The first blow was the death of Louis the Fourteenth, the most powerful friend the Jacobite cause ever had. “When I engaged,” said Bolingbroke later, “in this business, my principal dependence was on his personal character, my hopes sank as he declined, and died when he expired.” The Duke of Orleans, who succeeded him as Regent, leaned rather to the dynasty now established in England, and thought that the interests of France would be best served by keeping friends with it. He refused to help James in any way, and even acted against him by preventing the sailing of certain vessels which were intended for an expedition to England. The second blow was the arrival of Ormonde, a fugitive from England—he the powerful and popular leader, who, according to the paper plan, was to raise the standard in the west. His appearance in France showed Bolingbroke that the attempt was hopeless and the expedition must be postponed. He had great difficulty in persuading James to this, for, as he was ignorant of English affairs, he desired to set off at once. Bolingbroke succeeded in stopping him, and sent a messenger to Scotland imploring Mar to wait awhile. The messenger arrived too late.
Mar, acting on his own initiative, had already set up James’s standard in the Highlands, and the heather was afire. The Highland clans were flocking in daily, and under these circumstances it was impossible that either James or Ormonde could remain inactive; to do James justice he was only too eager to be gone. Ormonde left Barr and sailed from the coast of Normandy for Devonshire. On October 28th James himself set out from Lorraine with the intention of making his way to Scotland as quickly as possible, but his unfortunate habit of admitting women into his confidence betrayed his secret, and every move he made was known—almost before he made it—to Lord Stair, the English ambassador in Paris, and he was thwarted at every turn. While hiding in Brittany the first news of ill-success was brought to him by Ormonde, who now returned to France after an abortive attempt to land at Plymouth. He found nothing prepared and no signs of a rising in the west. This, however, did not daunt James, who, after many delays, at last embarked at Dunkirk on a small vessel, and sailed for the coast of Scotland.
We must now go back a few weeks, and see what had been passing on the other side of the channel.
John Erskine, eleventh Earl of Mar, who had raised the standard of James in Scotland, was a man of great courage and some ability, but he acted too much upon impulse, and as a general he was unskilful, and lacking in decision and command. Like many other public men during the reign of Anne, he vacillated between Whig and Tory, and on the accession of George the First he professed his devotion to the House of Hanover. But George refused to listen, and Mar threw in his fortunes with James.
On August 1st, 1715, Mar attended one of the levées at St. James’s to disarm suspicion, and the next day he set off in disguise for the Highlands. On August 27th he summoned a great hunting match to which all the principal Jacobites were invited. The Marquesses of Huntly and Tullibardine, eldest sons of the Dukes of Gordon and Athol, the Earls of Southesk, Marischal, Seaforth, Errol, Traquair, Linlithgow, the Chief of Glengarry and several other Highland chieftains assembled. Mar addressed them in a long and eloquent speech, in which he lamented his own past error in having helped forward “that accursed treaty,” the Union, and declared that the time was now ripe for Scotland to regain her ancient independence under her rightful Sovereign, King James. All present pledged themselves to the Stuart cause, and then the assembly broke up, each member returning to his home to raise men and supplies.
PRINCE JAMES FRANCIS EDWARD STUART (THE CHEVALIER DE ST. GEORGE).
From the Picture in the National Portrait Gallery.
On September 6th, at Kirkmichael, a village near Braemar, Mar formally raised the standard of James. As the pole was planted in the ground the gilt ball fell from the top of the flagstaff, and the superstitious Highlanders regarded this as an ill-omen, though the flag was consecrated by prayer. Mar’s little band at that time numbered only sixty men, but the news of his action was noised abroad, and the rising spread like wildfire. The white cockade, the Stuart emblem, was assumed by clan after clan. James was proclaimed at Brechin, Aberdeen, Inverness and Dundee, and many of the leading noblemen of Scotland flocked to his standard. In a very short space of time the whole country north of the Tay was in the hands of the Jacobites, and, by the time Mar marched into Perth, on September 16th, his army had swollen to five thousand men.
In another part of Scotland a plot had been made to capture Edinburgh Castle, and if it had been successful the whole of Scotland would probably have submitted to James. Lord Drummond, with some eighty Highlanders, had bribed three soldiers of the garrison, and it was determined to scale the castle rock at a point where one of their friends would be sentinel on September 9th, at nine o’clock at night. When they had obtained possession of the castle, cannon was to be fired, and in response to this signal fires were to be kindled on the heights on the opposite coast of Fife, and these beacons, spreading northward from mountain to mountain, would inform Mar at Perth that Edinburgh had fallen, and be the signal for him immediately to push southward. Unfortunately, one of the conspirators told his brother, who told his wife, and the secret being entrusted to a woman soon ceased to exist. The woman sent an anonymous letter to the Lord Justice telling him of the plot. The letter did not reach him until ten o’clock of the very night the castle was to be taken, so that had the conspirators been punctual, and begun operations at nine o’clock as they had planned, they would probably have succeeded. But they were drinking at a tavern, and did not bring the ladders to the castle rock until nearly two hours later. The delay proved ruinous, for scarcely had the soldiers begun to draw up the ladders than the officers of the garrison were aroused by an express telling them of the plot. The garrison was at once alarmed, and the Jacobite sentinel, seeing that all was over, fired his piece and called down to those below. The conspirators immediately made off, and most of them escaped, only four being taken. Thus women and wine, always the two most baleful influences in Jacobite plans, defeated this scheme.