continued to evade justice, his father died, among his relations in the
island of Skye. His decease was caused, according to the representation
of his son, by a hasty march made to escape the King's troops, who, he
heard, were coming to the islands to pursue him. Among the few humane
traits in the character of Simon Fraser, the habitual respect and
affection borne by the Highlanders to parents appears to have been
perceptible. He speaks of Thomas of Beaufort in his Life with regret and
regard; but seals those expressions of tenderness with an oath that he
"would revenge himself on his own and his father's enemies with their
blood, or perish in the attempt." Such were his notions of filial piety.
The Master of Lovat had now attained the rank for which he had made such
sacrifices of safety and of fame; and had the hollow satisfaction of a
disputed title, with an attainted estate, and a life over which the
sword of destiny was suspended.
A sentence of outlawry followed that of condemnation, and letters of
fire and sword were issued against him. He was forbidden all
correspondence or intercourse with his fellow subjects: he was cast off
and rejected by his friends, and in constant danger either of being
captured by the officers of justice, or assassinated by his enemies. The
commission for destroying the clan of Fraser was not, indeed, put into
execution; but that wild and beautiful district which owned him for its
lord, was ravaged by the King's troops stationed at Inverness, or
intimidated by the Highland army, commanded by Lord Lovat's early
companions, but now deadly foes,--Lord James and Lord Mungo Murray. At
length, after gaining a complete victory, according to his own account,
at Stratheric, over the tributaries of Lord Athole, and extracting from
the prisoners an oath by which they "renounced the claims on our
Saviour and their hopes in Heaven if ever they returned to the
territories of his enemy, the guilty and unfortunate man grew weary of
his life of wandering, penury, and disgrace."
He was always fertile in expedients, and audacious in proffering his
petitions for mercy. During his father's life, a petition in the form of
a letter, written by Thomas of Beaufort, and signed by seven Frasers,
had been addressed to the Duke of Argyle, appealing to his aid at Court,
upon the plea of that "entire friendship which the family of Lovat had
with, and dependence upon, that of Argyle, grounded upon an ancient
propinquity of blood, and zealously maintained by both through a tract
and series of many ages."[157] The Duke of Argyle had, it was well
understood, made some applications on behalf of the Frasers; and Lord
Lovat now resolved to push his interest in the same friendly quarter,
and to endeavour to obtain a remission of the sentence out against his
head.
His efforts were the more successful, because King William had by this
time begun to suspect the fidelity of Lord Tullibardine, and to place a
strong reliance upon the integrity and abilities of the Duke of Argyle.
The Duke represented to his Majesty not only the ancient friendship
subsisting between the house of Campbell and that of Fraser, but also
that the King might spend "a hundred times the value of the Fraser
estate before he could reduce it, on account of its inaccessible
situation and its connection with the neighbouring clans."[158] The
Duke's account of his success is given with characteristic good sense in
the following letter:--
THE EARL OF ARGYLE TO THE LAIRD OF CULLODEN.
"Edinburgh, Sept. 5, 1700.
"Sir,
"In complyance with your desyre and a great many other gentlemen,
with my own inclination to endeavour a piece of justice, I have made
it my chief concern to obtain Beaufort's (now I think I may say Lord
Lovatt's) pardon, and the other gentlemen concerned with him in the
convocation and seizing of prisoners, which are crymes more
immediately against his Majesty, which I have at last obtained and
have it in my custody. I designe to-morrow for Argyllshire; and,
there not being a quorum of Exchequer in town, am oblidged to delay
passing the remission till next moneth. We have all had lyes enuf of
his Majestie before: his goodness in this will, I hope, return my
friend Culloden to his old consistency, and make E. Argyll appear to
him as good a Presbiterian and a weel wisher to his country in no
lesse a degree then Tullibardine, who plundered my land some tyme
agoe, and Culloden's lately. Pray recover the same spiritt you had
at the Revolution; let us lay assyde all resentments ill founded,
all projects which may shake our foundation; let us follow no more
phantasms (I may say rather divells), who, with a specious pretext
leading us into the dark, may drownd us. I fynd some honest men's
eyes are opened, and I shall be sorie if Culloden's continue dimm.
