Chapter VI: Part 6

The Declaration of Indulgence, permitting all professions of religion to worship in their own ways, was published by James—solely on his own authority—in April, 1687. At the first blush we may be inclined to call this general indulgence a step in the right direction,—even although we know that under the cloak of toleration to all forms of faith, the King’s main object was to legalise Catholic worship and ritual. We now say, from the more liberal stand-point of the nineteenth century, that the penal laws against the exercise of Catholic rites were tyrannical and unjust. But we have to consider the times in which these laws were introduced, when after a long and bitter struggle the papal yoke had been thrown off,—when the severities of Rome against those she termed heretics were fresh in the memory,—and that she never abates one jot of her assumption to be the one authoritative church—claiming the entire submission of Christendom. And Dissenters knew that the King was here bidding for their support against the established church. They saw that Tyrconnel, the King’s Viceroy in Ireland—a country where James did not require to keep up appearances—was fast arming the Catholics, preparatory to a total subversion of Protestantism; and thus the Presbyterian and other dissenters saw in the Episcopal Church the rallying point of religious freedom; they overlooked its past subserviency to power and its harshness to themselves, in consideration of its present danger, and the stand it was now preparing to make in the common cause.

In April, 1688, the king ordered his Declaration to be read in all the churches. The London clergy met and signed a refusal to comply with the order, and the primate, Sancroft, and six other bishops, presented a petition to the king against being compelled to read a document which assumed the legality of the dispensing power. Only in seven of the London churches, and a few in the country, was the Declaration read. The king was furious, and summoned the bishops before the privy council; on their acknowledging their signatures to the petition, they were committed to the Tower. Their passage down the Thames was a public ovation; from crowded quays, bridges, and barges arose enthusiastic shouts of encouragement; the very officers of the Tower went on their knees for the episcopal blessing. In their imprisonment, the bishops were visited daily by nobles and leading men; and—which irritated James most of all—a deputation of dissenting ministers went and thanked them in the name of their common Protestantism.

And just at this time an event occurred which had a remarkable bearing on the history of the period. On June 10th, 1688, James’s queen gave birth to a son. The news had been circulated that a child was expected; the faithful ventured to prophesy a prince; a blessing vouchsafed by the intervention of the Virgin Mary, in response to prayers and pilgrimages. But Protestant England had both feared and doubted. The Court and its household were, almost exclusively, composed of Catholics, and when the birth of a prince was announced, it was generally believed that a strange child had been smuggled into the palace, and was then being passed off as the king’s son. There now seems little doubt but that the infant was really the offspring of the king and queen. Thus, to his father’s joy, and to Catholic anticipations of the throne being after him still occupied by a king of the old faith—but with general doubts and misgivings—with repudiation instead of welcome, came into the world the ill-fated prince, known in our history as James the Pretender.

On June 20th, the trial of the bishops took place before the Court of King’s Bench. They were charged with having “published a false, malicious, and seditious libel.” Of the four judges, two were for the petition being a libel, and two were against. The jury had to decide the question, and were locked up during the night. At ten o’clock next morning, when the Court again met, there was a silence of deep suspense before the verdict was pronounced. When the words “not guilty” fell from the foreman’s lips, a great cheer arose, which penetrated into the crowded street, and was speedily wafted over London, extending even to the troops on parade at Blackheath. It was a day of general congratulation and rejoicing; and bonfires and illuminations went far into the summer night.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Revolution of 1688.

Before the birth of the prince, the general idea had been that the country should tide over James’s misgovernment as best it could, and wait patiently for the succession to the throne in natural course of Mary, Princess of Orange, the elder daughter of the king by his first marriage. But the situation was now altogether changed; and on the very day of the acquittal of the bishops, there was sent—signed by the bishop of London, several noblemen, and others—an invitation to William to come over with an army to the relief of the country: and the prince at once commenced his preparations.

And meantime, James, his purposes and hopes of success strengthened by the birth of a son, was indignant at his defeat in the trial of the bishops, and, goaded on by the French minister and his inner circle of advisers, he resolved to crush the spirit of the nation by force of arms. He brought over several regiments of Tyrconnel’s Irish troops, and their menacing presence, as strangers and Catholics, was hateful to the English people. A derisive doggrel ballad, called from its burden _Lilliburelo_, was sung and whistled all over the land.

And now the king was told that his Dutch son-in-law was making great preparations for invasion. He knew that he had lost the best safeguard of his throne—the confidence and affection of his subjects—and whilst adopting means for defence, he hastened to retract all the measures which had made him unpopular. He threw himself in feigned repentance on the advice of the bishops, and they, in plain words, like the prophets of old, told him of his injustice and oppression, and advised him at once to call a Parliament. He dismissed his priestly adviser Father Petre, and the renegade Lord Sunderland. He restored its fellows to Oxford, and their franchises to the corporations. But the precipitation of fear was so evident in his concessions, that there was no reaction of confidence. The people were watching the weathercocks, and praying for a north-east, or, as it was called “a Protestant” wind.

After waiting some weeks for a favourable wind, and with an after-delay from storms, by the end of October, William was fairly at sea. He first sailed up the North Sea, as if he intended a landing on the Yorkshire coast; but changed his course for the Channel. The wind and tide prevented the royal fleet from attacking him in the Straits of Dover. From the opposite coasts his fleet presented a magnificent sight. There were sixty men-of-war and seven hundred transports, extending twenty miles in length.

