BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE.
“_Come weal, come woe, we’ll gather and go,_
_And live and die for Charlie._”
THE scene shifts to the shores of a remote loch in the Western Highlands
of Scotland. Great, gloomy hills rise from the water’s edge; the whole
aspect of the place is wild and solitary. At the head of the loch is a
little plain, from which a narrow, rocky glen runs far inland. Not a
soul is in sight; not a sound breaks the stillness. Now you see a small
company of men appear on the plain. In the centre of them is a gallant
young soldier, tall and slim, with a high, broad forehead, a shapely
nose, rich, dark-brown eyes, and chestnut hair. He carries himself right
nobly, and you feel as you gaze upon him that here at last is a real
hero of romance. Full of hope and eager anticipation he comes upon the
scene; but as he waits, and the minutes lengthen into hours, his
light-hearted gaiety gives place to dejection. The glen remains silent
and deserted. Those who have sworn to meet here have not kept tryst. The
young prince—for such he is—retires with a sinking heart to the
shelter of a barn. Suddenly he hears the faint sound of distant
bagpipes. His eyes light up, he springs to his feet, and hastily quits
his shelter. His heart beats fast as he listens. Louder and louder grows
the sound of the pibroch, and now on the skyline of yonder hill you see
Lochiel with seven or eight hundred Camerons. As soon as they sight the
prince they raise loud huzzas, which echo and re-echo from the hills.
The clansmen form up, and the feeble old Marquis of Tullibardine,
supported by a man on each side, proudly unfurls a royal standard. As
its white, blue, and red folds lift upon the wind, cheer after cheer is
raised, and the greatest enthusiasm prevails. A commission of regency is
read, and the prince, baring his head, makes a brief but gallant speech.
“I knew,” he says, “that I should find in Scotland brave gentlemen,
fired with the noble example of their predecessors, and jealous of their
own and their country’s honour, to join me in so glorious an enterprise.
For my own part I do not doubt of bringing the affair to a happy issue.”
The cheers which greet the prince’s speech have scarcely died away
before the Macdonalds, to the number of three hundred, arrive. Others
follow, and before the camp fires are lighted fifteen hundred men have
sworn to follow the prince to the death.
Who is this prince, and why has he invaded this remote and desolate part
of Scotland? He is Prince Charles Edward Stuart, the grandson of James
the Second, the son of the “old Pretender,” a gay, light-hearted,
active, robust, adventurous young man of twenty-five, who since boyhood
has cherished the hope of winning back the throne of his fathers. There
has already been one attempt, but it was a dismal failure. Fifty-seven
years ago his grandfather fled from the kingdom, and William and Mary
began to reign in his stead. Then followed his aunt, Queen Anne; and at
her death the Tories very nearly made his father king. The activity of
the Whigs foiled them just in the nick of time, and the King of Hanover,
“a wee German lairdie,” who claimed descent through his mother from
James the First, was brought over and crowned. Now his son, the second
George, was King of Great Britain and Ireland.
A fierce continental war was now raging, and Britain was foolish enough
to take a hand in it. To the exiled court, then established in Rome,
England’s embarrassment was the Jacobites’ opportunity, and our young
hero, “bonnie Prince Charlie,” saw that he must shoot his bolt now or
never. To his father he said, “I go in search of three crowns, which I
doubt not but to have the honour and happiness of laying at your
Majesty’s feet. If I fail in the attempt, your next sight of me shall be
in my coffin.” “Heaven forbid,” replied James, “that all the crowns in
the world should rob me of my son.”
Some months of delay elapsed, and then an expedition was fitted out; but
the winds and waves, never kindly disposed to the Stuarts, drove it
back. Weary of waiting for further French assistance, Prince Charlie
determined to stake all on a desperate venture. “I will go to Scotland,”
he said to Lord George Murray, one of the wisest and most trusted of his
advisers, “if I take with me only a single footman.” His equipment makes
us smile. He was about to challenge the might of Britain with a few
hundred muskets, some broadswords, twenty small field-guns, a war-chest
of £4,000, and a barrel or two of brandy. The whole story would be a
farce had not the splendid spirit of young Charles lifted it into a
romance. Sailing from Nantes with a little privateer and a fast brig
called the _Doutelle_, he soon lost the privateer, which was driven back
to harbour by a British ship. The _Doutelle_, however, skirted the
eastern shores of Scotland, rounded the tempestuous north, sailed amidst
the islands of the west, and landed him with seven followers at Eriskay,
a little island of the Hebrides, on July 25, 1745.
