Lochiel of the '45: The Jacobite Chief and the Prince 9781474468459

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L O C H IE L

of the *45

LochieVs crest

Previous books by John S. Gibson Deacon Brodie The Jacobite Threat (with Bruce P. Lenman) Playing the Scottish Card: the Franco-Jacobite Invasion o f 1708 Ships o f the '45 Summer Hunting a Prince (with A. MacLean) The Thistle and the Crown

L O C H IE L of the ’45 The Jacobite Chief and the Prince

JO H N SIBBALD GIBSON

Foreword by

Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel, K .T.,

c.v.o., T.D .

E D IN B U R G H U N IV E R S IT Y P R E S S

F o r M o ir a

© John Sibbald Gibson, 1994 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh Transferred to digital print 2004

Typeset in Linotron Garamond by Hewer Text Composition Services, Edinburgh, and Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Eastbourne

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library is b n o 7486 0507 x The Publisher wishes to acknowledge subsidy from the Scottish Arts Council towards the publication of this volume.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements Foreword by Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel, c .v .o ., t .d . I II III IV V VI

The Log of Le du Teillay The Legend of Montrose The Path to Glenfinnan ‘The Noble Attempt’ ‘The Summer’s Hunting’ ‘The Reproach of their Blood’

Memoire d yun Ecossais Abbreviations Sources Dramatis Personae Index

vii k .t

.,

xi i 11 39 72 111 155 173 186 188 196 204

Tear God. Honour the King’

Preface and Acknowledgements Prince Charles Edw ard Stuart at Holyroodhouse, the painting by John Pettie so beloved by the Victorian public, has Charles Edward at full length, resplendent in Highland dress; in the background are two shadowy figures, one of them representing Cameron of Lochiel. Though he would be known in the nineteenth century and since as ‘the Gentle Lochiel’ - in Sir Walter Scott’s words ‘the most amiable and accomplished of the Highland heroes’, the Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five has remained a somewhat indistinct figure, for all that it was his influence above that of any other Scot which set the Rising a-going, and that he remained a central figure throughout the campaign. His own often reticent personality, the loss of many family papers when Achnacarry was burned at the Duke of Cumberland’s command, the dispersal of his family and his own death in exile two years after the collapse of the Rising, the subsequent execution of his brother, the gallant Dr Archie; all have combined to prevent a clearer picture of the man emerging. The purpose of this book is to bring the Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five out of the shadows and let him stand alongside the Prince. For this, several sources have been of special importance. There are the Vll

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five archives of the Scottish Record Office, particularly the Inventarie of the Lochiel Charter Chest. There are the Lochiel Papers at Achnacarry, as many as survived 1746; and the lengthy and densely written papers of John Murray of Broughton, the Prince’s Secretary, published by the Scottish History Society many years ago, but never quarried for the very great deal they have to say about Lochiel. There is now the Memoire Tun Ecossais which Alice Wemyss unearthed in the archives of the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres in Paris. This last gives Lochiel’s own view of what went wrong in the ’Forty-Five as ancillary to his fervent advocacy to the French of staging a re-run of the rebellion in 1747; and it is a document of the first importance to an understanding of the Rising and its aftermath. It also serves to elucidate what has hitherto been obscure in the Stuart Papers at Windsor about the interaction of Lochiel and his Prince. Also from the Royal Archives, the Cumberland Papers give unique and new insight into the last days of the Rising when Lochiel was in command. Last of all, the debt owed to John Stewart of Ardvorlich’s The Camerons of 1974 has gratefully to be acknowledged. For ‘the most amiable and accomplished of the highland heroes’ was also the inheritor of four hundred years of clan history. Her Majesty the Queen has graciously permitted the quotation of correspondence in the Cumberland Papers. I am also grateful to the archivist at the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres in Paris for permission to reproduce the Memoire (Tun Ecossais. Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel gave much encouragement and help, giving access to the Lochiel Papers at Achnacarry, imparting his family’s traditions about his gallant ancestor, making available the treasured miniature of the Prince which Charles Edward presented to Lochiel at Edinburgh in those heady autumn days of 1745 and, not least, commenting on the book in draft. I doubt if I could have carried through the whole project without the many pleasant sessions I had with Dr Jean and Mr R. W. Munro as they made available their wide knowledge of Highland history, and likewise commented on my successive drafts. Professor Bruce Lenman of St Andrews University, the leading authority on the

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Preface Jacobite century, also read my draft most helpfully; as did Dr Archie Turnbull. Dr Rosalind Marshall of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery gave me her expert’s view. Mr Hugh Cheape of the Royal Museum of Scotland guided me in regard to Gaelic verse and Moidart tradition, as, in regard to this last, did Mr Tearlach McFarlane at Glenfinnan. Miss Helen McCorry, also of the Royal Museum of Scotland, generously made available the substance of her research into the Scottish regiments in the French service. Mr Alan Cameron, archivist to the Bank of Scotland, gave me from the Bank’s records the amusing story of the discomfiture of Lieutenant Ferguson of the Scotch Royals. Professor Andrew Skinner advised me on Sir James Steuart, and Professor David Daiches lent me his unique copy of a 1765 narrative of the Prince’s escape. Others who helped in a variety of ways were M. Michel Duchein, Mr Charles Burnett of the Scottish United Services Museum in Edinburgh Castle, Professor Alan Steele, Mr Julian Russell and Mrs Diana Webster of the National Library of Scotland, and Miss Iseabail MacLeod, Mr Donald William Stewart and Miss Fiona Marwick o f the West Highland Museum at Fort William. A general expression of thanks is also due to the staffs of the National Library of Scotland, the National Galleries of Scotland, the Scottish Record Office, the Public Record Office in London; and not least to those of the Scottish and Edinburgh Libraries of the Edinburgh Central Library. I must also express my gratitude to those who assisted me at the outset of this project: Alice Wemyss who, in the course of researching her forthcoming biography of her forebear Lord Elcho of the ’Forty-Five unearthed the Memoire d ’un Ecossais at the Quai d’Orsay; the British Academy for their generous research grant; and the former and present H . M. Historiographer in Scotland, the late Professor Gordon Donaldson and Professor Christopher Smout who pointed me in its direction. Finally, it has to be said that the book owes much to the scrutiny of D r I. D. L. Clark, my editor at the Edinburgh University Press.

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Foreword In the book on The Camerons by John Stewart of Ardvorlich, the author writes ‘It is given to few men to live and to fight and to die respected and grieved by friend and foe alike. Such a man was Donald Cameron of Lochiel. He was called “The Gentle Lochiel” , but he had a resolve of steel.’ It is therefore entirely fitting that such a well-known Jacobite historian and author as John Gibson should have chosen to write the life of this famous Clan Chief, to describe so well the conflicting emotions that faced him when he heard that Prince Charles Edward had landed in Scotland, and to throw new light on his unswerving devotion to the Stuart monarchy which he had inherited from his grandfather, Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel. The author has had the good fortune to discover sources hitherto unpublished, and the tenacity to extract a great deal of valuable information from these sources so that his book will certainly be of great interest to historians of that period as well as to members of Clan Cameron and many others. The Gentle Lochiel, as is so well brought out in this book, was a peace-loving man and one of the most progressive Highland reformers of his time. It was therefore with great reluctance that he embarked on the ill-fated campaign known as the ’Forty-Five, but his loyalty overcame his doubts and so he followed Prince Charles Edward to Derby, to Culloden and ultimately to France

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Lochiel o f the 'Forty-Five where he died, his heart broken by the knowledge that his people had suffered so grievously through his actions. As a Whig admirer wrote on his death in 1748, Mistaken as he was, the man was just, Firm to his word and faithful to his trust. He bade not others go, himself to stay, As is the petty prudent modern way But like a warrior bravely drew his sword . . . Sadly, there is no authentic portrait of the Gentle Lochiel in existence and the one painted ten years after his death, and reputed to be of him, shows rather a weak face and is surely not a true likeness of such a determined man. But his place in Jacobite history is secure, and I warmly commend this book about the nineteenth Chief of the Cameron Clan who sacrificed all for his lifelong loyalty to the Stuart Kings. This account of his ancestry, his background and his life includes his own story of the ’Forty-Five and his plans for a future rising much of it not previously known and all of it of absorbing interest to students of that sad but exciting time in the history of the Highlands, which will be specially remembered in August 1995, the 250th anniversary of the Raising of the Standard at Glenfinnan. DO NALD CAM ERON OF L O C H IE L

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The Log o f Le du Teillay rom the Journal for 5 August 1745 by the French calendar 25 Ju ly by the British calendar - of M. Darbe, master of the light frigate Le du Teillay of Nantes, in Hebridean waters:

F

At 5 o’clock in the morning the Isle of Skye was north-east of me, Cannay to the south-east and Rum to the east. I held on to the south-east. I saw all the mainland in front of us. I saw before me two great bays. I steered east and anchored at 3 o’clock in the afternoon at the head of a bay. A fine plain with a few poor houses and a great many cattle. The place is called Lochnanouagh. Loch nan Uamh, the Loch of the Caves, was about to enter the historical geography of Scotland. At 4 o’clock I lowered my boat and the Prince with three or four gentlemen landed and went to the houses. They found Mr MacDonald who was known as the proprietor [seigneur] of the place, and we said that we were smugglers. The place was Borradale. Smuggling craft from France or the Isle of Man were common up and down the west coast. H ow else would

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five gentlemen get their brandy but from the ‘free-traders’ ? However, it is unlikely that Angus MacDonald of Borradale was fooled as to the identity of the red-haired young man, clothed as a priest, who had come ashore with this small band. For weeks the Jacobite Highlands had been eagerly awaiting the coming of the Stuart Prince from France. Yet the expectation had been that the Prince would come with a more impressive following than these seven companions. O f them, only the long-exiled Marquis of Tullibardine counted for anything; to Jacobite eyes he was the rightful Duke of Atholl, but now he was broken down by long years of penury abroad. N or was there among them any officer of general rank to lead a campaign. Sir Thomas Sheridan, the young Prince’s erstwhile governor and now his closest adviser, was an elderly courtier, not a soldier. N o one had ever heard of Colonel John William O ’Sullivan from the army of France; and though another military man, Sir John MacDonald, by virtue of his name counted himself a kinsman of Clanranald, he was just as unknown. N or was George Kelly, the Irishman who served as the Prince’s secretary, at all known to Highlanders. It had been a month since the Prince - whom the French knew as ‘le prince Edouard’, the Scottish Jacobites as ‘Prince Charles Edward’ or the ‘Young Chevalier’, and the British Hanoverians as ‘the Pretender’s son’ - had embarked at the mouth of the River Loire on Le du Teillay to win back the crowns of his ancestors. She was a little West Indies trading frigate of the slaving millionaire, Antoine Walsh, who was also aboard. It was only twelve days since there had been a disastrous chance encounter off the Lizard between L ’Elisabeth, her escorting sixty-gun ship borrowed from the French navy, and the British Lion. By nightfall that fierce action had crippled both adver­ saries. Morning would surely reveal other ships of the British navy in these waters, and there was no time in the darkness of the Ju ly night to attempt a transhipment from V Elisabeth to Le du Teillay of some of her vast store of munitions of war; no time to send across the offic­ ers and cadets of the Compagnie Volontaire de la Marine de France, intended as the Prince’s bodyguard for his Scottish adventure. Noth­ ing for it but that the elderly French line-of-battle ship immediately abandon her escort role and make for Brest as best she could with her broken masts, battered hull and dead and wounded.

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The Log o f Le du Teillay Bereft of her escort Le du Teillay had sailed on, making landfall ten days later in the Outer Hebrides as, one morning, Barra Head came up over the horizon; and later that day, to escape the attentions of a ship which, thought Darbe, had the look of a British man-of-war, her passengers had been rowed to a little island. This was rock-studded Eriskay, close to the main island of the Southern Hebrides which Darbe had been seeking - South Uist, where the Clanranald gentry had been forewarned of the Prince’s coming. But when he came across the dancing waters of the Sound of Eriskay from his home at Kilbride, Alexander MacDonald of Boisdale, brother to the Clanranald chief, was quick to deliver a blunt refusal to the Prince’s demand for support in mounting civil war on the mainland for what he saw as the fanciful purpose of ousting King George in distant London. The Clan Donald and MacLeod chiefs on Skye, of whom so much was hoped by the passengers of Le du Teillay would, he assured them, likewise refuse to raise their own formidable followings. However, among Charles Edward’s small retinue was one Aeneas MacDonald, an emigre Highlander who had made himself a career as banker to the Jacobites in exile in Paris and whose brother was the MacDonald laird of Kinlochmoidart in Clanranald’s country on the mainland. It was his suggestion at that dispiriting moment on Eriskay that Le du Teillay should sail forthwith for Moidart, and the Prince fell in with this plan of last resort. As the little frigate approached the hills of mainland Inverness-shire on the morning of the following day Aeneas MacDonald went ahead in her ship’s chaloupe to Loch Moidart, there to test the ardour of his elder brother’s Jacobitism. Their father had fought at Killiecrankie for the Prince’s grandfather; Donald of Kinlochmoidart at Sheriffmuir for the Prince’s father. Nowhere in the Highlands was devotion to the Stuart cause warmer. 6th August [26th July]. Conversations began. Several ‘seigneurs’ came on board, and we asked for a place where we could disembark our arms. We emptied all our barrels of salt water and filled them with fresh; also took three barrels of ballast. Early that morning the chaloupe returned from Moidart with Aeneas

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Locbiel o f the ’Forty-Five MacDonald. It also brought the laird of Kinlochmoidart and another gentleman of the clan in Moidart, Alexander of Glenaladale. And, most important of all, it brought the chief’s son, Ranald MacDonald, young Clanranald. The waters of the southern Minch had separated Moidart from the Clanranald chief’s deadening influence, prema­ turely aged and given to his bottle as he was. They had also insulated the laird of Kinlochmoidart from the deflating commonsense of the laird of Boisdale, Clanranald’s brother. For weeks now the gentry and commons of Moidart had been in high excitement as word had spread that the Prince was coming over from France. O hi ri ri, tha e tighinn O, hi-ri-ri, ’n Righ tha uainn Gheibheamaid ar n-airm’s ar n-eideadh ’S breacan-an-fheilidh an cuaich . . . they had been singing. The son of our rightful exiled King is coming. Let us take our weapons and the flowing tartan plaid. The music of the pipes will fill us with reckless fire . . . - and so on to the prediction that Highland broadswords would cleave the cocked hats of King George’s soldiers as if they were so many cabbages. Young Clanranald was a mild and pleasant young man not yet twenty years old, and as susceptible to Jacobite feeling as his father was supine. A quarter of a century later, when his Jacobite past was only a memory, he recalled his meeting with the Prince that morning in Le du Teillay3s stem cabin. Charles Edward received him Very graciously’ . Calling for the Duke of Atholl also to come into the cabin he set out ‘the reasons that had prevaild with him for coming to Scotld in the manner he did’. Sensing the awesome responsibility descending on his shoulders, young Clanranald asked if Kinlochmoidart and Glenaladale might join them. The Duke of Atholl went on deck to bring them down, and brought also Sir Thomas Sheridan and the erstwhile officer of cavalry, Sir John MacDonald. ‘In their hearing Clanranald by the most convincing reasons endevourd to prevail on H R H either to return to France and wait for a more favourable opportunity or that he would be pleasd to keep himself privat in any part of his Estates that should be judgd most proper, until such time as his friends should be in a

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The Log o f Le du Teillay situation to serve him to better purpose than they could be supposd to be on such unexpectd warning.* This prudent counsel - if indeed young Clanranald had the courage to deliver it, and was not in later years rehearsing what he should have said - was swept aside, the Prince replying that he had resolved to make this attempt to see how his father’s subjects would receive him, ‘and that he was determind to put it to execution, and added that without loss of time he intended to sett up his Standard.’ But did Charles Edward so much as mention the calamity to his expedition of the loss of L ’Elisabetby one wonders? As the earnest discussion went on in the stem cabin, other gentlemen of Moidart were by now on the deck of Le du Teillay. One of these was Alasdair MacMhaighstir Alasdair, Alexander son of the late esteemed parish minister, a Gaelic poet and the versifier of the bellicose songs which had been ringing round Moidart. He too in later years would remember his first sight of the Prince, as Charles Edward came on deck, and would write, ‘I found my heart swell to my very throat.’ Another whose enthusiasm was unbounded was Ranald, another younger brother of Donald of Kinlochmoidart. The Moidart tradition would later be that when he came on deck the Prince was exasperated by the hesitant reception he had met below. Sensing Ranald of Kinlochmoidart’s enthusiasm, he addressed him directly, ‘Will you not assist me?’ ‘I will, I will,’ Ranald of Kinlochmoidart replied, ‘though no other man in the Highlands should draw a sword, I am ready to die for you.’ In the heightened emotions of that morning, this outburst, it was later remembered, swayed events. Young Clanranald’s account continues. When he found the Prince inflexible in his resolve ‘he then advisd him to keep on board until such time as Sr Alexr McDonald, Mcleod, Cappock [MacDonell of Keppoch], Lochiel and Appin [Stewart of Appin] should be advertisd of his arrival’ . If young Clanranald was playing for time, he played in vain. Charles Edward readily agreed but also ‘desird Clanranald would recommend to him a proper person to be sent south in order to aquaint the D[uke] of Perth and the rest of his friends in that part of the Kingdom’. Fatally, the young man proposed Kinlochmoidart be sent on this

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five mission: there was no hesitation in the laird of Kinlochmoidart’s Jacobitism. The Prince there and then wrote letters in his own hand for Kinlochmoidart to take with him on his journey, instructing each recipient ‘to advertise all his friends to be in readiness to join him*. Within the hour Kinlochmoidart set out. His first call would be to Cameron of Lochiel’s Achnacarry, some thirty miles distant, where the Water of Arkaig flowed through a tree-clad valley towards the Great Glen. Then the Prince wrote letters to the Skye chiefs, Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat and McLeod at Dunvegan, ‘and desird that Clanranald would deliver it to them personally.’ Clanranald, too, now left the ship for this northward mission. 7th August [27th July], Some ‘seigneurs’ came aboard who quickly returned to raise the country. There was, no doubt, much movement between shore and ship this day, but the master of Le du Teillay would only have a hazy understanding of what was happening. Perhaps he had picked up some wildly optimistic information from the Prince’s Irishmen and this was reflected in the entry in his Journal. One who came this day was Donald MacDonell, younger of Scotus. On his northward journey to the Skye magnates young Clanranald had had his boat call into the mouth of Loch Nevis where the mountains of Knoydart run down to the sea, there to seek out young Scotus and tell him to go with all speed to the frigate from France lying off Borradale. On his arrival at Le du Teillay the latter’s first reaction had been to confess to Sir John MacDonald his astonishment that the Prince should have come so little supported. But young Scotus likewise now succumbed to the enthusiasm of the moment, and assured the Prince that the Glengarry MacDonells would come out. The clan’s indolent chief would give no lead, but Alasdair Ruadh his eldest son, an officer in King Louis’ Regiment Royal Ecossais, had been in Scotland that spring and had left instructions that, if the Prince came, the clan should rise. But this day there came too Cameron of Lochiel’s response in the person of his brother Archie. ‘Doctor Cameron came also’, noted 6