It was just a hundred years since such another magnificent spectacle had been seen in the Channel—the Spanish Armada—also bent upon the invasion of England. _Then_, the great fleet meant papal aggression, and priestly domination; _now_, it meant deliverance from this aggression, and freedom of the conscience; _then_, beacon fires on mount and headland flashed danger to the lives and liberties of Englishmen; _now_ the tidings that a foreign fleet was skirting the coast were of glad and hopeful assurance.

On the 5th of November—the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot—the fleet anchored at Torbay, in Devonshire. With his army of fifteen thousand men, William marched to Exeter, where he was enthusiastically received. But the memory of Jeffreys’ “bloody assize” was still fresh in the western shires, and for several days there were few signs of encouragement; it is said that he even meditated returning to Holland. But bye-and-bye one nobleman after another, and several officers of James’s army, entered the camp. The north of England began to stir in raising and disciplining revolutionary troops, and the Earl of Bath put Plymouth into William’s hands.

The King hastened down to Salisbury, resolved to stake his kingdom on the issue of a battle; but William, although a thorough captain in war, wished to avoid bloodshed; he trusted to the increasing stream of desertion from the king rendering a great battle unnecessary. And so it turned out. The sagacious lieutenant-general of the king’s army, Lord Churchill, the Dukes of Grafton and Ormond, even the king’s younger daughter Anne, with her husband, Prince George of Denmark, and many other persons of note, joined the Prince of Orange.

James went back to London, and sent away the queen and her five-months’ old child to France. When he knew of their safety he left London at night, by the river. He threw the great seal into the Thames, and proceeded to Sheerness, where a small vessel was waiting for him. Boarding the vessel he attracted the attention of some Kentish fishermen, who, in hopes of reward, made him prisoner. Released, by an order of the Lords, he returned to London, and passed thence to Rochester. William wanted him out of the country; so facilities were made for his escape, and he was soon at St. Germains, where Louis gave him a friendly reception; and at St. Germains he made his home. Assisted by Louis, he made, next year, an attempt for the recovery of Ireland. In that essentially Catholic country, it seemed at first that he would there be able to retain one of the three kingdoms, but his defeat by William, at the Boyne, compelled his return to France. He died September 16th, 1701, aged 68 years.

The King, having fled, and no parliament sitting, William was advised to claim the kingdom by right of conquest. But both from principle and sound policy he held that this would be a less secure right of possession than would be the choice—as formal as under the circumstances it could be made—of the English people. So he summoned a Convention of the States of the Realm,—irregularly convoked in the emergency, but elected in the usual manner. The Convention met on 22nd February—six weeks after the King’s flight.

The debates were long and stormy; the two Houses disagreed,—the Lords could hardly bring themselves to declare for the deposition of the King; but the Commons were firm, and at length this resolution was passed in both houses: “That James, having violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself from the kingdom, has broken the original contract between king and people, has abdicated the government, and therefore the throne has become vacant.”

And then came the questions,—Who was to reign? and what was to be the order of succession? Here there was a division of opinion. Was James’s infant son to be acknowledged as King—with William as Regent? or, Should the crown be conferred on Mary in her own right? William was not a man of many words, but he now got together a few of the leading men, and to them he spoke very plainly: he would not interfere with the right of the Convention to settle its own affairs as it thought best; but for himself he would not accept any regency, nor—much as he loved his wife—would he remain in England as her gentleman-usher. In a few hours his words were all over London, and it was known that he would be King.

So the Convention passed a number of resolutions, embodied in what was termed a Declaration of Rights,—defining the royal prerogative, and the powers of parliament; and the Prince and Princess, having signified their adhesion thereto, it was resolved that William and Mary be jointly King and Queen of England, Ireland, and the dominions belonging thereto; the administration to rest in William. The crown was settled,—first on the survivor of the royal pair,—then on the children of Mary, then on those of her sister Anne, and next on the children of William by any other wife. The son of James and his posterity were thus shut out entirely from the succession.

The Scottish Convention of Estates passed resolutions nearly similar to those in the English Declaration of Rights, closing with a declaration against Prelacy, asserting that there was no higher office in the Church than presbyter.

On the leading question then before the country, their resolution had a more decided tone than that of the English Convention. They declared that James had assumed the throne without taking the oaths prescribed by law, that he had proceeded to subvert the constitution of the country from a limited monarchy to an absolute despotism; that he had employed the powers thus usurped for violating the laws and liberties, and altering the religion of Scotland; for doing these things he had _forfeited_ his right to the crown, and the throne had thereby become vacant. The Scottish royalty was conferred on William and Mary, in like terms as that of the English Convention.

BATTLE OF KILLIECRANKIE.

In the crisis of his affairs, James had summoned his Scottish troops to England. Their commander, Lord Douglas, went over to William; but the second in command, John Graham of Claverhouse—now Viscount Dundee—had an interview with the King—assured him of the loyalty of his troops, about 6,500 well disciplined men, advised the King either to hazard a battle, or to fall back with these troops into Scotland. On the King declining both propositions, Lord Dundee took up a position at Watford, about eighteen miles north-west of London, expecting an attack by William. But Dundee had served his early campaigns under the Prince, having in one engagement rescued him from imminent danger. So the Prince now sent him a message that he had no quarrel with him. Then came James’s flight, and the Prince’s entry into London; and Dundee seeing he could do nothing more to help James in England, rode back with about twenty-five of his dragoons into Scotland. The Scottish army was placed under General Mackay, one of William’s adherents, and he was shortly after sent as commander of the royal forces into Scotland.