Let us picture the scene. The French frigate lies off the little rocky
isle, and the prince is eager to go ashore. During the brief voyage he
has exercised that extraordinary personal magnetism with which he is
endowed, and every man on board is his willing slave. No one, not even
Napoleon, ever possessed so much of that strange attraction which can
capture the imagination of men and women, and make them leave home,
kindred, and friends in order to throw themselves into a perilous and
ruinous cause. As the needle points to the pole, so do all men’s hearts
turn to him, whether in sunshine or in storm, in defeat or in victory.
As the French frigate comes to her anchorage an eagle hovers over the
ship. “Sire,” says old Tullibardine, “the king of birds has come to
welcome your royal highness.”
A few hours later Charles trod the soil of Scotland for the first time.
The day was wet and stormy, and the opening of the campaign was most
inauspicious. Next day a neighbouring chief, Macdonald of Boisdale, was
sent for. He came “over the water to Charlie,” but bluntly advised the
prince to return home. With that readiness of speech which marked him,
the prince replied, “I am come home, sir, and I will entertain no notion
of returning to that place from whence I came. I am persuaded that my
faithful Highlanders will stand by me.” He refused to be rebuffed, and
forthwith crossed in the French ship to the coast of Inverness, where he
summoned the gallant Lochiel and other leading chiefs to meet him. And
now his fate seemed to rest on the goodwill of a single man. Lochiel had
already denounced Charles’s invasion as a rash and desperate
undertaking, and he was in no mood to join the prince. Other leading men
shook their heads, though Charles pleaded his cause with all the
earnestness of despair, pacing up and down the deck, and pouring forth a
torrent of eloquent words.
As he did so he espied a young Highlander listening attentively with
flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. Here was a kindred spirit. The prince
suddenly turned to him and said, “You, at least, will not forsake me.”
“I will follow you to the death,” said the lad. “I would follow you to
the death, even were there no other to draw a sword in your cause.” The
lad’s speech had an excellent effect on his hearers. Their Highland
pride was touched, their Highland chivalry was aroused. Most of them
flung their caution to the winds and eagerly embraced his cause.
Lochiel, however, had yet to be persuaded, and Charles, tired of
pleading, tried reproach. “In a few days,” he said, “with the few
friends that I have, I will erect the royal standard and proclaim to the
people of Britain that Charles Stuart is come to claim the crown of his
ancestors, and to win it or perish in the attempt. Lochiel can stay at
home and learn from the newspapers the fate of his prince.” This was
more than Lochiel could bear. “No,” he cried; “I’ll share the fate of my
prince, come what may.” Forthwith arrangements were made for the meeting
at Glenfinnan. You have already witnessed the gathering of the clansmen
and the unfurling of the royal standard.
On the very day that the prince’s banner first waved in the northern
breeze, Sir John Cope, the commander of the royal forces in Scotland,
moved towards the Highlands with three thousand men, mainly raw
recruits, for well-nigh the whole British army was overseas in Flanders.
Cope was a dull man of the stock-and-pipeclay school, and a thoroughly
incompetent general. His object was to relieve the small garrisons of
royal troops stationed at Fort William and Fort Augustus. When, however,
he reached the rocky steeps of Corry Arrack he found the clansmen in
possession of the pass. Rumours were rife that every zigzag path was
commanded by big guns, and that every rock concealed an armed
Highlander. Turning aside, he marched towards Inverness, and thus left
the southern road open.
With banners flying, bagpipes skirling, and drums beating, the Highland
host, shaggy and unkempt as their own cattle, with a meagre equipment
and a strange assortment of weapons, pushed on towards Perth. The prince
rode at their head, and every day he grew in favour with his followers.
His frank, manly air and his gallant bearing knit him to them with
“hooks of steel,” and their spirits rose with every mile they marched.
Opposition melted away before him. Leaving Perth, he marched on
Stirling. The castle sent a few ineffective shots towards him as he
crossed the Forth and proceeded towards Edinburgh. On the 17th September
he was in possession of the Scottish capital without striking a blow.
Forthwith “King James the Eighth” was proclaimed at the Mercat Cross by
the heralds in all their finery, and the prince took up his abode in
Holyrood Palace, where balls and banquets and other brilliant
festivities were held. The time, however, was not suitable for such
scenes of gaiety. Cope had embarked his troops at Inverness, and had
sailed south for Dunbar, where he had landed his forces. He was now
ready to march on Edinburgh, and Charles determined to give him battle
at once. On the night of the 20th he led his army along the ridge of
high ground towards Inveresk, where he expected to meet the enemy. It
was wise to keep to the high ground, for, as one of his captains said,
“Even a haggis could charge down hill.” As the troops moved off Charles
drew his sword and said, “Gentlemen, I have flung away the scabbard.” At
Prestonpans Cope’s army was discovered on the narrow plain between the
hills and the sea. A deep morass lay between the two hosts, and Cope
prided himself that his position was secure. Both armies slept on the
field, and through the night watched each other. The prince lay amongst
his men with a bundle of pease-sticks for a pillow.
