These papers, picked up after Culloden, are fragmentary and are not
easy reading without a knowledge of their general historical setting,
and this I have endeavoured to give in brief outline in the preceding
pages. They are particularly interesting as throwing glimpses of
light on the origins of the last Jacobite rising. They were written
before the collapse of that rising and before Murray, after the great
betrayal, had become a social outcast. Murray’s _Memorials_, edited for
the Scottish History Society by the late Mr. Fitzroy Bell, were written
thirteen years after Culloden as a history and a vindication. These
papers may be considered as memoranda or records of the business Murray
had been transacting, and they view the situation from a different
angle.
Some of the events mentioned in the _Memorials_ are told with fuller
detail in these papers; they also contain thirteen hitherto unpublished
letters, consisting for the most part of a correspondence between
Murray and the Chevalier de St. George and his secretary James Edgar.
But to my mind the chief interest of the papers lies in the fact that
they present a clue to the origin of the Jacobite revival which led up
to the ’Forty-five; that clue will be found in Murray’s note on page 25.
In 1901 the Headquarters Staff of the French Army issued a monograph
based on French State Papers, giving in great detail the project for
the invasion of Great Britain in 1744, and the negotiations which
led up to it. The book is entitled _Louis XV. et les Jacobites_, the
author being Captain Jean Colin of the French Staff. In his opening
sentence Captain Colin tells how the Chevalier de St. George was
living tranquilly in Rome, having abandoned all hope of a restoration,
when about the end of 1737 he received a message from his subjects
in Scotland informing him that the Scottish Highlanders would be
able, successfully, to oppose the Government troops then in Scotland.
In no English or Scottish history, so far as I am aware, has this
message from Scotland been emphasised, but in the French records it
is assumed as the starting-point of the movement on the part of the
French Government to undertake an expedition in favour of the Stuarts.
Murray refers to Glenbucket’s mission in the _Memorials_ (p. 2), though
very casually, and as if it were a matter of little moment, but the
insistence in French State Papers of the importance of the Scottish
message made it necessary to investigate the matter further.
The first step to discover was the date of the sale of the estate of
Glenbucket, the price of which was probably required for the expenses
of the mission, and it was found from Duff family papers, kindly
communicated by the authors of _The Book of the Duffs_, that Glenbucket
sold his estate to Lord Braco in 1737. The next step is told in the
pages of _James Francis Edward_, where it is narrated that Glenbucket
was in Paris about the end of that year, that he there presented to
Cardinal Fleury a scheme for a rising in Scotland, which he proposed
should be assisted by the Irish regiments in the service of Louis XV.
The same work tells how Glenbucket went on to Rome in January 1738,
and there conveyed to the Chevalier satisfactory assurances from the
Highlands, but few from the Lowlands.[56] The result was that William
Hay was sent to Scotland on the mission which eventuated in the
‘Concert’ of Jacobite leaders, Highland and Lowland, and Balhaldy’s
subsequent mission to Paris and Rome.
It would be interesting to know who the Highlanders were who entrusted
Glenbucket with the message to Rome. Murray, in his jealous,
disparaging way, remarks that it could only be Glengarry and General
Gordon, but either he did not know much about Glenbucket or he was
prejudiced. In an account of the Highland clans preserved in the Public
Record Office, and evidently prepared for the information of the
Government after he had turned traitor, Murray writes: ‘I have heard
Gordon of Glenbucket looked upon as a man of Consequence, whereas, in
fact, he is quite the reverse. He is not liked by his own name, a man
of no property nor natural following, of very mean understanding, with
a vast deal of vanity.’[57] But this word-portrait does not correspond
with that drawn by a writer who had better opportunities of knowing
Glenbucket. The author of the Memoirs of the Rebellion in the Counties
of Aberdeen and Banff particularly emphasises the affection he inspired
in the Highlanders, and significantly adds:--
‘It is generally believed he was very serviceable to the court of
Rome, in keeping up their correspondence with the Chiefs of the
Clans, and was certainly . . . of late years over at that court,
when his Low Country friends believed him to be all the while in
the Highlands.’[58]
It may be that Lovat was one of those Highlanders who joined in
Glenbucket’s message. About this time he had been deprived of his
sheriffship and of his independent company, and, furious against the
Government, had almost openly avowed his Jacobitism. In 1736 he, as
sheriff, had released the Jacobite agent John Roy Stewart from prison
in Inverness and by him had despatched a message of devotion to the
Chevalier,[59] but of his co-operation with Glenbucket I have found no
hint. The sequence of events here narrated make it plain that whoever
it was for whom he spoke, it was Gordon of Glenbucket whose initiative
in 1737 originated the Jacobite revival which eventually brought Prince
Charles to Scotland.
Analysis of the papers is unnecessary after the admirable introduction
to the _Memorials_ by Mr. Fitzroy Bell, but it may interest readers
of that work to refer to two letters mentioned in the _Memorials_.
The first of these was a letter Murray says he wrote to the Chevalier
giving an account of his interview with Cecil in London.[60] Mr. Bell
searched the Stuart Papers at Windsor, but failed to find it. I think
the letter printed on page 20 is the letter that was intended, though
it is addressed not to James but to his secretary Edgar. The other
letter mentioned in the _Memorials_ was one to the Earl Marischal
written about the same time. It was entrusted for delivery to Balhaldy
and Traquair, but to Murray’s intense indignation they destroyed it.
In the _Memorials_ he expresses his regret that he has not a copy to
insert. There is little doubt that the letter on page 27 of these
papers is the draft of the letter referred to.
The account of the interview with Cecil (pp. 16, 21) makes pathetic
reading. Murray, the Scottish official agent, fresh from seeing
Balhaldy and Sempill, the official agents in Paris, is conscious that
the latter are deceiving both the French Government and their own
party. Murray conceals from Balhaldy that he is going to interview
Cecil; from Cecil that he has been in Paris. Cecil, on the other
hand, makes only a partial disclosure of his feelings in Murray’s
presence. He is contemptuous of his Jacobite colleagues, the Duchess of
Buckingham and her party, and he has not a good word to say of Sempill.
Murray again ridicules Cecil, of whom he has a poor opinion.
How could a cause served by such agents ever prosper?
This copy of John Murray’s papers and the three following documents
were found among some papers relating to the ’Forty-five collected by a
gentleman of Midlothian shortly after the Rising. Many years ago I was
permitted to copy them, and from these transcripts the text has been
printed.