Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 Volume III Part 1

Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745.

by Mrs. Thomson.

VOL 3.

PREFACE.

In completing this work, I have to repeat my acknowledgments to those friends and correspondents to whom I expressed my obligations in the Preface to the first volume; and I have the additional pleasure of recording similar obligations from other channels.

I beg to testify my grat.i.tude to Sir William Maxwell, Bart., of Montreith, for some information regarding the Nithsdale family; which, I hope, at some future time, to interweave with my biography of the Earl of Nithsdale; and also to Miss Charlotte Maxwell, the sister of Sir William Maxwell, whose enthusiasm for the subject of the Jacobites is proved by the interesting collection of Jacobite airs which she is forming, and which will be very acceptable to all who can appreciate poetry and song.

To Sir John Maxwell, Bart., of Pollock, and to Lady Matilda Maxwell, I offer my best thanks for their prompt and valued suggestions on the same subject.

I owe much to the courtesy and great intelligence of Mrs. Howison Craufurd, of Craufurdland Castle, Ayrs.h.i.+re: I have derived considerable a.s.sistance from that lady in the life of the Earl of Kilmarnock, and have, through her aid, been enabled to give to the public several letters never before published. For original information regarding the Derwent.w.a.ter family, and for a degree of zeal, combined with accurate knowledge, I must here express my cordial thanks to the Hon. Mrs.

Dougla.s.s, to whose a.s.sistance much of the interest which will be found in the life of Charles Radcliffe is justly due.

I have also to acknowledge the kindness of Mons. Amedee Pichot, from whose interesting work I have derived great pleasure and profit; and to Madame Colmache, for her inquiries in the Biblotheque du Roi, for original papers relating to the subject. To W. E. Aytoun, Esq., of Edinburgh, I beg also to express my acknowledgments for his aid in supplying me with some curious information regarding the Duke of Perth.

The kindness with which my researches, in every direction, have been met, has added to my task a degree of gratification, which now causes its close to be regarded with something almost like regret.

One advantage to be gained by the late publication of this third volume, is the criticism of friends on the two former ones. Amid many errors, I have been admonished, by my kind adviser and critic, Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, Esq., of having erred in accepting the common authorities in regard to the celebrated and unfortunate Lady Grange. Whatever were the sorrows of that lady, her faults and the provocation she gave to her irritated husband, were, it appears, fully equal to her misfortunes.

Since the story of Lady Grange is not strictly connected with my subject, I have only referred to it incidentally. At some future time, the singular narrative of her fate may afford me a subject of further investigation.

I beg to correct a mistake into which I had fallen, in the first volume, respecting those letters relating to the Earl of Mar, for which I am indebted, to Alexander Macdonald, Esq. These, a distinct collection from that with which I was favoured by James Gibson Craig, Esq., were copied about twelve years ago, from the papers then in the possession of Lady Frances Erskine. They have since pa.s.sed into the possession of the present Earl of Mar.

An interesting letter in the Appendix of this work, will be found relative to the social state of the Chevalier St. George, at Rome. For permission to publish this I am indebted to the valued friends.h.i.+p of my brother-in-law, Samuel Coltman, Esq., in whose possession it is, having been bequeathed, with other MSS. to his mother, by the well-known Joseph Spence, author of the "Anecdotes", and of other works.

LONDON, _28th March, 1846._

MEMOIRS OF THE JACOBITES.

LORD GEORGE MURRAY.

This celebrated adherent of the Chevalier was born in the year 1705. He was the fifth son of John Duke of Atholl, and the younger brother of that Marquis of Tullibardine, whose biography has been already given.

The family of Atholl had attained a degree of power and influence in Scotland, which almost raised them out of the character of subjects. It was by consummate prudence, not unattended with a certain portion of time-serving, that, until the period 1715, the high position which these great n.o.bles held had been in seasons of political difficulty preserved.

Their political principles were those of indefeasible right and hereditary monarchy. John, first Marquis of Atholl, the father of Lord George Murray, married Amelia Stanley, daughter of Charlotte De la Tremouille, Countess of Derby, whose princely extraction, to borrow a phrase of high value in genealogical histories, was the least of her merits. This celebrated woman was remarkable for the virtue and piety of her ordinary life; and, when the season of trial and adversity called it forth, she displayed the heroism which becomes the hour of adversity.

Her well-known defence of Latham House in 1644 from the a.s.saults of the Parliamentarian forces, and her protracted maintenance of the Isle of Man, the last place in the English dominions that submitted to the Parliament, were followed by a long and patient endurance of penury and imprisonment.

