they'll be trusted with arms, as there's a chance what way they may
be used, particularly by that part of the country who only know how
to handle them. As to the Dutch who are come over, there's now
greater reason to believe they'll be recalled, and it may be some
time before others are sent in their place, if at all. I do believe
the United States, if they dare, will give all the support they can;
but if France shall really prove in earnest, I imagine they'll
consider it necessary to be quiet. Other foreign forces may be sent
in, but on the other hand there's a very great improbability; thir
people will likewise get aid, and here there's assembling a very
numerous resolute army. The prospect of the situation of the country
for some time to come, must affect every well-wisher to it, and the
consequences to this part, if the undertaking shall misgive, appear
to me terrible; if it succeed, what have we to fear? You'll answer,
the introduction of Popery and arbitrary government; but I don't
imagine, considering the success and fate of his grandfather and
uncle, that will be attempted; and as to any fear that we may be
made dependant and tributary to the foreign powers giving aid to the
present adventure, that I'm not apprehensive of, nor do I imagine
it would be in his power to accomplish, tho' inclinable to it. I
shall say no more on the subject; only it's easier preventing an
evil than remedying, and that may be applyed to both sides; only
this one further I observe, that I think it's the interest of the
nation to have a sovereign settled whose title is unquestionable: we
see the inconveniencys attending the other. You'll perhaps answer,
there will still be a Pretender; but I reply, not so dangerous an
one, if at all. You write, in your letter, that people may, without
meaning, be treated and led away with popular arguments. I assure
you I'm none of these--what I have said now, is on a Sunday
forenoon. However, I should wish you communicate my mind to nobody.
If any material news occur before the bearer leave Edinburgh, you
shall have them; and to-morrow I'll mind your commission, and any
other you shall give with respect to your nursery, &c., which I hope
you're still carrying on, and that your garden-wall is now
completed. If you had some pieces of cannon to place in it, would it
not keep out against an army not provided with battering-pieces,
seeing it's at a sufficient distance from the thundering of any
castle? Were it not for fear of your horses, I should wish you came
in here and saw the fortifications made on our city-wall, and the
army against which they were intended; the last is worth your while.
No Court in Europe is filled with such a set of well-look'd brave
fellows.
"I hope my dykers are going on, and beg you'll acquaint the tenants
to have the rents ready, in regard I'm to be soon in the country,
and won't make any stay above a day or two; this to you, but to
yourself I can yet fix no time for coming out as I can't think of
leaving Edinburgh till I see how matters turn, and it's also
necessary to stay and take care of my house, furniture, papers, &c.
I believe I shall eat my Christmas goose with you, if I don't go
into England, which I would incline for sake of a jaunt, if I
thought it safe and had a right set with me. I ever am, dear Sir,
"Your's &c."
Another letter from a kinsman of Lord Nithisdale's shews that he was not
alone in his inclination to join in the Insurrection of 1745.
LETTER FROM MR. MAXWELL OF CARRUCHAN.
"October 13th.
"Dr. Willie,
"By accounts this day from Edinburgh, allmost everybody is going
along with the stream, so that a short delay wou'd lose all the
merit. This has determined me to do the thing so suddenly, that I
have not time to send for you, unless it were to see me go off,
which is impossible. I depend upon your protection for those I leave
behind. What gives me the greatest concern is least some such
creditors as have still my father's security, should molest him in
my absence. I recommend particularly to you, that if you can hear of
any, you'll endeavour to make them sensible that they are as safe as
before, and tell the comissary that I expect the same piece of
friendship from him, who lyes more in the way of hearing what
passes of that kind. I believe there are three or four thousand
French or Irish landed in Wales, with Lord John Drummond. The
Highland army marches south the beginning of the week. Farewell dear
Willie. God bless you! Ever your's
(Signed) Ja. Maxwell."
"Saturday.--I set out before daylight to-morrow."
From Mr. Maxwell of Carruchan, to Mr. Craik of Arbigland.
Since Lord Nithisdale's name did not appear in the list of the young
Chevalier's officers, we must conclude that he did not persevere in his
resolutions. There is no date to Mr. Craik's second letter, but it must
have been written after Carlisle had surrendered to the Duke of
Cumberland,--an event which took place on the thirtieth of December,
1745.