The Log o f Le du Teillay Sir John MacDonald in his narrative in French of these early days of the Rising, ‘talked lightly [badina] a great deal but promised nothing except that if he joined the Prince’s standard he would be among the last to quit it’ . This was a body-blow. For the past sixteen years Lochiel had been looked on by the Stuart court at Rome as King James’ most loyal adherent in all Scotland. 9th August [29th July]. At 10 in the morning we sailed to anchor in another little bay called Loch Aylost [Ailort]. At the entrance of this bay there are three big islets. We entered the bay, skirting the coast to the S. between the southernmost island and the side. At 10 o’clock in the evening, we unloaded a portion of our arms and ammunition and took it to land. At the Prince’s request that a more out of the way anchorage be found for Le du Teillay, and on young Clanranald’s advice before he left, the little frigate had now moved close to the huddle of houses at Forsy along the rocky shore of north Moidart, riding the waters of Loch Ailort against the towering backdrop of Rhois Bheinn. Also by young Clanranald’s direction, MacDonald of Glenaladale brought boats and men to disembark arms and ammunition from the ship, working, as Sir John recalled, ‘with commendable zeal and energy.’ By boat through the narrow channel leading to Loch Moidart or humped up the roughly paved hill track from Glenuig Bay on Loch Ailort, the arms were consigned to the keeping of Kinlochmoidart’s people. The Prince still based himself afloat, rather than ashore; for all his Highland gentility Angus of Borradale’s house had but one room, with heather beds round the sides and little in the way of furniture. N ow young Clanranald returned from Skye. He brought the carcase of a stag and some kids for the royal table, but only chilling news. He had arrived at Dunvegan around midnight on the 28th where he found both MacLeod and Sir Alexander MacDonald. The Prince’s letter ‘they receivd in a very cool unbecoming manner, treating his undertaking with the fine name of a Don Quiksot’s expedition, nor would they return any answer . . .’ Here was the third crisis of Charles Edward’s venture, the first being the loss to his expedition of V Elisabeth, the second his

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Lochiel o f the 'Forty-Five rejection by the Uist Clanranalds. N ow there was this discour­ agement; even with the promised accession of the Glengarry MacDonells and the few hundreds young Clanranald could recruit from Moidart, there was as yet no kernel of a Highland army in prospect. The Prince’s last hope now lay with a further appeal to Cameron of Lochiel. For this - perhaps playing off MacDonell against Cameron and recognising that the long-standing animosity between the two clans could be made to work for him - the Prince despatched young Scotus to Achnacarry. ioth August [30th July]. A large oared boat [un grand chaloupe] came alongside with some ‘seigneurs* to see the Prince. The grand chaloupe would be a highland galley, high prow, high stem. It brought Alexander MacDonell, erstwhile officer in the army of France, a baronet since 1743 in Rome’s phantom Jacobite orders, the resolute chief of the MacDonells of Keppoch who were Clan Cameron’s neighbours in the Braes of Lochaber. And it brought Lochiel himself. Donald Cameron of Lochiel - correctly younger of Lochiel, his aged exiled father being still alive - had for long been the link between the Highland chiefs and the Jacobite court at Rome; and in the frenzy of plotting of the past five years to restore the Stuarts with help from France he had been at the very heart of the conspiracy. The 800 fighting men he could bring out from the glens of Lochaber and from Sunart and Ardnamurchan would be the essential core of any Highland army the Prince might hope to raise. O f still greater moment was the high regard in which Lochiel was held by Highland gentlemen and Lowland lairds alike. Even Lord President Duncan Forbes, legal mainstay at Edinburgh of King George’s regime in Scotland, thought well of him. As for Jacobite minded chiefs and chieftains from the Hebrides to the Grampians, if Lochiel did not now declare for the Prince, few, if any, of them would. What had passed at Achnacarry earlier that week when Donald of Kinlochmoidart had called there with the first intimation of the Prince’s arrival can confidently be conjectured. Later that day, it happened that the Catholic bishop Hugh MacDonald, a gentleman 8

The Log o f Le du Teillay of the family of the MacDonalds of Morar, met Kinlochmoidart at the ferry across the River Lochy. The latter, after his call at Achnacarry, was pressing on in his southward journey through the roadless West Highlands to give news of the Prince’s landing to the Duke of Perth at his castle in Stratheam (and, says Sir John MacDonald, to have the Prince’s louis d ’or changed into guineas). Bishop Hugh was later to recall his exchanges with Kinlochmoidart after the latter had blurted out his news of the Prince’s coming. ‘What number of men has he brought?’ asked Bishop Hugh. ‘Only seven,’ said Kinlochmoidart. ‘What stock of money and arms has he brought with him?’ ‘A very small stock of either.’ ‘What generals or officers fit for commanding are with him?* asked the Bishop, for no clan, however warlike or Jacobite, could be expected to take orders from any chief but its own, though it would follow a general officer’s orders. ‘None at all,’ was the answer. Bishop Hugh would recall that he then said he did not like the expedition at all, and was afraid of the consequences. ‘I cannot help it, for I am engaged already,’ was Kinlochmoidart’s reply. It is more than likely that Kinlochmoidart’s meeting with Lochiel earlier that day - as the latter broke off his supervision of the planting of beech saplings by the Water of Arkaig - had taken the same course. Throughout the past twelve months Lochiel had repeatedly voiced his vehement opposition to a rebellion disastrously at half-cock, which would be the consequence of the Prince coming to Scotland on his own. Despite this, when Lochiel met his Prince face to face in the stern cabin of Le du Teillay only four days later, prudence took second place. Hitherto, the accepted version of what happened is that Charles Edward’s play on Lochiel’s high sense of honour was enough to sway him. So went John Home’s account of what passed in private between the two that day, as recounted to him thirty-six years later, Lochiel long since dead, by his brother John Cameron of Fassifem; an account which Home used to splendid effect in his History o f the Rebellion in 1745. However, the Memoire d 3un Ecossais, the narrative of the ’Forty-Five which recently came to light in the archives of the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres in Paris, and which gives Lochiel’s own version of the events of the

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Lochiel o f the *.F orty-Five Rising, throws a rather different light on this crucial moment in history, and suggests that there was no immediate surrender to the Prince’s appeal. To put the matter in perspective, we need to step back into the previous century.

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The Legend o f Montrose ehind LochiePs fatal decision to join the Prince lay a hun­ dred years of Cameron history, its inspiration the legend of James Graham, Marquis of Montrose, whose brilliant campaign had seemed, fleetingly, to have rescued Scotland for King Charles I. This century of royalist devotion had begun in January 1646, with Charles Edward’s great-grandfather Charles I a prisoner of his enemies in England, Montrose defeated at last by the army of Presbyterian Scotland, and the grandfather of Donald Cameron of Lochiel watching in horror the beheading of some of the King’s men at the burgh cross of St Andrews. A year earlier, in the February of 1645, that year of Montrose’s military wonders, while the aged sixteenth chief of Clan Cameron was a bystander at the slaughter of their neighbours of Clan Campbell by Montrose’s men at the battle of Inverlochy, Ewen, his grandson and heir, had been given over to Campbell tutelage. Some months after Inverlochy, from Castle Campbell high on the Ochil Hills, Ewen Cameron had watched Macleans from Montrose’s army ravage and bum the farm towns of Argyll’s lowland estate. Perhaps the Marquis of Argyll, the Campbell chief, felt that this experience had led this seventeen year old ward to share his own

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five aversion to Montrose and his ferocious followers. That winter, after Montrose’s eclipse at Philiphaugh near the Border burgh of Selkirk, Argyll brought Ewen Cameron with him to the meeting of the Scots parliament at St Andrews - Edinburgh being ridden by plague - to watch the trial and disposal of some of Montrose’s captured royalists. But whether from ancestral hatred of the Campbells, the prospect of booty, or from nobler royalist sentiments, some hundreds of Clan Cameron had joined Montrose after his victory at Inverlochy. In later years it was also a tradition spoken of at Achnacarry that before that battle the aged Cameron chief had contrived to pass vital intelligence to Montrose which had facilitated his victory. It was, then, something of a risk for Argyll to expose young Ewen Cameron to the high drama of royalist beheadings. Ewen Cameron, become Sir Ewen and the Nestor of the Highland chiefs, was to live well into the eighteenth century to the then great age of ninety. To commemorate the famous grandfather in whose formidable presence his boyhood and adolescence had been spent, his grandson - who was to be the Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five - caused a literary minded cousin, another grandson of Sir Ewen, to compile a lengthy Memoire o f Sir Ewen Cameron o f Locheill. That was in the 1730’s; but in this Memoire the redoubtable old chief’s voice comes through loud and clear. How often had these tales been told to his listening grandsons! Out of his whole long life, foremost of these tales was that of the January day in 1646 when he bluffed his way to the presence of the royalist prisoners lying under sentence of death in St Andrews castle. There were three of these; the elderly Sir Robert Spottiswoode, erst­ while Lord President of the Court of Session, appointed Secretary of State by King Charles when Montrose was in the ascendant, staunch royalist and foe to the Covenant, but a man held in general high regard; Colonel Nathaniel Gordon, younger son of the Marquis of Huntly; younger still the nineteen year old William Murray, royalist brother to the anti-royalist Earl of Tullibardine. That day in the castle of St Andrews Ewen Cameron was led first to Sir Robert Spottiswoode’s room. Sir Robert, in the words of the M emoire, ‘imbraceing him with great tenderness, asked how he came to be putt in the hands of the Marquess of Argyl? . . . It

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The Legend o f Montrose is surprizeing to me/ said he, ‘that your friends, who are loyall to me, should have intrusted the care of your education to a person so opposite to them in principles, as well with respect to the Church as to the State! Can they expect you will learn any thing at that school but treachery, ingratitude, enthusiasm, cruelty, treason, disloyalty, and avarice ?’ Why, asked the young man, did Sir Robert charge his benefactor with these vices? Spottiswoode launched into a distinct view of the tempers and characters of the different factions that had conspired against the Mytre and Crown; explained the nature of our constitution, and insisted much on the piety, innocence, and integrity of the King . . . He conjured him to leave Argyle as soon as possibly he could; and exhorted him, as he valued his honour and prosperity in this life, and his immortal happiness in the nixt, not to allow himself to be seduced by the artefull insinuations of subtile rebells, who never want plausible pretext to cover their treasons; nor to be ensnaired by the hypocritical sanctity of distracted enthusiasm; and observed, that the present saints and apostels, who arrogantly assumed to themselves a title to reform the Church, and to compell mankind to believe their impious, wild, and indiggested notions, as so many articles or faith, were either excessively ignorant and stupid or monsterously selfish, perverse, and wicked. So it continued, Sir Robert expounding the imperative - in the words Montrose himself had written for his country, or his lady-love, or both - that there should be no falling-off from ‘purest monarchy’. Ewen Cameron took leave with tears in his eyes, and a heart bursting with a swell of passions he had not formerly felt. He was nixt conducted to the appartment of Collonell Nathaniel Gordon, a hansom young gentleman, of very extraordinary qualities, and of great courage and fortitude; and having condoled with him for a few moments, he went to that of William Murray, a youth of uncommon vigour and vivacity, not exceeding the nineteenth year of his age. He bore his miss-fortune with a heroick spirit,

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Locbiel o f the ’Forty-Five and said to Lochiell that he was not affraid to die, since he died in his duty, and was assured of a happy immortality for his reward. The following day the Maiden, Scotland’s proto-guillotine, brought across from the burgh of Dundee for the purpose, did its work, while Presbyterian divines insisted that the Almighty required this bloody harvest ‘to expiate the sins of the land’, and young Ewen watched from a window opposite the scaffold in company with Argyll and other approving heads of government. Stung by this spectacle young Ewen boldly asked Argyll, his patron, ‘what their cry ms were? For nothing criminall appeared from their behaviour.’ Argyll was at pains to justify the melancholy proceedings. Royalist principles, he said, were ‘very mischivious to the publick and had produced very fatall effects.* Sir Robert, though ‘a subtile lawyer and a great statesman’ was a man ‘of very pemitious principles.’ The late Civil Wars in Scotland as in England ‘were the effects of the King’s assuming an absolute and tyrannical authority over the lifes, libertys and propertys of the subject.’ Montrose and his followers were ‘the abettors of slavery and tyranny’, ‘common robbers’ and ‘the public enemys of mankind’ . Ewen Cameron’s response was to the point. All he said was, that he was informed that Montrose was a very brave man, and that, though he had killed many in battle, yet he never heard of any that he had putt to death in cold blood: That he wondered that so good a man as the King was said to be could be guilty of so much wickedness; and that he believed it either to be the missrepresentations of his enemys, or the doeings of these that mannaged for him: That he was too young, but he thought it hard that any man should suffer for what he believed to be true; and that if the gentlemen whom he saw goe to death with so much courage were guilty of no other crimes but fighting for the King whom they owned for their master, and differing in points of religion, he thought that our laws were too severe!’ So it ended.

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The Legend o f Montrose And yet, for all of young Ewen’s burgeoning devotion at St Andrews to the cause of ‘purest monarchy’ the Camerons had in the past more often been the object of royal wrath than of royal favour. The clan histories show the Camerons standing five times in arms against the Stewart Kings of late mediaeval Scot­ land, this in support of their suzerains, the rebelling MacDonald Lords of the Isles. As Clan Donald’s star had dimmed, and the Camerons had become a byword for disorder and cattle thieving, the Campbells of Argyll to the south and the Earls of Huntly in their Gordon empire to the north were encouraged by the monarchy to keep them in check. Little more than twenty years before the beheadings at the mercat cross of St Andrews, King Charles’ father, in fu ll. enjoyment of his new peaceful realm of England, had threatened the clan with the extinction he intended for equally unruly Clan Gregor in its Perthshire glens. Perhaps Ewen Cameron shrewdly recognised that there was now more for his clan to fear from rapacious Campbells and Gordons than from the endangered Stewart monarchy. Some of Drummond’s narrative may be 1730s embroidery, but it is not to be doubted that at St Andrews on that January day in 1646 was the setting-out on the road of dedicated royalism which was to lead the clan a hundred years later to calamity on Culloden Moor - and to exile or death for three of Ewen’s grandsons. The clan’s century-long record of military endeavour in support of the Stuart cause began in earnest six years later. In 1653, with Scotland under Cromwellian occupation and at the behest of Charles II, the young Stuart King now again in exile, a royalist peer from southern Scotland, the Earl of Glencaim, raised the clans to keep up the national struggle. Ewen Cameron of Locheil was quick to come forward. In the ensuing guerrilla warfare among the Grampian hills the young chief displayed those feats of courage, intrepidity and ferocity recounted with relish by his literary grandson eighty years later in the Memoire. Success against an English column in the hills near Braemar; the bloody victory over a force sent out from the new-established Cromwellian fort at Inverlochy; his own escape from a powerful English antagonist who had him pinned to the ground - by biting into his throat!

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five If these tales were often recounted at the timbered house of Achnacarry that Ewen Cameron had built on a pleasing site next to the Water of Arkaig at a safe distance from Inverlochy, still more significant for the shaping of his sons’ and grandsons’ minds would be the story of the clan’s fortunes in the years after King Charles’ Restoration in 1660. Then, with the Argyll Campbells no longer in the ascendant, the Marquis of Huntly renewed his family’s attempts to exercise suzerainty over Lochaber; and the Macintosh chief raised afresh his ancestral claim on the disputed Cameron lands to the west of the Great Glen. Once again there was a real danger that the Camerons would become as landless as the MacGregors. However, this time the situation was retrieved, not exacerbated, by royal intervention, Ewen Cameron of Lochiel travelling to distant London to plead his case. The upshot was that when in 1665 the Macintosh chief marched a force to the Water of Arkaig to enforce his claim, he found that he could attract no support from other clans and had to come to a peaceful settlement of his centuries-old dispute with Clan Cameron. Then in 1685, the last year of Charles IPs life, Campbell fortunes temporarily at a low ebb, Huntly moved again to take over superiority of Cameron lands. The King promised to intervene, but his untimely death interposed. Yet again Lochiel travelled to London to seek audience of Charles’ brother King James, and thereafter Huntly ceased to assert himself further in Lochaber. (Perhaps his elevation to a dukedom and his investiture with the newly revived Order of the Thistle helped to assuage his feelings.) Prior to all this, Ewen Cameron had been knighted by James while he had been Duke of York and his brother’s viceroy in Edinburgh. So the Cameron chief had sound reason for loyalty to the Royal House of Stuart. ‘Purest monarchy’ could indeed hold rapacious over-mighty nobility in check. In the autumn of 1688 the luck of the winds enabled William of Orange to effect his successful landing at Torbay. King James fled to France, and some months later the Scottish parliament signalled its acceptance of Dutch William who, however, was half a Stuart by birth and married to King James’ elder daughter. But some were for continued loyalty to James; like the Earl of Arran, heir to Scotland’s premier Duke, who bravely insisted ‘I must distinguish between his

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The Legend o f Montrose principles and his Popery.’ From the south of England Viscount Dundee rode with his small force of cavalry and raised James’ standard at his Angus home, then on into the Highlands where Sir Ewen had already been using his influence and prestige to marshal the clans for the Jacobite cause. Dundee, his presence a reminder to the clans of the Great Marquis, his Graham forebear, gave them leadership; but it was Sir Ewen who furnished him with an army in which were ranged along with Clan Cameron, Clan Donald in great force, the Macleans of Mull and Ardgour, the Stewarts of Appin, Clan Gregor from their Perthshire glens, and many others. He now had extensive family connections throughout the Highlands from his three marriages. In July, in the whirlwind destruction of the opposing Scottish army at Killiecrankie in the Braes of Atholl, Sir Ewen added yet another chapter to Cameron history when he charged at the head of his clan - to its own considerable cost. In the recounting of all this in the Memoire again Sir Ewen’s voice is heard, laughingly recalling how he cast off his ill-fitting shoes and charged barefooted with his clansmen. Sir Ewen was no longer the darkly handsome figure of his famous portrait - the resemblance to Louis X IV of France had been remarked on - but he was still impressive enough. The Angus laird who had been Dundee’s standard-bearer at Killiecrankie, and in later years assuaged his melancholy by celebrating his hero’s campaign in Latin hexameters, would describe Sir Ewen’s fierce look, sufficient ‘to fright the boldest foe’, his flashing eyes, ‘his Spanish [i.e. swarthy] countenance’, his moustache ‘curl’d as the moon’s horns’ . Yet it was Sir Ewen’s sagacity which had given him such influence in the Highlands; that calculation of the realities which had led him to bring about a not unfriendly accommodation in the 1650s with the Cromwellian garrison at Inverlochy when Glencairn’s Rising was over, and had enabled him to withstand the pressures on Cameron country from Huntly, Argyll and Clan Macintosh of Badenoch in the time of King Charles and his brother. So now, Dundee dead and buried in St Bride’s Church at the Blair of Atholl, and the Jacobite army repulsed by the Lowlanders at Dunkeld, Sir Ewen recognised that the campaign was rudderless. He took his clan back to Lochaber. There was a Cameron contingent, though not its chief,

