have become Jacobite. They were in nowise indebted to the house of
Stuart. With the Scottish kings the Highlands and Islands were
almost continually at war. When a James came amongst the northern
chieftains he carried an ample death-warrant in his face. The
presents he brought were the prison key, the hangman's rope, the axe
of the executioner. When the power departed from the Lords of the
Isles, the clans regarded the king who sat in Holyrood as their
nominal superior; but they were not amenable to any central law; each
had its own chief--was self-contained, self-governed, and busy with
its own private revenges and forays. When the Lowland burgher was
busy with commerce, and the Lowland farmer was busy with his crops,
the clansman walked his misty mountains very much as his fathers did
centuries before; and his hand was as familiar with the hilt of his
broadsword as the hand of the Perth burgher with the ellwand, or that
of the farmer of the Lothians with the plough-shaft. The Lowlander
had become industrious and commercial; the Highlander still loved the
skirmish and the raid. The Lowlands had become rich in towns, in
money, in goods; the Highlands were rich only in swordsmen.
[Sidenote: Montrose.] When Charles's troubles with his Parliament
began, the valour of the Highlands was wasting itself; and Montrose
was the first man who saw how that valour could be utilised. Himself
a feudal chief, and full of feudal feeling, when he raised the banner
of the king he appealed to the ancient animosities of the clans. His
arch-foe was Argyll; he knew that Campbell was a widely-hated name;
and that hate he made his recruiting sergeant. He bribed the chiefs,
but his bribe was revenge. The mountaineers flocked to his standard;
but they came to serve themselves rather than to serve Charles. The
defeat of Argyll might be a good thing for the king; but with that
they had little concern--it was the sweetest of private revenges, and
righted a century of wrongs. The Macdonalds of Sleat fought under
the great Marquis at Inverlochy; but the Skye shepherd considers only
that on that occasion his forefathers had a grand slaying of their
hereditary enemies--he has no idea that the interest of the king was
at all involved in the matter. While the battle was proceeding,
blind Allan sat on the castle walls with a little boy beside him; the
boy related how the battle went, and the bard wove the incidents into
extemporaneous song--full of scorn and taunts when the retreat of
Argyll in his galley is described--full of exultation when the
bonnets of fifteen hundred dead Campbells are seen floating in the
Lochy--and blind Allan's song you can hear repeated in Skye at this
day. When the splendid career of Montrose came to an end at
Philiphaugh, the clansmen who won his battles for him were no more
adherents of the king than they had been centuries before: but then
they had gratified hatred; they had had ample opportunities for
plunder; the chiefs had gained a new importance; they had been
assured of the royal gratitude and remembrance; and if they received
but scant supplies of royal gold, they were promised argosies. By
fighting under Montrose they were in a sense committed to the cause
of the king; and when at a later date Claverhouse again raised the
royal standard, that argument was successfully used. They had
already served the house of Stuart; they had gained victories in its
behalf: the king would not always be in adversity; the time would
come when he would be able to reward his friends; having put their
hands to the plough it would be folly to turn back. And so a second
time the clans rose, and at Killiecrankie an avalanche of kilted men
broke the royal lines, and in a quarter of an hour a disciplined army
was in ruins, and the bed of the raging Garry choked with corpses.
By this time the Stuart cause had gained a footing in the Highlands,
mainly from the fact that the clans had twice fought in its behalf.
Then a dark whisper of the massacre of Glencoe passed through the
glens--and the clansmen believed that the princes _they_ had served
would not have violated every claim of hospitality, and shot them
down so on their own hearthstones. All this confirmed the growing
feeling of attachment to the king across the water. When the Earl of
Mar rose in 1715, Macdonald of Sleat joined him with his men; and
being sent out to drive away a party of the enemy who had appeared on
a neighbouring height, opened the battle of Sheriffmuir. [Sidenote:
"The Forty-five."] In 1745, when Prince Charles landed in Knoydart,
he sent letters to Macdonald and Macleod in Skye soliciting their
aid. Between them they could have brought 2000 claymores into the
field; and had the prince brought a foreign force with them, they
might have complied with his request. As it was, they hesitated, and
finally resolved to range themselves on the side of the Government.
