Chapter I: Part 1

PUBLICATIONS

OF THE

SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY

SECOND SERIES

VOL.
II

ORIGINS OF THE ’FORTY-FIVE

MARCH 1916

ORIGINS OF
THE ’FORTY-FIVE

AND OTHER PAPERS RELATING
TO THAT RISING

Edited by
WALTER BIGGAR BLAIKIE
LL.D.

EDINBURGH

Printed at the University Press by T. and A. CONSTABLE
for the Scottish History Society

1916

PREFACE

I desire to express my thanks to the Government of the French Republic for permission to make transcripts and to print selections from State Papers preserved in the National Archives in Paris; to the Earl of Ancaster for permission to print the Drummond Castle Manuscript of Captain Daniel’s Progress; to the Earl of Galloway for Cardinal York’s Memorial to the Pope; to His Grace the Archbishop of St. Andrews for the use of papers elucidating the action of the Roman Catholic clergy in 1745; to Miss Grosett-Collins, who kindly lent me Grossett family papers; to Mrs. G. E. Forbes and Mr. Archibald Trotter of Colinton for private papers of the Lumisden family; to M. le Commandant Jean Colin of the French Army (author of _Louis XV. et les Jacobites_) for several valuable communications, and to Martin Haile for similar help.

To my cousin, Miss H. Tayler, joint author of _The Book of the Duffs_, I am indebted for transcripts of papers in the French Archives in Paris as well as for information from Duff family papers; to Miss Maria Lansdale for the transcript of the report of the Marquis d’Eguilles to Louis XV.; to Dr. W. A. Macnaughton, Stonehaven, for copies of the depositions referring to the evasion of Sir James Steuart; and to Miss Nairne, Salisbury, for the translation of Cardinal York’s Memorial.

I have also to acknowledge general help from the Hon. Evan Charteris; Mr. William Mackay, Inverness; Mr. J. K. Stewart, secretary of the Stewart Society; Mr. J. R. N. Macphail, K.C.; Mr. J. M. Bulloch, author of _The House of Gordon_; Dr. Watson, Professor of Celtic History, Edinburgh; Mr. P. J. Anderson, Aberdeen University Library; Colonel Lachlan Forbes; the Rev. Archibald Macdonald of Kiltarlity; and the Rev. W. C. Flint of Fort Augustus.

I should be ungrateful if I did not make acknowledgment of the information I have received and made use of from five modern books--_James Francis Edward_, by Martin Haile; _The King Over the Water_, by A. Shield and Andrew Lang; _The Jacobite Peerage_, by the Marquis de Ruvigny; _The History of Clan Gregor_, by Miss Murray Macgregor; and _The Clan Donald_, by A. and A. Macdonald.

Lastly, I have to thank Mr. W. Forbes Gray for kindly reading and revising proofs and for other assistance; and Mr. Alex. Mill, who has most carefully prepared the Index and given me constant help in many ways.

W. B. B.

COLINTON, _March 1, 1916_.

CORRIGENDA

Page xxxix, lines 3 and 14, _for_ ‘Excellency’ _read_ ‘Eminence.’

Page 18, note 3, _for_ see Appendix’ _read_ ‘see Introduction, p. xxiii.’ [Transcriber’s note: found in footnote 140]

Page 47, note 1, _for_ ‘John Butler’ _read_ ‘John Boyle.’ [Transcriber’s note: found in footnote 180]

Page 113, note 3, last line, _for_ ‘1745’ _read_ ‘1746.’ [Transcriber’s note: found in footnote 323]

SCOTTISH HISTORY SOCIETY

The Editor of ‘ORIGINS OF THE FORTY-FIVE’ requests members to make the following corrections:--

Page xviii, line 20, ‘September 3rd’ should be ‘September 1st.’

Page xxv, line 25, the age of Glenbucket should be ‘sixty-four,’
and at page lxi, line 6, his age should be ‘seventy-two.’

In a letter in the Stuart Papers (Windsor), from Glenbucket
to Edgar, dated St. Ouen, 21 Aug. 1747, he states his age
to be seventy-four.

Page 97, line 22 of note, ‘_Clan Donald_ iii, 37,’ should be
‘iii, 337.’ [Transcriber’s note: found in footnote 301]

Page 164, note 1 [Transcriber’s note: found in footnote 388],
and again in Genealogical Table, page 422, ‘Abercromby of
Fettercairn’ should be ‘of Fetterneir.’

_June 4, 1917._

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION ix

Papers of John Murray of Broughton xlix

Memorial concerning the Highlands liii

The late Rebellion in Ross and Sutherland lv

The Rebellion in Aberdeen and Banff lvii

Captain Daniel’s Progress lxiv

Prince Charles’s Wanderings in the Hebrides lxx

Narrative of Ludovick Grant of Grant lxxiii

Rev. John Grant and the Grants of Sheugly lxxvi

Grossett’s Memorial and Accounts lxxviii

The Battles of Preston, Falkirk, and Culloden lxxxiv

PAPERS OF JOHN MURRAY OF BROUGHTON FOUND AFTER
CULLODEN 3

MEMORIAL CONCERNING THE HIGHLANDS, WRITTEN BY
ALEXANDER MACBEAN, A.M., MINISTER OF INVERNESS 71

AN ACCOUNT OF THE LATE REBELLION FROM ROSS AND
SUTHERLAND, WRITTEN BY DANIEL MUNRO, MINISTER
OF TAIN 95

MEMOIRS OF THE REBELLION IN 1745 AND 1746, SO FAR AS
IT CONCERNED THE COUNTIES OF ABERDEEN AND BANFF 113

A TRUE ACCOUNT OF MR. JOHN DANIEL’S PROGRESS WITH
PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD IN THE YEARS 1745 AND
1746, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF 167

NEIL MACEACHAIN’S NARRATIVE OF THE WANDERINGS OF
PRINCE CHARLES IN THE HEBRIDES 227

A SHORT NARRATIVE OF THE CONDUCT OF LUDOVICK GRANT
OF GRANT DURING THE REBELLION 269

THE CASE OF THE REV. JOHN GRANT, MINISTER OF
URQUHART; AND OF ALEXANDER GRANT OF SHEUGLY IN
URQUHART, AND JAMES GRANT, HIS SON 313

