James could hardly be blind to the fact that his cause was desperate, but if it had not been, his was not a personality to inspirit his followers. His speech to his council, which was circulated about this time, contained a characteristic note of fatalism, though it did not lack dignity: “Whatsoever shall ensue,” he said, “I shall leave my faithful subjects no room for complaint that I have not done the utmost they could expect from me. Let those who forget their duty, and are negligent for their own good, be answerable for the worst that may happen. For me it will be no new thing if I am unfortunate. My whole life, even from my cradle, has shown a constant series of misfortunes, and I am prepared, if so it please God, to suffer the threats of my enemies and yours.” Mar spoke of James as “the first gentleman I ever knew,” but when their long-expected King came among his nobles and chieftains at Perth, he frankly disappointed them. “I must not conceal,” wrote one of his followers later, “that when we saw the man whom they called our King, we found ourselves not at all animated by his presence, and if he was disappointed in us, we were tenfold more so in him. We saw nothing in him that looked like spirit. He never appeared with cheerfulness and vigour to animate us. Our men began to despise him; some asked if he could speak. His countenance looked extremely heavy. He cared not to go abroad amongst us soldiers, or to see us handle our arms or do our exercise.”[63]
If James had acted with spirit, if he had shown belief in himself and his cause, and had taken measures promptly and decisively, there was a chance that, even at the eleventh hour, he might have redeemed his fortunes. His Highlanders were more than willing to fight, and only wanted a man to lead them. When it was rumoured that Argyll was advancing, James’s council sat in deliberation the whole night, but came to no resolution. “What would you have us do?” said a member of it next day to a tumultuous crowd that had gathered in the street. “Do!” cried a Highlander. “What did you call us to arms for? Was it to run away? What did the King come hither for? Was it to see his people butchered by hangmen, and not strike one stroke for their lives? Let us die like men, and not like dogs.”[64] Another added that if James were willing to die like a Prince, he would find that there were ten thousand men in Scotland who were not afraid to die with him. There was another factor in the situation which might have been worked in favour of the Stuart cause, had James but known it, and that was the lukewarmness of Argyll. If Mar delayed, Argyll wavered and procrastinated too, and sent excuse after excuse to the Government in London for not advancing. Sentiment goes for something, and the spectacle of the true heir of Scotland’s ancient monarchs striving to regain the throne of his hereditary kingdom may well have influenced a Scottish nobleman like Argyll, who at one time in his career had shown himself not disinclined to espouse the interest of James. The Government certainly suspected him, for they sent him peremptory orders to advance, and later showed their opinion more clearly by depriving him of the command in Scotland.
When Argyll found that the Government were determined, the Dutch troops were marching, and Mar remained inactive, he made virtue of necessity and ordered an advance. He had given James’s cause every chance, but it was impossible to help those who would not help themselves. Directly Argyll’s advance became known, James’s council determined on a retreat from Perth. The Highlanders obeyed in sullen silence, or with muttered mutiny, which would have broken into active rebellion, if they had not been told that the army was only retreating to the Highlands in order that it might better attack Argyll. The retreat was by way of the Carse o’ Gowrie and Dundee to Montrose. During the march Mar told James that all hope was lost, and urged him to fly to France. James resisted this proposal, and only consented to it when told that his presence would help no one, and increase his adherents’ danger. At Montrose a French vessel was lying in the harbour, and on the evening of February 4th James secretly left his lodging. Accompanied by Mar, he went to the water side, pushed off in a small boat, and embarked on the vessel for France.
James left behind him a letter addressed to Argyll, enclosing a sum of money, all that he had left, desiring that it might be given to the poor people whose villages he had been obliged to burn on his retreat, so that, “I may at least have the satisfaction of having been the destruction of none, at a time when I came to free all”.[65] The Highlanders were indignant and discouraged at the flight of their King, but as Argyll’s advancing army was close on their heels, they marched to Aberdeen, their numbers getting fewer and fewer as they went along, and from Aberdeen they retired into their Highland fastnesses, dispersing as they went. Very few were taken prisoners, partly because of Argyll’s lack of vigilance, and partly because of the inaccessible nature of the country. The men, safe in their obscurity, went back to their homes, the chiefs hid for a time until the storm blew over, or made good their escape to the Continent.
Thus ended the rising of 1715, and putting aside sentiment (and it must be admitted that sentiment was all on the side of James), it probably ended for the best. From the personal point of view England would have gained little by a change of King. James was a more attractive personality than George, but he had his failings and his vices too. His mistresses would have been French instead of German, and more beautiful, but little less rapacious. His advisers, instead of being hungry Hanoverians, would have been French and Italian Jesuits, quite as objectionable, and far more dangerous. From the national point of view, the cause of civil and religious liberty would have sustained a severe check. But when all this is admitted, the fact remains that James was the heir of our ancient kings. It is impossible to withhold sympathy from those who, so long as he and his sons lived, refused allegiance to the House of Hanover, or to the many more whose sentiments, though they acquiesced in the established order of things, were expressed in the epigram of John Byrom:—
God bless the King, God bless our faith’s Defender,
God bless—no harm in blessing—the Pretender;
But who Pretender is, and who is King,
God bless us all! that’s quite another thing.
By the death of James’s younger son Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, at Rome, in 1807, these dynastic disputes came to an end. By the accession of Queen Victoria, in 1837, the reigning dynasty gained a lustre before denied it, and became consecrated in the hearts and affection of the English people. And this holds equally good of his present gracious Majesty, King Edward the Seventh, who is a lineal descendant of King James the First, and has inherited many of the generous and lovable characteristics of the Stuarts.