George the First, "who flew into an excessive passion," as she expresses
it, on the news transpiring; and exclaimed that he was betrayed, and
that it could not have been done without a confederacy. He instantly
dispatched messengers to the Tower, to give orders that the prisoners
who were still there, might be the more effectually secured. He never
forgave Lady Nithisdale; and the effects of his powerful resentment were
such, as eventually to drive her for ever from England.
Inexperienced, young, a stranger in the vast metropolis, Lady Nithisdale
was now left alone, to skulk from place to place that she might avoid
the effects of the royal displeasure. She absconded to the house of an
"honest man" in Drury Lane, where she remained in concealment until she
heard of her husband's safe arrival on the Continent. A report,
meantime, prevailed of her having been the means of Lord Nithisdale's
escape; and it was generally believed that she had gone with him. To the
surprise of the Duchess of Buccleugh, Lady Nithisdale one day appeared
before her, the object of that sudden and perhaps undesired visit being
to obtain, by the influence of the Duchess, leave to quit London; and to
disseminate, through her Grace, a belief that the safety of Lord
Nithisdale was not procured by his wife's means. It must have been one
of the most aggravating circumstances to that noble and affectionate
being, to have employed so much artifice in the conduct of this affair;
but, if ever artifice be allowable, it is when opposed as a weapon to
tyranny. Besides, Lady Nithisdale had now not only her own safety to
consider; she had to protect the interests of her son.
Those whom she had mortally offended were eager to punish her courage by
imprisonment.
The Solicitor-General, however, showed a more compassionate spirit than
his employers, and in the course of several debates in the House of
Commons, submitted that if Lady Nithisdale paid so much respect to
Government as not to appear in public, it would be cruel to make any
farther search after her. It was therefore decided that unless the lady
were seen in England or Scotland, she should be unmolested; but if she
were observed in either of those countries, she should be secured. This
might be a decision of mercy, but Lady Nithisdale could not submit to
it, unless she left her son's estate to be ruined by waste and plunder.
Hurried as she had been to London, she had found time only to make one
arrangement, which proved to be of the utmost importance.
"I had in my hands," she relates, "all the family papers, and dared
trust them to nobody. My house might have been searched without warning,
consequently they were far from being secure there. In this distress I
had the precaution to bury them in the ground, and nobody but myself and
the gardener knew where they were: I did the same with other things of
value. The event proved that I had acted prudently to save these
papers."
Lady Nithisdale determined to return, at all risks, to Scotland; and it
was, perhaps, from her care in concealing the important documents to
which she refers, that the estates were not escheated. She soon put into
execution the heroic determination, of which she made no boast. Her
journey was full of perils; not only those incident to the time and
season of the year, but the great risk of being betrayed and discovered.
Little respect was paid, in that reign, when truly the spirit of
chivalry was extinguished, to the weaker sex. Ladies, active and
instrumental as they were in political intrigues, if found out, were
made to pay the penalty of their dissaffection with hard imprisonment;
or, if at large, wandered from place to place, conscious that the eye of
the law pursued their footsteps. Lady Seaforth, the wife of one of the
rebel lords, was reduced to necessity, even of the common necessaries of
life; and Lady Widdrington and her children shared the same cruel
privations.[32]
Believing herself, also, to be an object of peculiar dislike to George
the First, Lady Nithisdale's courage in braving the royal displeasure a
second time, certainly appears to border upon folly and a rash temerity.
But she knew well that if she could once reach the land of the Maxwells,
the strict respect paid to the head of the clan, and the remarkable
fidelity of all ranks of the Scotch to those who trust to their honour,
would there prove her safeguard. The great danger was in making the
journey. But the young heroic Countess dismissed all fear from her mind,
and prepared for her enterprise.
