Meanwhile his elder son, Charles Edward, was growing up, and the hopes of the party were fixed on his future. His father wished him to learn the art of war, so in August 1734 he was sent to join a Spanish army under his cousin, the Duke of Berwick,[19] who was engaged in the campaign against Austria, which brought the crown of Naples to the Spanish Bourbons. Charles, then not quite fourteen, took part in the siege and capture of Gaeta, a fortress in Campania, and accompanied Don Carlos in his triumphant entry into Naples as king on August 9th. The Prince won much credit for his conduct in the field, but this was the end of his experience of war, and his campaign had lasted only six days. His father was anxious to extend his military education, but France and Spain in turn declined to allow him to serve with their armies. Even the Emperor, about to make war on the Turks in 1737, refused to allow the young prince to accompany his army. European potentates were unwilling to receive Charles Edward even as a visitor. The Venetian minister in London was ordered to quit England on twenty-four hours’ notice, because his Government had shown civilities to the Prince on a visit to Venice. The British Government was too vigilant to hoodwink, too strong to offend. Peace reigned throughout Europe: Jacobite activity was dormant both in England and in Scotland: the royal exiles were isolated at Rome, and it seemed as if all hope of a Stuart Restoration had been abandoned.
The Mission of Glenbucket.
The first to inspire the Jacobite Court with new life and hope, and set in motion the events which led up to the great adventure of ’Forty-five was John Gordon of Glenbucket. This remarkable man was no county magnate nor of any particular family. At this time he possessed no landed property; he was merely the tenant of a farm in Glenlivet, which he held from the Duke of Gordon. His designation ‘of Glenbucket’ was derived from a small property in the Don valley which had been purchased by his grandfather, and which he inherited from his father. He was not a Highlander, having been born in the Aberdeenshire lowland district of Strathbogie, but he had so thoroughly conformed himself to Highland spirit and manners that he had won the affection and confidence of the Highlanders of Banffshire and Strathspey. Glenbucket was at this time about sixty-four years old. In his younger days he had been factor or chamberlain to the Duke of Gordon, a position which conferred on him considerable influence and power, particularly over the Duke’s Highland vassals. In the ’Fifteen he had commanded a regiment of the Gordon retainers, and behaved with gallantry and discretion throughout the campaign.[20] About the year 1724 he had ceased to be the Duke’s representative, but his connection with the Highlanders was continued by the marriages of his daughters. One of them was the wife of Forbes of Skellater, a considerable laird in the Highland district of Upper Strathdon; another was married to the great chief of Glengarry; and a third to Macdonell of Lochgarry.[21]
In the year 1737 Gordon sold Glenbucket, for which he realised twelve thousand marks (about £700); and he left Scotland to visit the Chevalier at Rome. On his way he passed through Paris, where he had an interview with Cardinal Fleury, the French prime minister. To the Cardinal he suggested a scheme of invasion, by which officers and men of the Irish regiments in the French service quartered near the coast could be suddenly and secretly transported to Scotland.[22] The Cardinal, whose general policy was peace at any price,[23] gave no encouragement to the scheme.
Message to the English Jacobites.
Glenbucket went on to Rome in January 1738: he delivered his message, was rewarded with a major-general’s commission,[24] and returned to Scotland. Immediately the Jacobite Court was filled with sanguine activity. What the terms of Glenbucket’s mission were, or whom he represented, have never been categorically stated. Murray of Broughton hints that he only represented his son-in-law Glengarry and General Alexander Gordon.[25] Even if this limitation were true, it meant much. Glengarry was one of the greatest of Highland chiefs, while General Gordon was that Nestor of Scottish Jacobites who had been commander-in-chief after the Chevalier left Scotland in 1716, and whose opinions must have carried much weight. Although there is no direct statement of the terms of Glenbucket’s mission, its significance can readily be understood from the communication made to the English Jacobites. The Chevalier at once wrote off to Cecil, his official agent in London, informing him of the encouraging news he had received. The zeal of his Scottish subjects, he said, was so strong that he considered it possible to oppose the Scottish Highlanders to the greater part of the troops of the British Government then available, and there was good cause to hope for success even without foreign assistance, provided the English Jacobites acted rightly.[26]
At the time that the Chevalier’s message reached his adherents there happened to be in England a personage who bore the name and designation of Lord Sempill.[27] Though of Scots descent he was French by birth and residence. He was not familiar with English ways, and he did not understand English political agitation. Mingling for the most part with Jacobites avowed or secret, his ears were filled with execration of the reigning dynasty. On every side he heard the Whig Government denounced, and he saw it tottering and vacillating. He mistook general political dissatisfaction for revolutionary discontent, and he came to the conclusion that the country longed for a restoration of the old royal line. Constituting himself an envoy from the English Jacobites,[28] he hurried off to Rome and reported to the Chevalier that the party was stronger than was generally believed, and that affairs in England were most favourable for action.
It is necessary here to relate how Glenbucket’s mission to Rome affected the Scottish Jacobites, and to introduce into the narrative the name of one who for five years was a mainstay of the Cause, though in the end he turned traitor.
Murray of Broughton.
John Murray of Broughton, a younger son of Sir David Murray of Stanhope (a Peeblesshire baronet of ancient family who in his day had been an ardent Jacobite), entered the University of Leyden in 1735, being then twenty years of age. In 1737 he had completed his studies and went on a visit to Rome, where he mixed in the Jacobite society of the place. Although he never had an interview with James himself, he frequently met the young princes, and he acquired the friendship of James Edgar, the Chevalier’s faithful secretary. Murray’s father had once been proposed as an official Jacobite agent in Scotland, and it seems highly probable that Edgar persuaded the son to look forward to assuming such a position. Murray left Rome to return to Scotland shortly before Glenbucket’s arrival in January 1738.