A NARRATIVE OF SUNDRY SERVICES PERFORMED, TOGETHER
WITH AN ACCOUNT OF MONEY DISPOSED IN THE SERVICE
OF GOVERNMENT DURING THE LATE REBELLION, BY
WALTER GROSSETT 335

LETTERS AND ORDERS FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF
WALTER GROSSETT 379

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLES OF PRESTON, FALKIRK,
AND CULLODEN, BY ANDREW LUMISDEN, THEN PRIVATE
SECRETARY TO PRINCE CHARLES 405

APPENDICES--

I. The Jacobite Lord Sempill 421

II. Murray and the Bishopric of Edinburgh 422

III. Sir James Steuart 423

IV. The Guildhall Relief Fund 429

V. Cardinal York’s Memorial to the Pope 434

VI. The Macdonalds 449

VII. Tables showing Kinship of Highland Chiefs 451

VIII. Lists of Highland Gentlemen who took part in
the ’Forty-five 454

INDEX 459

INTRODUCTION

James Francis Edward, King James III. and VIII. of the Jacobites, the Old Pretender of his enemies, and the Chevalier de St. George of historians, was born at St. James’s Palace on 10th June 1688. On the landing of William of Orange and the outbreak of the Revolution, the young Prince and his mother were sent to France, arriving at Calais on 11th December (O.S.);[1] the King left England a fortnight later and landed at Ambleteuse on Christmas Day (O.S.). The château of St. Germain-en-Laye near Paris was assigned as a residence for the royal exiles, and this château was the home of the Chevalier de St. George for twenty-four years.

James II. and VII. died on 5th September 1701 (16th Sept. N.S.), and immediately on his death Louis XIV. acknowledged his son as king, and promised to further his interests to the best of his power.

[Sidenote: The Scots Plot, 1703.[2]]

The first opportunity of putting the altruistic intention of the King of France into operation occurred within a year of King James’s death, and the evil genius of the project was Simon Fraser, the notorious Lord Lovat.

Lovat, whose scandalous conduct had shocked the people of Scotland, was outlawed by the courts for a criminal outrage, and fled to France in the summer of 1702. There, in spite of the character he bore, he so ingratiated himself with the papal nuncio that he obtained a private audience with Louis XIV., an honour unprecedented for a foreigner. To him he unfolded a scheme for a Stuart Restoration. He had, he said, before leaving Scotland visited the principal chiefs of the Highland clans and a great number of the lords of the Lowlands along with the Earl Marischal. They were ready to take up arms and hazard their lives and fortunes for the Stuart cause, and had given him a commission to represent them in France. The foundation of his scheme was to rely on the Highlanders. They were the only inhabitants of Great Britain who had retained the habit of the use of arms, and they were ready to act at once. Lord Middleton and the Lowland Jacobites sneered at them as mere banditti and cattle-stealers, but Lovat knew that they, with an instinctive love of fighting, were capable of being formed into efficient and very hardy soldiers. He proposed that the King of France should furnish a force of 5000 French soldiers, 100,000 crowns in money, and arms and equipment for 20,000 men. The main body of troops would land at Dundee where it would be near the central Highlands, and a detachment would be sent to western Invernessshire, with the object of capturing Fort William, which overawed the western clans. The design was an excellent one, and was approved by King Louis. But before putting it into execution the ministry sent Lovat back to obtain further information, and with him they sent John Murray, a naturalised Frenchman, brother of the laird of Abercairney, who was to check Lovat’s reports.

It is characteristic of the state of the exiled Court, that it was rent with discord, and that Lord Middleton, Jacobite Secretary of State, who hated Lovat, privately sent emissaries of his own to spy on him and to blight his prospects.

Lovat duly arrived in Scotland, but the history of his mission is pitiful and humiliating. He betrayed the project to the Duke of Queensberry, Queen Anne’s High Commissioner to the Scots Estates, and, by falsely suggesting the treason of Queensberry’s political enemies, the Dukes of Hamilton and Atholl, befooled that functionary into granting him a safe conduct to protect him from arrest for outlawry.

When Lovat returned to France he was arrested under a _lettre de cachet_ and confined a close prisoner for many years, some records say in the Bastille, but Lovat himself says at Angoulême.

The whole affair had little effect in Scotland beyond compassing the disgrace of Queensberry and his temporary loss of office, but it had lasting influence in France and reacted on all future projects of Jacobite action. For, first, it instilled into the French king and his ministers the suspicious feeling that Jacobite adventurers were not entirely to be trusted. And second, Lovat’s account of the fighting quality of the Highlanders and of their devotion to the Stuarts so impressed itself on both the French Court and that of St. Germains that they felt that in the Highlands of Scotland they would ever find a _point d’appui_ for a rising. Lovat’s report, in fact, identified the Highlanders with Jacobitism.

[Sidenote: The French Descent, 1708.[3]]

