Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 Volume I Part 8

"The above is writte to H. S.,[126] but it will serve you both to forward it to him. I got the money and the cloas safe. I expect to hear from you soon. I have yours of the twenty-third. I have sent over a paket to be dispersed, and some ane other way. Your letters are longer be the way than they need so order it. Fall on some proper way to gett the enclosed delivered by some person, but be not seen in it yourself. If ane answer can be got, send it."

The Chevalier slept in the town of Peterhead on the first night of his landing, but on the second he was received at Newburgh, a seat of the Earl Marischal; and the adherents who welcomed him as their Prince, had there an opportunity of forming a judgment of one whom they had hitherto known only by the flattering representations of those who had visited the young adventurer, at his little Court in Lorraine.

In person, James is reported by the Master of Sinclair to have been "tall and thin, seeming to incline to be lean rather than to fill as he grows in years." His countenance, to judge by the most authentic portraits[127] of this Prince, had none of the meditative character of that of Charles the First, whom the Chevalier was popularly said to resemble: neither had it the sweetness which is expressed by every feature of that unhappy Monarch, nor had his countenance the pensiveness which wins upon the beholder who gazes upon the portraits of Charles.

The eyes of the Chevalier were light-hazel, his face was pale and long, and in the fullness of the lips he resembled his mother, Mary of Modena.

To this physiognomy, on which it is said a smile was rarely seen to play, were added, according to the account of a contemporary, from whose narrative we will borrow a further description, "a speech grave, and not very clearly expressive of his thoughts, nor over much to the purpose; his words were few, and his behaviour and temper seemed always composed.

"What he was in his diversions we know not; here was no room for such things. It was no time for mirth. Neither can I say I ever saw him smile. Those who speak so positively of his being like King James the Seventh, must excuse me for saying that it seems to say they either never saw this person or never saw King James the Seventh; and yet I must not conceal that when we saw the man whom they called our King, we found ourselves not at all animated by his presence; and if he was disappointed in us, we were tenfold more so in him. We saw nothing in him that looked like spirit. He never appeared with cheerfulness and vigour to animate us: our men began to despise him; some asked if he could speak. His countenance looked extremely heavy. He cared not to come abroad among us soldiers, or to see us handle our arms to do our exercise. Some said the circ.u.mstances he found us in dejected him. I am sure the figure he made dejected us; and had he sent us but five thousand men of good troops, and never himself come, we had done other things than we have done. At the approach of that crisis when he was to defend his pretensions, and either lose his life or gain a Crown, I think, as his affairs were situated, no man can say that his appearing grave and composed was a token of his want of thought, but rather of a significant anxiety grounded on the prospect of his inevitable ruin, which he could not be so void of sense as not to see plainly before him,--at least, when he came to see how inconsistent his measures were--how unsteady the resolution of his guides, and how impossible it was to make them agree with one another."[128]

It was at Glammis Castle, the seat of the Earl of Strathmore, that the Earl of Mar drew up a flattering account of the Prince, which he caused to be printed and diligently circulated.[129] The whole is here given, as affording an insight into all that was going on:--

"I have had three of yours since I left Perth, but I wonder I have no letters from London. I mett the King at Fetteresso on Tuesday se'night, where we stayed til Friday; from thence we came to Brichan, then to Kinnaird, and yesterday here. The King designed to have gone to Dundee to-day, but ther's such a fall of snow that he is forced to put it off til to-morrow, if it be practicable then; and from thence he designs to go to Sc.o.o.n. There was no haste in his being there sooner, for nothing can be done in this season, else he had not been so long by the way. People every where as we have come along, are excessively fond to see him and express that duty they ought. Without any compliment to him, and to do him nothing but justice, set aside his being a prince, he is realie the finest gentelman I ever knew. He has a very good presence, and resembles King Charles a great dele. His presence, tho', is not the best of him; he has fine partes, and dispatches all his buissiness himself with the greatest exactness. I never saw any body write so finely.

