down, and several persons were killed, and many injured; but the
proceedings of the day went on. No reprieve, no thoughts of mercy ever
came to shake the fortitude of the old man. At eleven, the Sheriffs of
London sent to demand the prisoner's body: Lord Lovat retired for a few
moments to pray; then, saying, "I am ready," he left his chamber, and
descended the stairs, complaining as he went, "that they were very
troublesome to him."
He was carried to the outer gate in the Governor's coach, and then
delivered to the Sheriffs, and was by them conveyed to a house, lined
with black, near to the scaffold. He was promised that his head should
not be exposed on the four corners of the scaffold, that practice, in
similar cases, having been abandoned: and that his clothes might be
delivered with his corpse to his friends, as a compensation for which,
to the executioner, he presented ten guineas contained in a purse of
rich texture. He then thanked the Sheriff, and saluted his friends,
saying, "My blood, I hope, will be the last shed upon this occasion."
He then walked towards the scaffold. It was a memorable and a mournful
sight to behold the aged prisoner ascending those steps, supported by
others, thus to close a life which must, at any rate, soon have been
extinguished in a natural decay. As he looked round and saw the
multitudes assembled to witness this disgraceful execution, "God save
us!" he exclaimed; "why should there be such a bustle about taking off
an old grey head, that cannot get up three steps without two men to
support it?" Seeing one of his friends deeply dejected, "Cheer up," he
said, clapping him on the shoulder; "I am not afraid, why should you
be?"
He then gave the executioner his last gift, begging him not to hack and
cut about his shoulders, under pain of his rising to reproach him. He
felt the edge of the axe, and said "he believed it would do;" then his
eyes rested for some moments on the inscription on his coffin. "Simon
Dominus Fraser de Lovat, decollat. April 9, 1747. Ætat 80." He repeated
the line from Horace:--
"Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori."
Then quoted Ovid:--"Nam genus et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi, vix
ea nostra voco."
He took leave of his solicitor, Mr. William Fraser, and presented him
with his gold cane, as a mark of his confidence and token of
remembrance. Then he embraced another relative, Mr. James Fraser.
"James," said the old chieftain, "I am going to Heaven, but you must
continue to crawl a little longer in this evil world." He made no
address to the assembled crowds, but left a paper, which he delivered to
the Sheriffs, containing his last protestations. After his sentence,
Lovat had accustomed his crippled limbs to kneel, that he might be able
to assume that posture at the block. He now kneeled down, and after a
short prayer gave the preconcerted signal that he was ready; this was
the throwing of a handkerchief upon the floor. The executioner severed
his head from his body at one blow. A piece of scarlet cloth received
his head, which was placed in the coffin with his body and conveyed to
the Tower, where it remained until four o'clock. It was then given to an
undertaker.
In the paper delivered to the Sheriff there were these words, which
would have partly been deemed excellent had they proceeded from any
other man:--"As it may reasonably be expected of me that I should say
something of myself in this place, I declare I die a true but unworthy
member of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. As to my death, I cannot
look upon it but as glorious. I sincerely pardon all my enemies,
persecutors, and slanderers, from the highest to the lowest, whom God
forgive as I heartily do. I die in perfect charity with all mankind. I
sincerely repent of all my sins, and firmly hope to obtain pardon and
forgiveness for them through the merits and passion of my blessed Lord
and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, into whose hands I recommend my soul. Amen.
LOVAT."
"In the Tower, April 9, 1747."
* * * * *
The public might well contrast the relentless hand of justice, in this
instance, with the mercy of Queen Anne. She, like her brother the
Chevalier, averse from shedding blood, had spared the life of an old
man, who had been condemned in her reign for treason. Many other
precedents of a similar kind have been adduced.[263] But this act of
inhumanity was only part of a system of what was called justice; but
which was the justice of the heathen, and not of the Christian.
