comment to two men of very different character, John Lockhart of
Carnwath, and the Master of Sinclair. Neither of the portraits drawn by
these master-hands are favourable; and they were, in both instances,
written under the influence of strong, yet transient impressions of
disappointment and suspicion. The mind naturally seeks for some safer
steersman to guide opinion than the intemperate though honest Jacobite,
Lockhart, or the sarcastic and slippery friend, Sinclair. The worst
peculiarity in the career of Mar was, that no one trusted him; towards
the latter portion of his life he had even lost the power of deceiving:
it had become impossible to him to act without mingling the poison of
deception with intentions which might have been honest, and even
benevolent. The habits of a long life of intrigue had warped his very
nature. When we behold him fleeing from the coasts of Scotland, leaving
behind him the trusting hearts that would have bled for him, we fancy
that no moral degradation can be more complete. We view him soliciting
to be a pensioner of England, and we acknowledge that it was even
possible to sink still more deeply into infamy.
With principles of action utterly unsound, it is surprising how much
influence Lord Mar acquired over all with whom he came into collision.
He was sanguine in disposition, and, if we may judge by his letters,
buoyant in his spirits; his disposition was conciliatory, his manners
were apparently confiding. At the bottom of that gay courtesy there
doubtless was a heart warped by policy, but not inherently unkind. He
attached to him the lowly. Lockhart speaks of the love of two of his
kinsmen to him:--his tenantry, during his exile, contributed to supply
his wants, by a subscription. These are the few redeeming
characteristics of one made up of inconsistencies. He conferred, it must
be allowed, but little credit on a party which could number among its
adherents the brave Earl Marischal, the benevolent and honourable
Derwentwater, and the disinterested Nithisdale. When we contrast the
petty and selfish policy of the Earl of Mar with the integrity and
fidelity of those who fought in the same cause, and over whom he was
commander, his character sinks low in the estimate, and acts like a foil
to the purity and brightness of his fellow sufferers in the strife.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] See Wood's Peerage of Scotland.
[8] Histories of Noble British Families by Henry Drummond, Esq. Preface
to Part I.
[9] Robertson's History of Scotland, ii. 32.
[10] Wood's Peerage. The year of his birth is not stated.
[11] Cunningham's History of Great Britain, i. 326.
[12] Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 100.
[13] Chambers's Biography, art. Erskine.
[14] See Dr. Coxe's MSS. in the British Museum, vol. iii.
[15] Dalrymple's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 98.
[16] Lockhart's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 114.
[17] Lockhart, vol. i. p. 45.
[18] Granger, vol. ii. p. 31. Somerville's Queen Anne, p. 184.
[19] Of Alloa the following account is given. "Alloa House, situated in
the immediate neighbourhood of the town, in the midst of a fine park,
the seat of the Earl of Mar, and the subject of a fine Scottish song, is
a place worthy of visit. The principal part of the building was
destroyed some years ago by fire, and with it the only certain original
portrait of Queen Mary existing in the kingdom. The original tower, a
building of the thirteenth century, the walls of which are eleven feet
thick, and ninety feet high, alone remains. In it James the Sixth and
his eldest son, Henry, were successively educated under the care of the
Mar family. The cradle of the former, and his little nursery-chair,
besides Prince Henry's golfs, were preserved in the tower till a recent
period, when they fell into the possession of Lady Frances Erskine,
daughter of the late venerable Earl of Mar, who, we understand, now
preserves them, with the care and veneration due to such valuable
heirlooms, in her house in Edinburgh. The country in every direction
round Alloa is extremely level and beautiful, interspersed with numerous
fine seats, and abounding in delightful little old-established
bower-like villages. Among the latter we would particularize one called
the Bridge of Allan as everything which a village ought to be--soft,
sunny, and warm--a confusion of straw-roofed cottages, and rich massy
trees; possessed of a bridge and a mill, together with kail-yards,
bee-skeps, colleys, callants, old inns with entertainment for man and
horse, carts with their poles pointing up to the sky, venerable dames in
drugget knitting their stockings in the sun, and young ones in gingham
and dimity tripping along with milk-pails on their heads.
