MEMOIRS
OF
THE JACOBITES
OF 1715 AND 1745.

By MRS. THOMSON,
AUTHOR OF
"MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF HENRY THE EIGHTH,"
"MEMOIRS OF SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH," ETC.

VOLUME III.

LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET,
Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.
1846.

LONDON:
Printed by S. & J. Bentley, Wilson, and Fley,
Bangor House, Shoe Lane.

PREFACE.

In completing this work, I have to repeat my acknowledgments to those friends and correspondents to whom I expressed my obligations in the Preface to the first volume; and I have the additional pleasure of recording similar obligations from other channels.

I beg to testify my gratitude to Sir William Maxwell, Bart., of Montreith, for some information regarding the Nithsdale family; which, I hope, at some future time, to interweave with my biography of the Earl of Nithsdale; and also to Miss Charlotte Maxwell, the sister of Sir William Maxwell, whose enthusiasm for the subject of the Jacobites is proved by the interesting collection of Jacobite airs which she is forming, and which will be very acceptable to all who can appreciate poetry and song.

To Sir John Maxwell, Bart., of Pollock, and to Lady Matilda Maxwell, I offer my best thanks for their prompt and valued suggestions on the same subject.

I owe much to the courtesy and great intelligence of Mrs. Howison Craufurd, of Craufurdland Castle, Ayrshire: I have derived considerable assistance from that lady in the life of the Earl of Kilmarnock, and have, through her aid, been enabled to give to the public several letters never before published. For original information regarding the Derwentwater family, and for a degree of zeal, combined with accurate knowledge, I must here express my cordial thanks to the Hon. Mrs. Douglass, to whose assistance much of the interest which will be found in the life of Charles Radcliffe is justly due.

I have also to acknowledge the kindness of Mons. Amedée Pichot, from whose interesting work I have derived great pleasure and profit; and to Madame Colmache, for her inquiries in the Biblothéque du Roi, for original papers relating to the subject. To W. E. Aytoun, Esq., of Edinburgh, I beg also to express my acknowledgments for his aid in supplying me with some curious information regarding the Duke of Perth. The kindness with which my researches, in every direction, have been met, has added to my task a degree of gratification, which now causes its close to be regarded with something almost like regret.

One advantage to be gained by the late publication of this third volume, is the criticism of friends on the two former ones. Amid many errors, I have been admonished, by my kind adviser and critic, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., of having erred in accepting the common authorities in regard to the celebrated and unfortunate Lady Grange. Whatever were the sorrows of that lady, her faults and the provocation she gave to her irritated husband, were, it appears, fully equal to her misfortunes. Since the story of Lady Grange is not strictly connected with my subject, I have only referred to it incidentally. At some future time, the singular narrative of her fate may afford me a subject of further investigation.

I beg to correct a mistake into which I had fallen, in the first volume, respecting those letters relating to the Earl of Mar, for which I am indebted, to Alexander Macdonald, Esq. These, a distinct collection from that with which I was favoured by James Gibson Craig, Esq., were copied about twelve years ago, from the papers then in the possession of Lady Frances Erskine. They have since passed into the possession of the present Earl of Mar.

An interesting letter in the Appendix of this work, will be found relative to the social state of the Chevalier St. George, at Rome. For permission to publish this I am indebted to the valued friendship of my brother-in-law, Samuel Coltman, Esq., in whose possession it is, having been bequeathed, with other MSS. to his mother, by the well-known Joseph Spence, author of the "Anecdotes", and of other works.

London,
28th March, 1846.

CONTENTS OF THE THIRD VOLUME.

With Portraits of [Flora Macdonald], [Prince Charles], and [Lord Balmerino].

MEMOIRS OF THE JACOBITES.

LORD GEORGE MURRAY.

This celebrated adherent of the Chevalier was born in the year 1705. He was the fifth son of John Duke of Atholl, and the younger brother of that Marquis of Tullibardine, whose biography has been already given.

The family of Atholl had attained a degree of power and influence in Scotland, which almost raised them out of the character of subjects. It was by consummate prudence, not unattended with a certain portion of time-serving, that, until the period 1715, the high position which these great nobles held had been in seasons of political difficulty preserved. Their political principles were those of indefeasible right and hereditary monarchy. John, first Marquis of Atholl, the father of Lord George Murray, married Amelia Stanley, daughter of Charlotte De la Tremouille, Countess of Derby, whose princely extraction, to borrow a phrase of high value in genealogical histories, was the least of her merits. This celebrated woman was remarkable for the virtue and piety of her ordinary life; and, when the season of trial and adversity called it forth, she displayed the heroism which becomes the hour of adversity. Her well-known defence of Latham House in 1644 from the assaults of the Parliamentarian forces, and her protracted maintenance of the Isle of Man, the last place in the English dominions that submitted to the Parliament, were followed by a long and patient endurance of penury and imprisonment.

The Marquis of Atholl was consistent in that adherence to the Stuarts which the family of his wife had professed. He advocated the succession of James the Second, and was rewarded with the royal confidence. Indeed, such was the partiality of the King towards him, that had the Marquis "in this sale of favour," as an old writer expresses it, "not been firm and inflexible in the point of his religion, which he could not sacrifice to the pleasure of any mortal, he might have been the first minister for Scotland."[1] After the Revolution, the Marquis retired into the country, and relinquished all public business; thus signifying his opinion of that event.

He bequeathed to his son, John second Marquis of Atholl, and the father of Lord George Murray, as great a share of prosperity and as many sources of self-exultation as ordinarily fall to the lot of one man. To the blood of the Murrays, the marriage with Lady Amelia Stanley had added a connection in kindred with the Houses of Bourbon and Austria, with the Kings of Spain and Duke of Savoy, the Prince of Orange, and most of the crowned heads in Europe. Upon the extinction of the descendants of John the seventh Earl of Derby, commonly called the loyal Earl of Derby, and of his wife Charlotte De La Tremouille, "all that great and uncommon race of royal and illustrious blood," as it has been entitled, centred in the descendants of the Marquis of Atholl. In 1726, the barony of Strange devolved upon the Duke of Atholl; and the principality of the Isle of Man was also bequeathed to the same House by William ninth Earl of Derby. This was the accession of a later period, but was the consequence of that great and honourable alliance of which the family of Atholl might justly boast.

The father of Lord George Murray adopted every precaution, as we have seen,[2] to preserve the acquisitions of dignity and fortune which the lapse of years had added to his patrimonial possessions. Sixteen coats of arms, eight on the paternal side, and eight on the maternal side, had composed the escutcheon of his father, John Marquis of Atholl. Among those great names on the maternal side, which graced a funeral escutcheon, which has been deemed the pattern and model of perfect dignity, and the perfection of ducal grandeur, was the name of the Prince of Orange.[3] This plea of kindred was not thrown away upon the Marquis of Atholl; he declared himself for King William, and entered early into the Revolution. For this service he was rewarded with the office of High Commissioner to represent his Majesty in the Scottish parliament. But subsequent events broke up this compact, and destroyed all the cordiality which subsisted between William and the head of the House of Atholl. The refusal of the King to own the African Company was, it is said, the reason why the Marquis withdrew himself from Court, and remained at a distance from it during the lifetime of William.

The accession of Anne brought, at first, fresh honours to this powerful Scottish nobleman. He was created in 1704 a Duke, and was made Privy Seal: but the politics of the Court party changed; the Duke of Atholl was dismissed from the Ministry, and he became henceforth a warm opponent of all the Government measures. He spoke with boldness, yet discretion, against the Union; and protested against a measure which, as he conceived, gave up all the dignity and antiquity of the kingdom.

During his proud career, a marriage with Katherine, the daughter of William Duke of Hamilton, a lady of great prudence, and of eminent piety and virtue, added to the high consideration of the Duke of Atholl. Of this nobleman, certain historians have left the highest character. "He was," says Nisbet, "of great parts, but far greater virtues; of a lively apprehension, a clear and ready judgment, a copious eloquence, and of a very considerable degree of good understanding."[4] It is difficult to reconcile this description with the intrigues and bitterness which characterise the Duke of Atholl, in Lovat's narrative of their rivalry; nor would it be easy to reconcile the public report of many men with the details of their private failings. That, however, which has impugned the consistency and sincerity of the Duke of Atholl far more than the representations of Lovat, is the belief that, whilst his feelings were engaged in one cause, his professions were loud in upholding the other; that he was double and self-interested; and that he saved his vast estates from forfeiture by an act of policy which might, in some bearings, be regarded as duplicity, in proof of which it is asserted, that, whilst he pretended to condemn the conduct of his eldest son in joining the Rebellion of 1715, he was the chief instigator of that step.[5] Such was the father to whom Lord George Murray owed his birth.

During the unbroken prosperity of his House, the future General of the Jacobite army was born. He was the fifth son of eight children, borne by the first Duchess of Atholl, and was born in the year 1705. Of these, John the eldest, and presumptive heir to the dukedom, had been killed at the battle of Mons, or Malplaquet, in 1709. He was a youth of great promise, and his death was a source of deep lamentation to his father; a sorrow which subsequent events did not, perhaps, tend to alleviate. William, Marquis of Tullibardine, was therefore regarded as the next heir to all the vast possessions and ancestral dignities of his House. His faithful adherence to the Chevalier St. George, and the part which he adopted in the Rebellion of 1715, produced a revolution in the affairs of his family, which, one may suppose, could not be effected without some delicacy, and considerable distress.

In 1716 the Marquis of Tullibardine was attainted by an act passed in the first year of George the First; and by a bill, which was passed in the House of Commons relating to the forfeited estates, all these estates were vested in his Majesty from and after the twenty-fourth of January 1715.[6] Upon this bill being passed, the Duke of Atholl, who had been residing for many years with the splendour and state of a prince at his Castle at Blair Atholl, journeyed to London, and, being graciously received by George the First, he laid his case before that monarch, representing the unhappy circumstances of his son, and pointing out what effect and influence this might have, in the event of his own death, on the succession of his family, if his estate and honour were not vested in law upon his second son, Lord James Murray, who had performed very signal service to his Majesty in the late rebellion. This petition was received, and a bill was brought into parliament for vesting the honours of John Duke of Atholl in James Murray, Esq., commonly called Lord James Murray; and, as a reward of his steady loyalty, a law was passed, enacting that the act of attainder against William Marquis of Tullibardine should not be construed to extend to Lord James Murray or his issue. In consequence of this bill, on the death of the Duke of Atholl, in 1724, Lord James Murray succeeded to all those honours and estates, which had thus been preserved through the prudence of his father, and the clemency or policy of the King.

In this divided House was Lord George Murray reared. It soon appeared that he possessed the decision and lofty courage of his ancestry; and that his early predilections, in which probably his father secretly coincided, were all in favour of the Stuarts, and that no considerations of self-interest could draw him from that adherence.

The events of 1715 occurring when Lord George Murray was only ten years of age, his first active exertions in the cause of the Stuarts did not take place until a later period. In the interim, the youth, who afterwards distinguished himself so greatly, served his first apprenticeship to arms in the British forces in Flanders. In 1719, when only fourteen years of age, a fresh plan of invasion being formed by Spain, and the Marquis of Tullibardine having again ventured to join in the enterprise, Lord George showed plainly his attachment to the Jacobite cause. He came over with the Marquis, with a small handful of Spaniards, and was wounded at the battle of Glenshiels on the tenth of June. Of his fate after that event, the following account has been given by Wodrow,[7] who prefaces his statement with a congratulatory remark that several of the Jacobites were by their sufferings converted from their error. "At Glenshiels," he writes, referring to Lord George Murray, "he escaped, and with a servant got away among the Highland mountains, and lurked in a hut made for themselves for some months, and saw nobody. It was a happy Providence that either he or his servant had a Bible, and no other books. For want of other business, he carefully read that neglected book, and the Lord blessed it with his present hard circumstances to him. Now he begins to appear abroad, and it is said is soon to be pardoned; and he is highly commended not only for a serious convert from Jacobitism, but for a good Christian, and a youth of excellent parts, hopes, and expectations."

It appears, however, that Lord George, however he might be changed in his opinions, did not consider himself safe in Scotland. He fled to the Continent, and entered the service of Sardinia, then, in consequence of the quadruple alliance, allotted to the possessions of the Duke of Savoy.

Meantime, through the influence of his family, and, perhaps, on the plea of his extreme youth when he had engaged in the battle of Glenshiels, a pardon was obtained for the young soldier. His father, as is related in the manuscript account of the Highlands before quoted, "had found it his interest to change sides at the accession of George the First." His second brother, as he was now called, James Murray, or Marquis of Tullibardine, was a zealous supporter of the Hanoverian Government, although it proved no easy matter to engage his Clan in the same cause.

During many succeeding years, while Lord George Murray was serving abroad, cultivating those military acquirements which afterwards, whilst they failed to redeem his party from ruin, extorted the admiration of every competent judge, the progress of events was gradually working its way towards a second great attempt to restore the Stuarts.

Notwithstanding the apparent tranquillity of the Chevalier St. George, he had been continually though cautiously maintaining, during his residence at Albano, as friendly an intercourse with the English visitors to Rome as circumstances would permit. Most young men of family and condition travelled, during the time of peace, in Italy; many were thus the opportunities which occurred of conciliating these youthful scions of great and influential families. As one instance of this fact, the account given by Joseph Spence, the author of the "Anecdotes" and of "Polymetis," affords a curious picture of the eagerness evinced by James and his wife, during the infancy of their son, to ingraft his infant image on the memory, and affections of the English. Mr. Spence visited Rome while Charles Edward was yet in his cradle. He was expressly enjoined by his father, before his departure from England, on no account to be introduced to the Chevalier. Yet such were the advances made to him, as his own letter[8] will show, that it was almost impossible for him to resist the overture: and similar overtures were made to almost every Englishman of family or note who visited Rome at that period.

In addition to these efforts, a continual correspondence was maintained between James and his Scottish adherents. The Chevalier's greatest accomplishment was his art of writing letters; and he appears eminently to have excelled in that power of conciliation which was so essential in his circumstance.

Meantime Charles grew up, justifying, as he increased in stature, and as his disposition revealed itself, the most ardent expectations of those who wished well to his cause. One failing he very early evinced; that remarkable devotion to certain favourites which marked the conduct of his ancestors; and the partiality was more commonly built upon the adulation bestowed by those favourites than founded in reason.

It was in the year 1741 that the royal youth, then scarcely nineteen years of age, became acquainted with a man whose qualities of mind, and attractions of manner, exercised a very considerable influence over his destiny; and whose character, pliant, yet bitter, intriguing and perfidious, came afterwards into a painful collision with the haughty overbearing temper, and manly sincerity, of Lord George Murray.

It was in consequence of the practice adopted by some of the hangers-on of the Chevalier's court, of luring young English or Scottish strangers to its circles, that John Murray of Broughton, afterwards Secretary to Prince Charles, was first introduced to the young Chevalier. Murray was the son of Sir David Murray, Bart., by his second wife, a daughter of Sir David Scott of Ancrum: he was at this time only twenty-three years of age, and he had lately completed his studies at Edinburgh, where he had gone through a course of philosophy, and studied the civil and municipal laws. The report which prevailed that Mr. Murray had been educated with the young Chevalier was untrue; it was by the desire of his mother, Lady Murray, that he first, in 1741, visited both France and Italy, and perfected himself in the language of those countries, then by no means generally attained by Scotchmen.

Mr. Murray had been brought up in the principles of the Episcopal Church, and therefore there was less reason, than there would have been in the case of a Roman Catholic, to apprehend his being beguiled into an intimate connection with the exiled Stuarts. He had not, however, been long in Rome before he was asked by an acquaintance whether he had seen the Santi Apostoli, as the palace of the Chevalier was called. On answering in the negative, he was assured that, through a knowledge of some of the servants, a sight might be obtained of the palace; and also of the Protestant chapel, in which, as Mr. Murray heard with great surprise, the Chevalier allowed service to be performed for such of the retinue of the young Prince as were of the Protestant persuasion. It was also alleged that this indulgence was with the cognizance of the Pope, who, in order to remove the barrier which prevented the Stuarts from enjoying the crown of England, was willing to allow Charles Edward to be brought up as a Protestant. This assertion was further confirmed by the fact, that the noblemen, Lord Inverness and Lord Dunbar, who had the charge of Charles Edward, were both Protestants; a choice on the part of James which had produced all that contention between himself and the Princess Clementina, with the details of which the Courts of Europe were entertained.

The family and retinue of the Chevalier St. George being then at Albano, Mr. Murray was able to gratify his curiosity, and to inspect the chapel, which had neither crucifix, confessional, nor picture in it,—only an altar,—and was not to be distinguished from an English chapel; and here English divines officiated. Here, it is said, whilst at his devotions, a slight accident occurred, which nourished a belief in presages in the mind of Charles Edward. A small piece of the ceiling, ornamented with flowers in fretwork, fell into his lap; it was discovered to be a thistle: soon afterwards, another of these ornaments became detached, and fell also into his lap; this proved to be a rose. Such omens, coupled with the star of great magnitude which astronomers asserted to have appeared at his nativity, were, it was thought, not without their effect on the hopes and conduct of the young Prince. One can hardly, however, do him so much injustice as to suppose that such could be the case.

Mr. Murray expressed, it is affirmed, a considerable degree of curiosity to see the Chevalier and his two sons, who were both highly extolled for their natural gifts and graces; the wish was communicated, and, acting upon the principle of attracting all comers to the Court, was soon realised: a page was sent, intimating that Mr. Murray's attendance would be well received, and he was, by an order from the Chevalier, graciously admitted to kiss hands. Such was the commencement of that acquaintance which afterwards proved so fatal to the interests of Prince Charles, and so disgraceful to the cause of the Jacobites. Such was the introduction of the young Prince to the man who subsequently betrayed his companions in misfortune. This step was shortly followed by an intimacy which, probably in the commencement, was grounded upon mutual good-will. Men become perfidious by slow degrees; and perform actions, as they advance in life, which they would blush to reflect on in the day-dawn of their honest youth.

This account is, however, derived from the statements of an anonymous writer, evidently an apologist for the errors of Mr. Murray,[9] and is contradicted so far as the sudden conversion of the young Scotchman to the cause of the Stuarts, by the fact that he had all his life been a violent Jacobite.[10] On the other hand, it is alleged by Mr. Murray's champion, that his feelings and affections, rather than his reason, were quickly engaged in the cause of the Chevalier, from his opportunities of knowing intimately the personal qualities of the two royal brothers, Charles Edward and Henry Benedict. He was, moreover, independent of circumstances; being in the enjoyment of a fortune of three or four hundred a year, which was considered a sufficient independence for a younger brother, and therefore interest, it is alleged, could not have been an inducement to his actions.

Whether from real admiration, or from a wish to disseminate in Scotland a favourable impression of the Stuart Princes, it is difficult to decide; but Mr. Murray, in 1742, dispatched to a lady in Scotland, who had requested him to describe personages of so great interest to the Jacobites, the following, perhaps, not exaggerated portrait of what Charles Edward was in the days of his youth, and before he had left the mild influence of his father's house.

"Charles Edward, the eldest son of the Chevalier de St. George is tall, above the common stature; his limbs are cast in the exact mould, his complexion has in it somewhat of an uncommon delicacy; all his features are perfectly regular, well turned, and his eyes the finest I ever saw; but that which shines most in him, and renders him without exception the most surprisingly handsome person of the age, is the dignity that accompanies his every gesture; there is, indeed, such an unspeakable majesty diffused throughout his whole mien and air, as it is impossible to have any idea of without seeing, and strikes those that do with such an awe, as will not suffer them to look upon him for any time, unless he emboldens them to it by his excessive affability.

"Thus much, madam, as to the person of this Prince. His mind, by all I can judge of it, is no less worthy of admiration; he seems to me, and I find to all who know him, to have all the good nature of the Stuart family blended with the spirit of the Sobieskys. He is, at least as far as I am capable of seeing into men, equally qualified to preside in peace and war. As for his learning, it is extensive beyond what could be expected from double the number of his years. He speaks most of the European languages with the same ease and fluency as if each of them were the only one he knew; is a perfect master of all the different kinds of Latin, understands Greek very well, and is not altogether ignorant of Hebrew; history and philosophy are his darling entertainments, in both which he is well versed; the one he says will instruct him how to govern others, and the other how to govern himself, whether in prosperous or adverse fortune. Then for his courage, that was sufficiently proved at the siege of Gaità, where though scarcely arrived at the age of fifteen, he performed such things as in attempting made his friends and his enemies alike tremble, though for different motives. What he is ordained for, we must leave to the Almighty, who alone disposes all; but he appears to be born and endowed for something very extraordinary."[11]

It was not long before Mr. Murray perceived that, although James Stuart had given up all hopes of the English crown for himself, he still cherished a desire of regaining it for his son. Scotland was of course the object of all future attempts, according to the old proverb:

"He that would England win,
Must with Scotland first begin."

The project of an invasion, if not suggested by Murray, as has been stated, was soon communicated to him; and his credit attained to such an extent, that he was appointed by the Chevalier, at the request of Prince Charles, to be secretary for Scottish affairs. At the latter end of the year 1742 he was sent to Paris, where he found an emissary of the Stuarts, Mr. Kelly, who was negotiating in their behalf at the Court of France. Here Murray communicated with Cardinal Tencin, the successor of Cardinal Fleury, in the management of the affairs of the Chevalier, and here he met the exiled Marquis of Tullibardine, who, notwithstanding his losses and misfortunes in the year 1715, was still sanguine of ultimate success. Here, too, was the unfortunate Charles Radcliffe, who, with others once opulent, once independent, were now forced to submit to receive, with many indignities in the payment, pensions from the French Government. It was easy to inflame the minds of persons so situated with false hopes; and Murray is said to have been indefatigable in the prosecution of his scheme. After a delay of three weeks in Paris, he set off on that memorable undertaking to engage the Clans, which ultimately ended in the insurrection of 1745.

Lord George Murray, meantime, had returned to his native country, where he was presented to George the Second, and solicited, but ineffectually, a commission in the British army. This was refused, and the ardour in the Stuart cause, which we may presume to have wavered, again revived in its original vigour.

Previous to the Insurrection of 1745, Lord George Murray married Amelia, the only surviving child and heiress of James Murray of Glencarse and Strowan, a lady who appears, both from the terms of affection and respect expressed towards her by the Marquis of Tullibardine, and from the tenour of her own letters, to have coincided warmly in the efforts of her husband for the restoration of the Stuarts.[12] Five children were the issue of this marriage.

The course which public affairs were now taking checked, however, completely all hopes of domestic felicity. After several unsuccessful negotiations in Paris attempted by the agents of James Stuart, and in London by Lord Elcho, the scheme of invasion languished for some time. Whilst all was apparently secure, however, the metropolis was the scene of secret cabals and meetings of the Jacobites, sometimes at one place, sometimes at another; but unhappily for their cause, the party generally wanted compactness and discretion. "The little Jacobites," as those who were not in the secret of these manœuvres were called, began to flatter themselves that a large army would land in England from France that summer. Nor was it the policy of Government to check these reports, which strengthened the hands of the ministry, and procured a grant of the supplies with alacrity. The Jacobites, meantime, ran from house to house, intoxicated with their anticipated triumphs; and such chance of success as there might be was thus rendered abortive.

The year 1743 ended, however; and the visions of the Jacobites vanished into air. Donald Cameron of Lochiel, the elder, who visited Paris for the purpose of ascertaining what were the real intentions of the French cabinet, found that even the Cardinal Tencin did not think it yet time for the attempt, and he returned to Scotland disheartened. The death of the Cardinal Fleury in 1743 added to the discomfiture of his hopes.[13] Above all, the reluctance of the English Jacobites to pledge themselves to the same assurances that had been given by the Scotch, and their shyness in conversing with the people who were sent from France or Scotland on the subject, perplexed the emissaries who arrived in this country, and offered but a faint hope of their assistance from England.

