Culloden, now his own property; his observing eye was turned upon the
proceedings of his neighbour at Castle Downie, but still appearances
were maintained between him and Lovat. "This day," writes the President
to a friend, "the Lord Lovat came to dine with me. He said he had heard
with uneasiness the reports that were scattered abroad; but that he
looked on the attempt as very desperate; that though he thought himself
but indifferently used lately, in taking his company from him, yet his
wishes still being, as well as his interest, led him to support the
present Royal Family; that he had lain absolutely still and quiet, lest
his stirring in any sort might have been misrepresented or misconstrued;
and he said his business with me was, to be advised what was to be done
on this occasion. I approved greatly of his disposition, and advised
him, until the scene should open a little, to lay himself out to gain
the most certain intelligence he could come at, which the situation of
his clan will enable him to execute, and to prevent his kinsmen from
being seduced by their mad neighbours, which he readily promised to do."
Consistent with these professions were the letters of Lovat to the
President.
"I have but melancholy news to tell you, my dear Lord, of my own
country; for I have a strong report that mad Foyers is either gone, or
preparing to go, to the West; and I have the same report of poor
Kilbockie; but I don't believe it. However, if I be able to ride in my
chariot the length of Inverness, I am resolved to go to Stratherrick
next week, and endeavour to keep my people in order. I forgot to tell
you that the man yesterday assured me that they were resolved to burn
and destroy all the countries where the men would not join them, with
fire and sword, which truly frights me much, and has made me think of
the best expedient I could imagine to preserve my people.
"As I know that the Laird of Lochiel has always a very affectionate
friendship for me, as his relation, and a man that did him singular
services, and as he is perfectly well acquainted with Gortuleg, I
endeavoured all I could to persuade Tom to go there, and that he should
endeavour in my name to persuade Lochiel to protect my country; in which
I think I could succeed; but I cannot persuade Gortuleg to go; he is so
nice with his points of honour that he thinks his going would bring upon
him the character of a spy, and that he swears he would not have for the
creation. I used all the arguments that I was capable of, and told him
plainly that it was the greatest service he could do to me and to my
country, as I knew he could bring me a full account of their situation,
and that is the only effectual means that I can think of to keep the
Stratherrick men and the rest of my people at home. He told me at last
he would take some days to consider of it until he comes out of
Stratherrick; but I am afraid that will be too late. I own I was not
well pleased with him, and we parted in a cooler manner than we used to
do."[236]
In all his letters he characterizes Charles Edward, to whom he had just
pledged his allegiance, as the "pretended Prince." His affectation of
zeal in the cause of Government, his pretence of an earnest endeavour to
arrest the career of the very persons whom he was exciting to action,
his exertions with my "cousin Gortuleg," and his delight to find that
"honest Kilbockie," whom he had been vilifying, had not stirred, and
would do nothing without his consent, might be amusing if they were not
traits of such wanton irreclaimable falsehood in an aged man, soon to be
called to an account, before a heavenly tribunal, for a long career of
crime and injury to his neighbours.
If any further instance of his duplicity can be read with patience, the
following letter to Lochiel, who, according to Lovat, had a very
affectionate friendship for him, affords a curious specimen of
cunning.[237]
"1745.
"Dear Lochiel,
"I fear you have been over rash in going ere affairs were ripe. You
are in a dangerous state. The Elector's General, Cope, is in your
rear, hanging at your tail with three thousand men, such as have not
been seen here since Dundee's affair, and we have no force to meet
him. If the Macphersons will take the field I would bring out my
lads to help the work; and 'twixt the two we might cause Cope to
keep his Christmas here; but only Cluny is earnest in the cause, and
my Lord Advocate plays at cat and mouse with me; but times may
change, I may bring him to Saint Johnstone's tippet. Meantime look
to yourselves, for ye may expect many a sour face and sharp weapons
in the South. I'll aid when I can, but my prayers are all I can give
at present. My service to the Prince, but I wish he had not come
here so empty-handed. Siller would go far in the Highlands. I send
this by Evan Fraser, whom I have charged to give it to yourself; for
were Duncan to find it, it would be my head to an onion. Farewell!
"Your faithful friend,
"LOVAT."
"For the Laird of Lochiel.