"Besides all these characteristics as a village, the Bridge of Allan
boasts of a row of neat little villas for the temporary accommodation of
a number of fashionables who flock to it in the summer, on account of a
neighbouring mineral well."--_Chambers's Picture of Scotland._
[20] Wood's Peerage.
[21] Somerville's Queen Anne, p. 167.
[22] Somerville, p. 177. Memoirs of Scotland, London, 1714. Defoe's
History of the Union, p. 64.
[23] Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 114.
[24] Lockhart.
[25] Lockhart, p. 116.
[26] Daniel De Foe on the Union, p. 64.
[27] De Foe, p. 322.
[28] Lockhart. Letter to one English Lord concerning the Treaty, 1702,
vol. i. p. 272.
[29] Memoirs, p. 74. De Foe, p. 321.
[30] Memoirs, p. 74. De Foe, p. 371.
[31] Introduction to De Foe's History of the Union, p. 16.
[32] Memoirs of Scotland, p. 31.
[33] Mackay.
[34] Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 54.
[35] Memoirs of North Britain, p. 113.
[36] Wood's Peerage, vol. i. pp. 714, 717; also Mackay's Memoirs, p.
178.
[37] Lockhart Papers, vol. i. p. 115.
[38] Wood's Peerage, art. Erskine of Mar.
[39] Memoirs of Scotland, p. 224.
[40] Memoirs of Scotland, p. 340.
[41] Cunningham's Hist. Great Britain, p. 257.
[42] Ibid. p. 61.
[43] Swift's Works, edited by Sir W. Scott, pp. 14, 72.
[44] The motto on Queen Anne's coronation medal.
[45] Cunningham, p. 71.
[46] Memoirs of Scotland. Cunningham, p. 157.
[47] Swift's Letters, vol. ii. p. 488; also p. 487, note by Sir W.
Scott.
[48] Wood's Peerage. Swift's Letters, p. 475. See note.
[49] Mackay's Characters, p. 94.
[50] Swift added, in his own hand, to this eulogium, this remark: "He
was little better than a conceited talker in company."
[51] The following letter shows that the Duke anticipated the result of
the duel.
London, Nov. 14, 1712.
My dear Son,
I have been doing all I could to recover your mother's right to her
estate, which I hope shall be yours. I command you to be dutiful
towards her, as I hope she will be just and kind to you; and I
recommend it particularly to you, if ever you enjoy the estate of
Hamilton, and what may, I hope, justly belong to you, (considering
how long I have lived with a small competence, which has made me run
in debt,) I hope God will put it into your head to do justice to my
honour, and pay my just debts. There will be enough to satisfy all,
and give your brothers and sisters such provisions as the state of
your condition and their quality in Scotland will admit of.
I pray God preserve you, and the family in your person. My humble
duty to my mother, and my blessing to your sisters. If it please God
I live, you shall find me share with you what I do possess, and ever
prove your affectionate and kind father, whilst
HAMILTON.
I again upon my blessing charge you, that you let the world see you
do your part in satisfying my just debts.
Addressed thus: "To my dear Son the Marquis of Chilsdale."
_Memoirs of the Life and Family of James Duke of Hamilton._
[52] The Lady Elizabeth Gerrard, the sister of Lady Mohun, and Duchess
of Hamilton, is said to have been "a lady of great wit and beauty, and
all the fine accomplishments that adorn her sex." Through her the great
estates in Lancashire and Staffordshire came into the family of
Hamilton.
[53] Wood's Peerage; also "Life of the Duke of Hamilton," a scarce
tract, p. 102.
[54] Coxe MSS. 9128. Plut. cxxxviii. H. British Museum.
[55] Ibid. See a Letter in French, dated April 5, 1714, p. 1.
[56] Coxe MSS.