But, in the ensuing year, the affairs of the Jacobites brightened; France, which had suspended her favours, once more encouraged and flattered the party. A messenger was dispatched to the palace of Albano, to acquaint the Chevalier that the day was now arrived when his views might be expected to prosper; whilst at the same time the utmost pains were taken by the French Government to appear to the English averse to the pretensions of James Stuart. It affords, indeed, another trait of the unfortunate tendency of the Stuart family to repose a misplaced confidence, that they should have relied on professions so hollow and so vague as those of France. But the dependent and desolate situation of that Prince may well be supposed to have blinded a judgment not ripened by any active participation in the general business of life, and narrowed within his little Court. Besides, there remained some who, after the conflict at Culloden was over, could even view the enterprise as having been by no means unauspicious. "Upon the whole," writes Maxwell of Kirkconnel, "the conjuncture seemed favourable; and it is not to be wondered that a young Prince, naturally brave, should readily lay hold of it. There was a prospect of recalling his father from an exile nearly as long as his life, saving his country from impending ruin, and restoring both to the enjoyment of their rights."[14]

Great preparations were in fact actually made by the French Government for the invasion of Great Britain. The young Prince, who was forthwith summoned from Rome, was to land in the Highlands and head the Clans; Lord John Drummond, it was arranged, should make a descent on the southern part of the island, and endeavour to join the young Chevalier, and march towards Edinburgh. Twelve thousand French were to pour into Wales at the same time, under the command of a general who was never named, and to join such English insurgents as should rally to their assistance.

This scheme, had it been executed with promptness, might perhaps have prospered better than, in these later times, in the security of an undisturbed succession, we are inclined to allow. General discontents prevailed in England. The partiality which had been shown to the Hanoverian troops in preference to the English at the battle of Dettingen had irritated, if not alienated, the affections of the army. The King and the Duke of Cumberland were abroad, and a small number of ships only guarded the coast. Parliament was not sitting; and most of the members both of the Lords and Commons, and of the Privy Council, were at their country-seats. But the proper moment for the enterprise was lost by delays, and the same opportunity never again occurred.

Meantime, the young Prince who was to influence the destiny of so many brave men, accompanied by his brother, left Rome furtively, under pretext of going to hunt at Cisterna. A tender affection, cemented by their adversities, existed between James Stuart and his sons. As they parted from each other with tears and embracings, the gallant Charles Edward exclaimed, "I go to claim your right to three crowns: If I fail," he added earnestly, "your next sight of me, sir, shall be in my coffin!" "My son," exclaimed the Chevalier, "Heaven forbid that all the crowns in the world should rob me of my child!"[15] Mr. Murray of Broughton was present at this interview; the prelude to disasters and dangers to the ardent young man, and of anxieties and disappointments to his father, feelingly depicted in the Chevalier's touching letters to his children.[16]

By a stratagem the young Prince effected his journey from Rome without its becoming known, and eleven days after his departure from that city elapsed before it was made public. He was accompanied by Henry Benedict, who was at this time a youth of great promise. He is described as having had, as well as his brother, a very fine person, though somewhat shorter in stature than that ill-fated young man, and of a less delicate complexion. He seems to have been, perhaps, better constituted for the career of difficulty which Charles Edward encountered. He was of a robust form, with an unusual fire in his eyes. Whilst his brother united the different qualities of the Stuart and the Sobieski, Henry Benedict is said to have been more entirely actuated by the spirit of his great ancestor, King John of Poland; by whom, and the handful of Christians whom he headed, a hundred and fifty thousand Turks were defeated. Even when only nine years of age, the high-spirited boy, whose martial qualities were afterwards subdued beneath the taming influence of a Cardinal's hat, resented the refusal of his father to allow him to accompany his brother to assist the young King of Naples in the recovery of his dominions; and could only be pacified by the threat of having his garter, the beloved insignia of English knighthood, taken from him as well as his sword.[17][18]

It soon became evident that the designs of France were not unknown at St. James's. The celebrated Chauvelin, Secretary of State to Louis the Fifteenth, had long been employing his influence over the Cardinal Fleury to counteract the wishes of the English. By a slight accident his designs were disclosed to Queen Caroline. Chauvelin had, unintentionally, among other papers, put into the hands of the Earl of Waldegrave, then ambassador in France, a letter from the Chevalier. Lord Waldegrave immediately sent it to Queen Caroline. This involved a long correspondence between Sir Robert Walpole and Waldegrave on the subject. "Jacobitism," to borrow the language of Dr. Cox, "at this time produced a tremor through every nerve of Government; and the slightest incident that discovered any intercourse between the Pretender and France occasioned the most serious apprehensions."[19] The spirit of insurrection and discontent had long pervaded not only the capital, which was disturbed by frequent tumults, but the country; and the murder of Porteous in Edinburgh, in 1736, was proved only to be the result of a regular systematic plan of resistance to the Government.[20]

The death of Queen Caroline deprived the oppressed Jacobites in both kingdoms of their only friend at Court. The unfortunate of all modes of faith met, indeed, with protection and beneficence from that excellent Princess. Those Roman Catholics, whose zeal for the Stuart cause had exposed them to the rigour of the law, were succoured by her bounty; large sums were sent by her to the indigent and ruined Jacobite families; and Sir Robert Walpole, who was greatly disturbed at this show of mercy to the delinquent party, truly exclaimed, "that the Jacobites had a ready access to the Queen by the backstairs, and that all attempts to suppress them would be ineffectual."[21]

The last efforts of Walpole, then Lord Orford, were exerted to warn the country of the danger to be feared in that second invasion, for prognosticating which he had so often been severely ridiculed. He alluded to "the greatest power in Europe, which was setting up a Pretender to the throne; the winds alone having hindered an invasion and protected Britain." He warned the Lords, that the rebellion which he anticipated would be "fought on British ground." The memorable oration in which he unfolded these sentiments, which were delivered with great emotion, touched the heart of Frederic Prince of Wales; who arose, quitted his seat, and, taking Lord Orford by the hand, expressed his acknowledgments.[22] That warning was the last effort of one sinking under an excruciating disease, and to whose memory the tragedy of 1715 must still have been present.

Charles Edward, to whose ill-omened attempts to sail from Dunkirk, Walpole had thus alluded, had borne that disastrous endeavour with a fortitude which augured well for his future powers of endurance. Mr. Maxwell[23] thus describes his commencement of the voyage. "Most of the troops," he says, "were already embarked, when a furious storm dispersed the ships of war, and drove the transports on the coast: the troops already embarked were glad to gain the shore, having lost some of their number. It is hardly possible to conceive a greater disappointment than that which the Prince met with on this occasion. How severely soever he might feel it, he did not seem dejected; on the contrary, he was in appearance cheerful and easy; encouraged such of his friends as seemed most deeply affected, telling them Providence would furnish him with other occasions of delivering his father's subjects, and making them happy. Immediately after this disaster the expedition was given up, and the Prince returned to Paris, where he lived incognito till he set out for Scotland. Not long after his return to Paris, war was declared betwixt France and England, which gave him fresh hopes that something would be undertaken. But after several months, seeing no appearance, he grew very impatient, and began to think of trying his fortune with such friends as would follow him: he was sick of the obscure way he was in; he thought himself neglected by the court of France, but could not bear the thoughts of returning to Rome. He had heard much of the loyalty and bravery of the Scotch Highlanders; but the number of those Clans he could depend upon was too inconsiderable to do anything effectual. While he was thus perplexed and fluctuating, John Murray of Broughton arrived from Scotland."

In this emergency, the flattering representations of Murray of Broughton found a ready response in the young Prince's heart. Notwithstanding the assertions of that individual in his evidence at Lovat's trial, that he had used every means to dissuade the Prince from going to Scotland,[24] it is expressly stated by Mr. Maxwell,[25] that he "advised the Prince, in his own name, to come to Scotland at any rate; it was his opinion that the Prince should come as well provided and attended as possible, but rather come alone than delay coming; that those who had invited the Prince, and promised to join him if he came at the head of four or five thousand regular troops, would do the same if he came without any troops at all; in fine, that he had a very strong party in Scotland, and would have a very good chance of succeeding. This was more than enough to determine the Prince. The expedition was resolved upon, and Murray despatched to Scotland with such orders and instructions as were thought proper at that juncture."

Mr. Murray may therefore be considered as in a great measure responsible for the event of that proceeding, which he afterwards denounced as a "desperate undertaking." He found, unhappily, ready instruments in the unfortunate Marquis of Tullibardine, in Mr. Radcliffe, and others, whose fate he may thus be considered to have hastened by his alluring representations of the prospects of success.

When it was decided that Charles Edward should throw himself on the loyalty of the Clans, and intimation was given of the whole scheme, Lord George Murray prepared for action. The landing of the Prince, the erection of a standard at Glenfinnin, the march through Lochiel, and the encampment between Glengarry and Fort Augustus, were events which he did not personally aid by his presence. He was, indeed, busily employed in assembling his father's tenantry; and it was not until the Prince arrived at Perth that Lord George Murray was presented to him; he was almost immediately created a Lieutenant-General in the Prince's service. His power in the Highlands was, indeed, of a far greater extent than that military rank would seem to imply; for, although the Marquis of Tullibardine was the nominal commander in the North, to Lord George Murray was entrusted the actual management of affairs; an arrangement with which the modest and conscientious Tullibardine willingly complied.

The character of Lord George might be considered as partly sobered by time; since, at the commencement of the Rebellion of 1745, he was forty years of age. He was in the full vigour, therefore, of his great natural and intellectual powers, which, when at that period of life they have been ripened by exercise and experience, are perhaps at their zenith. The person of Lord George was tall and robust; he had the self-denial and energy of his countrymen. He slept little, and entered into every description of detail; he was persevering in everything which he undertook; he was vigilant, active, and diligent. To these qualities he united a natural genius for military operations; and his powers were such, that it was justly thought, that, had he been well instructed in military tactics, he would have formed one of the ablest generals of the day. As it was, the retreat from Derby, ill-advised as it may be deemed, is said to have sufficiently manifested his skill as a commander.

In addition to these attributes, Lord George was brave to the highest degree; and, in all engagements, was always the first to rush sword in hand into danger. As he advanced to the charge, and looked round upon the Highlanders, whose character he well understood, it was his practice to say, "I do not ask you, my lads, to go before; but only to follow me."[26] It cannot be a matter of surprise, that, with this bold and resolute spirit, Lord George was the darling of the Highland soldiers; and that his strong influence over their minds should have enabled him to obviate, in some measure, the deficiencies of discipline. "Taking them," as a contemporary writer asserts, "merely as they came from the plough, he made them perform prodigies of valour against English armies, always greatly superior in number to that of the Prince Charles Edward, although the English troops are allowed to be the best in Europe." Thus endowed, Lord George Murray showed how feeble are the advantages of birth, compared with those of nature's gift. In rank, if not in family connections, and in an hereditary hold upon the affections of his countrymen, the Duke of Perth might be esteemed superior; but, brave and honourable as he was, that amiable nobleman could never obtain the confidence of the army as a general. It is not, however, to be supposed that any commander would ever have obtained an influence over a Highland army, if he had not added high birth to his other requisites. The Clansmen were especially aristocratic in their notions; and the names which they had honoured and loved from their birth, were alone those to which they would eagerly respond.

To counterbalance the fine, soldierly characteristics which graced the lofty and heroic Lord George Murray, some defects, of too stern a nature to be called weaknesses, but yet indicative of narrowness of mind, clouded his excellent qualities. Unlike most great men, he was not open to conviction. That noble candour, which can bear counsels, or receive even admonition with gratitude, was not a part of his haughty nature. A sense of superiority over every human being rendered him impatient of the slightest controul, and greedy of exclusive power. He was imperious and determined; and was deficient in the courtesy which forms, combined with honesty, so fine an attribute in a soldier's bearing. "He wanted," says one who knew him well, "the sole ordering of everything."[27]

At Perth, Lord George Murray met with the famous Chevalier Johnstone, whom he soon adopted into his service. This young soldier, whose pen has supplied memoirs of the Rebellion of 1745, and upon whose statements much of the reported merits of Lord George Murray rests, was the only son of a merchant in Edinburgh, and the descendant of an ancient and well-connected family. By the marriage of his sister he was nearly related to the House of Rollo; and, from these and other circumstances, he mingled with the best society in his native city.

Having been educated in Jacobite and Episcopalian principles, young Johnstone hailed with delight the arrival of Prince Charles: he resolved instantly to join his standard. Escaping from Edinburgh, he hastened to Duncrub, the seat of Lord Rollo, near Perth. Here he awaited the arrival of the young Chevalier; and here he was introduced by his cousins, the daughters of Lord Rollo, to the Duke of Perth and to Lord George Murray. The Chevalier Johnstone was one of the first Low-countrymen that joined the standard of Charles Edward.

Lord George Murray very soon discovered that the requisites for forming a good soldier and an active partizan were centred in young Johnstone. For the former he was qualified by an open and impetuous character, generally combined with a desperate courage. The jollity and licence of the Cavalier school, which characterized Johnstone, did not materially detract from, but added rather to the popularity of his character. As a partizan, he has proved his zeal by his Memoirs, which afford a sample of much heat and prejudice, and which have, in upholding Lord George Murray, done an injury to the memory of Charles Edward, of which the adversaries of his cause have not failed to take advantage. To many errors of character, and to some egotism, the Chevalier Johnstone, as he came to be called in after-life, united a kind heart and an enthusiastic disposition. He acted for a considerable time as aide-de-camp to Lord George Murray, and afterwards in the same capacity with the Prince. But his liveliest admiration appears to have been directed towards the general who has been classed with Montrose and Dundee,[28] and no subsequent service under other masters ever effaced his impression of respect and confidence to Lord George Murray. After the battle of Preston-Pans Johnstone received a captain's commission from the Prince: and, exhausted with his duties as aide-de-camp, he formed a company, with which he joined the Duke of Perth's regiment. His history, mingled up as it is with that of the General under whom he first served, must necessarily be incorporated with the following narrative.

Lord George Murray continued, for some time, busily engaged in rallying around him his brother's vassals. The Duke of Atholl is partly proprietor, partly superior, of the country which bears his name. That region is inhabited by Stuarts and Robinsons, none of the Duke's name living upon his estates. Of these, several have fiefs or mortgages of the Atholl family, and command the common people of their respective Clans; but, like other Highlanders, they believe that they are bound to rise in arms when the chief of their whole Clan requires it. The vassals on the Atholl territory were well-affected to the Stuarts, great pains having been taken by the father of Lord George Murray, notwithstanding his efforts to appear loyal to the Government, to infuse the spirit of Jacobitism among them.[29]

Of the events which succeeded his joining the Prince's standard at Perth, until the commencement of the retreat from Derby, Lord George Murray has left a succinct relation. It is written, as are his letters, in a plain, free, manly style, which dispels all doubt as to the sincerity of the narrator.

"I joined the standard at Perth,"[30] he begins, "the day his Royal Highness arrived there. As I had formerly known something of a Highland army, the first thing I did was to advise the Prince to endeavour to get proper people for provisors and commissaries, for otherwise there would be no keeping the men together, and they would straggle through the whole country upon their marches if it was left to themselves to find provisions; which, beside the inconveniency of irregular marches, and much time lost, great abuses would be committed, which, above all things, we were to avoid. I got many of the men to make small knapsacks of sacking before we left Perth, to carry a peck of meal each upon occasion; and I caused take as many threepenny loaves there as would be three days' bread to our small army, which was carried in carts. I sent about a thousand of these knapsacks to Crieff, to meet the men who were coming from Atholl."

The difficulties which Lord George encountered were, it is evident, considerable. Upon the arrival of Charles Edward at Perth, his army amounted only to two thousand men,[31] until he was joined by Lord George Murray, by the Duke of Perth, and by Lord Nairn, and other persons of distinction.[32] There were few persons in that army who were capable, by being versed in military affairs, of giving Lord George Murray any advice or assistance. The Highland chiefs possessed the most heroic courage; but they knew no other manœuvre but that of rushing, sword in hand, upon an enemy. The Irish officers were equally deficient in experience and knowledge; and, with the exception of Mr. Sullivan, are stated "to have had no more knowledge than the whole stock of subalterns, namely, the knowing how to mount and quit guard." Such is the description given of the collected forces by Johnstone. But, although not trained as regular soldiers, and accustomed chiefly to the care of herds of black cattle, whom they wandered after in the mountains, the Highlanders had a discipline of their own. Their chiefs usually kept about them several retainers experienced in the use of arms; and a meeting of two or three gentlemen was sure to bring together a little army, for the habits of the clansmen were essentially military. It was, some considered, a circumstance favourable to Lord George Murray, that, being unprepared by an early military education, he was unfettered by its formal rules, and therefore was more calculated to lead an undisciplined army of Highlanders, whose native energies he knew how to direct better than a skilful tactician would have ventured to do.[33] During his stay at Perth, the Highlanders, so prone to irregularities when not in active service, were tranquil under the strictest military rule.[34]

It was here, however, that the first seeds of dissension were sown between Charles Edward and Lord George. Sir Thomas Sheridan, the tutor of the Prince, who was allowed to "have lived and died a man of honour," but who was manifestly incapable of the great charge intrusted to him, both in the education of the young Princes and as their adviser in after-life, added to his other deficiencies a total ignorance of the British constitution and habits of thinking. The Prince, of course, was equally ill-informed. They were therefore in the practice, in conversation, of espousing sentiments of arbitrary power, which were equally impolitic and unbecoming. Sincere and shrewd, Lord George Murray lost no time in expressing to Charles Edward his decided disapproval of this tone of discourse. His motives in these expostulations were excellent, but his overbearing manner nullified all the good that might have been effected. He offended the Prince, who repressed indeed his secret indignation, but whose pride, fostered by circumstances, could ill brook the assumption of his General.[35]

It was not until the Prince reached Edinburgh that a regular Council was formed; consisting of the Duke of Perth, Lord George Murray, Lord Elcho, Secretary Murray, Sir Thomas Sheridan, and Mr. Sullivan, the Highland chiefs, and afterwards of all the colonels in the army. But, among the advisers of the Prince, an "ill-timed emulation," as Mr. Maxwell calls it, now crept in, and bred great dissension and animosities. "The dissensions," he states, "began at Edinburgh:" according to Sir Walter Scott, they had an earlier origin, and originated at Perth.

They were aggravated, as in the Council at Perth in the time of Lord Mar, by the base passions of an individual. Detesting the weak and crooked policy of Mar and viewing from his calm position as an inferior actor, with a fiendish pleasure, the embarrassments and mistakes of him whom he hated, stood the Master of Sinclair. Blinded by a selfish jealousy of power over the mind of him whom he afterwards betrayed to the ruin which he was working, and "aiming at nothing less than the sole direction and management of everything, the Secretary Murray sacrificed to this evil passion, this thirst for ascendancy, all the hopes of prosperity to Charles Edward—all present peace to the harassed and perplexed young man whom his counsels had brought to Scotland. It was he," strongly, and perhaps bitterly, writes Mr. Maxwell, "that had engaged the Prince to make this attempt upon so slight a foundation, and the wonderful success that had hitherto attended it was placed to his account."

By some the sincerity of Murray's loyalty and good-faith were even credited. The Duke of Perth, among a few others, judged of Murray's heart by his own, went readily into all his schemes, and confirmed the Prince in the opinion which he had imbibed of his favourite. After Kelly had left the Prince, Murray contrived to gain over Sullivan and Sir Thomas Sheridan, and by that means effectually governed Charles Edward. The fearless, lofty, honest character of Lord George Murray alone offered an obstacle to the efforts of the Secretary to obtain, for his own purposes, an entire controul; he cherished towards the General that aversion which a mean and servile nature ever feels to one whose dealings are free from fraud or deceit. He also feared him as a rival, and it became his aim to undermine him, and to lay a plot for the chief stay and prop of the undertaking. It was naturally to be supposed that Lord George Murray's age, his high birth, his experience and influence, and his great capacity, would have given him an advantage over his dastardly rival, and have gained the first consideration with the Prince. But Murray of Broughton, unhappily, had acquired an early influence over the credulous mind of the young adventurer. His acquaintance beneath the roof of the Santi Apostoli had secured an unhappy confidence in his fidelity and worth. He shortly took advantage of the sentiments which ought to have ensured the nicest honour, the most scrupulous truth, in return, to deceive and to mislead his young master.[36]

Unfortunately there was one point upon which the honour of Lord George Murray was to be suspected. He "was said" to have solicited a commission in the English army.[37] Upon this supposed early defection of Lord George to the Hanoverian party, Murray grounded his accusations.

"He began by representing Lord George as a traitor to the Prince; he assured him that he had joined on purpose to have an opportunity of delivering him up to Government. It was hardly possible to guard against this imposture. The Prince had the highest opinion of his Secretary's integrity, and knew little of Lord George Murray. So the calumny had its full effect. Lord George soon came to know the suspicion the Prince had of him, and was affected, as one may easily imagine; to be sure, nothing could be more shocking to a man of honour, and one that was now for the third time venturing his life and fortune for the royal cause. The Prince was partly undeceived by Lord George's gallant behaviour at the battle; and, had Lord George improved that opportunity, he might perhaps have gained the Prince's favour, and get the better of the Secretary: but his haughty and overbearing manner prevented a thorough reconciliation, and seconded the malicious insinuations of his rival."

Another anecdote is related, on the authority of Murray of Broughton: On the tenth of October the Chevalier issued a manifesto, dated from Holyrood House. This document is acknowledged, even by the opposite party, to have been remarkably well written:[38] but it was not completed without some heart-burnings, arising from the distrust of many members of the Kirk, who conceived that it did not contain assurances for the security of their manner of Divine worship. A grand council was therefore held, concerning the alterations which were necessary to conciliate the good opinion of the Presbyterians. Mr. Kelly, who had drawn up the manifesto, was very tenacious of his performance; but the majority of those who were present were of opinion that the manifesto would prosper better if a promise of putting the penal laws against Papists into effect were added to it. Upon this proposition the young Chevalier was observed to change countenance, doubtless reflecting that it would be ungrateful to depress those who had been such real friends to his father. He had, however, the prudence to say but little, and to maintain a neutral position during the debate, which was carried on with much bitterness on both sides of the question. It is remarkable that the Duke of Perth, Sullivan, and O'Neil, who were all Papists, voted for the addition; whilst many who were of the Reformed Church opposed it. Amongst these was Lord George Murray, who, starting up and turning to Charles Edward, exclaimed, with an oath, "Sir, if you permit this article to be inserted, you will lose five hundred thousand friends;" meaning that there were that number of Papists in England. On this, the Prince arose from his chair and withdrew, offended, as it was thought, by the vehemence and overbearing advice of Lord George. As he left the room, he said, "I will have it decided by a majority." But the freedom with which he had been treated appears to have rankled in his mind. The additional clause was negatived, and the manifesto remained in the same state as when it came from Mr. Kelly's hands.[39]

There were, indeed, times when Lord George endeavoured to retrieve mistakes of which he was conscious, and upon some occasions he subdued his lofty temper so far as to be "very obsequious and respectful, but had not temper to go through with it." "He now and then broke into such violent sallies as the Prince could not digest, though the situation of his affairs forced him to bear with them.[40] The Secretary's station and favour had attached to him such as were confident of success, and had nothing in view but making their fortunes. Nevertheless, Lord George had greater weight and influence in the Council, and generally brought the majority over to his opinion; which so irritated the ambitious Secretary, that he endeavoured to give the Prince a bad impression of the Council itself, and engaged to lay it entirely aside."

It was not only in regard to Lord George Murray that the influence of the Secretary was prejudicial to the Prince's interests; neither was Lord George the only person whom he dreaded as a rival. Having access to the most intimate communication with Charles Edward, he abused the youth and inexperience of the ill-fated man to inspire him with a distrust of many gentlemen of good family and of integrity, whose fidelity he contrived to whisper away. All employments were filled up at the Secretary's nomination; and he contrived to bestow them upon his own creatures, who would never thwart his measures. Hence it followed that places of trust were bestowed on "insignificant little fellows," while there were abundance of gentlemen of merit who might have been of great use, had they met with the confidence of their Prince. "Those that Murray had thus placed," continues Mr. Maxwell, "seconded his dirty little views; and it was their interest, too, to keep their betters at a distance from the Prince's person and acquaintance."