"Yese."
But perhaps the most odious feature in this part of Lovat's career was
his treachery to Duncan Forbes, whose exertions had placed his unworthy
client in possession of his property, and whose early ties of
neighbourhood ought, at any rate, to have secured him from danger. A
party of the Stratherric Frasers, kinsmen and clansmen of Lovat's,
attacked Culloden House, as there was every reason to believe with the
full concurrence of Lovat. Forbes, who was perfectly aware of the source
whence the assault proceeded, appeared to treat it lightly, talked of it
as an "idle attempt," never hinting that he guessed Lovat's
participation in the affair, and only lamenting that the ruffians had
"robbed the gardener and the poor weaver, who was a common benefit to
the country." Lovat, as it has been sagaciously remarked, the guilty
man, took it up much more knowingly.
This tissue of artifice was carried on for some weeks; first by a
vehement desire to have arms sent in order to repel the rebels, then by
hints that the inclinations of his people, and the extensive popularity
of the cause began to make it doubtful whether he could control their
rash ardour. "Your Lordship may remember," he wrote to Forbes, "that I
had a vast deal of trouble to prevent my men rising at the beginning of
this affair; but now the contagion is so general, by the late success of
the Highlanders, that they laugh at any man that would dissuade them
from going; so that I really know not how to behave. I really wish I had
been in any part of Britain these twelve months past, both for my
health and other considerations."[238] The feebleness of his health was
a point on which, for some reasons or other, he continually insisted. It
is not often that one can hear an aged man complain, without responding
by pity and sympathy.
"I'm exceeding glad to know that your Lordship is in great health and
spirits: I am so unlucky that my condition is the reverse; for I have
neither health nor spirits. I have entirely lost the use of my limbs,
for I can neither walk nor mount a horseback without the help of three
or four men, which makes my life both uneasy and melancholy. But I
submit to the will of God." This account, indeed, rather confirms a
tradition that Lord Lovat, after the separation from his wife, sank into
a state of despondency, and lay two years in bed previous to the
Rebellion of 1745. When the news of the Prince's landing was brought to
him, he cried out, "Lassie, bring me my brogues.--I'll rise too."[239]
At length, this wary traitor took a decisive step. His dilatoriness had
made many of the Pretender's friends uneasy, and showed too plainly that
he had been playing a double game. He was urged by some emissaries of
Charles Edward "to throw off the mask," upon which he pulled off his hat
and exclaimed "there it is!" He then, in the midst of his assembled
vassals, drank "confusion to the white horse, and all the generation of
them."[240] He declared that he would "cut off" in a moment any of his
tenants who refused to join the cause, and expressed his conviction that
as sure as the sun shined his "master would prevail."
This was in the latter part of the summer: on the twenty-first of
September the battle of Preston Pans raised the hopes of the Jacobites
to the highest pitch, and Alexander Macleod was sent to the Highland
chieftains to stimulate their loyalty and to secure their rising. Upon
his visiting Castle Downie he found Lovat greatly elated by the recent
victory, which he declared was not to be paralleled. He now began to
assemble his men, and to prepare in earnest for that part which he had
long intended to adopt; "but," observes Sir Walter Scott, "with that
machiavelism inherent in his nature, he resolved that his own personal
interest in the insurrection should be as little evident as possible,
and determined that his son, whose safety he was bound, by the laws of
God and man, to prefer to his own, should be his stalking-horse, and in
case of need his scape-goat."[241]
Lord President Forbes, who had been addressing himself to the Highland
chieftains, exhorting the well-affected to bestir themselves, and
entreating those who were devoted to the Pretender not to involve
themselves and their families in ruin, expostulated by letter with Lord
Lovat upon the course which his son was now openly pursuing, pointing
out how greatly it would reflect upon the father, whose co-operation or
countenance he supposed to be impossible. The letters written on this
subject by Forbes are admirable, and show a deep interest not only in
the security of his country, but also in the fate of the young man, who
afterwards redeemed his involuntary errors by a career of the highest
respectability.
