Chapter 3
With his brother, Lord Mar was in constant correspondence, during his own residence in London; and although Lord Grange was skilful enough to conceal his machinations, and to retain his seat on the bench as a Scottish judge, there is very little reason to doubt his secret co-operation in the subsequent movements of the Earl.
Acting as if "he thought that all things were governed by fate or fortune,"[62] George the First remained a long time to settle his own affairs in Hanover, before coming to England. This delay was employed by the Earl of Mar, in an endeavour to extenuate the tenor of his political conduct of late years in the eyes of the Sovereign, and in placing before the King the merit of his services and his claims to favour. The letter which he addressed to George the First, when in Holland, was printed by Tonson, during the year 1715, with prefatory remarks by Sir Richard Steele, whose comments upon this production of a man who, scarcely a year after it was written, set up the standard of the Pretender at Braemar, are expressed in these terms:
"It gives me a lively sense of the hards.h.i.+ps of civil war, wherein all the sacred and most intimate obligations between man and man are to be torn asunder, when I cannot, without pain, represent to myself the behaviour of Lord Mar, with whom I had not even the honour of any further commerce than the pleasure of pa.s.sing some agreeable hours in his company: I say, when even such little incidents make it irksome to be in a state of war with those with whom we have lived in any degree of familiarity, how terrible must the image be of rending the ties of blood, the sanct.i.ty of affinity and intermarriage, and the bringing men who, perhaps in a few months before, were to each other the dearest of all mankind, to meet on terms of giving death to each other at the same time that they had rather embrace!" Thus premising, and declaring that he could with difficulty efface from his mind all remains of good will and pity to Lord Mar, Sir Richard Steele subjoins a doc.u.ment, fatal to the reputation of Lord Mar--the following letter, which Lord Mar addressed to the King, in explanation of his conduct.
LORD MAR TO THE KING.
"Sir,
"Having the happiness to be your Majesty's subject, and also the honour of being of your servants, as one of your Secretaries of State, I beg leave by this to kiss your Majesty's hand, and congratulate your happy accession to the Throne; which I should have done myself the honour of doing sooner, had I not hoped to have had the honour of doing it personally ere now. I am afraid I may have had the misfortune to be misrepresented to your Majesty, and my reason for thinking so is, because I was the only one of the late Queen's servants whom your Ministers here did not visit, which I mentioned to Mr. Harley and the Earl of Clarendon, when they went from hence to wait on your Majesty; and your Ministers carrying so to me was the occasion of my receiving such orders as deprived me of the honour and satisfaction of waiting on them and being known to them. I suppose I had been misrepresented to them by some here upon account of party, or to ingratiate themselves by aspersing others, as one party here too often occasion; but I hope your Majesty will be so just as not to give credit to such misrepresentations.
"The part I acted in bringing about and making of the Union when the succession to the Crown was settled for Scotland on your Majesty's family, when I had the honour to serve as Secretary of State for that kingdom, doth, I hope, put my sincerity and faithfulness to your Majesty out of dispute. My family had had the honour for a great tract of years to be faithful servants to the Crown, and have had the care of the King's children (when King of Scotland) entrusted to them. A predecessor of mine was honoured with the care of your Majesty's grandmother, when young; and she was pleased afterwards to express some concern for our family, in letters I now have under her own hand.
"I have had the honour to serve her late Majesty in one capacity or other ever since her accession to the Crown. I was happy in a good mistress, and she was pleased to have some confidence in me and regard for my services. And since your Majesty's happy accession to the Crown, I hope you will find that I have not been wanting in my duty in being instrumental in keeping things quiet and peaceable in the country to which I belong and have some interest in.
"Your Majesty shall ever find me as faithful and dutiful a subject and servant as ever any of my family have been to the Crown, or as I have been to my late mistress the Queen. And I beg your Majesty may be so good not to believe any misrepresentations of me, which nothing but party hatred and my zeal for the interest of the Crown doth occasion; and I hope I may presume to lay claim to your royal favour or protection. As your accession to the Crown hath been quiet and peaceable, may your Majesty's reign be long and prosperous; and that your people may soon have the happiness and satisfaction of your presence amongst them, is the earnest and fervent wish of him who is, with the humblest duty and respect, Sir, your Majesty's most faithful, most dutiful and most obedient subject and servant,
MAR."