If the character of Lord Lovat cannot be deduced from his actions, it
must be impossible to understand the motives of man from any course of
life; for never was a career more strongly marked by the manifestation
of the passions, than that of this unworthy descendant of a great line.
His selfishness was unbounded, his rapacity insatiable; his brutality
seems incredible. In the foregoing narrative, the mildest view has been
adopted of his remorseless cruelty: of his gross and revolting
indulgences, of his daily demeanour, which is said to have outraged
everything that is seemly, everything that is holy, in private life,
little has been written. Much that was alleged to Lovat, in this
particular, has been contradicted: much may be ascribed to the universal
hatred of his name, which tinted, perhaps too highly, his vices, in his
own day. Something may be ascribed to party prejudice, which gladly
seized upon every occasion of reproach to an adversary. Yet still, there
is too much that is probable, too much that is too true, to permit a
hope that the private and moral character of Lord Lovat can be
vindicated from the deepest stains.
By his public life, he has left an indelible stain upon the honour of
the Highland character, upon his party, upon his country. Of principle
he had none:--for prudence, he substituted a low description of
time-serving: he never would have promoted the interests of the
Hanoverians in the reign of George the First, if the Court of St.
Germains had tolerated his alliance: he never would have sided with
Charles Edward, if the Court of St. James's had not withdrawn its
confidence. His pride and his revengeful spirit went hand in hand
together. The former quality had nothing in it of that lofty character
which raises it almost to a virtue, in the stern Scottish character: it
was the narrow-minded love of power which is generated in a narrow
sphere.
In the different relations of his guilty life, only one redeeming
feature is apparent,--the reverence which Lord Lovat bore to his
father. With that parent, seems to have been buried every gentle
affection: he regarded his wives as slaves; he looked upon his sons with
no other regard and solicitude, than as being heirs of his estates. As a
chief and a master, his conduct has been variously represented; the
prevailing belief is, that it was marked by oppression, violence, and
treachery: yet, as no man in existence ever was so abandoned as not to
have his advocates, even the truth of this popular belief has been
questioned, on the ground that the influence which he exercised over
them, in being able to urge them to engage in whatsoever side he
pleased, argues some qualities which must have engaged their
affections.[264]
He who pleads thus, must, however, have forgotten the hereditary sway of
a Highland chieftain, existing in unbroken force in those days: he must
have forgotten the sentiment which was inculcated from the cradle, the
loyalty of clanship,--a sentiment which led on the brave hearts in which
it was cherished to far more remarkable exertions and proofs of fidelity
than even the history of the Frasers can supply.
But the deepest dye of guilt appears in Lord Lovat's conduct as a
father. It was not only that he was, in the infancy and boyhood of his
eldest born, harsh and imperious: such was the custom of the period. It
was not only that he impelled the young man into a course which his own
reason disapproved, and which he undertook with reluctance and disgust
throwing, on one occasion, his white cockade into the fire, and only
complying with his father's orders upon force. This was unjustifiable
compulsion in any father, but it might be excused on the plea of zeal
for the cause. But it appeared on the trial that the putting forward the
Master of Lovat was a mere feint to save himself at the expense of his
son, if affairs went wrong. In Lord Lovat's letters to President Forbes
the poor young man was made to bear the brunt of the whole blame;
although Lord Lovat had frequently complained of his son's backwardness
to certain members of his clan. On the trial it appeared that the whole
aim of Lord Lovat was, as Sir John Strange expressed it, "an endeavour
to avoid being fixed himself and to throw it all upon his son,--that son
whom he had, in a manner, forced into the Rebellion."
Rare, indeed, is such a case;--with that, let these few remarks on the
character of Lord Lovat, conclude. Human nature can sink to no lower
depth of degradation.
Lord Lovat left, by his first wife, three children:--Simon, Master of
Lovat; Janet, who was married to Ewan Macpherson of Cluny,--a match
which Lord Lovat projected in order to increase his influence, and to
strengthen his Highland connections. This daughter was grandmother to
the present chief, and died in 1765. He had also another daughter,
Sybilla.
