To complete the business of this eventful day, the proclamation at the cross of the Chevalier de St. George as James III., alone remained. The Highlanders who entered the city in the morning, desirous of obtaining the services of the heralds and the pursuivants, to perform what appeared to them an indispensable ceremony, had secured the persons of these functionaries. Surrounded by a body of armed men, the heralds and pursuivants, several of whom had probably been similarly employed on the accession of “the Elector of Hanover,” proceeded to the cross, a little before one o’clock afternoon, clothed in their robes of office, and proclaimed King James, amid the general acclamations of the people. The windows of the adjoining houses were filled with ladies, who testified the intensity of their feelings by straining their voices to the utmost pitch, and with outstretched arms waving white handkerchiefs in honour of the handsome young adventurer. Few gentlemen were, however, to be seen in the streets or at the windows, and even among the common people, there were not a few who preserved a stubborn silence.[908] The effect of the ceremony was greatly heightened by the appearance of Mrs. Murray of Broughton, a lady of great beauty, who, to show her devoted attachment to the cause of the Stuarts, decorated with a profusion of white ribbons, sat on horseback near the cross with a drawn sword in her hand, during all the time the ceremony lasted.[909]
While the heralds were proclaiming King James at the market-cross of Edinburgh, Sir John Cope, who, as has been stated, arrived in the mouth of the Frith of Forth on the 16th, was landing his troops at Dunbar. The two regiments of dragoons had continued their inglorious flight during the night, and had reached that town, on the morning of the 17th, “in a condition,” to use the soft expression of Mr. Home, “not very respectable.” On arriving at Musselburgh, they had halted for a short time, and afterwards went to a field between Preston Grange and Dolphinston, where they dismounted for the purpose of passing the night; but between ten and eleven o’clock they were aroused by the cries of a dragoon who had fallen into an old coal-pit full of water. Conceiving that the Highlanders were at hand, they instantly mounted their horses and fled towards Dunbar with such precipitation and alarm, that they dropped their arms by the way. Next morning the road to Dunbar was found strewed with the swords, pistols, and firelocks, which had fallen from the nervous hands of these cowards. Colonel Gardiner, who had slept during the night in his own house at Preston, near the field where the dragoons were to bivouack, was surprised, when he rose in the morning, to find that his men were all gone. All that he could learn was that they had taken the road to Dunbar. He followed them with a heavy heart, which certainly did not lighten when he saw the proofs they had left behind them of their pusillanimity. These arms were collected and conveyed in covered carts to Dunbar, where they were again put into the hands of the craven dragoons.[910]
The landing of Cope’s troops was finished on Wednesday, the 17th of September; but the disembarkation of the artillery and stores was not completed till the 18th. On the last-mentioned day, Mr. Home, the author of the history of this Rebellion, arrived at Dunbar, and was introduced to Sir John, as a “volunteer from Edinburgh,” desirous of communicating to him such information as he had personally collected respecting the Highland army. He told the general, that being curious to see the Highland army and its leader, and to ascertain the number of the Highlanders, he had remained in Edinburgh after they had taken possession thereof,—that for the last-mentioned purpose, he had visited the different parts they occupied in the city, and had succeeded in making a pretty exact enumeration,—that with the same view he had perambulated the Hunter’s bog, where the main body was encamped,—and as he found the Highlanders sitting in ranks upon the ground taking a meal, that he was enabled to calculate their numbers with great certainty. He stated, from the observations he had been thus enabled to make, that the whole Highlanders within and without the city did not amount to 2,000 men; but that he had been told that several bodies of men from the north were on their march, and were expected very soon to join the main body at Edinburgh. In answer to a question put by Cope, as to the appearance and equipment of the Highlanders, Home stated that most of them seemed to be strong, active, and hardy men, though many of them were of a very ordinary size: and if clothed like Lowlanders, would, in his opinion, appear inferior to the king’s troops; but the Highland garb favoured them much, as it showed their naked limbs, which were strong and muscular; and their stern countenances and bushy uncombed hair gave them a fierce, barbarous, and imposing aspect. With regard to their arms, Mr. Home said that they had no artillery of any sort but one small unmounted iron cannon, lying upon a cart, drawn by a little Highland pony,—that about 1,400 or 1,500 of them were armed with firelocks and broadswords,—that their firelocks were of all sorts and sizes, consisting of muskets, fusees, and fowling pieces,—that some of the rest had firelocks without swords, while others had swords without firelocks,—that many of their swords were not Highland broadswords but French,—that one or two companies, amounting to about 100 men, were armed, each of them with the shaft of a pitch-fork, with the blade of a scythe fastened to it, resembling in some degree the Lochaber axe. Mr. Home, however, added, that all the Highlanders would soon be provided with firelocks, as the arms belonging to the train bands of the city had fallen into their hands.[911]
At Dunbar, General Cope was joined by some judges and lawyers, who had fled from Edinburgh on the approach of the Highlanders. They did not, however, enter the camp as fighting men, but with the intention of continuing with the king’s army, as anxious and interested spectators of the approaching conflict. Cope found a more efficient supporter in the person of the Earl of Home, then an officer in the guards, who considered it his duty to offer his services on the present occasion. Unlike his ancestors, who could have raised in their own territories a force almost equal to that now opposed to Sir John Cope, this peer was attended by one or two servants only, a circumstance which gave occasion to many persons to mark the great change in the feudal system which had taken place in Scotland, in little more than a century.