He is afable to a great degree w^{t}out looseing that majestie that he ought to have, and has the sweetest temper in the world. In a word, he is even fitted to make us a happie people, were his subjects worthie of him. To have him peaceablie settled on his thron is what these kingdomes do not deserve; but he deserves it so much, that I hope ther's a good fate attending him. I am sure ther's nothing wanting to make the rest of his subjects as fond of him as we are, but thus knowing as we now have the happiness to do. And it will be odd if his presence amongst us, after his running so many hazards to compa.s.s it, do not turn the hearts of even the most obstinat. It is not fit to tel all the particulars, but I a.s.sure you, since he arived, he has left nothing undone that well could be to gain every body, and I hope G.o.d will touch their hearts. His Majestie is very sensible of the service you have done him and he desires you may continue, for which he hopes he may yet be able to reward you. He wrote to France as soon's he landed, and sent it with the shipe he came in, which we hope got safe there long ago. It is not often that we can have opportunity of writeing or sending there, and the Queen and others will be mighty impatient to hear frequently; therefore his Majestie expects you should write there frequently, and give them all the accounts you can. I have reason to hope we shall very quickly see a new face on affairs abroad in the King's favour, which is all I dare comitt to paper. The Government will nott certainly send all the strength against us they can, but e'er long, perhaps, they may have ocasion for their troups else where.

"I belive one wou'd speak to you lately of a kind of comisary of the Dutch, that may be spoke to, which by no means ought to be neglected, and he being on your side the watter, it is left to you, and you must not stick at offering such a reward as he himself can desire, which I shall see made good: there should no time be lost in this, and I'll be glad to know soon if there be any hopes that way.

"Tho' the way of sending letters betwixt us be now much more difficult than ever, yet you must write as often as you possiblie can get any probable way of sending of them safe; and pray give us all the accounts you can. I have ordred some of the King's declarations for England to be sent you, and when they come to your hands you wou'd get some way of sending them to London and other places of England. Send the enclosed for my wife under a cover, as you used to do; by my not hearing from her, I am affraid my last has not come to her hands. When any comes from her for me, pray take care that you send them a safe way. We long to know what effects the news of the King's arivall had at London, Stirling, and Edinburgh. I suppose you still hear from Kate Bruce. I do not understand what she means by going to the country, which she mentions in her letter to you.

"I see in one of the prints that Lawrance is come off from London, so by this time he must certainly be in Scotland; pray let me know what you hear of him. If he be come, I suppose he'll understand himself so well as our prisoner, that he will immediately give himself up to us again.

"The King wears paper caps under his wige, which I know you also do; they cannot be had at Perth, so I wish you could send some on, for his own are near out.

"We are in want of paper for printing; is there no way to send us some from your side?

"Pray, send my wife one of the Scots and one of the English declarations at the same time my letter goes, but under another cover. Adieu.

"Since writeing I have yours of the thirty-first and first, for which I thank you, and am just going to read them to my master."

Little dependance can be placed on the entire accuracy of either of these varying descriptions,--the one penned by a disappointed, and perhaps wavering, adherent, the other by a man whose personal interests were irrevocably involved with those of James. We must trust to other sources to enable us to form a due estimate of the merits of this ill-starred Prince.

James Stuart was at this time in his twenty-seventh year. From his very cradle he had been, as it might seem to the superst.i.tious, marked by fate for a destiny peculiarly severe. His real birth was long disputed, without the shadow of a reason, except what was suggested by a base court intrigue. This slur upon his legitimacy, which was afterwards virtually wiped away by the British Parliament, was nevertheless the greatest obstacle to his accession, there being nothing so difficult to obliterate as a popular impression of that nature.

Educated within the narrow precincts of the exiled court, James owed the good that was within him to a disposition naturally humane, placable, and just, as well as to the communion with a mother, the fidelity of whose attachment to her exiled consort bespoke a finer quality of mind than that which Nature had bestowed on the object of her devotion. By this mother James must doubtless have been embued with a desire for recovering those dominions and that power for which Mary of Modena, like Henrietta Maria, sighed in vain, as the inheritance of her son; but the stimulus was applied to a disposition with which a private life was far more consonant than the cares of sovereignty. Rising as he does to respectability, when we contrast the good nature and mild good sense of the Chevalier with the bigotry of James the Second,--or view his career, blameless with some exceptions, in contrast with the licentiousness of Charles the Second, there were still no high hopes to be entertained of the young Prince; his character had little energy, and consequently little interest: he was affable, just, free from bigotry although firm in his faith, and capable of great application to business; but he wanted ardour. From his negative qualities, the pitying world were disposed to judge him favourably. "He began the world," says Lockhart, "with the general esteem of mankind; but he sank year by year in public estimation: his Court subsequently displayed the worst features of the Stuart propensities, an intense love of prerogative; and his mind, never strong, became weaker and weaker under the dominion of favourites."