Lord Dundee came to Edinburgh, for some time hovering like a hawk over the then sitting Convention. The Duke of Gordon still held the Castle for King James; Dundee had an interview with the Duke and advised “no surrender,” he then, with a few horsemen, left the city. (We all know the ringing song in which Sir Walter Scott narrates his departure.) Like a fiery-cross he went through the highlands, rousing the clansman to battle for the fallen Stuart King. The man must have had a dominating personality; in a short time he had assembled an army, feeble in discipline and cohesion no doubt; but, as it proved, good for the kind of work it befell them to do.

The highlanders were posted on an open slope at the head of the pass of Killiecrankie in the north Perthshire hills. To give them battle, Mackay, on 17th June, 1689, advanced up the pass. When the royal troops entered the defile, no enemy was to be seen,—only the pines towering high upon the cliffs on either hand, and the river Garry rushing swiftly by the narrow pathway through the pass. To the Lowland and Dutch soldiers, who composed the royal army, it was a scene novel and magnificent, but bewildering, awe-inspiring.

Dundee allowed the whole of Mackay’s army to emerge from the pass, and even to form in order of battle, before he began the attack. It was an hour before sunset that the highlanders advanced. They fired their muskets only once, and throwing them away, with fierce shouts they rushed down with broadsword and target. Mackay’s line was broken by the onset. When it came to disordered ranks, and the clash of hand to hand combats, the superior discipline of the royal troops was of no account. Agility, hardihood, and the confidence of assured victory were on the side of the clansmen. It was soon a rout; but with such a narrow gorge for retreat it became a massacre. Two thousand of Mackay’s troops were slain. The highlanders’ loss was eight hundred; but amongst these was their gallant leader. Near the end of the battle, Dundee, on horseback, was extending his right arm to the clan Macdonald, as directing their movements, when he was struck by a bullet under the arm-pit, where he was unprotected by his cuirass. With him perished the cause of King James in Scotland. After his death his army melted away, and both highlands and lowlands submitted to the Government of William.

General lenity and toleration were the watchwords of William’s policy. The episcopal church was to be maintained in England, and the presbyterian in Scotland; but neither were to ride rough-shod over dissenters. In Scotland, much against the desires of the more rigid, as the Cameronians, there were to be no reprisals for former persecution and oppression. Even obnoxious officials were maintained in their old places. When the Jacobite rising in Ireland was quelled by the surrender of Limerick, a treaty was there made by which Catholics were to be allowed the free exercise of their religion. William endeavoured to get parliament to ratify this treaty, but two months after it had been entered into, the English Parliament imposed a declaration against Transubstantiation on members of the Irish parliament, and this parliament, entirely composed of Protestants, whilst giving nominal confirmation, really put the Catholics in a worse condition than they were before. The Irish Catholics have since then called Limerick, “the town of the broken treaty.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Massacre of Glencoe.

To counteract the spirit of disloyalty which was still lurking amongst the Highland clans, the Earl of Breadalbane, cousin to the Duke of Argyle, was entrusted with £16,000, to be distributed among the various chieftains, conditionally on their making submission to William and Mary. The Earl did not make an impartial distribution of the money; the leading chiefs were bought off, the lesser were intimidated by threats. A branch of the clan MacDonald were settled in a wild valley, Glencoe, in north Argyleshire; a small river, the Coe (the Cona of Ossian—a name which sounds musically sweet—calling up thoughts of serenity and peace,) runs through the valley towards Lochleven—the arm of the sea which separates Argyleshire from Inverness-shire. The valley spreads flatwise to the bases of the surrounding hills, which seem to stand as fortressed walls to guard it from all danger. But in this secluded spot—shut off as it seemed from the outer world—was enacted the basest of all the acts of treachery and barbarity which disgrace this seventeenth century.

MacIan, the chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, was an old man, stately, venerable, sagacious. He now charged Breadalbane with having defrauded him of his share of the government money; the earl retorted that MacIan and his tribe had been persistent marauders over his Campbell clansmen’s lands round Glencoe, which was probably true enough, as there had been a feud of long standing between the clans. A proclamation had been issued that—under severe penalties for non-compliance—submission had to be made before the 1st of January, 1692; MacIan, out of a spirit of contrariness, put off taking the oath, and the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Master of Stair, a friend of Breadalbane’s, reported officially to the government that the MacDonalds were not making submission, and that they were an incorrigibly lawless tribe of thieves and murderers.

On the 31st of December, MacIan and several of his leading clansmen went to Fort-William, and proffered to take the oath of allegiance before Colonel Hill, the commanding officer. Not being a civil official, the Colonel was not empowered to administer the oath, but, moved by the distress of the old man, who saw the danger to which his obstinacy had exposed his people, he gave him a letter to Sir Colin Campbell, the Sheriff of Argyleshire, requesting him to receive, although after the official date, the submission of the chief. With this letter MacIan hastened on, through snowstorms, by swollen streams, and rugged mountain paths, to Inverary. The road passed near his own home, but he was now in such haste that he went right on; but it was the 6th of January, before he had accomplished the weary fifty miles, and presented himself before the sheriff. The sheriff, considering all the circumstances, administered the oath; he gave MacIan a certificate, and wrote to the Privy Council, detailing the facts, and giving explanatory reasons for his own conduct in the matter.