Until a very short time before Charles Edward left Perth, he appears to have felt the most unqualified admiration for the Highland character, which he had carefully studied.[41] He thus expressed himself to his father: "I have occasion every day to reflect on your Majesty's last words to me,—that I should find power, if tempered with justice and clemency, an easy thing to myself, and not grievous to those under me. 'Tis owing to the observance of this rule, and to my conformity to the customs of these people, that I have got their hearts, to a degree not easy to be conceived by those who do not see it. One who observes the discipline which I have established, would take my little army to be a body of picked veterans; and, to see the love and harmony that reigns amongst us, he would be apt to look upon it as a large well-ordered family, in which every one loves another better than himself."

He even applauded the rude climate of Scotland. "I keep my health better in these wild mountains than I used to do in the Campagna Felice; and sleep sounder, lying on the ground, than I used to do in the palaces at Rome."

In this happy temper the Prince set out on his march from Perth to Edinburgh. The march was made in the most perfect good order, and the strictest discipline prevented any depredations. As the insurgent army passed by Stirling, the standard of the Chevalier was saluted by some shot from the castle. Nevertheless, Lord George Murray sent into the town, and the gates were opened; and bread, cheese, and butter sent out to sell, near to Bannockburn, where the army halted. On the seventeenth of September the city of Edinburgh was taken.

In the description of the courtly scenes of Holyrood, it does not appear that Lord George Murray took any conspicuous part. His sphere was the council-room, or the camp, or the battle-field; and of his proceedings in these different occupations he has left a very particular account, written with the same manly spirit and fearless tone which he displayed in ordinary life.

When the Prince's Council had received accounts of Sir John Cope's landing at Dunbar, they left Edinburgh and lay upon their arms at Duddingstone, and on the twentieth marched to meet the enemy. Lord George commanded the van, and, whilst passing the south side of Pinkie Gardens, he heard that Cope was at or near Preston, and that he would probably gain the high ground at Fawside. There was no time to deliberate or to wait for orders. Well acquainted with the ground, Lord George struck off through the fields, without keeping to any road. He went without being even preceded by the usual escort to choose the ground where to halt. In less than half an hour, by marching quickly, he gained the eminence; he slackened his pace and waited for the rear, still proceeding slowly towards Tranent, always fronting the enemy. General Cope's army was drawn up on the plain between Preston Grange and Tranent, with deep broad ditches between them. After much reconnoitring and some firing, on the part of the enemy, from these ditches, at the Highlanders, who they thought had never seen cannon, and would therefore be intimidated, the English army was drawn up on the east side of the village of Tranent, where, on a dry stubble-field, with a small rising in front to shelter them, they lay down to repose in rank and file.

"It was now night," writes Lord George Murray;[42] "and when all the principal officers were called together, I proposed the attacking the enemy at break of day. I assured them that it was not only practicable, but that it would, in all probability, be attended with success. I told them I knew the ground myself, and had a gentleman or two with me who knew every part thereabouts: there was indeed a small defile at the east end of the ditches, but, once that was past, there would be no stop; and though we should be long on our march, yet, when the whole line was past the defile, they had nothing to do but to face to the left, and in a moment the whole was formed, and then to attack. The Prince was highly pleased with the proposal, as indeed the whole officers were; so, after placing a few pickets, everybody lay down at their posts; and supped upon what they had with them. At midnight the principal officers were called again, and all was ordered as was at first proposed. Word was sent to the Atholl brigade to come off their post at two in the morning, and not to make the least noise."

Before four in the morning the army began to march, and an arrangement of the first line, which had been previously agreed upon, was now put into execution. Those who had had the right the day before, were to have the rear and the left; and this alteration was made without the least noise or confusion. The Duke of Perth therefore went into the front, Lord George giving up his guides to him. No horse marched at that time, for fear of being discovered. When the army had advanced within a hundred paces of the ditches, they marched on to the attack, Lord George calling on Cameron of Lochiel to incline to the left. As the enemy discovered their approach, the noise of the cannon announced that the engagement had begun. Notwithstanding that Lord George Murray's regiment was the last to pass the defile towards the enemy, it was the first to fire. "Our whole first line," writes the gallant soldier, "broke through the enemy. Some of them were rallying behind us; but when they saw our second line coming up, they then made the best of their way."

Lord George pursued the enemy to the walls of Bankton House, the residence of Colonel Gardiner; and here a party of the enemy got over the ditch, and fired at the Highland foe. This little company, brave as it was, was composed of only fourteen men, headed by a Lieutenant-Colonel. "I got before a hundred of our men," writes Lord George, "who had their guns presented to fire upon them, and at my desire they kept up their fire, so that those officers and soldiers surrendered themselves prisoners; and nothing gave me more pleasure that day than having it in my power to save those men, as well as several others." This declaration was perhaps necessary, to rescue the memory of Lord George from the opprobrium of cruelty; since it has been asserted, that at the battle of Culloden he issued orders to give no quarter, and that such a document to that effect, in the handwriting of Lord George, was in the possession of the Duke of Cumberland.[43] This stigma on the fame of Lord George Murray may have originated from the desperate character of that last effort: his haughty temper may have been exasperated in the course of the fatal contest. It is a charge which can now only be repelled by the previous character of the individual against whom it is made, since it was never fairly made out, nor satisfactorily contradicted.

After the action was partially over, Lord George Murray perceived that a number of people were gathered together on the height near to Tranent. Mistaking them for the enemy, the General marched with his regiment, accompanied by Lochiel, who had kept his men together in good order, back to the narrow causeway that led up to Tranent. Here he found that the supposed enemy were only country-people and servants. From them, however, he learned that the enemy were at Cokenny, only a mile and a half distant; and he instantly determined on pursuing them. His energy and valour in thus doing so, after the events of that harassing and exhausting day, cannot but be admired. He found on arriving at Cokenny, a force of about three hundred Highlanders, a volunteer company recently embodied at Inverness by President Forbes. These soon surrendered; between sixteen and seventeen hundred prisoners were taken that day, among whom were seventy officers.[44] "His Royal Highness," adds Lord George Murray in giving this his personal narrative, "took the same care of their wounded as of his own. I do not mention the behaviour of all our officers and men that day; their actions shewed it. I only take notice of those two that were immediately under my eye, which was Lochiel's regiment and the Stewarts of Appin." As the enemy's foot-soldiers had made little or no resistance during the battle of Preston-Pans, they might have been all cut to pieces had it not been for the interposition of Prince Charles and his officers, who gained that day as much honour by their humanity as by their bravery. The Prince, when the rout began, mounted his horse, galloped all over the field, and his voice was heard amid that scene of horror, calling on his men to spare the lives of his enemies, "whom he no longer looked upon as such." Far from being elated with the victory, which was considered as complete, the care of the kind-hearted and calumniated young man was directed to assist the wounded. Owing to his exertions, eighty-three of the officers were saved, besides hundreds of soldiers. "The Prince," writes Mr. Maxwell, "had a livelier sense of other people's misfortunes than of his own good-fortune."

This spirit of humanity was extended to the two Lieutenants-General. The conduct of the Duke of Perth was ever consistent with his mild character. On that occasion, at all events, Lord George participated in the noble clemency which usually characterized the Jacobites.

"In the evening," he writes,[45] "I went with the officer prisoners to a house in Musselburgh that was allotted for them. Those who were worst wounded were left at Colonel Gardiner's house, where surgeons attended them; the others walked, as I did, along with them without a guard (as they had given me their parole); and to some, who were not able to walk, I gave my own horses. It was a new-finished house that was got for them, where there was neither table, bed, chair, nor chimney grate. I caused buy some new-thrashed straw, and had by good-fortune as much cold provisions and liquor of my own as made a tolerable meal to them all; and when I was going to retire, they entreated me not to leave them; for, as they had no guard, they were afraid that some of the Highlanders, who had got liquor, might come in upon them and insult or plunder them."

Beside these suffering men Lord George lay on a floor all night, having given up the minister's house in Musselburgh, which had been destined as his quarters, to those who were valetudinary. On the following day those officers who were tolerably well were removed to Pinkie House, where Prince Charles was staying. Lord George then returned to the field of battle, to give directions about the cannon, and to see about the other wounded prisoners. He afterwards repaired to Pinkie House, the gardens of which were thronged that night with the prisoners, privates, to whom provisions were sent; "and the night before," as Lord George relates, "I got some of their own provisions carried from Cokenny to Colonel Gardiner's courts and gardens for their use. In these things I ever laid it down as a maxim, to do by others as I would wish they would do by me, had I been in their place, and they in mine." Such is the spirit in which the unfortunate were regarded by the victors of that day; and these two accounts, that of Lord George Murray and that of Maxwell of Kirkconnel, written without any mutual compact, and at different times, and even in different countries, disprove the following gross and improbable statement of Henderson's of that which occurred after the day at Preston was fought and won.

According to his account, professedly that of an eye-witness, the conduct of the young Chevalier (who, he acknowledges, had, by the advice of the Duke of Perth, sent to Edinburgh for surgeons,) was, in the highest degree, unfeeling and indecent. He stood by the road-side, his horse near him, "with his armour of tin, which resembled a woman's stays, affixed to the saddle; he was on foot, clad as an ordinary captain, in a coarse plaid, and large blue bonnet, a scarlet waistcoat with a narrow plain lace about it; his boots and knees were much dirtied (the effect of his having fallen into a ditch, as I afterwards understood); he was exceeding merry, and twice said, 'My Highlanders have lost their plaids,' at which he laughed very heartily, being in no way affected when speaking of the dead or wounded. Nor would his jollity have been interrupted, if he had not looked upon seven standards that had been taken from the dragoons; on which he said, in French, (a language he frequently spoke in,) 'We have missed some of them.' After this, he refreshed himself upon the field, and, with the utmost composure, ate a piece of cold beef and drank a glass of wine, amidst the deep and piercing groans of the poor men who had fallen victims to his ambition."[46]

After this flippant and hard-hearted conduct, as it is described, the Prince is said to have ridden off to Pinkie House, leaving the bulk of the wounded on the field that day, to be brought in carts to Edinburgh. "Few," he says, "recovered; and those who did, went begging through the streets, their heads tied about with bandages, but obtaining no relief from their conquerors. The property of the prisoners, the fine linen of the officers, their gold and silver hilted swords, their watches and rings, were worn by the lowest among the soldiery almost before their eyes."[47]

The battle of Preston, which was magnified by Lord Lovat as a "glorious victory not to be paralleled in history," although not meriting such extravagant remarks, produced the most important consequences to the Jacobite cause. Among not the least important was the acquisition of all the arms of the whole body of foot, and even of the volunteers. These went to supply the recruits whom the Marquis of Tullibardine and others were sending daily to the camp. No enemy was left in the field to oppose the progress of Charles Edward's victorious troops.[48] When, having, as the Chevalier Johnstone asserts, escaped from the field of battle by placing a white cockade on his head, Cope arrived at Coldstream with his troops in great disorder, he was greeted by Lord Mark Ker, one of a family who had long had hereditary claims to wit as well as courage, with the bitter remark, that "he believed he was the first general in Europe that had brought tidings of his own defeat."

"The Prince," writes Maxwell of Kirkconnel, "was now, properly speaking, master of Scotland." The militia, which had been raised in some parts of Scotland for the service of Government, was dismissed; and the Chevalier's orders were obeyed in many places far from his army. These advantages were, however, rather glaring than solid and permanent.

After the battle of Preston, it became a serious and important question what step was to be taken. It was the Prince's earnest desire to push the advantages thus gained by an immediate invasion of England, before the Hanoverians had time to recover from their surprise. But this spirited and, as the event proved, sagacious opinion was objected to on the score of the smallness of the forces, and the probability of an accession of strength before marching southwards. Lastly, the fatal hope of aid from France, that ignis fatuus which had misled the Jacobite party before, and on which it was their misfortune to depend, was adduced as an argument. The Prince yielded to his counsellors, and consented to remain some time in Edinburgh. Upon this decision Lord George Murray offers no opinion.

The castle of Edinburgh remained still unsubdued; and the Prince, upon his return to that city, resolved on blockading the fortress. This was a very unpopular step, but Charles had no alternative; since it was of vital importance to reduce a place of so great strength and consequence. Accordingly a proclamation was issued, forbidding, under pain of death, that any provisions should be sent up to the castle; and the management of this blockade was entrusted to Lord George Murray.[49]

This able General now proposed to place guards in such a manner as should prevent the garrison in the castle marching out to surprise him, but his exertions were baffled by the want of judgment and incompetency of those beneath him in command. The guard was placed near the weigh-house at the foot of the Castle-rock, so that the battery of the half-moon, as it was termed, near the Castle-gate, bore upon it, and many of the guard within would have perished upon the first firing. This was not the only mistake. Mr. O'Sullivan, one of Prince Charles's officers, one day placed a small guard near the West Kirk, which was not only exposed to the enemy's fire, but conveniently situated near the sally-port, whence the besieged might issue and take the party there prisoners; for no relief could be sent to them in less than two hours' time, owing to its being necessary to pass round the whole circumference of the castle to arrive at that point. "I never," says Lord George Murray, "knew of that guard's being placed there, until they were taken prisoners." So severe a service was this blockade, that it was found necessary to relieve the guards, which were thus placed, by different corps who could not know the risk which they encountered. Desertions from the Jacobite army were among the most formidable evils with which Lord George had to contend. It was therefore important not to discourage the soldiery. In the midst of difficulty the high-minded Cameron of Lochiel came forward to offer his own person, and to risk his own regiment in this service. He agreed to take all the guards, and to relieve them with the soldiers of his own regiment, who were quartered for that purpose in the outer Parliament House. "I was with him," writes Lord George,[50] "when the guards were relieved, and the men did their duty exceedingly, especially when there was danger; and, when the fire was hottest from the castle, they kept their post with much resolution and bravery. Lochiel and I being much with them, gave them a heartiness that hindered them from complaining of a duty which was so hard, and which the rest of the army had not in their turns. We even placed new guards to keep the castle from sallying, as they seemed disposed; and Keppoch's regiment was brought into town to take some of the guards and support them. I lay in town for some nights, and was constantly visiting the guards and sentinels."

The castle, nevertheless, seated on the precipitous rocks, which, steep as they are, have yet been "scaled by love and ambition,"[51] defied the blockaders. The Highlanders continued to keep guard in the weigh-house, and, stationing themselves in the Grass-market, the Smithfield as well as the Hay-market of Edinburgh, lying on the south side of the Castle-hill, awaited there the proceedings of the enemy.

On the twenty-ninth of September, a letter was sent to the Provost of Edinburgh by General Guest, intimating, that, unless a communication were kept up between the city and the castle, he should be under the necessity of using cannon to dislodge the Highlanders. It was said that Guest had an order from the Government, signed by the Marquis of Tweedale, empowering him to lay the city in ashes if the citizens did not remove the Highlanders from their quarters. A message was dispatched from the Provost to General Guest obtaining a respite for that night; but, meantime, the utmost consternation prevailed in the town. Twelve o'clock at night was the hour fixed upon for the execution of this threat of the enemy; and, although many who reasoned did not believe in the existence of the order, the lower classes were seized with a panic, and the streets were crowded with women and children running towards the gates, and with people removing their property to more secure quarters. When the clocks struck twelve, the hour fixed in General Guest's message, the noise of the cannon was heard firing upon the principal streets; but the Highlanders were all under shelter, and only a few poor inhabitants were injured. Nothing was heard except imprecations on that Government which had issued so cruel an order, since it was quite out of the power of the citizens to dislodge the Highlanders from their quarters. But the firing was soon intermitted; and whether the garrison had private orders only to threaten, or whether they found it impossible to execute so barbarous an order, is unknown. They spared the city generally, and only directed their fire to any place where they fancied that they saw a Highlander.

On the following morning a deputation of citizens waited on the Chevalier, and showed him General Guest's letter. He immediately replied, that he was surprised and concerned at the barbarity of the order, but that if, out of compassion for the city, he were to remove his guards, the castle might with equal reason summon him to quit the town, and abandon all the advantages of which he was possessed. A respite of a day was afterwards obtained; and subsequently for six days, in case the Highlanders would abstain from firing at the castle; and a dispatch to London was sent to obtain a mitigation of the order in council.

Meantime, on the first of October, the Highlanders fired; whether at some people who were carrying provisions to the castle, or at the castle itself, is uncertain. Reprisals were instantly made by a heavy cannonading and small shot. The firing continued for some days, bringing terror to the hearts of those who lived remote from the scene of danger; whilst the aged and infirm were carried out of that noble city, thus threatened with destruction. Sir Walter Scott observes, that the generation of his own time alone can remember Edinburgh in peace, undisturbed by civil commotion. The fathers of that generation remembered the days of 1745—their fathers the disturbances of 1715. The fathers of those who had witnessed the rebellion of 1715 could remember the revolution of 1688.

The merciful temper of the young Chevalier saved the city of Edinburgh. At first he resolved to continue the blockade; and he renewed his former orders, prohibiting any person from going to the castle without a pass from his secretary, and threatening any one who was disobedient to this proclamation with instant death. But, when he beheld the distress to which the firing had already reduced the city,—then, let it be remembered, comprised within boundaries of very moderate extent,—he issued another proclamation, expressing his deep concern for the many murders which were committed upon the innocent inhabitants of the city, so contrary to the laws of war, to the truce granted to the city, and even exceeding the powers given. His humanity had, therefore, yielded to the barbarity of his enemy; the blockade of the castle was taken off, and the threatened punishment suspended.[52]

The army of Charles Edward was now increasing daily; and, in consequence of the reports which were circulated in the metropolis, a panic spread there, of which no estimate can be made without consulting the newspapers of that time. Among other writers who employed their talents in inveighing against the cause of James Stuart, was the celebrated Henry Fielding, whose papers in the True Patriot upon the subject present a curious insight into those transient states of public feeling, which perished almost as soon as expressed. The rapidity of the progress made by the insurgents is declared by his powerful pen to have been unprecedented. "Can History," he writes, "produce an instance parallel to this,—of six or seven men landing in a powerful nation, in opposition to the inclination of the people, in defiance of a vast and mighty army? (For, though the greater part of this army was not then in the kingdom, it was so nearly within call, that every man of them might, within the compass of a few days, or weeks at farthest, have been brought home and landed in any part of it.) If we consider, I say, this handful of men landing in the most desolate corner, among a set of poor, naked, hungry, disarmed slaves, abiding there with impunity till they had, as it were, in the face of a large body of his Majesty's troops collected a kind of army, or rather rabble, together, it will be extremely difficult to assign any adequate cause whatsoever, for this unexampled success, without recurring to one, of whose great efficacy we have frequent instances in sacred history: I mean, the just judgment of God against an offending people." The state of public morals, Fielding considers, to have drawn down upon society this signal visitation of Providence. "Indeed, such monstrous impieties and iniquities have I both seen and heard of, within these last three years, during my sojourning in what is called the world, particularly the last winter, while I tarried in the great city, that, while I verily believe we are the silliest people under Heaven in every other light, we are wiser than Sodom in wickedness."[53] The consternation of the sister kingdom had now, indeed, become general; on the slightest report of foreign ships being seen in the Downs, the dismay of the London citizens was extreme: and such was the liberality, or such were the fears of the inhabitants of the county of York, the capital of which may almost have been deemed, in those days, a northern metropolis, that forty thousand pounds were subscribed for its defence, after a grave and mournful address of the archbishop of that diocese.[54]

When the Prince had determined to take off the blockade, and indeed had actually resolved to evacuate Edinburgh and to march southwards, he sent orders to Lord George Murray to nail the cannon upon the city walls, and to retire to Musselburgh and Dalkeith. But the sagacious Lord George, apprehending no further cannonading from the castle, begged permission not to make a precipitate retreat, and obtained leave to continue three weeks longer in Edinburgh, during which time the town remained in a much quieter state than it had been heretofore.

Whilst Lord George Murray was quartered in Edinburgh, he communicated frequently with his wife, the Lady Emilia, who remained with her children at Tullibardine. That lady seems to have taken a deep interest in the events which so deeply concerned her family. She was the first to communicate to the Marquis of Tullibardine the intelligence of the victory of Preston-Pans. "I pray God," she says in her postscript, "to prosper his Royal Highness's arms, and congratulate your Grace upon his happy success." A gentleman, who had seen her husband after the battle, had brought to the anxious wife the tidings of his success.

Towards the end of October the Prince resolved to march into England, without waiting any longer for the landing of French auxiliaries, or even for the arrival of the friendly Clans of Frasers and Mackintoshes, who were ready to march from the north to join Charles Edward. By some of the Chevalier's advisers he was recommended to go to Berwick; but this was a scheme counteracted by the counsels of Lord George Murray, who, in the presence of the principal officers, represented it as "a thing at least of great difficulty, and of not so great use as to lose time, which is precious." Lord George therefore proposed marching into England by the other road; but, to conceal their design, he advised that the army should be divided into three columns; one to go by Kelso, the second by Moffat, and a third by Galashiels, Selkirk, and Hawick; so that all the columns should join on an appointed day near Carlisle. The plan was approved; and, the secret being very well kept, on the thirty-first of October the army prepared to march.[55] It is remarkable, that, during the whole period of their stay in Edinburgh, no general review of the Jacobite forces had taken place. The consequent uncertainty of what was really the amount of those forces, which existed in England, fostered the general panic. "Abundance of people," writes Mr. Maxwell, "friends as well as enemies, had made it their business to find out the number of the Prince's army, but to no purpose. Great pains had been taken to conceal its weakness."[56]

In order to conceal the design upon England, a scheme was formed, allowing three days to elapse between the marching of the two great divisions of the army; and accordingly the Prince, attended by Lord George Murray, took up his abode at the palace of Dalkeith, and here he remained until the third of November. In this princely abode the young representative of the Stuart line may have remembered the adverse fortunes of Queen Mary, and the bold character of the Regent Morton, to whom the castle of Dalkeith belonged, when it had acquired from the character of its owner the name of the "Lion's Den." After the death of Morton, the barony of Dalkeith was included in the attainder; and the castle had been considered, during many years, as public property, and was inhabited by General Monk during the usurpation of Cromwell.

But, long before Charles Edward made it his temporary residence, Dalkeith had been repaired and beautified by Anne Duchess of Buccleugh and Monmouth, the widow of the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth. It was, as it is now, an appropriate residence for royalty. The more ancient part of the building has, it is true, lost its castellated appearance; but the beautiful site on the steep banks of the Eske, and the thickness of the walls, are still proofs of former strength and great importance, to which the contiguity of Dalkeith to Edinburgh conduce; whilst the junction of the north and south Esk in the park add to the beauties of this noble demesne.

The Chevalier Johnstone was still aide-de-camp to Lord George Murray, and remained to accompany the General on his march. Among those with whom the exertions of Lord George were frequently united was Mr. O'Sullivan, an Irish officer, and the object of Charles Edward's partiality and confidence, and he was a man of considerable abilities. Having received his education in a Romish college abroad, O'Sullivan had originally entered into priest's orders. It was his lot to be recommended as a tutor to the son of Marshal Maillebois, who, perceiving in the young ecclesiastic proofs of a genius better adapted to the use of the sword than to the gravity of the gown, encouraged him to apply himself to the profession of arms. There were not wanting in those days opportunities of cultivating a military turn, and Corsica was the scene of Mr. O'Sullivan's first exploits. Here he acted as secretary to Marshal Villebois; an office of no slight responsibility, for the Marshal was tainted with the prevalent vice of the day, and scarcely ever left the dinner-table in a state fit for public business. O'Sullivan, therefore, in the course of those oppressions which the French inflicted on the inhabitants of Corsica, acquired not only great experience in business, but also in military affairs; as well as knowledge in what is termed the art of making irregular war. To this acquirement he afterwards added another; for, having served a campaign on the Rhine, it was said by a French General, under whom he fought, that his knowledge of the regular art of war was equal to that of any General in Europe. To his abilities were attributed much of the rapid success of those whom it was the fashion of the newspapers of the day to describe as "a handful of savages," but whom the loungers about the English court soon learned to dread.[57]

It is now necessary, before entering into details of fresh operations, to review the proceedings of Lord George Murray during the last few weeks, and to give some notion how he exercised the functions of his generalship. His chief sources of annoyance, besides the intrigues in the Prince's council, were the deserters from the Jacobite army. Before leaving Edinburgh, Lord George Murray had despatched a number of prisoners to Logierait; and the following letter shows how rigid were the instructions which he peremptorily sent to his brother, the Marquis of Tullibardine, at Perth. The correspondence of Lord George Murray proves him to have been a man of a stern, hard nature; and effaces much of the impression produced by his united valour and clemency in the field of battle.