"Whitehall, August thirtieth, 1714, o. s."
This disgraceful letter was ineffectual. The Monarch, "whose views and affections were, according to Lord Chesterfield, singly confined to the narrow compa.s.s of his Electorate," and for "whom England was too big,"
acted with a promptness and decision which gave no time for the workings of faction. An immediate change of ministry was announced by Kryenberg, the Hanoverian resident, at the first Privy Council; and among other changes, Lord Townshend was appointed in the place of Lord Bolingbroke.
Well might Bolingbroke exclaim, "The grief of my soul is this; I see plainly that the Tory party is gone."[63]
For many months Lord Mar continued to maintain such a demeanour as might blind those of the opposite party to his real intentions. It seems, indeed, certain that at first he hoped to ensure a continuance in office by exerting his influence in Scotland to procure the good conduct of the clans: he was successful in obtaining even from some of those Highland chieftains who were afterwards the most deeply implicated in the Rebellion, an address declaring that they were "ready to concur with his Lords.h.i.+p in faithfully serving King George." "Your Lords.h.i.+p," states that memorial, "has an estate and interest in the Highlands, and is so well known to bear good will to your neighbours, that in order to prevent any ill impression which malicious and designing people may at this juncture labour to give of us, we must beg leave to address your Lords.h.i.+p, and entreat you to a.s.sure the Government, in our names, and in that of the rest of our clans, who, by distance of the place, could not be present at the signing of our letter, of our loyalty to his sacred Majesty, King George."[64] This address was signed by Maclean of that Ilk, Macdonald of Glengary, Mackenzie of Fraserdale, Cameron of Lochiel, and by several other chiefs of clans, who afterwards fought under the banners of the Earl of Mar. It furnishes a proof of the great influence which the Earl possessed in his own country, but he had not the courage to present it to the King. His Majesty, on the contrary, on hearing of this address was highly offended, believing that it had been drawn up at St. Germains in order to insult him, and his refusal to receive it was accompanied by an order to Lord Mar to give up the seals.
The Earl lingered, nevertheless, for some time in London, where he had now some attractions which to a less ambitious mind might have operated in favour of prudence. In the preceding year, July, 1714, he had married, at Acton in Middles.e.x, the Lady Frances Pierrepoint, the second daughter of Evelyn, first Duke of Kingston, and the sister of Lady Mary Wortley. The Countess of Mar was, at the time of her marriage, thirty-three years of age, being born in 1681. She does not appear to have been endowed with the rare qualities of her sister's mind; but that she was attached to her husband, her long exile from England on his account, sufficiently proves. Her married life was embittered by his career, and her latter days darkened by the direst of all maladies, mental aberration.
It is singular that so recently before his final effort, Lord Mar should have connected himself with a Whig family. The Marquis of Dorchester, who was created, by George the First, Duke of Kingston, was a member of the Kit Cat Club, and received early proofs of the good will of the Hanoverian Sovereign. It is true that Lady Mary Wortley augured ill of the match between her sister and Lord Mar, detesting as she did the Jacobite party, and believing that her sister was "drawn in by the persuasion of an officious female friend," Lord Mar's relation. But there is no reason to conclude that the Duke of Kingston in any way objected to a match apparently so dissonant with his political bias.[65]
Whilst Lord Mar remained near the court, the discoveries made by the Earl of Stair in France, communicated the first surmise of an intended invasion of England. Several seizures of suspected people warned one who was deep in the intrigues of St. Germain, not long to delay the open prosecution of his schemes. The melancholy instance of Mr. Harvey, who was apprehended while he was hawking at Combe, in Surrey, alarmed the Jacobite party. Mr. Harvey being shown a paper written in his own hand, convicting him of guilt, stabbed himself, but not fatally, with a pruning-knife which he had used in his garden. Upon some hope of his confessing being hinted, it was answered that his Majesty and the Council knew more of it than he did. The celebrated John Anstis, the heraldic writer, was also apprehended, and warrants were issued for the seizure of other suspected persons.