This daughter was one of those rare beings whose elevated minds seem to
expand in despite of every evil influence around them. Her mother died
in giving her birth; and Lord Lovat, perhaps from remorse for the
uncomplaining and ill-used wife, evinced much concern at the death of
his first lady, and showed a degree of consideration for his daughters
which could hardly have been expected from one so steeped in vice.
Although his private life at Castle Downie, after the death of their
mother was disgusting in detail, and therefore, better consigned to
oblivion, the gentle presence of his two daughters restrained the coarse
witticisms of their father, and he seemed to regard them both with
affection and respect, and to be proud of the decorum of their conduct
and manners. Disgusted with the profligacy which, as they grew up, they
could not but observe at Castle Downie, the young ladies generally chose
to reside at Leatwell, with Lady Mackenzie, their only aunt; and Lord
Lovat did not resent their leaving him, but rather applauded a delicacy
of feeling which cast so deep a reproach upon him. He was to them a kind
indulgent father. When Janet, Lady Clunie, was confined of her first
child, he brought her to Castle Downie that she might have the
attendance of physicians more easily than in the remote country where
the Macphersons lived. He always expressed regret that her mother had
not been sufficiently attended to when her last child was born.
The fate of Sybilla Fraser presents her as another victim to the
hardness and impiety of Lovat. "She possessed," says Mrs. Grant, "a high
degree of sensibility, which when strongly excited by the misfortunes of
her family, exalted her habitual piety into all the fervour of
enthusiasm." When Lovat passed through Badenoch, after his
apprehension, Sybilla, who was there with Lady Clunie, followed him to
Dalwhinney, and there, in an agony of mind which may be readily
conceived, entreated her aged father to reconcile himself to his Maker,
and to withdraw his thoughts from the world. She was answered by taunts
at her "womanish weakness," as Lovat called it, and by coarse ridicule
of his enemies, with a levity of mind shocking under such circumstances.
The sequel cannot be better told than in these few simple words:
"Sybilla departed almost in despair; prayed night and day, not for his
life, but for his soul; and when she heard soon after, that 'he had died
and made no sign,' grief in a short time put an end to her life."[265]
The Master of Lovat was implicated, as we have shown, in the troubles of
1745. Early in that year, he had the misery of discovering the treachery
of his father, by accidentally finding the rough draught of a letter
which Lord Lovat had written to the President, in order to excuse
himself at the expense of his son. "Good God!" exclaimed the young man,
"how can he use me so? I will go at once to the President, and put the
saddle on the right horse." In spite of this provocation, he did not,
however, reveal his father's treachery; whilst Lord Lovat was balancing
between hopes and fears, and irresolute which side to choose, the Master
at last entreated, with tears in his eyes, that "he might no longer be
made a tool of--but might have such orders as his father might stand
by."
Having received these orders, and engaged in the insurrection, the
Master of Lovat was zealous in discharging the duties in which he had
thus unwillingly engaged. His clan were among the few who came up at
Culloden in time to effect a junction with Prince Charles. In 1746 an
Act of Attainder was passed against him; he surrendered himself to
Government, and was confined nine months in Edinburgh Castle. In 1750 a
full and free pardon passed the seals for him. He afterwards became an
advocate, but eventually returned to a military life, and was permitted
to enter the English army. In 1757 he raised a regiment of one thousand
eight hundred men, of which he was constituted colonel, at the head of
which he distinguished himself at Louisbourg and Quebec. He was
afterwards appointed colonel of the 71st foot, and performed eminent
services in the American war.