During the night a local gentleman, who knew every inch of the ground,
remembered that a path led from the height through the morass and round
the left wing of the enemy. The prince was roused and told the good
news, and immediately the order was given to advance. In deep silence
the march was commenced, Lochiel leading the way. The stars shone
brightly overhead, but as the men advanced the mist gathered and
concealed their movements. So, unseen, they threaded the narrow path,
their soft brogues making no sound. The path had been left unguarded,
and the Highlanders gained the plain, and were beginning to form when
the mist lifted and disclosed them to their foes. Cope’s men were taken
by surprise. The Highlanders charged furiously, and in six minutes the
battle was lost and won. Cope’s army was in flight, and Charles had
captured his cannon and baggage and seventeen hundred prisoners.
For six weeks after his victory Charles lay in Edinburgh, holding
councils and drilling his troops by day, and dancing gaily by night in
the oaken gallery of Holyrood, where his kinswoman, the unhappy Mary
Queen of Scots, had held her court. Not until the last days of October
did he begin his march on England, in the full expectation that his easy
conquest of Scotland would be repeated over the Border. No sign of the
expected rising, however, met the invaders as they marched southward.
The Highlanders began to desert, and his troops dwindled in number
daily. A few recruits joined his standard at Preston, but it was already
evident that his dream of an English rising was vain.
Throughout the long, disappointing march the prince was the life and
soul of his army. His tact, his endurance, and unfailing good-humour
endeared him more and more to his faithful followers. The farther his
army marched south the colder was his reception, until by the time he
reached Derby it was plain that he had come to the end of his tether.
The Duke of Cumberland had an army at Lichfield; there was a second army
in his rear; and a third on Finchley Common. The wiser of the Jacobite
leaders now advised a retreat to Scotland. Charles, however, had not yet
lost hope; all his talk at Derby was about the manner in which he should
enter London, whether on foot or on horseback, in the Highland or in the
Lowland dress. Lord George Murray pressed upon the prince the absolute
necessity of returning to Scotland, and at length Charles was very
reluctantly forced to give the order to retreat. Homeward in straggling,
sullen groups the Highlanders retraced their steps, with the foe hard at
their heels. Charles showed obvious signs of dejection, and constantly
lingered behind his men. On the 20th December the Highland army stood
once more on Scottish ground.
Eight days later Charles marched to Stirling at the head of the largest
army which he had ever commanded. Leaving a small party to watch the
castle, he hurried to Falkirk, where he met General Hawley, who was
advancing to the relief of Stirling. Here again the young prince was
victorious; but hardly had the smoke cleared away from the battlefield
before quarrels broke out amongst the Highland leaders, and Charles was
forced to retreat. The Highlanders, laden with booty, returned to their
homes, and Charles pushed on to Inverness, followed by the Duke of
Cumberland with a strong force of Royalist troops. Cumberland encamped
at Nairn, nine miles from the moor of Culloden, on which the remains of
Charles’s army lay.
They were ill-prepared for battle. The war-chest was empty, food was
scarce, and the men were worn out with fatigue and privation. Lord
George Murray proposed a night attack on the royal army, and suggested
the 15th April as the most suitable date, because it was Cumberland’s
birthday, and sure to be an occasion for revelry in the English camp.
Charles agreed to the proposal, and the march began; but so fatigued and
hungry were his men that no less than fifty halts had to be called in
eight miles. At two in the morning, the time fixed for the attack, the
Highlanders were still four miles from the English camp. Cumberland’s
men had already aroused themselves, and the Jacobite host had to plod
back wearily to Culloden once more.
The final hour had come. Cumberland advanced with his 10,000 troops,
fresh, ardent, well-fed, and well-equipped, and the battle was decided
before it was begun. At a distance of a third of a mile his guns opened
fire, making blood-red lanes through the Jacobite regiments. They stood
their ground with wonderful courage; but they were obliged to give way,
and as dusk settled over the moor the cause of the Stuarts was lost for
ever.
Then came the grim sequel. “Butcher” Cumberland took such a cruel
vengeance on the defeated foe that he well deserves his nickname.
Several Scottish lords were beheaded, and measures were taken to prevent
a similar rising in future. The tartan and kilt were proscribed articles
of dress, the clan system was broken up, and military roads opened the
Highlands to the rapid march of troops.