Notwithstanding his strong family interest, the Earl of Mar could scarcely consider himself secure under the present state both of the country and the metropolis. The events of the last year had succeeded each other with an appalling rapidity. The flight of Bolingbroke had scarcely ceased to be the theme of comment, before the general elections excited all the ill blood and fanaticism which such struggles at any critical era of our history have always produced. Riots, which have been hastily touched upon in the histories of the period, but which the minute descriptions of memoirs of that period show to have been attended with an unusual display of violence and brutality on both sides, broke out upon every anniversary which could recall the Stuarts to recollection. On St. George's day, in compliment to the Chevalier, who, according to an observer of those eventful days, "had a.s.sumed the name of that far-famed Cappadocian Knight, though every one knew he has nothing of the valour, courage, and other bright qualities of the saint," a tumult was raised in London, and among other outrages, pa.s.sengers through the streets of the City were beaten if they would not cry "G.o.d bless the late Queen and the High Church!" Sacheverel and Bolingbroke were pledged in b.u.mpers by a mob, who burnt, at the same time, King William in effigy.[66] A similar contagion spread throughout the country; Oxford took the lead in acts of destruction; her streets were filled with parties of Whigs and Tories, both of them infuriated, until their mad rage vented itself in acts
The impeachment of Lord Oxford still further exasperated the country, which rang with the cry, "No George, but a Stuart." The peaceable accession of the first monarch of the Brunswick line has been greatly insisted upon by historians; but that stillness was ominous; it was the stillness of the air before a storm; and was only indicative of irresolution, not of a diminished dislike to the sway of a foreigner.
It is supposed that an intercepted letter which the Duke de Berwick, the half-brother of the Chevalier, addressed to a person of distinction in England, first gave the intelligence of an intended invasion.[67] The burden of that letter was to encourage the riots and tumults, and to keep up the spirits of the people with a promise of prompt a.s.sistance.
The impeachment of Viscount Bolingbroke and of the Duke of Ormond followed shortly afterwards; and although these n.o.blemen provided for their own safety by flight, they were degraded as outlaws, and in the order in Council were styled, according to the usual form of law, "James Butler, yeoman," and "Henry Bolingbroke, labourer," and the arms of Ormond were taken from Windsor Chapel, and torn in pieces by the Earl Marshal.
The English fleet, under the command of Sir George Byng, was stationed in the Downs, in case of a surprise. Portsmouth was put in a state of defence; and, during the month of July, the inhabitants of London beheld once more a sight such as had never been witnessed by its citizens since the days of the Great Rebellion. In Hyde Park the troops of the household were encamped, according to the arrangements of General Cadogan, who had marked out a camp. The forces were commanded by the Duke of Argyle. In Westminster the Earl of Clare reviewed the militia, and the trained bands were directed to be in readiness for orders. At the same time fourteen colonels of the Guards, and other inferior officers were cas.h.i.+ered by the King's orders, on suspicion of being in James Stuart's interest; so deep a root had this cause, which many have pretended to treat as a visionary scheme of self-interest, taken in the affections even of the British army.
A proclamation ordering all Papists and reputed Papists to depart from the cities of London and Westminster, was the next act of the Government. All persons of the Roman Catholic persuasion were to be disarmed and their horses sold; a declaration against transubstantiation was to be administered to them, and the oath of abjuration to non-jurors.[68] After such mandates, it seems idle to talk of the tyranny of Henry the Eighth.
There is no doubt but that the greatest alarm and consternation reigned at St. James's. The stocks fell, but owing to the vigilance of the Ministry, information was obtained of the whole scheme of the invasion, in a manner which to this day has never been satisfactorily explained.