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Locbiel o f the ’Forty-Five in the Jacobite force which was surprised and routed on the Haughs of Cromdale in Strathspey the following spring; but when the order to the Jacobite clans to stand down was wrung from the exiled King, Sir Ewen did not make the mistake of Maclan of Glencoe in failing to submit timeously to Dutch William. Significantly too, his last appearance on the wider stage of Jacobite politics, at a gathering of the chiefs at Drummond Castle in Stratheam in 1703, was to reject the self-interested attempts of Simon Fraser - who called himself Lord Lovat - to raise the clans in rebellion for the Stuart cause at a time when chances of success did not exist. One wonders how Sir Ewen would have responded to the demands of the Stuart Prince had he, rather than his grandson, been aboard Le du Teillay on 30 Ju ly 1745? Sir Ewen was to five on till he was ninety, but twenty-two years before his death in 1719 he made over the clan lands to his eldest son John, who was to prove as committed a Jacobite as his father; and he would in turn hand on undiminished the legacy of Stuart royalism to his own eldest son, the Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five. John was bom in 1663 or thereabouts, his birth celebrated by Sir Ewen’s bard in Gaelic song: Yours is the right . . . to live at Achnacarry The generous house of feasting Pillared hall of princes Where wine goes round freely in gleaming glasses Music resounding under its rafters. Was it daunting for John to grow up in the shade of Sir Ewen’s mighty personality? There is just a hint of this. In the account he was to write in exile of the clan’s services to the Jacobite cause he recalled the march to Inveraray of a force of Camerons in 1685, under Sir Ewen, for the quashing of the Earl of Argyll’s Protestant rebellion against King James VII. John had been with that force and by then twenty-two years old but, he said, considered ‘too young to have any command’ . Considered by whom? Four years later he had been at his father’s side in the great gathering of the clans to fight under Viscount Dundee. The heroic

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The Legend o f Montrose hexameters of The Gram eid which lauded Sir Ewen also described John at that muster as ‘in the first flower of his youth . . . the ornament of his race and guardian of his father’s clan’ . Through no fault of his own John was unable to take part with his father in the downhill charge of the Camerons at Killiecrankie. However, as he was to write later, ‘I did have the honour to attack at the head of my father’s men’ in the fight at Dunkeld that followed. But this was an action in which the honours of the day went not to Clan Cameron, but to their opponents, the resolute Cameronian regiment from the God-fearing South-West of Scotland. For Sir Ewen there was something of a rapprochement with the Campbells in the mid-1690s. They were now high in favour with King William, and the Earl of Argyll’s superiority over Clan Cameron’s Locheil-side lands was reasserted; and in 1695 John mar­ ried a daughter of a Campbell laird of mid-Argyll. But John’s Jacobite inclinations again burgeoned when King William was followed by Queen Anne, and her royal half-brother in exile at St Germain became more and more the focus of Jacobite loyalties. In these years ‘I was ready to go into any project tho’ never so desperate’ , John was to recall. One such desperate project may have been some Jacobite involvement in London in 1706, the year when the English commissioners for union with Scotland ‘open’d their pack of golden ware’ to entice their Caledonian counterparts. The Inventarie (which has somehow survived) of the Achnacarry charter-chest (which did not) has an entry which speaks of John being imprisoned in London that year. He was involved the following year in the machinations of Colonel Hooke, King Louis’ secret emissary from Versailles, to enlist the Jacobite clans in support of the Franco-Jacobite invasion project of 1708 which in the embittered aftermath of the Union so nearly succeeded in setting Scotland alight. After the failure of the ’08, Sir Ewen was detained and, in company with other Jacobite chiefs and a swathe of Scots nobility and gentry, John was taken to London under an escort of Scots Dragoons. Only self-serving political manoeuvres by the Earl of Mar and the slippery 4th Duke of Hamilton, erstwhile leader of the Scottish ‘Patriots’, gave them their freedom. Seven years later this lucky escape did not deter John and his

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five brother Allan from answering the Earl of Mar’s call to arms when, as many Scots saw it, as a consequence of the ever-to-be deplored Union with England a German prince was foisted on them as monarch. There had however been a short interlude of indecision. On ‘German GeordieY accession to the throne, apparently at the wish of the dying Queen Anne and in preference to her Stuart but Catholic half-brother at St Germain, John Lochiel was one of a number of Highland chiefs who pledged their loyalty to the new monarch in deference to the coaxing of clever, devious Mar ever on the hunt for royal favour. In the months of swithering loyalties which followed both John Lochiel and the chief of the Glengarry MacDonells were on the point of offering to range themselves alongside the Duke of Argyll in support of King George. Only when the new King turned his back on Mar did the latter sound the call to arms for Stuart restoration and the ending of the ‘deplorable’ Union with England of which Mar had been one of the titled engineers. It was an inauspicious beginning to a ‘patriotic’ war. In exile in France a year later, the ’Fifteen a disastrous failure and Achnacarry occupied by government troops, John set himself to enumerating Clan Cameron’s services to the Stuart cause down the years, as the context for an explanation of the misfortune that had befallen the clan at the battle of Sheriffmuir where King George’s troops had successfully barred Mar’s further intrusion into Lowland Scotland. Explanation was needed. The uncomfortable fact was that at Sheriffmuir Clan Cameron had broken and run. Clan Donald, the Macleans and the Breadalbane Campbells on the right wing had swept all before them. In contrast, the left wing of Mar’s army, Clan Cameron among them, had fled the field. As John described it, the Jacobite troops which were intended to comprise the left wing, hastening uphill to the higher ground of Sheriffmuir in four columns of march, were suddenly confronted by the right wing of the royal army, and made a confused, incomplete deployment into line of battle. A Lowland regiment of the left wing - it would be either Huntly’s or Panmure’s foot - which had got itself out of place and in front of the Camerons, broke after receiving a fire from the government army, and it carried the Camerons with them in its flight. So said John. As for himself, he explained that he 20

The Legend o f Montrose had gone a little way ahead to reconnoitre and could only watch the headlong flight in dismay. Historians of the clan have been severe in their criticism of this misfortune. But it seems clear enough that, in modern military parlance, the left wing which had initially been full of fight was caught off balance. We can also recognise that disordered infantry would be no match for the ensuing attacks by the royal army’s cavalry, veterans of Marlborough’s campaigns as they were. The fault surely lay with the Jacobite command in its failure to ensure timeous deployment. But explanations, it is said, did not appease old Sir Ewen when the crestfallen clan returned to Lochaber. Perhaps it was for the eyes of King James himself, temporarily established with his sad little court at Avignon since the April of 1716, that John penned his vindication of the clan’s conduct at Sheriffmuir, narrating also his attempts of which he had had high hopes to bring out his Campbell relatives in Argyll at the onset of the Rising; and how resistance in the West Highlands in the months after Sheriffmuir had been brought to an end by the submission to government, not of the Camerons, but of Alasdair MacDonell of Glengarry, his neighbour to the north. Clan Cameron, he insisted, had been ready to fight on. John had begun his paper with a recapitulation of all his clan had done in the Stuart cause since the days of Montrose. He ended by quoting the letter he had sent from Uist to the gentlemen of the clan before taking ship for exile in France in June 1716. His instructions to them had been as unambiguous as they were moving: keep your loyalty to King James undimmed. He said that he was leaving for France ‘lest by my staying amongst you at this juncture, you be harassed and ruin’d by partys in search of me, as you have been for some weeks past, and so rendered uncapable hereafter of rysing with me for service of your King and Country.’ If they were harassed further by the garrison of Inverlochy, he continued, they were to let him know how they fared by means of his nephew, who was staying behind to be their link with him, ‘that I may come to your relief with what succours I can bring to live and dye with you.’

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Lastly, I earnestly recommend to keep good heart, and not be dispirited, to live in intyre frindeship with one another, to harbour and entertain with pleasure such as have not taken protection and have kept their arms, whyle you are allowed to live peaceably yourselves to take pains to keep the comons in minde of their duty, and not to doubt but all will end to your satisfaction and mine in the happy restoration of your rightful and lawful Sovereigne, for whom, under God, we all suffer. Your observing punctually what I have here enjoyned will preserve your Loyalty and the reputation you and your predecessors have gote with my father and predecessors, and oblidge me to aply my utmost endevours to make you a hapy clan. John's unswerving devotion was recognised by his King. On 27 January 17 17 , just before the court at Avignon packed up and made its way across the snow-bound Alps to a more secure refuge in Italy, James made John a peer in his phantom Jacobite peerage, henceforth to be known by some exiled Jacobites (but by no one else) as ‘Lord Lochyel’ . Back in the Highlands, with retribution and forfeitures of rebel estates the order of the day, the Cameron lands were again in danger. B y now John’s eldest son Donald, who was to be the Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five, was some sixteen years old. The loss of family papers when Achnacarry was burnt by the Munros in government service in 1746, Donald’s own death two years later, and the dispersal of his family in the aftermath of the Rising, has all meant that little information is readily to hand about his early years. Even that he was bom about 1700 and not, as previous histories have asserted, 1695, is a fact only to be deduced from his parents’ marriage contract of 1 June 1696, and from evidence given by Donald Cameron of Clunes in a court case of the 1750s that ‘about the year 1741 or 1742 he was 21 or 22 years of age at that time’ . That same court evidence happens to mention that a younger brother was fostered by one of the leading families of the clan, in compliance with the age-old custom of Gaelic society in both Scotland and Ireland. Presumably Donald, as the eldest son and heir,

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The Legend o f Montrose was also fostered by one of the clan’s families. The Inventarie of the Achnacarry records implies that two of his younger brothers were schooled at St Ninians, near Stirling, in 17 2 1; Donald may already have received part of his education there too. Sons of Highland chiefs often continued their education at university, as would Archie, John’s third son, at Edinburgh. Probably the commotion of the ’Fifteen and his father’s subsequent flight to France precluded this for Donald. He had had the estate disponed to him by his father in 1706; this was a prudent arrangement when emissaries from Versailles were first stirring the Highlands, and the possibility of insurrection for the Stuart cause was coming over the horizon. For a chief to make over the estate to his son, even though a mere child, should safeguard it under Scots Law in the event of insurrection going wrong. So it proved for the Cameron land, despite some half-hearted attempts by the government commissioners for the Jacobite estates forfeited after the Rising. But ever since his father went into voluntary exile in 1716, young Donald had been chief in fact as well as in law; this being reinforced by the aged Sir Ewen making over to his ‘deere grandchild’ that part of the Lochiel estate he had retained for himself. But now Sir Ewen, Eoghan Dubh to his people, was nearing his end. Half a century later, Thomas Pennant, the amiable gentlemantraveller from North Wales, travelling down the Great Glen, picked up the information from a Lochaber gentleman, knowledgeable about Clan Cameron’s history, that towards the end Sir Ewen’s mind had failed. It touched Pennant’s imagination that Sir Ewen, the greatest of the Highland chiefs of his day, ‘outlived himself, becom­ ing a second child, even rocked in a cradle, so much were the faculties of his mind and the members of his body impaired.’ Reproduced by Sir Walter Scott in his Tales o f a Grandfather this description of Sir Ewen’s sad senility would be hotly disputed by a lady who was Sir Walter’s contemporary, and herself a granddaughter of Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five, her indignation seemingly corroborated by the papers of Sir Ewen’s Drummond grandson. Whatever the truth of the matter it is clear that Donald had grown up in his grandfather’s mighty shadow and would be imbued with his beliefs. In March 1719 John Lochiel gave yet further proof of his total *3

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five commitment to the cause when he sailed from Le Havre with the Earl Marischal and other fellow exiles of the ’Fifteen for the Jacobite Earl of Seaforth’s island of Lewis. Their purpose was to raise the Highlands as a diversion to a simultaneous descent by a Spanish army on the west of England. With France of the Orleans regency in temporary alliance of a sort with King George’s Britain, Jacobite hopes for support now centred on Bourbon Spain. The Spanish King’s ministers, however, saw this projected invasion as a move on the chess board of European politics rather than genuine help to the Stuart King-in-exile. This Scottish diversion had the potential of bringing in the might of the MacKenzies, a following from the Earl Marischal’s erstwhile area of influence in Aberdeenshire and the Meams, and a large contingent from Atholl as well as the western clans. However, with the cancellation of the main Spanish invasion of England a known fact by June, the eastward thrust from Kintail by a smallish force of Highlanders and its disciplined core of a few hundred Spanish infantry stood little chance of success, for all that the Highlanders were veterans of the ’Fifteen. Another veteran of the ’Fifteen, but a Hanoverian one, General Wightman, met the little army in Glenshiel; and by dint of resolute leadership and the use of mortars as field artillery he effectively barred its way. When its base in the old castle of Eilean Donan on the shores of Loch Alsh was demolished by a landing party from a frigate of the Royal Navy, the Rising was all but over. Some weeks before the fight in Glenshiel, John had crossed the Minch from Lewis to raise his Camerons. A hundred and fifty followed him from Lochaber to Kintail and took part in the action in Glenshiel. According to James Keith, the Earl Marischal’s brother, whatever the dedication of their chiefs to the Cause, the Highlanders in general were unenthusiastic. If that comment applied to the Cameron contingent, perhaps it was that they looked on John as an unlucky chief - as unlucky at Glenshiel as he had been at Sheriffmuir and at Dunkeld. But then the whole clan knew that at his birth near to sixty years past the silver shoe which had come into the family’s possession by supernatural means could not be made to fit the infant John’s foot! *4

The Legend o f Montrose By the autumn of 1719 King James in Rome was relieved to learn that John was safely back in France. He would not see Lochaber again for another twenty-seven years. In the years that lay ahead others similarly exiled would seek King James’ permission to return to Scotland and make their reluctant submission to the Hanoverian King in London; but not Lord Lochiel. As to Donald Cameron, younger of Lochiel - from now on more and more known as Lochiel while his father was known in Scotland as Old Lochiel - one wonders if he bridled at his enforced inaction in these two Jacobite risings. The Cameron lands to which Lochiel had now fallen heir were of mountain and loch, and bounded by Clan Donald territory. Loch Shiel, whose narrow length between the hills stretches towards the sea from Glenfinnan - where one day a Stuart Prince would raise his standard - marked the boundary with Clanranald’s Moidart; the mountains looking down on Loch Arkaig marked that with the Glengarry MacDonells to the north, as did the eastern end of Loch Lochy. The valley of the Spean, its mouth where the foaming Spean debouches into the Great Glen, was held by the MacDonells of Keppoch. To the south of the Mamore massif, the limits of Cameron country looked across to the mountains of Glencoe and the homes of its small MacDonald clan. In the very middle of Lochiel’s domain, the waters of Loch Linnhe giving access to the open sea and only a morning’s march from Achnacarry, was Fort William, a constant reminder of the brake government could put on insurrection. The rearing of the small horned cattle in which the Highlands abounded was the main land use; but along Loch Arkaig there were still great forests. The early years of Lochiel’s chiefship saw the extensive exploitation of these. Sir Ewen had sold woodland in 1681 and before that had had an iron mill built by the Water of Arkaig. In 1701 John had sold to a merchant from County Down part of the great oak forest which stretched along the north side of Loch Arkaig, to meet the needs of the tanning industry. Another entry in the Inventarie, this time for 1714, records the sale of ‘the bark of oaken wood’ to merchants from County Meath. N ow in 1722 Lochiel sold to yet another Irish merchant oak forest for

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five felling and stripping sufficient to fill a thousand barrels with oak bark; and, the following year he sold ‘the heall woods lying within the bounds of Locheil, Glenlu [Glen Loy], and Loch Arkaik\ By this date exploitation of the massive timber resources of the Highlands had become widespread, and was in line with fashionable economic thinking, as in the writings about Scotland of Daniel Defoe. Glengarry, LochieFs neighbour, had brought in merchants from Liverpool to exploit his fir woods for charcoal burning and iron smelting; the resident manager had even taken over Invergarry Castle for his quarters. In LochiePs country, after the sales of the 1720s, on the south side of Loch Arkaig there remained untouched the ‘large and beautiful wood of tall strait firs’ which a report of 1750 for the Commissioners for the Forfeited Estates would note; but this denuding of ‘Lochaber of the trees’ all along the north side of the loch, where in earlier days Sir Ewen had been wont to hunt, may have been regretted. However, it was probably the case that the young chief had no choice but to sell timber. With a rent-roll of only £700 a year, it would have been difficult to sustain both his father in exile and his family at home, as well as to meet his obligations to the clan in recurring seasons of dearth. Probably sale of timber became a continuing feature of LochiePs management of his estate. There survives a long very business-like letter of his of 1739, negotiating the sale of 24,000 fir trees. In 1723 and 1725 and again in 1729, this last perhaps to intimate his forthcoming marriage, Lochiel visited his father in France. Lord Lochiel had spumed the offer of an indemnity from King George’s ministers and had remained in France, sustained by payments from King James, to play a leading part in the next Jacobite attempt whenever that might be. 1725 was the year when LieutenantGeneral George Wade, Commander-in-Chief for North Britain, moved troops into the Highlands, and set to disarming the Jacobite clans. The court at Rome was alarmed; old LochiePs brother Allan Cameron, who had been deeply into Jacobite plotting in Queen Anne’s reign, and was both a distinguished veteran of the ’Fifteen and now a King’s servant at Rome, was dispatched to persuade the clans to evade the general disarming. In July 1725 on his journey northwards he met his brother in Paris along with the exiled chiefs

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The Legend o f Montrose of the Macleans and the MacKenzies to discuss what was to be done in the Highlands. Lochiel, newly arrived from Scotland, was also present and his up-to-date information would be valuable. In Paris Lochiel, with financial help from King James, put himself to ‘ane accademie’ , perhaps to make up for the Scottish university education he had missed. King James at Rome also paid special and personal attention to the young Highlander. A letter of 1725 from James to Lochiel, addressed for security as ‘Mr Johnstone Jn r’, apparently on the latter’s returning to Scotland, speaks of ‘my particular regard for you’, praises his endeavours ‘to maintain the true spirit of the clan’, and refers familiarly and in kingly terms to his uncle (‘Allan is now with me and I am always glad to have some of my brave highlanders about me, whom I value as they deserve’). In the 1729 visit Lochiel was indeed to be enmeshed in the Jacobite net, as indeed had been the purpose of his father and uncle all along. During his sojourn in Scotland four years earlier, the intrepid Allan Cameron had not been able to prevent the MacKenzies from surrendering their arms, but he had conspired with Lochiel’s younger brother John at Achnacarry in Clan Cameron’s evasion of General Wade’s ukase. To give up dirks, but not broadswords was the stratagem Allan had recommended. Allan had then journeyed to Edinburgh where in discussion with King James’ principal agent in the Lowlands, the Midlothian and Lanarkshire laird George Lockhart of Carnwath, he had discussed the need for the designation of one of the Highland chiefs to keep Jacobitism warm among the rest of them. This discussion seems in due course to have led to the letter Allan sent his nephew at the end of a third visit to France in October 1729, - a letter which John Home recovered sixty-two years later in his fact-finding foray into Lochaber. The letter was written from the Jacobite court’s summer quarters at Albano near Rome. ‘Dear Nephew’, Allan wrote, ‘the King was pleased to note the zeal and good sense of your last letter and has been so gracious as to write you a letter with his own hand which I enclose. In this he gives you full power to treat with such of his friends in Scotland as are to be trusted until an opportunity offer for executing any reasonable project towards a happy restoration.’ The King has determined ‘to make Scotland happy, and the Clans 27

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five in particular when it pleases God to restore him.’ B y this last Allan would mean no truck with the Union and no interference with the chiefly prerogative of absolute power within their ‘countries’ . The letter continued, ‘Be discreet; inform the King truthfully of what is going on, though even on the truth itself you are to put the handsomest gloss you can on some occasions.’ Lochiel was to keep on good terms with Glengarry and all other neighbours ‘and let by-gones be by-gones as long as they continue firm to the King’s interest,’ but not to shirk from letting the King know if there was any backsliding among the chiefs. Allan then came to the kernel of the letter: what to do about Lovat. Simon, twelfth Lord Lovat, chief of the Frasers at Castle Downie near Beauly, had posed as a Jacobite back in 1703 and had then played a double game as he sought to ascertain whether Queen Anne’s ministers or a Stuart restoration would enhance his own prospects best; duplicity for which he had been ‘bastilled’ in France. In the ’Fifteen, returning to Scotland, he had deserted the Jacobite cause, secured Inverness for King George and so won Hanoverian favour and with it the reversion of attainder and the restoration of his lands. But Allan’s meetings with him in 1725 had disclosed that in Lovat’s mind Stuart loyalties somehow survived, though the instinct for deceit was still there. As for Lovat, pray be always on your guard, but not so as to lose him; on the contrary, you may say that the King trusts a great deal to the resolution he has taken to serve him; and expects he will continue in that resolution. But, dear Nephew, you know very well that he must give true and real proof of his sincerity by performance before he can be entirely reckoned on, after the part he has acted. True Jacobites still smarted at the recollection of Lovat’s treachery to their cause in the ’Fifteen. Allan continued: ‘This I say to yourself, and therefore you must deal with him very dexterously . . . since you know he has always been a man whose chief view was his own interest.’ For all King James’ determined wish ‘to make Scotland happy’, for him these later years of the 1720s had been cheerless. The hopes