[57] Lord Mahon's Hist. England, vol. i. p. 139. See also a scarce
little book to be met with in the Advocate's Library in Edinburgh
(Atterbury's Correspondence, with marginal notes by Lord Hailes): "By
what accident these Letters have been preserved," says the noble Editor,
"I know not: by what means they are now brought to light, I am not at
liberty to explain."
[58] See the Letter before quoted.
[59] Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 440.
[60] Lockhart of Carnwath, vol. i. p. 446; also "Notices of Lady
Grange," by Dr. Mackay.
[61] See "Notices of Lady Grange," by K. Mackay, M.D., 3rd edition.
Glasgow, 1819.
[62] Cunningham, vol. ii. p. 441.
[63] Lord Mahon, vol. i. p. 152.
[64] "A Collection of Original Letters relating to the Rebellion of
1715." Edinburgh, 1730.
[65] Introductory Anecdotes to Lord Wharncliffe's Edition of Lady M.
Wortley's Letters, p. 26.
[66] Reay, p. 135.
[67] Reay, p. 152.
[68] Reay, p. 171.
[69] This commission was long doubted, and was even denied by the
Chevalier. It is, nevertheless, signed by his Secretary, and is among
the valuable papers which, belonging to Mr. Gibson Craig of Edinburgh,
have been liberally placed at the service of the author.
[70] Caledonian Mercury, 1722.
[71] Lord Mahon, p. 147.
[72] Lord Mahon; from the Master of Sinclair's MS.
[73] Burke's Peerage.
[74] Buchan's History of the Keith Family.
[75] Buchan's History of the Keith Family; also Scottish Peerage.
[76] See Patten's List of Chieftains.
[77] Secret History of Colonel Hooke's Negotiations, pp. 26, 110.
[78] Patten, p. 232.
[79] Buchan's History of the Keith Family, p. 153.
[80] Colonel Hooke's Negotiations.
[81] See "Genealogie of the Most Noble and Ancient House of Drummond, by
the First Viscount Strathallan," Appendix. For this curious and
elaborate work I am indebted to the Rev. Arthur Drummond.
[82] MS. Account of Several Clans, by Mrs. Grant, of Laggan.
[83] Brown's Highlands, vol. i. p. 131.
[84] The Rev. Robert Patten, from whose animated narrative many other
writers have implicitly copied, was a man of indifferent character, who
accompanied Mr. Forster, in the insurrection in Northumberland, as his
chaplain. He afterwards turned king's evidence, and appeared against
those whom he had served. For this act of treachery his pension was
raised (as I find by the Caledonian Mercury for 1722) from 50_l._ to
80_l._ a-year. He dedicates his History of the Rebellion to Generals
Carpenter and Wills.
[85] Patten, p. 151.
[86] Mar Papers.
[87] Reay, p. 191.
[88] Reay, p. 191.
[89] It seems to have been the custom of that period to write in the
third person when in memoirs and statements. Lord Lovat's manifesto is
in the same style.
[90] Patten, p. 257.
[91] A copy from the original, for which I am indebted to Mr. Gibson
Craig, is given for the confirmation of Lord Mar's assertion:--
"James the Eighth, by the grace of God King of Scotland, England,
France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c., to our right trusty
and well-beloved Cousin and Counsellor, John Earl of Mar, &c. We
reposing especial trust & confidence in your loyalty, courage,
experience, and good conduct, doe by these * * constitute and
appoint you to be our General and Commander in Cheif of all our
forces, both by sea and land, in our antient kingdom of Scotland.