But the secretary had hoped to have had MacIan in his power, and was chagrined by the submission; so the sheriff’s letter was suppressed, and the submission deleted from the records of the council. On the 16th of January, the secretary obtained the king’s signature to the following order, addressed to the commander of the forces in Scotland:—“As for MacIan of Glencoe, and that tribe, if they can be well distinguished from the rest of the Highlanders, it will be proper for the vindication of public justice to extirpate that set of thieves.” Burnet says that William did not read the order, but signed it, thinking it was only a detail in ordinary business. Another explanation is, that the fact of MacIan’s submission being treacherously withheld from William, he thought that the extirpation meant by the order was, that _as_ a “set of thieves” they were to be broken up, and brought under ordinary law. William could not have meant to order or to sanction the horrible event which followed; but still the name of Glencoe ever sounds as a blast of judgment against the fair fame of the Deliverer.

And now, as under the royal order, the secretary gave explicit instructions for the indiscriminate butchery of the whole “damnable race.” The passes were to be guarded to prevent any escape. “In the winter,” he wrote, “they cannot carry their wives, children, and cattle to the mountains. This is the proper season to maul them, in the long dark nights.” A detachment of troops, belonging Argyle’s regiment, under Campbell of Glenlyon, were sent into the glen. They were hospitably received, and were quartered amongst the inhabitants. A niece of Glenlyon’s was married to a son of MacIan’s, and for twelve days there was hunting by day, and feasting, card-playing, and healths-drinking in the long evenings. Glenlyon and a party accepted an invitation to dine with MacIan on the 13th of February, but, as had been previously arranged, at four o’clock of the morning of that day, the work of blood began. The old chief was shot in his bed; his wife was stripped naked, and died next day from terror and exposure. The two sons of MacIan were aroused by the musket shots, the shouts of the murderers, and the screams of the victims; they, with many others, men, women, and children, fled, half-naked, in darkness, snow, and storm, into the less savage wilderness. The falling snow proved fatal to several of the fugitives, but it was the salvation of the others, for it prevented the troops, who were to have guarded the passes, from arriving at the time appointed, to intercept and slay all who had escaped from death in the glen. It was mid-day when these troops, by the several passes entered the glen, and they found no MacDonald alive but an old man of eighty, and him they slew. Every hut was burned, the cattle and horses of the tribe were collected, and driven to the garrison of Fort-William.

Thirty-eight victims: Was Secretary Stair satisfied? Not he; he was mortified that his plans for total destruction had failed. “I regret,” he wrote, “that any got away.” It is said that two men—one engaged in the contrivance of the massacre, and the other in its execution— Breadalbane and Glenlyon—did feel the stings of conscience, the heart- gnawings of remorse, and were never the same men afterwards.

It was long before the hideous story of Glencoe came to be generally known. On the facts being published, there rose a popular clamour for an inquiry. On the eve of the meeting of the Scottish Parliament, in 1695, it was known to ministers that the war-cry would be “Glencoe.” So in haste they got the King to appoint a Commission. After a searching enquiry, the Commission reported that the slaughter at Glencoe was murder; and that of this murder the letters of the Master of Stair were the sole warrant and cause. As a punishment for his great crime, Stair was _dismissed from office_!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Union of Scotland and England.

Just at the time when the full realization of the horrors of Glencoe was agitating the public mind, the disastrous Darien scheme was floated. This, the first great national adventure in foreign commerce, was a wild speculation, based upon the fanciful assumptions of one man, William Paterson. His scheme was to establish a trading colony on the narrow isthmus joining North and South America, as a convenient stage between India and Europe. His eloquent tongue, and even more eloquent reservations, produced glowing visions of national and individual wealth. There was a rush for shares in the “Company of Scotland;” for their purchase landowners mortgaged their estates, farmers sold their cattle, widows pledged their jointures. Nearly half-a-million sterling was subscribed. Ships and stores were purchased, and in July, 1698, a colonizing expedition of 1200 men left Leith, amidst the wildest popular enthusiasm. It reached its destination, and under the ninth parallel of north latitude a New Edinburgh was founded.

The enterprise was an utter failure; the climate was found to be a deadly one, and famine was imminent; many died, and there was general sickness and debility. Under instructions from the home government, the governors of English West India settlements issued proclamations, denouncing the Scottish colonists as pirates, and interdicting supplies and communications. The Spaniards, claiming the land as theirs, were fitting out hostile armaments. Finding that to remain meant nothing short of extermination, all who were left took to their ships; drifting almost at the mercy of winds and waves, they arrived at the Hudson river. A second expedition of 1300 men landed to find ruins and a solitude, and to meet a similar fate.

Glencoe had largely weakened the popularity of William in Scotland, and his hostile action towards the Darien scheme excited hatred and disloyalty. Jacobitism, instead of wearing itself out, became more deeply rooted and more formidable. The golden link of the crown, which during the seventeenth century had been the only official tie between the two nations, seemed a fragile one; and the King saw, with the prescience of a statesman, that there must either be closer union, or entire separation. He could see that—comparatively weak as Scotland was— its influence might, under a foreign complication, have to be deducted from the strength of England.