The Earl of Nithisdale, as he was styled, lived until the year 1776, and
possibly in peace and prosperity, since the family estates were spared
to him. He married his first cousin, Lady Catherine Stewart, daughter of
the Earl of Traquhair by Lady Mary Maxwell, and left an only daughter.
This lady, named after her celebrated grandmother Winifred, was also, by
courtesy, endowed with the honours of the forfeited rank, and styled
Lady Winifred Maxwell. Her Ladyship would have inherited the Barony of
Herries, of Terregles, but for the attainder of her grandfather. The
estates of Lord Nithisdale were inherited by her son, Marmaduke William
Constable, Esq., of Everingham Park, in the county of York; who, on the
death of his mother, assumed, by royal licence, the surname of Maxwell.
The title of Nithisdale, except for the attainder, would have descended
upon the next heir, Mr. Maxwell of Carruchan.[36]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] There is no statement of the date of Lord Nithisdale's birth in any
of the usual authorities, neither can his descendant, William Constable
Maxwell, Esq., of Terregles, supply the deficient information.
[2] Secret History of Colonel Hooke's Negotiations, by himself, p. 175.
London, 1740.
[3] Patten's History of the Rebellion, of 1715, p. 234.
[4] Service of the Earl of Eglintoun, as heir male of the Earl of
Wintoun. Printed for the family. Extract from "Peerage Law by Riddell,"
p. 201. Published in 1825.
[5] Service of the Earl of Eglintoun, p. 8.
[6] Buchan's Account of the Earls Marischal, p. 125.
[7] Eglinton Case.
[8] Patten, p. 52.
[9] Patten, p. 54. Life of the Earls Marischal, p. 130.
[10] Reay's History of the Late Rebellion. Dumfries, 1718.
[11] Reay, p. 139.
[12] Now of Sir Charles Stuart Menteath, Bart.
[13] Reay, p. 184.
[14] Id.
[15] Id. p. 211.
[16] Reay, p. 257.
[17] Patten, pp. 224-235. Colonel Hooke's Negotiations.
[18] In the Life of Lord Derwentwater.
[19] Reay, p. 326.
[20] See Letters in the State Paper Office from Lord Widdrington, and
many others of inferior rank, No. 3. 1715.
[21] State Papers, 1716, No. 3.
[22] State Papers, No. 3, July 26, 1715.
[23] Reay, p. 355.
[24] Reay, p. 359.
[25] A Faithful Register of the Late Rebellion, London, p. 65, 1718.
[26] Faithful Register, p. 86.
[27] Her picture, painted in the bloom of her youth, is still at
Terregles, in Dumfriesshire, the seat of William Constable Maxwell,
Esq., the descendant of Lord Nithisdale. To Mrs. Constable Maxwell, of
Terregles, I am indebted for the following interesting description of
the portrait of Lady Nithisdale, to which I have referred. "Her hair is
light brown, slightly powdered, and she is represented with large soft
eyes, regular features, and fair, rather pale complexion. Her soft
expression and delicate appearance give little indication of the
strength of mind and courage which she displayed. Her dress is blue
silk, with a border of cambric, and the drapery a cloak of brown silk."
[28] His son was restored to his father's honours. The title of Marquis
of Powis became extinct; but the estates devolved on Lord Herbert of
Cherbury, husband to the last Marquis's niece; and ultimately to Lady
Henrietta Herbert, who married Lord Clive, created Earl of
Powis.--_Burke's Extinct Peerage_.
[29] Faithful Register, p. 84.
[30] Faithful Register, p. 86.
[31] Burke's History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, vol.
i. p. 329.
[32] See Letters and Petitions in the State Papers, No. iii. p. 1716.
[33] See Burke's Commoners, vol. i. p. 333.
[34] See Burke's Commoners, vol. i. p. 334.
[35] I am indebted to the present Mr. Craik, of Arbigland, for this
correspondence.
[36] I am indebted for some of these particulars to the courtesy of
William Constable Maxwell, Esq., present owner of Terregles,
Carlaverock, and also of the beautiful hereditary property of Lincluden.
WILLIAM GORDON, VISCOUNT KENMURE.