Whereupon you are to take upon you the said command of General and
Commander in Cheif, and the better to support you in the said
authority, our will and pleasure is, that you act in consert with
and by our * * * * We doe likeways hereby empower you to grant
commissions in our name to all officers, both by sea and land, to
place and displace the same as you shall think fitt and necessary
for our service, to assemble our said forces, raise the militia,
issue out orders for all suspected persons, and seizing of all forts
and castles, and putting garrisons into them, and to take up in any
part of our dominions, what money, horses, arms, and ammunition and
provisions you shall think necessary for arming, mounting, and
subsisting the said forces under your command, and to give recepts
for the same, which we hereby promise to pay. By this our
Commission, we likeways here empower you to make warr upon our
enemies, and upon all such as shall adhere to the present government
and usurper of our dominions. Leaving entirely to your prudence and
conduct to begin the necessary acts of hostility when and where you
think most advantageous conducing to our restoration; and we doe
hereby command all, and require all officers and souldiers, both by
sea and land, and all our subjects, to acknowledge and obey you as
our General and Commander as Cheif of our army; and you to obey such
furder orders and directions as you shall from time to time receive
from us. In pursuance of the great power and trust we have reposed
in you.
"Given at our Court at Bar le duc, the seventh day of September,
1715, and in the fourteenth year of our reign.
"By His Majestie's command,
Sic Subscribitur,
THOMAS HIGGINS."
[92] Patten, p. 256.
[93] Note in Reay. From the _Weekly Journal_, Feb. 4th, 1715-16.
[94] Reay, p. 193.
[95] Brown's Highlands, vol. i. p. 129.
[96] Mar Papers. In these there is a copy of this Manifesto; but since
it has been printed in Reay's History of the Rebellion, and others, I do
not think it necessary to insert it here.
[97] The Chevalier's agent there.
[98] The orthography of this letter is copied from the original, with
the exception of the abbreviations usual at that period.
[99] Erskine.
[100] Reay, p. 221.
[101] Mar Papers.
[102] Mar Papers, communicated by Mr. Gibson Craig.
[103] Reay, pp. 236, 237.
[104] The Earl of Mar's Journal, as printed at Paris. At the end of
Patten's History of the Rebellion, and addressed by Lord Mar to Colonel
Balfour, p. 259.
[105] Reay, p. 197.
[106] Earl of Mar's Journal.
[107] Earl of Mar's Journal.
[108] Reay, p. 308.
[109] Brown's Highlands.
[110] Mar Papers.
[111] Reay, p. 309.
[112] From the MS. letter in the possession of Archibald Macdonald, Esq.
[113] The agent of the Jacobites in Edinburgh.
[114] Mar Papers, in the possession of Gibson Craig, Esq.
[115] King.
[116] Duke of Ormond.
[117] Paris.
[118] Lady Nairn.
[119] The Chevalier.
[120] The Dutch auxiliaries, to the amount of 6000, demanded by the
English government, as accorded by treaty, arrived, to the number of
3000, in the Thames, on the 16th of November, expressly to assist in
suppressing the rebellion, and proceeded to Scotland on the 25th. They
were afterwards followed by 3000 more, who, being obliged to put in at
Harwich, marched on by land. Reay, p. 327.
[121] The King.
[122] Lord Grange.
[123] The following note is annexed to this letter. It is in the
hand-writing of Bishop Keith:--"Son of Sir Wm. Douglass, colonel of a
regiment, and who had come over with the Prince of Orange to England,
and was made Knight and Colonel by the said Prince, as says my Lady
Bruce. The story Wm. Erskine, brother to the Earl of Buchan, told me, as
the King and he were travelling through France at this period, they saw
the Chevalier's picture set up in some of the post-houses, and they were
told this was done by the desire of the English Ambassador, who had
promised a reward to those who should stop and apprehend the person whom
the picture resembled."
[124] A concealment in the House of Kineil, near Borrostowness.
[125] The younger brother of the Marquis of Tullibardine, but assuming
the forfeited title as head of the house.
[126] Henry Straiton.
[127] I have had the advantage of seeing an original crayon portrait of
the Chevalier, in the possession of Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., of
Edinburgh; also, a miniature painted at Rome, belonging to Mr. Sharpe.
In the miniature the eyes are darker, and have more animation than in
the crayon drawing. The portrait lately placed at Hampton Court gives a
much more pleasing impression of James Stuart than either of these
likenesses: the countenance is animated and benevolent.