You have been led by Jacobitt generales to fight for Presbiterie and
the liberty of the country. Is that consistent? If not speedily
remedied, remember I tell you the posteritie of such will curse
them. Let me have a plain satisfactorie answer from you, that I may
be in perfect charitie with Culloden. Adieu."
Accordingly, the Duke having obtained his pardon, Lord Lovat was
enjoined to lay down his arms, and to go privately to London. That
sentence, which had followed the prosecution on the part of Lady Lovat,
was not, at that time, remitted, for fear of disobliging the Athole
family. Upon arriving in London, Lord Lovat found that Lord Seafield,
the colleague of the Earl of Tullibardine, was disinclined to risk
incurring the displeasure of the Athole family. He put off the signing
of the pardon from time to time. He was even so much in awe of the Earl
of Tullibardine, that he endeavoured to get the King to sign the pardon
when he was at Loo; that Mr. Pringle, the other Secretary of State,
might bear the odium of presenting it for signature. During this delay,
Lord Lovat, not being able with safety to return to Scotland, resolved
to occupy the interval of suspense by a journey into France.
Whilst Lord Lovat's affairs were in this condition, the Marquis of
Athole, resolved for ever to put it out of Lord Lovat's power to gain
any ascendancy over the young heiress of Lovat, Amelia Fraser, was
employed in arranging a marriage for that lady to the son of Alexander
Mackenzie, Lord Prestonhall. It was agreed, by a marriage settlement,
that Mr. Mackenzie should take the name and title of Fraserdale, and
that the children of that marriage should bear the name of Fraser. The
estate of Lovat was settled upon Fraserdale in his life, with remainder
to his children by his wife.[159] It indeed appears, that the estate of
Lovat was never surrendered to Lord Lovat; that he bore in Scotland,
according to some statements, no higher title than that of Lord of
Beaufort; and that a regular receiver of the rents was appointed by the
guardians of Amelia Fraser:[160] so completely were the dark designs of
Simon Fraser defeated in their object! He was, however, graciously
received at St. Germains, whither he went whilst yet, James the Second,
in all the glory of a sanctified superstition, lived with his Queen, the
faithful partner of his misfortunes. Lord Lovat ascribes this visit to
St. Germains to his intention of dissipating the calumnious stories
circulated against him by the Marquis of Athole. The flourishing
statement which he gives in his memoirs of King James's reception, may,
however, be treated as wholly apocryphal. James the Second, with all his
errors, was too shrewd a man, too practised in kingcraft, to speak of
the "perfidious family of Athole," or to mention the head of that noble
house by the title of that "old traitor." Lord Lovat's incapacity to
write the truth, and his perpetual endeavour to magnify himself in his
narrative, cause us equally to distrust the existence of that document,
with the royal seal affixed to it, which he says the King signed with
his own hand, declaring that he would protect Lord Lovat from "the
perfidious and faithless family of Athole."[161]
The fact is, and it redounds to the credit of James the Second, that
monarch, eager as he ever remained to attach partisans to his interests,
never received Lord Lovat into his presence.[162] The infamy of the
exploits of the former Master of Lovat had preceded his visit to France:
the whole account of his own reception at St. Germains, written with
astonishing audacity, and most circumstantially worded, was a
fabrication.
Lord Lovat's usual readiness in difficulties did not fail him; he was a
ruined man, and it was puerile to shrink from expedients. He applied to
the Pope's nuncio, and expressed his readiness to become a Roman
Catholic. The suit was, of course, encouraged, and the arch hypocrite,
making a recantation of all his former errors, professed himself a
member of the holy Catholic Church, and acknowledged the Pope as its
head. This avowal cost him little, for he was by no means prejudiced in
favour of any specific faith; and it gained him for the time, some
little popularity in the gay metropolis in which he had taken refuge.
