[609] In the ‘Narrative’ this sentence begins ‘Mr. Grossett having received certain intelligence which he communicated to Lord Justice Clarke that the rebells....’
[610] The ‘Narrative’ says ‘one hundred.’ This agrees with Maxwell of Kirkconnell ‘not above a hundred,’ but the number was continually increasing.
[611] Lieut.-colonel of Blakeney’s regiment (27th, now the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers).
[612] Letter xx. p. 392.
[613] Letters xxi., xxii. pp. 392, 393.
[614] William Blakeney, an Irishman, born in Co. Limerick 1672; brigadier-general 1741, major-general 1744, and appointed lieut.-governor of Stirling Castle in that year. The office was a sinecure in time of peace. When Cope left Edinburgh for his highland march, Blakeney posted down to Scotland and took command at Stirling Castle on 27th August. When summoned to surrender the Castle to Prince Charles in January, before and again after the battle of Falkirk, he replied that he had always been looked upon as a man of honour and the rebels should find he would die so. His successful defence of Stirling was rewarded by promotion to lieut.-general and the command of Minorca, which he held for ten years. His defence of Minorca in 1756 against an overwhelming French force won the admiration of Europe. For seventy days this old man of eighty-four held out and never went to bed. On capitulation the garrison was allowed to go free. Blakeney received an Irish peerage for his defence of Minorca about the time that Admiral Byng was executed for its abandonment.
[615] John Huske, 1692-1761, colonel of the 23rd (Royal Welsh Fusiliers); was second in command at Falkirk, and commanded the second line at Culloden. Major-general 1743; general 1756. He was second in command to Blakeney at Minorca in 1756.
Huske’s division on their march consisted of four regiments of infantry of the line, and the Glasgow regiment, with Ligonier’s (late Gardiner’s) and Hamilton’s dragoons (now 13th and 14th Hussars).
[616] This is very misleading. Lord George Murray’s scheme was to wait till the Government troops came up, and tempt them over the bridge: when half had crossed he intended to turn and cut them off. Lord Elcho had kept the enemy in sight all the time, and records that the Jacobites retired ‘in such order that the dragoons never offered to attack them’; moreover, before the highlanders ‘had passed the bridge the dragoons, who were in front of the regulars, drew up close by the bridge and very abusive language passed betwixt both sides.’
Even the picturesque touch of the substituted dinner must go. Lord George particularly mentions both in a private letter to his wife and in his historical letter to Hamilton of Bangour that they had dined at Linlithgow, and the journals of the day state that the affair occurred about 4 o’clock. Maxwell of Kirkconnell considers that if the dragoons had been very enterprising they might have cut off Lord George’s rear. (Elcho, Affairs of Scotland, p. 370; Jac. Mem., p. 79; Chron. Ath. and Tullib., iii. 141; Kirkconnell’s Narrative, p. 98.)