[128] "A True Account of the Proceedings at Perth," by a Rebel, supposed
to be the Master of Sinclair.
[129] That portion of the letter only which refers to the Chevalier
appears to have been printed. I have given the entire letter from which
the account was taken. A portion of this letter is published in Brown's
History of the Highlands, vol. iv. p. 332.
[130] Reay, p. 352.
[131] MS. Letter in the possession of Alexander Macdonald, Esq., of the
Register Office, Edinburgh.
[132] Mar Papers.
[133] Thomas Bruce, afterwards Earl of Kincardine.
[134] The loss of the ship from France.
[135] An allusion to the Marquis of Huntley and Lord Seaforth.
[136] Mar Papers.
[137] Reay, p. 364.
[138] Flying Post, or the Post Master, for January 28 and 31, 1716.
[139] Evening Post, Feb. 2, 1716.
[140] Auchterarder.
[141] Reay, p. 364.
[142] Mar Correspondence.
[143] Probably Wigton.
[144] Brown's Highlands, vol. iv. p. 337.
[145] Patten, p. 248.
[146] Reay, p. 367.
[147] Lord Mar's Journal.
[148] A copy is given of the Prince's letter in Dr. Brown's work on the
Highlands, vol. iv. p. 340. It is a sort of expostulation with the Duke,
but mildly and sensibly expressed. "I fear," he said, alluding to the
British people, "they will find yet more than I the smart of preferring
a foreign yoke to the obedience they owe me."
[149] Bolingbroke's Letter to Sir William Wyndham.
[150] Letter to Sir Wm. Wyndham, p. 139.
[151] Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 17.
[152] Ibid.
[153] Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 64.
[154] Coxe's Papers in the British Museum, MS. 9129. Plut. cxxxviii. II.
[155] I find that the biographers of Lord Mar, in the short lives given
of him, (see Chambers's Scottish Biography, Georgian Era, &c.) have
overlooked this correspondence. The letter from Sir Luke Schwaub, in
French, with a translation, and the answer of Lord Carteret, in the Coxe
Papers, although not exactly relevant to my subject, are interesting. "A
thousands thanks," writes the generous Lord Carteret, in reply to
Schwaub, "for your private letter, which affords me the means of
obviating any calumny against the memory of a person who will always be
dear to me." [That is, Lord Sunderland.] "I have shown it to the King,
who is entirely satisfied with it." The anxiety on the part of
Government to secure the papers of Lord Sunderland, was extreme, and
affords a collateral proof of this connivance. The mysterious documents
were seized by order of the King, and inspected by Lord Townshend, and
not a trace of the correspondence was left when the papers were restored
to the family. The seizure occasioned a suit between the executors of
the Earl of Sunderland and the two Secretaries of State.--_Coxe MSS._
[156] Hardwicke Papers, vol. ii. p. 252.
[157] Hardwicke Papers, vol. ii. p. 565.
[158] Hardwicke Papers, p. 586.
[159] Hardwicke Papers, vol. ii. p. 600.
[160] Chambers, art. _Erskine_.
[161] From original letters, for which I am indebted to Alexander
Macdonald, Esq., of the Register Office, Edinburgh.
[162] The spelling is preserved as in the original.
[163] These words were written in the Chevalier's own hand.
[164] Letters in the possession of A. Macdonald, Esq.
[165] Bolingbroke.
[166] Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. p. 221.
[167] Lockhart Papers.
[168] See various papers in the State Paper Office. Collections for
1722.
[169] Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 149.
[170] Id. p. 183.
[171] Lockhart, vol. ii. p. 198.
[172] Mr. C. Kirkpatrick Sharpe was good enough to inform me that he had
seen some letters on this subject, which exculpated Lady Mary W.
Montague. The correspondence was destroyed, but it conveyed to the mind
of that accomplished and erudite gentleman, who saw it, the impression
that the charge against Lady Mary Wortley was groundless.