28

The Legend o f Montrose which had revived with James’ marriage, the birth of an heir in 1720 and of a second son in 1725, had dissipated as word spread of the growing estrangement between James and his neurotic young wife. Hanoverian spies knew all about this; Hanoverian propaganda made the most of it, though King George’s treatment of his own wife had been immeasurably worse. The death of King George in 1727 should have been the occasion for a renewed Jacobite attempt to win back the throne. For this James made a dash from Rome to Lorraine with a view to getting into Britain quickly in the event of a Rising. George Lockhart of Camwath, weary after a lifetime of Stuart loyalty that had come to nothing, had to tell him firmly that the time was not ripe, and in forthright terms explained why. ‘N o man living’, he wrote to his King, ‘would more gladly see the dawning of a fair day, but when every airth of the compass is black and cloudie, I cannot but dread bad weather.’ Catholicism continued to be the insurmountable obstacle to James’ restoration. Before he left for his first visit to France in 1723 - in the words of the Inventarie ‘during his absence out of the kingdom’ - Lochiel had entrusted his cousin William Drummond, younger of Balhaldie, with ‘factory’, i.e. overview of his affairs at Achnacarry, thus further strengthening the bond which had grown between the Camerons of Locheil and the Drummonds of Balhaldie, ever since Sir Ewen’s grandfather had given what help he could to Clan Gregor in the days of persecution by government and the Glenorchy Campbells. In the mid-seventeenth century a son of MacGregor of Roro far up Perthshire’ s Glen Lyon, had settled at Balhaldie, then unrewarding upland country near Dunblane. With the continuing proscription of the MacGregor name the family called themselves Drummond - but thought of themselves as MacGregors. Sir Ewen had married one of his daughters to Alexander Drummond of Balhaldie in 1686; William was the eldest son of this marriage. At Sheriffmuir Alexander with his son had been part of the MacGregor contingent led ingloriously by Rob Roy, and it was over Balhaldie land that the left wing of the Jacobite army had fled, harried by King George’s dragoons. After the ’Fifteen John Lochiel’s nephew, ‘Young Bohaldy’, was the link in Scotland between the gentlemen of Clan Cameron and their exiled chief. For good or ill his fortunes

*9

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five would be entwined with those of Donald Lochiel for the rest of their lives. William had a younger brother John, who had learning and was as devoted as his elder brother to the Cause. It was he who would write the Memoire o f Sir Ewen Cameron o f Locheill in the 1730s. In 1727, between his two visits to France, Lochiel asked this cousin to make an inventory of the family’s charter-chest. This chest had been lodged with the laird of Grant at Castle Grant in Strathspey when Cameron country was under threat from military occupation, and Lochiel now had it brought back to Achnacarry. John’s labours produced the invaluable Inventarie o f the Charters etc. o f the Fam ily o f Cameron o f Locheile, a surviving source for much of our knowledge of the earlier years of the Clan; and it also gives some glimpses of life at Achnacarry in the days of Sir Ewen, and of his son and grandson. The Inventarie was intended to be much more than a catalogue. Its purpose was to aggrandise the fame of the Cameron Clan; whereas old Lochiel’s birth in 1663 had been marked with heroic Gaelic song by Sir Ewen’s bard, his son’s chiefship was celebrated in John Drummond’s smooth flowing Augustan verse which prefaced the Inventarie. After reviewing - with some embellishment of the truth - the clan’s fortunes from the days of the Lords of the Isles onwards it came to ‘great Sir Ewen’, Inclin’d with force and fortitude of mind, Superior to the rest of human kind, The hero’s sword his country’s cause did claim, While foes to virtue trembled at his name, N ay, while Brittania’s sons in slavery groan’d, Success and triumph all his actions crown’d. Then on to Old Lochiel, now in exile: The generous son of his great name possest, Hugg’d every virtue in his manly breast, The great example does the Chief inspire And second only to his God-like sire. Lastly, the young chief was apostrophised: 30

The Legend o f Montrose Oh! with what raptures, generous youth must you, The glorys of your great ancestors view, As you the heroes blood and fortunes share, So, of their virtues, you’re the illustrious heir, Oh then with steady pace their footsteps trace, And add new honours to the Cameron race. And so to an incitement to action when the day should come, Oh! may the praises to these patriots due, Be all, dear youth, accumulate in you, That Kings and subjects with united voice, May in your name and glorious acts rejoice. Old Lochiel now becomes a lesser influence on his son’s life. He had moved from Paris to cheaper quarters at Boulogne where he lived in company with Sir Hector, the chief-in-exile of the Macleans. But he continued to correspond with his son, following closely the fortunes of the family, using the code-name ‘J. Chalmber’, the Scots word for a room no doubt linking in his mind with its Latin counterpart camera, and so with the name of his clan; and he had passed on his own unswerving devotion to the Stuart cause. Writing to King James at Rome in March 1729 on the occasion of Donald Lochiel’s final return to Lochaber from France he expressed his grateful thanks for ‘the notice you are gratiously pleased to take of my son att this time, in allowing him whereupon to live agreeably while in this country, att a time when your Majesty hath so little to spaire.’ Then he went on to reaffirm that ‘I have nothing att heart soe much as your Majesty’s Interest and wherein I can in the least contribute to it; I shall with the greatest pleasure venture all thats dearest to me in the world for its support.’ Others, notably the Earl of Seaforth, chief of the MacKenzies, might come to terms with the House of Hanover and return home. Old Lochiel’s loyalty to King James would allow no such compromise. His son’s Jacobite indoctrination was likewise total. And it would be reinforced week in, week out, by the devotions of the Scottish Episcopal Church with their insistence that the laws of God gave James at Rome the indefeasible hereditary right to the throne. ‘Fear G od. Honour 3i

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five the K ing,9 the words embossed on LochiePs targe, said it all. In 1729, like his father before him, Lochiel married the daughter of a Campbell laird. In the previous century, with extensive lands on Loch Fyne-side, the Campbells of Auchinbreck had been reckoned to ‘hold the right hand under Argyle which honour they procured by their gallant behaviour in the war with the MacDonalds of Kintyre.’ The family’s Nova Scotia baronetcy dated from 1628. In Montrose’s war Sir Duncan, the second baronet, had commanded the Campbell army at the battle of Inverlochy in 1645 and had died in the rout. The third baronet was implicated in the Earl of Argyll’s Protestant insurrection against King James VII in 1685, and then in the sort of spiritual volte-face not unknown in these years converted to Roman Catholicism. It is not known whether his son Sir James, the fourth baronet, succeeding to the title in 1700 at the age of twenty-one, was also Catholic. Probably not, as he married a daughter of the Protestant MacLeod of Dunvegan; nor is it likely that Lochiel would marry into a Catholic family. But probably the Jacobitism Sir James was to display so clearly in a few years time was already evident; the Argyll Campbells of these years were not the Hanoverian monolith they were to become. Probably he was already out of favour with Inveraray, and perhaps it was for this reason and the ensuing lack of patronage that his finances were soon to become severely embarrassed. But Lochiel was marrying the daughter of a family of distinguished lineage, and this perhaps explains the requirement in the marriage contract that Lochiel build for his lady ‘a house . . . to the value of c. £100 sterling at least, with gardens, office houses [priwies], lands, other conveniencys.’ The mansion which Sir Ewen had built - ‘a large house, all built of fir-planks, the handsomest of that kind in Britain’ as it had been described in 1723 by a Scottish gentleman (with just a touch of ‘Whaur’s yer Wullie Shakespeare nooY as an enthusiastic Scot said of John Home’s appalling ‘Douglas Tragedy9) - was not quite enough it seems, now that there was once more a ‘Lady Lochiel’ at Achnacarry. The same John Home’s description of the lifestyle of a Highland chief of the early decades of the century may have applied to the Cameron chief at Achnacarry, ‘His habitation was 3*

The Legend o f Montrose the place of general resort, the scene of martial and manly exercises; a number of the clan constantly attended him at home and abroad; the sons of the most respectable persons of the name lived a great part of the year at his house and were bred up with his children’. But that may have been out of date by the 1730s. Among Lochiel’s family, English, not Gaelic, was the language commonly used; in the 1 740s John Lochiel from his exile would bewail his grandsons at Achnacarry lacking ‘the language of the Cuntrie’ . O f Lochiel’s brothers, John by the 1730s was forsaking active Jacobitism and was turning to commerce, to the trade with the Lowlands in small black cattle and whisky, and to the import of meal from the east coast and the Clyde. He had now sold to a Balhaldie cousin the West Indies ,property that Sir Ewen had purchased half a century past and bequeathed to him; and he was a burgess of Glasgow which, no doubt, helped align him in outlook with the Bailie Nicol Jarvies of that city. Like his brother he had married a Campbell lady, daughter of one of the Perthshire Breadalbane gentry who were fast relinquishing their active Jacobitism; and in 1735 he bought Fassifem from his brother, good land lying into the sun on the shores of Loch Eil which there and on the hills behind sustained his own stock of cattle. Next in line was Alexander who had served in the French Army, had been to the West Indies and then lived with his uncle Allan at the court of Rome. On the latter’s death in 1730 he had broken with the family’s Protestant tradition and enrolled at the Seminary at Douai to train for the Catholic priesthood. Then there was Archibald - ‘Doctor Archie’ who had completed in Paris the medical training he had begun at Edinburgh University, and had a tack of Glen Kingie which runs into the hills to the north of Loch Arkaig. Last was Ewen who would emigrate to the West Indies in 1735, to his older brother’s former Jamaican property. These bare facts give little indication of the warm family feeling which animated the brothers. Among the Lochiel Papers is a letter of 1730, one of the relatively few which somehow survived the hurried dispersal of papers, plate and furniture from Achnacarry on the approach of Cumberland’s troops after Culloden. In this Alexander, writing from Boulogne where he was visiting his exiled 33

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five father before embarking on his training for the priesthood, informed his brother of his conversion to Roman Catholicism: I doubt not that a piece of extraordinary news, as that of my being converted to the Catholick Faith, and quitting of the religion in which I was bred up, and educat, will at first surprise you and my Relations. I should be sorrie ever to do anything whereby I would run the risque of incurring the displeasure of a Brother whome I so much love and esteeme; but in an affaire of so great Consequence as this is, and wherupon alone my eternall Salvation depends, my first duty is to God. His revered uncle’s own conversion before his death that year and the pervading religiosity of the court at Rome had no doubt had their effect. M y only and greate surprise now is at my former blindness in not sooner findeing out the true Church, and that I should live thirtie yeares in this world without makeing an seriouss reflexion, dureing that long space of time, upon the end and designe of my being placed on Earth. It is most certaine that the reasone why men live so much at randome is that they have forgott their errand, for they fancie themselves to be placed here in order to enjoy the pleasure of their senses, to screape together money, and learne unprofitable sciences, but we are in a prodiguouss mistake, and must have small acquaitance with the dignitie of our nature, and a meane opinion of our greatness to frame such wilde ideas; any thinking man will soon finde out this greate truth, if he will but throe himselfe a little out of the noise and hurrie of this world. It is then most certain that the only designe why we are borne and placed here on Earth is to serve and obey God whose creatures we are, and we can never performe this so essentiall a duty out of the true Church. Alexander’s conversion had been no spur-of-the-moment affair: . . . it is true my past life hase been wilde, but God’s mercie is greate, and is readier to grant us pardon that we are to aske it. I have seen most of the splendoure and riches of this World,

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The Legend o f Montrose and have had occasion to be in some of its most beautifull Countreys [he had been to the West Indies with his brother Ewen] but never could find out reall happiness or contentment in it: and I thank God for it, I only now can say that, I have founde reall riches in possessing nothing. I have no check of conscience and if I could with all this flatter myselfe that my Brothers and Relations had the same regard for me as formerly, my happiness would be compleate . . . This last, indeed, was his only reservation. ‘If I can not have the pleasure of seeing you and liveing in the same Countrey with you, let me have the satisfaction at a distance of being loved by you as one Brother ought to be by another.’ In conclusion he wrote, ‘I beg leave to offer my service to my sister [Lochiel’s wife] and to congratulate with you the good choice you have made’, and that he was sending ‘a case of handsome pistles’ to brother John and ‘a pretty side pistle for Archie’ . There was also his gentleman’s sword: ‘I have also a very handsome small sworde silver hiked which I designe to make you a present of, but you must have a little patience as yet for I can’t parte with it myselfe so soon’. Alexander’s conversion had been sincere, but, perhaps, to submit totally to the long years of training for the priesthood was not easy. Alongside the warm family affection there was also Lochiel’s chronic want of cash. One of Lochiel’s papers of the 1730s which has survived is ‘ane account [of 17 3 1] of the personal debts Lochiel owes and his wadsets’ . The wadsets - land let out on a sort of perpetual lease in return for money - would take 38,100 merks Scots (just over £1,000 Sterling) to redeem were that ever to be possible. Personal debts were to a wide variety of creditors, to his brothers, to neighbouring lairds, to his tailor and his saddler and so on, and came to close on £2,000 Sterling, an uncomfortable encumbrance when the annual rental of the whole estate was little over one third of that amount. Such however was no unusual plight for a Highland laird of these years. In the Letter Book of that long-headed Inverness merchant Bailie Steuart, Lochiel’s name appears several times, as in an entry about an ‘obligation’ of 1720

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five ‘not yet paid’ in 1729. Money was short, credit long, and bills and bonds floated unpaid for many years. In the early 1730s the new military road was being thrust northwards from Crieff through the Grampians to Inverness, with a branch up the headwaters of the Spey and over the Corryarrack Pass to new-built Fort Augustus; another had already been built, along the Great Glen from Fort George at Inverness to Fort William which watched Lochaber. It too was fit for carriages and guns. Involved in this great task was a Captain Burt of the army Engineers who amused himself by writing of the strange, wild country that he saw and the stranger inhabitants that he met. So would later generations of Englishmen in India write in wonderment of the North-West Frontier and its warlike tribes. In the literary fashion of his day Captain Burt put his description into the form of Letters from a Gentleman in the North o f Scotland to His Friend in London. His view of Highlanders was perceptive, if somewhat highly coloured; and as regards the easing of the more absurd English misconceptions of the Highlands it is a pity that his imaginary letters were not published until some time after the ’Forty-Five. Burt saw a land quite without roads. Hillside tracks were hazard­ ous, peat bogs a menace to the unwary traveller. It was also a land without bridges. In winter spates fords were perilous; and ferries on river crossings were provided by rowing boats, usually old, often leaky, with the traveller’s horse swimming behind them. Snowdrifts could cut off one glen from another for months on end. Inns were slovenly, the food dished up always unclean and often uneatable. As to the common people, he noted their wretched poverty, itching skins and faces darkened by the peat smoke of their hovels; and their ability in evading arrest to merge with the terrain. ‘It is’, Burt said, ‘more difficult to find a highlander among the heather except newly tracked than a hare under fern*. All this and their intense pride in family and clan. As to the gentlemen of the clans, they were handsome in their Highland dress, hospitable and civilised in their ways for all the simplicity of their houses, and their ladies often walked barefoot. Burt was also intrigued by the spectacle afforded by a clan chief on his travels with his retinue and his gillies; one of

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The Legend o f Montrose these last to carry his broadsword, another to carry him over fords because a chief wore tartan trews rather than a kilted plaid. Cattle thieving from the low country was generally considered no great crime of turpitude by the Highlanders; it was, Burt noted, termed cattle-lifting - as in the ‘lifting’ (collection) of rent. Indeed the Clan Donald chiefs of Keppoch and Glencoe were thought to rely still on this form of brigandage to supplement their meagre incomes. Others were at the same game: the MacGregors of the southern Highlands, the Mackenzies and Breadalbane men (though Burt’s information may have been shaky about these last). Greatest of the cattle thieves had been Clan Cameron. However, their young chief, said Captain Burt, ‘has, I am very well informed, strictly forbidden any such vile practices, which has not at all recommended him to some of his followers.’ Nor, as we shall see, to some of Lochiel’s neighbouring chiefs. The ‘civilising’ of the clan in regard to its age-old predilection for lifting cattle from the Laigh of Moray would be an intractable problem. As chief, Lochiel would also have to seek to resolve disputes and mortal feuds among the Lochaber tribes and cadet families which made up the Cameron confederacy. There were the Camerons or MacGillonies of Strone, and the Camerons of Glen Nevis and of Dawnie; the MacMartins of Letterfinlay by the shores of Loch Lochy who had fostered Sir Ewen Dubh; the turbulent MacMillans along densely-peopled Loch Arkaig-side and the MacPhees in Glen Dessary which runs into the hills of Knoydart; the MacLachlans of Coruanan by the shores of Loch Linnhe who were Lochiel’s hereditary standard-bearers. O f the cadet families there were the Camerons of Callart, of Lundavra, of Culchenna, of Erracht (who had in the past nurtured pretensions to the chiefship and would do so again), of Kinlochiel, of Dungallon and of Clunes. Lastly there was his nearer family, his brothers with land in Glen Kingie and at Fassifern by the shores of Loch Eil, and Ludovic of Torcastle, his uncle, who somewhat disloyally had once sought to persuade the Commissioners of the Forfeited Estates to make over to himself part of his nephew’s estate. In Boswell’s Journal o f a Tour to the H ebrides there is an instance of the kind of intractable problem which would beset

37

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Lochiel as chief. On a wet October day of 1773 on the island of Coll, as he ‘rummaged through the cabinet* of his host, James Boswell came across a letter of thirty-six years earlier from the Camerons of Strone to a previous laird of Coll. It spoke of one Ewen Cameron of the Strone family having had ‘the misfortune of being alleged to have been accessory to the killing* of a MacMartin of neighbouring Letterfinlay in 1723; and of Lochiel, in an attempt to defuse the resultant feud, having had Ewen Cameron betake himself to France. Then, when Ewen returned nine years later and married, Lochiel required him to settle himself in Ardnamurchan, as far removed as possible from the MacMartins on Loch Lochy-side. But the MacMartins were still out for his blood and, in the letter Boswell perused, fourteen years after the feud began the Camerons of Strone were begging the laird of Coll to have their kinsman settle there. There were apparently some disputes which even Lochiel as judge and father of his clan could not readily settle!