"In short," she thus prefaces her narrative, "as I had once exposed my
life for the safety of the father, I could not do less than hazard it
once more for the fortune of the son. I had never travelled on horseback
but from York to London, as I told you; but the difficulties did not
arise now from the severity of the season, but the fear of being
discovered and arrested. To avoid this, I bought three saddle-horses,
and set off with my dear Evans and a very trusty servant, whom I brought
with me out of Scotland. We put up at all the smallest inns on the road,
that could take in a few horses, and where I thought I was not known;
for I was thoroughly known at all the considerable inns on the northern
road. Thus I arrived safe at Traquhair, where I thought myself secure,
for the lieutenant of the county being a friend of my lord's, would not
permit any search to be made after me without sending me previous notice
to abscond. Here I had the assurance to rest myself two whole days,
pretending that I was going to my own house with leave from Government.
I sent no notice to my house, that the magistrates of Dumfries might not
make too narrow enquiries about me. So they were ignorant of my arrival
in the country till I was at home, where I still feigned to have
permission to remain. To carry on the deceit the better, I sent to all
my neighbours and invited them to come to my house. I took up my papers
at night and sent them off to Traquhair. It was a particular stroke of
providence that I made the dispatch I did, for they soon suspected me,
and by a very favourable accident, one of them was overheard to say to
the magistrates of Dumfries, that the next day they would insist on
seeing my leave from Government. This was bruited about, and when I was
told of it, I expressed my surprise that they should be so backward in
coming to pay their respects; 'but,' said I, 'better late than never: be
sure to tell them that they shall be welcome whenever they choose to
come.'
"This was after dinner, but I lost no time to put everything in
readiness with all possible secrecy; and the next morning before
day-break, I set off again for London with the same attendants, and, as
before, put up at the smallest inns and arrived safe once more."[33]
The report of her journey into Scotland had preceded Lady Nithisdale's
return to London; and, if we may credit her assertions, which are stated
with so much candour as to impart a certain conviction of their
truthfulness, their King was irritated beyond measure at the
intelligence. Orders were immediately issued for her arrest; and the
Monarch protested that Lady Nithisdale did whatever she pleased in spite
of him; that she had given him more trouble than any other woman in
Europe. Again driven into obscurity, Lady Nithisdale took the opinion of
a very celebrated lawyer, whose name she does not specify, and, upon
his opinion, determined to retire to the Continent. The reasons which
her legal adviser assigned for this counsel was, that although, in other
circumstances, a wife cannot be prosecuted for saving her husband, yet
in cases of high treason, according to the rigour of the law, the head
of a wife is responsible for that of a husband. Since the King was so
incensed against Lady Nithisdale there could be no answering for the
consequences, and he therefore earnestly besought her to leave the
kingdom.
Lady Nithisdale, conscious of the wisdom of this recommendation, and
wearied, perhaps, of a life of apprehension, determined to adopt the
plan recommended.
It is evident that she joined Lord Nithisdale at Rome, whither he had
retired; for the statement which she has left concludes in a manner
which shows that the devoted and heroic wife had been enabled to rejoin
the husband for whom she had encountered so much anxiety, contumely, and
peril. Her son, it appears, also accompanied her, from her reference to
"our young Master," meaning the Master of Nithisdale; since, when she
wrote, the Prince Charles Edward could not be endowed with that
appellation, his father being then alive. Her narrative is thus
concluded:[34]--
"This is the full narrative of what you desired, and of all the
transactions which passed relative to this affair. Nobody besides
yourself could have obtained it from me; but the obligations I owe
you, throw me under the necessity of refusing you nothing that is in
my power to do. As this is for yourself alone, your indulgence will
excuse all the faults which must occur in this long recital. The
truth you may, however, depend upon; attend to that and overlook all
deficiencies. My lord desires you to be assured of his sincere
friendship. I am, with the strongest attachment, my dear sister,
yours most affectionately,
"WINIFRED NITHISDALE."