Not a man from Sleat fought under the prince. The other great
branches of the Macdonald family, Clanranald, Keppoch, and Glengarry,
joined him however; and Keppoch at Culloden, when he found that his
men were broken, and would not rally at the call of their chief,
charged the English lines alone, and was brought down by a musket
bullet.
[Sidenote: Flora Macdonald and Prince Charles.]
The Skye gentlemen did not rise at the call of the prince, but when
his cause was utterly lost, a Skye lady came to his aid, and rendered
him essential service. Neither at the time, nor afterwards, did
Flora Macdonald consider herself a heroine, (although Grace Darling
herself did not bear a braver heart;) and she is noticeable to this
day in history, walking demurely with the white rose in her bosom.
When the prince met Miss Macdonald in Benbecula, he was in
circumstances sufficiently desperate. The lady had expressed an
anxious desire to see Charles; and at their meeting, which took place
in a hut belonging to her brother, it struck Captain O'Neil, an
officer attached to the prince, and at the moment the sole companion
of his wanderings, that she might carry Charles with her to Skye in
the disguise of her maid-servant. Miss Macdonald consented. She
procured a six-oared boat, and when she and her companions entered
the hovel in which the prince lay, they found him engaged in roasting
for dinner with a wooden spit the heart, liver, and kidneys of a
sheep. They were full of compassion, of course; but the prince, who
possessed the wit as well as the courage of his family, turned his
misfortunes into jests. The party sat down to dinner not uncareless
of state. Flora sat on the right hand, and Lady Clanranald, one of
Flora's companions, on the left hand of the prince. They talked of
St James's as they sat at their rude repast; and stretching out hands
of hope, warmed themselves at the fire of the future.
After dinner Charles equipped himself in the attire of a
maid-servant. His dress consisted of a flowered linen gown, a
light-coloured quilted petticoat, a white apron, and a mantle of dun
camlet, made after the Irish fashion, with a hood. They supped on
the sea-shore; and while doing so a messenger arrived with the
intelligence that a body of military was in the neighbourhood in
quest of the fugitive, and on hearing this news Lady Clanranald
immediately went home. They sailed in the evening with a fair wind,
but they had not rowed above a league when a storm arose, and Charles
had to support the spirits of his companions by singing songs and
making merry speeches. They came in sight of the pale Skye headlands
in the morning, and as they coasted along the shore they were fired
on by a party of Macleod militia. While the bullets were falling
around, the prince and Flora lay down in the bottom of the boat. The
militia were probably indifferent marksmen; at all events no one was
hurt.
After coasting along for a space, they landed at Mugstot, the seat of
Sir Alexander Macdonald. Lady Macdonald was a daughter of the Earl
of Eglinton's, and an avowed Jacobite; and as it was known that Sir
Alexander was at Fort Augustus with the Duke of Cumberland, they had
no scruple in seeking protection. Charles was left in the boat, and
Flora went forward to apprise Lady Macdonald of their arrival.
Unhappily, however, there was a Captain Macleod, an officer of
militia, in the house, and Flora had to parry as best she could his
interrogations concerning Charles, whose head was worth £30,000.
Lady Macdonald was in great alarm lest the presence of the prince
should be discovered. Kingsburgh, Sir Alexander's factor, was on the
spot, and the ladies took him into their confidence. After
consultation, it was agreed that Skye was unsafe, and that Charles
should proceed at once to Raasay, taking up his residence at
Kingsburgh by the way.
During all this while Charles remained on the shore, feeling probably
very much as a Charles of another century did, when, shrouded up in
oak foliage, he heard the Roundhead riding beneath. Kingsburgh was
anxious to acquaint him with the determination of his friends, but
then there was the pestilent captain on the premises, who might prick
his ear at a whisper; and whose suspicion, if once aroused, might
blaze out into ruinous action. Kingsburgh had concerted his plan,
but in carrying it into execution it behoved him to tread so lightly
that the blind mole should not hear a footfall. He sent a servant
down to the shore to inform the strange maid-servant with the mannish
stride that he meant to visit her, but that in the meantime she
should screen herself from observation behind a neighbouring hill.