JAMES, EARL OF DERWENTWATER.
In the vale of Hexham, on the summit of a steep hill, clothed with wood,
and washed at its base by a rivulet, called the Devil's Water, stand the
ruins of Dilstone Castle. A bridge of a single arch forms the approach
to the castle or mansion; the stream, then mingling its rapid waters
with those of the Tyne, rushes over rocks into a deep dell embowered
with trees, above a hundred feet in height, and casting a deep gloom
over the sounding waters beneath their branches.
Through the arch of the bridge, a mill, an object ever associated with
peace and plenty, is seen; and, beyond it, the eye rests upon the bare,
dilapidated walls of the castle. Its halls, its stairs, its painted
chambers, may still be traced; its broken towers command a view of
romantic beauty; but all around it is desolate and ruined, like the once
proud and honoured family who dwelt beneath its roof.
This was once the favourite abode of the Ratcliffes, or Radcliffes,
supposed to be a branch of the Radcliffes in Lancashire,[173] from whom
were, it is said, descended the Earls of Sussex,[174] who became the
owners of Dilstone in the days of Queen Elizabeth.
During several generations after the Conquest, a family of the name of
Devilstone was in possession of Dilstone, until the time of Henry the
Third. The estates then passed to many different owners; the Tynedales,
the Crafters, the Claxtons, were successively the masters of the castle;
and it was not, according to some accounts,[175] until the tenth year of
Queen Elizabeth's reign, that it first owned for its lord one of that
unfortunate race to whom it finally belonged, until escheated to the
Crown. But certain historians have asserted that, so early as the reign
of Henry the Sixth, Dilstone was the seat of Sir Nicholas
Radcliffe.[176] At this period, too, other estates were added to those
already enjoyed by the Radcliffes. Sir Nicholas married the heiress of
Sir John De Derwentwater, to whom had belonged, for several centuries,
the manors of Castlerigg and Keswick, and who, since the time of Edward
the First, had enjoyed great consideration in the county of Cumberland.
This alliance with the Derwentwater family, although it brought to the
Radcliffe the possession of a territory, which, for its beauty and
value, monarchs might envy, did not for many years, entice them to a
removal to the mansion of Castlerigg. That old dwelling-place, a gloomy
fortress, among "storm-shaken mountains and howling wildernesses," was
far less commodious than the castle at Dilstone, then in great fame from
the flourishing monastery which reared its head in the Vale of Hexham.
Castlerigg, being, eventually, abandoned by the Radcliffes, went utterly
to decay; the materials of the old manor-house are supposed to have been
employed in forming a new residence on Lord's Island, in Keswick Lake;
and the estate was divided into tenancies, which, in process of time,
were infranchised. The ancient demesne of the De Derwentwaters has now
passed into the hands of the Trustees of Greenwich Hospital, and the
oaks of the park which skirts the lake have of late years supplied much
valuable timber.
The family of Radcliffe continued, during several centuries after the
intermarriage with the De Derwentwaters, to increase in wealth and
importance. It was not, however, ennobled until the reign of James the
Second, in 1688, when, in consequence of the eldest son of Sir Francis
Radcliffe having married during his father's life time the Lady Mary
Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles the Second, by Mistress Mary Davis,
Sir Francis was created Earl of Derwentwater, Baron Dilstone, and
Viscount Langley.[177] "This alliance to the royal blood," says the
biographer of Charles Radcliffe, "gave them a title to match with the
noblest families in the kingdom, and was likewise the occasion of that
strict attachment which the several branches of the Derwentwater family
have inviolably preserved for the line of Stuarts ever since."[178]
There was also another reason for this act of royal favour on the one
hand, and for this devotion on the other: Sir George Radcliffe, we find
by the Macpherson papers, was Governor of James the Second when he was
Duke of York, and during the troubles of the Great Rebellion; and, under
his care, the young prince remained some time in the city of
Oxford.[179]