38

Ill

The Path to Glenfinnan n the 1730s Scottish Jacobitism lay in the doldrums. A report from Edinburgh to King James at Rome in the winter of 1736 named Lochiel and Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat - the latter considering himself the premier Clan Donald chief - as ‘the most esteemed among the clans’ . It went on to state the dismally obvious: ‘the leading men among the loyalists are much diminished’. King James was not yet fifty, but the obsessive piety he had learned from his mother and his own fractious marriage had prematurely aged him. What promise there might be in his two young sons, Prince Charles and Henry, Duke of York, could not yet be discerned. 1737 brought with it the first breeze of change. Excise duties on John Barleycorn being keenly resented throughout Scotland as a bur­ densome consequence of the Union, Westminster’s heavy-handed response to the Porteous riot in Edinburgh the previous summer (about the hanging of a notorious smuggler who ipso facto was a local hero, and the reprisal lynching of the local embodiment of law and order, the captain of the City Guard) sparked off widespread resentment north of the Border. This seems to have moved the veteran Jacobite and erstwhile Strathdon laird, John Gordon of Glenbucket, to travel to Paris, there to present to King James’

I

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five agents for onward transmission to Rome a ‘memorial* asserting that Scotland was ripe for rebellion in his cause. Father Innes, Principal of the Scots College in Paris, was not so sure. Forwarding Glenbucket’s memorial to Rome, he noted that ‘The great difference, he says, between the present disposition that Kingdom is in from what it was in 1 715 is that the Whigs and Presbyterians (who make no small party in that country) were then generally all on the Government side, whereas now they are all universally displeased upon the severity of the Government against the Town of Edinburgh and their obliging all the Ministers to read in their churches the Act of Parliament relating to that matter.* But he added, ‘When I asked him what man of quality and figure there was that could be relyed on that had credit enough with the Whigs to be at their head and answer for them he gave no satisfactory answer.’ Scottish anger at ‘Lunnon’ (London) rule was fact, not Jacobite fancy. But Glenbucket’s demarche was also remarkable in that he had acted on his own. Another veteran of the ’Fifteen from the North-East, General Alexander Gordon of Auchintoul, had encouraged him. Perhaps, but less probably, Glenbucket’s indolent father-in-law, John MacDonell of Glengarry, had added his voice. But for all that Lochiel had been commissioned eight years before as correspondent for the clans with the court at Rome, the Cameron chief seems to have had no part in it. Though at this stage we as yet see him only as he appeared to his contemporaries rather than with a distinctive voice of his own, Lochiel, now well into middle age, was what he would remain to the end - ‘the most sincere, honest man the country produces, without the least show of self-interest.* The words were those of John Murray of Broughton, the smallish fair-haired Tweeddale laird who was soon to be his companion in Jacobite conspiracy. In the Account o f the H ighland Clans which Murray compiled for King George’s ministers in 1746 while a prisoner in the Tower of London, after the collapse of the last Jacobite Rising, Lochiel, he said, was ‘esteemed by everyone to be in private life a man of strict honour.’ N o one else in this otherwise servile review received any measure of praise, though Murray, educated at the universities of Edinburgh and Leyden, could not refrain from adding in his patronising way that

40

The Path to Glenfinnan while Lochiel had ‘pretty good understanding* he had ‘no learning.* In the long later years of his own shame, with every Jacobite voice against him, Murray never deviated from this respectful view of the Cameron chief. 1737 was also the year LochiePs literary-minded cousin, John Drummond of the Balhaldie family - he who had compiled the Inventarie of the charter-chest at Achnacarry - completed his Memoire o f Sir Ewen Cameron o f Locheill. The purpose of this biog­ raphy of the then chief’s grandfather, in John Drummond’s words, was ‘to make the Camerons renowned to all posterity for their loy­ alty, fidelity and extraordinary courage*; and indeed it did embody a history of the clan’s emergence down the centuries since the days of Donald Dhu as well, as display Sir Ewen as a ‘true and gallant patriot*. It happens that there survives the text of a letter of 1737 from John Drummond to Lochiel which reminded the Cameron chief that ‘you and your clan engaged among yourselves to the expenses of publishing it’, so it is scarcely to be doubted that this clan history was written with LochiePs encouragement, perhaps at his instigation. In all this, had Lochiel something in mind more than respect for his ancestors? For all the spirited part the clan had played under his grandfather’s leadership in the Glencairn Rising, and the latter’s skill in bringing together the clans to fight under Dundee in 1689, the Camerons had not suffered as grievously in the royal cause as the Macleans at Inverkeithing, the MacLeods at Worcester or Clan Donald at Killiecrankie. N or in the past had his grandfather’s (eminently sensible) accommodation with the Cromwellian garrison established at Inverlochy in the middle of his ‘country’ been alto­ gether overlooked by other royalists; at the restoration of Charles II the chief of the Glengarry MacDonells gained a peerage, but Ewen Cameron went unhonoured. Perhaps, too, Lochiel felt that some discreet glorification of the Cameron record was needed to counter the ribaldry thrown at the clan by Clan Donald neighbours in regard to its less than glorious part at Sheriffmuir. Along with her Gaelic indictment of the MacKenzies, Gordons, Atholl and Badenoch men who with the Camerons had made up the routed left wing of the Jacobite army at Sheriffmuir, Sileas na Ceapaich, the Keppoch poet­ ess, had had hard words for the clan in her song about the battle.

4i

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Fie upon you Lochiel. This is how your heroes went: running down the moor filled with fear and cowardice . . . A nameless Glengarry bard of these years was still more scathing, And when our enemy came closer, Clan Cameron broke away from us, They were running, they were trotting, They were skipping, they were leaping, Tearing at full speed down the glen; They deserted us at a bad time. In a fine flow of Gaelic invective, alluding to the supposed derivation of the clan’s name (Cameron = Cam Sron = twisted nose), to its ill reputation for cattle-thieving, and to cattle-thieving being all they were good for, he continued, Unless it was their noses being so twisted, That made them flee, Without displaying their valour. It was treachery . . . The cattle-thieves were chased, Across the boggy muir and quagmires And since they didn’t even catch any meat, They weren’t the slightest use to us. While, of course, Clan Donald on the right wing of the Jacobite army had worked wonders! The jibes seem to have rankled. Their Neighbours the McLeans, McDonalds and Stuarts used to upbraid them with being good Plunderers but bad Soldiers, ‘till about ioo years ago that Sir Evan Cameron their Chief, a Bold Resolute man, brought them to perform Considerable Feats against Cromwell and afterwards against King William at Killicrankey, but in his Son’s Time they behaved so shamefully at Sheriff Muir and were so often upbraided with their C ow ­ ardice and bad behaviour that the Scandal of this did not a little Contribute to make them Exert themselves in the Late Rebel­ lion, that they might (as they call’d it) Recover their Character.

4*

The Path to Glenftnnan So, in 1 750, wrote the knowledgeable David Bruce, as he looked back on the events of 1745 which had brought ruin on the clan and put its lands in the hands of his then employers, the Commissioners for the Forfeited Estates. To the legend of Montrose and the Jacobite legacy of Sir Ewen and his sons there had now been added the impulse of wounded pride. Three years after Glenbucket’s solo attempt to revive Jacobite hopes, Lochiel found himself at the heart of renewed Jacobite conspiracy. 1739 saw Great Britain at war again with Spain. At Rome, exiled Jacobites warmed themselves with the hope that this might presage armed intervention in King James’ interest by the Spanish monarchy and that France would join in. At Westminster there were matching fears that France might side with her sister Bourbon monarchy against Britain, and a nervous watch was kept on French troop movements on the other side of the Channel. In Scotland there was a flurry of Jacobite activity which erupted in a petition of March 1741 to Cardinal Fleury, Louis X V ’s near-nonagenarian chief minister; this pledged no less than a rising by 20,000 Highlanders in James’ cause if France sent her famous Irish Brigade of some 6,000 troops to provide a disciplined core for this Highland Army to be. This petition had been put together by an ‘Association’ marshalled by Lochiel’s cousin, William Drummond of Balhaldie, elder brother of the author of the Memoire o f Sir Ew en Cameron o f Locheill. After serving as liason between the Camerons and Old Lochiel after the ’Fifteen, and then as factor to the Lochiel estate for a while in the 1 720s, he had been ‘doer’ to Lord Lovat, and this no doubt helped him become whipper-in of the ‘Association’ . Lochiel was a signatory to the Association’s petition. So too were his elderly, now financially embarrassed, father-in-law Sir James Campbell of Auchinbreck; the youngish Catholic peer, the Duke of Perth; the still younger, likewise Catholic, Lord Linton who would soon succeed to the Peeblesshire earldom of Traquair; and Linton’s brother. But the principal player at this stage was the ebullient, widely distrusted Lord Lovat at the other end of the Great Glen from Achnacarry. Since his return to Scotland from Jacobite exile of a sort, to play a significant role at the head of his Frasers for King George I in the

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five ’Fifteen, Lovat had continued to be ostensibly Hanoverian in his politics; this, as he hoped, being the channel leading to preferment and influence. But this had not precluded his profession of Jacobite feeling to Allan Cameron in 1725. Lovat had been nationalistically indignant at the humiliation which government so clearly wished to heap on Scotland in the wake of the Porteous riot, privately voicing to Lochiel - one Inverness-shire chief to another - his wish that ‘events would restore the Chevalier’. B y 1737 he was also smarting at the ‘insult’ he had been dealt by government in the loss of his independent militia company with the power and patronage it gave him in the Highlands; and it was about this time that he had moved into the Jacobite camp, the court at Rome letting him know that he would be ‘the Duke of Fraser’ when the King came into his own again. With the petition of March 1741 which Balhaldie took across to France went a list of the clans which, so it was asserted, would draw 20,000 broadswords from their scabbards for King James’ cause. That winter Balhaldie was briefly back in Edinburgh to find that ‘the Association’ had widened into ‘the Concert of Gentlemen*. He spoke glowingly, perhaps too much so, of his reception by Cardinal Fleury. Lochiel was now called from Lochaber to be informed of this promising state of affairs. The ‘Concert of Gentlemen’ had found the more favour with the French court because Balhaldie was working in partnership with another ‘professional* Jacobite, Francis, Lord Sempill who claimed descent from the Renfrewshire Sempills raised to the peerage of Scotland as far back as the fifteenth century in the reign of King James III. There is no record of Sempill ever having visited Scotland. He was virtually a Frenchman, writing as easily in French as in English. He also had a cast of mind, moderate, temperate but devotedly Jacobite which made him immediately sympathetic to the exiled Stuart King. Compared with Balhaldie, Murray saw him as a ‘much smoother and more insinuating man.’ For good or ill Balhaldie would play an important part in Lochiel’s story. What manner of man was he? Lord John Drummond, the choleric brother of the Duke of Perth, writing about this time to James’ secretary at Rome, would have it that Balhaldie had come into the business of Jacobite conspiracy out of his poverty - ‘having

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The Path to Glenfinnan alwise been in low life he tried several different trades without success and [was] obliged to flee the country in danger of being taken up for a Fifty Pound note.’ Murray of Broughton would later sneer at Balhaldie as ‘a broken cheese and butter merchant . . . a jack of all trades, a bankrupt indebted to all the world . . . always in a passion, a mere bully, the most forbidding air imaginable/ This wordy onslaught was strung together in the long years after the ’Forty-Five when Murray sought to move to Balhaldie’s shoulders the responsibility (by rights his own) for the disaster to Scotland that Charles Edward’s coming had been. James at Rome, no mean judge of men, always liked and trusted Balhaldie. So, it seems, did Lochiel. To Murray’s diatribe Balhaldie would no doubt have responded that a lineage of Border bonnet-lairds was as nothing to the thousand-year-old ancestry of Clan Gregor, its motto S ’rioghal mo dhream, M y blood is royal. In his ninetieth year the Cardinal died, and so Sempill and Balhaldie lost the supposed champion of the Jacobite cause in Louis X V ’s conseil d yen haut. The hoped-for descent on the east of Scotland, to be wafted by the French navy from the great harbour of Dunkirk, did not materialise. Hope deferred made Highland hearts sick. B y now John Murray of Broughton had been brought into the conspiracy. As he now takes centre-stage in the drama of Lochiel’s life he too merits a closer look. Royalist in the Cromwellian wars, his family had sold their land at Broughton among the Peeblesshire hills to pay a Cromwellian fine; this was not quite recompensed by a baronetcy from King Charles II on his restoration. The first baronet’s son, Sir David, ‘a man of great worth and honour’, was out in the ’Fifteen, the year in which a younger son, John, was bom. Pardoned after the ’Fifteen, Sir David concentrated on developing the lead mines in the Argyllshire estate which he had bought next to Lochiel’s Sunart. After education at the universities of Edinburgh and Leyden and now twenty-three, John Murray married into Dumfriesshire gentry and bought back the estate of Broughton, though this stretched him financially. While on the continent he had visited the court at Rome and was soon enlisted as its link with the Lowlands. With Lochiel he now formed a partnership in conspiracy:

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Lowland laird and Highland chief. Murray’s papers, the M emorial which he compiled in the mid-1750s, and what has survived of other papers written during the ’Forty-Five, chart the progress of this partnership. While Murray had the more fertile intelligence, Lochiel had near to 1,000 swords at his command; only Murray’s nephew followed him from Tweeddale in the ’Forty-Five. B y the early months of 1743, as the conflict in Europe about the Austrian succession dragged on, and still there was no open war between France and Austria’s ally, King George’s Great Britain, for the first time we hear Lochiel’s own voice loud and clear. Some time in these months he wrote to Murray, ‘The Highlands have for so long a time been in hopes of something being done, and now seeing so fair an opportunity, will probably unless brought into action this summer or harvest give up all thought of ever seeing a Restoration.’ Those who were ‘least steady’, he warned, would be tempted to fall in with the all-powerful Argyll clique that they might join in the general scramble for place and preferment. But with ‘20,000 stand of arms, his Majesty or the Prince [the first mention here of Charles Edward, now twenty-two years old] with a good general’, Scotland was well able ‘to do the whole affair alone.’ N ow was the time to ‘strike a bold stroke for the King.’ Significantly, in this bold assertion that Scotland could go it alone Lochiel’s strategic vision was about the future of Scotland, rather than that of Great Britain. According to Murray, in those early months of 1743 Lochiel had shared his own view that the ousting of King George was an all-British necessity since under that monarch ‘the interest of Great Britain must ever be sacrificed to that of Hanover’, with the miserable prospect of the country being ruined by a vast standing army and ultimately the horror of military government. Such sentiments were no doubt voiced by Tory squires throughout England as the decanter went round as well as by Jacobite-minded gentlemen in Tweeddale and Lochaber - however shallow an interpretation it was of the attempts by King George’s ministers to keep the European balance of power in the interests of British colonial expansion in the Americas and India as well as in the interests of Hanover. But in Scotland there was something more, much more, to the general discontent. The sentiments given

46

The Path to Glenfinnan such passionate expression by Lockhart of Camwath in his history of the Union, that a thousand years of Scotland’s proud history (a rosy view indeed of her mediaeval past) had been wantonly thrown away in 1707, and that the evil Union must be rescinded - these would be Lochiel’s as well. B y 1743 Lochiel was taking over the lead from Lovat. The latter’s easy flowing correspondence with Achnacarry continued, treating Lochiel as a younger intimate and, indeed, at Edinburgh Lovat gave him the use of his house. When Lovat parted with his Campbell wife he confided T think myself in heaven since I was rid of her’ though the old reprobate insisted that he could ‘dance a minuet as well as I could these ten years past’ . He indulged in friendly chat: about elec­ tion matters and cattle prices after the hard winters that kept recur­ ring, and in not so friendly complaint about the thieving of the cattle from Fraser country by bad hats from Lochaber. There was condo­ lence on Lochiel’s loss of an infant daughter, knowledgeable advice when Lochiel’s sons went down with smallpox at Edinburgh (T am mighty glad that you employ’d D r Clerk and Mr Munro for these two are certainly the two greatest men in Europe in their employ­ ment*). But ‘though nothing this side of time can alter or diminish my [Jacobite] zeal’ , he wrote, ‘yet at present I have very little hope of success in the thing I desire most’, and to Lochiel he would shortly confide that he was of a mind to give up politicking altogether, indeed to quit Scotland. ‘I am fully resolved to leave Britain this summer for I can not live longer and see my country ruin’d before my eyes by a cursed set of people, who have neither conscience, honour or hon­ esty.’ It was all vintage Lovat, with his sinister, overbearing charm. Much of that year, as throughout the years of the ‘Concert of Gentlemen’, Lochiel spent in Edinburgh. There he again met his cousin Balhaldie, come across from Paris to further the flagging conspiracy. With Murray, Lochiel set about inviting Lord Kenmure into the Jacobite fold. With his estates in Galloway, Lord Kenmure, whose father had been beheaded for his part in the ’Fifteen, seemed to offer the possibility of winning over to the Jacobite cause the Cameronians, those dour ultra-Presbyterians of the South-West who still cherished the militant traditions of their Covenanting grandfathers; it would be recalled that the Cameronians had been

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five ready enough to join forces with the Jacobites in King James* cause at the time of the aborted Rising of 1708. Also with Murray, Lochiel opened fire on the Skye chief, Norman MacLeod, Jacobite in his sympathies though a member of King George's parliament at Westminster since 1741. And from the northern clans, ostensibly Whiggish but some, like so many Scots, Jacobites at heart, Lochiel sought to buy broadswords which had escaped General Wade*s less than totally effective disarming of the clans in 1725. As to the foundation of the conspiracy, Lochiel had no doubt that 20,000 warlike Highlanders would indeed rise if French help arrived, and he said so; though this assumed that virtually all the clans would rise, most Campbells in Argyll and Munros, Sutherlands and Mackays in the northern Highlands alone excepted. This was not fanciful; even in Argyll Old Lochiel had confidently expected the Campbells of Lochnell to rise for the Jacobite cause in the ’Fifteen, like the Breadalbane Campbells and those of Glenlyon, and Donald Lochiel’s own father-in-law was an Argyllshire Campbell as well as an ardent Jacobite. The MacKenzies had been out in the ’Fifteen and the ’Nineteen; so had the Macleans. There were others, like the Skye MacDonalds and MacLeods, of whom much was expected in 1743 who would remain quiescent in 1745. In the autumn months of 1743 Murray sought to persuade Lochiel to go to France in order to convince King Louis’ ministers that the Highland clans were ready to rise. But Lochiel did not go. Perhaps the seed of uncertainty about the whole venture was now germinating in his mind. Perhaps it was the chronic shortage of ready money. 1743 found the Duke of Perth in Yorkshire pressing his suit (unsuccessfully) with a wealthy heiress o f that county. Sir James Campbell of Auchinbreck’s perennial shortage of money had been temporarily relieved by a pension from Rome which Lochiel’s intercession had secured for his father-in-law, but he was now in further distress, a fire having destroyed his Loch Fyne-side house. As to the Jacobite clans, writing to King James at Rome some time during these months, Murray said that the estates of some were so encumbered by debt, naming specifically Glengarry, Clanranald, Stuart of Appin and MacDonell of Keppoch, ‘that they will be obliged either to sell their lands or conform to the government

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The Path to Glenfinnan through necessity/ Murray had already got wind of Alexander MacDonell of Keppoch having been in London to canvass a scheme by which he would raise an independent company to police the West Highlands in King George’s interest. This was the sort of conformity which he rightly feared. In that century of large families and gentlemanly aversion to trade, to be out of range of government preferment for self and sons was a grievous matter indeed. Murray could well have included Lochiel in the list of the financially embarrassed. A window on this is provided by the evidence that Donald Cameron of Clunes - Clunes only a mile from Achnacarry and Donald of Clunes Lochiel’s near contemporary - gave at the trial of Lochiel’s brother, John of Fassifern, in 1754. The authorities at that time were hounding the latter as pan of their purposeful breaking of Clan Cameron; to this end, with Lochiel’s estate forfeited, they sought to shew that Fassifern had misappropriated moneys from his elder brother in the years before the Rising. Donald of Clunes, under oath, was at pains to explain how matters had really stood. ‘About the year 1741 or 1742’, he deponed, Lochiel had borrowed money widely and ‘was always in straits’. Again, while Fassifern ‘was a considerable dealer, particularly in importing meat [meal?] to that country, in buying and selling cattle’ , and had ‘a Distillery of Spirits and was looked upon as a rich man’, his elder brother on the other hand ‘was understood to be in straitened circumstances, borrowing money wherever he could find it’ , including from Clunes himself, but particularly from Fassifern. Clunes went on to say, ‘that, himself, and several other of Lochiel’s friends were angry at Lochiel for borrowing so much money from his brother, because they apprehended Fassiefem might come at the greater part of his Brother’s estate’. How had this indebtedness arisen? Clunes’ evidence is illumin­ ating: ‘this was occasioned by his Expence about his house, by building parks, a Summer-House and making a fine garden, and by his great expence when he went away from home’ ; and in his frequent sojourns in Edinburgh, Lochiel was accompanied by his wife and family. Lochiel, said Clunes, ‘desired him not to mention to his lady any of the debts he was contracting, especially those that he was owing to his brother.’

