The widow of the rebel Lord Lovat spent a great portion of a long
widowhood and died (1796) in a house at the head of Blackfriars Wynd.
Her ladyship was a niece of the first Duke of Argyll, and born, as
she herself expressed it, in the year _Ten_—that is, 1710. The
politic _Mac Shemus_[197] marked her out as a suitable second wife, in
consideration of the value of the Argyll connection. As he was above
thirty years her senior, and not famed for the tenderest treatment of
his former spouse, or for any other amiable trait of disposition, she
endeavoured, by all gentle means, to avoid the match; but it was at
length effected through the intervention of her relations, and she was
carried north to take her place in the semi-barbarous state which her
husband held at Castle Downie.
Nothing but misery could have been expected from such an alliance. The
poor young lady, while treated with external decorum, was in private
subjected to such usage as might have tried the spirit of a Griselda.
She was occasionally kept confined in a room by herself, from which she
was not allowed to come forth even at meals, only a scanty supply of
coarse food being sent to her from his lordship’s table. When pregnant,
her husband coolly told her that if she brought forth a girl he would
put it on the back of the fire. His eldest son by the former marriage
was a sickly child. Lovat therefore deemed it necessary to raise a
strong motive in the step-mother for the child being taken due care
of during his absence in the Lowlands. On going from home, he would
calmly inform her that any harm befalling _the boys_ in his absence
would be attended with the penalty of her own death, for in that event
he would undoubtedly shoot her through the head. It is added that she
did, from this in addition to other motives, take an unusual degree of
care of her step-son, who ever after felt towards her the tenderest
love and gratitude. One is disposed to believe that there must be some
exaggeration in these stories; and yet when we consider that it is an
historical fact that Lovat applied to Prince Charles for a warrant to
take President Forbes _dead or alive_ (Forbes being his friend and
daily intimate), it seems no extravagance that he should have acted in
this manner to his wife. Sir Walter Scott tells an additional story,
which helps out the picture. ‘A lady, the intimate friend of her youth,
was instructed to visit Lady Lovat, as if by accident, to ascertain
the truth of those rumours concerning her husband’s conduct which had
reached the ears of her family. She was received by Lord Lovat with
an extravagant affectation of welcome, and with many assurances of
the happiness his lady would receive from seeing her. The chief then
went to the lonely tower in which Lady Lovat was secluded, without
decent clothes, and even without sufficient nourishment. He laid a
dress before her becoming her rank, commanded her to put it on, to
appear, and to receive her friend as if she were the mistress of the
house; in which she was, in fact, a naked and half-starved prisoner.
And such was the strict watch which he maintained, and the terror
which his character inspired, that the visitor durst not ask, nor
Lady Lovat communicate, anything respecting her real situation.’[198]
Afterwards, by a letter rolled up in a clew of yarn and dropped over
a window to a confidential person, she was enabled to let her friends
know how matters actually stood; and steps were then taken to obtain
her separation from her husband. When, some years later, his political
perfidy had brought him to the Tower—forgetting all past injuries,
and thinking only of her duty as a wife, Lady Lovat offered to come to
London to attend him. He returned an answer, declining the proposal,
and containing the only expressions of kindness and regard which she
had ever received from him since her marriage.
The singular character of Lord Lovat makes almost every particular
regarding him worth collecting.
[Illustration]
Previous to 1745, when the late Mr Alexander Baillie of Dochfour
was a student at the grammar-school of Inverness, cock-fights were
very common among the boys. This detestable sport, by the way, was
encouraged by the schoolmasters of those days, who derived a profit
from the beaten cocks, or, as they were called, _fugies_, which became,
at the end of every game, their appropriated perquisite. In pursuit of
cocks, Mr Baillie went to visit his friends in the Aird, and in the
course of his researches was introduced to Lord Lovat, whose policy
it was, on all occasions, to show great attentions to his neighbours
and their children. The situation in which his lordship was found by
the schoolboy was, if not quite unprecedented, nevertheless rather
surprising. He was stretched out in bed between two Highland lasses,
who, on being seen, affected out of modesty to hide their faces under
the bedclothes. The old lord accounted for this strange scene by saying
that his blood had become cold, and he was obliged to supply the want
of heat by the application of animal warmth.