The origin of the distinguished surname of Gordon is not clearly
ascertained: "some," says Douglass, "derive the Gordons from a city of
Macedonia, named Gordonia; others from a manor in Normandy called
Gordon, possessed by a family of that name. The territory of Gordon in
Berwickshire was, according to another account, conferred by David the
First upon an Anglo-Norman settler, who assumed from it the name of
Gordon."
William Gordon, sixth Earl of Kenmure, was descended from a younger son
of the ducal house of Gordon; in 1633 Sir John Gordon of Lochinvar was
created Viscount Kenmure and Lord of Lochinvar; and the estates
continued in an unbroken line until they descended to William, the sixth
Viscount, who was the only Scottish peer in 1715 who suffered capital
punishment.
This unfortunate nobleman succeeded his father in 1698; and possessed,
up to the period of his taking the command of the army in the south, the
estates belonging to his family in the Stuartry of Kirkcudbright.
Kenmure Castle, still happily enjoyed by the family of Gordon, stands
upon an eminence overlooking the meadows, at that point where the river
Ken expands into a lake. The Castle was originally a single tower, to
which various additions have been made according to the taste of
different owners. The Castle Keep is now ruinous and unroofed, but the
body of the house is in good repair. A fine prospect over the scenery of
the Glenhens is commanded by the eminence on which the castle stands. An
ancient avenue of lime-trees constitutes the approach to the fortress
from the road.
In this abode dwelt the Viscount Kenmure until the summons of Lord Mar
called him from the serene tenour of a course honoured by others, and
peaceful from the tranquillity of the unhappy nobleman's own
disposition; for his was not the restless ambition of Mar, nor the blind
devotion of the Duke of Perth; nor the passion for fame and ascendancy
which stimulated Lord George Murray in his exertions. Lord Kenmure was,
it is true, well acquainted with public business, and an adept in the
affairs of the political world, in which he had obtained that insight
which long experience gives. His acquaintance with books and men was
said to be considerable; he is allowed, even by one who had deserted the
party which Lord Kenmure espoused, to be of a "very extraordinary
knowledge."[37] But his calm, reflective mind, his experience, his
resources of learning, rather indisposed than inclined this nobleman
from rising when called upon to lend his aid to the perilous enterprise
of James Stuart. Beloved in private life, of a singularly good temper,
calm, mild, of simple habits, and plain in his attire, he was as it was
generally observed, the last man whom one might have expected to rush
into the schemes of the Jacobite party.
That one so skilled in human affairs should venture, even in a
subordinate degree, to espouse so desperate a cause as that of James was
generally reputed to be, might seem to prove that even the wise were
sanguine, or that they were carried away by the enthusiasm of the hour.
Neither of these circumstances appear to bear any considerable weight in
revolving the conduct of Lord Kenmure.
A stronger influence, perhaps, than that of loyalty operated on the
conduct of Viscount Kenmure. He was married: his wife, the spirited and
energetic Mary Dalzell, was the only sister of Robert, sixth Earl of
Carnwath. Her family were deeply imbued with the principles of
hereditary right and of passive obedience; and Lady Kenmure cherished
these sentiments, and bestowed the energies of her active mind on the
promotion of that cause which she held sacred. The house of Dalzell had
been sufferers in the service of the Stuarts. By her mother's side, Lady
Kenmure was connected with Sir William Murray of Stanhope, and with his
singular, and yet accomplished son, Sir Alexander Murray of Stanhope,
who was taken prisoner at Preston, fighting for the Jacobites. The Earl
of Carnwath, Lady Kenmure's brother, was one of those men whose virtues
and acquirements successfully recommend a cause to all who are under the
influence of such a character. Having been educated at Cambridge, he
had imbibed an early affection for the liturgy of the Church of England;
his gentle manners, his talents, and his natural eloquence, established
him in the affections of his friends and acquaintance. This nobleman
was, like his sister, ready to sacrifice everything for conscience sake:
like her, he was a sufferer for that which he esteemed to be justice. He
was afterwards taken prisoner at Preston, impeached before the House of
Peers in 1716, and sentenced to be executed as a traitor, and his estate
forfeited; but eventually he was respited and pardoned. He survived to
be four times married.
Another of Lady Kenmure's brothers, John Dalzell, was, it is true, a
captain in the army upon the breaking out of the Rebellion in 1715; but,
at the summons of him whom he esteemed his lawful Sovereign, he threw up
his commission, and engaged in the service of James.