Scotland was the scene of the next design for a restoration, and the principal agent of the French Court was a certain Colonel Nathaniel Hooke. Hooke had been sent to Scotland in the year 1705, to see if that country was in such a state as to afford a reasonable prospect of an expedition in favour of the exiled Stuart. In the year 1707, while the Union was being forced upon an unwilling population, and discontent was rife throughout the country on account of that unpopular measure, Hooke was again sent, and although not entirely satisfied with all he saw and heard, he returned with favourable accounts on the whole. Among other documents he brought with him was a Memorial of certain Scottish lords to the Chevalier, in which, among other things, it was stated that if James, under the protection of His Most Christian Majesty (Louis XIV.), would come and put himself at the head of his people in Scotland, ‘the whole nation will rise upon the arrival of its King, who will become master of Scotland without any opposition, and the present Government will be intirely abolished.’ It was some months before the French king gave any answer. St. Simon in his _Memoires_ says that Louis XIV. was so disheartened by his previous failure that he would not at first listen to the suggestion of a French expedition; and it was only through the efforts of Madame de Maintenon that he was persuaded to sanction an invading force. Even then much time was wasted, and it was not until the spring of 1708 that a squadron was equipped under the command of the Admiral de Forbin, and a small army under the Comte de Gasse. Even when ready to sail, the constant and proverbial ill-luck of the Stuarts overtook the poor Chevalier. He caught measles, which still further delayed the expedition. By this time, naturally, the British Government had learned all about the scheme, and made their naval preparations accordingly. At last, on the 17th March, James, hardly convalescent, wrapped in blankets, was carried on board the flagship at Dunkirk. The squadron was to have proceeded to the Firth of Forth and to have landed the Chevalier at Leith, where his partisans were prepared to proclaim him king at Edinburgh. Possibly because of bad seamanship, possibly because of treachery,[4] the French admiral missed the Firth of Forth, and found himself off Montrose. He turned, and could proceed no nearer Edinburgh than the Isle of May, off which he anchored. There the British Fleet, which had followed him in close pursuit, discovered him. The admiral weighed anchor, and fought a naval action in which he lost one of his ships. He then retreated towards the north of Scotland. James implored to be set ashore even if it were only in a small boat by himself, but his solicitations were in vain. The admiral positively refused, saying that he had received instructions from the French king to be as careful of the Chevalier as if he were Louis himself; so Forbin carried him back to Dunkirk, where the heart-broken exile was landed on the 6th of April, having been absent only twenty days, and having lost one of the most likely opportunities that ever occurred for his restoration to his ancient kingdom of Scotland, if not to England.

[Sidenote: Expulsion from France, 1713.]

After his return to France the Chevalier joined the French army. In 1708 he fought at Oudenarde and Lille, and the following year at Malplaquet. His gallant conduct won golden opinions from Marlborough and his troops. The British soldiers drank his health. James visited their outposts and they cheered him. What Thackeray puts into the mouth of a British officer well describes the situation: ‘If that young gentleman would but ride over to our camp, instead of Villars’s, toss up his hat and say, “Here am I, the King, who’ll follow me?” by the Lord the whole army would rise and carry him home again, and beat Villars, and take Paris by the way.’[5] But James stayed with the French, and the war ended with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This treaty gave the crown of Spain to the Bourbons, Gibraltar and the slave-trade to the British, and pronounced the expulsion of the Stuarts from France. A new asylum was found for the Chevalier in Lorraine, which, though an independent duchy, was largely under the domination of France. The Chevalier’s residence was fixed at Bar-le-Duc, and there he went in February 1713.

In August 1714, on the death of Queen Anne, James made a trip to Paris to be ready for action should his presence be required, but the French Government sent him back to Bar-le-Duc. The death of Louis XIV. on 1st September 1715 (N.S.) was the next blow the Jacobite cause sustained. The government of France passed to the Duke of Orleans as Regent, and his policy was friendship with the British Government.

[Sidenote: The Fifteen.[6]]

Then came the Rising of 1715, which began at Braemar on 6th September, followed by the English rising in Northumberland under Forster. The movement in England was crushed at Preston on 13th November, the same day that the indecisive battle was fought at Sheriffmuir in Perthshire.

Lord Mar made Perth his headquarters, and invited James to join the Scottish army. The Chevalier, who had moved to Paris in October, in strict secrecy, and in disguise, being watched by both French and English agents, managed, after many remarkable adventures, checks, and disappointments, to get away from Dunkirk on 16th December (27th N.S.), and to reach Peterhead on the 22nd. Thence he went to Perth, where he established his Court at the ancient royal palace of Scone. He was proclaimed king and exercised regal functions; some authorities say that he was crowned.[7] But James had come too late; mutual disappointment was the result. He had been assured that the whole kingdom was on his side, but he found only dissension and discontent. His constant melancholy depressed his followers. No decisive action was taken; the project had failed even before he arrived, and Lord Mar persuaded him that he would serve the cause best by retiring and waiting for a happier occasion.

James was forced to leave Scotland on 5th February 1716 (O.S.). He landed at Gravelines on 10th February (21st N.S.), went secretly to Paris, and concealed himself for a week in the Bois de Boulogne. Thence he went to Lorraine, where he was sorrowfully told by the Duke that he could no longer give him shelter. The power of Britain was great; no country that gave the exile a home could avoid a quarrel with that nation. The Pope seemed to be the only possible host, and James made his way to Avignon, then papal territory. But even Avignon was too near home for the British Government, which, through the French regent, brought pressure to bear on the Pope; the Chevalier was forced to leave Avignon in February 1717, and to cross the Alps into Italy. Here for some months he wandered without a home, but in July 1717 he settled at Urbino in the Papal States.

[Sidenote: Marriage to Clementina, 1719.[8]]

For a time the cares of the Jacobite Court were centred on finding a wife of royal rank for the throneless king. After various unsuccessful proposals, the Chevalier became engaged to the Princess Clementina Sobieska, whose grandfather had been the warrior King of Poland. The Sobieski home was then at Ollau in Silesia; and in October 1718 James sent Colonel Hay to fetch his bride. The British Government determined to stop the marriage if possible. Pressure was put on the Emperor, who had Clementina arrested at Innsbruck while on her journey to Italy. Here the Princess remained a prisoner until the following April. The story of her rescue by Colonel Wogan is one of the romances of history, and has recently been the theme of an historical romance.[9] Wogan brought the princess safely to Bologna, and there she was married by proxy to James on 9th May 1719. While Wogan was executing his bridal mission, the Chevalier, who had almost given up hope of the marriage, had been called away to take his part in a project which seemed to augur a chance of success.

[Sidenote: The Swedish Plot, 1716-17.]