The Earl of Mar must have trembled, as he still lingered in the metropolis. It is probable that he waited there in order to receive those contributions from abroad which were necessary to carry on his plans. He was provided at last with no less a sum than a hundred thousand pounds; and also furnished with a commission dated the seventh of September, 1715 appointing him Lieutenant General and Commander in Chief of the forces raised for the Chevalier in Scotland.[69] Large sums were already collected from Switzerland, Italy, Germany, and France, to the amount, it has been stated, of twelve millions. It has been well remarked by Sir Walter Scott, in his notes on the Master of Sinclair's MS., that "when the Stuarts had the means, they wanted a leader (as in 1715); when (as in 1745) they had a leader, they wanted the means."
With the eye of suspicion fixed upon him, his plans matured, his friends in the north prepared, the Earl of Mar had the hardihood, under such circ.u.mstances, to appear at the court of King George. A few weeks before the Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended; but the Earl trusted either to good fortune, or to his own well-known arts of insinuation. He braved all possibility of detection, and determined to carry on the game of deep dissimulation to the last moment.
On the first of August, 1715, the Earl of Mar attended the levee of King George. One can easily suppose how cold, if not disdainful, must have been his reception; but it is not easy to divine with what secret emotions, the subject on the eve of an insurrection could have offered his obeisance to the Monarch. Grave in expression, with a heavy German countenance, hating all show, and husbanding his time, so as to avoid all needless conversation; without an idea of cultivating the fine arts, of encouraging literature, or of even learning to speak English, George the First must have presented to his English subjects the reverse of all that is attractive. A decided respectability of character might have redeemed the ungainly picture; but, although esteemed a man of honour, and evincing liberal and even benevolent tendencies, the Monarch displayed not only an unblus.h.i.+ng and scandalous profligacy, but a love for coa.r.s.e and unworthy society. His court is said to have been modelled upon that of Louis the Fifteenth; but it was modelled upon the grossest and lowest principles only, and had none of the elegance even of that wretched King's depraved circles; and public decency was as much outraged by the three yachts which were prepared to carry over King George's mistresses and their suite,[70] when he visited Hanover, as by the empire of Madame de Pompadour. It must, independent of every other consideration, have been galling to Englishmen to behold, seated on their throne, a German, fifty-four years of age, who from that very circ.u.mstance, was little likely ever to boast, like Queen Anne, "of an English heart." "A hard fate," observes a writer of great impartiality, "that the enthronement of a stranger should have been the only means to secure our liberties and laws!"[71]
A week after he had been received at the levee of King George, the Earl embarked at Gravesend in a collier, attended by two servants, and accompanied by General Hamilton and Captain Hay. They were all disguised, and escaping detection, arrived on the third day afterwards at Newcastle. It has been even said, that in order the better to conceal his rank, the Earl of Mar wrought for his pa.s.sage.[72] From Newcastle Lord Mar proceeded northward in another vessel; and landing at Elie, in Fifes.h.i.+re, went first to Crief, where he remained a few days. He then proceeded to Dupplin, in the county of Perth, the seat of his brother-in-law, the Earl of Kinnoul, and thence, on the eighteenth of August, crossing the river Perth, he proceeded to his own Castle of Kildrummie, in the Braes of Mar. He was accompanied by forty horse.
On the day after the arrival of the Earl at Kildrummie, he despatched letters to the princ.i.p.al Jacobites, inviting them to attend a grand hunting-match in Braemar on the twenty-seventh of August. This summons was couched in this form, for fear of a more explicit declaration being intercepted, revealing the design; but the great chiefs who were thus collected together were aware that "hunting" was but the watchword.
A gallant band of high-spirited chieftains answered the call. It is consolatory to turn to those who, unaffected by the intrigues of a Court, came heartily, and with a disinterested love, to the cause of which the Earl of Mar was the unworthy leader.