Little is known of the Earl of Nithisdale after his escape to Rome,
where he died in 1744. He thus lived through a period of comparative
quiet, till his native country was again on the eve of being embroiled
in a civil war, more replete with danger, sullied by greater crimes, and
more disastrous to his native country, than the short-lived struggle of
1715. An exile from his Scottish possessions, Lord Nithisdale possibly
implanted in the mind of his own son that yearning to establish the
rights of the Stuarts which appears not to have been eradicated from the
hearts of the Scottish Jacobites until their beloved and royal race had
become lineally extinct.
The descendants of William, Earl of Nithisdale, have never been able to
ascertain where his Lordship is buried. His noble and admirable wife
died at Rome, as well as her husband; but her remains were brought to
this country, and they are deposited at Arundel Castle.
John Maxwell, who assumed the title of Earl of Nithisdale, appears to
have remained absent from Scotland until the troubles of 1745 began. It
was probably on the death of his father in 1744, that he returned to
take possession of the family estates,--that this, the representative of
the family of Maxwell, ventured to appear in Dumfriesshire.
The following correspondence which passed between the Earl of
Nithisdale, popularly so called, and his friend, Mr. Craik, of
Arbigland[35] in Dumfriesshire, is a curious commentary upon the motives
and reasons which actuated the minds of the Jacobites in the second
attempt to re-establish the Stuart family. The first letter from Mr.
Craik is dated October the thirteenth, 1745, when Edinburgh Castle was
blockaded by Charles Edward, who was publishing his manifestoes from the
saloons of Holyrood House. The answer from Lord Nithisdale is written in
reply to one of remonstrance addressed to him by his friend. There is no
date, but it is obviously written at Edinburgh.
The remonstrances from Mr. Craik were instantly dispatched, to avert, if
possible, any decided step on the part of Lord Nithisdale. The arguments
which it contains shew the friendly intention of the earnest writer.
Lord Nithisdale had, in his former letter, challenged his friend to
assign his reasons for dissuading him from the enterprise.
LETTER FROM MR. CRAIK TO LORD NITHISDALE.
"My waiting for a safe hand to convey this to you has prevented my
answering yours of the thirteenth sooner. It must give me great
pleasure that you have not determined to engage in the present
enterprize, which from several apparent symptoms I had reason to
apprehend; and if you stick by your promise of doeing nothing rashly
(fitt only for desperados indeed!) in a matter of such moment, I
shall be sett at ease from the anxiety I felt on your account.
"In mine which gave occasion to yours, I really had no intention to
enter into the merits of the cause: all I meant was, to make
experiment how far my interest with you could prevail to keep you
undetermined till meeting, when I might promise myself more success
in reasoning upon the subject, than while you remained in town,
where the spirit of the place, the people you converse with, the
things you hear and see, all unite to inflame your passions and
confound your understanding. But since it has, beyond my intention,
engaged you to explain your sentiments at large, and to call upon
you to give my opinion, and since I suppose your arguments contain
all that can be said by those of the party who would be thought to
judge coolly and act reasonably at this juncture, I shall, with the
freedom and openness of a friend, consider them as they lye before
me in yours; and if I am forced to exceed the limits of a letter,
you may blame yourself, who drew me in. You tell me you are ready to
believe; I agree in opinion with you, that as matters are come to
this length, it's now greatly to the interest of Scotland to wish
success to the undertaking, and that nothing but the improbability
of success should hinder every Scotsman to join in it. This tho' a
verrie material point, you take for granted without assigning a
single reason; but as I know it is one of their delusive arguments,
now much in use where you are, and the chief engine of the party to
seduce well-meaning men to concur in the ruin of the constitution
and their country, I shall give you what I apprehend you must mean
by it in the most favourable light it will bear; and then from an
impartial stating of the fact as it truely stands, leave yourself to
judge how far an honest man, a wise one, and a lover of his country,
can justify either to himself or the worlde, his being of this
opinion. The meaning of your argument I take to be this: that by the
unaccountable success of the enterprize and the tame submission of
the people in general, if the scheme misgive all Scotland becomes
involved in the guilt, and may expect the outmost severitys this
Government and the people of England can afflict them with; but on
the other hand, should the undertaking be crowned with success, as
Scotesmen have the merit of it, they must become the peculiar
favourites of the family they have raised to the throne, and reap
all the advantages they can promise themselves from a grateful and
generous prince. I hope I have done justice to your argument, allow
me allso to do justice to facts and truth.