On the collapse of the rising of 1715, the Jacobite Court, despairing of assistance from France or Spain, had turned for aid to Charles XII. of Sweden. Charles had conceived a violent hatred for George I., who had acquired by purchase from the King of Denmark two secular bishoprics which had been taken from Sweden by the Danes, and which had been incorporated in the electorate of Hanover. As early as 1715 Charles listened to a project of the Duke of Berwick, by which he should send a force of Swedish troops to Scotland, but he was then too busy fighting the Danes to engage in the scheme. In 1717 the Jacobites renewed negotiations with Sweden, and a plan was formed for a general rising in England simultaneously with an invasion of Scotland by the Swedish king in person at the head of an army of 12,000 Swedes. The plot came to the knowledge of the British Government in time; the Swedish ambassador in London was arrested; the project came to nothing; but in the following year a more promising scheme for a Stuart restoration was formed.

[Sidenote: The Spanish Expedition of 1719.[10]]

Spain, smarting under the loss of her Italian possessions, ceded to Austria by the Peace of Utrecht, had declared war on the Emperor and had actually landed an army in Sicily. In compliance with treaty obligations, Great Britain had to defend the Emperor, and in August 1718 a British squadron engaged and destroyed a Spanish fleet off Cape Passaro. Alberoni, the Spanish minister, was furious and determined on reprisals. He entered into an alliance with the Swedish king; a plan for invading Great Britain was formed, and negotiations were opened with the Jacobite Court. The death of Charles XII. in December detached Sweden from the scheme, but Alberoni went on with his preparations. A great armada under Ormonde was to carry a Spanish army to the west of England, and a subsidiary expedition under the Earl Marischal was to land in north-western Scotland. The Chevalier was summoned to Spain to join the expedition, or failing that to follow it to England. The fleet sailed from Cadiz in March 1719. James had left Rome in February, travelling by sea to Catalonia and thence to Madrid and on to Corunna. He reached the latter port on 17th April, only to learn of the dispersal of the Spanish fleet by a storm and the complete collapse of the adventure.

The auxiliary Scottish expedition, unconscious of the disaster, landed in the north-western Highlands; but after some vicissitudes and much dissension the attempt ended with the Battle of Glenshiel on the 10th of June--the Chevalier’s thirty-first birthday--and the surrender next day of the remainder of the Spanish troops, originally three hundred and seven in number.

James returned from Corunna to Madrid, where he lingered for some time, a not very welcome guest. There he learned of the rescue of Princess Clementina and of his marriage by proxy. Returning to Italy in August, he met Clementina at Montefiascone, where he was married in person on September 1st, 1719.

From this time forward until the end of his life, forty-seven years later, the Chevalier’s home was in Rome, where the Pope assigned him the Muti Palace as a residence, along with a country house at Albano, some thirteen miles from Rome.

[Sidenote: Birth of Charles Edward, 1720.]

In 1720, on December 20th by British reckoning (Dec. 31st by the Gregorian calendar), Prince Charles Edward was born at Rome, and with the birth of an heir to the royal line, Jacobite hopes and activities revived.

[Sidenote: The Atterbury Plot, 1721-22.[11]]

At this time the Jacobite interests in England were in charge of a Council of five members, frequently termed ‘the Junta.’ The members of this Council were the Earl of Arran, brother of Ormonde, the Earl of Orrery, Lord North, Lord Gower, and Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. Of these Atterbury was by far the ablest, and in England was the life and soul of Jacobite contriving. A great scheme was devised, which is known in history as the Atterbury Plot. The details are somewhat obscure, and the unravelling of them is complicated by the existence of another scheme contemporaneous with Atterbury’s, apparently at first independent, but which became merged in the larger design. The author of this plot was Christopher Layer, a barrister of the Middle Temple. Generally, his scheme was secretly to enlist broken and discharged soldiers. They were to seize the Tower, the Bank, and the Mint, and to secure the Hanoverian royal family, who were to be deported. The larger scheme of the Junta was to obtain a foreign force of 5000 troops to be landed in England under the Duke of Ormonde, and risings were to be organised in different parts of the kingdom. The signal for the outbreak was to be the departure of George I. for Hanover, which was expected to take place in the summer.

Layer, who does not seem to have been acting with Atterbury and the Junta until later, was in Rome in the early months of 1721, and there he unfolded his plan to the Jacobite Court. After he left, a plan of campaign was arranged which, however, seems to have been modified afterwards. The original intention was to begin the movement in Scotland, whither Lord Mar and General Dillon[12] were to proceed; and to accentuate the latter’s position as commander in Scotland he was created an earl in the Scottish peerage, although already an Irish (Jacobite) viscount. Lord Lansdowne was to command in Cornwall, Lord Strafford in the north, Lord North in London and Westminster, and Lord Arran was to go to Ireland. The Chevalier was to leave Rome when Mar and Dillon left Paris, and to make his way to Rotterdam _via_ Frankfort, and there await events before deciding where it would be best to land. Things seemed to be prospering, but the English Jacobites did not sufficiently respond to the call for financial support. James, deeply disappointed, appealed to the Pope for help, only to be more bitterly mortified by his refusal. The Pope, in so many words, said that if the English Jacobites wanted a revolution they must pay for it themselves. The original orders for invasion were cancelled in April; but negotiations seem to have been continued with Spain through Cardinal Acquiviva, Spanish envoy at Rome, ever James’s friend. A revised plan of action was prepared. Wogan, who had been sent to Spain, had succeeded in procuring assistance from that country; ships had been prepared to carry a force of 5000 or 6000 men to Porto Longone, in the Isle of Elba, where James was to embark. In July, James was on the outlook for a Spanish fleet under Admiral Sorano.[13] But it was too late. The plot had been discovered, the demand for troops reaching the knowledge of the French ministers, who informed the British ambassador. Spain was compelled to prevent the embarkation, and King George did not go to Hanover that summer.

