PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD IN SCOTLAND. 503 CHAPTER XXVII. Prince Charles Edward arrives at Eriska.-Lands at Borodale.-His interviews with chiefs of clans.-The gathering at Glenfinnan.-Military resources of the government.- Sir John Cope.-Highland army marches to Perth.-Preparations for defence at Edinburgh.-Charles Edward at Holyrood-house. -Cope's army lands at Dunbar.-Battle of Preston-Pans-Charles Edward's sojourn at Edinburgh.-Siege of the Castle.English opinions of the Rebellion.-Note on the Highland Costume. ON the 23rd of July, 1745, a French vessel, carrying sixteen guns, is lying off Eriska, one of the small Western isles between Barra and South Uist. An eagle is hovering over the ship, as if watching the unwonted disturbance of this solitude of these dreary regions; and the presence of the king of birds is hailed as a welcome to a royal stranger who is on board. Prince Charles Edward is on board, with seven friends, or attendants, one of whom is the marquis of Tullibardine, called by the Jacobites, duke of Athol. The prince has been eighteen days at sea, in La Doutelle, the little vessel which he has hired to make a descent upon the kingdom which he deems his patrimony; proposing, with a few hundred muskets and broad-swords, and with four thousand louisd'ors, to overthrow an usurping government, which kept his father and himself from the enjoyment of their hereditary rights. The prince has had some perilous incidents in his voyage from Belleisle. A large French ship-of-war, which was his convoy, has been disabled in an engagement with an English man-of-war; and La Doutelle has been chased by other hostile cruisers. The arms, ammunition, and money are at last put on shore at Eriska; and the prince and his followers land on the dreary island The night is wet and stormy. They find shelter in the house of Angus MacDonald, the tacksman; but this house, the best of the district, belonging to the principal proprietor, was unprovided with any other vent for the peat smoke than the accustomed hole in the roof. Charles Edward, -reared in Italian palaces-he who had lately parted with the luxurious accommodations of the Château de Navarre, the seat of the duke de Bouillon, at Evreux,-was choked with the cloud that arose from the fire in the centre of the room. To the inhabitants of the hovel that smoke was pleasurable warmth. "Jacobite Memoirs," p. 9. The prince again and again sought the open air. The indignant host, unconscious of the rank of his visitor, at length exclaimed, "What a plague is the matter with that fellow, that he can neither sit nor stand still, and neither keep within nor without door." * From this rough retreat messengers were sent to various persons of consequence in those remote districts. With the exception of Tullibardine, who was attainted in 1715, there was no man of mark with the royal adventurer. His companions were chiefly Irishmen, "drawn into Scotland by the allurement which the enterprise held out to them of making their fortunes." The first Scottish gentleman who came to Charles Edward, and saw him on board La Doutelle, was MacDonald of Boisdale, brother of the chief of Clanranald. This prudent adviser,—who was accused by the Jacobites of "playing the game of the government,"-earnestly discountenanced the attempt to raise an insurrection without better means than the prince could show. He exhorted him to return home. "I am come home, sir," replied the prince;-he would not go back he relied on his faithful Highlanders. ‡ The little vessel now made sail for the mainland, and anchored in the Loch Na Nuagh, a small arm of the sea between the districts of Moidart and Arisaig. The Journal of a Highland officer § describes the appearance of the adventurer, as he presented himself on the deck of La Doutelle, where a tent had been erected. The prince, the young chief Clanranald, and MacDonald of Kinloch Moidart, had been for three hours in the cabin of Charles.— they arguing against his project, he resolutely combating all their objections. "Clanranald returned to us, and in about half-an-hour after, there entered the tent a tall youth of a most agreeable aspect, in a plain black coat, with a plain shirt not very clean, and a cambric stock fixed with a plain silver buckle; a fair round wig out of the buckle; a plain hat, with a canvas string having one end fixed to one of his coat buttons; he had black stockings, and brass buckles in his shoes." This is not the heroic costume in which imagination delights to dress up the adventurous prince. He was represented to be "ane English clergyman wha had long been possessed with a desire to see and converse with Highlanders." || The hesitation of the two chiefs was at length overcome by the enthusiasm of a younger brother of Kinloch Moidart. He had watched the eagerness of the tall youth, and the coldness of those whom he sought to convince. "When he gath "Jacobit: Memoirs," p. 11. This speech is doubtless a paraphrase of the Gaelic. "Memoirs of the Rebellion," by the Chevalier de Johnstone, p. 4. "Lockhart Papers," vol. ii. p. 479. Ibid., p. 480. HIS INTERVIEWS WITH CHIEFS OF CLANS. 505 ered from their discourse that the stranger was the prince of Wales; when he heard his chief and his brother refuse to take arms with their prince; his colour went and came, his eyes sparkled, he shifted his place, and grasped his sword. Charles observed his demeanour, and turning briskly toward him, cailed out Will not you assist me?' 'I will, I will,' said Ranald; though no other man in the Highlands should draw a sword, I am ready to die for you.' Without further deliberation the two MacDonalds declared that they also would join." This is dramatic. The narrator of the scene is John Home, the author of "Douglas."* Gradually more offers of support came by messengers to the prince, who remained on ship-board till the 25th of July. On that day he landed at Borodale; and took up his quarters at a farmhouse belonging to Clanranald. Charles Edward was not altogether unprepared to look to special quarters for assistance. He had combated the objections of MacDonald of Boisdale by the assurance that he could rely for aid upon MacDonald of Sleat, and the laird of MacLeod, two powerful chiefs who could each raise more than his thousand followers. Clanranald, after his adhesion, was sent to the Isle of Skye to secure these personages. On the 3rd of August MacLeod wrote from Dunvegan in Skye, to Duncan Forbes, the lord president, to give information that "the pretender Prince of Wales is come on the coast;" with the intention, with a few followers, "to raise all the Highlands." The chief adds, “sir Alexander MacDonald and I not only gave no sort of countenance to these people, but we used all the interest we had with our neighbours to follow the same prudent method." In a postscript MacLeod says, "Young Clanranald has been here with us, and has given us all possible assurances of his prudence."