—

‘It is generally believed he was very serviceable to the court of Rome, in keeping up their correspondence with the Chiefs of the Clans, and was certainly ... of late years over at that court, when his Low Country friends believed him to be all the while in the Highlands.’[58]

It may be that Lovat was one of those Highlanders who joined in Glenbucket’s message. About this time he had been deprived of his sheriffship and of his independent company, and, furious against the Government, had almost openly avowed his Jacobitism. In 1736 he, as sheriff, had released the Jacobite agent John Roy Stewart from prison in Inverness and by him had despatched a message of devotion to the Chevalier,[59] but of his co-operation with Glenbucket I have found no hint. The sequence of events here narrated make it plain that whoever it was for whom he spoke, it was Gordon of Glenbucket whose initiative in 1737 originated the Jacobite revival which eventually brought Prince Charles to Scotland.

Analysis of the papers is unnecessary after the admirable introduction to the Memorials by Mr. Fitzroy Bell, but it may interest readers of that work to refer to two letters mentioned in the Memorials. The first of these was a letter Murray says he wrote to the Chevalier giving an account of his interview with Cecil in London.[60] Mr. Bell searched the Stuart Papers at Windsor, but failed to find it. I think the letter printed on page 20 is the letter that was intended, though it is addressed not to James but to his secretary Edgar. The other letter mentioned in the Memorials was one to the Earl Marischal written about the same time. It was entrusted for delivery to Balhaldy and Traquair, but to Murray’s intense indignation they destroyed it. In the Memorials he expresses his regret that he has not a copy to insert. There is little doubt that the letter on page 27 of these papers is the draft of the letter referred to.