Mar had used the post office in spite of a warning by Atterbury not to do so; his correspondence was intercepted, and a letter was found which incriminated Atterbury and his associates. Government was not hasty in acting, and the first conspirator to be arrested was George Kelly, a Non-juring Irish clergyman who acted as Atterbury’s secretary. He was seized at his lodgings on May 21st; and he very nearly saved the situation. His papers and sword being placed in a window by his captors, Kelly managed during a moment of negligence to recover them. Holding his sword in his right hand he threatened to run through the first man who approached him, while all the time he held the incriminating papers to a candle with his left hand, and not till they were burned did he surrender. It was not until the end of August that Bishop Atterbury was taken into custody and committed to the Tower. His trial did not begin until the spring of the following year. Layer, who was betrayed by a mistress, was arrested in September and tried in November. He was condemned to death, but was respited from time to time in the hope that he would give evidence to incriminate Atterbury and his associates. Layer refused to reveal anything and was executed at Tyburn in May 1723, at the very time when the bishop’s trial was taking place in the House of Lords. Atterbury was found guilty: he was sentenced to be deprived of all his ecclesiastical benefices and functions, to be incapacitated from holding any civil offices, and to be banished from the kingdom for ever. His associates of the Junta escaped with comparatively light penalties. Kelly, sentenced to imprisonment during the King’s pleasure, was kept in the Tower until 1736, when he managed to escape, to reappear later in the drama. Atterbury went abroad and entered the Chevalier’s service. He died in exile at Paris in 1732, but he was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The failure of the schemes of Atterbury had a remarkable effect on the unfortunate Chevalier. Apparently weary of failure and longing for action, he wrote to the Pope on August 29th, 1722, offering to serve in a crusade against the Turks; but he was told it would not do, he must stick to his own task. To it he accordingly returned; and implicitly believing that his people were longing for his restoration, he issued a manifesto dated September 22nd, proposing ‘that if George I. will quietly deliver to him the throne of his fathers he will in return bestow upon George the title of king in his native dominions and invite all other states to confirm it.’[14] The manifesto was printed and circulated in England; it was ordered to be burned by the common hangman.

It is somewhat remarkable that although the Atterbury Expedition was to have been begun in Scotland, the records of the period make no mention of the project, nor do there seem to have been any preparations for a rising. The only suggestion of secret action being taken that I know of--and it is no more than a suggestion--is that in 1721, on the same day that General Dillon, who was to command in Scotland, was created a Scottish earl, a peerage was given to Sir James Grant of Grant by the Chevalier de St. George.[15] What the occasion of this honour may have been has never, so far as I know, been revealed.[16]

[Sidenote: Affairs in Scotland.]

Jacobite affairs in Scotland at that time were administered by a Lanarkshire laird, George Lockhart of Carnwath. Lockhart had been a member of the old Scots Estates before the Union of the kingdoms in 1707, and after the Union he sat in the Imperial Parliament until 1715. In that year he raised a troop of horse for the Jacobite cause, and after the rising he suffered a long imprisonment, but was eventually released without trial. From 1718 to 1727 he acted as the Chevalier’s chief confidential agent in Scotland. His system of Jacobite management was by a body of trustees, which was organised in 1722, and acted as a committee of regency for the exiled king. In 1727 Lockhart’s correspondence fell into the hands of Government and he had to fly the country. He was permitted to return in the following year, but lived for the rest of his life in retirement, and took no further part in Jacobite affairs.[17]

For some years after Lockhart’s flight, Scotland seems to have been without any official representative of the Jacobite Court. In May 1736, however, Colonel James Urquhart[18] was appointed, though under circumstances which have not yet been made known.

The proposed expedition connected with the Atterbury Plot was the last project for an active campaign of restoration in which the Chevalier was personally to embark. Scheming, of course, went on, but only once after this did James leave Italy. In 1727, on the death of George I., he hurried to Nancy to be ready for any emergency, but the Duke of Lorraine had reluctantly to refuse him hospitality. He retired to Avignon, but, as before, the British Government brought pressure to bear, and he had to go back to Rome. Six years later, on the death of Augustus the Strong, he was offered the elective throne of Poland; but this he declined, saying that his own country engaged his whole heart and all his inclinations, though he regretted that his second son, Henry, then eight years old, was too young to be a candidate for the crown worn by his Sobieski ancestor.

[Sidenote: Charles Edward grows up.]

[Sidenote: The Cause languishes.]

Meanwhile his elder son, Charles Edward, was growing up, and the hopes of the party were fixed on his future. His father wished him to learn the art of war, so in August 1734 he was sent to join a Spanish army under his cousin, the Duke of Berwick,[19] who was engaged in the campaign against Austria, which brought the crown of Naples to the Spanish Bourbons. Charles, then not quite fourteen, took part in the siege and capture of Gaeta, a fortress in Campania, and accompanied Don Carlos in his triumphant entry into Naples as king on August 9th. The Prince won much credit for his conduct in the field, but this was the end of his experience of war, and his campaign had lasted only six days. His father was anxious to extend his military education, but France and Spain in turn declined to allow him to serve with their armies. Even the Emperor, about to make war on the Turks in 1737, refused to allow the young prince to accompany his army. European potentates were unwilling to receive Charles Edward even as a visitor. The Venetian minister in London was ordered to quit England on twenty-four hours’ notice, because his Government had shown civilities to the Prince on a visit to Venice. The British Government was too vigilant to hoodwink, too strong to offend. Peace reigned throughout Europe: Jacobite activity was dormant both in England and in Scotland: the royal exiles were isolated at Rome, and it seemed as if all hope of a Stuart Restoration had been abandoned.

[Sidenote: The Mission of Glenbucket.]