The title of his father had been forfeited, and his lands attainted. But
in 1774 the lands and estates were restored upon certain conditions, in
consideration of Colonel Fraser's eminent services, and in consideration
of his having been involved in "the late unnatural Rebellion" at a
tender age. Colonel Fraser rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, and
died in 1782 without issue; he was generally respected and
compassionated. He was succeeded in the estates by his half-brother,
Archibald Campbell Fraser, the only child whom Lord Lovat had by his
second wife. This young man had mingled, when a boy, from childish
curiosity among the Jacobite troops at the battle of Culloden, and had
narrowly escaped from the dragoons.
He afterwards entered into the Portuguese service, where he remained
some years; but, being greatly attached to his own country, he returned.
He could not, however, conscientiously take the oaths to Government, and
therefore never had any other military employment. "With much truth,
honour, and humanity," relates Mrs. Grant, "he inherited his father's
wit and self-possession, with a vein of keen satire which he indulged in
bitter expressions against the enemies of his family. Some of these I
have seen, and heard many songs of his composing, which showed no
contemptible power of poetic genius, although rude and careless of
polish." He sank into habits of dissipation and over-conviviality, which
impaired a reputation otherwise high in his neighbourhood, and became
careless and hopeless of himself. What little he had to bequeath was
left to a lady of his own name to whom he was attached, and who remained
unmarried long after his death.
It is rather remarkable that Archibald Campbell Fraser, generally, from
his command of the Invernessshire militia, called Colonel Fraser, should
survive his five sons, and that the estates which Lord Lovat had
sacrificed so much to secure to his own line should revert to another
family of the clan Fraser,--the Frasers of Stricken, the present
proprietors of Lovat and Stricken, being in Aberdeenshire the
twenty-second in succession from Simon Fraser of Invernessshire.[266]
FOOTNOTES:
[118] Anderson's Historical Account of the Family of Frisel or Fraser,
p. 5.
[119] One of Lord Lovat's family--it is not easy to ascertain
which--emigrated after the Rebellion of 1745 into Ireland, and settled
in that country, where he possessed considerable landed property, which
is still enjoyed by one of his descendants. There is an epitaph on the
family vault of this branch of the Frizells or Frazers, in the
churchyard of Old Ross, in the County of Wexford, bearing this
inscription:--"The burial place of Charles Frizell, son of Charles
Fraser Frizell of Ross, and formerly of Beaufort, North Britain." For
this information I am indebted to the Rev. John Frizell, of Great
Normanton, Derbyshire, and one of this Irish branch of the family, of
which his brother is the lineal representative.
[120] Anderson's Historical Account of the Family of Fraser.
[121] Memoirs of the Life of Lord Lovat, written by himself in the
French Language, p. 7.
[122] Memoirs of the Life of Lord Lovat, p. 7.
[123] In speaking of the other members of the family, Mr. Anderson
remarks:--"The parish registers of Kiltarlity, Kirkill, and Kilmorack,
were at the same time examined with the view of tracing the other
children of Thomas of Beaufort, but the communications of the various
clergymen led to the knowledge that no memorials of them exist. The
remote branches called to the succession in General Fraser's entail
proves, to a certainty, that these children died unmarried."--_Anderson's
Historical Account of the Family of Fraser._ It appears, however, from a
previous note, that a branch of the family still exists in Ireland.
[124] See State Trials. Lovat.
[125] Letter from Fort Augustus in Gentleman's Magazine for 1746.
[126] Introduction to Culloden Papers, p. 36. Gentleman's Magazine, vol.
xvi. p. 339.
[127] See Lord Lovat's Memoirs, p. 7. Also Anderson and Woods.
[128] Lord Lovat's Memoirs, p. 18.
[129] Lord Lovat's Memoirs, p. 27.
[130] Chambers's Biography.
[131] Anderson, p. 120.
[132] Lord Lovat's Memoirs, p. 75.
[133] Lord Lovat's Memoirs, p. 75.
[134] Arnot on the State Trials, p. 84.
[135] Memoirs.
[136] Stewart's Sketches, p. 21.