King James, indeed, to his honour, was still resolute in declining his
personal homage; but Louis the Fourteenth was less scrupulous, and the
Marquis de Torcy, the favourite and Minister of the French King,
presented the abjured of England and Scotland at the Palais of
Versailles. It is difficult to picture to oneself the savage and
merciless Fraser, the pillager, the destroyer, the outlaw, conversing,
as he is said to have done, with the saintly and sagacious Madame
Maintenon. It is scarcely possible to conceive elegant and refined women
of any nation receiving this depraved, impenitent man, with the rumour
of his recent crimes still fresh in their memory, into their polished
circles. Yet they made no scruple in that dissolute city, to associate
with the abandoned wretch who dared not return to Scotland, and who only
looked for a pardon for his crimes through the potent workings of a
faction.
Lord Lovat well knew the value of female influence. He dressed in the
height of fashion--he adapted his language and sentiments to the tone of
those around the Court. He was a man of considerable conversational
talents; "his deportment," says his biographer, "was graceful and
manly." When he was first presented to Louis the Fourteenth, who was
desirous of asking some questions concerning the invasion of Scotland,
he is said to have prepared an elaborate address, which he forgot in the
confusion produced by the splendour around him, but to have delivered an
able extempore speech, with infinite ease and good taste, upon the spur
of the moment, to the great amusement of Louis, who learned from De
Torcy the circumstance.[163]
His advancement at the Court of Versailles was interrupted by the
necessity of his return to England, in order to obtain at last a final
pardon from the King for his offences. It is singular that the
instrument by whom he sought to procure this remission was William
Carstairs, that extraordinary man, who had suffered in the reign of
James the Second the thumb-screw, and had been threatened with the iron
boot, for refusing to disclose the correspondence between the friends of
the Revolution. Mr. Carstairs was now secretary to King William, and he
little knew, when he counselled that monarch to pardon Lovat, what a
partisan of the Jacobite cause he was thus restoring to society.
His mediation was effectual, perhaps owing to a dislike which had arisen
in the mind of William against the Athole family; and a pardon was
procured for Lord Lovat. The affair was concluded at Loo, whither Lovat
followed the King from England. "He is a bold man," the Monarch is said
to have observed to Carstairs, "to come so far under sentence of death."
The pardon was unlimited, and that it might comprise the offence against
Lady Athole, it was now "a complete and ample pardon for every
imaginable crime." The royal seal was appended to it, and there remained
only to get that of Scotland also affixed.
Lovat entrusted the management of that delicate and difficult matter to
a cousin, a Simon Fraser also, by whose treachery it was suppressed; and
Lord Seafield caused another pardon to pass the great seal, in which the
treason against King William was alone specified; and other offences
were left unpardoned. Upon this, Lord Lovat cited the Marquis of Athole
before the Lords Justiciary in Edinburgh to answer before them for a
false accusation: but on the very day of supporting his charge, as the
biographer of his family relates, his patron the Duke of Argyle was
informed that the judges had been corrupted, and that "certain death
would be the result if he appeared."[164] This statement is taken from
Lord Lovat's own complication of falsehoods, his incomparably audacious
"Manifesto." Notwithstanding that Lovat had appeared with a retinue of a
hundred armed gentlemen, "as honorable as himself," with the intention
of intimidating the judges;--in spite of the Duke of Argyle's powerful
influence, the friends of the outlawed nobleman counselled him again to
retreat to England, and to suffer judgment to go by default. The Duke of
Argyle, he says, would not lose sight of him till he had seen him on
horseback, and had ordered his own best horse to be brought round to the
door. There was no remedy for what was called by Lord Lovat's friends,
the "rascality" of the judges:--and again this unworthy Highlander was
driven from his own country to seek safety in the land wherein his
offences had received their pardon. The inflexibility of the justiciary
lords, or their known integrity, form a fine incident in history; for
the Scottish nation was at this period, ridden by Court faction, and
broken down by recent oppression and massacre.
Lord Lovat, meeting the Duke of Argyle on the frontiers, accompanied his
Grace to London; and here, notwithstanding his boast, "that after his
arrival in London he was at the Duke's house every day," he appears,
about this time, to have been reduced to a state of miserable poverty,
and merited desertion.
In the following letter to Mr. Carstairs, he complains that nothing is
done for him--he applies to Mr. Carstairs for a little money to carry
him home, "having no other door open."