When Lord Kenmure received a commission from the Earl of Mar to head the
friends of the Chevalier in the South, he had ties which perhaps were
among some of the considerations which led him to hesitate and to accept
the proffered honour unwillingly. On his trial he referred to his wife
and "four small children," as a plea for mercy. But Lady Kenmure,
sanguine and resolute, did not view these little dependent beings as
obstacles to a participation in the insurrection. If she might be
considered to transgress her duty as a mother, in thus risking the
fortunes of her children, she afterwards compensated by her energy and
self-denial for her early error of judgment.
It had been arranged that the insurrection in Dumfriesshire was to break
out in conjunction with that headed in Northumberland by Mr. Forster. To
effect this end, numbers of disaffected, or, as the Jacobite writers
call them, well-affected noblemen and gentlemen assembled in parties at
the houses of their friends, moving about from place to place, in order
to prepare for the event.
It was on the twelfth of October, 1715, that Viscount Kenmure set out in
the intention of joining the Earl of Wintoun, who was on his road to
Moffat, and who was accompanied by a party of Lothian gentlemen and
their servants. It is said by the descendants of Viscount Kenmure, on
hearsay, that his Lordship's horse three times refused to go forward on
that eventful morning; nor could he be impelled to do so, until Lady
Kenmure taking off her apron, and throwing it over the horse's eyes, the
animal was led forward. The Earl of Carnwath had joined with Lord
Kenmure, and rode forwards with him to the rencontre with Lord Wintoun.
Lord Kenmure took with him three hundred men to the field.[38]
At the siege of Preston, in which those who fell dead upon the field
were less to be compassionated than the survivors, Lord Kenmure was
taken prisoner. His brother-in-law, the Earl of Carnwath, shared the
same fate. They were sent with the principal state prisoners to London.
The same circumstances, the same indignities, attended the removal of
Lord Kenmure to his last earthly abode, as those which have been already
related as disgracing the humanity of Englishmen, when the Earl of
Derwentwater was carried to the Tower.
The subsequent sufferings of these brave men were aggravated by the
abuses which then existed in the state prisons of England. The condition
of these receptacles of woe, at that period, beggars all description.
Corruption and extortion gave every advantage to those who could command
money enough to purchase luxuries at an enormous cost. Oppression and an
utter carelessness of the well-being of the captive, pressed hardly upon
those who were poor. No annals can convey a more heartrending
description of the sufferings of the prisoners confined in county gaols,
than their own touching and heartfelt appeals, some of which are to be
found in the State Paper Office.
In the Tower, especially, it appears from a diary kept by a gentleman
who was confined there, that the greatest extortion was openly
practised. Mr. Forster and a Mr. Anderton, who were allowed to live in
the Governor's house, were charged the sum of five pounds a-week for
their lodging and diet,--a demand which, more than a century ago, was
deemed enormous. Several of the Highland chiefs, and among them the
celebrated Brigadier Mackintosh, were "clapped up in places of less
accommodation, for which, nevertheless, they were charged as much as
would have almost paid the rent of the best houses in St. James's Square
and Piccadilly." Mr. Forster, it must be added, was obliged to pay sixty
guineas for his privilege of living in the governor's house; and Mr.
Anderton to give a bribe of twenty-five guineas for having his irons
off. A similar tax was made upon every one who entered, and who could
pay, and they were thankful to proffer the sum of twenty guineas, the
usual demand, to be free from irons. It was, indeed, not the mere
freedom from chains for which they paid, but for the power of effecting
their escape. Upon every one who did not choose to be turned over to the
common side, a demand was made of ten guineas fee, besides two guineas
weekly for lodging, although in some rooms men lay four in a bed.
Presents were also given privately, so that in three or four months'
time, three or four thousand pounds were paid by the prisoners to their
jailers.
Many of the prisoners being men of fortune, their tables were of the
most luxurious description; forty shillings was often paid for a dish of
peas and beans, and thirty shillings for a dish of fish; and this fare,
so unlike that of imprisonment, was accompanied by the richest French
wines. The vicious excesses and indecorums which went on in the Tower,
among the state prisoners, are said to have scandalized the graver
lookers on.[39] The subsequent distress and misery which ensued may, of
course, be traced, in part to this cause.