The ship in which James had sailed returned to France immediately to give the news of his safe arrival, and at the same time Lieutenant Cameron, the son of Cameron of Lochiel, was dispatched to Perth to apprise the Earl of Mar of the event. Upon the spur of the moment the Earl, accompanied by the Earl Marischal and General Hamilton, and attended by twenty or thirty persons of quality, on horseback, set out with a guard of horse to attend him whom they considered as their rightful Sovereign. The cavalcade met the Chevalier at Fetteresso, the princ.i.p.al seat of the Earl Marischal. "Here," says Reay, "the Chevalier dressed, and discovered himself," and they all kissed his hand, and owned him as their King, causing him to be proclaimed at the gates of the house. At Fetteresso the Prince was detained during some days by that inconvenient malady the ague. Meantime, the declaration which he had prepared, and which was dated from Commercy, was disseminated, and was dropped in some loyal towns by his adherents in the night-time, there being danger in promulgating it openly.[130]

On the second of January, 1715-16, the Chevalier proceeded to Brechin, and thence to Kinnaird; and on Thursday to Glammis Castle, the seat of the Earl of Strathmore. On the sixth of January he made his public entry into Dundee on horseback, at an early hour. Three hundred followers attended him, and the Earl of Mar rode on his right hand, the Earl Marischal on his left. At the suggestion of his friends, the Prince shewed himself in the market-place of Dundee for nearly an hour and a half, the people kissing his hands. The following extract from a letter among the Mar Papers affords a more minute and graphic account of the Chevalier's demeanour than is to be found in the usual histories of the day.

"I hear the Pretender went this day from Glams to Dundee, and comes to Sc.o.o.n to-morrow; and I am shourly informed that your old friend Willie Callender went to Glams on Wensday and kissed the Pretender's hand, of whom he makes great speeches, and says he is one of the finest gentlemen ever he saw in his life. Its weell that his landing is keept up from the army, for he has gained so much the good will of all ranks of people in this country that have seen him, that if it was made publick it's thought it might have ill effects among them. He is very affable and oblidging to all, and great crowds of the common people flok to him. When he toke horse this morning from Glams, there was about a thousand country people at the gate, who they say, gave him many blessings: he has tuched several of the ivil, as he did some this morning. He is of a very pleasant temper, and has intirely gained the hearts of all thro' the places he has pa.s.sed. He aplyes himself very closs to business, and they say might very weell be a Secretarie of State. He has declared Lord Marischall one of his bedchamber. The toun of Aberdeen made him ane address, as did all the other touns as he pa.s.sed; and I hear he is, at the request of the episcopal clergy in this country, to apoint a day of thanksgiving for his safe arival, and likeways a proclamation, to which will be referred his declaration, with something new, which shall be sent to you with first ocasion. There came a battalion of Bredalbins men to Perth on Tuesday, and ane other of Sir Donald M^{c}Donalds this day; and they are now daily getting in more men.

"This is all the intelligence I can give you, and I hope to hear from you again soon, and lett me know what certain number are now come over, and what more designed. Deliver the enclosed and tell him these papers could not be gott him just now, but shall per next. I ame affraid poor W. Maxewell wild be dead before you get this, of a fever and a flux: he is given over this two days. Write soon."

After the display at Dundee, the Chevalier rode to the house of Stewart of Grandutly, in the neighbourhood, where he dined and pa.s.sed the day.

On the following day he proceeded along the Ca.r.s.e of Gowrie to Castle Lyon, a seat of the Earl of Strathmore, where he dined, and went thence to Fingask, the seat of Sir David Threipland. On the eighth of January he took up his abode in the royal palace of Sc.o.o.n, where he intended to remain until after his coronation.