Desirous of engaging the Highland army before the arrival of its expected reinforcements, General Cope left Dunbar on the 19th of September, in the direction of Edinburgh. The cavalry, infantry, cannon, and baggage-carts, which extended several miles along the road, gave a formidable appearance to this little army, and attracted the notice of the country people, who, having been long unaccustomed to war and arms, flocked from all quarters to see an army on the eve of battle; and with infinite concern and anxiety for the result beheld the uncommon spectacle. The army halted on a field to the west of the town of Haddington, sixteen miles east from Edinburgh. As it was supposed that the Highlanders might march in the night time, and by their rapid movements surprise the army, a proposal was made in the evening, to the general, to employ some of the young men who followed the camp, to ride betwixt Haddington and Duddingston, during the night, so as to prevent surprise. This proposal was approved of by Cope, and sixteen young men, most of whom had been volunteers at Edinburgh, offered their services. These were divided into two parties of eight men each; one of which, subdivided into four parties of two men each, set out at nine o’clock at night, by four different roads that led to Duddingston. These parties returned to the camp at midnight, and made a report to the officer commanding the piquet, that they had not met with any appearance of the enemy. The other party then went off, subdivided as before, by the different routes, and rode about till day-break, when six of them returned and made a similar report, but the remaining two who had taken the coast road to Musselburgh, did not make their appearance at the camp, having been made prisoners by an attorney’s apprentice, who conducted them to the rebel camp at Duddingston! The extraordinary capture of these doughty patroles, one of whom was Francis Garden, afterwards better known as a lord of session, by the title of Lord Gardenstone, and the other Mr. Robert Cunningham, known afterwards as General Cunningham, is thus humorously detailed by a writer in the Quarterly Review:—
“The general sent two of the volunteers who chanced to be mounted, and knew the country, to observe the coast road, especially towards Musselburgh. They rode on their exploratory expedition, and coming to that village, which is about six miles from Edinburgh, avoided the bridge to escape detection, and crossed the Esk, it being then low water, at a place nigh its junction with the sea. Unluckily there was at the opposite side a snug thatched tavern, kept by a cleanly old woman called Luckie F——, who was eminent for the excellence of her oysters and sherry. The patroles were both bon-vivants; one of them whom we remember in the situation of a senator, as it is called, of the college of justice, was unusually so, and a gay witty agreeable companion besides. Luckie’s sign and the heap of shells deposited near her door, proved as great a temptation to this vigilant forlorn-hope, as the wine-house to the abbess of Andonillet’s muleteer. They had scarcely got settled at some right Pandores, with a bottle of sherry as an accompaniment, when, as some Jacobite devil would have it, an unlucky north-country lad, a writer’s (i.e. attorney’s) apprentice, who had given his indentures the slip, and taken the white-cockade, chanced to pass by on his errand to join Prince Charlie. He saw the two volunteers through the window, knew them, and guessed their business; he saw the tide would make it impossible for them to return along the sands as they had come. He therefore placed himself in ambush upon the steep, narrow, impracticable bridge, which was then, and for many years afterwards, the only place of crossing the Esk, ‘and how he contrived it,’ our narrator used to proceed, ‘I never could learn, but the courage and assurance of the province from which he came are proverbial. In short, the Norland whipper-snapper surrounded and made prisoners of my two poor friends, before they could draw a trigger.’”[912]
Cope resumed his march on the morning of the 20th of September, following the course of the post road to Edinburgh, till he came near Haddington, when he led off his army along another road, nearer the coast, by St. Germains and Seaton. His object in leaving the post road was to avoid some defiles and inclosures which would have hindered, in case of attack, the operations of his cavalry. In its march the army was followed by a number of spectators, all anxious to witness the expected combat; but they were assured by the officers that as the army was now rendered complete by the junction of the horse and foot, the Highlanders would not venture to engage. As some persons who ventured to express a different opinion were looked upon with jealousy, it is not improbable that the officers who thus expressed themselves did not speak their real sentiments.
On leaving the post road the general sent forward the Earl of Loudon his adjutant-general, with Lord Home and the quarter-master-general, to select ground near Musselburgh, on which to encamp the army during the night; but this party had not proceeded far when they observed some straggling parties of Highlanders advancing. The Earl of Loudon immediately rode back at a good pace, and gave Sir John the information just as the van of the royal army was entering the plain betwixt Seaton and Preston, known by the name of Gladsmuir. Judging the ground before him a very eligible spot for meeting the Highlanders, the general continued his march along the high road to Preston, and halted his army on the moor, where he formed his troops in order of battle, with his front to the west. His right extended towards the sea in the direction of Port Seaton, and his left towards the village of Preston. These dispositions had scarcely been made when the whole of the Highland army appeared.
The disembarkation of the royal army, and the advance of Cope towards Edinburgh, were known to Charles in the course of Thursday the 19th. Judging it of importance that no time should be lost in meeting Cope and bringing him to action, Charles had left Holyrood house on the evening of that day, and had proceeded to Duddingston, near which place his army was encamped. Having assembled a council of war, he proposed to march next morning and give battle to Sir John Cope. The members of the council having signified their acquiescence, the prince then asked the Highland chiefs how they thought their men would conduct themselves on meeting a commander who had at last mustered courage to meet them. As Macdonald of Keppoch had served in the French army, and was considered, on that account, to be a fit judge of what the Highlanders could do against regular troops, he was desired by the other chiefs to give his opinion. Keppoch observed that as the country had been long at peace, few or none of the private men had ever seen a battle, and that it was not therefore very easy to form an opinion as to how they would behave; but that he would venture to assure his royal highness that the gentlemen of the army would be in the midst of the enemy, and that as the clans loved both the cause and their chiefs, they would certainly share the danger with their leaders. Charles thereupon declared that he would lead on the Highlanders himself, and charge at their head; but the chiefs checked his impetuosity by pointing out the ruin that would befall them if he perished in the field, though his army should be successful. They declared that, should he persist in his resolution, they would return home and make the best terms they could for themselves. This remonstrance had the desired effect upon the young Chevalier, who agreed to take a post of less danger.[913]