The Marquis of Atholl was consistent in that adherence to the Stuarts which the family of his wife had professed. He advocated the succession of James the Second, and was rewarded with the royal confidence. Indeed, such was the partiality of the King towards him, that had the Marquis "in this sale of favour," as an old writer expresses it, "not been firm and inflexible in the point of his religion, which he could not sacrifice to the pleasure of any mortal, he might have been the first minister for Scotland."[1] After the Revolution, the Marquis retired into the country, and relinquished all public business; thus signifying his opinion of that event.

He bequeathed to his son, John second Marquis of Atholl, and the father of Lord George Murray, as great a share of prosperity and as many sources of self-exultation as ordinarily fall to the lot of one man. To the blood of the Murrays, the marriage with Lady Amelia Stanley had added a connection in kindred with the Houses of Bourbon and Austria, with the Kings of Spain and Duke of Savoy, the Prince of Orange, and most of the crowned heads in Europe. Upon the extinction of the descendants of John the seventh Earl of Derby, commonly called the loyal Earl of Derby, and of his wife Charlotte De La Tremouille, "all that great and uncommon race of royal and ill.u.s.trious blood," as it has been ent.i.tled, centred in the descendants of the Marquis of Atholl. In 1726, the barony of Strange devolved upon the Duke of Atholl; and the princ.i.p.ality of the Isle of Man was also bequeathed to the same House by William ninth Earl of Derby. This was the accession of a later period, but was the consequence of that great and honourable alliance of which the family of Atholl might justly boast.

The father of Lord George Murray adopted every precaution, as we have seen,[2] to preserve the acquisitions of dignity and fortune which the lapse of years had added to his patrimonial possessions. Sixteen coats of arms, eight on the paternal side, and eight on the maternal side, had composed the escutcheon of his father, John Marquis of Atholl. Among those great names on the maternal side, which graced a funeral escutcheon, which has been deemed the pattern and model of perfect dignity, and the perfection of ducal grandeur, was the name of the Prince of Orange.[3] This plea of kindred was not thrown away upon the Marquis of Atholl; he declared himself for King William, and entered early into the Revolution. For this service he was rewarded with the office of High Commissioner to represent his Majesty in the Scottish parliament. But subsequent events broke up this compact, and destroyed all the cordiality which subsisted between William and the head of the House of Atholl. The refusal of the King to own the African Company was, it is said, the reason why the Marquis withdrew himself from Court, and remained at a distance from it during the lifetime of William.

The accession of Anne brought, at first, fresh honours to this powerful Scottish n.o.bleman. He was created in 1704 a Duke, and was made Privy Seal: but the politics of the Court party changed; the Duke of Atholl was dismissed from the Ministry, and he became henceforth a warm opponent of all the Government measures. He spoke with boldness, yet discretion, against the Union; and protested against a measure which, as he conceived, gave up all the dignity and antiquity of the kingdom.

During his proud career, a marriage with Katherine, the daughter of William Duke of Hamilton, a lady of great prudence, and of eminent piety and virtue, added to the high consideration of the Duke of Atholl. Of this n.o.bleman, certain historians have left the highest character. "He was," says Nisbet, "of great parts, but far greater virtues; of a lively apprehension, a clear and ready judgment, a copious eloquence, and of a very considerable degree of good understanding."[4] It is difficult to reconcile this description with the intrigues and bitterness which characterise the Duke of Atholl, in Lovat's narrative of their rivalry; nor would it be easy to reconcile the public report of many men with the details of their private failings. That, however, which has impugned the consistency and sincerity of the Duke of Atholl far more than the representations of Lovat, is the belief that, whilst his feelings were engaged in one cause, his professions were loud in upholding the other; that he was double and self-interested; and that he saved his vast estates from forfeiture by an act of policy which might, in some bearings, be regarded as duplicity, in proof of which it is a.s.serted, that, whilst he pretended to condemn the conduct of his eldest son in joining the Rebellion of 1715, he was the chief instigator of that step.[5] Such was the father to whom Lord George Murray owed his birth.

During the unbroken prosperity of his House, the future General of the Jacobite army was born. He was the fifth son of eight children, borne by the first d.u.c.h.ess of Atholl, and was born in the year 1705. Of these, John the eldest, and presumptive heir to the dukedom, had been killed at the battle of Mons, or Malplaquet, in 1709. He was a youth of great promise, and his death was a source of deep lamentation to his father; a sorrow which subsequent events did not, perhaps, tend to alleviate.