First in rank, was the Marquis of Huntly, eldest son of George, the first Duke of Gordon, and of that daring d.u.c.h.ess of Gordon, a daughter of the house of Howard, who, in 1711, had presented to the Dean and Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh a silver medal, with the head of the Chevalier on one side, and on the other the British Islands, with the word "Reddite." The learned body to whom the d.u.c.h.ess had proposed this dangerous gift, at first hesitated to receive it: after a debate, however, among their members, it was agreed that the donation should be accepted, and a vote was pa.s.sed to return thanks to the d.u.c.h.ess. The Advocates then waited in a body upon the d.u.c.h.ess, and expressed their hopes that her Grace would soon have occasion to present the Faculty with a second medal on the _Restoration_.[73] The Duke of Gordon, notwithstanding his having been brought up a Roman Catholic, was neutral in the troubles of the Rebellion of 1715, but his son took a force of three thousand men into the field,--the clan siding with the young Marquis rather than with their chief. The Marquis of Huntly was, probably for that reason, spared in the subsequent proceedings against the Jacobites, his partic.i.p.ation in their schemes being punished only by a brief imprisonment.
William Marquis of Tullibardine, one of the most constant friends to the House of Stuart, the Earl of Nithisdale, and the Earl Marischal, also appeared at the time appointed. It was the fortune of the Marquis of Tullibardine, like that of the Marquis of Huntly, afterwards to appear in the field unsanctioned by his father, the Duke of Athol, who either was, or appeared to be, in favour of Government, whilst his son headed the clan to the number of six thousand. Lord Nairn, the younger brother of the Marquis, also joined in the undertaking. Of these distinguished Jacobites, separate lives will hereafter be given in this work: it therefore becomes unnecessary any further to expatiate upon them here.
Of some, whose biography does not present features sufficiently marked to const.i.tute a distinct narrative, some traits may here be given.
Charles Earl of Traquair, who hastened to Braemar, was one of those Scottish n.o.bles who claimed kindred with royalty. He was descended from Sir James Stewart, commonly called the Black Knight of Lorn, and from Jane, daughter of John Earl of Somerset, and widow of King James the First. One of Lord Traquair's ancestors, the first Earl, had levied a regiment of horse, in order to release Charles the First from his imprisonment in the Isle of Wight; but, marching at the head of it at the battle of Preston, he and his son, Lord Seatoun, were taken prisoners and conveyed to Warwick Castle, where they languished four years in imprisonment, with the knowledge that their estates had been sequestered.
Connected with the family of Seatoun, on his mother's side, the Earl of Traquair had married the sister of Lord Nithisdale, being thus nearly related to two of those chiefs who gladly obeyed the summons of Lord Mar to the hunting-field. The Earl of Traquair appears to have escaped all the penalties which followed the Rebellion of 1715, perhaps because he does not appear to have taken any of his tenantry into the field.
Less prudent, or less fortunate, William Mackenzie, Earl of Seaforth, joined the standard of James Stuart with a body of three thousand men.
He was attainted when the struggle was over, and his estates, both in Scotland and England, forfeited. He escaped to the Continent; but, in 1719, again landed with the Spaniards at Kintail; and was wounded at the battle of Glens.h.i.+els, but being carried off by his followers, again fled to the Continent, with the Marquis of Tullibardine and the Earl Marischal. Lord Seaforth was one of those to whom the royal mercy was shown. George the First reversed his attainder, and George the Second granted him arrears of the feu duties due to the Crown out of the forfeited estates. The t.i.tle has been eventually restored.
James Livingstone, Earl of Linlithgow, was amongst the many who experienced less clemency than the Earl of Traquair. He had been chosen one of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland, on the death of the Duke of Hamilton; and enjoyed the possession of considerable family estates, which were eventually forfeited to the Crown. He led a band of three hundred clansmen to the field.
Perhaps one of the most st.u.r.dy adherents of the Chevalier St. George was James Maule, fourth Earl of Panmure. In his youth this n.o.bleman had served as a volunteer at the siege of Luxembourg, where he had signalized his courage. In 1686, he succeeded his brother, and added to the honours of a peerage those of a character already established for bravery. To these distinctions was added that of being a Privy Councillor to James the Second; but he was removed upon his opposing the abrogation of the penal laws against Popery. Whilst thus protesting against what might then be deemed objectionable innovations, Lord Panmure was a firm adherent of James, and vigorously supported his interests in the convention of estates in 1689.