"Dear Brother,

"Things vary so much from time to time that I can say nothing certain as yet, but refer you to the enclosed letter; but depend upon having nothing express from me with you before Monday night. But, in the mean time, you must resolve to be ready to march on Tuesday morning, by Keinacan and Tay Bridge, so as to be at Crieff on Wednesday; and even that way, if you do your best, you will be half a march behind: but you will be able to make up that on Thursday, when I reckon we may meet at Dunblane or Doun: but of this more fully in my next. It is believed for certain that Cope will embark at Aberdeen.

"I hope the meal was with you before this—thirty-five bolls—for it was at Inuar last night. It shall be my study to have more meal with you on Monday night, for you must distribute a peck a man; and, cost what it will, there must be pocks to each man, to contain a peck or two for the men to have always with them. Buy linen, yarn, or anything; for these pocks are of absolute necessity—nothing can be done without them. His Royal Highness desires you to acquaint Glenmoriston and Glencoe, if they come your way, of this intended march, so that they may go by Tay Bridge (if you please, with you); and what meal you can spare, let them have. You may please tell your own people that there is a project to get arms for them.

"Yours, adieu!
"George Murray."

"Saturday, nine at night."

"For God's sake!" he adds in another part of his letter, "cause some effectual measures to be taken about the deserters: I would have their houses and crops destroyed, for an example to others, and themselves punished in a most rigorous manner."

Another source of anxiety was connected with the prisoners of war. It was difficult to know how to dispose of them. The island in the Loch of Clunie, not far from Dunkeld, was afterwards considered by the Marquis as the most suitable place for the reception of the prisoners; and was conceded by Lady Ogilvy, the daughter of Lord Airlie, for that purpose, in her father's absence. In a letter addressed by Tullibardine to the Earl of Airlie, to whom the Loch of Clunie belonged, a spirit of kindness and consideration is shown, very different to the stern mandates of Lord George Murray. "I presume," writes the Marquis, "your Lor'ship will not only cheerfully make everything be carefully prepared for their reception, but also contribute what's possible to prevent any dangerous mutiny or escape among them." Although describing these prisoners as a "troublesome and dangerous set of people," he recommends no harsh measures, except precautionary vigilance.[58] Beef, mutton, and meal were provided and paid for by the Marquis, who, ultimately, was obliged to quarter a considerable number of the prisoners in barns and other outhouses near Logierait. This charge appears to have been very unwelcome to the good old Tullibardine, who talks to his sister in law, Lady Emilia Murray, of "ane unworthy pack of prisoners that is sent us."[59]

Meantime, the want of money for the supply of the garrison at Perth was another source of uneasiness to Lord George Murray. Many disappointments, on this score, occurred. "I told you," Lord George writes to his brother, "that some gentlemen had promised to his Royal Highness some money in loan, more besides what they already gave; but it is to their ladies you will please to write, as they appear to do the thing, and not the husbands."[60] "I have been as pressing," he says in another letter to the Marquis, "about money to be sent to you, both formerly and now, as if my life depended upon it. There is three hundred pounds sent at present, mostly in specie. You are desired to write to people in the country to advance money, particularly to Lady Methven; which if they do not immediately, their corn and other effects will be seized."[61]

Previously to his march southwards, Prince Charles appointed Viscount Strathallan Governor, and Deputy Governor of Perth, and Commander-in-chief during the absence of the Marquis of Tullibardine, whom Lord George Murray now summoned to join him, considering that the addition of the Marquis's tenantry to the army was of the utmost importance. "I am extremely anxious," he writes, "to have our men here, at least as many as would make Lord Nairn's battalion, and mine, five hundred each; for at present I could get them supply'd with guns, targets, tents, and, those who want them, shoes also: but if they be not here soon, them that come first, will be first serv'd."

These directions were reiterated, and were also repeated by the pen of Lady Emilia Murray, to whom her lord sent immediate accounts of all that occurred. This spirited and indefatigable help-meet resided generally at Tullibardine. "These," she writes, "were his words, 'I entreat, for God's sake, that the Duke of Atholl send off the men here immediately, or they will be too late for arms, targets, tents, &c.; nay, for our march, which begins on Thursday." All this haste and impetuosity was meekly but decidedly resisted by the slow Marquis of Tullibardine. He thus writes in reply to one of his brother's most urgent entreaties:

"About ten o'clock in the afternoon I received your express, dated the fourth, four o'clock, afternoon, and am very much concerned to find that it is morally impossible for me, or any of the men in these parts, to be up with you against Thursday night, the day you say it is resolved, in a Council of War, to march southward. Did any of us endeavour to make too much haste to join the Prince, I am afraid we should be like a good milk cow, that gives a great pail of milk, and after, kicks it down with her foot. Forgive the comparison."[62]

Other apprehensions also increased the desire of Lord George to begin his march. "I am desired to let you know," he writes to the Marquis of Tullibardine, "that there is one Kimber, an anabaptist, who came from London with a design to assassinate the Prince; he is about twenty-seven years old, black hair, of a middling stature, and talks fluently and bluntly about his travels in the West Indies." This man, it was suspected, afterwards changed his name to Geffreys. He was supposed to have even been received by the Marquis of Tullibardine at his table, and to have obtained a pass from him; but nothing more was disclosed, as far as the correspondence informs us, touching this attempt.

Lord George continued in a fever of vexation and anxiety at the delay of his brother, upon whose arrival at the camp, the march to England was to begin. Public affairs in England favoured, as he justly thought, the most decisive measures. "Everything," he writes to his brother, "is in great confusion in England, particularly in London, where credite is at a stand. The greatest banquiers have stopt payment; all would go to our wish, if we could but march instantly. If you delay longer," Lord George adds, "it will be the utter ruine of the cause. You should wait for nobody but your own men." The arrival of supplies from France, of arms and ammunition, though they were represented as being very inferior in quantity to what had been expected, gave encouragement to the hopes of the sanguine; and re-assured in some degree, even the anxious mind of Lord George Murray.

Before finally quitting Perth, the Marquis of Tullibardine received a compliment from the gentlemen prisoners of war there, which proved how soldierlike and courteous his conduct towards them had been. They inquired whether he would have morning levees, since they wished "to wait upon him." To this the Marquis replied, with his thanks, that, although not fond of ceremonious visits, he would always be "glad to cultivate an acquaintance with gentlemen whose actions show they are true Britons, by standing up for and supporting the ancient constitution and liberties of well-born subjects, whose honour is engaged to shake off the slavery of a foreign yoke."[63]

Notwithstanding all the remonstrances of Lord George, who had reiterated his entreaties during the whole of the month of October, the winter was far advanced before the Marquis left his castle of Blair to proceed southwards.[64]

On the thirty-first of October, a considerable force took the road to Duddingstone, a small village at the foot of Arthur's Seat; presenting, before the Highland army poured in upon its serene precincts, a scene of repose and quiet beauty, finely contrasted with the clamour of the city, and the grandeur of the rugged hill.

Foremost rode Lord Elcho, commanding the first troop of horse-guards, consisting of sixty-two gentlemen, and their servants, under five officers, forming altogether a troop of a hundred and twenty horse. A smaller troop, not amounting to more than forty horse, followed under the command of Arthur Elphinstone, afterwards Lord Balmerino. Then came a little squadron of horse grenadiers, with whom were incorporated the Perthshire gentlemen, in the absence of their own commander, Lord Strathallan, who was left Governor of Perth. The whole of this squadron did not amount to a hundred. It was commanded by William Earl of Kilmarnock, the representative of an ancient and noble family, which, as an historian remarks, "sometimes matched with the blood-royal." "He was," adds the same writer, "in the flower of his age, being about forty years old. The elegance of his person, and comeliness of his features, which were every way handsome, bespake internal beauties."[65] It is remarkable, that, at this very time, the young Lord Boyd, Lord Kilmarnock's son, held a commission in the British army and fought against the Jacobites.

The Aberdeen and Bamffshire gentlemen, amounting with their servants to a hundred and twenty, with seventy or eighty hussars, were commanded by Lord Pitsligo; but Mr. Murray, "who would have a share at least of everything," was their colonel.[66]

The infantry consisted of thirteen little battalions, for the Highlanders would not be commanded by any but their own chiefs; and it was necessary therefore to have as many regiments as there were Clans.

On the third of November, the Prince marched from Dalkeith on foot, at the head of the Clans, who were commanded under him by Lord George Murray. The acclamations of the people of Edinburgh, who flocked in crowds to witness the departure of the army, were loud and friendly. Yet it is remarkable, that in spite of his long residence in that city, in spite of his hereditary claims on its inhabitants, and of the popularity of his manners, the party of the Prince in that capital never increased in proportion to his expectations. This indifference to the cause of Charles Edward has with much reason been attributed to the strong and unalterable distrust entertained by all zealous Presbyterians of any approach to Popery: the firmness of the Scottish character to a principle may be plainly read in the reluctance of the Lowlanders to hazard, even for a Stuart, the safety of what they esteem to be their vital interests.[67]

It was, however, a fine, although a mournful sight, when the Clans taking the road to London left Dalkeith. It was indeed only after long and anxious deliberation, that these brave men had resolved to risk an advance to England, without any certain expectation of a rising in that country; yet there were many among the chiefs who went forth that day, and among these were some of the bravest and the most determined who "trusted in themselves alone."[68] Among those who were declared secretly to have desponded of success, and yet to have gone on in the career from a sense of honour, was Lord George Murray.

The march to England was very judiciously planned and well executed. "It resembled," observes the Chevalier Johnstone, "on a small scale, that of Marshal Saxe some years before, when he advanced to lay siege to Maestricht." The Prince went day after day on foot, contrary to general expectation; for it was thought that he would only have done so at the beginning to encourage the soldiers: but in dirty lanes, and in deep snow, the youth reared in seclusion and luxury took his chance with the common men, and could scarcely ever be prevailed upon even to get on horseback to ford a river. "It's not to be imagined," writes his affectionate partisan and historian Maxwell, "how much this manner of bringing himself down to a level with the men, and his affable behaviour to the meanest of them, endeared him to the army."[69] On arriving at Lauder, hearing that some of the Highlanders had remained behind with a view, it was thought, of deserting, Charles got on horseback before it was light, rode back two or three miles, and brought the stragglers with him.[70] On the fourth instant he reached Kelso. Such was the success of this well-contrived march, and such the secrecy with which it was made, that Marshal Wade, who was at Newcastle with eleven thousand men, continued to cover and protect that place, without an idea of advancing to intercept the Highland troops. Indeed, the secret was so well kept, that hardly any subordinate officer in the Prince's service knew where the junction of the columns was intended to take place.[71]

Arduous as the Prince's march had been to Kelso, it was enlivened by some incidents in which the stern and haughty Lord George Murray must have participated, as well as the gallant young Chevalier. On passing through Preston Hall gate, the first morning of his march, the Prince found breakfast there prepared for him by order of the Duchess of Gordon, for which act that lady was deprived of a yearly pension of one thousand pounds, given to her in consideration of her Grace's having educated her family in the Protestant religion.[72] As he passed Fala Danes, the ladies of Whitborough, who were the sisters of a zealous adherent of the Prince, Robert Anderson, entertained Charles and his chief officers with a collation in the open air. The royal guest, being asked to leave some memorial of his visit, cut from the hilt of his sword a piece of crimson velvet, which is still preserved at Whitborough. At Lauder, Charles took up his abode in Hurlestane castle, the seat of the Earl of Lauderdale. From Kelso, Charles dispatched the guards across the Tweed; not so much to reconnoitre, as to amuse the enemy: they went some miles into the country, and, when they came to any English villages, made inquiries as to what reception and accommodation the army might meet with on arriving there. The object of this manœuvre was to keep General Wade in suspense as to the movements of the army, and to prevent his marching towards Carlisle. Such was the success of these artifices, that Wade, who had decided on a march to Berwick, countermanded that order. On the sixth of November the Jacobite forces crossed the Tweed: that river was scarcely fordable; but the Highlanders were elated beyond measure, and, even when bathed in the water, expressed their delight by discharging their pieces and uttering cries of joy. Such was their humour, that they gave the horses which were taken from the enemy the name of General Cope, by way of expressing their contempt for the fugitive Englishman.

Amid indications of homage, especially from the women of the town of Jedburgh, who ran forth to kiss the young hero's hand, Charles entered Jedburgh, and took up his residence at an inn in the centre of the town, called the Nag's Head. On the following day he led his troops over the Rule water, famous for the warriors of old who dwelt near its banks; and over the Knot o' Gate into Liddiesdale, "noted in former times for its predatory hands, as in more recent times for its primitive yeomen and romantic minstrelsy."[73] After a march of twenty-five miles, the Prince arrived at Haggiehaugh, upon Liddel water; here he slept, the Highlanders finding their quarters for the night as well as they could in barns, or byres, or houses, as their fortune might be. On the eighth of November Charles Edward, proceeding down the Liddel water, met the column of horse which had taken the middle road by Selkirk and Hawick. They joined him at Gritmill Green upon the banks of the Esk, four miles below Langholm. Shortly afterwards the first division of the Prince's army crossed the river, which here separates the two kingdoms, as the Tweed does at Berwick, and trod upon English ground. That event was signalized by a loud shout, whilst the Highlanders unsheathed their swords. But soon a general panic was spread among the soldiery, by the intelligence that Cameron of Lochiel, in drawing his sword, had drawn blood from his hand.[74] This was regarded as an omen of mournful import. What was of much more vital consequence was the incessant desertion of the troops, especially from the column which the Prince commanded. Arms were afterwards found flung away in the fields, and the roads to Lanarkshire and Stirlingshire were crowded with these renegades. This circumstance Lord George Murray accounted for in these terms, when, upon a subsequent occasion, he wrote to his brother, complaining of the fact: "We are quite affronted with the scandalous desertion of our men: it was the taking money instead of the best men, which is the occasion of all the evil; for good men, once coming out, would have been piqued in honour, and not deserted us on the point of fighting the enemy."[75]

Such was the skill and secrecy with which the whole of this march had been planned, chiefly by the suggestions of Lord George Murray, that the forces were very much surprised on finding that all the three columns arrived nearly at the same time, on a heath in England, about two miles distant from the city of Carlisle. The plan was executed with such precision, that there was not an interval of two hours between the junction of the columns.[76]

It was now resolved to invest Carlisle. Few cities in England have been the scenes of more momentous events than that which was now the object of the Chevalier's efforts. Long the centre of border hostilities, it was the fate of Carlisle to be at once the witness of the insurrection of 1745, and the scene of punishment of those who were concerned in that movement.

In modern times, the importance of Carlisle as a fortress has inevitably declined; and it is at present regarded as a venerable relic of former strength, rather than as a place of defence. But, in ancient days, the Warden of the Marches, selected from among the nobles of tried fidelity and courage, attracted to the castle of Carlisle a host of youthful aspirants for military renown, who there sought to be trained to arms, amid contests not depending upon a single achievement, but requiring watchfulness, patient labour, and skill, slowly and painfully to be acquired.

Founded by William Rufus, who restored the city after it had lain two hundred years in ruins, owing to the depredations of the Danes; and improved and enlarged successively by Richard the Third and Henry the Eighth; the castle had received the unhappy Mary Stuart: and here she was treated with an insidious respect which soon threw off the mask. In the time of Queen Elizabeth, the citadel, which was entirely built by Henry the Eighth, fell into decay; and after the prohibition of all incursions on England on the part of King James the Sixth, Carlisle ceased to be of so much importance as a military possession; and its position, as one of the keys of England, did not avail to secure any great attention to its dilapidated state. At the time of Charles Edward's arrival in Cumberland, the fortifications of the City had been neglected for several centuries; but it still bore the outward aspect of former strength.

The works, which had thus been left to moulder away, were in the form of a triangle, and were separated from the town by a deep ditch. Upon the east angle, which is also cut off from the Parade by a ditch, is seated the Castle, properly so called, though the whole generally goes by that name. These works consist of a dungeon, the walls of which are twelve feet in thickness; a tower, called the Captain's Tower; two gates, one to each ward; there being an inward and an outward ward. In the castle there is a great chamber, and a hall, but no storehouse for ammunition. In the walls of the town, three gateway towers, a semi-circular bastion called Springeld Tower, and the citadel, complete the fortifications: unless we comprise several square towers with which the city walls are furnished; especially one at the west sally-port, and the Tile Tower, both of considerable strength.[77]

The foreground of the castle is formed of green and level meadows washed by the river Eden; and, in modern days, two fine stone bridges add to the beauty of the scene. The hanging banks are crowned with the village and church of Stanwix, and the mountains of Bewcastle form the distance. "To the south," to use the words of Hutchinson in his History of Cumberland, "you command the plains towards Penrith, shut in on either side with a vast range of mountains, over which Crossfell and Skiddaw are distinctly seen greatly eminent. To the east a varied tract of cultivated country, scattered over with villages and hamlets, mingle beautifully with woodlands on the extensive landscape; the distant horizon formed by the heights of Northumberland. To the west, the Solway Frith sparkles out, a shining expanse of waters, flowing along a cultivated tract of land on the English coast; on the other, the bold heights of Weffel and a chain of mountains extend towards the sea."[78]

When Charles Edward spread out his forces before Carlisle, the garrison within its mouldering walls was composed of a company of invalids, under the command of Colonel Durand; but the Cumberland militia were almost all collected within the city walls. Colonel Durand, however, as well as the Mayor of the place, showed a spirit of defence; and the latter issued a proclamation informing the inhabitants that he was not Paterson, a Scotchman, but Pattieson, a true-born Englishman, who was determined to hold out the city to the last. Since Charles had no battering cannon, it appeared impossible to reduce the castle if it were well-defended; but it was resolved to make the attempt. Whilst he was meditating an attack, the news that Wade's army was marching from Newcastle drew him for some days from continuing these operations. The report proved, however, to be groundless; and the Duke of Perth was sent, therefore, with several regiments to begin the siege.

The Jacobite army had all crossed the river Eden at Rowcliff, four miles below Carlisle; and next day they marched to Harraby, Blackhall, and Boutcherby, to the southward of Carlisle. At Harraby Lord George Murray remained, in order to cover the siege; that place being most contiguous to Carlisle, and on the highway to Penrith: the other troops under his command lay in the adjoining villages. The Duke of Perth had the direction of the trenches. It was here that an event occurred, which shortly afterwards excited the greatest discontent among the followers of Charles Edward.[79]

The attack upon the city was made from Stanwix Bank; the Marquis of Tullibardine, who had at length joined the insurgent army, with his tenantry, assisting the Duke of Perth. As it was market-day on the ninth, when the Jacobites made their appearance within a quarter of a mile of Carlisle, the Highland soldiers were mingled with the market-people returning home, so that the garrison dared not fire upon them. On the following day, the city was attacked in three places; but the Marquis of Tullibardine, who commanded a four-gun battery, planted at the entrance of a lane, was heard to say to his followers, "Gentlemen, we have not metal for them; retreat." After three days' attack, however, the courage of Mr. Pattieson, and the strength of the garrison, gave way. The valiant Mayor forgot his English birth so far as to hang out a white flag, and to request a capitulation for the town. The garrison and townsmen of Carlisle, in the opinion of the writers of the day, merited no more credit than that of Edinburgh, in their defence and capitulation. In the siege, the Highland army had only one man killed, and another wounded; and the reduction of Carlisle gave great, but not lasting, lustre to their arms.

On entering Carlisle, Lord George Murray is said, in the newspapers of the day, to have encountered an old friend, who asked him how he could be so rash as to lend himself to the aid of a hopeless and futile invasion. To this Lord George is declared to have replied, that he was well aware that the cause was hopeless; but that, having once engaged to maintain it, honour compelled him to continue his exertions.[80] It was not, however, long before those fatal dissensions appeared which effectually defeated all that valour or fidelity could effect to save Charles Edward from defeat.

It was, perhaps, the well-earned popularity of the Duke of Perth, his forbearance, and the gratitude evinced towards him by the inhabitants of Carlisle, as he rode triumphantly through their city, that first roused the jealousy of Lord George Murray's proud nature. The disinterested conduct of the Duke of Perth, as soon as he became informed of the sentiments entertained towards him by Lord George Murray, was worthy of himself. That brave and excellent young man modestly withdrew from a rivalry which, he justly concluded, must be injurious to the cause of that Prince whose interests he had espoused; for few men could cope with the natural abilities, the force of character, and the experience of Lord George. He was by far the most able general that appeared in either of the two insurrections in the cause of the Stuarts. "His personal hardihood and bravery," remarks Lord Mahon, "might be rivalled by many others; but none could vie with him in planning a campaign, providing against disasters, or improving victory."

Whilst the Jacobite forces lay encamped near Carlisle, certain differences of opinion arose in the Council. There were some who had even thought that it would be desirable, before investing Carlisle, to return to Scotland to collect a greater force. Lord George Murray, seconded by the Duke of Perth, had opposed this cautious proposal; and recommended that part of the army should stay at Brampton, and the rest go to blockade Carlisle. The Duke of Perth had seconded this scheme, and it had accordingly been decided that Lord George should command the blockade, whilst the Duke conducted the battery. The result has been seen; and the Prince was now master of Carlisle.

A few days after he had taken possession of the town, a council of war was called, to consider what was next to be done. Some of the officers proposed returning to Scotland; others were in favour of encamping near Carlisle, and waiting to see whether there would be any rising in England. Others advised marching forwards, by the west of England; arguing, that having Carlisle, happen what might, they had a safe retreat. Charles Edward declared himself to be of the last-mentioned opinion, and his inclinations were seconded by Lord George to a certain extent. He stated the advantages and disadvantages of both propositions; but added, that, although he could not venture to advise the Prince to march into England without more encouragement than they had hitherto received, yet he was persuaded that if his Royal Highness marched south, his army, though but small, would follow him. Upon this, Charles immediately said these words, "I will venture it." "I spoke," adds Lord George, "with the more caution, since some things had happened about the time of the blockade of Carlisle, and a little before, which had made me desirous to serve only as a volunteer, and not as a general officer; but, as all the other officers were very pressing with me, I soon laid that thought aside."[81]

What those circumstances were, Lord George explains in the following letter to his brother. His difficulties, owing to the want of arrangements, such as his skill and experience might have suggested, had he been first in command, appear to have been sufficiently trying. Yet, in the extract from a letter dated Nov. 15, from Harraby, Lord George does ample justice to the exertions of the Duke of Perth. This epistle was written whilst the blockade and battery were going on.

"I am sorry to find that it is impossible to go on so quick with the battery of cannon as would have been wished. By the report of those I sent there, the ground is marshy, and vastly too much exposed; and, notwithstanding all the pains taken by the Duke of Perth, who is indefatigable in that service, and who meets with innumerable difficulties, I suspect the place pitched upon will not answer. But, if the thing be prosecuted, I think it my duty to tell you, so as you may represent it to his Royal Highness, that the men posted upon the blockade of Carlisle will not expose themselves, either in trenches, or all night in the open air, within cannon-shot, or even musket-shot of the town, except it be in their turn with the rest of the army, and that it be decided by lot who is to mount the guard, first night, second, and so on. The way I would propose, if it be approved of by a council of war, is as follows:—that fifty men be draughted out of each of the battalions that are at Brampton, with proper officers, and at least two majors out of the six battalions, and be sent to quarter at Butcherby, which, I believe, is within a mile of the battery; and, as I suppose, one hundred and fifty men will mount guard at the battery. These six battalions will furnish two guards; your men will furnish one, General Gordon and Lord Ogilvie's one, which, in the whole, makes four guards, or reliefs; and I think, by that time, the town will be either taken or the blockade removed. I don't mention the Duke of Perth's regiment, because they have more than their turn of the duty already, besides furnishing workmen, &c. And for Colonel Roy Stuart's regiments, I suppose they have the guard of the equipage, &c.; and they will, perhaps, be able to furnish some workmen. If anything be done of this nature, the sooner I hear of it the better. I ever am, dear brother, your most affectionate brother, and faithful humble servant,

"George Murray."[82]

This advice was disregarded. A court-martial was held to consider of the plan suggested by Lord George. By this council the detachments proposed by Lord George for the relief of the battery were refused, upon the plea that those corps had lately encountered all the fatigue of the blockade at Edinburgh, and that it would not be fair to put them again upon that service. On the day after receiving this decision, in the hand-writing of Secretary Murray, Lord George addressed the following letter to the Prince. His conduct upon this occasion shows the proud and fiery spirit of this able commander.

