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.
[Illustration: JAMES FRANCIS, THE OLD PRETENDER.]
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.