Taking with him wine and provisions, Kingsburgh went out in search of
the prince. He searched for a considerable time without finding him,
and was about to return to the house, when at some little distance he
observed a scurry amongst a flock of sheep. Knowing that sheep did
not scurry about after that fashion for their own amusement, he
approached the spot, when all at once the prince started out upon him
like another Meg Merrilees, a large knotted stick in his fist. "I am
Macdonald of Kingsburgh," said the visitor, "come to serve your
highness." "It is well," said Charles, saluting him. Kingsburgh
then opened out his plan, with which the prince expressed himself
satisfied. After Charles had partaken of some refreshment, they both
started towards Kingsburgh House.
The ladies at Mugstot were all this while in sad perplexity, and to
that perplexity, on account of the presence of the captain of
militia, they could not give utterance. As Kingsburgh had not
returned, they could only hope that he had succeeded in finding the
prince, and in removing him from that dangerous neighbourhood.
Meanwhile dinner was announced, and the captain politely handed in
the ladies. He drank his wine, paid Miss Macdonald his most graceful
compliments, for a captain--if even of militia only--can never, in
justice to his cloth, be indifferent to the fair. It belongs to his
profession to be gallant, as it belongs to the profession of a
clergyman to say grace before meat. We may be sure, however, that
his roses of compliment stung like nettles. He talked of the prince,
as a matter of course--the prince being the main topic of
conversation in the Islands at the period--perhaps expressed a strong
desire to catch him. All this the ladies had to endure, hiding, as
the way of the sex is, fluttering hearts under countenances most
hypocritically composed. After dinner, Flora rose at once, but a
look from Lady Macdonald induced her to remain for yet a little.
Still the gallant captain's talk flowed on, and _he_ must be deceived
at any cost. At last Miss Flora was moved with the most filial
feelings. She was anxious to be with her mother, to stay and comfort
her in these troublous times. She must really be going. Lady
Macdonald pressed her to stay, got the gallant captain to bring his
influence to bear, but with no effect. The wilful young lady would
not listen to entreaty. Her father was absent, and at such a time
the claim of a lone mother on a daughter's attention was paramount.
Her apology was accepted at last, but only on the condition that she
should return soon to Mugstot and make a longer stay. The ladies
embraced each other, and then Miss Macdonald mounted, and attended by
several servants rode after Prince Charles, who was now some distance
on the road to Kingsburgh. Lady Macdonald returned to the captain,
than whom seldom has one--whether of the line or the militia--been
more cleverly hoodwinked.
Miss Macdonald's party, when she rode after the prince and
Kingsburgh, consisted of Neil M'Eachan, who acted as guide, and Mrs
Macdonald, who was attended by a male and female servant. They
overtook the prince, and Mrs Macdonald, who had never seen him
before, was anxious to obtain a peep of his countenance. This
Charles carefully avoided. Mrs Macdonald's maid, noticing the
uncouth appearance of the tall female figure, whispered to Miss Flora
that she "had never seen such an impudent-looking woman as the one
with whom Kingsburgh was talking," and expressed her belief that the
stranger was either an Irishwoman, or a man in woman's clothes. Miss
Flora whispered in reply, "that she was right in her conjecture--that
the amazon was really an Irishwoman, that she knew her, having seen
her before." The abigail then exclaimed, "Bless me, what long
strides the jade takes, and how awkwardly she manages her clothes!"
Miss Macdonald, wishing to put an end to this conversation, urged the
party to a trot. The pedestrians then struck across the hills, and
reached Kingsburgh House about eleven o'clock,--the equestrians
arriving soon after.
When they arrived there was some difficulty about supper, Mrs
Macdonald of Kingsburgh having retired to rest. When her husband
told her that the prince was in the house, she got up immediately,
and under her direction the board was spread. The viands were eggs,
butter, and cheese. Charles supped heartily, and after drinking a
few glasses of wine, and smoking a pipe of tobacco, went to bed.
Next morning there was a discussion as to the clothes he should wear;
Kingsburgh, fearing that his disguise should become known, urged
Charles to wear a Highland dress, to which he gladly agreed. But as
there were sharp eyes of servants about, it was arranged that, to
prevent suspicion, he should leave the house in the same clothes in
which he had come, and that he should change his dress on the road.