Meanwhile “bonnie Prince Charlie” was a fugitive, with a price of
£30,000 on his head. For months he encountered hairbreadth escapes and
perils by land and sea. His life was made up of days of hiding in the
heather, and nights of hunger, cold, fatigue, and anxiety in dim
mountain caves. Yet, though his whereabouts were known to scores of
people who might easily have earned the money and a pardon into the
bargain, no one betrayed him, no one revealed his hiding-place. Men and
women at the risk of their lives befriended him, and ultimately, by the
aid of those whom he had brought to ruin and to the verge of the
scaffold, he managed to escape.
History reveals no more splendid example of unswerving loyalty. The
whole story of Prince Charlie’s wanderings is one of the proudest
traditions of the land of mountain and of glen. As a memorial of his
gallant but hopeless attempt to overthrow King George the Second we have
those spirited and tender Jacobite songs which have become an
imperishable part of our literature. They are a monument not so much to
the young man whom they commemorate as to the race which saw in him its
best and most inspiring ideals.
Before we say farewell to Prince Charlie, the story of a woman’s superb
heroism and devotion must be told. When Charles was hiding in the
heather in South Uist, and the redcoats were within a couple of miles of
him, a young lady, named Flora Macdonald, was introduced to him. She had
lately come from Skye to visit her brother in South Uist, and Charles’s
faithful henchman, O’Neil, had heard of her and of her friendship for
the Stuart cause. He met her secretly, and begged her to convey the
prince to her mother’s house in Skye, where he might be safe until he
could be got away to France. The plan was most difficult and daring, for
Flora’s chief was then with Cumberland, and her stepfather was an
officer in the Skye militia, and was at that instant scouring South Uist
for the fugitive. Nevertheless Flora undertook the task, and O’Neil made
her known to the prince. O’Neil proposed that Flora should obtain a pass
from her stepfather for herself and her maid, Betty Burke, to go and
visit her mother in Skye. Flora’s stepfather was a Jacobite at heart,
and he furnished her with the passports. Betty Burke was none other than
the prince, who was now to don petticoats and follow Flora as her
servant. The prince made but a poor maid; he walked with such manly
strides that his disguise only served to attract attention. Further, he
could not manage his skirts; at one time they trailed in the mud, at
another time he held them above his knees. However, the boat was reached
in safety, and “over the sea to Skye” went Charlie. The night was
stormy, but Flora slept, and the prince watched over her and sang songs
to hearten the crew. In the morning they only just managed to escape the
boats of the enemy.
While the prince hid in the heather, Flora went to the house of a
friend, Lady Margaret Macdonald, and arrived at a sadly ill-timed
moment, for the militia were in the neighbourhood and their officer was
in the house. Nevertheless, arrangements were made, and Macdonald of
Kingsburgh undertook to get the prince to Portree. The night was spent
at Macdonald’s house, and next day Charles managed to get to Portree,
where he doffed his petticoats. Here he hid for some time in a cave, and
here, too, he said good-bye to his brave preserver. He kissed her and
said, “For all that has happened, I hope, madam, we shall meet at St.
James’s yet.” He called her “our lady,” and his last thought was for
her. Thus he parted from the courageous woman who had ventured all for
his sake. From this moment she fades out of history, but her place
amongst the heroines is assured for ever.
Months of flitting to and fro, of lurking in the heather and hiding in
caves and ruined huts, followed, and at last news came to him that two
French vessels were off the coast. Losing no time, he started off for
the very spot where fourteen months before he had landed so full of
hope. The ships were riding at anchor, a boat moored to a rock awaited
him. The prince jumped in, and in a few moments was climbing the sides
of the vessel, safe at last. And here we leave him while his ship is
rocking on the wave, and the stern men upon whom he has brought such
sorrow and suffering wave him a last farewell amidst their streaming
tears. We will not dwell upon the later years of his life—years of
misery and degradation, when the once gay, kind, brave, and loyal prince
sank into a fierce, shabby, homeless, and almost friendless adventurer.
For many years he moved about like a shadow, finding his way more than
once to England. Giving way to drink, he sank deeper and deeper into the
mire. Let us not dwell upon the sad scenes of his later life. Let us
think of him in his best moments, as the man who ennobled the Highland
race for all time by calling forth a devotion, loyalty, and love the
fame of which can never die.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: =BONNIE PRINCE CHARLIE.=
(_From the painting by John Pettie, R.A._)]
[Illustration: =AFTER CULLODEN: ROYALIST SOLDIERS SEARCHING FOR JACOBITE
FUGITIVES.=
(_From the picture by John Seymour Lucas, R.A., in the Tate Gallery. By
permission of Messrs. Frost and Reed._)]
[Illustration: =A Royal Fugitive.=
(_From the picture by Allan Stewart. Exhibited in the Royal Academy,
1907._)]
[Illustration]