"The people of Great Britain having found, from repeated
experiments, how precarious their libertys were in the hands of the
princes who founded their title to govern them in hereditary
right,--that however absurd the pretence was in itself, no example
could make them forego a claim which so much flattered their
ambition, and upon which only, with any shew of reason, arbitrary
power and tyranny can be built at last,--determined to secure (as
far as human prudence can) the possession of that inestimable
blessing to themselves and posterity by fixing the royal power in a
family whose only title should be the free choice of the people, and
who, should they attempt, would be restrained from inslaving those
they governed, and would not only act most absurdly, but might
reckon upon having the same voice of the people against them.
"The maxims by which our hereditary princes conducted themselves,
were sufficiently felt to the sad experience of our forefathers;
thank God we were reserved for happier times! History will inform
you of their repeated and unwearied attempts to subvert the
constitution and inslave a free people. Their sacrifizing the
interest of the nation to France, their violating their oaths and
promises, their persecutions and their schemes to establish a
religion which in its nature is inconsistent with the toleration of
any other, though reasons of state may make it wink at this on
particular occasions,--but should I descend to particulars, it would
lead me beyond the limites I have prescribed myself.
"The present family have now reigned over us these thirty years, and
though during so long a time they may have fallen into errors, or
may have committed faults, (as what Government is without?) yett I
will defy the most sanguin zealot to find in history a period equal
to this in which Scotland possessed so uninterrupted a felicity, in
which liberty, civil and religious, was so universally enjoyed by
all people of whatever denomination--nay, by the open and avowed
ennemys of the family and constitution, or a period in which all
ranks of men have been so effectually secured in their property.
Have not trade, manufactures, agriculture, and the spirit of
industry in our country, extended themselves further during this
period and under this family than for ages before? Has any man
suffered in his liberty, life, or fortune, contrary to law? Stand
forth and name him if you can. Tho' the King's person, his family,
his government, and his ministers, have been openly abused a
thousand times in the most scurrilous and reproachful terms, could
it ever provoke him to one arbitrary act or to violate those laws
which he had made the rule of his government? Look into the reigns
of the James's and the Charles's, and tell me wither these divine
and hereditary princes were guided by the same spirit of mildness
and forgivness?
"I am sensible how often and how many destructive designs have been
imputed to the prince upon the throne and his ministers, of the cry
raised against standing armies, of the complaints of corruption,
long parliaments, and Hanoverian interest pursued in opposition to
that of Britain; but I am allso sensible there is not a true friend
to liberty, a dispassionate and sober man, but who (now the mask is
laid aside) perceives they were, at bottom, the artifices and
popular pretences of men struggling to force themselves into power,
or of those who in the dark were aiming the destruction of our happy
constitution.
"Men endued with popular talents, of figure and fortune in the
world, and without the advantages of apparent disinterestedness on
their side, will allways have address enough, with a seeming
plausibility, to pervert every act of Government at home, and to
defame and run down every publick transaction abroad; and disciples
will never be wanting of capacity and passions fitted to become the
dupes of such false apostles. The corruption complained of is but
too universal, and it's to be feared too deep-rooted to be cured; it
is the constant attendant of peace and wealth; and such is the
depravity of our natures, that these blessings cannot be enjoyed
without having this plague, the most sordid and detestable of all
vices, accompanying them. But if it is in our governours, it is also
in the people, and change your kings and ministers as often as you
please, whoever is in possession, or whoever is in quest of power,
will allways lay hold of the vices, the follys, or the prejudices of
mankind to exclude others from it or to acquire it to themselves.
