1691-1692
Campaign of 1691 in the Netherlands--Fall of Mons--Disaffection
of William's councillors--Conclusion of year's campaign--
Disgrace and dismissal of Marlborough--Massacre of Glencoe.
The night of William's arrival off the coast of Holland was wild and
stormy; but impatient to be ashore, he quitted the ship which had
carried him for an open boat, and after a night of extreme danger and
hardship, which he passed through with his usual fearlessness and
stoicism, effected a landing. His welcome among his people was
enthusiastic, and his reception by the assembled notables--electors,
princes, dukes, and ministers-plenipotentiary then assembled in
Congress--at the Hague was signally respectful. Those among them in whom
the statesman was strongest were no doubt chiefly impressed by his
successful elevation of himself to a powerful throne; while to the high
aristocratic and monarchical party among them it was sufficient that he
filled it by a title at least good enough to relieve him of the reproach
of mere high-handed usurpation. Each, after his manner, did homage to
the qualities of character, or the accidents of birth, which are
respectively implied in the two meanings of the word "succeed"; over
both alike, however, the ascendency of William was now in all
probability much more firmly established. As wielding the power of
England he was in a material sense, though not perhaps in any very
imposing degree, stronger than he had been; but the accession to his
moral prestige from his remarkable achievements, in the field and in the
council, of the two previous years was doubtless very great. The banded
enemies of the French monarch looked undoubtedly with new feelings upon
the head of their coalition.
William addressed the Congress at its opening in a stirring speech in
which he impressed on them the necessity of union in counsel and
promptitude in action; and with such effect that the Congress resolved
to oppose Louis with an army of 220,000 men, to which William, acting as
his own war minister--a function which he assumed as constantly as that
of the conduct of foreign affairs--engaged to contribute a contingent of
20,000. While the Congress, however, were talking their enemy was
acting. A heavy blow was dealt at the confederacy by the capture of
Mons, which surrendered to the vigorous siege of the French, commanded
by the King in person, within a few weeks of the separation of the
Congress. On the news of its danger William collected a force with all
speed for its relief, but he was too late to save it; and the short
period of suspension of hostilities which followed upon this disaster he
took advantage of to return to England. His presence there was really
more needed than he at the time imagined, for it is probable that at no
time during the early years of his reign had he so much reason to
distrust the fidelity of so many of his most highly placed servants. To
review the intrigues with the exiled monarch, in which men like
Marlborough, Russell, Godolphin, and Shrewsbury were at this moment
either voluntarily engaged, or being successfully pressed to join, is
altogether beyond the scope of this volume. But it may be worth while to
interpose one observation here on what appears to me to be a common,
and, in a certain sense, a mitigating feature of all these duplicities.
They differ no doubt to a certain extent in depth of moral turpitude one
from another, just as the moral characters and motives of those who
committed them so differed. The devouring ambition which actuated
Marlborough, the disappointed Whiggism which was the dominant impulse
with Russell, gave place in a man like Godolphin to mere distrust of the
future, and anxiety to provide against the incalculable. But it is only
fair to recollect that this last, and for statesmen of that age, most
venial motive of action, most probably played a considerable part in all
their double-dealing. None of them considered William's position
assured. All perceived that he had so far failed, and all doubted
whether he would ever succeed, in winning the affection of the people.
Whether he would succeed in the experiment of governing by his factious
and deeply-divided Parliament was, to say the least of it, a question of
the gravest uncertainty; and they governed their conduct accordingly. It
is not necessary to suppose that because an individual statesman in
William's service maintained communication with James's agents with more
or less vague promises of assistance he contemplated any downright
betrayal of William's cause. In most cases his deceit was rather of that
negative sort which seeks to make to itself friends betimes of the
mammon of unrighteousness. The deceiver was anxious in the event of a
counter-revolution to stand well with the restored monarch, and
intended no further treachery to his existing master than is necessarily
involved in the attempt to serve two masters at once.
In May 1691 William returned to Flanders taking Marlborough with him.
The day of that great soldier had not yet come, but though invested with
no military command, it should seem that he attended councils of war
where his great abilities as a general attracted the notice and
admiration of experts. In June the business of campaigning was
recommenced in the leisurely and ceremonious manner peculiar to the age,
and with that strict attention to the limits of the "season" which in
our own day is only bestowed upon the gaieties of London and the sports
of the country. From early in June until the arrival of what may be
called the "close-time," towards the end of September, the armies of
France and of the allies continued to perform their stately military
minuet to the high satisfaction of their commanders, but without
suffering or inflicting on one another any serious blows.