William, Marquis of Tullibardine, was therefore regarded as the next heir to all the vast possessions and ancestral dignities of his House.

His faithful adherence to the Chevalier St. George, and the part which he adopted in the Rebellion of 1715, produced a revolution in the affairs of his family, which, one may suppose, could not be effected without some delicacy, and considerable distress.

In 1716 the Marquis of Tullibardine was attainted by an act pa.s.sed in the first year of George the First; and by a bill, which was pa.s.sed in the House of Commons relating to the forfeited estates, all these estates were vested in his Majesty from and after the twenty-fourth of January 1715.[6] Upon this bill being pa.s.sed, the Duke of Atholl, who had been residing for many years with the splendour and state of a prince at his Castle at Blair Atholl, journeyed to London, and, being graciously received by George the First, he laid his case before that monarch, representing the unhappy circ.u.mstances of his son, and pointing out what effect and influence this might have, in the event of his own death, on the succession of his family, if his estate and honour were not vested in law upon his second son, Lord James Murray, who had performed very signal service to his Majesty in the late rebellion. This pet.i.tion was received, and a bill was brought into parliament for vesting the honours of John Duke of Atholl in James Murray, Esq., commonly called Lord James Murray; and, as a reward of his steady loyalty, a law was pa.s.sed, enacting that the act of attainder against William Marquis of Tullibardine should not be construed to extend to Lord James Murray or his issue. In consequence of this bill, on the death of the Duke of Atholl, in 1724, Lord James Murray succeeded to all those honours and estates, which had thus been preserved through the prudence of his father, and the clemency or policy of the King.

In this divided House was Lord George Murray reared. It soon appeared that he possessed the decision and lofty courage of his ancestry; and that his early predilections, in which probably his father secretly coincided, were all in favour of the Stuarts, and that no considerations of self-interest could draw him from that adherence.

The events of 1715 occurring when Lord George Murray was only ten years of age, his first active exertions in the cause of the Stuarts did not take place until a later period. In the interim, the youth, who afterwards distinguished himself so greatly, served his first apprentices.h.i.+p to arms in the British forces in Flanders. In 1719, when only fourteen years of age, a fresh plan of invasion being formed by Spain, and the Marquis of Tullibardine having again ventured to join in the enterprise, Lord George showed plainly his attachment to the Jacobite cause. He came over with the Marquis, with a small handful of Spaniards, and was wounded at the battle of Glens.h.i.+els on the tenth of June. Of his fate after that event, the following account has been given by Wodrow,[7] who prefaces his statement with a congratulatory remark that several of the Jacobites were by their sufferings converted from their error. "At Glens.h.i.+els," he writes, referring to Lord George Murray, "he escaped, and with a servant got away among the Highland mountains, and lurked in a hut made for themselves for some months, and saw n.o.body. It was a happy Providence that either he or his servant had a Bible, and no other books. For want of other business, he carefully read that neglected book, and the Lord blessed it with his present hard circ.u.mstances to him. Now he begins to appear abroad, and it is said is soon to be pardoned; and he is highly commended not only for a serious convert from Jacobitism, but for a good Christian, and a youth of excellent parts, hopes, and expectations."

It appears, however, that Lord George, however he might be changed in his opinions, did not consider himself safe in Scotland. He fled to the Continent, and entered the service of Sardinia, then, in consequence of the quadruple alliance, allotted to the possessions of the Duke of Savoy.

Meantime, through the influence of his family, and, perhaps, on the plea of his extreme youth when he had engaged in the battle of Glens.h.i.+els, a pardon was obtained for the young soldier. His father, as is related in the ma.n.u.script account of the Highlands before quoted, "had found it his interest to change sides at the accession of George the First." His second brother, as he was now called, James Murray, or Marquis of Tullibardine, was a zealous supporter of the Hanoverian Government, although it proved no easy matter to engage his Clan in the same cause.

During many succeeding years, while Lord George Murray was serving abroad, cultivating those military acquirements which afterwards, whilst they failed to redeem his party from ruin, extorted the admiration of every competent judge, the progress of events was gradually working its way towards a second great attempt to restore the Stuarts.