It is said that he lay in bed for the most part of the two years
preceding the Rebellion; till, hearing of Prince Charles’s arrival
in Arisaig, he roused himself with sudden vehemence, crying to an
attendant: ‘Lassie, bring me my brogues—I’ll rise _noo_!’
One of his odd fancies was to send a retainer every day to Loch Ness, a
distance of eight miles, for the water he drank.
His intimacy with his neighbour President Forbes is an amusing affair,
for the men must have secretly known full well what each other was, and
yet policy made them keep on decent terms for a long course of years.
Lovat’s son by the subject of this notice—the Honourable Archibald
Campbell Fraser—was a boy at Petty school in 1745. The President
sometimes invited him to dinner. One day, pulling a handful of foreign
gold pieces out of his pocket, he carelessly asked the boy if he had
ever seen such coins before. Here was a stroke worthy of Lovat himself,
for undoubtedly he meant thus to be informed whether the lord of Castle
Downie was accustomed to get remittances for the Chevalier’s cause from
abroad.
After the death of Lord Lovat, there arose some demur about his lady’s
jointure, which was only £190 per annum. It was not paid to her for
several years, during which, being destitute of other resources, she
lived with one of her sisters. Some of her numerous friends—among
the rest, Lord Strichen—offered her the loan of money to purchase
a house and suffice for present maintenance. But she did not choose
to encumber herself with debts which she had no certain prospect of
repaying. At length the dispute about her jointure was settled in a
favourable manner, and her ladyship received in a lump the amount of
past dues, out of which she expended £500 in purchasing a house at the
head of Blackfriars Wynd,[199] and a further sum upon a suite of plain
substantial furniture.
It would surprise a modern dowager to know how much good Lady Lovat
contrived to do amongst her fellow-creatures with this small allowance.
It is said that the succeeding Lady of Lovat, with a jointure of
£4000, was less distinguished for her benefactions. In Lady Lovat’s
dusky mansion, with a waiting-maid, cook, and footboy, she not only
maintained herself in the style of a gentlewoman, but could welcome
every kind of Highland cousin to a plain but hospitable board, and even
afford permanent shelter to several unfortunate friends. A certain
Lady Dorothy Primrose, who was her niece, lived with her for several
years, using the best portion of her house, namely, the rooms fronting
the High Street, while she herself was contented with the duller
apartments towards the _wynd_. There was another desolate old person,
styled Mistress of Elphinstone, whom Lady Lovat supported as a friend
and equal for many years. Not by habit a card-player herself, she would
make up a whist-party every week for the benefit of _the Mistress_.
At length the poor Mistress came to a sad fate. A wicked, perhaps
half-crazy boy, grandson to her ladyship, having taken an antipathy to
his venerable relative, put poison into the oatmeal porridge which she
was accustomed to take at supper. Feeling unwell that night, she did
not eat any, and the Mistress took the porridge instead, of which she
died. The boy was sent away, and died in obscurity.