In February, 1702, William met with the accident—a fall from his horse— which resulted in his death. When he knew that his end was approaching he sent his last message under his sign-manual to Parliament, recommending the union of the kingdoms; it would be a comfort to him if Parliament would favourably consider the matter. The Commons agreed to consider the King’s message on the 7th of March—on that day he was in _extremis_—dying in the night.

Then Anne, William’s sister-in-law, reigned. The Scots were still irritable over the English treatment of the Darien scheme, and their Parliament passed what was called _The Act of Security_. By this act it was ordained that the English successor to the then reigning sovereign, would not be adopted by Scotland, unless there was free trade between the two countries, and the internal affairs of Scotland thoroughly secured from English influence. The Queen’s High Commissioner refused the royal assent to this defiant measure, and the English House of Peers passed a resolution, that a dangerous plot existed in Scotland for the overthrow of the Protestant succession in that nation. The Scots highly resented this resolution, declaring it to be an unauthorised interference with the concerns of an independent kingdom. The Estates refused to grant supplies, and ordered the disciplining, by monthly drills, of all men capable of bearing arms. The reply of the English Parliament was, by the enactment of fresh restrictions upon Scottish trade with England and its colonies, and by ordering the border towns of Newcastle, Berwick, and Carlisle to be fortified and garrisoned.

But the queen had in her minister, Earl Godolphin, a wise and sagacious statesman; by his advice she gave in 1704, her assent to the Act of Security. And the English Parliament empowered the queen to nominate commissioners to discuss with commissioners appointed by the Scottish estates terms of a treaty of union between the two nations. Thirty commissioners were thus appointed on each side; ostensibly they represented all parties; but Godolphin’s powerful influence was so exerted in the selection, that not only was there a majority on both sides in favour of union, but also for that union being favourable to England. There is more than mere suspicion that English money was freely given, and English promises of personal advancement were largely made, to induce the Scottish Commissioners to agree to terms which were certainly unjust to Scotland.

The numerical proportion of its population, entitled Scotland to send sixty-six members to a united House of Commons; but the number was restricted to forty-five. Of the Scottish nobility, not one was to be entitled by right of title or of possessions, to sit in the House of Lords; but there were to be sixteen representative peers. For the English bishops holding seats in the upper house, there was to be no Scottish counterpart. The Scottish nobles on the Commission were tempted to agree to the ignominious position their order was to be placed in by the promise that themselves would be created _British peers_, with hereditary seats in the Lords. Scotland was to pay a fair proportion of the general taxation. She was to retain her Presbyterian Church, and her own civil and municipal laws and institutions.

When the articles of the proposed treaty as arranged by the joint Commission were published, there was in Scotland a general outburst of rage and mortification. It seemed as if they were to make a voluntary surrender of their dearly bought independence,—a descent from their position as a free nation, into that of a mere province. When the Scottish Parliament met in October, 1706, the whole country was in a state of dangerous excitement. Addresses against the proposed terms of union were sent from every county and town, from almost every parish in the kingdom. In some towns, copies of the Articles of Union were publicly burned. Edinburgh was in a state of wild tumult; the High Commissioner was hooted; the Provost, who was known to favour the obnoxious treaty, had his house wrecked. In the House of Parliament there were fierce debates, “resembling,” said an eye witness, “not a mere strife of tongues, but the clash of arms.” The opposition, headed by the Duke of Hamilton, did all they could to hinder the measure; finding their resistance ineffectual, they retired from the parliament house, and, clause by clause, the articles of treaty were formally passed by the compliant majority.

In March, 1707, the English parliament ratified the Treaty of Union, and on the 1st of May ensuing, it came into operation. It had been carried through the Scottish Parliament by transparent venality, and under popular disfavour. It was inaugurated in Scotland with sullen discontent, and for six years it was there the ruling passion to discredit and decry it. And so far its results had not contradicted evil forebodings. As had been feared, the very slender representation of Scotland in the Imperial Parliament, gave it only a weak voice in legislature. The English treason laws, and malt-tax were extended to Scotland. The Scottish representatives in the Commons complained that they were not treated as equals by their fellow-members—not as representing a free nation, the equal of England in its rights and privileges, but a subjugated and dependent province. Sneers at their country, and sarcasms on their own accent, manners, and appearance, were daily met with by men who were proud of their native land, and in that land had been accorded the respect due to gentlemen of birth, breeding, and education. And Scottish noblemen, who had not been elected on the representative sixteen, but had been created _British Peers_ by the sovereign, were, by a resolution of the House of Lords, refused seats in that House.

In 1713, the Scottish members in both Houses,—and who included within their ranks men of all political parties—Revolution Whigs, and Tory advocates of kingly prerogative, Jacobites and adherents of the House of Hanover,—unanimously resolved to move in parliament the repeal of the Act of Union, on the grounds that it had failed in the good results which had been anticipated from it. And in the then state of parties in England, there seemed a fair chance of carrying the proposed abrogation. For the Whigs, who had been the dominant party, from the Revolution to 1710, when they were ousted from office, were now—although they had been the active promoters of the Union—prepared to do anything to cripple the government. The defence of the Union now rested with the Tories, who had strenuously opposed it, and obstructed it at every stage.

On the 1st of June, the motion for repeal was brought up in the House of Lords, and after a warm debate was rejected by a majority of only four votes. So, happily for both countries, the Union had farther trial; and as in the generality of prognostications of evil, as the resultant of political or social change, time has proved their falsity. Under the Union, Scotland advanced in material prosperity, and as a nation she has fully maintained her national prestige. Scotsmen have ever taken an active part—at times a leading part—in imperial affairs. In diplomacy and in war, in science and invention, in literature and art, in philosophy and trading enterprise, Scotsmen have been well in line with men of the other nationalities which together constitute the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Jacobite Risings of 1715.