"15th November, 1745.

"Sir,

"I cannot but observe how little my advice as a General officer has any weight with your Royal Highness, ever since I had the honour of a commission from your hands. I therefore take leave to give up my commission. But as I ever had a firm attachment to the royal family, and in particular to the King my master, I shall go on as a volunteer, and design to be this night in the trenches as such, with any others that will please to follow me, though I own I think there are full few on this post already. Your Royal Highness will please order whom you think fit to command on this post, and the other parts of the blockade. I have the honour to be, sir, your Royal Highness's most faithful and most humble servant,

(Signed) "George Murray.[83]

"Lord Elcho has the command till you please to appoint it otherwise."

To his brother, the Marquis of Tullibardine, Lord George wrote still more fully. In this letter, after informing the Marquis that he had given up his commission of Lieutenant-General, Lord George complains of a want of confidence on the part of the Prince, in regard to the terms which were to be accepted or rejected in the surrender of Carlisle. Touching these, Charles Edward, who was now almost completely under the controul of Secretary Murray, acted in a weak and vacillating manner. When pressed by Lord George Murray to give him full instructions, he hesitated; Lord George entreated him, if he could not decide during his presence in the camp, that the Prince would send instructions after him.[84] "When he would not come to any fixed resolution before I came away, I begged his Royal Highness would send his intentions and instructions after me, that I might conduct myself by them; but his secretary told me plainly, he took that matter to be his province, as he seems indeed to take everything upon him both as to civil and military. There are many other things which have determined me to wish to have no command; and it is some time past since I observed things must go into utter confusion. I shall show, as a volunteer, that no man wishes more success to the cause; and I can be of more use charging in the first rank of your Atholl men than as a general, where I was constantly at a loss to know what was doing. I am of opinion you should reduce your men to two battalions; one for Lord Nairn, the other Mr. Mercer. When you are quartered anywhere, if you have a hole to spare, I shall be as often with you as I can; at other times, I shall lye with the men in a barn, which I doubt not will hearten them much. In every thing, as a volunteer, I shall do all I can to advance the service; but am determined never to act as an officer. I have several things to say at meeting. If you have occasion for tent or horses, they are at your service, for I design to keep none, but make presents of them all.

"Adieu! Yours, George Murray."

"Haroby, 15th Nov. 1745."

Not only were the seeds of disunion thus sown between the Prince and the Generals, but also between the Marquis of Tullibardine and Lord George Murray.

"I did expect," writes Lord George to the Marquis, "that you would have upon occasion stood my friend; but I find you are too apt to hearken to designing people, by your being so ready to blame me before I was heard; and, except you show some regard for me, how can I expect it of others? I told his Royal Highness that you had acquainted me that he desired to see me. He said, No, he had nothing particular to say to me. I told him I should be as ready to serve in a private station, and as a volunteer, in the first rank of your men, as ever I could be in any other. He said I might do so. Nothing else passed. I spoke a good time to Sir Thomas Sheridan, and told him in particular, that if anything was taken amiss in my letter, as having expressed my attachment to the King, without having mentioned his Royal Highness, it was very injurious to me; for having mentioned the King and royal family, (and designing my letter to be short,) I thought it needless to be more particular; for surely, next to the King, I would serve none on earth before his Royal Highness: which, after what I have shown, and all my actions since I joined the standard, could not be called in question. I mentioned several particulars, wherein I showed that I had no authority in the station I was in, and that others acted as General who had not any call, but used his Royal Highness's name. That in the drudgery, I was employed, but anything of moment was done without my participation. That, in short, I had ventured my all—life, fortune, family—every thing, my honour; which last I had some to lose, but none to gain, in the way things were managed, and therefore resolved upon a private station."[85]

The concluding paragraph of this painful letter is written with a force and bitterness which show how deeply this ardent servant of a failing cause was wounded by what he justly deemed unmerited caprice and disrespect. "I wish you would be careful of the Atholl men, that they be not slighted; which never should have happened as long as I had any command. I find scarce any of them have got even thanks for venturing life and fortune, and even the gallows; and, which is worse, (I don't know how it is come about,) they are not thought equally good with other men. If you would send me the notes, that were made out, of the way of modelling them into two different regiments, I would do, now that I have time to do it, as much as possible for the good of the service and general comfort. I always am, dear brother, your most faithful and humble servant and affectionate brother,

"George Murray."[86]

"Haroby, 16th Nov. 1745."

There was also another source of complaint, which, though appearing on the surface to have originated with the Duke of Perth, was clearly traceable to the Prince, or rather to his adviser, Secretary Murray. A marked slight had been passed on Lord George Murray on the very night on which the battery on Carlisle was opened. He had gone into the trenches; and, seeing the Duke of Perth there, he had desired him, in case of anything extraordinary happening, to let him know, and that he would aid him by every means in his power. What private orders the Duke had was not known; but, far from applying to Lord George for aid or counsel, he sent to Brampton, seven miles' distance, whenever any difficulty occurred, and acquainted the Prince with it, but took no notice of Lord George, although he was an older officer than himself, and had been sent to Harroby to cover the siege. Upon this, Lord George, who thought he was entitled to know what had passed in the trenches, complained, but received no satisfactory answer: and thus aggrieved, and, as he conceived, insulted, he sent that letter to the Prince, which has justly been censured as making an invidious distinction between the young Chevalier and his father.[87]

These acts of indiscretion and intemperance were followed by another proceeding still less worthy of the soldier and the man of honour: Lord George Murray indeed lowered himself, when, at the same time that he wrote to the Prince, he set on foot a petition praying Charles that he would dismiss all Roman Catholics from his councils. This was aimed at the Duke of Perth and Sir Thomas Sheridan; nor can we assign to it any better motive than that it was intended to re-instate Lord George Murray in the command. Some allowance may, nevertheless, be made for the prejudices of a Presbyterian, acting on the determined and overbearing nature of a high-spirited man. But the vital principles of our Christian faith tend to soften animosities, to humble pride, and to accord to others the same intention to act rightly as that of which we ourselves are prone to boast. A sincere, a truly pious member of the Christian church cannot be an intolerant partizan of certain modes of faith. There dwells within his breast a deeper sentiment than that which is inspired by the worldly and sublunary distinctions of sect. And Lord George Murray, seeing his young and blameless rival, the Duke of Perth, brave, honourable, and moderate, had shown greater zeal for true religion had he not availed himself of an unworthy plea to base upon it an invidious and covert insinuation.

He was reproved by the magnanimity of the man whom he desired to remove from the Prince's councils. Although the Duke of Perth did not profess to acquiesce in the opinion that it was unreasonable that he should have the chief command, although he did not pretend to acknowledge the justice of the claim, he nobly gave up, for the sake of a Prince whom he loved, the superiority to Lord George Murray. His conduct on this occasion recalls the generous sentiments of the knight and soldier in ancient times; unhappily it failed in producing that unanimity which it was intended to effect. The rancour between Lord George Murray and the Secretary still remained, although it did not break out on every occasion, and sometimes gave way to the common cause when the interests of all were at stake.[88]

At Carlisle the forces were reviewed and were found to amount to above five thousand foot, with five hundred[89] on horseback, mostly low-country gentlemen followed by their servants, under the name of guards, hussars, &c.[90] After a few days rest, and after completing every arrangement for the preservation of Carlisle, the army marched to Penrith; Lord George preceding the rest of the forces at the head of six regiments and some horse. This was an adventurous undertaking with so small a force; for there were now in England above sixty thousand men in arms including the militia and the newly raised regiments; but the Prince, observes Mr. Maxwell, "had hitherto had a wonderful run of success." He was still buoyed up with hopes of a landing of French troops, and of an insurrection in his favour.[91]

On the twenty-fourth of November the Prince marched from Carlisle to Penrith, and thence to Lancaster, which he reached on the twenty-fifth, at the head of the vanguard of his army. He was dressed in a light plaid belt, with a blue sash, a blue bonnet on his head, decorated with a white rose, the sound of the bagpipes, and the drum playing "The King shall have his own again;" the banners, on which were inscribed the words "Liberty and Property, Church and King," failed, nevertheless, to inspire the cold spectators who beheld them with a corresponding enthusiasm.

The army advanced towards Preston, Lord George Murray commanding the van; and on the twenty-sixth of November, the whole force assembled before that town, the very name of which struck terror into Scottish breasts. Nor were the English Jacobites without their fears, nor devoid of associations with the name of a place in which the hopes of their party had been blighted in 1715, and their banners steeped in blood. The walls of Preston recalled to many of the volunteers of Lancashire the prison in which their fathers had died of fever, or starvation, or of broken hearts. It is remarkable, as one of the newspapers of the day observes, that many of those who joined the Chevalier's ranks were the sons of former insurgents. "Hanging," adds the coarse party writer, "is hereditary in some families."[92] Lord George Murray, in order to avoid the "freit," or, in other words, to humour the superstition of the Highlanders, who had a notion that they never should get beyond Preston, crossed the Ribble bridge, and landed a great many of his men on the other side of the water, about a mile from the town, where they halted the next day, waiting for some intelligence, of which it is presumed, says Lockhart, "they were disappointed." Here it was necessary to divide even this little army for the convenience of quarters.[93] At Preston the Prince was received with enthusiastic cheers, but when officers were ordered to beat up for recruits, no one enlisted. The tents which had been provided had been left on the road from Moffat to Edinburgh; and the season was so severe, that it was impossible even for Highlanders to sleep in them; the town was too small to receive them; the same arrangement that had been begun at Carlisle was still pursued, and the army went in two great divisions, though with scarcely a day's march between them. Lord George Murray commanded what was called the low-country regiments; but the greater part of these was, observes Mr. Maxwell, "Highlanders by their language, and all were in their dress, for the Highland garb was the uniform of the whole army."

One can easily conceive what must have been the effect of this gallant force, unbroken by fatigue or privation, and glorying in their enterprise, as they entered into the friendly county of Lancaster, filled with Roman Catholic gentry, who gathered around the standard of the Prince. The colours of the Tartan, which was worn, as we have seen, by the whole of the army, both Highlanders and Lowlanders, although denominated by a writer in the Scots' Magazine as a "vulgar glare," never offend the eye, but are, according to a high authority, "beautifully blended and arranged." "Great art," observed the celebrated Mr. West, "(that is to say, much knowledge of the principles of colouring with pleasing effect,) has been displayed in the composition of the tartans of several Clans, regarding them in general as specimens of national taste, something analogous to the affecting but artless strains of the native music of Scotland."

This garb, which excited the attention and admiration of Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo, consisted of the truis, the kilted plaid, and philibeg. The truis, be it observed, for the benefit of the dwellers in the south, were used by gentlemen on horseback, and by others according to their choice; but the common garb of the people was the plaid and kilt; and this was the usual dress down to the passing of the act for suppressing the garb. The tartan is said to have been known in Flanders; and the tartan and kilt to have been adopted in the Lowlands before their adoption among the mountains.[94] Without attempting to meddle in the dangerous and intricate question of antiquity, it must be acknowledged that the Highland dress is well adapted to the habits of a pastoral people, as well as being extremely graceful and picturesque. It is also admirably fitted to oppose the inclemency of those regions in which, among the other habits which characterise the peculiar people who wear it, it is still regarded as a loved and revered badge of national distinction. In the various campaigns in Holland, the Highlanders suffered far less than other nations in that damp and chilly climate; in the retreat to Corunna, under the hero Sir John Moore, their plaids bound lightly round their bodies, they experienced the convenience of that simple form of dress in a rapid and protracted march. Light and free, the mountaineer could pursue, without restraint, the most laborious occupations; he could traverse the glens, or ascend mountains which offer a hopeless aspect to the inhabitants of more civilized spheres. But it was not only as a convenient and durable mode of apparel that the kilt and philibeg were advantageous. The Highland costume, when it formed a feature among English or foreign regiments, cemented a spirit which was felt and feared by foes. It bound those who wore it in a common bond, not to dishonour the garb which their chiefs and their forefathers had worn, by an act of cowardice, or by deeds of cruelty.[95]

Little did the English Government, or the inhabitants of the metropolis, or probably the country in general, know the character of the brave, ill-fated band of Highlanders, who were now advancing into the very heart of the country. It was the custom, especially among those who wished to gain preferment at Court, or who affected to be fashionable, to speak of the Highlanders as low, ignorant savages; semi-barbarians, to whom the vulgar qualities of personal courage and hardihood might be allowed, but who had neither any urbanity to strangers, nor refined notions of honour. The word "rebel," was a mild name for those who were following Prince Charles's standard as it was borne southwards. The hardened villains, "the desperadoes, rabble, thieves, banditti!"[96] are the terms usually employed in expressing the sovereign contempt felt by ignorance for an honourable, religious, and primitive people. It seems also to have been thought only necessary for the Duke of Cumberland to show his face in the north, to put to flight a beggarly handful of undisciplined men, whose moral character, if we might credit certain passages in the Magazines of the day, was as low as their military acquirements. By other nations besides their own sister country, the same erroneous notions concerning the Scottish Highlanders prevailed. In Germany it was conceded that they might be capable of becoming "good and useful subjects when converted from heathenism." The French, too, presumed to look upon them with contempt, until they met them, when acting as auxiliaries to other powers, so often in battle, and beheld them so generally in the front, that they verily believed at last, there were twelve battalions in the army instead of two; and one of their Generals, Broglio, in after times remarked, that "he had often wished to be a man of six feet high, but that he became reconciled to his size after he saw the wonders performed by the little mountaineers."[97]

It is scarcely now necessary to allude to these errors at that time prevalent regarding the valour of the Scottish host. Tributes from every known country have long elevated this brave and oppressed people into a proud and honourable position. Instead, however, of the undisciplined savages who were supposed to be traversing the country, it was sooner found than acknowledged, that the intrepidity of the Highlanders was united to humanity, and to upright principles. To their noble qualities was added a deep sense of religion. In after-times it was remarked, that no trait in the character of the Highlanders was more remarkable than the respect which was paid by the different regiments which were eventually employed in the British service, to their chaplains. The men when they got into any little scrape were far more anxious, writes General Stuart, "to conceal it from their chaplain than from their commanding officer."

But, however the public prints might revile, and the polite society at St. James's ridicule, and misunderstand the Highlanders, the General whose lot it was to conquer the unfortunate Jacobites knew well of what materials their forces were composed. The Duke of Cumberland, at the battle of Fontenoy, had been so much pleased with the conduct of the famous Black Watch, that he had offered them any favour which they chose to ask, or which he could grant, to mark his approbation. The answer to this proof of approbation was worthy of those valiant auxiliaries, who are described by the French as "Highland furies, who rushed in upon us with more fury than ever did a sea driven by a tempest." The Highlanders replied, after thanking the Royal Duke for his courtesy, "that no favour he could bestow on them would gratify them so much as to pardon a soldier of their regiment, who lay under a sentence of court martial, by which he was decreed to incur a heavy corporal punishment; the infliction of which would," they said, "bring dishonour on themselves, their friends, and their country." The request was granted. It was, nevertheless, the countrymen of these Highlanders, men as heroic as true, as nice in their sense of honour as the Black Watch, upon whom the Duke wreaked the utmost of his vengeance after Culloden, whom he hunted with bloodhounds,—whose honest hearts he broke by every possible indignity, though their gallant spirits could never be subdued.

As the army advanced, a great multitude assembled to gaze upon the singular spectacle. The very arms borne by the Highlanders were objects of curiosity and surprise, no less than of alarm, to the populace, who stood by the way-side expressing their good-will to the expedition, but who, when asked to join the insurgents, declined, saying, "they did not understand fighting."[98] The formidable weapons with which the Highlanders contrived to make themselves terrible to their enemies, consisted of a broad-sword, girded on the left side, and a dirk or short thick dagger on the right, used only when the combat was so close as to render the broadsword useless. In ancient times, these fierce warriors brandished a small short-handled hatchet or axe, for the purpose of a close fight. A gun, a pair of pistols, and a target, completed their armour, except when ammunition failed, when they substituted for the gun, the lochaber axe; this was a species of long lance, or pike, with a formidable weapon at the end of it, adapted either for cutting or stabbing. The lochaber axe had fallen into disuse since the introduction of the musket; but a rude, yet ready substitute had been found for it, by fixing scythes at the end of a pole, with which the Highlanders resisted the attacks of cavalry. Such had been their arms in the early part of the Insurrection of 1745, and such they continued until, at the battles of Falkirk and Preston Pans, they had collected muskets from the slain on the battle-field. In addition to these weapons, the gentlemen sometimes wore suits of armour and coats of mail; in which, indeed, some of the principal Jacobites have been depicted; but, with these, the common men never incumbered themselves, both on account of the expense, and of the weight, which was ill-adapted to their long marches and steep hills.[99]

A distinguishing mark which the Highland Clans generally adopted, was the badge. This was frequently a piece of evergreen, worn on the bonnet, and placed, during the insurrection of 1745, beside the white cockade. When Lord Lovat's men assembled near the Aird, they wore, according to the evidence given on the State Trials, sprigs of yew in their bonnets.[100] These badges, although generally considered to have been peculiar to the clans, were, observes a modern writer,[101] "like armorial bearings, common to all countries in the middle ages; and shared by the Highlanders among the general distinctions of chivalry, were only peculiar to them when disused by others." Thus, the broom worn by Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count D'Anjou;—and the raspberry by Francis the First of France, were only discontinued as an ornament to the head when transferred to the habit, or housings; but the Highland Clans, tenacious of their customs, wore the plant not only upon their caps, but placed them on the head of the Clan standard. The white cockade was now regarded as the peculiar badge of the party; yet it seems not, at all events among the Clan Fraser, to have superseded the evergreen. Some few traces are left, in the present day, to certify, nevertheless, that they were worn during the contest of 1745. "Lord Hardwicke's Act, and continual emigration," remarks John Sobieski Stuart, "have extirpated the memory of these distinctions once as familiar as the names of those who bore them; and all of whom I have been able to collect any evidence are, the Macdonalds, the Macphersons, the Grants, the Frasers, the Stuarts, and the Campbells." "The memory of most," mournfully remarks the same writer, "has now perished among the people; but, within a recent period, various lists have been composed—some by zealous enthusiasts, who preferred substitution to loss, and some by the purveyors of the carpet Highlanders, who once a-year illuminate the splendour of a ball-room with the untarnished broadswords and silken hose, never dimmed in the mist of a hill, or sullied in the dew of the heather."[102]

The Macdonalds, until a very short period before the rebellion of 1715, were known by the heather bow. "Let every man," said one of their chiefs of old, looking round on a field of blooming heather, "put over his head that which is under his feet." The destined sufferers of Glenco were marked by their "having a fair busk of heather, well spread and displayed over the head of a staff." The Clan Macgregor wore the fir; and the Clan Grant assumed a similar badge; whilst the badge of the Frasers is said to have been supplied for ages by a yew of vast size, in Glen-dubh, at the head of Strath Fearg. The badge assigned to the Macphersons was the water lily, which abounds in the Lochs of Hamkai, upon the margin of which was the gathering place of the Clan Chattan. Some of these distinctions appear to have been used during the year 1745, as we see in the case of the Frasers, but all to have emerged into the one general distinction of the Jacobites, the white rose, first worn by David the Second, at the tournament of Windsor in 1349, when he carried the "Rose argent." This badge had been almost forgotten in Scotland, until the year 1715, when it was worn by the adherents of James Stuart, on his birthday, the tenth of June. "By the Irish Catholics," observes the Editor of the "Vestiarium Scoticum," "it is still worn on the same day; but in Scotland its memory is only retained in the ballads of '15, and '45."

The Muses, who, as Burns has remarked, are all Jacobites, have celebrated this badge in these terms:—

"O' a' the days are in the year,
The tenth o' June I lo' maist dear,
When our white roses a' appear,
For the sake o' Jamie the Rover."[103]

The Highland host, after marching through Preston, to the sounds of the bagpipes, which played "The King shall have his own again," took the road through Wigan, towards Manchester. The Prince was informed that the English troops had broken down the bridge at Warrington; and that circumstance, which decided him to go through Wigan, somewhat encouraged his naturally sanguine temper, as it showed fear on the part of the enemy. During this march, the kind-hearted young man went on foot, except occasionally, when we find notice of his riding a fine horse in the public prints of the day. He usually, however, gave up his carriage to the venerable Lord Pitsligo, and marched at the head of one of the columns. He never took dinner, but ate a hearty supper; and then, throwing himself upon a bed, slept until four in the morning, when he arose, to prosecute the fatigues of another day, fatigues which youth, a sound constitution, and, above all, a great degree of mental energy, enabled him to endure.

Wigan, which the Chevalier's forces now approached, had been, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, agitated by religious differences; and the Queen's Commission for promoting the ordinances of the Reformed Church had been there met with a vigorous resistance. During the civil wars, this town, both from its vicinity to Latham House, and from its attachment to Charles the First, took a distinguished part, and obtained the characteristic designation of the "faithful and loyal town of Wigan." After the insurrection of 1715, the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to the reigning family had been, in vain, strongly urged upon the inhabitants of Lancashire, and a large mass of landed estates were, in consequence, put in jeopardy; although it does not appear that the owners were dispossessed of their estates, or that any other use was made of the register taken of all the landed properties in the county, except to assist the magistrates in the suppression of the insurrection in the north. Nevertheless, the expectation which Charles might naturally entertain of a general rising in Lancashire was not realized. "Nothing," observes Mr. Maxwell, "looked like a general concurrence until he came to Manchester."[104] This was remarkable, for Manchester had been the head-quarters of many of the Parliamentary party in Lancashire during the civil wars; whilst Preston and Wigan had both been royalist boroughs. But a singular alteration had taken place in the people of Manchester, who had changed from Roundheads to Jacobites.[105]

During the whole of the preceding march the Highland army had levied the public revenue with great accuracy; but no extortion, nor any attempts at plunder, had disgraced their cause, nor reflected on Lord George Murray as their General.[106]

At Manchester, the first organized force raised in England for the Chevalier joined Charles Edward. It was a regiment of two hundred men, commanded by Colonel Townley, a gentleman who had been in the French service; and was called the Manchester Regiment. It was composed of young men of the most reputable families in the town, of several substantial farmers and tradesmen, and of about one hundred common men. The accession of this troop gave great encouragement to the Prince; yet there were still many who thought very badly of the enterprise, and the advice afterwards given by Lord George Murray at Derby, to retreat, was also whispered at Manchester, Lord George being resolved to retreat, should there be no insurrection in England, nor landing from France. "At Manchester, one of his friends told Lord George," relates Maxwell, "that he thought they had entered far enough into England, since neither of these events had happened." To this Lord George replied that they might make a farther trial, and proceed to Derby; where, if there should be no greater encouragement to go on, he should propose a retreat to the Prince.[107]

The reception of Prince Charles at Manchester, was celebrated with demonstrations of enthusiastic joy. As he marched on foot into the town, at the head of the clans, halting to proclaim the Chevalier St. George, King, the bells rang, and preparations were made for illuminations and bonfires in the evening. The Prince was attended by twelve Scottish and English noblemen: from these he was distinguished by wearing the white cockade on the top of his cap, in the centre, instead of on the side, as did his general officers. Peculiarly formed to grace such occasions as a triumphal entry into an important and friendly town, Charles Edward quickly won the good will of the female part of the community; and the beauty and grace of the kingdom were soon, to use a phrase of a contemporary writer, enlisted in his behalf.