† Young Clanranald did not succeed in his mission to these cautious chiefs. Charles Edward was more successful with Cameron of Lochiel. He had determined to persuade the Prince to withdraw from his rash enterprise, although he had been one of the associates who was in correspondence with the Pretender before the expedition from Dunkirk in 1744. Charles Edward and Lochiel met at Borodale. Lochiel for some time steadily maintained his resolve, although his brother had said to him on his way, "If this prince once sets his eyes upon you, he will make you do whatever he pleases." Charles Edward at last declared that with the few friends he had he would raise the royal standard, win the crown of his ancestors, or perish in the attempt: • Home's "Works," vol. ii. p. 427. "Culloden Papers," p. 203. t Home, vol. iii. p. 7. "Lochiel, who my father often told me was our firmest friend, may stay at home, and learn from the newspapers the fate of his prince." Lochiel then passionately declared he would share his prince's fate. This is Home's poetical relation. There is a more prosaic version of this interview, "on the result of which depended peace or war;" for "if Lochiel had persisted in his refusal, the other chiefs would not have joined."* Bishop Forbes relates that young Glengarry assured him, upon information derived from Charles Edward himself, that Lochiel "had refused to raise a man, or make any appearance, till the prince should give him security for the full value of his estate, in the event of the attempt proving abortive.”† Cluny MacPherson "made the same agreement with the prince before he would join the attempt with his following." On the 19th of August, the prince proceeded to a general gathering of the friendly clans at Glenfinnan, a valley on the border of Loch Shiel. A day or two before, the first blood had been spilt in a skirmish between the Keppoch Macdonalds and a party of the Scots Royals, proceeding to Fort William. The advantage was on the side of the daring band of Highlanders. When Charles Edward and his friends, arrived at Glenfinnan the valley bore its usual aspect of a few poor inhabitants. But before noon the bagpipe was heard from the hills; and before evening fifteen hundred Highlanders were assembled. Tullibardine then raised a banner of red silk, with a white space in the centre. "The appearance of the standard was hailed by a storm of pipe-music, a cloud of skimmering bonnets, and a loud and enduring shout," The attainted heir of the dukedom of Athol then read the declaration in the name of James VIII., dated from Rome in 1743, and the commission to his eldest son as Prince Regent. The "loud huzzas and skimming of bonnets up into the air, appearing like a cloud,"§ which followed the rearing of the standard, was the tribute of simple men who obeyed the command of their chief, little heeding the arguments of the Stuart declaration, even if they understcod its language. That declaration, promising redress of grievances under a lawful king, was to have its effect upon the general discontent of Scotland, in its denunciation of the Union and of the fiscal exactions which the Union was held to have entailed. The government of an usurper was pronounced to be the cause of national miseries which a free parliament was to redress. The re"Jacobite Memoirs," p. 22. Home, vol. iii. p. 7. Robert Chambers. "History of the Rebellion of 1743-6 ”—a work of the highest value in which the author's nationality does not betray him into any partisanship incom patible with a conscientious desire for historical truth. "Culloden Papers," p. 387. Letter of Ter. Mulloy, an eye-witness. MILITARY RESOURCES OF THE GOVERNMENT. 507 ligious institutions of the country were to be respected. The Regent promised indemnity for past treasons to all who should now take arms in his cause. Such arguments and promises were judicious. Nevertheless, "if the phraseology of these documents is examined, it is found that the royal prerogative, as the embodiment of legislative power, is carefully though not offensively or conspicuously reserved." * Few of the discontented in Scotland would carefully examine the phraseology of these documents. The rebellion was begun. Its first success would make the timid bold, and the prudent rash. But in England, every man not ignorant of the history of his country in the past century, could scarcely fail to see that the real question at issue was, whether the whole course of government since the expulsion of James II. had been a series of unlawful usurpations; or whether the national will was not something higher than the principle of divine right, asserted by the descendants of a bigoted tyrant. These declarations treated the whole contest for the throne of England as a personal question between the elector, of Hanover and the son of James II. Officers and soldiers were called upon to desert their colours, and violate their oaths," since they cannot but be sensible that no engagements entered into with a foreign usurper can dispense with the allegiance they owe to their natural sovereign." The British Parliament rightly designated these proclamations as seditious and presumptuous declarations against the Constitution of the United Kingdom. When Charles Edward landed in Scotland, George II. was in Germany, and the government of Great Britain was directed by a Regency. The administration regarded, as most official persons are inclined to regard, only the material means which the adventurer had at his command. They despised the chances of that popular enthusiasm for the exiled family, which the apparent hopelessness of the young prince's cause carried forward into a personal admiration for his daring confidence. Had the descendant of their ancient kings landed in Scotland with ten thousand Frenchmen, he would have been eventually less powerful to overthrow the established government than when he set foot on Eriska with his seven followers. The sagacity and experience of the Lord President could not see the effect which such undoubting trust has ever produced in converting cold friends into zealous partizans. Forbes wrote to the marquis of Tweeddale, the Scotch Secretary of State in London: "I am confident that young man cannot expect to be joined by any considerable force in the Highlands. Some loose * Burton. "History of Scotland," vol. ii. p. 439. |