An unostentatious but sincere piety marked the character of Lady
Lovat. Perhaps her notions of Providence were carried to the verge of
a kind of fatalism; for not merely did she receive all crosses and
troubles as trials arranged for her benefit by a Higher Hand, but when
a neighbouring house on one occasion took fire, she sat unmoved in her
own mansion, notwithstanding the entreaties of the magistrates, who
ordered a sedan to be brought for her removal. She said if her hour
was come, it would be vain to try to elude her fate; and if it was not
come, she would be safe where she was. She had a conscientiousness
almost ludicrously nice. If detained from church on any occasion,
she always doubled her usual oblation at the _plate_ next time. When
her chimney took fire, she sent her fine to the Town-guard before
they knew the circumstance. Even the tax-collector experienced her
ultra-rectitude. When he came to examine her windows, she took him to a
closet lighted by a single pane, looking into a narrow passage between
two houses. He hesitated about charging for such a small modicum of
light, but her ladyship insisted on his taking note of it.[200]
Lady Lovat was of small stature, had been thought a beauty, and
retained in advanced old age much of her youthful delicacy of features
and complexion. Her countenance bore a remarkably sweet and pleasing
expression. When at home, her dress was a red silk gown, with ruffled
cuffs, and sleeves puckered like a man’s shirt; a fly-cap, encircling
the head, with a mob-cap laid across it, falling down over the cheeks,
and tied under the chin; her hair dressed and powdered; a double muslin
handkerchief round the neck and bosom; _lammer-beads_; a white lawn
apron, edged with lace; black stockings with red gushets; high-heeled
shoes.[201] She usually went abroad in a chair, as I have been informed
by the daughter of a lady who was one of the first inhabitants of the
New Town, and whom Lady Lovat regularly visited there once every three
months. As her chair emerged from the head of Blackfriars Wynd, any
one who saw her sitting in it, so neat and fresh and clean, would have
taken her for a queen in waxwork, pasted up in a glass-case.
Lady Lovat was intimate with Lady Jane Douglas; and one of the
strongest evidences in favour of Lord Douglas being the son of that
lady[202] was the following remarkable circumstance: Lady Lovat,
passing by a house in the High Street, saw a child at a window, and
remarked to a friend who was with her: ‘If I thought Lady Jane Douglas
could be in Edinburgh, I would say that was her child—he is so like
her!’ Upon returning home, she found a note from Lady Jane, informing
her that she had just arrived in Edinburgh, and had taken lodgings
in —— Land, which proved to be the house in which Lady Lovat had
observed the child, and that child was young Archibald Douglas. Lady
Lovat was a person of such strict integrity that no consideration
could have tempted her to say what she did not think; and at the time
she saw the child, she had no reason to suppose that Lady Jane was in
Scotland.
Such was the generosity of her disposition that when her grandson
Simon was studying law, she at various times presented him with £50,
and when he was to pass as an advocate she sent him £100. It was
wonderful how she could spare such sums from her small jointure. Whole
tribes of grand-nephews and grand-nieces experienced the goodness of
her heart, and loved her with almost filial affection. She frequently
spoke to them of her misfortunes, and was accustomed to say: ‘I dare
say, bairns, the events of my life would make a good _novelle_; but
they have been of so strange a nature that nobody would believe
them’—meaning that they wanted the _vraisemblance_ necessary in
fiction. She contemplated the approach of death with fortitude, and
in anticipation of her obsequies, had her grave-clothes ready and
the stair whitewashed. Yet the disposal of her poor remains little
troubled her. When asked by her son if she wished to be placed in the
burial-vault at Beaufort, she said: ‘’Deed, Archie, ye needna put
yoursel’ to ony fash about me, for I dinna care though ye lay me aneath
that hearthstane!’ After all, it chanced, from some misarrangements,
that her funeral was not very promptly executed; whereupon a Miss
Hepburn of Humbie, living in a floor above, remarked, ’she wondered
what they were keeping her sae lang for—stinkin’ a’ the stair.’ This
gives some idea of circumstances connected with Old Town life.
The conduct of her ladyship’s son in life was distinguished by a degree
of eccentricity which, in connection with that of his son already
stated, tends to raise a question as to the character of Lord Lovat,
and make us suspect that wickedness so great as his could only result
from a certain unsoundness of mind. It is admitted, however, that the
eldest son, Simon, who rose to be a major-general in the army, was a
man of respectable character. He retained nothing of his father but a
genius for making fine speeches.[203] The late Mrs Murray of Henderland
told me she was present at a supper-party given by some gentleman in
the Horse Wynd, where General Fraser, eating his egg, said to the
hostess: ‘Mrs ——, other people’s eggs overflow with _milk_; but yours
run over with _cream_!’