For this event preparations were actually made by the Earl of Mar, whose sanguine spirit appears to have been somewhat revived by the presence of the Chevalier. The addition of a new dignity to his own ancestral honours had marked the favour and confidence of James. Before the arrival of the Chevalier in Scotland, the Earl of Mar had been informed that a patent of dukedom was made out for him; on which he thus expressed himself in a letter, written before the Chevalier's landing, full of grat.i.tude and professions.[131]

"Your Majesty has done me more honour than I deserve. The new dignity you have been pleased to confer on me is what I was not looking for; and coming from your Majesty's hands is what gives it the value. The patent is not yet come, but tho' it had, I think I ought not to make use of it till your Majesty's arrival."

The Earl of Mar had now had an opportunity of throwing himself at the feet of the King, which, as he expressed, "is the thing in the world he had longed most for." But still, the difficulties in his path seemed to be rendered more insurmountable than ever by the arrival of James.

In the first place, the landing of the Chevalier evidently sealed the doom of those gallant and unfortunate n.o.blemen who had been taken prisoners at Preston; and rendered all hopes of mercy futile. The sixteenth of January, which witnessed the forming of the Chevalier's council at Perth, was the day on which the unfortunate Derwent.w.a.ter, Nithisdale, Kenmure, Wintoun, and Widdrington, pet.i.tioned for two days'

delay to prepare for their trials. Their doom was hurried on in the general panic; and in the addresses from both Houses of Parliament to King George, it was declared by the members of those a.s.semblies "that the landing of the Pretender in this kingdom had greatly encreased their indignation against him and his adherents."

It is impossible that the Earl of Mar could have heard, without deep commiseration, and perhaps remorse, of the peril in which those ill-fated adherents of James were placed, although he may not have antic.i.p.ated the full severity of the law. In one of his subsequent letters he remarks: "By the news I see the Parliament is to have no mercie on our Preston folks: but I hope G.o.d will send them salvation in time." One of his greatest sources of anxiety had been respecting the movements of the Duke of Ormond, upon whose making a diversion in favour of James, in England, Mar had counted. The news that Ormond, after having been seen on the coast of England, had returned, disheartened, was brought by the Chevalier, who heard of it at St. Maloes. The only chance of success, the last hope, were centered in this resource. The failure of this expectation was fatal, as Lord Mar conceived, to the cause, and on it he grounded his own subsequent withdrawal from England.

The entrance of the Chevalier into Perth, on the ninth of January, was attended with far less enthusiasm than the previous portion of his progress. His reception was comparatively cold. On asking to see their "little kings" (the chieftains) with their armies, the Highlanders, diminished in numbers by the secession of the Marquis of Huntley and the absence of Lord Seaforth and others, were marched before him. James could not help admiring their bearing; but the small amount of troops in the camp filled him with a dejection which he could not conceal. When, a few days afterwards, the unfortunate Prince addressed his council for the first time, he said, with mournful truth, these words. "For me it will be no new thing if I am unfortunate: my whole life, even from my cradle, has been a constant series of misfortunes." This sentiment of ill-presage was re-echoed in the address of the Episcopal clergymen.

"Your Majesty has been trained up," said these divines, at Fetteresso, "in the School of the Cross, in which the Divine grace inspires the mind with true wisdom and virtue, and guards it against those false blandishments by which prosperity corrupts the heart." And as this school has sent forth the most ill.u.s.trious princes,--Moses, Joseph, and David, it was hoped that a similar benefit would accrue to the character of the Prince whom the Episcopal Clergy thus welcomed to their country.

Meantime the project of crowning the Chevalier at Scone amused the minds of the people, and continued to be the subject of diligent preparation by the Earl of Mar. Unhappily a ship laden with money and other aids, had been lost on its pa.s.sage from France, close to the Tay, for want of a pilot.[132] The difficulties which were augmented by this misfortune, are alluded to in the following extract from one of Lord Mar's letters.

"January 15th, 1715-16.

"Sir,

"I wrote to you yesterday by one that used to come here from Mr.