[137] Brown's Highlands, vol. i. p. 120.
[138] Memoirs, p. 51.
[139] Id. p. 53
[140] Memoirs, p. 53.
[141] Arnot, p. 84.
[142] Arnot, p. 84. Anderson, p. 121.
[143] Arnot, p. 89.
[144] Anderson, p. 124.
[145] Lord Lovat's Manifesto, p. 72.
[146] Ibid.
[147] Anderson, p. 124.
[148] Life and Adventures of Lord Lovat, by the Rev. Archibald
Arbuthnot, one of the Society for propagating Christian Knowledge, and
Minister of Killarlaty, Presbytery of Inverness. London, 1748.
[149] Life and Adventures, p. 42.
[150] Manifesto.
[151] Arnot, p. 79.
[152] Chambers's Dictionary.
[153] Manifesto, p. 71.
[154] Arnot, p. 79.
[155] Arnot, p. 90.
[156] Life of Lord Lovat, p. 47.
[157] Anderson, p. 123.
[158] Manifesto, p. 99.
[159] Arbuthnot, p. 53.
[160] Macpherson. Stuart Papers, vol. i. p. 665.
[161] Manifesto.
[162] Arbuthnot, p. 55.
[163] Arbuthnot, p. 52.
[164] Anderson, p. 130.
[165] Macpherson Papers.
[166] See Smollet, vol. ix. pp. 245 and 255.
[167] Lockhart Memoirs, vol. i. p. 75.
[168] Macpherson. Stuart Papers, vol. i. p. 629.
[169] Manifesto, p. 116.
[170] Two thousand five hundred pounds.
[171] Manifesto, p. 152.
[172] See Murray Papers. Advocate's Library in Edinburgh.
[173] Lockhart Memoirs, vol. i. p. 80.
[174] Stuart Papers. Macpherson, vol. i. p. 641.
[175] Stuart Papers. Macpherson, vol. i. p. 646.
[176] Stuart Papers. Macpherson, vol. i. p. 678.
[177] Ibid. p. 682.
[178] Letter from James Earl of Perth, Chancellor of Scotland,
&c.--Edited by William Jerdan, Esq., and printed for the Camden Society,
p. 50.
[179] Arbuthnot, p, 63.
[180] Somerville, p. 177.
[181] Somerville, p. 182. Also, Lockhart's Memoirs, p. 180; Macpherson,
vol. i. p. 640.
[182] Stuart Papers, p. 652.
[183] Id. p. 655.
[184] Anderson. Chambers.
[185] Arbuthnot, p. 89.
[186] Of the two accounts of Lord Lovat's imprisonment, namely, Mr.
Arbuthnot's and Lord Lovat's, the latter bears, strange to say, the
greatest air of truth. Mr. Arbuthnot's, independent of his erring in the
place of imprisonment, appears to me a pure romance.
[187] Manifesto, p. 301.
[188] Carstares. State Papers, p. 718.
[189] Manifesto, p. 328.
[190] Anderson, p. 137.
[191] Id. p. 138.
[192] Free Examination of the Memoir of Lord Lovat, quoted in Arbuthnot,
p. 201.
[193] Anderson, p. 136.
[194] From the Macpherson Papers, vol. ii. p. 622.
[195] Culloden Papers, p. 32.
[196] Manifesto, p. 466.
[197] Ibid. p. 468.
[198] Smollet, p. xi. Patten's History of the Rebellion, p. 2.
[199] Arbuthnot, p. 210.
[200] Edinburgh Review, No. li. art. _Culloden Papers_, 1826. This
article is attributed to the Honourable Lord Cockburn.
[201] See Introduction to the Culloden Papers.
[202] Arbuthnot, p. 211.
[203] Shaw's Hist. of Moray, p. 252.
[204] Ibid.
[205] Anderson, p. 141.
[206] Arbuthnot, p. 218.
[207] Shaw, p. 186.