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five What, indeed, did Lady Lochiel think of her husband’s politicking? She would be busy with her family of four boys and three girls, and pleased no doubt with the fine garden and treelined avenues around Achnacarry. But neither now nor later is there any indication that she shared the ardour of her husband’s Jacobitism. Other Jacobite ladies such as the laird of Mackintosh’s young wife, would be strong for the Cause (and that would provide the historical basis of the formidable Flora Maclvor in Sir Walter Scott’s W averley). But Ann Cameron may have been the hapless victim of events. The plight of the Jacobite clans of the Great Glen, including the Camerons, was made no easier by King James in Rome having made it known that ‘it was his Majesty’s pleasure that the chiefs of the clans should allow none of their men to leave the country’ ; and so the retention of numbers vastly in excess of what his land could support was a perpetual drain on a Jacobite laird’s meagre finances, given that the responsibility of buying in meal to sustain his people in the recurring seasons of dearth was not to be avoided. On the island of Islay, a Campbell laird had been finding his way out of this problem by easing out some of his Campbell tacksmen, assisting them and their people, the indigenous MacDonalds, MacDougalls and MacCormicks, to emigrate to New York Province and resettle there, the lands formerly held on tack being let in improving leases direct to tenant farmers. In 1735 some hundreds of Clan Cameron’s surplus population had sailed from the shores of Loch Linnhe for Jamaica, to find a new life - or an early death - there, with Lochiel’s younger brother Ewen. Lochiel had set his hand to some measures of agricultural improvement, building water-mills on his estate when these were a rarity in the Highlands, and making an ambitious attempt at drainage of the Corpach Moss, having a great ditch dug from Banavie Hill to the River Lochy. But to squeeze out the tacksmen, the gentlemen of the clan who would be the officers of the clan regiment when the day came, was a reform outwith his range of vision. And yet, as Adam Smith mused in The Wealth o f Nations, wondering at how closely Lochiel had come to being instrumental in overthrowing the Hanoverian monarchy, the rental of his estate was meagre indeed, and sadly in need of augmentation.

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The Path to Glenfinnan This chronic over-peopling of Cameron country seems to have had the effect of frustrating LochiePs earlier zeal, which Captain Burt had noted, to eliminate the practice of cattle thieving from the kindlier lands fringing the eastern Highlands. A population grossly in excess of what the glens and loch-side shores of Lochaber could sustain would inevitably turn to its old ways of lifting cattle from the Laigh of Moray. It had above all been the Loch Arkaig-side people said David Bruce, reporting to the Forfeited Estates Commissioners in 1 7 jo - who had persisted in their old ways which their chief could not eliminate: That part of LochiePs Estate that runs along the Side of Locharkeg is a Den of Thieves, they are instructed in this Villainous Trade from their Cradles and Hand it down as an Inheritance to Posterity, and tho’ the rest of the Camerons are not so Infamous as the Locharkeg People yet few of them are free from either Theft, Receipt or Concealment. Donald of Lochiel about 20 years ago made some Attempts to bring his People from Theft and Idleness; but some of his Neighbouring Chiefs prevailed upon him to allow his People to Continue in their Old way, as it was absolutely necessary for his men to be kept in the use of Arms if he intended to Contribute to the Glorious Cause of restoring the Stuart Family. And tho’ several persons who pretended to an intimate acquaintance with Lochiel extolled him as a man of great Honesty and Address, yet others who were better acquainted with his Schemes concluded that he protected his Clan in their Roguery. Against this jaundiced view is to be set the agreement entered into in 1744 between Lochiel, Keppoch (the Keppoch MacDonells were cattle-thieves par excellence), and Glengarry, all under the supervision of Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat as premier Clan Donald chief, to stamp out cattle-thieving from their domains. A letter in the Lochiel Papers suggests that the catalyst may have been Sir Alexander’s wrath at the depredations made by the Macmillans of Loch Arkaig as his herds moved from Skye to market at Crieff. The Scottish gentleman from somewhere on the fringes of the Highlands, whig in his sympathies (and so known today as ‘the whig historian’) 5i

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five but with friends in both camps, who wrote in 1747 an invaluable narrative of the ’Forty-Five, was sure that Lochiel’s wish to civilise his clan was sincere. Had it been otherwise, one may be certain that ‘great Duncan’ Forbes, the Lord President at Edinburgh, would not have thought so highly of him. Lochiel’s vexation at the cattle-thieving ways of some of his own people, and his exasperation at those of his immediate neigh­ bours, gleams through an anecdote in the M emorial Concerning the Highlands compiled by the minister of Inverness, apparently for government, in the immediate aftermath of Culloden. Writing of the Protestantism of the Camerons, he said that Lochiel’s brother, Alexander, by the 1740s a Roman Catholic priest and back in Scotland, had wished to preach the wickedness of their ways to the Loch Arkaig-side communities ‘and say Mass among them’. Following his conversion, Alexander had sent his brother a lengthy manuscript in which the voices of his Jesuit mentors at Douai can be heard, pleading that he too should come over for the good of his soul. Lochiel, one imagines, had been more than a little nettled at this. N ow , he would have none of his brother’s proselytising request, saying ‘that the people of Glengarry, Knoidart, Arkaig etc who were profest Papists were greater thieves than his people, and if he would bring these [the MacDonells] to be honest and industrious, he would then consider his proposal as to the Camerons.’ With Austria, aided by Great Britain, gaining the upper hand in the European conflict as 1743 came to a close, French ministers planned a master-stroke, an unheralded descent - war having not been formally declared - on the south coast of England by 20,000 troops, and a simultaneous diversionary landing by some 3,000 under command of the Earl Marischal on the east coast of Scotland. As word came in whispers that the long-awaited invasion was indeed to happen, there was a burst of Jacobite activity north of the Tweed; commissions of lieutenancy for regional government in King James’ interest had also been sent from Rome to Lovat ‘for all lands benorth the Spey’, to Sir James Campbell of Auchinbreck for Argyllshire, and to Lochiel for the Western Highlands. Prince Charles Edward, now an attractive twenty-four year old, travelled

5*

The Path to Glenfinnan to Paris from Rome in great secrecy in Balhaldie’s company. Posing as a loyal subject of King George, Murray of Broughton cheekily went into Edinburgh Castle to chat with its aged governor about government dispositions to meet the threat; then he made off to Drummond Castle, the Duke of Perth’s seat in Stratheam. From Drummond Castle to Lord George Murray’s Tullibardine Castle was no great distance. Lord George, who had been out in both the ’Fifteen and the ’Nineteen, was younger brother to the Whig Duke of Atholl at Dunkeld House and to the Jacobite Duke, the eldest brother, who had been living in exile and some poverty since the collapse of the ’Nineteen. The Duke of Perth now met Lord George who undertook to bring out the Atholl men; an honourable man forced into duplicity by circumstance, Lord George assured his brother that nothing would come of all this Jacobite stir. Lochiel, too, left Edinburgh for the Highlands ‘to put things on the best footing he could’. The February of 1744 saw him on Skye with Sir Alexander MacDonald who declared himself for King James to Lochiel at least. Had Louis X V and his ministers had the wit to use the threat of cross-Channel invasion from Boulogne to the Sussex coast as a feint, slipping the Earl Marischal and the renowned Irish Brigade to Scotland on Dunkirk privateers before the British Admiralty could put together an effective North Sea Squadron, there might well have been the insurrection by 20,000 Highlanders which the ‘Association’ had pledged in 1741. But Channel gales, the Royal N avy and the inherent difficulties of the project ensured that the cross-Channel invasion did not happen. N or was there any expedition to Scotland from Dunkirk. Scottish Jacobites were mortified. In the spring months of 1744 Murray wrote to King James at Rome emphasising that preparations for a Scottish rising were still in place; however his fellow leaders of the conspiracy had him go across to France to find out what, if anything, was afoot there. Their unease was reflected in the split in their attitudes when Murray returned from France in the summer of 1744 with the alarming report that while the French government’s invasion plans had been shelved, the Prince was set on coming to Scotland the following year ‘with but a single footman’ . This elicited from the Duke of Perth, ultra-royalist as ever, the view

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five that the Prince’s will, whatever that might be, must be complied with. But for Lochiel, common-sense had now prevailed. Departing from his earlier stance about Scotland’s ability to go it alone, he was now insistent that the Prince be told bluntly that if he could not come with French troops to provide a disciplined core to a Highland Arm y, he should not come at all. But all that winter Jacobite enthusiasm was at a high pitch. Along with Murray, young Lord Elcho, the heir to the feckless Jacobite-minded Earl of Wemyss, founded ‘the Loyal Club’ whose members were bound by a solemn oath to answer the call from the Prince when he came - with, of course, his 6,000 French troops. It was more than a matter of merely toasting ‘the King over the Water’ . Young Sir James Steuart of Goodtrees near Edinburgh and Coltness House in Lanarkshire was the intellectual inspiration. He, in the opinion of Elizabeth Mure of Caldwell, was ‘a Jacobite on Whig principles’ . N ot so much was said, one imagines, about that cornerstone of Jacobite theology, King James’ indefeasible hereditary right, though one could be wrong about this; three decades later that erstwhile Jacobite Samuel Johnson would explain to James Boswell that the Stuarts’ hereditary right to the throne he for one had looked on as the keystone to the whole necessary edifice of deference to rank and sacrosanct property rights. There would certainly be a good deal about Scotland’s diminished status under Hanoverian rule and the dominance of everything year in year out by the Argyll clique. In the chill of an Edinburgh winter, and the cosy joviality of an Edinburgh tavern, secrecy, conspiracy and patriotic longing would be a heady mixture. As, for example, on 23 February 1745, the Duke of York’s birthday. ‘There was a brilliant assembly that night’, Murray was to recall. After the dancing the gentlemen retired ‘to solemnize the night at Walker’s tavern’ with loyal toasts. That winter evening of 1745, he would also recall, many who were to lie low when September came, such as the Duke of Hamilton and the wealthy East Lothian laird, Nisbet of Dirleton, were free with their protestations of Jacobite loyalty. By now MacLeod had moved into the Jacobite camp, but his enlistment had its comic aspect. Lochiel and Murray met him in

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The Path to Glenfinnan an Edinburgh house to hand over a letter to him from the Prince - which MacLeod received ‘in a kind of rapture’ . They then joined the Earl of Traquair, Dugald Stewart of Appin and young Glengarry in another room. The chief of the Argyllshire MacDougals was also in the company. With the claret going round, MacLeod ‘called for a large glass and drank a bumper to Prince Charles’ . But Murray knew his man, ‘convivial, erratic irresponsible’ MacLeod, and asked Lochiel to call on his fellow chief the following morning to get from him a written promise of his engagement. Lochiel, too trusting, failed in this. MacLeod, he said, ‘was so frank and hearty that he was loth to ask anything from him in writing, lest he should think it was doubting his honour.’ Besides, Lochiel added, ‘as he continued to lye in bed, he thought it improper.’ Murray asked Lochiel to try again: this time he succeeded, but there could be no certainty that MacLeod, pulled one way by Duncan Forbes the Lord President, tugged the other way by Jacobite sentiment, would keep to his word. For his part, Lochiel was more and more concerned. Still there was no communication from France about the Prince’s intentions. That winter he had written to Charles Edward, presumably by means of a Leith trading-smack and Boulogne, offering to come across in person to explain how matters stood in Scotland; and, it is not to be doubted, to emphasise that if the Prince could not come at the head of a French army, he must not come at all. The Prince’s reply was intended to fob him off. To the go-between, Charles Smith, the Jacobite merchant at Boulogne, the Prince’s secretary George Kelly eventually wrote apologising for the delay, and saying that his royal master being uncertain of his movements ‘would not give him the trouble of such a journey at such a season.’ He continued, ‘H .R.H . therefore desires he may suspend it until he [Charles Edward] knows the [French] court’s intentions as to himself . . .’, and concluded, mendaciously, ‘. . . and then he may be sure of hearing further from him.’ That letter was written on 1 5 February 1745. Whether Smith ever received it may be doubted, as it has lain since that year among the British State Papers Domestic (what feat of espionage lies behind that!). Even if its purport was sent on by Smith to Lochiel in Edinburgh, it could not have reached there by 22 February, the

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five day before the roistering in Walker’s Tavern, on which day Lochiel wrote again to the Prince in the rudimentary code used for such correspondence, and using his habitual codename ‘Dan’. As an example of the amateurish way treasonable correspondence was conducted it is worth quoting: I had the honour to write to 1992 1719 1274 1451 [Your Royal Highness] some time ago, in a packett sent by Mr Barclay [Murray] which, could ane opportunity been gott, would have gone much sooner and now, leaste the manner of Conveyance prove more tedious than I imagined, I lay hold on the present occasion to assure 1992 1719 1274 1451 [Your Royal Highness] of my steady adherence to whatever may conduce to the Interest of 92 1148 [The Royal Family] And at the same time to observe that as the 1754 [Season] is now m i 1778 [Far] advancing and we [torn] as yett no return from 1492 [our neighbours of] [tom] 1489 307 [England] I humbly beg leave to propose to 1992 1719 1274 1451 [Your Royal Highness] how far it is now necessary that we be informed of what is to be expected from the French and how soon, from which we may have it in our power to settle matters so as will enable us to make that assistance to 1992 1719 1274 1451 [Your Royal Highness] our duty and inclination direct. He then added an apology for troubling the Prince since his letter duplicated one of Murray’s, but said ‘as we are all of us wishfing] to know our fate, I could not get by it’. Murray now sent an ineffective message to dissuade the Prince from an unaccompanied Scottish adventure, but he blunted what effect it might have had by asking him to appoint lords-lieutenant for the counties of Lowland Scotland against the day of his coming. And in these spring months of 1745 Murray also busied himself by laying up a stock of broadswords and targes which - he would recall with satisfaction during the course of the Rising - were put to good use on the field of Prestonpans that autumn. In May 1745 Murray had word - via Charles Smith the Jacobite merchant at Boulogne, and a Leith trading sloop - that the Prince S*

The Path to Glenfinnan ‘was determined to come by the west coast to the Isle of Ouist [Uist] or Mull and hoped to be there in June’ . N o word of French troops, but the message went on to say that the Prince would bring some money and arms to set the campaign going. A few days later and there slipped into Leith Sir Hector, the distinguished, landless chief of the Macleans of Duart. He, said Murray, ‘immediately acquainted me with the Prince’s intended voyage and the signals he was to make’ (for recognition). Within the week Sir Hector, dallying too long in the Canongate, had been clapped into Edinburgh Castle where he was to remain throughout the Rising. Here was an alarming indication of the strength of government intelligence. (But could the identity of any newcomer be kept secret for long in old Edinburgh of the high lands and narrow wynds?) Though they had long been tenantry of the Duke of Argyll, the Macleans of Mull still looked on Sir Hector as their rightful chief. The Prince also relied on him to clinch the Stuart loyalties of the Skye chiefs by sheer force of his personality. As word quickly spread of his arrest Jacobite hopes were shaken; but Murray maintained his semblance of uncon­ cern, riding to the West from Edinburgh to seek out the Duke of Hamilton at his magnificent palace next to the old burgh of Hamilton, then on to Sir James Steuart’s Coltness House. With the Lanarkshire gentry duly alerted, Murray rode northwards, Lochiel having already been forewarned by the Duke of Perth that the game was afoot. For Lochiel, this was the moment of truth. Among those few of his papers which survived the May of 1746 there is a draft letter, heavily corrected, written apparently by Lochiel to the Duke of Perth the day after news came from Drummond Castle that the Prince was on his way. Its sense of foreboding is all too clear: I had the honour of your letter late last night and carefully perused the papers you sent inclosed, the contents wherof gives me the outmost concern. I find everything so strangely concerted, I am sorry to say, in such a confused undigested manner, that I don’t know what judgement to form of it, or

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Lochiel o f the 'Forty-Five what measures to take. The principall person [the Prince] is not to be blamed, but whoever advised him to undertake itt (without anyone thing, that I can see, prepared for that purpose) has a great deal to answer for; I am at a loss how to act, as no particular directions have been sent me, there is a necessity of communicateing the affair to some, but I am very much affrayed, from the Melancholy Circumstances of it, and how it is Conducted, it will appear to them in ane odd light, and have the Contrary effect on them from what could be wished. Voicing his exasperation at Sir Hector Maclean’s imprisonment, at the lack of clarity as to whether the Prince would come to Mull or Uist, islands separated from each other by a good forty miles of sea, and at the apparent want of a General to command, a distraught Lochiel continued, It is most unlucky that S; H [Sir Hector] is seised, who, no doubt, had more full instructions than what is contained in the letter, particularly as to the reception of the principall person expected, for I observe three or four different harbours named at great distances the one from the other, and not one particular place pitched upon, nor no persons named to attend in those separate Islands to watch the signall con­ descended on, besydes, in my humble opinion, not one of them harbours shou’d have been fix’d on. I observe Likewise that there is no man of consequence or experience named to conduct the affair. Besydes the Countrey, espicially the Isles are destitute of all sortt of provisions and some of the poor people have actually died allready for want of food. Every thing considered, I fear the Consequence, but I pray God it may turn out contrary to the present idea I have of itt, I shall endeavour to act in the best manner I can and in the most Cautious and [illegible] and what further Commands you may have occasion hereafter to honour me with, pray send some other than the bearer as he has been so often here.