The first to inspire the Jacobite Court with new life and hope, and set in motion the events which led up to the great adventure of ’Forty-five was John Gordon of Glenbucket. This remarkable man was no county magnate nor of any particular family. At this time he possessed no landed property; he was merely the tenant of a farm in Glenlivet, which he held from the Duke of Gordon. His designation ‘of Glenbucket’ was derived from a small property in the Don valley which had been purchased by his grandfather, and which he inherited from his father. He was not a Highlander, having been born in the Aberdeenshire lowland district of Strathbogie, but he had so thoroughly conformed himself to Highland spirit and manners that he had won the affection and confidence of the Highlanders of Banffshire and Strathspey. Glenbucket was at this time about sixty-four years old. In his younger days he had been factor or chamberlain to the Duke of Gordon, a position which conferred on him considerable influence and power, particularly over the Duke’s Highland vassals. In the ’Fifteen he had commanded a regiment of the Gordon retainers, and behaved with gallantry and discretion throughout the campaign.[20] About the year 1724 he had ceased to be the Duke’s representative, but his connection with the Highlanders was continued by the marriages of his daughters. One of them was the wife of Forbes of Skellater, a considerable laird in the Highland district of Upper Strathdon; another was married to the great chief of Glengarry; and a third to Macdonell of Lochgarry.[21]

In the year 1737 Gordon sold Glenbucket, for which he realised twelve thousand marks (about £700); and he left Scotland to visit the Chevalier at Rome. On his way he passed through Paris, where he had an interview with Cardinal Fleury, the French prime minister. To the Cardinal he suggested a scheme of invasion, by which officers and men of the Irish regiments in the French service quartered near the coast could be suddenly and secretly transported to Scotland.[22] The Cardinal, whose general policy was peace at any price,[23] gave no encouragement to the scheme.

[Sidenote: Message to the English Jacobites.]

Glenbucket went on to Rome in January 1738: he delivered his message, was rewarded with a major-general’s commission,[24] and returned to Scotland. Immediately the Jacobite Court was filled with sanguine activity. What the terms of Glenbucket’s mission were, or whom he represented, have never been categorically stated. Murray of Broughton hints that he only represented his son-in-law Glengarry and General Alexander Gordon.[25] Even if this limitation were true, it meant much. Glengarry was one of the greatest of Highland chiefs, while General Gordon was that Nestor of Scottish Jacobites who had been commander-in-chief after the Chevalier left Scotland in 1716, and whose opinions must have carried much weight. Although there is no direct statement of the terms of Glenbucket’s mission, its significance can readily be understood from the communication made to the English Jacobites. The Chevalier at once wrote off to Cecil, his official agent in London, informing him of the encouraging news he had received. The zeal of his Scottish subjects, he said, was so strong that he considered it possible to oppose the Scottish Highlanders to the greater part of the troops of the British Government then available, and there was good cause to hope for success even without foreign assistance, provided the English Jacobites acted rightly.[26]

At the time that the Chevalier’s message reached his adherents there happened to be in England a personage who bore the name and designation of Lord Sempill.[27] Though of Scots descent he was French by birth and residence. He was not familiar with English ways, and he did not understand English political agitation. Mingling for the most part with Jacobites avowed or secret, his ears were filled with execration of the reigning dynasty. On every side he heard the Whig Government denounced, and he saw it tottering and vacillating. He mistook general political dissatisfaction for revolutionary discontent, and he came to the conclusion that the country longed for a restoration of the old royal line. Constituting himself an envoy from the English Jacobites,[28] he hurried off to Rome and reported to the Chevalier that the party was stronger than was generally believed, and that affairs in England were most favourable for action.

It is necessary here to relate how Glenbucket’s mission to Rome affected the Scottish Jacobites, and to introduce into the narrative the name of one who for five years was a mainstay of the Cause, though in the end he turned traitor.

[Sidenote: Murray of Broughton.]

John Murray of Broughton, a younger son of Sir David Murray of Stanhope (a Peeblesshire baronet of ancient family who in his day had been an ardent Jacobite), entered the University of Leyden in 1735, being then twenty years of age. In 1737 he had completed his studies and went on a visit to Rome, where he mixed in the Jacobite society of the place. Although he never had an interview with James himself, he frequently met the young princes, and he acquired the friendship of James Edgar, the Chevalier’s faithful secretary. Murray’s father had once been proposed as an official Jacobite agent in Scotland, and it seems highly probable that Edgar persuaded the son to look forward to assuming such a position. Murray left Rome to return to Scotland shortly before Glenbucket’s arrival in January 1738.

[Sidenote: The Concert of Scots Jacobites.]

Glenbucket’s message had convinced James of the devotion of the Highlanders and the Jacobites of north-eastern Scotland, but he wished to know more of the spirit of the Scottish Lowlands. At the same time that he wrote to the English Jacobites, he despatched William Hay, a member of his household, to Scotland to make inquiries and to report. Hay overtook Murray who was lingering in Holland, and induced him to accompany him, as he was anxious to be introduced to Murray’s cousin, Lord Kenmure, an ardent Kirkcudbrightshire Jacobite. The acquaintance was duly made, and although no record is yet known of Hay’s actual transactions in Scotland, they can be conjectured with a fair amount of certainty from the results which followed them in spite of Murray’s disparaging remarks on his mission.[29] Hay visited the leading Jacobites, and it is difficult to doubt that he set in motion a scheme for concerted action. What is known is that he returned to Rome after three months’ absence greatly satisfied with what he had found. In the same year, presumably as the outcome of Hay’s mission, an Association of Jacobite leaders was formed, sometimes termed ‘the Concert,’ designed with the object of bringing together Highland chiefs and lowland nobles,[30] pledged to do everything in their power for the restoration of the exiled Stuarts. These Associators, as they were called, were: the Duke of Perth; his uncle, Lord John Drummond; Lord Lovat; Lord Linton, who in 1741 succeeded as fifth Earl of Traquair; his brother, the Hon. John Stuart; Donald Cameron, younger of Lochiel; and his father-in-law, Sir John Campbell of Auchenbreck, an Argyllshire laird. The position of manager was given to William Macgregor (or Drummond), the son of the Perthshire laird of Balhaldies.[31] In contemporary documents Macgregor[32] is generally termed ‘Balhaldy,’[33] and that designation has been used in this volume. Murray of Broughton did not belong to the Association, nor was he taken into its confidence until 1741. He, however, attached himself to Colonel Urquhart, the official Jacobite agent, and assisted him with his work. In 1740, when Urquhart was dying of cancer, Murray was appointed to succeed him.

In December 1739 Balhaldy was sent by the Associators to Paris, and from thence he went on to Rome. The Chevalier, greatly cheered by what he had to tell, instructed him to return to Paris and there to meet Sempill, who had become one of James’s most trusted agents. Sempill would introduce him to Cardinal Fleury, before whom they would lay the views of both the English and Scottish Jacobites.