"You have now so far pulled off the mask," writes the President, "that
we can see the mark you aimed at." "You sent away your son, and the best
part of your clan," he adds, after a remonstrance full of good sense and
candour, "to join the Pretender, with as little concern as if no danger
had attended such a step. And I am sorry to tell you, my Lord, that I
could sooner undertake to plead the cause of any one of those unhappy
gentlemen who are actually in arms against his Majesty; and I could say
more in defence of their conduct, than I could in defence of your
Lordship's."[242]
Can any instance of moral degradation be adduced more complete than
this? The implication of a son by a father, who had used his absolute
authority to drive his son into an active part in the affairs of the
day?
"I received the honour of your Lordship's letter," writes Lovat, in
reply, "late last night, of yesterday's date; and I own that I never
received any one like it since I was born; and I give your Lordship the
thousand thanks for the kind freedom you use with me in it; for I see
by it that for my misfortune of having ane obstinate stubborn son, and
ane ungrateful kindred, my family must go to destruction, and I must
lose my life in my old age. Such usage looks rather like a Turkish or
Persian government than like a British. Am I, my Lord, the first father
that had ane undutiful and unnatural son? or am I the first man that has
made a good estate, and saw it destroyed in his own time? but I never
heard till now, that the foolishness of a son, would take away the
liberty and life of a father, that lived peaceably, that was ane honest
man, and well inclined to the rest of mankind. But I find the longer a
man lives, the more wonders, and extraordinary things he sees.
"Now, my Lord, as to the civil war that occasions my misfortune; and in
which, almost the whole kingdom is involved on one side or other. I
humbly think that men should be moderate on both sides, since it is
morally impossible to know the event. For thousands, nay, ten thousands
on both sides are positive that their own party will carry; and suppose
that this Highland army should be utterly defeat, and that the
Government should carry all in triumph, no man can think that any king
upon the throne would destroy so many ancient families that are engaged
in it."
Upon the news of the Pretender's troops marching to England, the
Frasers, headed by the Master of Lovat, formed a sort of blockade round
Fort Augustus; upon which the Earl of Loudon, with a large body of the
well-affected clans, marched, in a very severe frost during the month of
December, to the relief of Fort Augustus. His route lay through
Stratherric, Lord Lovat's estate, on the south side of Loch Ness. Fort
Augustus surrendered without opposition; and the next visit which Lord
Loudon paid was to Castle Downie, where he prevailed on Lord Lovat to go
with him to Inverness, and to remain there under Loudon's eye, until his
clan should have been compelled to bring in their arms. Lord Lovat was
now very submissive; he promised that this should be done in three days,
and highly condemned the conduct of his son. But he still delayed to
surrender the arms; and, at last, found means, in spite of his lameness
which he was always lamenting, to get out of the house where he was
lodged by a back passage, and to make his escape to the Isle of Muily,
in Glenstrathfarrer. Here he occupied himself in exciting all the clans,
especially his own Frasers, to join in the insurrection. A scheme having
been submitted to the Duke of Cumberland, for the prevention of all
future disturbances by transporting all those who had been found in arms
to America, Lord Lovat had this document translated into Gaelic, and
circulated in the Highlands, in order to exasperate the natives against
the Duke, and to show that that General intended to extirpate them root
and branch. Unhappily, the event did not serve to dispel those
suspicions. This manifesto, as it was called, was read publicly in the
churches every Sunday.
The march of the rebels to Inverness drove Lord Loudon to retire into
Sutherland early in 1746, and President Forbes had accompanied him in
his retreat. It was, therefore, again practicable for Lord Lovat to
return to his own territory; and we find him, before the battle of
Culloden, alternately at Castle Downie, or among some of his adherents,
chiefly at the House of Fraser of Gortuleg, from which the following
letter which exemplifies much of the character of Lovat, appears to have
been written.
"March 20, 1746.
"My dearest Child,
"Gortulegg came home last night, with Inocralachy's brother; and the
two Sandy Fairfield's son, and mine: and I am glad to know, that you
are in perfect health, which you may be sure I wish the continuance
of. I am sure for all Sandy's reluctance to come to this country, he
will be better pleased with it than any where else; for he has his
commerade, Gortuleg's son, to travell up and down with him; I shall
not desire him to stay ane hour in the house but when he pleases.