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The Path to Glenfinnan Murray travelled north incognito, ‘Afraid lest my going at that time should create suspicion in the country people, being alarmed at Sir Hector Macleane’s being taken into custody, and as they are naturally an artful inquisitive people . . . I went under a borrowed name, and pretended to be come from England to buy wood’ . Two days later he reached the house in Glen Spean of Alexander MacDonell of Keppoch who had in turn already been alerted by Lochiel about the Prince’s coming. ‘I begged him [Keppoch],’ says Murray, ‘to get things in as much forwardness as the time and circumstances would permit.’ Others might be dismayed at the turn of events; Murray was clear in his own mind that the long awaited Rising must now take place. His narrative continues, I set out next day to Lochyell’s house at Achnacarry, but being known there by all the family, I stopped at an Inn about a mile from the house, and sent a Gentleman, who had gone with me as a guide, to acquaint Lochyell of my arrival. He soon after met me in his garden and told me, he had received the letter by express from the Duke of Perth, and sent it by his brother (the Doctor) to Lord Lovat, with whom Macleod then was, and expected he would return the next day. A t first Lochiel feigned disbelief. Surely the Prince would not be so rash as to come on his own? Contrary to the thoughts he had committed to paper the day after he heard the news, he said, according to Murray, He had not looked upon the letter as very material, not imagining the Prince was yet determined to come to Scotland, having had no prior intelligence from him for so many months, nor any accounts from Lord Traquair; which he could not allow himself to think would have been the case, had he been resolved to come over, as the English would have been informed of it, and acquainted us by Traquair what part they were to act. Murray quickly dispelled these hopes; the Earl of Traquair had failed to deliver to the Prince the final dissuasive letter from the Scottish Jacobites. 59

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five I then repeated every particular circumstance which had hap­ pened from the time of his [Lochiel’s] leaving Edinburgh, in the month of February, especially the fate of the letters sent by Traquair: and argued from thence, that his coming was certain, his letter being so explicit as even to mention the signals he intended to make, and likewise from his having sent Sir Hector Macleane before with dispatches, and orders about the signals. With astonishing irresponsibility, Murray was free with assurances of English support: I also observed, that though Traquair had failed us, yet there was no reason to doubt the English would appear: they had been long engaged in the affair, had given assurances the year before; and therefore it was not to be imagined they had so little regard for their own honour as to sit still, if he [the Prince] was once amongst them: nor was it to be doubted but their agents had informed him of every thing that had passed, though Traquair had said nothing to us. If this resolution to land in Scotland was disagreeable to them, they would most certainly have made remonstrances against it; and would likewise have acquainted us not to depend upon them. Murray now played his trump card; an appeal to Lochiel’s high sense of honour. I then freely gave it as my opinion, that considering his Royal Highness had advertised his friends here of his design so many months before, and though they had objected to his coming without troops, yet they nevertheless engaged to join him; so taking things in that light, I did not see how they could in honour excuse themselves. To this the Cameron chief replied that ‘he did not see how any man of honour could get off, especially those who had been the first movers of the whole’ . There, as he walked with Murray in his new garden at Achnacarry, the trap shut on Lochiel. * * *

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The Path to Glenfinnan Thirty-six years later, John Home, one of the leading Edinburgh literati and greatly daring in King George I ll’s North Britain in contemplating the writing of a history of the ’Forty-Five which would incorporate Jacobite recollections, met John Cameron of Fassifem, Lochiel’s sole surviving brother. His purpose was to discuss Lochiel’s ‘capitulation’ to Charles Edward on 30 Ju ly 1745, two months after his meeting with Murray at Achnacarry. A mention of Lochiel’s impulsive yielding to the Prince had already appeared in the account of his Highland tour of 1769 by Thomas Pennant, the intelligent and sensitive gentleman traveller from Denbigh. Lochiel, wrote Pennant perceptively, was esteemed by all parties the honestest and most sensible man of any that embarked in the pernicious and absurd attempt of that and the preceding year, and was a melancholy instance of a fine understanding and a well-intending heart, over-powered by the unhappy prejudices of education. . . The Pretender came to him as soon as ever he landed. Lochiel seeing him arrive in so wild a manner, and so unsupported, entreated him to desist from an enterprize from which nothing but certain ruin could result to him and his partizans. The adventurer grew warm, and reproached Lochiel with a breach of promise. This affected him so deeply, that he instantly went and took a tender and moving leave of his lady and family, imagining he was on the point of parting with them for ever. Pennant had travelled along the military road through Cameron country. Perhaps his informant was Fassifern himself, then quite recently returned from the exile across the Border which had been imposed on him by government in its attempt to break the Clan Cameron. N ow twelve years later Home wanted to hear from the aged Fassifern what detail he could recall of his brother’s fateful yielding to the Prince. He was amply rewarded. In response to the Prince’s second summons to meet him Lochiel had set out from Achnacarry at first light on the morning of 30th July. It was still early morning when he called at the porch of Fassifern House, above the shore of

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five the loch. His brother who came out immediately asked, What was the matter that had brought him there at so early an hour? Lochiel told him that the Prince was landed at Boradale, and had sent for him. Fassefem asked, What troops the Prince had brought with him? what money? what arms? Lochiel answered, that he believed the Prince had brought with him neither troops, nor money, nor arms; and, therefore, he was resolved not to be concerned in the affair, and would do his utmost to prevent Charles from making a rash attempt. Fassefem approved his brother’s sentiments, and applauded his resolution; advising him, at the same time, not to go any further on the way to Boradale, but to come into the house, and impart his mind to the Prince by letter. N o, said Lochiel, I ought at least to wait upon him, and give my reasons for declining to join him, which admit of no reply. Brother, said Fassefem, I know you better than you know yourself. If this Prince once sets his eyes upon you, he will make you do whatever he pleases. Since Murray’s visit to Achnacarry, while Moidart was buzzing with Jacobite enthusiasm, Lochiel, it seems, had come to recognise that wiser counsel ought to prevail. But later that day his brother’s misgivings were to prove correct. It seems likely that it was also from Fassifem that John Home got his account of the Prince’s meeting with Lochiel. This he may have embroidered a little. It seems unlikely that the Prince would so roundly criticise the coldness of the French when the success of rebellion must depend heavily on French support. If Voltaire, then the French King’s historiographer, is to be believed, Charles Edward had had tacit encouragement from Cardinal Tencin of Louis’ Conseil d ’en hunt. But there is little doubt that the Prince would have said that he had come in response to ‘the promises of his father’s faithful subjects’ ; that Lochiel would have countered this by pointing to Charles Edward having come without the stipulated support; and that the Prince would say that there would never be more favourable opportunity for a Rising, with the British Army in Flanders and recently beaten by the French at Fontenoy. As will be seen, other accounts of this crucial day corroborate that Lochiel, playing for time, then asked the Prince 62

The Path to Glenfinnan to remain concealed until ‘his other friends might meet together and consent to what was best to be done\ Home now came on to the high point of his whole narrative, Charles Edward’s reponse to Lochiel’s suggested delay, Charles, whose mind was wound up to the utmost pitch of impatience, paid no regard to this proposal, but answered, that he was determined to put all to the hazard. In a few days, (said he,) 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 over to claim the crown of his ancestors, to win it, or to perish in the attempt: Lochiel, who, my father had often told me, was our firmest friend, may stay at home, and learn from the newspapers the fate of his prince. N o, said Lochiel, I’ll share the fate of m y prince; and so shall every man over whom nature or fortune hath given me any power. Home’s comment on this was, ‘Such was the singular conversation on the result of which depended peace or war. For it is a point agreed among the Highlanders that if Lochiel had persisted in his refusal to take arms, the other chiefs would not have joined the standard without him, and the spark of rebellion must have instantly expired.’ Most other aspects of the ’Forty-Five have at one time or another been fought over by historians, but not this account of Lochiel’s impulsive action. This was, we may be sure, for many years the talk around many a Scottish dinner-table; for one, Boswell would write in 1791 that Lochiel had been ‘of too heroic a spirit not to venture his life and fortune in the cause, when personally asked by him whom he thought his Prince’ . In asserting that the other chiefs were looking to Lochiel for a lead and would not stir without it, Home appears to be repeating what James Maxwell of Kirkconnel, a Dumfriesshire laird in the Prince’s cavalry, was to say in his (then) manuscript narrative of the Rising. However, Murray of Broughton who was soon to join the Prince at Kinlochmoidart was better able to find out what actually had happened on that crucial 30 July on Le du Teillay. In the account of the early months of the Rising he compiled some eleven years later as part of his

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five self-justificatory Memorials he put more emphasis on Lochiel’s wise attempt to play for time. Lochiel, he said, had assured the Prince ‘of his readiness to join him with his followers’ but told him that, it would be necessary he should for some time keep private, till his friends had put themselves in a capacity to join him, which they could not do immediately, being unprovided with many things necessary of such an enterprise, that there was great scarcity of provisions in the Country the former year’s Crop having failed them and that as none of the heads of Tribes had been let into the Secret it would be necessary to have them Conveened and proper instructions given them to assemble their followers and depends [sic] all which would not be done on a sudden. But Charles Edward, ‘easily foreseeing the bad consequences that must attend a delay, a proceeding which did not at all suite with his enterprising genius, and who was perfecdy well instructed in the nature of the Highlanders, knew how dangerous it was to give them time to reflect upon the dangers of the undertaking.’ On 6 August he wrote to the Highland chiefs requiring their presence at Glenfinnan on the 19th or as soon thereafter as possible and ‘furthwith dispatched the frigate whereby all hopes of his return vanishd.’ Le du Teillay was sent back to France. On 8 August, after a week of blessed idleness for Darbe and his crew fishing for oysters and picnicking ashore, she embarked cattle and sheep for the return voyage. And so Lochiel was out-manoeuvred. The departure of the little frigate made the Rising inevitable. The affront to Highland pride of the Prince being captured by a sally from Fort William or by the Furnace sloop of the Royal Navy which had come into these waters from the Clyde, would seem greater with every day that passed, the Lord President and the Lord Justice Clerk in Edinburgh now having firm intelligence from the Argyllshire Campbells of the stir in Moidart. Lochiel’s own account of events in the newly discovered Memoire d*un Ecossaisy written in the spring of 1747, corroborates this. Its text here merits a close look.

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The Path to Glenfinnan The arrival of the Prince of Wales in such an unexpected fashion astonished and alarmed all faithful subjects of the King his father. They told him that it would be impossible for them to take up arms for him with any chance of success without the help that they had requested; and they begged him to go back and wait until he could obtain it. But the Prince told them that he had resolved to perish rather than put up with such a humiliation, and that he had only come with such a small band of supporters and so poorly supplied to give them the opportunity to display the zeal they had always professed. One wonders again - had the Prince and his small band of supporters ever come clean about the disaster that had befallen U Elisabeth, and the loss of the great quantity of munitions of war she carried? If the Highlanders now gave proof of their Jacobite zeal the King of France, so Charles Edward assured Lochiel, ‘would give them all the help they needed’ : On the other hand if they allowed their Prince to perish, he who had thrown himself on their mercy, they would earn for themselves eternal shame and would persuade all Europe that the Royal House of Stuart no longer had friends in Scotland, and that the Scots had fallen away from the bravery displayed by their ancestors. Three weeks passed in argument on one side and the other but, at last, Mr Cameron of Lochiel, alive above all else to the danger to which the Prince’s person was exposed, came out in his support along with the majority of his people whom he made take up arms. The example of the Camerons, who count for a lot in the Highlands, brought in some neighbouring clans, . . .’ Note the reference to ‘three weeks’ of argument and indecision, that is, virtually the whole period from the Prince’s arrival on 25 July until the raising of the standard at Glenfinnan on 19 August. N o indication here, as every historian of the event since Pennant has maintained, of Lochiel’s meeting with the Prince on 30 July having ended all debate. And, as if to reinforce this description of Lochiel’s reluctance to support the Prince, the opening, introductory

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Lochiel o f the "Forty-Five paragraphs of Memoire d ’un Ecossais make the same point: ‘after making fruitless attempts to persuade H .R .H . to go back to where he came from, Lochiel was in the end alarmed at the dangerous position in which His Royal Person was placed, and brought out nine hundred of his clan/ There is a curious passage entered by Bishop Forbes in 1752 in his notebooks of Jacobitiana which would later comprise The Lyon in Mourning. ‘I had/ wrote Forbes, ‘oftener than once heard the Viscountess Dowager of Strathallan tell that Lochiel, junior, had refused to raise a man, or to make any appearance till the Prince should give him security for the full value of his estate in the event of the attempt proving abortive/ The occasion of this entry in The Lyon was a conversation Forbes had that day with young Glengarry, who had been intercepted on his way to Scotland from France by the Royal Navy and then spent the months of the "Forty-Five incarcerated in the Tower of London. On mentioning Lady Strathallan’s assertion, ‘young Glengarry answered that it was a fact, and that the Prince himself after returning to France had frankly hold him as much . . . “ For,” said the Prince, “ I must do the best I can in my present circumstances to keep my word to Lochiel.” " Bishop Forbes" entry in The Lyon in Mourning has more to say about this. Lochiel, said young Glengarry, made it another condition before he would join in the attempt, which was that Glengarry, senior, should give it under his hand to raise his clan and join the Prince. Accordingly Glengarry, sen­ ior, when applied to upon the subject, did actually give it under his hand that his clan should rise under his own second son as Colonel, and MacDonald of Lochgarry as Lieutenant-colonel. Then, indeed, young Lochiel was gratified in all his demands, and did instantly raise his clan. Lady Strathallan may well have been simply repeating what young Glengarry was saying; and Glengarry’s information came from Donald MacDonell of Lochgarry who on the former’s release from the Tower in 1747 apparently sent him a lengthy and puffed-up narrative of the part the Glengarry MacDonells had played in the Rising. That narrative asserted that in the early days of August 66

The Path to Glenfinnan 1745, weeks before the standard was raised at Glenfinnan, Lochiel and Keppoch met Lochgarry, the senior figure in the clan in the absence of his indolent chief and in the absence abroad of his heir. ‘Lochiel and Keppoch’, Lochgarry recorded in this narrative, ‘told me that in case Glengarie’s wou’d not join they wou’d return to the Prince, and plainly tell him that their joining wou’d only expose his Royll person . . . They were positive not to join except I wou’d raise Glengarie’s men.’ This narrative by Lochgarry, ‘a very dark man’ in nature as a contemporary saw him, was an attempt to prove that Clan Donald, and in particular its Glengarry branch, was central to the beginnings and the course of the ’Forty-Five. N o mention is made of Lochiel or Clan Cameron, the Glengarry MacDonells’ age-old rivals. It has to be considered suspect evidence as has also any statement by his young chief, the duplicitous Alasdair Ruadh; and it is best laid aside. But the evidence of Murray and the Memoire d yun Ecossais cannot be so disregarded, though in this it does not detract from the essential drama which John Home and Thomas Pennant recognised. Other considerations —the standing of Clan Cameron with its Clan Donald neighbours, and Lochiel’s own financial embarrassment from having kept the clan ruinously at war-strength and all at King James’ behest — these would be peripheral. It was the pull between simple prudence and Lochiel’s own high sense of honour which was the heart of the matter. At Edinburgh, on one of these early days of August, Lord President Forbes ‘in his boots to go north’ was showing Sir John Cope, commander-in-chief of King George’s forces in Scotland, a letter he had received informing him ‘that the Pretender’s son had lately come on the coast of Uist at Barra.’ Similarly, about then Lord Elcho was being informed by Murray of the Prince having landed at Moidart. On his way to Wemyss Castle on the other side of the Firth on 9 August there to consult his Jacobite father, Elcho met Forbes, who for a certainty would have known of his Jacobite inclinations and perhaps also guessed the purpose of his young friend’s journey. Elcho would later recall what passed between

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five the two on the crossing from Leith to Kinghom: ‘He told me as a piece of news that the Prince had landed in Scotland and that he was on his way to prevent, so far as he could, the chieftains from joining him. But he had little hope of success knowing their zeal for the Stuart Cause.’ Elcho pretended that this was news to him, as Duncan Forbes went on to say that ‘for this he was truly sorry, for the Prince could only kindle a fire of straw which would be quickly put out by General Cope and which would end by the ruin of very many honourable gentlemen whose fate he deplored. Amongst others he referred to the Duke of Perth and Mr Cameron of Lochiel/ Arrived at Culloden House, his country seat near Inverness, Forbes found a letter of 11 August from Sir Alexander MacDonald, written from Talisker in Skye. It gave him no comfort. ‘Young Clanranald is deluded/ wrote Sir Alexander, ‘notwithstanding his assurances to me lately; and what is more astonishing Lochiel’s prudence has quite deserted him/ To Cope, that day at Edinburgh preparing for his northward march, Forbes wrote about the chief whom he knew was at the eye of the gathering storm. ‘That Lochiell should play the madman in this matter surprises me, and I have still some faint hopes it is not true, tho’ I have been by some well-wishers of his informed that he has absconded for some time upon hearing that a warrant was put out against him/ Here is an important piece of history which, for all that has been written about the ’Forty-Five, has somehow eluded historians. In June an unsuccessful attempt had been made by the authorities in Edinburgh to arrest the Duke of Perth, the Lord Justice Clerk having been properly alarmed at what Sir Hector Maclean’s papers had disclosed about the imminence of the Prince’s coming. This letter of the Lord President’s indicates that a warrant was also put out for the arrest of Lochiel. Reflecting that this might have driven Lochiel still nearer the edge Duncan Forbes added, ‘I wish no such warrant had ever been issued.’ Perhaps it was not too late to extricate Lochiel from the morass. Ewen Macpherson of Cluny, chief of his clan, was Lochiel’s cousin and also a captain in the new Highland regiment that Lord Loudoun was raising for government service. Forbes at Inverness now moved 68

The Path to Glenfinnan Cluny to intercede with Lochiel. The outcome was given in a letter of these August days from Cluny to his commander-in-chief: At my Lord President’s desire I have sent a gentleman on a message to the Laird of Lochiel with his, and my, serious friendly advice for making him withdraw from the Pretender’s son’s partie who now begins to be formidable pretty close in this neighbourhood. All the answer I have is the inclos’d prints’ [presumably sheets of Jacobite propaganda Murray had brought north with him]. If there was still indecision in their minds, events were now to force the hands of Lochiel and his fellow chiefs; and it was the British army’s attempted reinforcement of Fort William and Fort Augustus in anticipation of the main force coming north under its commander-in-chief in Scotland, Sir John Cope, which was the catalyst. Thirty years before this, at the outset of the ’Fifteen, a lively con­ cern at what retribution a Fort William garrison might wreak on the clans of the Great Glen had been much in Old Lochiel’s mind; even before Wade’s road linking the forts of the Great Glen had been built, Achnacarry had been only a morning’s march from Fort William. N ow in August 1745 there was danger that a reinforced garrison there would threaten the safety of the Prince himself. It happened that in the course of the meeting that Lochiel and Keppoch had with Donald MacDonell of Lochgarry, as the latter recalled, word came from the Jacobite surveillance kept over government forces in the Highlands ‘that there were three companyss of George’s forces to march from Inverness to Fort William, and other three of the same to march from Ruthven of Badenoch [Ruthven Barracks on the Spey] to escorte provisions to Fort Augustus.’ It was agreed there and then that Keppoch should attack the Fort William reinforcement, with Lochiel in readiness to support him; and that Lochgarry should take his men up the military road which ran southward from Fort Augustus to intercept the party from Badenoch. And it was while Lochgarry lay in ambush at the Corryarrack pass that the first act of hostility of the ’Forty-Five took place. On 14 August the commander at Ruthven, a Captain Switenham of Guise’s, on his way to advise

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Locbiel o f the 'Forty-Five the Fort William garrison on the strengthening of their defences, was ambushed and made prisoner. The act of rebellion from which there could be no turning back now followed. The provisioning party from Ruthven Barracks did not appear. But the reinforcement of Fort William was attempted on 1 6 August by two companies of the ist of Foot. This almost caught Keppoch’s men on the hop. The ‘Scotch Royals’ were within two hours’ march of their destination when they were turned back at High Bridge, where Wade’s road crossed the rocky bed of the Spean, by a scratch force of a mere dozen of Keppoch’s men under Donald MacDonell of Tiendrish, his piper skirling away in the background to put fright into Lowland hearts. Harassed by increasing numbers of Keppoch’s men, the redcoats retreated along the road by Loch Lochy-side towards Fort Augustus. Half-way there they were attacked by a force of Glengarry’s clan; a few more were killed and the rest compelled to surrender. Lochiel, informed by Keppoch of the happening at High Bridge, had hastened up the west side of Loch Lochy to join in the fight, but found on arrival some eighty redcoat prisoners, several of them wounded, including Captain Scot, their commanding officer and son of a Fife laird. Lochiel had the prisoners brought to Achnacarry. While the Camerons, bubbling with excitement, stood guard over the disconsolate prisoners, a little sub-plot to the main drama was being played out by Lieutenant Ferguson of the Scots Royals and his platoon sergeant. That day Ferguson had had on him some £59 sterling in Bank of Scotland notes when (as he was to explain to the Bank’s wary officials in Edinburgh three weeks later) ‘about ten o’clock in the morning near High Bridge in Lochaber the two additional companies of the Royall Regiment were met by a far superior [sic] force of the Rebells’. To keep his money out of rebel hands the lieutenant ‘thought the best and readiest way to secure the same was to tear off the numbers of the notes’. This he did in the intervals of fire, and stuffed the numbers in the lining of his coat, ‘giving several pieces of the bodys of the notes to Sergeant Johnstone.’ The sergeant, who by 10 September had also found his way back to Edinburgh, corroborated his lieutenant’s story. He indeed had seen him ‘in the intervals of firing destroy several bank 70

The Path to Glenfinnan notes’ . The lieutenant had given him ‘several pieces of the said notes after they were tom and destroyed and desired me to keep them.’ But Sergeant Johnstone had not grasped what was in his lieu­ tenant’s mind. The pieces he had been given, though worthless in themselves, had to be presented along with the note numbers if they were to be honoured by the Bank. However ‘suspecting the pieces of the notes might be of use to the enemy [he] threw the same away.’ When they halted at Achnacarry under Cameron guard Lieutenant Ferguson asked Johnstone ‘what had become of the pieces of notes,’ and Johnstone replied that he had thrown them away. At this, Sergeant Johnstone told the Bank officials ‘Lieutenant Ferguson seemed to be angry with him saying that he was undone.’ The lieutenant had good reason to be dismayed. £60 sterling in 1745 had the present day equivalent of probably around £5,000. However the sub-plot was to have a happier ending than the rebellion which had that day been launched. After some anxious months of humming and hawing and eventual intervention by King George’s commander-in-chief in Scotland, the Bank paid up. The Spean at High Bridge was the Jacobite Rubicon. Three days later the Prince’s red and white standard was raised at Glenfinnan before young Clanranald’s men, Keppoch’s 300 and Lochiel’s 700.