Balhaldy returned to Paris, made the acquaintance of Sempill, an acquaintance which subsequently ripened into a strong political, perhaps personal, friendship. The interview with Fleury was obtained, and negotiations commenced in the beginning of 1740, about three months after the war with Spain, forced upon Walpole, had broken out.[34]

It is no part of my task to follow the intricacies of the negotiations between the French Ministry and the English Jacobites, except when they affect the affairs of the Scots, but here it is necessary to turn back for a moment to relate what took place after the English Jacobites received the Chevalier’s communication of Glenbucket’s message from Scotland.

[Sidenote: English reception of Scots Proposals.]

Sempill, who had gone from England to Rome in the spring of 1738, was sent back in October with the Chevalier’s instructions to his English adherents to arrange for concerted action with the Scots. The English Jacobites formed a council of six members to serve as a directing nucleus. This council communicated the English views on the Scottish proposal to the Chevalier as follows. Although the Government, they said, had only 29,000 regular troops in the British Isles, of which 13,000 were in England, 12,000 in Ireland, and 4000 in Scotland, yet the rising of the Scots could not take place, as the King hoped, without foreign assistance. It would be a difficult matter to provide the Scots with sufficient arms and munitions, and even if this difficulty could be surmounted, it would take two months after they had been supplied before their army could assemble and establish the royal authority in Scotland; that it would take another month before the Scots could march into England. Meantime the English leaders would be at the mercy of the professional army of the Government which their volunteer followers, entirely ignorant of discipline, could never oppose alone. The principal royalists would be arrested in detail, and their overawed followers would hold back from joining the Scots. There were 13,000 regular soldiers in England. Government would probably transfer 6000 from Ireland, and the army would be further augmented by the importation of Dutch and Hanoverian troops. Probably 8000 men would be sent to the frontier of Scotland. From this they concluded that a rising in Scotland without foreign assistance would involve possible failure and in any case a disastrous civil war, while, on the other hand, the landing of a body of regular troops would provide a rallying point for the insurgents. This force should be equal to the number of troops generally quartered about London and able to hold them, while the volunteer royalists would march straight to the capital which was ready to declare in their favour. They would then acquire the magazines and arsenals at the seat of government, and almost all the treasures of England (‘presque toutes les richesses d’Angleterre’). If at that juncture the Scots would rise, the Hanoverians would be driven to despair. No ally of the Elector, however powerful, would venture to attack Great Britain reunited under her legitimate sovereign. The requirement of the English would be 10,000 to 12,000 regular troops sent from abroad; without such a disciplined force the English Jacobites would not risk a rising.[35]

Sempill was sent by the Chevalier to Paris to lay these views before Cardinal Fleury. The Cardinal, peace lover though he was, felt that it would be absurd to neglect the assistance that the Jacobites might afford him in the complications which were certain to arise when the death of the Emperor Charles VI., then imminent, should occur.[36] When the English views of requirement were presented to him he received them sympathetically; said that the King of France would willingly grant the help the English Jacobites desired, but two things were absolutely necessary: he must have more exact information than had been given him with regard to what royalist adherents would join his troops on landing, and also as to those who would rise at the same time in the provinces. If the English leaders could satisfy His Majesty on these two points they might expect all they asked for.[37]

[Sidenote: Balhaldy’s interview with Fleury.]

Such was the state of Jacobite affairs at the French Court when Sempill introduced Balhaldy to Fleury. I know of no categorical statement of the requirements that Balhaldy was to lay before the Cardinal, but from a memorandum he wrote[38] it may be inferred that the Associators had asked for 1500 men with arms, ammunition, and money. Fleury replied that his sovereign was greatly pleased with the proposals of the Scots, and that he approved of their arrangements on behalf of their legitimate king. France, however, was at peace with Great Britain, while Spain was at open war. King Louis would ask the Spanish Court to undertake an expedition in favour of King James to which he would give efficient support.[39] Shortly afterwards, the Cardinal was obliged to tell Balhaldy that Spain declined to entertain the proposal. The Spanish Court disliked the war with England, and was quite aware that it had been forced on Walpole by the Jacobites and the Opposition.[40] Spain was not going to embarrass the British Government by embarking on a Jacobite adventure.

Fleury then made a proposal that the Spanish Government should finance a scheme by which an army of 10,000 Swedish mercenaries should be engaged to invade Great Britain. While secret negotiation was going on between the French and Spanish Governments, knowledge of the proposal came to Elizabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain. Elizabeth, fearing that a successful movement for a Stuart restoration would put an end to the war with Great Britain which she strongly favoured, inspired a paragraph in the _Amsterdam Gazette_, which exploded the design before it could be accomplished.[41]

Driven at last from his hope of using Spain as a catspaw, Fleury informed Balhaldy that his master the King, touched with the zeal of the Scots, would willingly send them all the Irish troops in his service, with the arms, munitions, and the £20,000 asked for to assist the Highlanders.[42]

Balhaldy hurried back to Scotland with this promise and met the Associators in Edinburgh. Although the Jacobite leaders were disappointed that French troops were not to be sent, they gratefully accepted Fleury’s assurances, and in March 1741 they despatched the following letter to the Cardinal, which was carried back to Paris by Balhaldy.

[Sidenote: Lettre de quelques Seigneurs écossais au Cardinal de Fleury.[43]]

MONSEIGNEUR,--Ayant appris de Monsieur le baron de Balhaldies
l’heureux succès des représentations que nous l’avions chargé de
faire à Votre Eminence sous le bon plaisir de notre souverain
légitime, nous nous hâtons de renvoyer ce baron avec les
témoignages de notre vive et respectueuse reconnaissance et avec
les assurances les plus solennelles, tant de notre part que de la
part de ceux qui se sont engagés avec nous à prendre les armes
pour secouer le joug de l’usurpation, que nous sommes prêts à
remplir fidèlement tout ce qui a été avancé dans le mémoire
que my lord Sempill et ledit sieur baron de Balhaldies eurent
l’honneur de remettre, signé de leurs mains, entre celles de
Votre Eminence au mois de mai dernier.