Notwithstanding the apparent tranquillity of the Chevalier St. George, he had been continually though cautiously maintaining, during his residence at Albano, as friendly an intercourse with the English visitors to Rome as circ.u.mstances would permit. Most young men of family and condition travelled, during the time of peace, in Italy; many were thus the opportunities which occurred of conciliating these youthful scions of great and influential families. As one instance of this fact, the account given by Joseph Spence, the author of the "Anecdotes" and of "Polymetis," affords a curious picture of the eagerness evinced by James and his wife, during the infancy of their son, to ingraft his infant image on the memory, and affections of the English. Mr. Spence visited Rome while Charles Edward was yet in his cradle. He was expressly enjoined by his father, before his departure from England, on no account to be introduced to the Chevalier. Yet such were the advances made to him, as his own letter[8] will show, that it was almost impossible for him to resist the overture: and similar overtures were made to almost every Englishman of family or note who visited Rome at that period.

In addition to these efforts, a continual correspondence was maintained between James and his Scottish adherents. The Chevalier's greatest accomplishment was his art of writing letters; and he appears eminently to have excelled in that power of conciliation which was so essential in his circ.u.mstance.

Meantime Charles grew up, justifying, as he increased in stature, and as his disposition revealed itself, the most ardent expectations of those who wished well to his cause. One failing he very early evinced; that remarkable devotion to certain favourites which marked the conduct of his ancestors; and the partiality was more commonly built upon the adulation bestowed by those favourites than founded in reason.

It was in the year 1741 that the royal youth, then scarcely nineteen years of age, became acquainted with a man whose qualities of mind, and attractions of manner, exercised a very considerable influence over his destiny; and whose character, pliant, yet bitter, intriguing and perfidious, came afterwards into a painful collision with the haughty overbearing temper, and manly sincerity, of Lord George Murray.

It was in consequence of the practice adopted by some of the hangers-on of the Chevalier's court, of luring young English or Scottish strangers to its circles, that John Murray of Broughton, afterwards Secretary to Prince Charles, was first introduced to the young Chevalier. Murray was the son of Sir David Murray, Bart., by his second wife, a daughter of Sir David Scott of Ancrum: he was at this time only twenty-three years of age, and he had lately completed his studies at Edinburgh, where he had gone through a course of philosophy, and studied the civil and munic.i.p.al laws. The report which prevailed that Mr. Murray had been educated with the young Chevalier was untrue; it was by the desire of his mother, Lady Murray, that he first, in 1741, visited both France and Italy, and perfected himself in the language of those countries, then by no means generally attained by Scotchmen.

Mr. Murray had been brought up in the principles of the Episcopal Church, and therefore there was less reason, than there would have been in the case of a Roman Catholic, to apprehend his being beguiled into an intimate connection with the exiled Stuarts. He had not, however, been long in Rome before he was asked by an acquaintance whether he had seen the Santi Apostoli, as the palace of the Chevalier was called. On answering in the negative, he was a.s.sured that, through a knowledge of some of the servants, a sight might be obtained of the palace; and also of the Protestant chapel, in which, as Mr. Murray heard with great surprise, the Chevalier allowed service to be performed for such of the retinue of the young Prince as were of the Protestant persuasion. It was also alleged that this indulgence was with the cognizance of the Pope, who, in order to remove the barrier which prevented the Stuarts from enjoying the crown of England, was willing to allow Charles Edward to be brought up as a Protestant. This a.s.sertion was further confirmed by the fact, that the n.o.blemen, Lord Inverness and Lord Dunbar, who had the charge of Charles Edward, were both Protestants; a choice on the part of James which had produced all that contention between himself and the Princess Clementina, with the details of which the Courts of Europe were entertained.

The family and retinue of the Chevalier St. George being then at Albano, Mr. Murray was able to gratify his curiosity, and to inspect the chapel, which had neither crucifix, confessional, nor picture in it,--only an altar,--and was not to be distinguished from an English chapel; and here English divines officiated. Here, it is said, whilst at his devotions, a slight accident occurred, which nourished a belief in presages in the mind of Charles Edward. A small piece of the ceiling, ornamented with flowers in fretwork, fell into his lap; it was discovered to be a thistle: soon afterwards, another of these ornaments became detached, and fell also into his lap; this proved to be a rose. Such omens, coupled with the star of great magnitude which astronomers a.s.serted to have appeared at his nativity, were, it was thought, not without their effect on the hopes and conduct of the young Prince. One can hardly, however, do him so much injustice as to suppose that such could be the case.

Mr. Murray expressed, it is affirmed, a considerable degree of curiosity to see the Chevalier and his two sons, who were both highly extolled for their natural gifts and graces; the wish was communicated, and, acting upon the principle of attracting all comers to the Court, was soon realised: a page was sent, intimating that Mr. Murray's attendance would be well received, and he was, by an order from the Chevalier, graciously admitted to kiss hands. Such was the commencement of that acquaintance which afterwards proved so fatal to the interests of Prince Charles, and so disgraceful to the cause of the Jacobites. Such was the introduction of the young Prince to the man who subsequently betrayed his companions in misfortune. This step was shortly followed by an intimacy which, probably in the commencement, was grounded upon mutual good-will. Men become perfidious by slow degrees; and perform actions, as they advance in life, which they would blush to reflect on in the day-dawn of their honest youth.