Lord Derwentwater, ever decorous and elevated in his deportment, was
shocked at the wayward and reckless conduct of some of the Jacobites on
their road to London, told one of the King's officers at Barnet that
these prisoners "were only fit for Bedlam." To this it was remarked,
that they were only fit for Bridewell. Whilst hopes of life continued,
this rebuke still applied. The prisoners were aided in their excesses by
the enthusiasm of the fair sex. The following extract from another
obscure work, "The History of the Press-yard," is too curious to be
omitted. "That while they [the prisoners] flattered themselves with
hopes of life, which they were made to believe were the necessary
consequences of a surrender at discretion, they did, without any
retrospect to the crimes they were committed for, live in so profuse a
manner, and fared so voluptuously, through the means of daily visitants
and helps from abroad, that money circulated very plentifully; and while
it was difficult to change a guinea almost at any house in the street,
nothing was more easy than to have silver for gold to any quantity, and
gold for silver, in the prison,--those of the fair sex, from persons of
the first rank to tradesmen's wives and daughters, making a sacrifice of
their husbands' and parents' rings, and other precious moveables, for
the use of those prisoners; so that, till the trial of the condemned
lords was over, and that the Earl of Derwentwater and Viscount Kenmure
were beheaded, there was scarce anything to be seen amongst them but
flaunting apparel, venison pasties, hams, chickens, and other costly
meats, with plenty of wine."
Meantime the trial of the attainted lords took place, and checked, like
the sudden appearance of a ghostly apparition, this horrible
merriment,--with which, however, few names which one desires to cherish
and to respect are connected. The same forms that attended the
impeachment and trial of his companions, were carried on at the trial of
Lord Kenmure. The unhappy nobleman replied in few and touching words,
and, in a voice which could not be heard, pleaded guilty; an
inconsistency, to express it in the mildest terms, of which he
afterwards sincerely repented.
At the end of the trial, to the question "What have you to say for
yourself why judgment should not be passed upon you according to law?"
"My lords," replied Lord Kenmure, "I am truly sensible of my crime, and
want words to express my repentance. God knows I never had any personal
prejudice against his Majesty, nor was I ever accessory to any previous
design against him. I humbly beg my noble Peers and the honourable House
of Commons to intercede with the King for mercy to me, that I may live
to show myself the dutifullest of his subjects, and to be the means to
keep my wife and four small children from starving; the thoughts of
which, with my crime, makes me the most unfortunate of all gentlemen."
After the trial, great intercessions were made for mercy, but without
any avail, as far as Lord Derwentwater and Lord Kenmure were concerned.
They were ordered for execution on the 24th of February, 1716.
The intelligence of the condemnation of these two lords, produced the
greatest dismay among their fellow sufferers in the Tower; and the
notion of escape, a project which was singularly successful in some
instances, was resorted to, in the despair and anguish of the moment, by
those who dreaded a cruel and ignominious death.
Lord Kenmure, meantime, prepared for death. A very short interval was,
indeed, allowed for those momentous considerations which his situation
induced. He was sentenced on the ninth of February, and in a fortnight
afterwards was to suffer. Yet the execution of that sentence was, it
seems, scarcely expected by the sufferer, even when the fatal day
arrived.
The night before his execution, Lord Kenmure wrote a long and affecting
letter to a nobleman who had visited him in prison a few days
previously. There is something deeply mournful in the fate of one who
had slowly and unwillingly taken up the command which had ensured to him
the severest penalties of the law. There is an inexpressibly painful
sentiment of compassion and regret, excited by the yearning to live--the
allusion to a reprieve--the allusion to the case of Lord Carnwath as
affording more of hope than his own--lastly, to what he cautiously calls
"an act of indiscretion," the plea of guilty, which was wrung from this
conscientious, but sorrowing man, by a fond value for life and for the
living. So little did Lord Kenmure anticipate his doom, that, when he
was summoned to the scaffold the following day, he had not even prepared
a black suit,--a circumstance which he much regretted, since he "might
be said to have died with more decency."
The following is the letter which he wrote, and which he addressed to a
certain nobleman.
"My very good Lord,
"Your Lordship has interested yourself so far in mine, and the
lords, my fellow prisoners' behalf, that I should be the greatest
criminal now breathing, should I, whether the result of your
generous intercession be life or death, be neglectful of paying my
acknowledgments for that act of compassion.