When he had dressed himself in his feminine garments and come into
the sitting-room, Charles noticed that the ladies were whispering
together eagerly, casting looks on him the while. He desired to know
the subject of conversation, and was informed by Mrs Macdonald that
they wished a lock of his hair. The prince consented at once, and
laying down his head in Miss Flora's lap, a lock of yellow hair was
shorn off--to be treasured as the dearest of family relics, and
guarded as jealously as good fame. Some silken threads of that same
lock of hair I have myself seen. Mr M'Ian has some of it in a ring,
which will probably be buried with him. After the hair was cut off,
Kingsburgh presented the prince with a new pair of shoes, and the old
ones--through which the toes protruded--were put aside, and
considered as only less sacred than the shred of hair. They were
afterwards bought by a Jacobite gentleman for twenty guineas--the
highest recorded price ever paid for that article.
Kingsburgh, Flora, and the prince then started for Portree,
Kingsburgh carrying the Highland dress under his arm. After walking
a short distance Charles entered a wood and changed his attire. He
now wore a tartan short coat and waistcoat, with philabeg and hose, a
plaid, and a wig and bonnet. Here Kingsburgh parted from the prince,
and returned home. Conducted by a guide, Charles then started across
the hills, while Miss Macdonald galloped along the common road to
Portree to see how the land lay, and to become acquainted with the
rumours stirring in the country.
There was considerable difficulty in getting the prince out of Skye;
a Portree crew could not be trusted, as on their return they might
blab the whereabouts of the fugitive. In this dilemma a friend of
the prince's bethought himself that there was a small boat on one of
the neighbouring Lochs, and the boat was dragged by two brothers,
aided by some women, across a mile of boggy ground to the sea-shore.
It was utterly unseaworthy--leaky as the old brogues which Kingsburgh
valued so much--but the two brothers nothing fearing got it launched,
and rowed across to Raasay.
When the news came that the prince was at hand, Young Raasay, who had
not been out in the rebellion, and his cousin, Malcolm Macleod, who
had been, procured a strong boat, and with two oarsmen, whom they had
sworn to secrecy, pulled across to Skye. They landed about half a
mile from Portree, and Malcolm Macleod, accompanied by one of the
men, went towards the inn, where he found the prince and Miss
Macdonald. It had been raining heavily, and before he arrived,
Charles was soaked to the skin. The first thing the prince called
for was a dram; he then put on a dry shirt, and after that he made a
hearty meal on roasted fish, bread, cheese, and butter. The people
in the inn had no suspicion of his rank, and with them he talked and
joked. Malcolm Macleod had by this time gone back to the boat, where
he waited the prince's coming. The guide implored Charles to go off
at once, pointed out that the inn was a gathering place for all sorts
of people, and that some one might penetrate his disguise--to all
this the prince gave ready assent; but it rained still, and he spoke
of risking everything and waiting where he was all night. The guide
became yet more urgent, and the prince at last expressed his
readiness to leave, only before going he wished to smoke a pipe of
tobacco. He smoked his pipe, bade farewell to Miss Macdonald, repaid
her a small sum which he had borrowed, gave her his miniature, and
expressed the hope that he should yet welcome her at St James's.
Early in the dawn of the July morning, with four shirts, a bottle of
brandy tied to one side of his belt, a bottle of whisky tied to the
other, and a cold fowl done up in a pocket-handkerchief, he, under
the direction of a guide, went down to the rocky shore, where the
boat had so long been waiting. In a few hours they reached Raasay.
In Raasay the prince did not remain long. He returned to Skye, abode
for a space in Strath, dwelling in strange places, and wearing many
disguises--finally, through the aid of the chief of the Mackinnons,
he reached the mainland. By this time it had become known to the
Government that the prince had been wandering about the island, and
Malcolm Macleod, Kingsburgh, and Miss Macdonald were apprehended.
Miss Macdonald was at first confined in Dunstaffnage Castle, and was
afterwards conveyed to London. Her imprisonment does not seem to
have been severe, and she was liberated, it is said, at the special
request of Frederick Prince of Wales. She and Malcolm Macleod
returned to Scotland together. In 1750 Flora married Allan
Macdonald, young Kingsburgh, and on the death of his father in 1772
the young people went to live on the farm. Here they received Dr
Johnson and Boswell. Shortly after, the family went to America, and
in 1775 Kingsburgh joined the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment. He
afterwards served in Canada, and finally returned to Skye on
half-pay. Flora had seven children, five sons and two daughters, the
sons after the old Skye fashion becoming soldiers, and the daughters
the wives of soldiers. She died in 1790, and was buried in the
churchyard of Kilmuir. To the discredit of the Skye gentlemen--in
many of whom her blood flows--the grave is in a state of utter
disrepair. When I saw it two or three months ago it was covered with
a rank growth of nettles. These are untouched. The tourist will
deface tombstones, and carry away chips from a broken bust, but a
nettle the boldest or the most enthusiastic will hardly pluck and
convey from even the most celebrated grave. A line must be drawn
somewhere, and Vandalism draws the line at nettles--it will not sting
its own fingers for the world.