To the personal attributes of the Prince, "joining the good nature of the Stuarts with the spirit of the Sobieski," Charles Edward added one accomplishment which the monarch then on the throne of England did not possess: he spoke English well, although with a foreign accent: in this last respect, he resembled some of those around him, more especially the Duke of Perth, who, having been long abroad, in vain endeavoured to conceal the French idiom and pronunciation by affecting a broad Scottish dialect.[108]

Still, in spite of these advantages, and notwithstanding the known predilection of the Lancastrians for the cause of the Stuarts, the lowest populace alone joined the standard of Charles. One melancholy, though admirable exception has been already referred to in the person of Colonel Francis Townley. This gentleman was a member of an ancient family, and the nephew of Mr. Townley, whose seat in Townley Hall, Lancashire, lays claim to high antiquity; and yet, is modern in comparison with a former residence, once seated on what is still called the Castle Hill. Francis Townley was a man of literary acquirements, which, indeed, eminently distinguished his relative, the celebrated Charles Townley, who formed at Rome, and afterwards brought to London, the well-known collection of marbles which was bought by the Trustees of the British Museum for twenty thousand pounds; (supposed to be a sum far beneath its actual value,) and which still graces that national structure.

The family of Townley had been remarkable for their fidelity to the Stuarts long before Colonel Francis Townley raised a troop for the Chevalier. The grandfather of this unfortunate man, had been tried for rebellion, in 1715, but acquitted; it was therefore very unlikely that when his accomplished descendant espoused the same ill-starred cause, there would be any mercy shown to a family so deeply implicated in Jacobitism. Francis Townley was afterwards taken prisoner, and tried with other persons, chiefly captains in the Manchester regiment. Of these the greater number were hung on Kennington Common. The head of Colonel Townley was severed from his body, according to sentence, after death, and was placed upon Temple Bar; but those of most of his brothers in arms were preserved in spirits, and sent into the country, to be placed in public situations in Manchester and Carlisle.[109]

Prince Charles now prepared to proceed on his march to Macclesfield, while Lord George Murray was sent with his division to Congleton. The accompaniments of the Jacobite army, if we can venture to believe a letter inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1745, and purporting to be written by a lady in Preston to her friend in London, formed a singular spectacle. Four ladies of some distinction are stated in this letter to have marched with the army. These were Lady Ogilvie, Mrs. Murray of Broughton, a lady of great beauty and spirit, the celebrated Jenny Cameron, and another female, unknown, but who is supposed to have been the mistress of Sir Thomas Sheridan. The populace, nevertheless, mistook Sheridan for a priest, and assigned to him the nick-name of the "Archbishop of Canterbury." The first two ladies went in a chariot by themselves; the others were in a coach and six with the young Chevalier, to whose dejection and weariness as he passed through Preston, Jenny Cameron is said to have administered cordials. By the same writer the Jacobite army are described as looking like "hunted hares." Such is a specimen of one of the ephemeral slanders of the day; and the circumstance of the coach and six tends to disprove the whole letter. The Prince, it is evident from every isolated account, marched on foot until he entered Derby.[110] It was, however, perfectly true that Mrs. Murray of Broughton and Lady Ogilvie, whose husbands were both with the army, attended the movements of the Highland force.

And now were the merits of Lord George Murray as a General, certain very soon to be called into active play; for, on the twenty-sixth of November, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, had left London at the head of an army, to oppose the insurgents.

On the character of the royal individual who, in his twenty-fifth year came forward to rescue his country, as it was said, from the yoke of a foreign invader; and whose promising, but immature talents, backed by a great military force, were effectual in defeating the skill of an experienced General, some reflections will naturally arise.

William, Duke of Cumberland, was born in the year 1721. He very early demonstrated that predilection for military affairs which obtained for him from Walpole the praise of having been "one of the five only really great men whom he had ever seen." He very soon, also, betrayed that cruel and remorseless spirit which was wreaked on the brave and the defenceless; that indifference to suffering which too aptly was repaid by an indignant people with the name of "the Butcher;"—that thirst for blood which we read of in Heathen countries, before the commandments of the God of Israel, or the beautiful commentary of a Saviour of Mercy upon those sacred commandments, had chastened and humanized the people. Those tendencies which, whilst England was elate with success, and when she gloried in a suppressed rebellion, raised the Duke of Cumberland to a hero;—and, when reflection came, sank him to a brute; were manifested in the dawn of youth. In after years, (what extreme of odium could be greater?)—even children instinctively feared him. One day, when playing with his nephew, afterwards George the Third, a child, the Duke drew a sword to amuse him. The incident occurred long after the mouldering bones upon the field of Culloden were whitened in the sun; long after the brave Balmerino had suffered, and vengeance had revelled in the doom of the beloved Kilmarnock. But the sins of the remorseless Cumberland cried to Heaven. They were registered in the mind of a child. The boy turned pale and trembled, and acknowledged that he thought his "uncle Cumberland was going to kill him." The Duke shocked and deeply hurt, referred to popular prejudice the impression which was the result of crime.

Imperious, aspiring, independent, the grasping and able intellect of the Duke soon imbibed a knowledge of affairs beyond his years. When scarcely out of the nursery he loved the council chamber, and delighted in the recitals of foreign wars. As he reached manhood, he affected a lofty and philosophical coldness; a dangerous attribute in youth, and one which either springs from a frigid disposition, or else infallibly contracts the heart. But, in the case of the Duke of Cumberland, it concealed a proud and selfish spirit, which could ill brook the superiority of his elder brother, Frederic, Prince of Wales, or bear with temper the popularity of another. When, in after years, his brother's death was communicated to him, those jealous and disdainful feelings broke forth. "It is a great blow to the country," he said, sarcastically; "but I hope, in time, it will recover it." That want of faith in human nature, of reverence for good motives, that absence of a generous confidence which one can suppose strongly characterise the lost angels, were among the many odious features in the character of this truly bad man. The prevailing feeling of his mind was, contempt for everything and everybody;—a contempt for renown;—a contempt, in after life, for politics, which he conceived were below his attention; a contempt for women, whom he lowered by a sort of preference consistent with the rest of his coarse character, but whose modest virtues he mistrusted. With this affectation of superiority, the Duke combined the littleness of envy. When he had attained the height of his popularity, his satisfaction was tarnished by the reputation of Admiral Vernon, who was the idol of the public. As a General, his acknowledged and eminent qualities were sullied by the German puerilities of an exact attention to military trifles; any deficiency in etiquette was punished like a crime: the formation of a new pattern of spatterdashes was treated as an important event. Nor was this all. He introduced into an army of Englishmen the German notions of military severity; he fostered a system which it has taken nearly a century of great efforts, and good works in the humane, to annul. "He was," says Horace Walpole, "a Draco in legislation;" adding, "that in the Duke's amended mutiny bill the word 'Death' occurred at every clause."[111]—Such is the general colouring of his public character. A strong and sensitive feeling with regard to the national honour; a devoted reverence for the sovereign authority; which were the only principles and institutions which he seemed to respect, are the milder traits. In private, he countenanced, by his own practice, most of those vices which scarcely existed with greater impunity, or with less inconvenience from public opinion, in the days of Charles the Second, than in those in which Cumberland flourished, and left a finished model of a character without one redeeming excellence.

As a soldier, however, the merits of the Duke, if merits those can be called which were the natural effects of animal courage, and of a strong, remorseless mind, must be, at all events, acknowledged. He behaved with great gallantry in his first campaign with his royal father, and was wounded at the battle of Dettingen. At too early an age, in 1744, he was placed at the head of a great army, in order to oppose Marshal Saxe; and the event of the battle of Fontenoy proved the error. But, in that engagement, the valour of the young General was admitted on all hands. "His Royal Highness," relates the author of "The Conduct of the Officers at Fontenoy considered," "was everywhere, and could not without being on the spot have cheered that Highlander who with his broad sword killed nine men, and making a stroke at the tenth, had his arm shot off,—by a promise of something better than the arm which he, the Duke, saw drop from him."[112]

It was with the hope of retrieving the lost reputation of the Duke at Fontenoy, and in order to remedy the glaring defects of General Hawley, that this young man, old in hardened feelings, but full of ardour and courage, was sent to repel the forces of the Chevalier. It was also thought by the Government that the placing a prince of the blood-royal at the head of the army would have a powerful influence on the minds of the people, and neutralize the counter-influence of Charles Edward.[113] The Duke therefore assumed the command of an army ten thousand strong, and set out from London to intimidate the enemy.

The Duke of Cumberland was by no means so ignorant of the force which he was now destined to attack, as were most of the other "good people of England, who knew as little of their neighbours of the Scottish mountains, as they did of the inhabitants of the most remote quarter of the globe."[114] In the battle of Fontenoy, the Duke of Cumberland had become acquainted with the peculiar mode of fighting practised by the Highlanders, in the manœuvre of the "Black Watch," or 42nd; and had shown his judgment in allowing them to fight in their own way. This gallant regiment, in which many of the privates were gentlemen, were exempted at this time from the service of crushing the rebellion, only to have a duty, perhaps more cruel and more unwarrantable, forced upon them, after the battle of Culloden. By a singular circumstance, the Black Watch was commanded by Lord John Murray, a brother of Lord George Murray's, Sir Robert Munro officiating as acting colonel.[115]

At Macclesfield, Prince Charles gained the intelligence that the Duke of Cumberland had taken the command of Ligonier's army, and that he was quartered at Lichfield, Coventry, Stafford, and Newcastle-under-Line. The Prince then resolved to go direct to Derby; and it was to conceal his design, and to induce the Duke to collect his whole army at Lichfield, that Lord George Murray marched with a division of the army to Congleton, which was the road to Lichfield. Congleton, being on the borders of Staffordshire, was sufficiently near Newcastle-under-Line for Lord George to send General Ker to that place to gain intelligence of the enemy. General Ker advanced to a village about three miles from Newcastle, and very nearly surprised a body of dragoons, who had only time to make off. He took one prisoner, a man named Weir, who was a noted spy, and who had been at Edinburgh during the whole of the Prince's stay there, and had since always kept within one day's march of the army. It was proposed to hang him; but Charles could not be brought to consent to the measure, and insisted that Weir was not, strictly speaking, a spy, since he wore no disguise. "I cannot tell," observes Mr. Maxwell, "whether the Prince on this occasion was guided by his opinion or by his inclination: I suspect the latter, because it was his constant practice to spare his enemies when they were in his power. I don't believe there was an instance to the contrary to be found in this expedition."[116]

Upon the third of December, Lord George Murray with his division of the army marched by Leek to Ashbourn; and the Prince, with the rest of the forces, came from Macclesfield to Leek, where, considering the distance of the two columns of his army, and the neighbourhood of the enemy, he naturally considered his situation as somewhat precarious. It was possible for the enemy, by a night-march, to get betwixt the two columns; and, contemplating this danger, the Prince set out at midnight to Ashbourn, where it was conceived that the forces should proceed in one body towards Derby. "Thus," remarks a modern historian, "two armies in succession had been eluded by the Highlanders; that of Wade at Newcastle, in consequence of the weather or the old Marshal's inactivity, and that of Cumberland through the ingenuity of their own leaders."[117]

Charles Edward and his officers slept at Ashbourn Hall, now in the possession of Sir William Boothby, Baronet; into whose family the estate passed in the time of Charles the Second.[118]

The young Prince had now advanced far into that county which has no rival in this Island in the beauty and diversity of its scenery, in the simple, honest character of its fine peasantry, or in the rank and influence of its landed proprietors. The history of these families is connected with the civil, and foreign wars of the kingdom; and already had the moors and valleys of Derbyshire been the scene of contest which had the Restoration of the Stuarts for their aim and end. In 1644, a battle was fought near Ashbourn, in which the Royalists were defeated; in 1645, just a century before Charles Edward entered Ashbourn, Charles the First had attended service in the beautiful gothic church of Ashbourn, as he marched his army through the Peak towards Doncaster.

The inhabitants of the district retained some portion of their ancient loyalty to the Stuarts. As Prince Charles ascended the height, from which, leading towards Derby, a view of the town of Ashbourn, seated in a deep valley, and of the adjacent and romantic country, may be seen, the roads were lined with peasantry, decorated with white cockades, and showing their sentiments by loud acclamations, bonfires, and other similar demonstrations. "One would have thought," remarks Mr. Maxwell,[119] "that the Prince was now at the crisis of his adventure; that his fate, and the fate of the three kingdoms, must be decided in a few days. The Duke of Cumberland was at Lichfield; General Wade, who was moving up with his army along the west side of Yorkshire, was about this time at Ferry Bridge, within two or three days' march. So that the Prince was, with a handful of brave, indeed, but undisciplined men, betwixt two armies of regular troops, one of them above double, the other almost double, his number." It was owing to the skill and prudence of Lord George Murray that this gallant but trifling force was enabled to return to Scotland, for scarcely ever was there a handful of valiant men placed in a situation of more imminent peril.

Derby, which is fifteen miles from Ashbourn, was thrown into the utmost confusion and disorder when the news that the vanguard of the insurgent army was approaching it became generally known. "The hurry," says a contemporary writer, "was much increased by the number of soldiers, and their immediate orders to march out of town, and nothing but distraction was to be read in every countenance. The best part of the effects and valuables had been sent away or secreted some days before, and most of the principal gentlemen and tradesmen, with their wives and children, were retiring as fast as possible."[120]

The borough of Derby, although by no means so opulent when Charles Edward and his friends visited it as in the present day, presented, perhaps, a far more appropriate scene for the faint and transient shadow of a Court, than it now affords. It had, even within the memory of man, an aspect singularly dignified, important, and antique in its streets; and it still possesses many residences which are adapted for the higher orders, rather than for the industrious burgesses of a town. These are chiefly seated on the outside of the town. They were, so late as 1712, and perhaps much later, "inhabited by persons of quality, and many coaches were kept there." To the west, King's Mead, where formerly there was a monastery of the Benedictine order, is now graced by a series of stately detached residences, which, under the modernized name of Nun's Green, constitute the court end of Derby. But, interspersed in the streets, there are still many ancient tenements in which Prince Charles and his high-born adherents might find suitable accommodation.

Party feeling ran high in Derby, and most of its leading and principal denizens were Tories, and even Jacobites. It was in Derby that Henry Sacheverell preached his famous sermon, on "Communication of Sin." This literary firebrand was first thrown out to the High-Church party in 1709, when the High Sheriff, George Sacheverell, of Callow, was attended by Dr. Henry Sacheverell as his chaplain, and the walls of All Saints Church resounded with the denunciations of that vehement, and ill-judging man. The seed that was thus sown fell into a land fertile in High Church propensities; the Grand Jury intreated Dr. Sacheverell to print his discourse; and, eventually, when they considered that, by the mild sentence given against their Preacher on his trial, they had gained a triumph, bonfires proclaimed their joy, in the market-place of that town, where the warfare of Sacheverell had first begun.

On the accession of George the First, and when the Chevalier landed in Scotland, fresh manifestations of the Jacobite party broke forth. The Church of All Saints was again the scene of its display. Three principal clergymen in the town openly espoused the Stuart cause. Sturges, the Rector of All Saints, prayed openly for "King James"—but, after a moment's pause, said, "I mean King George." "The congregation became tumultuous; the military gentlemen drew their swords, and ordered him out of the pulpit, into which he never returned."[121] Perhaps the event which tended most to quiet the spirit of Jacobitism among the lower classes in the town, was the erection of silk mills, in 1717. Nothing tranquillises extreme views in politics more surely than employment; few things attach men's minds to a Government more, than efforts crowned with success. Notwithstanding the memory of Sacheverell, a Whig member had been returned, in the last election, for the borough; the great merits and influence of the House of Cavendish overpowering the uproarious Tories, who, in vain, broke windows, and attacked their enemies. But discontent again broke forth. The winter of 1745 found the whole nation in a state of suffering and discontent; and many of the constitutional securities for liberty and property had been given up, in order to secure the stability of the throne. Taxation had been imposed, in the worst and most unpopular form, that of excise duties, in order to maintain an expensive Court, and to pay for Continental wars, which were maintained to preserve the hereditary German possessions of the King. Yet, in spite of these crying evils, such is the difficulty of inducing Englishmen to incur the risk of forfeiture and disaster, that even the town of Derby had diligently provided itself with a defence against the Chevalier's divided forces, on hearing of their approach.

During the month of September 1745, in consequence of instructions from London, the Duke of Devonshire, attended by the greatest appearance of gentlemen ever seen in the town before, assembled the clergy, in order to consider of such measures as were necessary for the support of the Government. An association was entered into, and sums were liberally contributed, after a splendid dinner, at that ungrateful inn, the George, which, during the sojourn of Charles Edward at Derby, changed its sign, into the safe and ambiguous title of the King's Head. Two companies of volunteers, of six hundred men each, were raised by the association. A proposal to call out the county militia was vehemently negatived, probably from that spirit of distrust which pervaded the councils of King George's Government. By an order in council, passed in the previous September, all Roman Catholics had been prohibited from keeping a horse of above five pounds in value, and restrained from going five miles from their dwellings. It was, therefore, deemed advisable to select the volunteer forces from the well-affected, and not to employ the militia of a county so manifestly disposed to foster the young adventurer as Derbyshire was at that time considered. During the month of November, a great degree of alarm had disturbed the burgesses of Derby; and from the communications of the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord-Lieutenant of the county, to the Mayor, it appears that the young Chevalier completely baffled the Duke of Cumberland and General Wade, by his rapid movement into the very heart of England.[122]

So late as the twelfth of December, the Duke of Devonshire and his eldest son, the Marquis of Hartington, were stationed at the George Inn, to watch the event of the coming storm, and to concert means for averting the threatened danger. Some days previously, the Duke had reviewed a company of six hundred volunteers, together with one hundred and twenty men raised at his own expense; and those townsmen, who were not Jacobites, were in high spirits, concluding that the Duke of Cumberland must have overtaken and attacked the insurgents. On the evening of the twelfth, the soldiers were summoned to the market-place, where they stood for some hours; they were then sent to quarters to refresh themselves; about ten the drums beat to arms, and, being again drawn out, these valiant defenders of the Borough marched out of the town, by torch-light, towards Nottingham, headed by the Duke of Devonshire.

On the following morning, about eleven, two of the vanguard of the insurgent army rode into the town; and, after seizing a very good horse, belonging to a Mr. Stamford, went to the George Inn, and there inquiring for the magistrates, they demanded billets for nine thousand men, or more.

In a short time afterwards, the vanguard itself rode into the town; this detachment consisted of about thirty men; they are described in the account of a cotemporary writer, probably an eye witness, as "likely men," making a good appearance, in blue regimentals faced with red, with scarlet waistcoats trimmed with gold lace. They posted themselves in the Market-place, where they rested for two or three hours; at the same time bells were rung, and bonfires made upon the pretext of "preventing any resentment" from the rebels that might ensue upon a cold reception. About midday, Lord George Murray, Lord Elcho, and several other chiefs arrived, with troops to the number of one hundred and fifty, the flower of the army, who made "a fine show." Soon afterwards the main body marched into the town in tolerable order, six or eight abreast, with about eight standards, most of them having a white flag with a red cross. But the appearance of the main body was totally different to that of the vanguard, and justified the contemptuous opinion and expectations formed by the loyal inhabitants of Derby, of their coming foe. As they marched along, the sound of their bagpipes was heard, for the first time, in the crowded and ancient streets of the borough; but the dress and bearing of these brave, but ill-accoutred men excited the derision of the thriving population of an important country town. They were, says the writer in the Derby Mercury of the day, "a parcel of shabby, pitiful looking fellows, mixed up with old men and boys, dressed in dirty plaids, and as dirty shirts, without breeches, and wore their stockings, made of plaid, not half way up their legs, and some without their shoes, or next to none, and numbers of them so fatigued with their long march, that they really commanded our pity more than our fear."[123]

About five in the evening, when it was nearly dark, the Prince, with the other column, arrived. He walked on foot, attended by a great body of men, to a house appointed for his reception, belonging to Lord Exeter, and seated in Full-street. Here guards were placed around the temporary abode of the Prince; and here, during his stay at Derby, he held his councils.

"Every house," adds the writer before quoted, "was pretty well filled (though they kept driving in till ten or eleven at night), and we thought we should never have seen the last of them. The Duke of Atholl had his lodgings at Thomas Gisborne's, Esq.; the Duke of Perth at Mr. Rivett's; Lord Elcho at Mr. Storer's; Lord Pitsligo at Mr. Meynell's; Lord George Murray at Mr. Heathcote's; Old Gordon, of Glenbucket, at Mr. Alderman Smith's; Lord Nairn at Mr. John Bingham's; Lady Ogilvie, Mrs. Murray, and some other persons of distinction at Mr. Francey's; and their chiefs and great officers were lodged in the best gentlemen's houses.[124] Many ordinary houses both public and private, had forty or fifty men each, and some gentlemen near one hundred."

The Prince, upon his arrival at Derby, resolved to halt for one day, and to take the advice of his council what was to be done at this juncture. His hopes were high, and his confidence in the good-will of the people of England to his cause was unabated. He continued to entertain the notion that George the Second was an usurper, for whom no man would willingly draw his sword; that "the people of England, as was their duty, still nourished that allegiance for the race of their native Princes which they were bound to hold sacred, and that if he did but persevere in his daring attempt, Heaven itself would fight in his cause." His conversation, when at table, beneath the roof of Exeter House, turned on the discussion "how he should enter London, whether on foot, or on horseback, or whether in Highland or in Lowland garb."[125] Nor was Charles Edward singular in his sanguine state of mind. It was observed, says Mr. Maxwell, "that the army never was in better spirits than while at Derby."[126]

The judgment which Lord George Murray had formed at Manchester, remained, however, unaltered by all these expectations. On the following morning, when the council met, he represented to the Prince that they had marched so far into the country, depending on French succours, or on an insurrection, neither of which had taken place; that the Prince's army, by itself, was wholly unprepared to face the troops which the "Elector of Hanover," as Lord George denominated him, had assembled. Besides General Wade's army, which was coming to oppose them, and that of the Duke of Cumberland, forming together a force of between seventeen and eighteen thousand strong, there was a third army, encamped on Finchley Common, of which George the Second was going to take the command in person. Even supposing that the Prince should be successful in an engagement with one of these armies, "he might be undone by a victory." The loss of one thousand or fifteen hundred men would incapacitate the rest of his small force from another encounter; and supposing that he was routed in that country, he and all his friends must unavoidably be killed. On the whole, including the army formed at London, there would be a force of thirty thousand men to oppose an army of five thousand fighting men; that before such a host, pursued Lord George,[127] "it could not be supposed one man could escape; for the militia, who had not appeared much against us hitherto, would, upon our defeat, possess all the roads, and the enemy's horse would surround us on all hands; that the whole world would blame us as being rash and foolish, to venture a thing that could not succeed, and the Prince's person, should he escape being killed in the battle, must fall into the enemy's hands."

"His Royal Highness," continues Lord George Murray in his narrative, "had no regard to his own danger, but pressed with all the force of argument to go forward. He did not doubt but the justness of his cause would prevail, and he could not think of retreating after coming so far; and he was hopeful there might be a defection in the enemy's army, and that several would declare for him. He was so very bent on putting all to the risk, that the Duke of Perth was for it, since his Royal Highness was. At last, he proposed going to Wales, instead of returning to Carlisle, but every other officer declared his opinion for a retreat, which some thought would be scarce practicable. I said all that I thought of to persuade the retreat, and, indeed, the arguments to me seemed unanswerable; and for the danger, though I owned an army upon a retreat did not fight with equal valour as when they advanced, yet, if the thing were agreed to, I offered to make the retreat, and be always in the rear myself; and that each regiment would take it by turns till we came to Carlisle; and that the army should march in such order, that if I were attacked, I might be supported as occasion required, and without stopping the army (except a very great body of the enemy should be upon me), I would send aide-de-camps to desire such assistance as I should judge the occasion would require; but that I really believed there would be no great danger; for, as we were informed, the Duke of Cumberland was at Stafford, and would in all appearance, that night or next morning, be drawing near London to intercept us, so that if our design were not mentioned till next morning that it should be put in execution, we would be got to Ashbourn before he could have certain information of our design to retreat."