The accession of William and Mary drove this true Jacobite from the Scottish Parliament. He never appeared in that a.s.sembly after that event, having refused to take the oaths. Of course he disapproved of the Union; and the next step which he took was to join the standard of the Chevalier.
After that decisive proceeding, the course of this unfortunate n.o.bleman's life was one of misfortune, in which his high spirit was sustained by a constancy of no ordinary character. At the battle of Sherriff Muir, the brave Panmure was taken prisoner, but was rescued by his brother Harry, who, like himself, had engaged in the rebellion.
Panmure escaped to France: he was attainted of high treason,--his estates, which amounted to 3456_l._ per annum, and were the largest of the confiscated properties, were forfeited, as well as his hereditary honours. Twice were offers made to him by the English Government to restore his rank and possessions, if he would take the oath of allegiance to the House of Hanover; but Panmure refused the proffered boon, and preferred sharing the fortunes of him whom he looked upon as his legitimate Prince. When he joined the Jacobites at Braemar, Lord Panmure was no longer a young, rash man: he was in the sixty-fifth year of his age. His wife, the daughter of William Duke of Hamilton, was, after his attainder, provided for by act of Parliament in the same manner as if she had been a widow. His brother, Harry Maule, of Kellie, a man of considerable accomplishments, was so fortunate as to be enabled to return to his native country, and died in Edinburgh in 1734. But Lord Panmure, like most of the other brave and honest men who preferred their allegiance to their interest, finished his days in exile, and died at Paris, in 1723.[74]
Kenneth Lord Duffus was another of those n.o.blemen who had already established a character for personal bravery. He was a person of great skill in maritime affairs, and was promoted by Queen Anne to the command of the Advice s.h.i.+p of war, with which, in 1711, this gallant Highlander engaged eight French privateers, and after a desperate resistance of some hours, he was taken prisoner, after receiving five b.a.l.l.s in his body.
He was, however, released in time to engage in the Rebellion of 1715; and though it does not appear that he took any followers to fight beneath the Chevalier's standard, he was included in the Act of Attainder. The intelligence was communicated to Lord Duffus when he was in Sweden. He resolved immediately to surrender himself to the British Government, and declared his intention to the British Minister at Stockholm, who notified it to Lord Townshend, Secretary of State.
Notwithstanding this manly determination, Lord Duffus was arrested on his way to England, at Hamburgh, and was detained there until the time specified for surrendering had expired. He thence proceeded to London, where he was confined more than a year in the Tower, but released in 1717, without being brought to trial. Lord Duffus died, according to some accounts, in the Russian service; to others, in that of France. He married a Swedish lady, and attained to the rank of Admiral.[75]
Such were some of those Jacobite chieftains whose history has sunk into obscurity, partly from the difficulty of obtaining information concerning their career, after the contest was at an end. Amongst those who met Lord Mar in the hunting-field, but who afterwards became neutral,[76] although most of his clan joined in the Rebellion, was the Earl of Errol, one of a family whose fame for valour was dated from the time of the Danish invasion. The origin of the House of Errol is curious, and marks the simplicity of the times. An aged countryman, named Hay, and his sons, had arrested the progress of the ruthless conquerors in a defile near Lanearty in Perths.h.i.+re. The old man was rewarded by Kenneth the Third with as much land in the Ca.r.s.e of Gowrie as a falcon from a man's hand flew over until she lighted. The bird flew over a s.p.a.ce of six miles, which was thence called Errol, and which is still in possession of the family; and the old man and his sons were raised from the rank of plebeians by the a.s.signment of a coat of arms, on which were three escutcheons, gules, to denote that the father and the two sons had been the s.h.i.+elds of Scotland. The family grew in wealth and estimation, and the office of Hereditary High Constable of Scotland was added to their other honours.