Les chefs de nos tribus des montagnes dont les noms lui ont été
remis en même temps avec le nombre d’hommes que chacun d’eux
s’est obligé de fournir,[44] persistent inviolablement dans leurs
engagements et nous osons répondre à Votre Eminence qu’il y aura
vingt mille hommes sur pied pour le service de notre véritable et
unique seigneur, le Roi Jacques Huitième d’Ecosse aussitôt qu’il
plaira à S.M.T.C. de nous envoyer des armes et des munitions avec
les troupes qui sont nécessaires pour conserver ces armes jusqu’à
ce que nous puissions nous assembler.

Ces vingt mille hommes pourront si facilement chasser ou détruire
les troupes que le gouvernement présent entretient actuellement
dans notre pays et même toutes celles qu’on y pourra faire
marcher sur les premières alarmes que nous sommes assurément bien
fondés d’espérer qu’avec l’assistance divine et sous les auspices
du Roi Très Chrétien les fidèles Ecossais seront en état, non
seulement de rétablir en très peu de temps l’autorité de leur Roi
Légitime dans tout son royaume d’Ecosse et de l’y affermir contre
les efforts des partisans d’Hannover, mais aussi de l’aider
puissamment au recouvrement de ces autres Etats, ce qui sera
d’autant plus facile que nos voisins de l’Angleterre ne sont pas
moins fatigués que nous de la tyrannie odieuse sous laquelle nous
gémissons tous également et que nous savons qu’ils sont très bien
disposés à s’unir avec nous ou avec quelque puissance que ce soit
qui voudra leur donner les recours dont ils out besoin pour se
remettre sous un gouvernement légitime et naturel. Nous prenons
actuellement des mesures pour agir de concert avec eux.

Quant au secours qui est nécessaire pour l’Ecosse en particulier,
nous aurions souhaité que S.M.T.C. eût bien voulu nous accorder
des troupes françaises qui eussent renouvelé parmi nous les
leçons d’une valeur héroïque et d’une fidélité incorruptible que
nos ancêtres ont tant de fois apprises dans la France même; mais
puisque V.E. juge à propos de nous envoyer de sujets de notre
Roi, nous les recevrons avec joie comme venant de sa part, et
nous tâcherons de leur faire sentir le cas que nous faisons et
de leur attachement à notre souverain légitime et de l’honneur
qu’ils out acquis en marchant si longtemps sur les traces des
meilleurs sujets et des plus braves troupes en l’Univers.

Monsieur le baron de Balhaldies connaît si parfaitement notre
situation, les opérations que nous avons concertées, et tout
ce qui nous regarde, qu’il serait inutile d’entrer ici dans
aucun détail. Nous supplions V.E. de vouloir bien l’écouter
favorablement et d’être persuadée qu’il aura l’honneur de lui
tout rapporter dans la plus exacte vérité.

Si les ministres du gouvernement étaient moins jaloux de nos
démarches ou moins vigilants, nous engagerions volontiers tous
nos biens pour fournir aux frais de cette expédition; mais nuls
contrats n’étant valables, suivant nos usages, sans être inscrits
sur les registres publics, il nous est impossible de lever une
somme tant soit peu considérable avec le secret qui convient dans
les circonstances présentes. C’est uniquement cette considération
qui nous empêche de faire un fond pour les dépenses nécessaires,
[ce qui serait une preuve ultérieure que nous donnerions avec
joie de notre zèle et de la confiance avec laquelle nous nous
rangeons sous l’étendard de notre Roi naturel; mais le bien du
service nous oblige de nous contenir et] d’avoir recours à la
générosité de S.M.T.C. jusqu’à ce que l’on puisse lever les
droits royaux dans notre pays d’une manière régulière.

Nous sommes persuadés que l’on pourra y parvenir dans l’espace
de trois mois après l’arrivée des troupes irlandaises et nous ne
doutons point que notre patrie, réunie alors sous le gouvernement
de son Roi tant désiré ne fasse des efforts qui donneront lieu
à V.E. de prouver à S.M.T.C. que les Ecossais modernes sont les
vrais descendants de ceux qui ont eu l’honneur d’être comptés
pendant tant de siècles les plus fidèles alliés des Rois, ses
prédécesseurs.

Nous sommes bien sensiblement touchés des mouvements que V.E.
s’est donnés et qu’elle veut bien continuer pour faire entendre
au Roi Catholique les avantages qu’il y aurait à agir en faveur
du Roi notre maître dans la conjoncture présente. Nous avions cru
que ces avantages ne pouvaient échapper aux ministres Espagnols;
mais quelque travers qu’ils prennent dans la conduite de cette
guerre, V.E. prend une part qui ne saura manquer de les en tirer
heureusement et de frustrer l’attente injuste des nations qui
sont prêtes à fondre sur les trésors du nouveau monde.

Nous en louons Dieu, Monseigneur, et nous le prions avec
ferveur de vouloir bien conserver V.E. non seulement pour
l’accomplissement du grand ouvrage que nous allons entreprendre
sous sa protection mais aussi pour en voir les grands et heureux
effets dans toute l’Europe aussi bien que dans les trois royaumes
britanniques, auxquels son nom ne sera pas moins précieux dans
tous les temps à venir qu’à la France même qui a pris de si beaux
accroissements sous son ministère et dont la gloire va être
élevée jusqu’au comble en faisant vigorer la justice chez ses
voisins. Nous avons l’honneur d’être avec une profonde vénération
et un parfait dévouement, Monseigneur, de votre Eminence, les
très humbles et très obéissants serviteurs,

LE DUC DE PERTH
LE LORD JEAN DRUMOND DE PERTH
MY LORD LOVAT
MILORD LINTON
CAMERON, BARON DE LOCHEIL
LE CHEVALIER CAMPBELL D’ACHINBRECK
M’GRIEGER BARON DE BALHALDIES.

_à Edimbourg, ce 13ème Mars 1741._

[_Translation._]