The Prince, who was naturally bold and enterprising, and who had been hitherto successful in every thing, was indignant at this. Since he had set out from Edinburgh, he had never had a thought but of going on, and fighting everything in his way to London. He had the highest idea of the bravery of his own men, and a despicable opinion of his enemies, and hitherto with good reason; and he was confirmed in these notions by some of those that were nearest his person; these sycophants, more intent upon securing his favour than promoting his interest, "were eternally saying whatever they thought would please, and never hazarded a disagreeable truth."[128]

A connected narrative of the proceedings in council has been given by Lord Elcho; and, at the risk of some recapitulations, it is here inserted, not having been previously published entire.

"The fifth, in the morning, Lord George Murray, and all the commanders of battalions and squadrons, waited on the Prince, and Lord George told him that it was the opinion of every body present that the Scots had now done all that could be expected of them. That they had marched into the heart of England, ready to join any party that would declare for him. That none had done so, and that the counties through which the army had passed had seemed much more enemies, than friends, to his cause. That there were no French landed in England; and that if there was any party in England for him, it was very odd that they had never so much as either sent him money or intelligence, or the least advice what to do. But if he could produce any letter from any person of distinction, in which there was an invitation for the army to go to London, or to any other part of England, that they were ready to go; but if nobody had either invited them, or meddled in the least in their affairs, it was to be supposed that there was either no party at all, or, if there was, they did not choose to act with them, or else they would ere now have let him know it. Suppose even the army marched on and beat the Duke of Cumberland, yet, in the battle they must lose some men; and they had, after that, the king's own army, consisting of seven hundred men, near London to deal with. On the contrary, if either of these armies beat them, there would not a man escape; as the militia, although they durst never face the army while in a body, yet they would have courage enough to put an end to them if ever they were routed; and so the people that were in armies in Scotland would fall an easy sacrifice to the fury of the Government. Again, suppose the army was to slip the King's and Duke's army, and get into London, the success of the affair would entirely depend on the mob's declaring for or against it; and that if the mob had been much inclined to his cause since his march into England, to be sure some of his friends in London would have fallen upon some method to let him know it; but if the mob was against the affair, four thousand five hundred men would not make a great figure in London. Lord George concluded by saying, that the Scots army had done their part; that they came into England at the Prince's request, to join his English friends, and to give them courage by their appearance to take arms and declare for him publicly, as they had done, or to join the French if they had landed. But as none of these things had happened, that certainly four thousand five hundred Scots had never thought of putting a king on the English throne by themselves. So he said his opinion was, they should go back and join their friends in Scotland, and live and die with them.

"After Lord George had spoken, all the rest of the gentlemen present spoke their sentiments, and they all agreed with Lord George except two (the Duke of Perth and Sir William Gordon), who were for going to Wales to see if the Welsh would join.

"The Prince heard all these arguments with the greatest impatience, fell into a passion, and gave most of the gentlemen that had spoke very abusive language; and said they had a mind to betray him. The case was, he knew nothing about the country, nor had the smallest idea of the force that was against him, nor how they were situated." Fully convinced that the regular army would never dare to fight against him, and trusting to the consciences of men more than to the broad sword of his army, he always believed that he should enter St. James's with as little difficulty as he had done Holyrood-house. "He continued," says Lord Elcho, "all that day positive he would march to London. The Irish in the army were always for what he was for, and were heard to say, that day, 'that they knew if they escaped being killed, the worst that could happen to them was a few months imprisonment.'"

The reluctance of the unfortunate and brave young Chevalier was increased by the evident ardour which his men, in the expectation of an engagement with the Duke of Cumberland, were at that very instant displaying, whilst the arguments which sealed Charles Edward's fate, resounded within the walls of Exeter-house. The Highlanders, whose heroism balanced the inequality of the respective forces, breathed nothing but a desire for the combat. They were to be seen, during all that eventful day, in crowds before the shops of the cutlers, quarrelling who should be the first to get their swords sharpened.[129] In the very midst of the discussions, a courier arrived from Lord John Drummond, informing the Prince that he had landed at Montrose with his regiment, the Scottish Brigade, newly raised in France, and some pickets of the Irish Brigade, the rest of which would probably be in Scotland before the letter reached the Prince.[130] But this favourable intelligence, far from lessening the desire of Lord George to secure a retreat, rather increased his determination to uphold that resolution; and emboldened him to unfold to Charles Edward a plan for a Scottish campaign, which, he thought, might be prosecuted with advantage. In retreating to Scotland, the Prince, he argued, would have the advantage of retiring upon his reinforcements, which included the Highlanders at Perth, and the succours brought by Lord John Drummond. He concluded his address by a request, in the name of the persons present, that they should go back and join their friends in Scotland, to live or die with their countrymen.

Two councils were held upon this important subject, for in the afternoon the Prince convened another, to consider of the advices which the courier sent by Lord John Drummond had brought. "The debates," observes the Chevalier Johnstone, "were very keen." The Prince obstinately insisted upon giving battle to the Duke of Cumberland on the next day, the sixth; but he stood alone in that opinion. The Chiefs of Clans, who, since the council held at Perth, had never opposed the Prince in anything, feeling that they had now advanced too far to retreat, nevertheless opposed the march to London. They pointed to the coldness with which the insurgent army had hitherto been received; and asked how, supposing by some miracle the forces were to reach London, an army of four thousand men would appear among a population of a million people? The Prince still insisted upon marching to London; he even opposed the retreat, on the ground of the immense risk. The Duke of Cumberland, he contended, would pursue them hotly, and be always at their heels. Marshal Wade, he remarked, would certainly receive orders to intercept the army, so that they would "be placed between two fires, and caught as it were, in a net."

This argument was met by the assurances which have been already stated in Lord George Murray's own language—that he would manage the retreat, taking always the rear. That he ably and effectually fulfilled that promise, was shown in the result.

At length the Prince, finding the greater part of the council was of Lord George's opinion, and deserted even by the Duke of Perth, who, after for long time resting his head on the fire-place in silence, accorded loudly with the Clans, consented to the retreat. This assent, wrung from him, was given with these bitter words,—"Rather than go back," exclaimed the high-spirited young man, "I would wish to be twenty feet under ground.[131] Henceforth," he added, haughtily, "I will hold no more Councils, for I am accountable to no one for my actions, except to my father."

The usual double-dealing, and factious contention of party, succeeded this painful scene in the council. "After the council was dismissed," says Mr. Maxwell,[132] "some of those who had voted against the retreat, and the Secretary, who had spoken warmly for it in private conversation with the Prince, condemned this resolution, and endeavoured to instil some suspicion of the courage and fidelity of those who had promoted it. The Prince was easily persuaded that he had been too complaisant in consenting to a retreat, but would not retract the consent he had given, unless he could bring back those to whom he had given it over to his own sentiments; which he hoped he might be able to do, since the Secretary had altered his opinion. With this view he called another meeting of the Council, in the evening, but found all the rest, to a man, firm in their former sentiments; upon which, the Prince gave up a second time his own opinion and inclination, to the advice and desire of his Council."

The character of one individual was, however, elicited in this affair. "From this time," observes Mr. Maxwell,[133] "the Secretary ceased to be in odour of sanctity with those that were not highly prejudiced in his favour. The little knave appeared plainly in his conduct on this occasion. He argued strenuously for the retreat, because he thought it the only prudent measure, till he found it was carried by a great majority, and would certainly take place; and then he condemned it, to make his court to the Prince, to whom it was disagreeable, and lay the odium upon other people, particularly Lord George, whom he endeavoured to blacken on every occasion." Some people will wonder that this bare-faced conduct did not open the Prince's eyes as to the baseness of Secretary Murray's heart; "but," says Maxwell, "if we consider that Murray was in the highest degree of favour, the steps by which he rose to it, and the arts he used to maintain himself and exclude everybody that could come in competition with him, he will easily conceive how he got the better of any suspicions his behaviour might have created at this time."

The question, whether the arguments of Lord George Murray were guided by wisdom, or whether they might be better characterised as the result of a cold, and, in this case, unworthy prudence, has been very differently canvassed.

"There are not a few," observes Mr. Maxwell, "who still think the Prince would have carried his point had he gone on from Derby; they build much upon the confusion there was at London, and the panic which prevailed among the Elector's troops at this juncture.[134] It is impossible to decide with any degree of certainty, whether he would or would not have succeeded,—that depended upon the disposition of the Army and of the City of London, ready to declare for the Prince. What could he do with four thousand four hundred men, suppose he got to London, whatever were the dispositions of the Army and the City? It is certain the Prince had no intelligence from either. This leads me to examine the conduct of the Prince's friends in England. The cry was general against them about this time in the Prince's army, and they are still exclaimed against by foreigners, who, having but a very superficial knowledge of these affairs, conclude that either the English are all become Hanoverians, or, if there are still some that have an English heart, they must be strangely degenerated, since they did not lay hold of this opportunity of shaking off the German yoke. Though I am convinced the Prince had a great many well-wishers in England, and though it is my opinion he would have succeeded had they all declared for him, nevertheless I cannot join in the cry against them, no more than I can condemn abundance of his friends in Scotland who did not join him. I have told elsewhere upon what a slender foundation this expedition was undertaken. Murray had imposed upon the Prince, and hurried him into it, without concerting anything with England. The English had always insisted upon a body of regular troops, not under seven and not above twelve thousand effective men. They saw the Prince in England with a handful of militia, which they could never think a match for thirty thousand regular troops. It is true the English have, in former times, taken arms upon less encouragement and less provocation than they had met with of late; but in those days the common people were accustomed to arms, and the insurgents were as good soldiers as any that could be brought against them."

Such is the reasoning of an eye-witness. One thing is certain, contemporary writers appear to have generally acquiesced in the propriety of the retreat; and that circumstance constitutes the strongest evidence in favour of the step. Yet, viewing events at this distance of time, and taking into account the panic which seized, not only the public mind, but which affected the heads of the Government on hearing of the bold and rapid march of the insurgents, our faith in the wisdom of a retreat is weakened. In the night when it was announced in the fashionable circles of St. James's that the Prince had reached Derby, a general consternation was diffused throughout society. A lady of the highest rank, who was in one of the assemblies of the day, related to one of her descendants that upon the intelligence reaching the party where she was, the rooms were instantly cleared, and on the following morning there was not a carriage to be seen in London.

Nor were these apprehensions confined to any particular sphere.[135] The arrival of the troops at Derby was known in London on the ninth of December, henceforth called by the English "Black Monday." Many of the inhabitants fled in terror from the metropolis, taking their treasures with them; the shops were closed: people thronged to the bank to obtain payment of its notes, and it only escaped bankruptcy by the following stratagem. Those who came first being entitled to priority of payment, the managers of the bank took care to be surrounded by agents with notes, to whom their pretended claims were paid in sixpences to gain time. These agents went out by one door and came back by another, so that the bona fide holders of notes could never get near enough to present them; and the bank stood out by these means until the panic had died away. King George even embarked all his most precious effects on his yachts, which were stationed in the Tower-quay, in readiness to convey him away, should the dreaded Highlanders, as it now began to be generally expected, march to London in a few days. The "moneyed corporations," according to Smollett, were all in the deepest dejection; they reflected that the Highlanders, of whom they had conceived a most terrible idea, were within four days' march of the capital; they anticipated a revolution ruinous to their own prosperity, and were overwhelmed with dismay.

"I was assured," writes the Chevalier Johnstone, (who differed from his General, Lord George,) "on good authority, when I was in London, some time after our unfortunate defeat, that the Duke of Newcastle, then Secretary of State for the War Department, remained inaccessible in his own house the whole of the 6th of December, weighing in his mind the part which it would be most prudent for him to take, and even uncertain whether he should not instantly declare himself for the Pretender. It was even said at London, that fifty thousand men had actually left that city to meet the Prince and join his army, and every body in the capital was of opinion, that, if we had beaten the Duke of Cumberland, the army of Finchley Common would have dispersed of its own accord, and that by advancing rapidly to London, we might have taken possession of that city without the least resistance from the inhabitants, and without exchanging a single shot with the soldiers. Thus a revolution would have been effected in England, so glorious for the few Scotchmen by whom it was attempted, and altogether so surprising, that the world would not have comprehended it. It is true, the English were altogether ignorant of the number of our army, from the care we took in our marches to conceal it; and it was almost impossible for their spies ever to discover it, as we generally arrived in the towns at nightfall, and left them before the break of day. In all the English newspapers our numbers were uniformly stated as high as twelve or fifteen thousand men. Under such circumstances, some temporary advantages might have been gained by marching southwards; for it is now believed that the Jacobite party in England were much more numerous than we have generally understood; and that thousands would have flocked to the standard of Charles Edward had he been accompanied by a sufficient force to authorise the expectation of his success."

The British administration was, it is true, devoid of men of talent or principle, and discontent and distress prevailed in the country. In the City of London, the Jacobite party was very strong; its member was Alderman Heathcote, who, with Sir Watkin Williams Wynn, had announced to Lord Temple his determination to rise immediately upon a landing of troops from France.[136] The prevalence of Jacobite principles among the English gentry is supposed to have infected many officers in the royal army, who might have avowed them at any crisis in the public affairs; many were, at all events, suspected of Jacobite principles; "and the mere suspicion," remarks Lord Mahon, "would have produced nearly the same effects as the reality,—bewilderment, distrust, and vacillation in the chiefs." "Had, then, the Highlanders combined to push forward," observes this able writer, "must not the increasing terror have palsied all power of resistance? Would not the little army at Finchley, with so convenient a place for dispersing as the capital behind it, have melted away at their approach?"

In confirmation of this surmise may be quoted an anecdote which is related of a company of the celebrated Black Watch, which had been exempted during the insurrection of 1745 from serving against their countrymen; more than three hundred of the regiment having brothers and relations engaged in the Jacobite army.[137] But it was afterwards employed on a service which might well have been assigned to others;—to execute the decrees of burning, and to lay waste the districts where the forefathers of these brave men had lived. On marching one company of this famous regiment out of London, the Highlanders, on arriving at Hounslow, suddenly became immovable; they halted, and refused to proceed, or to bear arms against their countrymen. Their commanders, in dismay, turned to the chaplain of the regiment, to use his influence. The clergyman then in office happened to be Ferguson, the celebrated astronomer. He mounted on a temporary rostrum or pulpit, harangued the Highlanders, and, after an emphatic address, prevailed on them to march forward.

Such were some of the difficulties which the English Government encountered. To this may be added, the defenceless state of the coasts of Kent and Essex. The French ministers were now in "the very crisis of decision as to their projected expedition." The preparations at Dunkirk were completed; and had Charles Edward, by advancing, shown that such aid was only a secondary matter in his favour, their fleet would have set sail. Besides, the Jacobites in England were by no means in so apathetic and subdued a condition as that which has been generally represented.[138]

"I believe then," emphatically remarks Lord Mahon, "that had Charles marched onward from Derby he might have gained the British throne; but I am far from thinking that he would long have held it."

"Whether he (Charles Edward)," says Sir Walter Scott, "ought ever to have entered England, at least without collecting all the forces which he could command, is a very disputable point; but it was clear, that whatever influence he might for a time possess, arose from the boldness of his advance. The charm, however, was broken the moment he showed, by a movement in retreat, that he had undertaken an enterprise too difficult for him to achieve."[139]

In the opinion of the Chevalier Johnstone, whose judgment was formed under the influence of Lord George Murray, much of the failure of the expedition was owing to the inactivity of Lord John Drummond, who ought, according to his statement, to have advanced by forced marches to the assistance of Prince Charles. Nor was this the only error of that zealous, but inexperienced general: through his representations, the false intelligence that an army of ten thousand men was awaiting him in Scotland, was conveyed to the Prince; the disembarkation of this force was continually and confidently expected. "The first thing we did in the morning," says Chevalier Johnstone, "was to see whether the wind was favourable;" and this delusive expectation had a very great influence in deciding the resolution taken at Derby to retreat to Scotland.

Whatever were the reasons which actuated the council of war, the result was, in the first instance, both painful to those who promoted the decision of the question, and highly obnoxious to the army. Arrangements were, however, made to keep the proposed retreat as secret as possible, both in order to baffle the Duke of Cumberland and not to irritate the Highlanders. Yet the design was soon penetrated by those who were intent upon every movement of their superiors. Lord George Murray, in his journal, describes the sensation which the projected retreat occasioned, in the following terms.[140] "Our resolution was to be kept secret, as it was of great consequence the enemy should have the intelligence of our march as late as possible. Yet, in the afternoon, one Sir John Macdonald, an Irish officer in the French service who had come over with the Prince, came where Lochiel, and Keppoch and I were talking together, and railed a great deal about our retreat. 'What!' says he to Keppoch, 'a Macdonald turn his back?' and to Lochiel, 'For shame; a Cameron run away from the enemy! Go forward, and I'll lead you.' This gentleman was old, and had dined heartily, for he was much subject to his bottle: we endeavoured to persuade him that he was mistaken, but he still insisted, and said he had certain information of it. To tell the truth, I believe he liked his quarters and entertainment better in England than in Scotland, and would rather have been taken than return; for he thought, as he was in the French service, he did not run the same risk as others did. Some people, seeing the Prince so much cast down about the retreat, to ingratiate themselves, blamed the resolution; and though they had in the morning, as much as any body, given their hearty concurrence in the measure, and had exprest themselves so; yet, as they saw the retreat would certainly be put in execution, though they appeared against it, they thought proper to say that their reason for agreeing to it was because they knew the army would never fight well when the officers were against it. Sir Thomas Sheridan and his Royal Highness's secretary acted this part. And the Duke of Atholl, who had not been present in the morning, when the Prince sent for him in the afternoon, and spoke to him, seemed much for going forwards. In the evening, when this was understood by the rest of the officers, they told his Royal Highness that they valued their lives as little as brave men ought to do; and if he inclined to go forward they would do their duty to the last, but desired that those that advised his Royal Highness to go forward would sign their opinion, which would be a satisfaction to them. This put a stop to all underhand dealings, and the Duke of Atholl when he heard others upon the same subject, was fully satisfied as to the necessity of the measure."

The town of Derby presented, during its occupation by the Jacobites, a singular scene. The Highlanders, hitherto maintaining a character for good order, now broke loose upon the townsmen of a city, which they, perhaps, began to consider as their own. They took the opportunity of replenishing themselves with gloves, buckles, powder-flasks, handkerchiefs, &c., which they demanded from the tradespeople, whose shops they entered. Being refreshed with a good night's rest, they ran about from house to house, until the town looked as if it were the resort of some Highland fair. "If they liked a person's shoes better than their own," relates a contemporary writer, "nothing was more common for them than to demand them off their feet, and not to give them anything, or what they asked for them." This insolence grew upon the forbearance of the townsmen, who dared not to resist martial law. Even the medical profession did not escape an unwilling participation in the concerns of the Jacobites. Dr. Hope, a physician residing in the town, and a member of the highly-respectable family there, was summoned to attend one of the sojourners in Exeter-house. The tradition which has preserved this anecdote among the descendants of Dr. Hope, has not specified the name of the invalid. The physician was told that he must go instantly: he was blindfolded, and led by armed men into the presence of his patient, without knowing whither he was conducted; a precaution, it may be presumed, adopted to prevent a refusal.

The church of All Saints witnessed what its Protestant ministers must have viewed with indignation and sorrow. Prayers were ordered to be said at six o'clock in the evening, when a Roman Catholic clergyman entered the sacred edifice, and performed the service according to the ritual of his church.[141]

In addition to these impolitic acts of a short-lived power, proclamations were made by the Town Crier, levying the excise duties; and a demand of one hundred pounds was made upon the post-office. In other quarters, even these forms were omitted, and plunder and outrage, which, says the author of the Derby Mercury, "were they to be stated would fill our paper," were mercilessly committed. Nevertheless, such was the tendency of the town of Derby to Jacobite principles, that, among the higher orders, the brief appearance of the young and unfortunate adventurer was long remembered with interest, and his fate recalled with regret. The ladies of Derby vied with each other in making white cockades, of delicate and costly workmanship, to present to the hero of the day. To some of these admiring votaries he presented his picture, a dangerous gift in after-times, when a strict system of scrutiny prevailed; and when even to be suspected of Jacobite principles was an effectual barrier to all promotion in offices, and a severe injury to those in trade. One of these Jacobite ladies[142] is known by her family to have kept the portrait of the Prince behind the door of her bedchamber, carefully veiled from any but friendly inspection.

Early on the morning of Friday, the sixth of December, the drums beat to arms, and the bagpipes were heard playing in different parts of the town: the forces, it was expected by the townsmen, were thus summoned to continue their march to Loughborough, a town full of Jacobites, who were known to have been pledging the young adventurer's health on their bare and bended knees.[143] The retreat was begun in such haste, and attended with such confusion, that many of the Highlanders left their arms behind them, where they were quartered.

At nine o'clock, Prince Charles, in deep dejection, was seen mounted on a black horse, which had belonged to the brave Colonel Gardiner;—to quit Exeter-house, and, crossing the market-place, to proceed to Broken-row; he then turned through Sadler Gate, towards Ashbourn; he was followed by the main body of his army. Before eleven o'clock, Derby, so lately resembling, in its busy streets, the animated scene of a Highland fair, was totally cleared of all the Highland troops. But the consternation of the inhabitants paralyzed them. On that day no market was held, as usual; nor did the bells toll to church on the next Sunday; nor was divine service performed in any of the numerous and fine churches which grace the town.[144]

The retreat, thus begun under such inauspicious circumstances, was left solely to the guidance of the General who had so earnestly recommended it; and Lord George Murray took the sole management of it. In the dawn of the morning, when some of the troops had begun their march, the Highlanders did not perceive in which direction they were marching; they believed that they were going to give the Duke of Cumberland battle. When they discovered that they were in retreat, a murmur of lamentation ran through the ranks. "The inferior officers," Lord Elcho relates,[145] "were much surprised when they found the army moving back, and imagined some bad news had been received; but, when they were told everything, and found the army had marched so far into England without the least invitation from any Englishman of distinction, they blamed their superiors much for carrying them so far, and approved much of going back to Scotland. They had all along imagined they were marching to join the English, and were acting in concert with them. To the common men it was given out the army was going to meet their friends from Scotland, and to prevent Marshal Wade from getting in between them, whose army was at Wetherby and Doncaster."

The influence, however, of these contradictory reports upon the common men was soon conspicuous. The march was at first regular enough; but the whole bearing of the Highlanders was changed. Dispirited and indignant, they became reckless in their conduct: they lingered on the way, and committed outrages of which but few instances had been heard during their march southwards. Lord George Murray found it difficult to keep his army together. "In the advance," observes Sir Walter Scott, "they showed the sentiments of brave men, come, in their opinion, to liberate their fellow-citizens; in the retreat, they were caterans, returning from a creagh." The cause which they had adopted, had lost, from this moment, all hope, though the mournful interest attached to it still remained, perhaps, with increasing force.

In order to conceal the retreat as long from the enemy as possible, a party of horse was ordered to advance some miles in the direction of Lichfield, where the Duke of Cumberland was posted; and, to keep up the delusion, powder was distributed among the army. It was also insinuated that Wade was at hand, and that they were going to fight him; but when the soldiers found themselves on the road to Ashbourn they suspected the truth, and became still more sullen and dejected. Another artifice adopted to raise their spirits was a report, circulated purposely among them, that the reinforcements expected from Scotland were on their road, and that having met these, near Preston the army would resume its march southwards. This project, however distasteful to Lord George Murray, was, it seems, seriously entertained by the Prince.

And now commenced the difficulties of that undertaking in which Lord George had pledged himself to conduct an army of little more than six thousand men, in the depth of winter, in safety to Scotland, although in the neighbourhood of two great armies. The management of this retreat has been a subject of admiration to all competent judges of military affairs; it has conferred lasting honour on the capacity of Lord George Murray as a General.