The Countess of Errol, the mother of the High Constable, and sister of the Earl of Perth, had already taken a decided part in the affairs of the Jacobite party. When Colonel Hooke had been sent over in 1707 to Scotland, she had met him at the sea-coast, and had there placed in the hands of that emissary several letters from her son, expressing his earnest intention to support the cause of the Chevalier. The Earl of Errol had also received Hooke at his castle, and had entertained him there several days, and employed that time in initiating Hooke into the various characteristics and views of the Jacobite n.o.bility in Scotland.
He was thus deeply pledged to aid the undertaking at that time (the year 1707); and in a letter to the Chevalier, the Earl expressed his hopes that he might have the happiness of seeing his Majesty, "a happiness for which," he adds, "we have long sighed, to be delivered from oppression."
The Countess of Errol also addressed a letter to the mother of James Stuart, as the Queen of England, declaring that the delays which the Scotch had suffered had not "diminished their zeal, although they had prolonged their miseries and misfortunes."[77] Whether, upon the rising in 1715, the views of Lord Errol were altered, or that female influence had been lessened by some circ.u.mstance, does not exactly appear. He kept himself neutral in the subsequent outbreak, notwithstanding his appearance at Braemar, and although his clan were for the most part against the Government.[78] The Earl of Errol died, unmarried, in 1717: his adherence to his Jacobite principles were not, therefore, put to the test in 1745.
To these n.o.blemen were united Seaton, Viscount of Kingston, whose estates were forfeited to the Crown; Livingstone Viscount of Kilsyth, one of the representative peers, who died an exile at Rome in 1733; Lord Balfour of Burleigh; Lord Ogilvy, afterwards Earl of Airly, and Forbes, Lord Pitsligo. This last-mentioned n.o.bleman was a man of a grave and prudent character, whose example drew many of his neighbours to embark in an enterprise in which so discreet a person risked his honours and estate. He was the author of essays, moral and philosophical; and either from respect to his merits, or from some less worthy cause, his defection in 1715 pa.s.sed with impunity. But, in 1745, the aged n.o.bleman again appeared in the field, infirm as he was: and one of the most pleasing traits in Charles Edward's n.o.ble, yet faulty character was his walking at the head of his forces, having given up his carriage for the use of this tried adherent of his father. Attainder and forfeiture followed this last attempt, but the sentence was reversed by the Court of Session, from a misnomer in the attainder; and the venerable Lord Forbes, surviving many who had set out on the same course with him, had the comfort of breathing his last in his native country. He died at Auchiries in Aberdeens.h.i.+re, in 1762.[79]
Several of these n.o.blemen had been long contemplating the possibility of James's return to Scotland. Like the Earl of Errol, they had been dissatisfied with the prudence of the Duke of Hamilton, whose policy it had been to postpone the risk of a precarious undertaking, and whose foresight was acknowledged when it was too late. Lord John Drummond, Lord Kilsyth, and Lord Linlithgow, had been all deeply concerned in the schemes and speculations which had been formed in 1707, on the subject of the Restoration; but the zeal of Lord Kilsyth had been doubted, from his intimacy with the Duke of Hamilton, who was then objectionable to the violent Jacobite leaders.[80]
These chieftains were not unworthy to come into the same field with Tullibardine, Nithisdale, Marischal, and their brave a.s.sociates. A still n.o.bler band of a.s.sociates was formed in the different members of the house of Drummond, a family who could boast of being derived from "the ancient n.o.bility of the kingdom of Hungary:" and from the daughters of whose house Charles the Second was lineally descended in the ninth and sixth degree. Well may it be called "the splendid family of Drummond,"
even if we regard only its proud antiquity, or the singular "faithfulness of the family, or the accomplishments and virtues which characterised many of its members." Nothing can be finer than the manner in which the claims of birth are placed before us, in the address of William Drummond of Hawthornden to "John Earle of Perthe," in his ma.n.u.script "Historie of the Familie of Perthe:"
"Though, as Glaucus sayes to Diomed (in Homer),