GEORGE I.—1714 to 1727.
How the Elector of Hanover became George the First of England; how
the Pretender tried to make himself King, but was defeated; how Lady
Nithisdale saved her husband’s life; and how the Spaniards were
beaten at sea.
George the First was Elector of Hanover, in Germany; and as it was
settled in King William’s reign that nobody but a Protestant should
be king of England, he was sent for and made king of England, rather
than the son of James II., who was a Roman Catholic.
But a great many people in Scotland still wished to have a king of
the old Scotch family of Stuart again; so they encouraged young James
Stuart, that is the Pretender, whom they called King James, to come
to Scotland, and promised they would collect men and money enough
to make an army, and buy guns and everything fit for soldiers, and
march into England, and make him king instead of George I. From this
time all those who took the part of the Pretender against George were
called Jacobites, from Jacobus, the Latin for the Pretender’s name,
James.
James’s chief friend in Scotland was Lord Mar, and he was in hopes
that a great many English gentlemen would join him, and send money
from England, and get another army ready there to help him.
But the Pretender and his friends were disappointed. They lost a
great many men in battle at the Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane, in
Perthshire. Their English army was beaten at Preston in Lancashire,
and the Pretender was obliged to get away as fast as he could to
France again.
I wish King George had forgiven both the Jacobite officers and
men, who thought they were doing right in fighting for the son of
their old king: but he would not; and besides putting to death a
few common soldiers and gentlemen, he ordered six lords to have
their heads cut off. One of them escaped, however, and three were
afterwards pardoned. Lord Nithisdale, who escaped, was saved by the
devotion and courage of his wife. She had tried by every means to
prevail upon the king to pardon him, but he would not; however, she
had leave to visit him in prison. She went, you may be sure, often,
and she took a friend with her, whom she called her maid, till she
had used the jailers to see two people go in and out. Then she made
her friend put on double clothes one day, and as soon as she got
into Lord Nithisdale’s room half those clothes were taken off, and
he was dressed in them, and so they managed that he should go out
with one of the ladies, who pretended that her companion had so bad
a toothache that she could not speak. Lady Nithisdale had a coach
waiting at the prison-door, and they went to a safe place where her
husband was hidden till he could get to France. And this was the
end of the first civil war begun in Scotland for the sake of the
Pretender. Although his friends often tried to begin another, they
always failed, while George the First was king.
The King of Spain also tried to assist the Pretender, but he could
only make war with England by sea, and his ships were always beaten;
and so he made peace.
George the First died while he was visiting his own country of
Hanover, after he had been King of England thirteen years. He was a
brave and prudent man, but he was too old, when he came to be King
of England, to learn English, or to behave quite like an Englishman;
however, upon the whole, he was a useful king.