On the 19th of October William arrived in England, and three days later
he opened Parliament. The circumstances under which he met the Houses
were on the whole favourable, and the mood of the Sovereign and
Legislature was one of mutual good humour. It is true that the campaign
in the Netherlands had been ineffectual, but its failure was more than
balanced by successes nearer home. Ireland had been subdued and
pacified, the navy of England had recovered its ascendency in the
Channel. The King's speech to the two Houses elicited a warm reply, and
the large supplies which he had still to demand for the prosecution of
continental warfare was granted to him without demur. Nor was the
session in other respects one of much difficulty for the King. The House
of Commons indeed renewed its complaints of the magnitude of official
salaries and fees, but, showing little or no capacity to discriminate
between legitimate remuneration for public services and mere corrupt
abuses, they naturally failed to agree upon any measure of reform. The
Bill for regulating trials for high treason--a measure destined to be a
subject of long contention between the two Houses--was introduced for
the first time this session, and, passing the Commons, underwent in the
House of Lords an amendment to which the Lower House refused to assent.
On the merits of the case it ought undoubtedly to have been adopted, but
it happened to touch the royal prerogative, and the Commons made this
the excuse for gratifying their not unreasonable jealousy of the
exclusive privileges in the matter of justiciability which were
possessed by the Peers. They showed no hesitation a little later on in
making a distinct encroachment on the royal rights by imposing the
salaries of the judges as a permanent charge upon the hereditary
revenues of the Crown without the sovereign's consent. On this Bill
William exercised for the first time his right of veto. That such first
employment of it should have been on a matter touching his own
interests, and at the same time affecting the independence of the
judicial bench, was unfortunate; but it is impossible to complain of his
exerting his constitutional authority in this case to arrest a measure
of such a kind as would not, even in our more advanced days, be
introduced without the express assent of the Crown. The "event" of the
year 1691 was undoubtedly the political intrigue, the discovery of which
led to the dismissal and disgrace of Marlborough. That indefatigable
plotter, who was still holding active communication with St. Germains,
undertook to move an address in the House of Lords requesting that all
foreigners might be dismissed from the service of the Crown. It was said
and believed that his object in doing this was to inflame the national
and professional jealousies of the country and the army against the
Dutch officers in William's service, so that in the event of William
declining to act upon the advice of his Parliament, he would find both
the people and the soldiery prepared to support him in an ulterior
design of deposing the King and placing Anne upon the throne, with
himself as mayor of the palace. The plot, however, if plot there was,
fell through; and assuming it to have been really conceived, the natural
resentment with which it inspired William would of course sufficiently
account for the disgrace and dismissal of Marlborough which followed
immediately afterwards.[14] The attempt of the half-lunatic,
half-villain Fuller to repeat the exploits of Oates, with a trumped-up
and promptly disproved charge of conspiracy against many prominent
personages, inspired doubts in the public mind as to whether there had
ever been any Scotch plot at all.
Here, too,--that is, among the record of the events of the winter of
1691 and the spring of 1692,--seems the most fitting place to take
notice of a strange and terrible incident, which, though of little
importance from the historical point of view, could on no account be
omitted from a biography of William III. On the 13th of February 1692,
at five o'clock in the morning, was perpetrated, under circumstances of
signal perfidy and barbarity, the crime known as the Massacre of
Glencoe--the surprise and slaughter of the chief and thirty-eight men of
the Macdonalds by two companies of soldiers, who had been quartered upon
the clan for the preconcerted purpose of their extirpation, under the
command of Captain Campbell of Glenlyon. It is not necessary, and would
here be impossible, to give more than a highly condensed account of the
intrigues, amounting almost to conspiracy, among various enemies of the
ill-fated clan, which preceded the massacre. Suffice it to say that
private revenge combined with public policy to suggest the act. It was
the joint work of the Earls of Breadalbane and Argyle--hereditary foes
of the Macdonalds--and of the Secretary of State for Scotland, Sir John
Dalrymple, Master of Stair; but the order upon which this official
assumed to act was signed and countersigned by the King himself. It was
in these words: "As for MacIan of Glencoe and that tribe, if they can be
distinguished from the other Highlanders, it will be proper for the
vindication of public justice to extirpate that set of thieves." The
"other Highlanders" from whom they were to be distinguished had, in
accordance with a proclamation issued in the autumn of the previous
year, made formal submission to the Government and taken the oath of
allegiance to the sovereign before the 1st of January 1692. This, by an
accident, MacIan had failed to do. He had presented himself on the 31st
of December 1691 to the officer in command at Fort William; but, being
informed by him that he had no power to administer the oaths, the old
chief was obliged to betake himself to Inverary, to be there sworn by
the Sheriff of Argyleshire, Sir Colin Campbell of Ardkinglass, who,
although the submitted Highlander did not arrive there till the 6th of
January, consented, after some demur, to administer to him the oaths. A
certificate setting forth the circumstances was transmitted to the
Council at Edinburgh, but was there cancelled for irregularity; and the
fact of MacIan's tardy submission does not appear to have been--indeed,
we may affirm with confidence that it never was--brought to the
knowledge of the King. Acting, however, on the pretended authority of
the royal order, the Master of Stair gave directions to the military
authorities that "the thieving tribe of Glencoe be rooted out to
purpose"; adding in a later despatch to the commander of Fort William:
"Pray, when the thing concerning Glencoe is resolved let it be secret
and sudden; better not meddle with them than not to purpose;" and again,
in a still later communication: "I hope the soldiers will not trouble
the Government with prisoners." Acting on these sinister injunctions,
Captain Campbell of Glenlyon marched his men to Glencoe, and, pretending
that he came as a friend and not as an enemy, quartered them upon the
Macdonalds, by whom they were cordially received and hospitably
entertained. After a twelve days' sojourn among the clan, Glenlyon
received orders from his superior officer to proceed to his bloody work,
and at five in the morning of the 13th of February the soldiers fell
upon their unsuspecting hosts in their sleep. The massacre, however, was
less skilfully executed than it had been cunningly planned. The greater
portion of the Macdonalds, including the sons of the chief, effected
their escape; but MacIan himself, with his wife and thirty-eight of his
clansmen, including some women and children, were ruthlessly murdered.
