TRUST AND MISTRUST.
March! march! why the deil do ye no march?
Stand to your arms, my lads, fight in good order;
Front about, ye musketteers, all
When ye come to the English border.
LESLY'S MARCH.
As before related, the Scottish army advanced into England in three
columns.
It was by the express desire of James VII., and contrary to the wish
of the Council, that these forces left Scotland, where William had
many adherents, especially in the western shires. There the old
spirit of disaffection was subdued, but far from being extinguished.
The Privy Councillors had proposed to retain their troops, and in
lieu thereof to send to their frontiers a corps of militia and
Highlanders, thirteen thousand strong; but James was urgent for the
regulars immediately joining him at Hounslow, and they marched
accordingly.
On the first day of October the Scottish army crossed the Tweed, and
drew up on English ground, when General Douglas (to quote Captain
Crichton, the cavalier-trooper who served in the Grey Dragoons) "gave
a strict charge to the officers that they should keep their men from
offering the least injury on their march; adding, that if he heard
any of the English complain, the officers should answer for the
faults of their men."
That night the Scottish drums were ringing in the streets of "merry
Carlisle." There Douglas halted for the night, and Dunbarton's
regiment bivouacked in a field on the banks of the Eden. Provisions
were brought from the city in abundance, fires were lighted, and the
cooking proceeded with the utmost dispatch.
English troops kept guard at the gates of the city, which was
inclosed by a strong wall, and Saint George's red cross waved on the
castle of William Rufus--the same grim fortress where, a hundred and
twenty-one years before, Mary of Scotland experienced the first
traits of Elizabeth's inhospitality.
General Douglas, who commanded the Scottish troops, was a traitor at
heart, and deeply in the interest of William. On the morning after
the halt at Carlisle, he ordered the Viscount Dundee, with his
division of cavalry, to march for London by the way of York; while he
in person led the infantry and artillery by the road to Chester.
Anxious that William should land before the army of James could be
strong enough to oppose him, Douglas, by a hundred frivolous
pretences, and by every scheme he could devise, delayed the march of
his infantry, which did not form a junction with the English under
the Earl of Faversham at London until the 25th of October.
James VII. had now under his command a well disciplined and well
appointed army, led by officers of distinguished birth and courage,
and he awaited with confidence the landing of his usurping
son-in-law. The whole of his troops were quartered in the vicinity
of London.
For many reasons, the people of England, like those of Scotland, were
prepossessed against all the measures of King James, and to his brave
army alone did this unhappy monarch look for support in the coming
struggle; but notwithstanding that for years he had been a father
rather than a captain to his soldiers, and had watched over their
interests with the most kingly and paternal solicitude, quarrels and
disgusts broke out between them, and he was yet to find that he leant
on a broken reed. The strict amity subsisting between him and Louis
of France, excited the jealousy of the nation, who dreaded an
invasion of French and Irish catholics, to enforce the entire
submission of the protestants.
Never were fears more groundless; but the Irish appear to have been
particularly obnoxious to the English soldiers, who flatly refused to
admit them into their ranks. The officers of the Duke of Berwick's
regiment, on declining to accept of certain Irish recruits, were all
cashiered, and the evident weakness of his position alone prevented
James from bringing them to trial as mutineers.
Finding that the civil and ecclesiastical orders opposed him in every
measure, James unguardedly made a direct appeal to his English army,
by whose swords he hoped to enforce universal obedience. Anxious
that each regiment in succession should "give their consent to the
repeal of the test and penal statutes," he appealed first to the
battalion of the Earl of Lichfield, which the senior Major drew up in
line before him, and requested that "those soldiers who did not enter
into the King's views should lay down their arms."
Save two catholics, the entire regiment instantly laid their
matchlocks on the ground!
Astonishment and grief rendered James speechless for a time; but his
native pride recalled his energies.
"It is enough, my soldiers," he exclaimed haughtily. "Resume your
arms! Henceforth I will not do you the honour of seeking your
approbation."