It was of the greatest importance, under his circumstances, that Lord George should know of the movements and intentions of the enemy; and such was his system, such his address, in employing spies and emissaries, that he was always informed of what took place in the armies of the Duke and General Wade. One of his principal agents was Hewett, a butcher in Derby; who, from his local knowledge, could tell many particulars of the country-gentlemen, as well as of the movements of the Duke and his formidable forces.[146]

The Highland army arrived on the night of the sixth at Ashbourn, on the following day they reached Leek, on the ninth they arrived at Manchester, where a great revulsion of feeling had taken place. The "Hanoverian mob," to use the expression of Mr. Maxwell, were determined to dispute the Prince's entrance; but when his vanguard appeared, these noisy heroes were instantly silenced.[147] From Manchester the Prince proceeded to Wigan, and thence to Preston, where he halted on the twelfth. Here the disappointed young man recurred to his cherished project, that of having reinforcements sent from Scotland, under Viscount Strathallan, who had been left in command at Perth, and those also under Lord John Drummond. Upon his arrival at Preston, he sent the Duke of Perth into Scotland to bring them with the utmost expedition. He was resolved to retire no further until he met them, and then to march directly for London, casting his whole chance of success upon the event of that step.

Among the generals and chiefs of this army a different sentiment had now arisen. A safe retreat was their object, and the subject of universal attention. Hitherto there had been little or no danger; it was impossible for the enemy to overtake the army before it had reached Preston; but between Preston and Carlisle it was practicable for the enemy's cavalry to come up with the Prince's army during that march. There was even a greater danger to be apprehended than the pursuit of the Duke. Marshal Wade had left his position at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, having been ordered by the Duke to place himself between the insurgent forces and Scotland, in order to cut off the retreat. There were in those days but few roads, or even passes in the mountainous regions of Cumberland and Westmoreland, by which a regular army could march. There was, however, an excellent road from Newcastle to Penrith, a town through which Wade might march his army, and where he could arrive a day or two before the Prince, and intercept his retreat.

On the fifteenth the Prince arrived at Kendal, and here Lord George Murray, taking a body of life-guards, went in person to reconnoitre the position of the enemy. He brought back several prisoners, who gave him all the information of which he was desirous. From what was thus gathered, Lord George perceived that the whole cavalry of Wade's army might possibly overtake the Highland forces before they could reach Carlisle; he therefore represented to the Prince the propriety of sacrificing the cannon and heavy baggage to the safety of the men; since the mountainous journey from Kendal to Penrith rendered the transit of such carriages very difficult. But the Prince was determined that his retreat should have the air of retiring, not of flying; he was resolved not to leave a single piece of his cannon; he would rather fight both armies than give such a proof of weakness. He issued peremptory orders that the march should be continued as before, and that not a single carriage should be left at Kendal.

The dissensions between Charles Edward and Lord George Murray had now ripened into reproaches on the one hand, answered by something not unlike taunts on the other. The former had cherished a predilection for battles ever since his victory at Glandsmuir, and he often broke out into expressions of anger towards his General, for his having prevented his fighting the Duke of Cumberland at Derby. As they quitted Kendal, Lord George observed to Charles, "Since your Royal Highness is always for battles, be the circumstances what they may; I now offer you one, in three hours from this time, with the army of Marshal Wade, who is only three miles distant from this place." The Prince made no reply, but mounted into his carriage. All his ardour in marching at the head of the Clans was gone; he had become listless, careless, and dejected since the retreat. The army were dispirited by his gloomy and mournful aspect; and a still greater degree of difficulty and responsibility devolved therefore upon their General. On the sixteenth of December the army slept at Shap, and on the seventeenth the Prince arrived at Penrith; but the artillery, and the regiment of the Macdonalds of Glengarry, could only reach Shap by nightfall.

On the following morning Lord George proceeded towards Penrith. Scarcely had he begun his march when he saw a number of the enemy's light horse hovering about, but not venturing within musket-shot. About midday, as the Highland army began to ascend an eminence about half-way between Shap and Penrith, they discovered cavalry riding two and two abreast on the top of the hill. These instantly disappeared, but the noise of the kettle-drums and trumpets announced that they were only on the other side of the hill, and that they were probably forming in order of battle. Lord George was in the rear of the Highland army.

The advanced guard stopped at the foot of the hill, when suddenly they formed a resolution to advance sword in hand on the enemy, without informing Lord George of their resolution. On arriving at the summit of the hill, the party whose kettle-drums and trumpets had caused such an alarm, were found to be only three hundred light horse and chasseurs, who instantly fled. One prisoner only was made, a man who fell from his horse. It was desirable, on all accounts, to have preserved the life of this person, but the fury of the Highlanders was such that he was instantly cut to pieces.

After this alarm, this detachment of the Highland army resumed their march: the appearance of the light horse had, however, begotten an impression that Wade's forces were not far distant. The Chevalier Johnstone, more especially, had strong misgivings on the subject; his fears were confirmed by his serjeant Dickson, who called his attention to something black on a hill about three miles distant. This appearance, which every one else regarded as bushes, was soon found to be the English army, slowly but surely advancing. Before the vanguard could recover the surprise, the Duke of Cumberland, who had pursued them with forced marches, fell upon the Macdonalds, who were in the rear, with fury. Fortunately the road running between thorn hedges and ditches, the English cavalry could not act in such a manner as to surround the army, nor present a larger front than the breadth of the road.

The Highlanders instantly ran to the enclosures in which the English were, fell on their knees, and began to cut down the hedges with their dirks. This precaution was necessary, for their limbs were unprotected by anything lower than their kilts. During this operation, they sustained the fire of the English with admirable firmness. As soon as the hedges were cut down, they jumped into the enclosures sword in hand, and broke the English battalions. A fierce and deadly contest ensued. The English were nearly cut to pieces without quitting their ground. Platoons might, indeed, be seen, composed of forty or fifty men falling beneath the Highlanders, yet they remained firm, closing up their ranks, as fast as an opening was made by the broad-swords of the Highlanders. This remarkable attack was made in person by Lord George Murray, at the head of the Macphersons, whom he ordered to charge. At length the English dragoons were driven from their posts, and closely pursued until they arrived at the moor where their main body was planted. In this "scuffle" the Macphersons lost only twelve men; about one hundred of the English were killed or wounded. A footman in the service of the Duke of Cumberland was the only prisoner made by the Highlanders. This man declared that his royal master would have been killed, if the pistol, with which a Highlander took aim at his head, had not missed fire. Prince Charles, with much courtesy, sent him back instantly to the Duke.[148]

Such is a brief account of the engagement which Lord George Murray calls a "little skirmish," but which must have afforded, at all events, some notion of Highland valour to the Duke of Cumberland and his dragoons. But, independent of the dauntless bravery of the Macphersons, to the skill of Lord George Murray may be attributed much of the success of the action. Before the firing began, he contrived, by rolling up his colours, and causing them to be carried half open to different places, to deceive the enemy with regard to the numbers of the Highland force; and to make them conclude that the whole of the army was posted in the village of Clifton. With about a thousand men in all, he contrived to defeat five hundred dragoons, backed by a great body of cavalry, all well disciplined troops. The moon, which was in its second quarter, appeared at intervals during the close of the action, and gave but a fitful light, being often over-clouded, so that the combatants fought almost in gloom, except for a few minutes at a time. The English, being all on horseback, were just visible to their foes, but the "little Highlanders" were in darkness. "We had the advantage," observes Lord George, "of seeing their disposition, but they could not see ours."[149] This encounter had the effect of saving the Prince and the whole army. "It was lucky," calmly remarks Lord George Murray, "that I made that stand at Clifton, for otherwise the enemy would have been at our heels, and come straight to Penrith, where, after refreshing two or three hours, they might have come up with us before we got to Carlisle."[150]

Lord George was in imminent danger during the action at Clifton. Fortunately, an old man, Glenbucket, who was very infirm, remained at the end of the village on horseback. He entreated Lord George to be very careful, "for if any accident happened, he would be blamed." "He gave me," relates Lord George, "his targe; it was convex, and covered with a plate of metal, which was painted; the paint was cleared in two or three places, with the enemy's bullets; and, indeed, they were so thick about me, that I felt them hot about my head, and I thought some of them went through my hair, which was about two inches long, my bonnet having fallen off."[151]

In this skirmish Lord George commanded the Glengarry regiment, who had remained, at the General's request, in the rear, to guard the baggage. The officers, observes Lord George, "behaved to my wish, and punctually obeyed the orders they received. That very morning, however, the Glengarry regiment had told Lord George that they would not have stayed three days behind the rest of the army to guard the baggage for any man but himself." The Stewarts, of Appin, were also among the most valiant of the combatants; but the most signal instances of courage were shown by Macpherson of Clunie, and his fierce band.

This unfortunate chief was engaged in the insurrection of 1715; that circumstance had been overlooked by Government; and, in the very year 1745, he had been appointed to a company in Lord Loudon's regiment, and had taken the oaths to Government. His clan were, however, anxious to espouse the cause of Charles Edward. Whilst Clunie wavered, his honour requiring the fulfilment of his oaths, his affections, and his hereditary principles leading him to follow Charles, his wife, although a stanch Jacobite, and a daughter of Lord Lovat, entreated him not to break his oaths, and represented that nothing would end well which began with perjury. She was overruled by the friends of Clunie, and he hastened to his ruin.[152]

The victorious General remained at Clifton half an hour after all the other officers had proceeded to Penrith. This circumstance disproved a statement given in the English newspapers, which intimated that the Highlanders had been beaten from their post at Clifton. On the contrary, "I heard," observed Lord George, "that the enemy went a good many miles for quarters, and I am persuaded they were as weary of that day's fatigue as we could be."

Upon arriving at Penrith, Lord George found the Prince much pleased with what had occurred. He was, however, just taking horse for Carlisle. On the next day, after staying a very short time at Penrith to refresh, Lord George joined Charles Edward in that city, which had yielded so short a time previously to his arms; and here various circumstances occurred which sufficiently show the discord which prevailed in the councils of the young Chevalier.

During the march, the young Prince had manifested a lofty sense of his own honour; but it was combined with a great degree of obstinacy in some respects, almost accompanied by puerility. Disgusted with the retreat, indignant with the promoter of that step, bent upon returning to England, unhappy, discouraged, and distracted by evil counsels, the Prince had plainly shown, that he would controvert the opinions of Lord George in every possible instance. He had lingered so late in the morning before leaving his quarters, as to detain the rear, which that General commanded, long after the van. This was a great inconvenience, and difficult for an impetuous temper to tolerate. The Prince not only refused to allow the army to be eased of any of the ammunition, being resolved "rather to fight both their armies than to give such a proof of his weakness;"[153] but he carried that order to an extreme, behaving as a petulant young man, who exerts power more in anger than from reflection. The march thus encumbered had been made with a degree of difficulty and fatigue which tried the patience of the soldiers, who were obliged, in one instance, to drag, like horses, the heavy waggons, in order to get them through a stream of water where there was a narrow pass, and a steep ascent.[154]

No enemy had molested the troops after they left Penrith; and it appeared evident that, at that time, the Duke of Cumberland had no intention of coming to a pitched battle, but intended only to take advantage of the disorder which he might suppose would have attended the retreat of an army of militia.

On arriving at Carlisle, a council of war was held. Lord George Murray was in favour of evacuating Carlisle, but his influence was overruled. "I had been so much fatigued," he remarks, "for some days before, that I was very little at the Prince's quarters that day." It was, however, determined to leave a garrison in Carlisle, for Prince Charles had set his heart upon returning to England. He, therefore, placed in the castle Mr. Hamilton, whilst the unfortunate Mr. Townley commanded the town.

"This," remarks Mr Maxwell,[155] "was perhaps the worst resolution that the Prince had taken hitherto. I cannot help condemning it, though there were specious pretexts for it." It would, indeed, have been highly advantageous for the Prince to have retained one of the keys of England; and he might have hoped to return before the place could be retaken. Of this, however, he could not be certain; and he was undoubtedly wrong in exposing the lives of the garrison without an indispensable necessity, which, according to Maxwell, did not exist; for "blowing up the castle, and the gates of the town might equally have given him an entry into England."

The day after the Prince had arrived in Carlisle, he left it, and proceeded northwards. One cause of this, apparently, needless haste was, the state of the river Esk, about seven miles from Carlisle; it was, by a nearer road, impassable. This stream, it was argued, might be swollen by a few hours rain, and then it could not be forded. The Prince might thus be detained at Carlisle; and he had now become extremely impatient to know the exact state of his affairs in Scotland; to collect his forces, in order to return to England. Letters from Lord John Drummond had re-assured him of the good will of the Court of France—that delusive hope was not even then extinct. Advice from Viscount Strathallan had imparted excellent accounts of the army in Scotland. Under these circumstances, Charles hastened forward, and encountered the difficult passage over the Esk. Hope again gladdened the heart of one for whose errors, when we consider the stake for which he fought, and the cherished wishes of his youth, too little allowance has been made. But, in the eyes of others, the prospect of the young Chevalier's return to England was regarded as wholly visionary; and the planting a garrison in the dilapidated fortress of Carlisle, was deemed indifference to the fate of his adherents who remained, unwillingly, and certain of their doom. "The retreat from Derby was considered throughout England," observes Sir Walter Scott, "as the close of the rebellion: as a physician regards a distemper to be nearly overcome, when he can drive it from the stomach and nobler parts, into the extremities of the body."[156]

The army, after marching from three o'clock in the morning until two in the afternoon, arrived on the borders of the Esk. This river, which is usually shallow, had already been swollen by an incessant rain of several days, to the depth of four feet. It was, therefore, necessary to cross it instantly, for fear of a continuation of the rain, and an increase of the danger. The passage over the Esk was admirably contrived; it could only have been effected by Highlanders. The cavalry formed in the river, to break the force of the current, about twenty-five paces above the ford where the infantry were to pass. Then the Highlanders plunged into the water, arranging themselves into ranks of ten or twelve a-breast, with their arms locked in such a manner as to support one another against the rapidity of the river, leaving sufficient intervals between their ranks for the passage of the water. "We were nearly a hundred men a-breast," writes Lord George Murray;[157] "and it was a very fine show. The water was big, and most of the men breast-high. When I was near across the river, I believe there were two thousand men in the water at once: there was nothing seen but their heads and shoulders; but there was no danger, for we had crossed many waters, and the ford was good; and Highlanders will pass a water where horses will not, which I have often seen. They hold by one another, by the neck of the coat, so that if one should fall, he is in no danger, being supported by the others, so all went down, or none."

The scene must have been extremely singular. "The interval between the cavalry," remarks an eyewitness, "appeared like a paved street through the river, the heads of the Highlanders being generally all that was seen above the water. Cavalry were also placed beneath the ford, to pick up all those who might be carried away by the current. In an hour's time the whole army had passed the river Esk; and the boundary between England and Scotland was again passed."[158]

Lord George Murray had, on this occasion, assumed the national dress. "I was this day," he says "in my philibeg." Well might he, in after times, when reviewing the events of the memorable campaign of 1745, dwell with pride on the hardihood of those countrymen from whom he was for ever an exile when he composed his journal. "All the bridges that were thrown down in England," he remarks, "to prevent their advancing in their march forwards, never retarded them a moment." Nor was the philibeg assumed merely for the convenience of the passage over the Esk. "I did not know," writes Lord George, "but the enemy might have come from Penrith by Brampton, so shunned the water of Eden, to have attacked us in passing this water of Esk; and nothing encouraged the men more, than seeing their officers dressed like themselves, and ready to share their fate."

Some ladies had forded the river on horseback immediately before the Highland regiments. These fair, and bold equestrians might have given intelligence; but luckily they did not. The General who had provided so carefully and admirably for the safety of his troops, knew well how to temper discipline with indulgence. Fires were instantly kindled to dry the men as they quitted the water. The poor Highlanders, when they found themselves on Scottish ground, forgot all the vexation of their retreat, and broke out into expressions of joy;—of short lived continuance among a slaughtered and hunted people. It was near night; yet the bagpipes struck up a national air as the last of the Highland host passed the river: and the Highlanders began dancing reels, "which," relates Lord George, "in a moment dried them, for they had held up the tails of their short coats in passing the river; so when their legs were dry, all was right." This day, forming an epoch in the sorrowful narrative of the insurrection of 1745, was the birthday of Prince Charles, who then attained his twenty-fifth year. Many mercies had marked the expedition into England, fruitless as it had proved. After six weeks' march, and sojourn, in England, amid innumerable enemies, threatened by two formidable armies in different directions, the Jacobite forces, entering England on the eighth of November, and quitting it on the twentieth of December, had returned without losing more than forty men, including the twelve killed at Clifton Wall. They had traversed a country well-peopled with English peasantry, without any attacks except upon such marauders as strayed from their main body.

As soon as the army had passed the river, the Prince formed it into two columns, which separated; the one, conducted by Charles Edward, took the road to Ecclefechan; the other, under the command of Lord George Murray, marched to Annan. In the disposition of these routes, the principal object was to keep the English in a state of uncertainty as to the direction in which the Jacobite army intended to go, and the towns which they purposed to occupy: and the end was answered; for no just notion was given of the movements of the Highlanders until after the subsequent junction of the two columns; and time was thus gained.

There being no town within eight or ten miles from the river Esk, the army were obliged to march nearly all night. The column conducted by the Prince had to cross mossy ground, under a pouring rain, which had continued ever since the skirmish at Clifton Wall. The guides who conducted Lord George's division led them off the road; this was, however, a necessary precaution in order to shun houses, the lights from which might have tempted the drenched and hungry soldiers to stray, and take shelter. Then the hardy and energetic general of his matchless forces first felt the effects of this laborious march in unusual debility, and fever.

At Moffat, this column halted; and divine service was performed in different parts of the town, all the men attending. "Our people," remarks Lord George, "were very regular that way; and I remember, at Derby, the day we halted, as a battle was soon expected, many of our officers and people took the sacrament."[159]

On the twenty-fifth of December, Lord George arrived at Glasgow, having passed through the towns of Hamilton and Douglas, and here, on the following day, Charles Edward also arrived, with the other column. Lord Elcho, who had conducted the cavalry through Dumfries, preceded the two great divisions. It was resolved to give the army some days' rest after the excessive fatigue which the men had uncomplainingly sustained. The spirits of Charles Edward were now recruited, and his example contributed not a little to the alacrity and energy of his force. Small, indeed, did it appear, when he reviewed it on Glasgow-green, and found how little he had suffered during his expedition into England. Hitherto Charles had carefully concealed his weakness; but now, hoping in a few days to double his army, he was not unwilling to show with what a handful of men he had penetrated into England, and conducted an enterprise, bold in its conception, and admirable in its performance.

At Glasgow, the melancholy fate of the brave garrison in Carlisle became known to the Jacobite army. Two days after the Prince had left, the Duke of Cumberland invested it, and began to batter that part of the wall which is towards the Irish gate. The governor of the Castle, Mr. Hamilton, determined to capitulate even before a breach had been made in the walls; and his proposal was vainly resisted by the brave Francis Townley and others, who were resolved to defend themselves to the last extremity. "They were in the right."[160] They might have held out for several days, and perhaps obtained better terms; but the governor persisted in surrendering to the clemency of King George, promised by his inhuman and dishonourable son. Assurances of intercession were given by the Duke of Cumberland, and the garrison of three hundred men surrendered. On the Duke's return to London, it was decided by the British government that he was not bound to observe a capitulation with rebels. The brave, and confiding prisoners perished, twelve of the officers by the common hangman, at Kennington; others, at Carlisle—many died in prison. Their fate reflected strongly upon the conduct of Charles Edward; but the general character of that young Prince, his hatred of blood, his love of his adherents, prove that it was not indifference to their safety which actuated him in the sacrifice of the garrison of Carlisle. He was possessed with an infatuation, believing that he should one day, and that day not distant, re-enter England; he was surrounded by favourites, who all encouraged his predilections, and fostered the hereditary self-will of his ill-starred race. The blood of Townley, and of his brave fellow-sufferers, rests not as a stain on the memory of Lord George Murray; and the Prince alone must bear the odium of that needless sacrifice to a visionary future. "We must draw a veil," says the Chevalier Johnstone, "over this piece of cruelty, being altogether unable either to discover the motive for leaving this three hundred men at Carlisle, or to find an excuse for it."[161]

On arriving at Glasgow, the Prince sent a gentleman to Perth to procure a particular account of the state of affairs in that part of the country; and on finding that his forces were so widely scattered that a considerable time must elapse before they could reassemble, he gave up the hope of returning to England, and determined upon the sieges of Edinburgh and Stirling. On the fourth of January he marched from Glasgow to Bannockburn, where he took up his quarters; and Lord George Murray, with the clans, occupied Falkirk. Before the twelfth of the same month, General Hawley, who had now formed a considerable army in Edinburgh, resolved upon raising the siege of Stirling, before which the trenches were opened.

Lord George Murray was, however, resolved to make a strong effort to prevent this scheme of General Hawley's from taking effect. Hearing that there was a provision made of bread and forage at Linlithgow for General Hawley's troops, he resolved to surprise the town and to carry off the provisions. He set out at four o'clock in the morning; was joined by Lord Elcho and Lord Pitsligo, with their several bodies of horse, and before sunrise Linlithgow was invested. The Jacobites were disturbed, however, in their quarters by a party of General Hawley's dragoons; and a report which prevailed that another body of horse and foot were also approaching, induced Lord George to return to Falkirk. On the following day he returned to Stirling; and the clans were quartered in the adjacent villages. The reinforcements which had been so long expected from the north were now near at hand; so that they could scarcely fail to arrive before an engagement began. The clans were augmented in number, and what was almost of equal importance, they had regained confidence and health on returning to their native land. All were in high spirits at the prospect of an engagement.

The Prince employed the fifteenth day of the month in choosing a field of battle; on the sixteenth he reviewed the army. The plan of the engagement was drawn out by Lord George Murray, according to his usual practice. The army of the insurgents amounted to nine thousand men. On that evening he learned that General Hawley had encamped on the plain between that town and the river Carron: upon which a council was called, and it was resolved the next day to attack the enemy.

The sympathies of the modern reader can scarcely fail to be enlisted in the cause of the Jacobites, who appear henceforth in the character of the valiant defenders of their hills and homes, their hereditary monarchy, their national honour and rights. Whatever an Englishman may have felt on beholding the incursions of a Highland force in his own country, the sentiment is altered into one of respect and of compassion when he views the scene of the contest changed, and sees the hopeless struggle fought on Scottish ground.

Never were two parties more strongly contrasted than the Hanoverians and the Jacobites. The very expressions which each party used towards the other, as well as their conduct in the strife, are characteristic of the coarse insolence of possession, and the gallant contest for restoration. Nothing could present a more revolting contrast than that between the individuals who headed the armies of Government, and the unfortunate Prince Charles and his brave adherents. In opposition to his generosity and forbearance stood the remorseless vengeance of the Duke of Cumberland. In comparison with the lofty, honest, fearless Lord George Murray, was the low instrument of Cumberland, the detestable Hawley. One blushes to write his name an English word. Succeeding General Wade, whose feeble powers had become nearly extinct in the decline of age, General Hawley was the beloved officer, the congenial associate of the young and royal commander-in-chief, who even at his early age could select a man without love to man, or reverence to God, for his General. These two were kindred spirits, worthy of an union in the task of breaking the noblest hearts, and crushing and enslaving the finest people that ever blessed a land of sublime beauty. Perhaps, if one may venture to make so strong an assertion, the General was more odious than his patron. It is, indeed, no easy point to decide towards which of these two notorious, for I will not call them distinguished men, the disgust of all good minds must be excited in the greater degree. In contempt for their fellow men, in suspicion and distrust, they were alike. In the directions for Hawley's funeral, he wrote in his will: "The priest, I conclude, will have his fee: let the puppy take it. I have written all this with my own hand; and this I did because I hate priests of all professions, and have the worst opinion of all members of the law."

To this low and ignorant contempt for the members of two learned professions, Hawley added an utter disregard of every tie of honour; he was wholly unconscious of the slightest emotion of humanity; he revelled in the terrors of power. The citizens beheld, with disgust, gibbets erected on his arrival there, to hang up any rebels who might fall into his hands: the very soldiers detested the General who had executioners to attend the army. The generous nature of Englishmen turned against the man, who, as it has been well remarked, "deserved not the name of soldier." They gave him the nick-name of the "Chief Justice;" and hated him as a man unworthy to cope with brave and honourable foes.

General Hawley had all the contempt, fashionable in those days, for Highland valour. "Give me but two regiments of horse," he said, "and I will soon ride over the whole Highland army." He quickly, however, learned his mistake; his contempt was, therefore, changed into a fiendish abhorrence, exhibited in the most horrible forms of unmitigated revenge.