"My cousin, Mr. William Fraser, tells me that the Prince sent notice
to Sir Alexander Bennerman, by Sir John M'Donell, that he would go
some of these days, and view my country of the Aird, and fish salmon
upon my river of Beauly, I do not much covet that great honour at
this time as my house is quite out of order, and that I am not at
home myself nor you: however, if the Prince takes the fancy to go,
you must offer to go along with him, and offer him a glass of wine
and any cold meat you can get there. I shall send Sanday Doan over
immediately, if you think that the Prince is to go: so I have
ordered the glyd post to be here precisely this night.
"Mr. William Fraser says, that Sir Alexander Bennerman will not give
his answer to Sir John M'Donell, till he return about the Prince's
going to Beaufort; and that cannot be before Saturday morning. So I
beg, my dearest child, you may consider seriously of this, not to
let us be affronted; for after Sir Alexander and other gentlemen
were entertained at your house, if the Prince should go and meet
with no reception, it will be ane affront, and a stain upon you and
me while we breathe. So, my dearest child, don't neglect this; for
it is truely of greater consequence to our honour than you can
imagine, tho' in itself it's but a maggot: but, I fancy, since
Cumberland is comeing so near, that these fancy's will be out of
head. However, I beg you may not neglect to acquaint me (if it was
by ane express) when you are rightly informed that the Prince is
going. I have been extreamly bad these four days past with a fever
and a cough; but I thank God I am better since yesterday affernoon.
I shall be glad to see you here, if you think it proper for as short
or as long a time as you please. All in this family offer you their
compliments: and I ever am, more than I can express, my dearest
child, your most affected and dutiful father,
"----."
"P.S.--The Prince's reason for going to my house is, to see a salmon
kill'd with the rod, which he never saw before; and if he proposes
that fancy, he must not be disappointed.
"I long to hear from you by the glyd post some time this night. I
beg, my dear child, you may send me any news you have from the east,
and from the north, and from the south."[243]
It was not until after the battle of Culloden that Charles Edward and
Lord Lovat first met. In that engagement, Lovat's infirmities, as well
as his precautions, had prevented his taking an active part; but his
son, the Master of Lovat, whose energy in the cause which he had
unwillingly espoused, met the praise of Prince Charles, led his clan up
to the encounter, and was one of the few who effected a junction with
the Prince on the morning of the battle. Fresh auxiliaries from the clan
Fraser were hastening in at the very moment of that ill-judged action;
and they behaved with their accustomed bravery, and were permitted to
march off unattacked, with their pipes playing, and their colours
flying. The great body of the clan Fraser were led by Charles Fraser,
junior, of Inverlaltochy, as Lieutenant-Colonel in the absence of the
Master of Lovat, who was coming up with three hundred men, but met the
Highlanders flying. The brave Inverlaltochy was killed; and the
fugitives were sorely harassed by Kingston's light horse.
The battle of Culloden occurring shortly afterwards, decided the
question of Lord Lovat's political bias. Very different accounts have
been transmitted of the feelings and conduct of Prince Charles after
the fury of the contest had been decided. By some it has been stated,
that he lost on that sad occasion those claims to a character for valour
which even his enemies had not hitherto refused him; but Mr. Maxwell has
justified the unfortunate and inexperienced young man.
"The Prince," he says, "seeing his army entirely routed, and all his
endeavours to rally the men fruitless, was at last prevailed upon to
retire. Most of his horse assembled around his person to secure his
retreat, which was made without any danger, for the enemy advanced very
leisurely over the ground. They were too happy to have got so cheap a
victory over a Prince and an enemy that they had so much reason to
dread. They made no attack where there was any body of the Prince's men
together, but contented themselves with sabering such unfortunate people
as fell in his way single and disarmed."[244]
"If he did less at Culloden than was expected from him," adds this
partial, but honest follower, "'twas only because he had formerly done
more than could be expected." He justly blames the Prince's having come
over without any officer of experience to guide him. "He was too young
himself, and had too little experience to perform all the functions of a
general; and though there are examples of princes that seem to have been
born generals, they had the advice and assistance of old experienced
officers, men that understood, in detail, all that belongs to any
army."[245]
Lord Elcho, in his manuscript, thus accounts for the censures which
were cast upon the Prince by those who shared his misfortunes.