As many more, in all probability, fell victims to the rigours of a
Highland winter in their attempted flight. In those days of slow
communication it was long before the story of the savage deed became
known, or at least before it was recognised as possessing a more
trustworthy character than the ordinary Jacobite fables of the day; and
it was eagerly caught up, of course, by the political enemies of the
King and the Government. History has acquitted William of all complicity
with the crime in the precise form in which it was committed, as indeed
it would only be reasonable to acquit any ruler possessing, we will not
say common humanity, but the common instincts of the soldier. But
Burnet's attempt to exonerate his master on the plea of having signed
the order of "extirpation" through inadvertence, and Macaulay's
half-suggestion that it was his general incuriousness in Scotch affairs
which made him Stair's unquestioning instrument in the matter, must be
alike dismissed. It was not William's practice to affix his signature to
public documents of which he knew not the purport; and the mere fact
that the Macdonalds of Glencoe were excepted by name from the submitted
clans, and with the careful proviso that the proposed measure should
only be taken against them "if they could well be separated from the
rest," seems to afford sufficient proof that to this particular matter
of Scotch administration, at any rate, his attention was specially
called.
There is, in short, no good reason to doubt that when William signed the
order for the "extirpation" of the Macdonalds he meant them to be
extirpated. He treated his act as equivalent to the issue of one of
those "letters of fire and sword" which in those wild days of Highland
history formed a recognised instrument of police. He would undoubtedly
have been quite prepared to hear that a regiment had been marched into
the valley of Glencoe, had put the contumacious clansmen (as he believed
them to be) to the sword, and left their village a heap of smoking
ruins. As undoubtedly he was _not_ prepared to hear that a body of
soldiers had quartered themselves on the clan under pretence of amity,
and had treacherously slaughtered them at unawares. But though it is
likely enough that when he did hear of this he was disgusted with the
unsoldierly cowardice of the proceeding, we should mistake both the man
and the time in supposing that he viewed it with the horror and
detestation which in our own days it excites. He regarded it, so far as
one can judge, as a mere blundering excess of duty and nothing more.
Four years later, when an inquiry was instituted into the matter by the
Scotch Parliament, he showed no disposition to press it forward;[15] and
later on, when a commission reported that the affair of Glencoe was a
murder for which the Master of Stair was primarily responsible, he
steadily declined to inflict any further penalty on the chief culprit
than he had already suffered in his dismissal from office. Burnet's
excuse for William that he was alarmed at finding how many men it would
be necessary for him to punish for the massacre is, as Macaulay rightly
says, no justification for his screening the one criminal whose case was
so easily distinguishable from the others, and whose guilt was so much
more heinous than theirs. It is idle, in short, to deny that in the
matter of the Glencoe Massacre William incurred something of the
responsibility of an accessory after the fact.
FOOTNOTES:
[14] The whole affair is still surrounded with obscurity. At least half
a dozen conflicting explanations of Marlborough's fall are in existence,
and from the same hand--that of Burnet. It cannot be said that the
conspiracy theory, which Macaulay of course adopts, is in itself at all
improbable.
[15] Macaulay, in that injudicious spirit of special pleading which is
often so damaging to his hero, says that the King, "who knew little and
cared little" about Scotland, "_forgot_ to urge the commissioners." As
if a king would be likely to "forget" an inquiry as to whether one of
his secretaries of state had or had not been guilty of murder.