LORD LOVAT TO MR. CARSTAIRS,
"London, June 20th, 1701.
"Dear Sir,
"I reckon myself very unhappy that my friends here do so much
neglect me; and I believe my last journey to England has done me a
vast prejudice; for if I had been at home, I would have got
something done in my Lord Evelin's business, and would have got
money before now, that might serve me to go a volunteer with the
King, or maintain me anywhere; but my friend at home must have worse
thoughts now of my affairs than ever, having staid so long here, and
got nothing done. However, I now resolve to go to Scotland, not
being able to subsist longer here. I have sent the inclosed note,
that, according to your kind promise, I may have the little money
which will carry me home, and it shall be precisely paid before two
months; and I must say, it is one of the greatest favours ever was
done me, not having any other door open, if you were not so generous
as to assist me, which I shall alwise gratefully remember, and
continue with all sincerity, Dear Sir, Your faithful and obliged
servant,
LOVAT."
The death of William the Third revived the hopes of the Jacobite party;
and to that centre of attraction the ruined and the restless, the
aspiring and the profligate, alike turned their regards. Never was so
great a variety of character, and so great a diversity of motives
displayed in any cause, as in the various attempts which were made to
secure the restoration of the Stuarts. On some natures those opinions,
those schemes, which were generally known under the name of Jacobitism,
acted as an incentive to self-sacrifice--and to a constancy worthy of
better fortune. In other minds the poison of faction worked irremediable
mischief: many who began with great and generous resolves, sank into
intrigue, and ended in infidelity to the cause which that had espoused.
But Lord Lovat came under neither of these classes; he knew not the
existence of a generous emotion; he was consistent in the undeviating
selfishness and baseness of his career.
If he had a sincere predilection, he was disposed to the interest of
King James. Hereditary tendencies scarcely ever lose their hold upon the
mind entirely: notions on politics are formed at a much earlier age
than is generally supposed. The family of Fraser had been, as we have
seen, from ages immemorial employed in defence of the Stuart Kings; and
early prepossessions were imbibed by the unworthy descendant of a brave
race, before his passions had interfered to warp the generous sentiment
of loyalty. As he grew up, Lord Lovat learned to accommodate himself to
any party; and it was justly observed by Lord Middleton, one of the
favourite courtiers at St. Germains, that though he boasted so much of
his adherence to his Sovereign, he had never served any sovereign but
King William, in whose army he had commanded a regiment.[165]
The period was now, however, approaching, when he whose moral atmosphere
was, like his native climate, the tempest and the whirlwind, might hope
to glean some benefit from the impending storm which threatened the
peace of the British empire.
On the sixth of September, 1701, James the Second of England expired at
St. Germains. This event was favourable to those of the Jacobite party
who wished to bring forward the interests of the young Prince of Wales.
James had long been infirm, and had laid aside all schemes of worldly
elevation. He had passed his time between the diversion of hunting and
the duties of religion. His widowed Queen retained, on the contrary, an
ardent desire to see her son restored to the throne of England. She
implanted that wish in his own breast; she nourished it by the society
of those whom she placed around him; and she passed her time in
constantly forming new schemes for the promotion of that restoration to
which her sanguine anticipations were continually directed.
The death of James was succeeded by two events: one, the avowed
determination of Louis the Fourteenth to take the exiled family of
Stuart under his protection, and the consequent proclamation of the
young Prince of Wales as King of England; the other, the bill for the
attainder of the pretended Prince of Wales, in the English Parliament,
with an additional clause of attainder against the Queen, Mary of
Modena, together with an oath of abjuration of the "Pretender." The
debates which impeded the progress of this measure, plainly prove how
deeply engrafted in the hearts of many of the higher classes were those
rights which they were thus enforced to abjure.[166]
This was one of the last acts of William. His death, in 1702, revived
the spirits of the Jacobites, for the partiality of Anne to her brother,
the young Prince, was generally understood; and it appears, from the
letters which have been published in later days to have been of a far
more real and sisterly character than has generally been supposed. The
death of the young Duke of Gloucester appeared, naturally, to make way
for the restoration of the Stuart family; and there is no doubt but that
Anne earnestly desired it; and that on one occasion, when her brother's
life was in danger from illness, her anxiety was considerable on his
account.