Queen Anne was not a woman of strong intellect, but simple and homely in her tastes; weakly obstinate, like the Stuart race. In the earlier years of her reign, with the Whigs in power, she was under the stronger will of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough; in the later years, when the Tories held office, she was largely ruled by a Mrs. Masham. Her domestic story was a painful one. She passed through a motherhood of nineteen children, nearly all of whom died in infancy, only one son reaching the age of eleven years. Her husband, Prince George of Denmark, was the very embodiment of dulness and stupidity. King James, his father-in-law, said of him, “I have tried George drunk, and I have tried him sober; drunk or sober there is nothing in him.” He took no part in public affairs. He died in 1708, and Anne, widowed, childless, and in broken health, was as lonely a woman as any within the three kingdoms which acknowledged her sovereignty.

There is no doubt that after she had lost all her own children, her sympathies were with her father’s son, generally known as _The Pretender_. She felt more and more as her life was ebbing to its end, that she had not been a dutiful daughter. In her own loneliness she must have had abiding thoughts of her young brother, expatriated from his father-land. Whilst she was living in royal estate, he, the legitimate heir of that estate, was a homeless waif,—ever tantalized by fruitless hopes and longings. What to her was this second cousin in Hanover,—a foreigner by birth and in all his interests? She was horror-stricken at, and absolutely refused to sanction, a Whig proposal, that Elector George should be invited to visit Britain, and make some acquaintance with the country which he was one day to rule over.

Anne’s two leading ministers—Oxford and Bolingbroke, at one in their Jacobite proclivities, were yet at personal variance. At a council meeting, on 27th July, 1714, at which the queen was present, they had a fierce quarrel, and, under the joint influence of Bolingbroke and Mrs. Masham, the Queen dismissed Oxford from office. But the triumph of Bolingbroke was short-lived, for the stormy council meeting so acted on the queen, that she next day fell into a lethargy, from which—with brief intervals of semi-consciousness—she never rallied.

On the 30th of July, when it was known that the queen was sinking, two Whig lords, the Dukes of Somerset and Argyle, took upon themselves, in virtue of their position as privy-councillors, to attend unsummoned the council board. They found the ministers in a state of utter perplexity and alarm; humble enough to agree to a proposal that in the present grave crisis, the queen should be asked to confer the premiership upon the Duke of Shrewsbury. He had taken a leading part in the revolution, been one of William’s chief secretaries of state, and was much respected by both parties. The dying queen gave, by a sign, her consent to his receiving the staff of office. That feeble sign was the last public action of the Stuart dynasty. Anne died on the 1st of August, and next day the Elector of Hanover,—through his mother and grandmother, a great grandson of James I.,—was, as George the First, proclaimed king in London.

The new king, knowing that the Whigs were his best friends, formed his ministry from their ranks. Three of Anne’s ministers, Oxford, Bolingbroke, and the Duke of Ormond, were impeached for high treason; Oxford was sent to the Tower; Bolingbroke and Ormond escaped to the Continent, where they joined the councils of the Pretender. The Tory party, although out of official power, comprised the bulk of the landowners, the clergy, and the learning of England; and the popular mind—as shewn in tumultuous crowds, cheering Jacobite speeches, and burning effigies of King William—was largely reactionary.

As tidings of British agitation and discontent were wafted across the Channel, so rose the hopes of the Pretender and his little court of adherents at St. Germains. Vessels were equipped at Havre and Dieppe, with arms and ammunition. The Pretender’s plan of operations turned upon the Duke of Ormond making a landing in England, and the Duke of Berwick in Scotland. The latter, a natural son of James II., by a sister of the Duke of Marlborough, had a high military reputation, and if he had had the general direction of the movement, the results might have been different. But on the 6th of September, 1715, the Earl of Mar, without any commission from the Pretender, set up his standard at Braemar, and proclaimed him King of Scotland.

Mar had got up Highland games and hunting expeditions, and being an eloquent speaker, he inflamed the minds of the chieftains with sanguine hopes of a successful issue to a general rising. Ten thousand men rallied round the flag of rebellion. And in Northumberland, under the Earl of Derwentwater, and Mr. Foster, a county member of Parliament, there was a simultaneous rising. Mar sent a thousand Highlandmen in aid; on their way they were joined by several noblemen and gentlemen of the south of Scotland. The little Northumbrian army marched into Lancashire, and occupied Preston; attacked there by royal troops, they, after an obstinate defence, surrendered.

Meanwhile, Mar, after occupying Perth, marched to join the English insurgents. At Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane, he was met by a royalist force under the Duke of Argyle, and on the same day as the surrender at Preston, a battle was fought. The left wing of both armies defeated its opponents; so it was technically a drawn battle. But it was tantamount to a rebel defeat; next morning Argyle occupied the field of action; Mar had retired to Perth. On December 22nd, the Pretender arrived in a small vessel at Peterhead. He made a quasi-royal progress to Perth, having himself proclaimed as James the Eighth in all the towns he passed through. Of a handsome person, he could be courteous in his manners; but he lacked animation; his general expression was sombre and uninviting, not one to raise enthusiasm in men engaged in a desperate enterprise. He entered Perth on 9th January, 1716, taking up his quarters at Scone, and giving instructions for his coronation.