Hurried on by the secret advices of the Jesuits, by his religious
enthusiasm (bigotry, if you will), and by the evil genius that has
seemed to haunt his race since the days of the first Stuart, James
rendered yet wider the breach between him and his army. He
distributed catholic officers and soldiers throughout the different
English regiments, "and many brave protestant officers, after long
and faithful service, were dismissed, without any provision, to
favour this fatal scheme." The quota of Irish troops joined him at
London, and, on chapels being established for the celebration of
mass, the murmurs of the protestants became loud and unrestrained,
and a storm of indignation was raised, which in these days of
toleration, we can only view with a smile.
The ill-advised appointment of the Pope as sponsor for the young
Prince of Wales, the vile and unfounded rumours concerning whose
birth the hapless king felt keenly, and the universal approbation
with which the secretly dispersed manifestoes of the coming invader
were received throughout the land, shewed James that his throne was
crumbling beneath him. The brave old Earl of Dartmouth, who lay at
the Gunfleet, with thirty-seven vessels of war, and seventeen
fireships, in consequence of a storm, was unable to attack the
armament of William, who arrived at Torbay on the 5th of November,
and immediately landed his Dutch, Scots, English, and French troops,
under their several standards.
James, who had no small share of courage and military skill, now
threw himself entirely on that army, which he had spent so many
anxious years in fostering, training, and disciplining. He
dispatched his son, the famous Duke of Berwick, to take possession of
Portsmouth, and prevent the inhabitants declaring for the invader,
who was then on the march for Exeter; meanwhile he hurried to
Salisbury plain, and placed himself at the head of twenty battalions
of infantry and thirty squadrons of cavalry, with a resolution to
defend his crown to the death: but, alas! the spirit of disaffection,
disloyalty, and ingratitude had already manifested itself in the
camp. The desertions were numerous and alarming, while sullen
discontent and open mutiny so greatly marked the conduct of those who
remained, that save a few of the Scottish regiments, James found none
on whom he could rely.
Lord Colchester, son of the Earl of Rivers, with many of his
regiment, were among the first who deserted to the standard of the
invader; Lord Cornbury, son of the Earl of Clarendon, followed, with
three regiments of horse.
Lord Churchill, who, from a page, had been raised by James to the
peerage and a high military command, also betrayed the blackest
ingratitude, by forming a plot to seize his royal benefactor, and
deliver him as a bondsman to the Prince of Orange. Failing in this,
he deserted with several troops of cavalry, and took with him the
Duke of Grafton, a son of the late king. Many officers of
distinction informed the Earl of Faversham, their general, "that they
could not in conscience fight against the Prince of Orange," and
thus, hourly, the whole English army fell to pieces.
The spirit of disaffection soon spread into the Scottish ranks.
Douglas, the perfidious general, with his own regiment of Red
Dragoons, openly marched off to William with the Scottish standard
displayed, and their kettle-drums beating, a circumstance which
deeply affected James, for this was a corps on which he had
particularly relied; but the treason of Douglas was ultimately
avenged by a cannon-shot on the banks of the Boyne. James was a
Stuart, and naturally founded his hopes on the soldiers of the nation
from whence he drew his blood.
A battalion of Scots' Foot Guards next revolted under a corporal
named Kempt, and then every regiment went over in succession under
their several standards, save a troop of Dundee's Guards, a corps of
dragoons, and the Scots' Royals, fifteen hundred strong, which yet
remained loyal and true.
These repaired to Reading, where the gallant nobles, Dunbarton and
Dundee, by exerting all their energies, re-mustered ten thousand men
in ten days.
The former, with his single regiment alone, offered to attack the
Dutch, and by a more than Spartan example of heroism and rashness, to
shame their faithless comrades.
Meanwhile the Dutch drums beat merrily up for recruits, which poured
to the banner of the invader on all hands, and horses were brought to
mount the cavalry and drag the artillery.
All was lost!
The unhappy king, deserted nearly by all, found none near him to whom
he could apply for consolation or advice, or in whom he could
confide. By the instigation of Lady Churchill, even his daughter,
the Princess Anne, left him, and retired to Nottingham. On finding
himself now, when in the utmost extremity of distress, abandoned by a
favourite daughter, whom he had ever treated with the utmost
affection and tenderness, James raised his eyes and hands to heaven,
and bursting into a passion of tears,--
"God help me!" he exclaimed, in the greatest agony of spirit; "God
help me now, for even my own children, in my distress, have forsaken
me!"
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