This account is, however, derived from the statements of an anonymous writer, evidently an apologist for the errors of Mr. Murray,[9] and is contradicted so far as the sudden conversion of the young Scotchman to the cause of the Stuarts, by the fact that he had all his life been a violent Jacobite.[10] On the other hand, it is alleged by Mr. Murray's champion, that his feelings and affections, rather than his reason, were quickly engaged in the cause of the Chevalier, from his opportunities of knowing intimately the personal qualities of the two royal brothers, Charles Edward and Henry Benedict. He was, moreover, independent of circ.u.mstances; being in the enjoyment of a fortune of three or four hundred a year, which was considered a sufficient independence for a younger brother, and therefore interest, it is alleged, could not have been an inducement to his actions.

Whether from real admiration, or from a wish to disseminate in Scotland a favourable impression of the Stuart Princes, it is difficult to decide; but Mr. Murray, in 1742, dispatched to a lady in Scotland, who had requested him to describe personages of so great interest to the Jacobites, the following, perhaps, not exaggerated portrait of what Charles Edward was in the days of his youth, and before he had left the mild influence of his father's house.

"Charles Edward, the eldest son of the Chevalier de St. George is tall, above the common stature; his limbs are cast in the exact mould, his complexion has in it somewhat of an uncommon delicacy; all his features are perfectly regular, well turned, and his eyes the finest I ever saw; but that which s.h.i.+nes most in him, and renders him without exception the most surprisingly handsome person of the age, is the dignity that accompanies his every gesture; there is, indeed, such an unspeakable majesty diffused throughout his whole mien and air, as it is impossible to have any idea of without seeing, and strikes those that do with such an awe, as will not suffer them to look upon him for any time, unless he emboldens them to it by his excessive affability.

"Thus much, madam, as to the person of this Prince. His mind, by all I can judge of it, is no less worthy of admiration; he seems to me, and I find to all who know him, to have all the good nature of the Stuart family blended with the spirit of the Sobieskys. He is, at least as far as I am capable of seeing into men, equally qualified to preside in peace and war. As for his learning, it is extensive beyond what could be expected from double the number of his years. He speaks most of the European languages with the same ease and fluency as if each of them were the only one he knew; is a perfect master of all the different kinds of Latin, understands Greek very well, and is not altogether ignorant of Hebrew; history and philosophy are his darling entertainments, in both which he is well versed; the _one_ he says will instruct him how to govern _others_, and the _other_ how to govern _himself_, whether in _prosperous_ or _adverse_ fortune. Then for his courage, that was sufficiently proved at the siege of Gaita, where though scarcely arrived at the age of fifteen, he performed such things as in attempting made his friends and his enemies alike tremble, though for different motives. What he is ordained for, we must leave to the Almighty, who alone disposes all; but he appears to be born and endowed for something very extraordinary."[11]

It was not long before Mr. Murray perceived that, although James Stuart had given up all hopes of the English crown for himself, he still cherished a desire of regaining it for his son. Scotland was of course the object of all future attempts, according to the old proverb:

"He that would England win, Must with Scotland first begin."

The project of an invasion, if not suggested by Murray, as has been stated, was soon communicated to him; and his credit attained to such an extent, that he was appointed by the Chevalier, at the request of Prince Charles, to be secretary for Scottish affairs. At the latter end of the year 1742 he was sent to Paris, where he found an emissary of the Stuarts, Mr. Kelly, who was negotiating in their behalf at the Court of France. Here Murray communicated with Cardinal Tencin, the successor of Cardinal Fleury, in the management of the affairs of the Chevalier, and here he met the exiled Marquis of Tullibardine, who, notwithstanding his losses and misfortunes in the year 1715, was still sanguine of ultimate success. Here, too, was the unfortunate Charles Radcliffe, who, with others once opulent, once independent, were now forced to submit to receive, with many indignities in the payment, pensions from the French Government. It was easy to inflame the minds of persons so situated with false hopes; and Murray is said to have been indefatigable in the prosecution of his scheme. After a delay of three weeks in Paris, he set off on that memorable undertaking to engage the Clans, which ultimately ended in the insurrection of 1745.