But the dream of the crown, which had tantalized the prince from boyhood, vanished into thin air before the stern realities around him. Mar’s army was dispirited by inaction, and melting away by desertions. Argyle had been reinforced by English troops and Dutch auxiliaries, and had had a field-train from Berwick. On January 30th, he was in sight of Perth. The prospect of a battle raised the spirits of the clansmen, but the leaders had seen for weeks that their enterprise was hopeless, and Mar ordered a retreat. It had been an especially cold winter, the Tay, instead of being a strongly flowing river, was then a frozen highway, and in sullen discontent, the clans crossed over and began their retreat. They marched in good order, unmolested by Argyle. In four days they had reached Montrose, _en route_ for Aberdeen; there, it was promised them they would meet a large body of French troops, and again, with bright hopes of success, march southwards.

On February 4th, the retreat was to be continued; the carriage and mounted guards of the prince were waiting before the gateway of his lodgings, but no prince appeared. He had slunk off by a back-way and, with the Earl of Mar, Lord Drummond, and the _gentlemen_ of his suite, gone on board a small vessel in the harbour, lying ready for their reception. It was, perhaps, the meanest desertion by the leaders of a warlike enterprise in all history. The prince left a sealed letter, to be opened in Aberdeen. Its contents were found to be formal thanks for faithful services, _permission_ to choose between dispersion, and as a body coming to terms with the enemy; and apprizing the men that their pay had now ceased. There was an outburst of rage and mortification, and then the clans, under great privations, sought their native glens and villages; the leaders tried to make their escape to the continent from the northern sea-ports.

During the twelve years of Anne’s reign there was not a single execution for treason, but now the headsman and hangman were again at work. Of those who took part in the English insurrection, the Earl of Derwentwater, Lord Kenmore, and about twenty other persons were executed. Foster and several others made rather marvellous escapes from prison. In Scotland about forty families of note lost their estates. But a trick of the government, in ordering that the commission for the trial of the Scottish rebels should sit in Carlisle, raised such a cry of injustice, and of being an infringement of the Articles of Union, that the accused were given to understand that if they did not challenge the authority of the Court, they would be mercifully dealt with. The result was, that although twenty-four were condemned, not one of them was executed.

After the native efforts of Jacobitism in 1715 had resulted in utter failure, it had certain glimmerings of success through foreign complications. King George never became in heart, in habits, or in policy, an Englishman. In his Hanoverian policy he embroiled Britain with Sweden and Spain. He purchased from the King of Denmark the duchies of Bremen and Verden, which duchies the King of Sweden—the redoubtable Charles XII.—claimed as his own. Charles now proposed to place himself at the head of a confederacy, to dethrone King George, and put the Pretender in his place. His idea was, to land with 10,000 men in the north of Scotland, to call upon the highland clans to again rally round a Jacobite standard, and, with the co-operation of a Spanish fleet, to march into England. It is one of the might-have-beens with which history abounds. But a cannon shot at the siege of Frederickshall, in 1718, ended the erratic course of Charles.

Next year the Pretender was received with royal honours at Madrid, and an expedition of ten ships of war, with 6,000 troops and much warlike stores on board, was placed under the command of the Duke of Ormond, and sailed for Scotland. A violent storm off Cape Finisterre scattered the expedition. Two frigates landed 300 men at Lewis; these surrendered to the royal troops sent against them. This same year the Pretender married a Polish princess; by her he had two sons,—Charles Edward, and Henry Benedict.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Rebellion of 1745.

In 1724, the government sent Marshal Wade into the Highlands to take measures to enforce law and order, and to facilitate military communication. Wade was a man of good common sense, and he did his work with tact and judgment. The clansmen were disarmed; but commissions were given to loyal chieftains to raise militia companies, to be disciplined and trained in the use of arms. Some of these companies, as the celebrated _Black Watch_, which became the 42nd regiment, were composed of men in good social positions, as farmers, tacksmen, and sons of highland gentlemen. And Wade employed his soldiers to construct, under skilful supervision, well-formed roads, connected together, and more direct. A memorable distich was posted up near Fort-William:—

“Had you seen those roads before they were made,
You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade.”

On the surface the Highlands were quiet, and were being brought more and more within the pale of British citizenship. Sheriffs held their courts in all the northern shires; schools were established in every parish; farmers and breeders had better access to fairs and markets, and hillside cottars to their Kirks. But the embers of Jacobitism still smouldered; the chiefs had no liking for these German Georges, and the clansmen would still follow their chieftain’s leadership.

But there was no special agitation or disquietude in the Highlands when, on the 25th of July, 1745, Prince Charles Edward landed on the south- west coast of Inverness-shire, and asked the neighbouring chiefs to join him in a new rebellion. He came, personally a stranger in the land, with a suite of seven gentlemen, to conquer a throne from which, fifty-seven years previously, his grandfather had been driven with ignominy and disgrace. There must have been a charm of person and manners in the prince—now in his twenty-fifth year—by which he won the hearts, and, even against their judgments, the enthusiastic support of the chiefs, who met him with the intention of persuading him to return to France. He lives in Scottish song and story as “Bonnie Prince Charlie”—the idol of the clansmen.