[Sidenote: The old House of Kingsburgh.]
O Death! O Time! O men and women of whom we have read, what eager
but unavailing hands we stretch towards you! How we would hear your
voices, see your faces, but note the wafture of your garments! With
a strange feeling one paces round the ruins of the House of
Corrichatachin, thinking of the debauch held therein a hundred years
ago by a dead Boswell and young Highland bloods, dead too. But the
ruin of the old house of Kingsburgh moves one more than the ruin of
the old house of Corrichatachin. On the shore of Loch
Snizort--waters shadowed once by the sails of Haco's galleys--we
stumble on the latter ancient site. The outline of the walls is
distinguished by a mere protuberance on the grassy turf; and in the
space where fires burned, and little feet pattered, and men and women
ate and drank, and the hospitable board smoked, great trees are
growing. To this place did Flora Macdonald come and the prince--his
head worth thirty thousand pounds--dressed in woman's clothes; there
they rested for the night, and departed next morning. And the sheets
in which the wanderer slept were carefully put aside, and years after
they became the shroud for the lady of the house. And the old shoes
the prince wore were kept by Kingsburgh till his dying day, and after
that a "zealous Jacobite gentleman" paid twenty guineas for the
treasure. That love for the young Ascanius!--the carnage of
Culloden, and noble blood reddening many scaffolds, could not wash it
out. Fancy his meditations on all that devotion when an old besotted
man in Rome--the glitter of the crown of his ancestors faded utterly
away out of his bleared and tipsy eyes! And when Flora was mistress
of it, to the same place came Boswell, and Johnson with a cold in his
head. There the doctor saluted Flora, and snivelled his compliments,
and slept in the bed the prince occupied. There Boswell was in a
cordial humour, and, as his fashion was, "promoted a cheerful glass."
And all these people are ghosts and less. And, as I write, the wind
is rising on Loch Snizort, and through the autumn rain the yellow
leaves are falling on the places where the prince and the doctor and
the toady sat.
[Sidenote: Flora Macdonald and Dr Johnson.]
One likes to know that Pope saw Dryden sitting in the easy-chair near
the fire at Will's Coffee-house, and that Scott met Burns at Adam
Ferguson's. It is pleasant also to know that Doctor Johnson and
Flora Macdonald met. It was like the meeting of two widely-separated
eras and orders of things. Fleet Street, and the Cuchullins with
Ossianic mists on their crests, came face to face. It is pleasant
also to know that the sage liked the lady, and the lady liked the
sage. After the departure of the prince the arrival of Dr Johnson
was the next great event in Hebridean history. The doctor came, and
looked about him, and went back to London and wrote his book.
Thereafter there was plenty of war; and the Islesmen became soldiers,
fighting in India, America, and the Peninsula. The tartans waved
through the smoke of every British battle, and there were no such
desperate bayonet charges as those which rushed to the yell of the
bagpipe. At the close of the last and the beginning of the present
century, half the farms in Skye were rented by half-pay officers.
The Army List was to the island what the Post-office Directory is to
London. Then Scott came into the Highlands with the whole world of
tourists at his back. Then up through Skye came Dr John
M'Culloch--caustic, censorious, epigrammatic--and dire was the rage
occasioned by the publication of his letters--the rage of men
especially who had shown him hospitality and rendered him services,
and who got their style of talk mimicked, and their household
procedures laughed at for their pains. Then came evictions,
emigrations, and the potato failure. Everything is getting prosaic
as we approach the present time. Then my friend Mr Hutcheson
established his magnificent fleet of Highland steamers. While I
write the iron horse is at Dingwall, and he will soon be at
Kyleakin--through which strait King Haco sailed seven centuries ago.
In a couple of years or thereby Portree will be distant twenty-four
hours from London--that time the tourist will take in coming, that
time black-faced mutton will take in going.
[Sidenote: Macpherson's "Ossian".]