"What displeased the people of fashion (consequence) was, that he did
not seem to have the least sense of what they had done for him; but,
after all, would afterwards say they had done nothing but their duty, as
his father's subjects were bound to do.
"And there were people about him that took advantage to represent the
Scotch to him as a mutinous people, and that it was not so much for him
they were fighting as for themselves; and repeated to him all their bad
behaviour to Charles the First and Charles the Second, and put it to him
in the worst light, that at the battle of Culloden he thought that all
the Scots in general were a parcel of traitors. And he would have
continued in the same mind had he got out of the country immediately;
but the care they took of his person when he was hiding made him change
his mind, and affix treason only to particulars."[246]
After the battle was decided, and the plain of Culloden abandoned to the
fury of an enemy more merciless and insatiable than any who ever before
or after answered to an English name, the Prince retired across a moor
in the direction of Fort Augustus, and, according to Maxwell, slept that
night at the house of Fraser of Gortuleg; and there for the first time
saw Lord Lovat. But this interview is declared by Arbuthnot, who appears
to have gathered his facts chiefly from local information, in the
Castle of Downie; and the testimony of Sir Walter Scott confirms the
assertion. "A lady," writes Sir Walter, "who, then a girl, was residing
in Lord Lovat's family, described to us the unexpected appearance of
Prince Charles and his flying attendants at Castle Downie. The wild and
desolate vale on which she was gazing with indolent composure, was at
once so suddenly filled with horsemen riding furiously towards the
Castle, that, impressed with the idea that they were fairies, who,
according to men, are visible only from one twinkle of the eyelid to
another, she strove to refrain from the vibration which she believed
would occasion the strange and magnificent apparition to become
invisible. To Lord Lovat it brought a certainty more dreadful than the
presence of fairies or even demons. The tower on which he had depended
had fallen to crush him, and he only met the Chevalier to exchange
mutual condolences."[247]
The Prince, it is affirmed, rushed into the chamber where Lovat,
supported by men, for he could not stand without assistance, awaited his
approach. The unhappy fugitive broke into lamentations. "My Lord," he
exclaimed, "we are undone; my army is routed: what will become of poor
Scotland?" Unable to utter any more, he sank fainting on a bed near him.
Lord Lovat immediately summoned assistance, and by proper remedies the
Prince was restored to a consciousness of his misfortunes, and to the
recollection that Castle Downie, a spot upon which the vengeance of the
Government was sure to fall, could be no safe abiding place for him or
for his followers.[248]
Such was the commencement of those wanderings, to the interest and
romance of which no fiction can add. After this conference was ended,
Prince Charles went to Invergarie; Lord Lovat prepared for flight.
His first place of retreat was to a mountain, whence he could behold the
field of battle; he collected his officers and men around him, and they
gazed with mournful interest upon the plain of Culloden. Heaps of
wounded men were lying in their blood; others were still pursued by the
soldiers of an army whose orders were, from their royal General, _to
give no quarter_; fire and sword were everywhere; vengeance and fury
raged on the moor watered by the river Nairn. Here, too, the unhappy
Frasers and their chief might view Culloden House, a large fabric of
stone, graced with a noble avenue of great length leading to the house,
and surrounded by a park covered with heather. Here Charles Edward had
slept the night before the battle. The remembrance of many social hours,
of the hospitality of that old hall, might recur at this moment to the
mind of Lovat. But whatever might be his reflections, his fortitude
remained unbroken. He turned to the sorrowful clan around them, and
addressed them. He recurred to his former predictions: "I have
foretold," he said, still attempting to keep up his old influence over
the minds of his clans, "that our enemies would destroy us with the fire
and sword; they have begun with me, nor will they cease until they have
ravaged all the country." He still, however, exhorted his captains to
keep together their men, and to maintain a mountain war, so that at
least they might obtain better terms of peace. Having thus counselled
them, he was carried upon the shoulders of his followers to the still
farther mountains, from one of which he is said, by a singular stroke of
retributive justice, to have beheld Castle Downie, the scene of his
crime, to maintain the splendour of which he had sacrificed every
principle, and compassed every crime, burned by the infuriated enemy.
Nine hundred men, under Brigadier Mordaunt, were detached for this
purpose.