Hall, which I hope will come safe to your hands. At night I had yours of the fourteenth, and this night that of the tenth. The caps do pritty well, and I have orders to thank you for them. I send you one of his own; if you can get such paper t'is well, and if not, the other is what he likes best of any that you sent; so let some of either one or other come when you have an occasion.

"I am sorry Mr. Brewer[133] is ill, for his presence here wou'd be of great use; and as soon as he is able I wish he wou'd come, which I am ordered to tel you, and also that you may endeavour to get a copie of the coronation of King Charles the First and Second, which certainly are to be had in Edinburgh. Willie Wilson had them, and perhaps some of his friends may have got copies of them from him, which may be had.

"I spoke to one some time ago about makeing a crown in pices at Edinburgh and bringing it over here to be put togither, who, I believe, talkt to you of it. That man was here some days ago, but went away before I knew it is wisht that such a thing could yet be done, which is left to your care.

"In case there be occasion for it here, as I wish there may, bulion gold is what I'm afraid will be wanting, but it will not take much.

Had not the misfortune I wrote to you of hapn'd to Sir J.

Erskine[134] there had been no want of that. We have got no farther account of that affair, tho' we have people about it; but if they do not succeed this night or to-morrow when the spring tide is, it is lost for ever. There is more by the way tho', and I hope will have better fate. I have ordered more papers to be sent you, and certainly you have more of them before now. It is mighty well taken what that lady (the letters from London say) has ordered, as to those you sent her, which you are desired to let her have; and I do not doubt she will do the same as to those concerning E----d.

Adieu."

By the next letter it appears that the good opinion entertained by Lord Mar of the Chevalier was real; since the whole of the epistle has the tone of being a natural effusion of feeling, and is a simple statement of what actually took place, and not the letter of a diplomatist.

"Sir,

"I have seen a letter from Mr. S----g, who had spoke with you on the subject I formerly wrote to you of, concerning that fo--f--y of the D----h to a gentleman with us, Mr. S----q's friend, and upon it our master has thought fit to write the enclosed to him, and orders me to tell you that you must cause give him an hundred guineas at the delivery of the letter. The letter is left open for your perusal, and I wish it may have effect, as perhaps it may. There's no time to be lost in it, and I'll long to know what pa.s.ses in it, and what hopes you have of him. I sent you credit for five hundred pounds, which I hope you got safe; but if by any accident it should not come to your hands, Mr. S----q there, is a certain goldsmith that will advance what there is occasion for this way. I send you enclosed a letter, which may be of use in an affair I wrote of in my last.

"We have got severall deserters since the K. came and last night nine came in with their clothes and arms, and says many more will follow soon, which I wish we may see. They say, too, that the two regiments of dragoons are marcht from Glasgow for England, and that two are to go from Stirling to replace them. Were they designing to march against Sc.o.o.n, sure they would not do this, nor is it possible they can do anything in this weather; but if they, notwithstanding, attempt it, perhaps they may find frost in it.

"As I am writing I have received yours of the thirteenth. I read it to the K----g, and delivered him the enclosed letter from Mr.

Holmes, which was very well taken, as you will see by the enclosed return, which you'll take care to forward safely; and pray do me the favour to make my compliments there.

"Perhaps you'll hear things of the two northern powers[135] that will look odd to your other friends, as no wonder; but all will come right again--the time they had taken being out in a few days.

There's one sent some days ago to a.s.sist them, so I hope things will be soon right there, tho' they have done much to spoil them, and each of them makes an excuse of one another as they have done from the begining. The K----, you will see by all the enclosed, is not spareing of his pains. You must fall on the right way of having them all delivered.

"That to Seaforth he writes upon the great professions he made when in France; he is such a fellow that I'm afraid it will do little good.

"I have nothing else material to say just now, but I cannot give over without telling a thing which I'm sure will please you--that the longer one knows the King the better he's liked, and the more good qualities are found in him; that of good-nature is very eminent, and so much good sense that he might be a first minister to any king in Europe, had he not been born a king himself. He has allowed Neil Campbell to go to Edinburgh t'other day on his parole, he being ill, and it was with so much good nature that was evident in his doing of it, that it charmed me. I wish you could get notice how Neil represents it or expresses himself when he gets there; for I wrote it at length to the gentleman who wrote to me about him.

Adieu.