"It's to be hoped most people now perceive with what views they were
taught to exclaim against and oppose a standing body of native and
freeborn troops; but it is to be lamented their eyes were reserved
to be opened only by the greatest of all publick calamitys."
It appears, however, from the following letter of Mr. Craik, that Lord
Nithisdale was really implicated in the insurrection:--
"My Lord,
"I am sincerely and deeply touched with your Lordship's situation,
and can honestly assure you it would give me a real satisfaction
could I any how contribute to save you on this unhappy occasion. As
you have done me the honour to ask my opinion how you are to conduct
yourself, and as the Doctor has informed me of the circumstances of
your journey, I should but ill deserve the character of humanity and
good nature you are pleased to give me, if I did not, with freedom
and candour, lay before you what, after this day having fully
considered it, appears to me most for your honour, and the safty and
preservation of your life and family.
"It is certain the Habeas Corpus Act is suspended, and I doubt not
but as soon as the lenth you have gone and your being returned is
known above, warrants will be issued to carrie you up to London; if
you retire out of the kingdom, it will not prevent your being
attainted; and I am afraid the unfortunate step you have made will
putt your estate but too much within the reach of the law, and your
family is undone. If you stay till you are apprehended, not only
your estate, but your person is in the mercy of the Government, and
how far severitys on this occasion may be carried, is not for me to
prescribe; only I am apprehensive your religion, quality, and
estate, will make you but too obnoxious to the Government, and when
the affair is over, informers will not be wanting to furnish them
with materials.
"We are not ignorant what arts and industry have been employed to
draw you out of the retirement and quiet you were well disposed to
remain in. We are sensible you were imposed upon by those already
embarked; and it will acquit you before God and every sober man, if
you no longer keep measures with those who have deceived you in a
matter of such moment, when your life and fortune were at stake. My
lord, I have impartially laid before you the present circumstance
you are in, as far as my abilities enable me to judge, that you may
have it under your Lordship's consideration; I shall next take the
freedom to suggest what to me appears the safest and most prudent
part now left to you to act, and which I likeways submit to your
Lordship's own judgment, without taking upon me to decide. What I
mean is this, that your Lordship should, without loss of time,
surrender your person to the Governor of Carlisle, and acquaint him
you came to throw yourself upon the clemency of the Government; at
the same time, your Lordship would, by express, have some proper
friend at London advised of your intention, and one of some weight
and interest, and who was fitt to put your conduct in the most
favourable light. You will easily perceive that this confidence in
the Government, and voluntary surrender of your person, and your
preventing all others in an early repentance must distinguish you,
in the eyes of the Government, from every other person who has
embarked, and entitle you to its favour and protection: whereas, if
you wait till you are apprehended, or leave the kingdom, your case,
tho' quite different, will be ranked with those who have gone the
greatest lengths. If your Lordship approve of this, if you think
proper to lett me know by a line to-morrow, I shall not faill to be
in town on Tuesday; and as I have a friend at London who I know is
very capable and well disposed to serve you, if it be agreeable to
you, shall, with the Doctor, concert the letter proper to be sent."
The answer of Lord Nithisdale contains a curious summary of some of the
motives which actuated the Jacobites of 1745.
LETTER FROM LORD NITHISDALE TO MR. CRAIK.
"Dear Sir,
"I have both yours, giving your opinion on the present affairs,
without assigning your reasons, and as I take it, urging an answer
from me, whether I am determined to take a share in the present
enterprise, which you seem to think I should not. I shall answer the
last first, by telling you that I have not yet fully digested my
thoughts on that matter; only be assured I'll do nothing
rashly--that's only for desperados. As to the other, I'm ready to
believe you agree in opinion with me, that as matters are come this
length, it's now greatly the interest of Scotland to wish success
to the undertaking; and that nothing but the improbability of
success should hinder every Scotsman to join in it; and indeed I
don't think there's great reason to fear that either, unless vast
numbers of foreign forces are poured into the country for support of
the party in possession.