Having, for the sake of continuity, brought the narrative of the English branch of the insurrection to a close, in the preceding chapter, we now proceed to detail the operations of the royalist and Jacobite armies under Argyle and Mar respectively, and the other transactions in the north which preceded its total suppression.
Before, however, entering upon an account of the doings of the main body of the rebels in Scotland, we must notice briefly the re-capture by the royalists of Inverness, partly through the instrumentality of our old friend Simon Fraser, afterwards Lord Lovat. Finding it impossible to gain the confidence of the court of St. Germains, Simon, on the breaking out of the rebellion, resolved to seek the favour of King George by using his power as head of his clan on behalf of the royalists. The clan had sent over some of their number to France to bring Simon home, in order that he might tell them what side he desired them to espouse; these had got the length of Dumfries on the day in which that town was thrown into a state of consternation by the Lord Justice-Clerk’s letter, announcing its proposed capture by the rebels. Simon was received there with much suspicion, and he and his followers placed under guard, notwithstanding the pass he had managed to obtain from Lord Townshend. This he obtained on volunteering to accompany the Earl of Sutherland to the north, and induce the clan Fraser to abandon the Jacobites and join the royalists. Although the estates and honours were in possession of the daughter of the late Lord Lovat, and although her husband, Mackenzie of Fraserdale, had joined the rebels with a number of the clan, still, according to Highland custom, Simon was the real head of the clan, and as such his influence was paramount.[722]
Inverness at the end of the 17th century.—From Slezer’s Theatrum Scotiæ.
On arriving in the north “he found three hundred men, who had refused to follow the Jacobite banner of his rival, ready at his call. Placing himself at their head, like a sovereign with an army, he sent notice to the disaffected clansmen who had followed the legal owner of the estates, to return immediately to their duty to their true chief, threatening them with ejection from their holdings, and military execution against their families and possessions, if they failed. As men exorcised by a command which it would be wicked and futile to resist, the Frasers left Mar’s camp, just before the momentous battle of Sheriffmuir, and joined their brethren. Lovat found Duncan Forbes, afterwards the great and good Lord-President, defending the old fortalice of Culloden, while his father-in-law, Hugh Rose, held his neighbouring tower of Kilravock against repeated attacks, and with a well-ordered force of 200 men, made his mansion do the proper service of a fort in protecting the surrounding country. Their efforts were important from their position. Northward of Loch Ness, and the chain of minor lakes, the power of the Earl of Sutherland, on the government side, balanced that of Seaforth, Glengarry, and the other Jacobite leaders; and in their absence at Mar’s camp, was superior. Thus the fortified houses near Inverness, had all the importance of border fortresses; and the reduction of Inverness, for the Hanover interest, would relieve their owners of their perilous position, by giving their friends the command of the pass between the North Highlands and the rest of Scotland. The small body under Rose and Forbes, with Lovat’s, and a party of the Grants, amounted in all to about 1,300 men—a considerable force in that war of small armies. They laid plans for systematically investing Inverness; but before it was necessary to operate on them, the garrison silently evacuated the place, dropping down the river in boats on the night of the 13th of November, and sailing for the northern coast of the Moray Frith. This affair seems to have cost no other casualty than the death of a brother of Rose of Kilravock, in a premature and rash attack. Thus the government had the command of the eastern pass between the North Highlands and the low country, leaving passable only such routes, beyond the western extremity of Loch Ness, as were not liable to be interrupted by the garrison at Fortwilliam.”[723]
When the Jacobite general took the field he was so unprovided with money, that after Colonel Hay entered Perth he could spare him only fifty guineas for the use of his detachment, and so exhausted had his little treasury become shortly after he took up his quarters there, that he was reduced to the necessity of laying the surrounding country, and the shires of Fife, Kinross, and Clackmannan under contribution. By an order dated from the camp at Perth on the 4th October, he required every man of substance attending the standard of the Chevalier, to raise amongst his tenants and possessors, the sum of twenty shillings on every hundred pounds Scots of valued rent, and such landed proprietors as did not immediately or before the 12th of October, attend his standard, were mulcted in double that amount. This order appears to have had little effect, as it was renewed on the 21st of October, when it was rigorously enforced, and the penalty of military execution threatened against those who should refuse to implement it.
To compel compliance, parties of horse and foot were despatched through the adjoining country. One of these, consisting of 200 foot and 100 horse, being sent towards the town of Dunfermline, information of their march was brought to the Duke of Argyle on Sunday, the 23d of October. His grace immediately despatched Colonel Cathcart with a detachment of dragoons to intercept them, who, receiving intelligence that the insurgents had passed Castle Campbell, and had taken up their quarters for the night in a village on the road to Dunfermline, continued his march during the whole night, and coming upon the village unperceived at five o’clock in the morning, surprised the party, some of whom were killed and others taken while in bed. Among these were eleven gentlemen, including Gordon of Craig, Gordon younger of Aberlour, and Mr. Murray brother to the laird of Abercairney.[724]
After this affair, and for want of more stirring excitements, a sort of paper war was carried on between the two generals, which, if attended with little practical effect on either side, served at least to keep up in a more marked manner the distinction between the adherents of the government and the partizans of the Jacobite interest. When informed of the Earl of Mar’s order for an assessment, the Duke of Argyle issued a counter one, on the 25th of October, prohibiting and discharging all persons from giving or furnishing the insurgents with money or provisions, under the pains of high treason, and for greater publicity he directed the same to be intimated at each parish church door after divine service, and before the dismissal of the congregation. This mandate was followed two days thereafter by another from the duke, requiring all well-affected noblemen, gentlemen, justices of the peace, magistrates, and ministers, “to persuade and encourage all able-bodied and well-affected men,” in their respective parishes, in town and country, to enlist in the regular army, and promising a bounty of forty shillings sterling, and a discharge from the service, if required, at the end of three months after the suppression of the insurrection. This order was answered by a proclamation from the Earl of Mar, dated November 1st, prohibiting and discharging all persons whatever, under the highest penalties, from giving obedience to it; and whereas he had promised his protection, as he observes, to all ministers who behaved themselves dutifully, and did not acknowledge “the Elector of Brunswick as king, by praying for him as such in their churches and congregations;” yet as several of them continued the practice, and might thus “involve and mislead innocent and ignorant people into traitorous and seditious practices,” he expressly prohibited “all ministers, as well in churches as in meeting-houses, to acknowledge the Elector of Brunswick as king, and that upon their highest peril.” And he ordered all officers, civil and military, to shut up the church doors of such ministers as should act in contempt of the order, to apprehend their persons and bring them prisoners to his camp. Many ministers, to avoid compliance with this order, absented themselves from their charges, but others who ventured openly to brave it, were apprehended and treated with severity. Mar, however, found a more pliant body in the non-jurant episcopal clergy, some of whom attached themselves to his camp, and harangued his troops from time to time on the duties they owed to their lawful sovereign, “King James VIII.”