It is, therefore, no matter of reproach to the Jacobites, as an
infatuation, although it has frequently been so represented, that they
cherished those schemes which were ultimately so unfortunate, but which,
had it not been that "popery appeared more dreadful in England than even
the prospect of slavery and temporal oppression," would doubtless have
been successful without the disastrous scenes which marked the struggle
to bring them to bear.
Lord Lovat was at this time no insignificant instrument in the hands of
the Jacobite party. When he found that the sentence of outlawry was not
reversed; when he perceived that he must no longer hope for the
peaceable enjoyment of the Lovat inheritance, his whole soul turned to
the restoration of King James; and, after his death, to that of the
young Prince of Wales. Yet he seems, in the course of the extraordinary
affairs in which the Queen, Mary of Modena, was rash enough to employ
him, to have one eye fixed upon St. James's, another upon St. Germains,
and to have been perfectly uncertain as to which power he should
eventually dedicate his boasted influence and talents.
Lord Lovat may be regarded as the first promoter of the Insurrection of
1715 in Scotland. Whether his exertions proceeded from a real endeavour
to promote the cause of the Jacobites, or whether they were, as it has
been supposed, the result of a political scheme of the Duke of
Queensbury's, it is difficult to determine, and immaterial to decide;
because his perfidy in disclosing the whole to that nobleman has been
clearly discovered. It seems, however, more than probable, that he could
not go on in the straightforward path; and that he was in the employ of
the Duke of Queensbury from the first, has been confidently stated.[167]
Early in 1702, Lord Lovat went to France, and pretending to have
authority from some of the Highland clans and Scottish nobility, offered
the services of his countrymen to the Court of St. Germains. This offer
was made shortly before the death of James the Second, and a proposal
was made in the name of the Scottish Jacobites to raise an army of
twelve thousand men, if the King of France would consent to land five
thousand men at Dundee, and five hundred at Fort William. His proposals
were listened to, but his integrity was suspected.[168]
According to his own account, Lord Lovat, being in full possession of
his family honours, upon the death of King William, immediately
proclaimed the Prince of Wales in his own province, and acting, as he
declares, in accordance with the advice of his friend, the Duke of
Argyle, repaired to France, "in order to do the best that he could in
that country."[169]
He immediately, to pursue his own statement, engaged the Earl Lord
Marischal, the Earl of Errol, Lord Constable of Scotland, in the cause;
and then, passing through England and Holland, in order to go to France
through Flanders, he arrived in Paris with this commission about the
month of September.
Sir John Maclean, cousin-german of Lord Lovat, had resided ten years at
the Court of St. Germains, and to his guidance Lovat confided himself.
By Maclean, Lovat was introduced to the Duke of Perth, as he was called,
who had been Chancellor of Scotland when James the Second abdicated, and
whose influence was now divided at the Court of St. Germains, by the
Earl of Middleton. For never was faction more virulent than in the Court
of the exiled Monarch, and during the minority of his son. The Duke of
Perth represented Lord Middleton as a "faithless traitor, a pensionary
of the English Parliament, to give intelligence of all that passes at
the Court of St. Germains." It was therefore agreed that this scheme of
the invasion should be carried on unknown to that nobleman, and to this
secrecy the Queen, it is said, gave her consent. She hailed the prospect
of an insurrection in Scotland with joy, and declared twenty times to
Lord Lovat that she had sent her jewels to Paris to be sold, in order to
send the twenty thousand crowns,[170] which Lord Lovat represented would
be necessary to equip the Highland forces. Hitherto the Court of St.
Germains had been contented merely to keep up a correspondence with
their friends, retaining them in their principles, though without any
expectation of immediate assistance. The offer of Lord Lovat was the
first step towards more active exertions in the cause of the Stuarts. It
is in this sense that he may almost be considered as the father of the
Rebellion of 1715. He first excited those ardent spirits to unanimity
and to action; and the project of restoration, which only languished
whilst Anne lived, was never afterwards abandoned until after the year
1746.