Some leading chiefs as MacDonald of Sleat and MacLeod of MacLeod, declined to join the enterprise; but one man of foremost note—Cameron of Lochiel—declared for the prince, and sent out a gathering summons to arms. About two thousand men saluted the standard when, on August 19th, it was set up at Glenfinnan. On the 3rd of September, the prince entered Perth; a fortnight later he was in Edinburgh. The magistrates had tried to organize a volunteer defence of the city; but when the words passed round, “the Highlanders are in sight,” the gates were opened. But the castle held out for King George.

Sir John Cope, the Commander of the royal forces in Scotland had, at the news of the rebellion, gone with 1500 men into the Highlands; but, evading the prince’s forces, he took shipping at Aberdeen, landed at Dunbar, and with reinforcements, marched on Edinburgh. The prince met him at Prestonpans, eight miles east of Edinburgh, and a battle was there fought on the morning of 21st September. The rush of the highlanders, with broadsword and target, here, as at Killiecrankie, carried the day. The royal troops were completely routed, and their artillery, baggage, and military chest fell to the victors.

The prince returned to Edinburgh amidst popular acclamations. His adventure had now assumed a more serious aspect. For a time it seemed as if the whole of Scotland,—except the castles of Edinburgh and Stirling, and the highland garrisons—was at his feet. Dundee and Perth were held by highland contingents; Glasgow was subjected to a payment of £5,000. But it was six weeks before, from other highland clans coming in, and from lowland enlistments, his army mustered 5,500 men. At Holyrood balls and festivities, he courteously enacted the royal host. On October 31st, he began his march southwards, entering England by the western border. He took Carlisle, passed through Preston, Wigan, and Manchester, arriving at Derby on 4th December. The march was in two divisions; the front division was commanded by Lord George Murray, a thorough soldier in courage and ability. The rear division was led by the prince himself,—generally in highland garb, his target on his shoulder.

At Derby the prince might have said with Henry of Lancaster:—

“Thus far into the bowels of the land,
Have we marched on without impediment.”

But what next—and next? A larger and better appointed army than his own, commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, was at Lichfield, only twenty-five miles to the south-west; another army, equal in numbers to his own, under Marshal Wade, was marching down on his rear through Yorkshire. The general opinion of a Council of War was for retreat. The prince at first refused his assent; he sulked over it for a day, and then gave in with a bad grace, saying he would call no more Councils of War, but act entirely on his own judgment. Early next morning—the 6th of December—the cheerless retreat began.

The very audacity of the irruption into England fostered an idea in the minds of both friends and enemies that the prince had some secret but well-founded assurance of powerful support, which in due time would reveal itself. But the idea was seen to be baseless when the highland brogues began to retrace the northern roads. In passing through Manchester on the march, there had been bonfires, acclamations, hand- kissing, and a display of white cockades. Ten days later, in the retreat, there was in Manchester a mob-demonstration against the highlanders; when they left the town, their rear guard was hooted and fired upon.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

LORD LOVAT.
_From a drawing made by Hogarth the morning before his Lordship’s
execution._
]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the Duke of Cumberland learned of the retreat of the rebels, he hastened against them with all his cavalry; but their rear-guard, under Lord George Murray, gallantly repelled all attacks; and on 20th December, the prince’s army was again on Scottish ground. After levying contributions on Glasgow and Dumfries, he proceeded towards Stirling, making the historical village of Bannockburn his headquarters. Here he was joined by considerable reinforcements, including the clans Frazer, Farquharson, MacKenzie, and Macintosh. Simon, Lord Lovat, the aged chief of the Frazers, had been playing fast and loose, negotiating with the Prince for a dukedom as the price of his support; at the same time assuring the government of his loyalty, and asking for arms to enable his clan to act against the rebels. In the end, he sent his son with 750 Frazers to join the princes standard; the crafty old fox himself remaining at home in pretended neutrality. By the middle of January the prince’s muster-roll reached its maximum—about 8,500 men.

The prince had opened trenches for a regular siege of Stirling Castle, when he learned that General Hawley with 8,000 men, most of them veterans from the French wars, was marching against him. Lord George Murray—knowing that with such an army as that of the rebels, the chances of success lay more in attack than defence—made a rapid march on Hawley. On the afternoon of January 17th, a battle was fought on Falkirk Moor. It was a wild fight, in a blinding storm of wind and rain. The darkening mists prevented combined operations on both sides. Divisions of each army drove back their immediate opponents, but themselves got into disorder in pursuit. Hawley in belief of defeat, fired his tents, fell back on Linlithgow, and next morning took his army to Edinburgh.

After the battle of Falkirk, the prince was for continuing the siege, but such plodding work did not suit the Highlanders, and the chiefs addressed a memorandum to him, advising retreat. He fumed and protested, but had again to yield. On February 4th, the Forth was forded, and the retreat began; it was a leisurely one, no royalist force of any magnitude being in the Highlands. Inverness was occupied by the prince on February 18th. Forts George and Augustus surrendered; Lord Loudon took what royalist troops he could collect into Ross-shire, where they were joined by the Whig MacDonalds.

The Duke of Cumberland came to Edinburgh, and organized an army. In addition to his British troops, 6,000 Hessians were landed at Leith. The army marched by Perth to Aberdeen. On the 8th of April, the Duke left Aberdeen; on the 14th, he was at Nairn, 16 miles north of Inverness. His troops numbered 9,000 men,—a compact, well-fed, well-disciplined army, with full confidence in their leader, as a man of courage and large military experience.