[208] Such was the style in which Lovat, to be complimentary, usually
addressed Duncan Forbes, on account of the military capacity in which
the future Lord President had acted during the Rebellion.
[209] Culloden Papers, p. 55.
[210] Culloden Papers, p. 56.
[211] Sergeant Macleod served in 1703, when only thirteen years of age,
in the Scots Royals, afterwards under Marlborough, then at the battle of
Sherriff Muir in 1715. After a variety of campaigns he was wounded in
the battle of Quebec, in 1759, and came home in the same ship that
brought General Wolf's body to England. Macleod died in Chelsea Hospital
at the age of one hundred and three. His Memoirs are interesting.
[212] Memoirs of the Life of Sergeant Donald Macleod, p. 45. London,
1791.
[213] Anderson. From King's Monumenta Antiqua.
[214] Culloden Papers.
[215] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[216] Anderson, p. 159. From family archives.
[217] Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh.
[218] Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, p. 21.
[219] Culloden Papers, "Quarterly Review," vol. xiv. This article is
written by Sir Walter Scott, and the anecdote is given on his personal
knowledge.
[220] Arbuthnot, p. 249.
[221] Lady Grange's Memoirs.
[222] Arbuthnot, p. 241.
[223] Arbuthnot.
[224] Quarterly Review, vol. xiv. Culloden Papers.
[225] Culloden Papers, p. 72.
[226] Burt's Letters from the North, vol. xxi.
[227] Culloden Papers, p. 106.
[228] Arbuthnot, p. 250.
[229] Culloden Papers, p. 106.
[230] Henderson's History of the Rebellion, p. 8.
[231] Henderson, p. 10.
[232] James Maxwell, of Kirkconnell; his narrative, of which I have a
copy, has been printed for the Maitland Club, in Edinburgh; it is
remarkably clear, and ably and dispassionately written, and was composed
immediately after the events of the year 1745, of which Mr. Maxwell was
an eye-witness.
[233] Maxwell of Kirkconnell's Narrative of the Prince's Expedition, p.
10.
[234] See Lord Elcho's Narrative. MS.
[235] Some say the fifteenth. See Henderson.
[236] Culloden Papers, pp. 211, 372.
[237] Anderson, p. 150.
[238] Culloden Papers, p. 230.
[239] Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, p. 9.
[240] Explained in the trial, by Chevis, one of the witnesses, to be in
allusion to the royal arms.
[241] Quarterly Review, vol. xiv. p. 327.
[242] Edinburgh Review, 1816, vol. xxvi. p. 131.
[243] State Trials, vol. xviii.
[244] Maxwell of Kirkconnel, p. 167.
[245] Id.
[246] Lord Elcho's MSS.
[247] Quarterly Review, vol. xiv. p. 328.
[248] Arbuthnot, p. 270.
[249] State Trials, vol. xviii. p. 734.
[250] Arbuthnot, p. 279.
[251] Chambers's Biography. Art. _Fraser_.
[252] State Trials.
[253] Anderson, p. 153.
[254] Laing's History of Scotland, p. 299.
[255] State Trials, vol. xviii. p. 846.
[256] Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh, p. 12.
[257] Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xvii. p. 184. These letters were
afterwards collected and sold for a guinea.
[258] In allusion to the expression of agony and dismay used some time
before by Lord Kilmarnock.
[259] Somerville's Reign of Queen Anne, p. 175, 4to edition; from
Lockhart and Macpherson.
[260] State Trials.
[261] Edinburgh Review, vol. xxvi. p 132.
[262] Horace Walpole.
[263] State Trials, vol. xviii. p. 326.
[264] Free Examination of the Life of Lord Lovat; London 1746.
[265] Mrs. Grant's MS.
[266] Anderson, p. 187.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Note: The following errors in the original have been
corrected.
Page 8 - Willian Gordon changed to William Gordon
Page 13 - missing quotation mark added after to the action.