7i

IV

cThe Noble Attempt’ ‘TV T ever have I seen anything so quaintly pleasing as the march of

JL this troop of Highlanders as they descended a steep mountain by a zig-zag path’ Sir John MacDonald would write, remembering that day at Glenfinnan and the march of the Cameron men as they came down the hillside to the shores of Loch Shiel, the prisoners of the Scotch Royals between their ranks. But after the standard of red and white silk has been raised, the Prince had made a ‘short but very pathetick speech’, the casks of brandy from L e du Teillay broached to drink King James’ health, and Miss Jeannie Cameron had presented to the Prince her nephew’s contingent from Sunart, Lochiel took Sir John aside to confess to him ‘that never having had the opportunity of seeing armies, he knew little of military affairs but would take counsel of those of us who had experience in such matters.’ Appoint a second-in-command who can impose proper military organisation throughout the regiment, was Sir John’s advice, and then was dismayed to find that his counsel was not immediately followed. Colonel O ’Sullivan was equally perplexed. ‘All was confused’, was his comment on the Highland Army at this the outset of the ’Forty-Five, in the narrative of the campaign he produced for King James at Rome two years later. O ’Sullivan like Sir John had strongly recommended the formation of companies of uniform size, ‘but that,’ he recalled, ‘could not be followed. They must go by tribes. Such a 7*

The Noble Attempt’ chief of a tribe had sixty men, another thirty, another twenty more or less. They wou’d not mix nor separate . . . They wou’d follow their own w ay.’ Little by little, O ’Sullivan went on to say, matters were ‘brought to a certain regulation’. When this took effect, the Clan Cameron regiment was seen to have two lieutenant-colonels, that is, Lochiel’s brother Doctor Archie, and his uncle Ludovic Cameron of Torcastle. Next came Major Alexander Cameron of Dungallon who was also standard-bearer to the Prince. Other gentlemen of the clan made up its seven captains, its adjutant, and its fourteen subalterns. Lochiel’s Roman Catholic brother, the Reverend Alexander Cameron SJ, was a chaplain; the regiment also had an episcopalian as well as a presbyterian chaplain. This last was Mr John Cameron who was to be by Lochiel’s side in the months of flight and concealment after Culloden. Though referred to by the episcopalian Robert Forbes in The Lyon in Mourning as ‘a presbyterian preacher and late chaplain at Fort William’ his status is unclear. The Church of Scotland’s Fasti Ecclesiae Scotticanae does not include his name, so perhaps he was an itinerant preacher as well as one of the clan’s gentry. In all, Lochiel’s tolerant approach to religion was in marked contrast to that of the Protestant Keppoch chief. Early on in the Rising, Keppoch would bring about large desertions from his mainly Catholic following by denying them a padre of their own religion. Missing from the regimental roll-call was Lochiel’s brother, John of Fassifern. As befitted a man of business and a burgess of Glasgow he was resolved to have nothing to do with the Rising and had taken himself off to the company of his Campbell relatives in Breadalbane. When the little Highland Army on its march halted at tree-girt Fassifern on 23 August, its laird was not there. As Sir John MacDonald noted, ‘We found however his wife and other ladies who received H .R.H . and sustained him to the best of their abilities, at Lochiel’s direction.’ That evening, did the Prince dazzle the Cameron ladies with the pink waistcoat with gold buttons which he left behind at Fassifern? Such then was Lochiel’s regiment which set out from Glenfinnan in company with Keppoch’s men and some of Clanranald’s on its long-remembered eastward march to join up with the MacDonells 73

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five of Glengarry. It would be to some extent uniformly clad; in the months before the Rising Lochiel had ordered plaids from Glasgow for his men (how we would wish to know what, if any, tartan was specified!). But, as O ’Sullivan recalled, it was ‘ill-arm’d.’ N or by reason of the awfulness of Highland tracks was it able to take with it the small cannon from Le du Teillay nor ‘a great part of our pouder and bal, picaxes, shouvels, hatcheds etc, that we could not get the men to carry.’ It also lacked meal to feed its numbers; what little there was in Moidart had been left behind to sustain the womenfolk and others. And, crucially, it lacked a general. Although eighteen months past Lord George Murray had told the Duke of Perth that he would bring out the Atholl men if there were to be a simultaneous Rising in Scotland, there can have been no certainty in the Prince’s camp at this stage that Lord George would honour his word when the Prince had come to Scotland so ill-supported. If Lochiel was beset by doubt before the raising of the standard at Glenhnnan, he must have been just as perplexed as the Prince’s force, little more than 1,000 strong, made its way alongside the waters of the loch from which he took his name. Yet the chief’s will was supreme throughout his clan, if the prudent Fassifem may be left out of the reckoning. Curious about his former enemies of 1745, John Home learned when compiling his history of the Rising that The most sacred oath to a Highlander was to swear by the hand of his chief. The constant exclamation, upon any sudden accident was, may God be with the chief, or, may the chief be uppermost. Ready at all times to die for the head of the kindred, Highlanders have been known to interpose their bodies between the pointed musket and their chief, and to receive the shot which was aimed at him. Against this is to be placed the later insistence of the Camerons living on Menzies land on Loch Rannoch-side that in August 1745 they had been forced out by emissaries from Lochiel under threat of having their houses burnt; but in the aftermath of the Rising they would no doubt attempt to play down their participation. Even in neighbouring Moidart, aflame with Jacobite enthusiasm as it was in the summer

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‘The Noble Attempt’ of 1745, there had been some unwillingness among the ordinary clansmen to come out; such was the tradition heard by Charles MacDonald, the parish priest in the later nineteenth century. Some such degree of reluctance there may have been among the ordinary clansmen in Lochaber as the days of Sir Ewen Dubh receded into the past. Did reluctance to rise for the Prince also exist here and there among the clan’s gentry? One may well feel sympathy for Allan Cameron of Callart, wounded at Culloden, who pleaded at his trial that ‘he was forced from his family, a wife and ten children, by Lochiel whose tenant he was.’ During the two days the little army in embryo had remained at Glenfinnan, Lochiel made another effort to secure the wavering loyalties of MacLeod at Dunvegan, reminding him of his brave commitment of the previous winter that if the Prince should land, even though unassisted from France, ‘he would join him at the head of his clan*; and in the press of the moment he used the same wording in a simultaneous letter to Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat. But MacLeod had been firmly bound to the government side by the Lord President now at Inverness, and he did not stir. Sir Alexander, for his part, protested indignantly that he had at no time made any such unconditional commitment. The Prince, he would be quoted in the Memoire as saying, should have been horse-whipped for coming to the Highlands unsupported, putting everyone at such risk. The Prince’s army now began its march along difficult tracks towards the Great Glen and its expected accession of strength there from the Glengarry MacDonells; also from the MacDonalds of Glencoe and the Stewarts of Appin marching north. As they had entered Lochiel’s country word had come to the Prince that Cope was on his way northward with an army of 3,000 in implementation of the grand but flawed plan against the eventuality of Jacobite insurrection, the plan which had built Wade’s roads and, after a fashion, fortified the Great Glen. Did Lochiel welcome the news that Cope was coming into the Highlands? Whatever misgivings he may have felt were not, it seems, shared by the rank and file. ‘They are in great spirits and all have sworn to conquer or die’ reported one Duncan Grant to the Lord President, writing from Fort Augustus - still in government hands

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five - on 28 August. Duncan Forbes cannot but have been dismayed by the further intelligence that ‘Lochiel mounted guard on his Prince the night before last at Laggan’ as the Highland Army, now 2,000 strong, moved up the Great Glen. Though he was the senior of the clan chiefs in the little army, Lochiel, as yet diffident in military affairs, does not seem to have been determining its strategy. When a deserter brought word over the hills to the Prince and the chiefs that Cope was already at Dalwhinnie, only twenty-odd miles distant, intending to climb over the Corryarrack pass and (in military parlance) throw himself into Fort Augustus, it would be Donald MacDonell of Lochgarry, effectively in command of the Glengarry men, who would inspire the pre-emptive seizure of the Corryarrack. This was close to Glengarry’s ‘country’, and not two weeks past Donald of Lochgarry, abandoning his commission in the King’s new Highland Regiment and bringing with him some of the regiment’s money, had lain in ambush there for the expected supply train from Ruthven. As to the descent into Atholl, it was Tullibardine, confident that once back in his own country he would be looked on as the rightful Duke of Atholl, who insisted on the southward march. Sir John Cope had by then made for Inverness, having declined the attempted storming of the Corryarrack. A week later, with all Perthshire ablaze with Jacobite feeling and Perth itself in the Prince’s hands, and with Lord George Murray, brother to both Dukes of Atholl, in the Jacobite camp, it was Charles Edward himself who demanded that the march on Edinburgh be undertaken. The alternative strategy urged by the chiefs (Lochiel included?) had been for a northward march to do battle with Cope as he made his way from Inverness to Aberdeen. The Prince, rightly as it turned out, reckoned that fortune would favour the bold. However, in these last weeks of August and early weeks of September, Lochiel was gaining experience as a commander. Already his regiment had suffered the first Jacobite casualties of the Rising, some fourteen killed or wounded, in its failed assault on Ruthven Barracks where the Spey leaves the mountains for the Badenoch plain. Until it marched into Atholl the Prince’s army had been quite without meal, and had to feed itself with what it could kill. ‘They slaughtered twenty cowes last night and carried with them eighty’, 76

‘The Noble Attempt’ had been the report to the Lord President at Inverness on 28 August. But Ruthven Barracks was known to have a store of meal. Under D r Archie, a detachment of Camerons tried unsuccessfully to storm the buildings - unsuccessful because the assault force lacked cannon to batter down its doors. Then at Dalnacardoch, before the Highland Arm y burst on Atholl, Lochiel had to send back to Lochaber i j o of his men for whom arms were lacking. But, led by Lochiel, and in company with Lord Nairne, Lord George Murray’s cousin, the regiment distinguished itself on 4 September with a forced march of all of thirty miles to seize Perth. Success followed success for the Highland Army on its southward march. Robert Murray (MacGregor) of Glencarnaig brought in a valuable accession of strength from Clan Gregor’s Perthshire hills; and Glencarnaig, Lochiel and the Prince lodged together at Balhaldie Close, the house in Dunblane of Balhaldie’s mother, Lochiel’s aunt. The Fords of Frew was the crossing of the River Forth eight miles above Stirling which the Prince had no choice but to use, Stirling bridge itself lying under the guns of the cas­ tle. Before the beginning of his march to the north, Cope had positioned a regiment of dragoons there, but they galloped off at the Prince’s approach. At the regimental level, Lochiel too was asserting himself. That evening the Highland Arm y halted at Touch near Stirling, Charles Edward supping at the house of Seaton of Touch where in the laird’s (diplomatic?) absence his lady regaled the Cameron and MacGregor regiments with ‘three great oxen and so many hundreds of oat loaves and pots and cauldrons to boil their beef.’ Next morning the laird’s servants set about killing sheep for the troops. As the distribution of the carcasses was slow, Sir John MacDonald recalled, ‘the Highlanders killed one or two for them­ selves, whereupon Lochiel mounted his horse and fired a pistol at one of his own men who was wounded as I heard.’ Sir John, inured to the high-handed ways of continental armies in matters of foraging, may have raised an eyebrow at this, but Lochiel had rightly recognised that if the hearts and minds of Lowland Scotland were to be won, there was a supreme need to enforce good order. Perhaps there was more to it than that, for this incident found another description, 77

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five and one indicative of Highland attitudes, in a narrative by one of Glencamaig’s subalterns. When Glencamaig and Lochiel were at breakfast in the morning they heard shooting on the brow of the hill. Lochiel said to Glencamaig, ‘What shooting can be in the hill?’ Glen answered, ‘I shall tell you; the Camerons are shooting sheep in the H ill/ ‘God forbid/ said Lochiel, ‘it is MacGregors/ Glen replied, ‘I shall lay you one hundred guineas it is not MacGregors/ Upon this the two left breakfast, and drew their pistols, vowing if they were Camerons Lochiel would shoot them, and if MacGregors that Glencamaig would shoot them, and by great fortune as they were passing the head of the Avenue, there was a Cameron with a sheep on his back. Lochiel fired, and shot him in the shoulder; there he fell. The two went a good way, and they found not a MacGregor yet. A fierce pride in the clan’s reputation was as sharp in Lochiel’s mind as the need for ‘good order and military discipline’ . The discipline knocked into Lochiel’s regiment by its colonel stood it in good stead in the taking of Edinburgh a week later. It was on the evening of 16 September that the Highland Army encamped within three miles of Edinburgh in high excitement. While the Town Council attempted to play for time over the surrender of the city, the Prince himself proposed that Lochiel’s regiment with some of Keppoch’s and Glengarry’s men should position itself within striking distance of a main gate giving entrance through the city’s walls. Murray of Broughton, familiar with the approaches to the city, who accompanied the night-time expedition, is the reliable authority for what happened; how this assault force kept silent as it circumvented Edinburgh Castle by the south and, again in deep silence, positioned themselves close to the Netherbow Port where it divided the foot of the High Street from the Canongate; how Lochiel’s first stratagem to induce the City Guard to open up to ‘one of his people in a great coat and hunting cape’ posing as the servant of an officer of dragoons did not work; and how, while Murray was preparing a withdrawal route as daylight approached, there was the chance opening of the Netherbow Gate to allow 7*

‘The Noble Attempt’ the city fathers’ hackney coach to return to its Canongate stables ‘upon which Lochiel took the advantage and rushed in, the guard immediately dispersing.’ It was a feat worthy of Sir Ewen. As a thousand porridge pots began to cook in the tall lands looking down on High Street and Grassmarket, Edinburgh found itself in the hands of the Highland Army. Murray’s account of Lochiel’s leading role is unambiguous. An unreliable account of this night’s work is Colonel O ’Sullivan’s in the narrative of the Rising he wrote for King James at Rome in 1747. He accompanied Lochiel and Murray; properly so, for if the stratagem succeeded, as quartermaster-general his would be the task of disposing the Highland Arm y throughout the town. O ’Sullivan’s narrative would have it that at Lochiel’s request he, O ’Sullivan, was in command of the whole venture. It was in line with O ’Sullivan’s somewhat vainglorious personality that he should also take all the credit for the rushing of the city gates to himself. Another unreliable account of the taking of Edinburgh is the mention accorded it in the narrative of the ’Forty-Five which Donald MacDonell of Lochgarry wrote for his chief also in 1747. This plays down Lochiel’s role in the taking of Edinburgh; as Lochgarry would have it, it was his MacDonell clansmen who took the city. As the saying goes - while failure is an orphan, success has many fathers. So Charles Edward, flanked by Lord Elcho, the handsome eldest son of the Jacobite-minded peer the Earl of Wemyss, made his unfor­ gettable entry into Edinburgh. Miss Magdalen Pringle, eighteen years old and on a visit to Edinburgh, at noon that day watched Lochiel’s regiment take formal possession of Edinburgh for the Prince. The Highlanders, she wrote to her sister Isabella at their home back in the Merse of Berwickshire, had been ‘quiet as lambs, and everybody takes nothing but what they pay for.’ This exemplary discipline was Lochiel’s doing, the Prince having given strict orders about good behaviour and that, in Murray’s words, ‘the sogers should not be allowed to taste spirits’. A little before twelve o’clock, Miss Magdalen continued, a force of 700 Highlanders surrounded the Mercat Cross in the middle of Edinburgh’s High Street. ‘This I saw myself. They marched three in a line with a Piper to every company.’ As Ross Herald read the manifesto ‘in the name of King James the eight of

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Great Britain,’ she marvelled at the sight. ‘The windows were full of ladys who threw up their handkerchiefs and clasp’d their hands and shewed great loyalty to the Bonny Prince . . . Don’t imagine I was one of these ladies. I assure you I was not’ , Miss Pringle went on. But then, perhaps a little wistfully, she added, ‘all the ladies are to kiss the Prince’s [hand]. I’ve an inclination to see him but I can’t be introduced.’ As disgusted with the spectacle as the flowers of Edinburgh had been ecstatic was Patrick Crichton, saddler and ironmonger in the Canongate who, like so many well-doing burgesses had recently bought himself a small estate outside the city. Entering by the Bristo Port, ‘which I saw to my indignation in the keeping of these caterpillars’, he had observed the sentries’ rusty swords and antique guns and that they were busy ‘catching the vermin from their lurking places about their plaids’. It was otherwise when he watched the proclamation of King James from a friend’s window on the north side of the High Street. ‘Comic fars or tragic comedy’ it might be, but against his will he was impressed by the sight of what we may assume to have been Lochiel’s regiment. All the mountain officers with their troupes in rank and file in order marched from Parliament Close down to surround the Cross, and with their bagpipes and lousy crew they made a large circle from the end of the Luickenbooths to half-way below the Cross . . . none but the officers and special favourites and one lady in dress [the lovely young wife of Murray of Broughton] were admitted within the ranges. Despite the old men and boys interspersed in their ranks with their pitchforks and scythes stuck on to poles, Crichton shrewdly observed that here was ‘the most daring and best militia in Europe’. So the Cameron pipers blew, ‘a fashion of streamer over their shoulders’, and all the while the bells of the High Kirk rang out. Then a profound silence and the reading of the Prince Regent’s manifesto. ‘Thus,’ noted Crichton in his journal, ‘the winds blew from Rome and Paris to work our thraldome’ . Four days later, Lochiel led his regiment in their wild charge at the battle of Prestonpans. On the order from Lord George Murray,

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‘The Noble Attempt’ the regiment on the left of the Jacobite front line moved to attack. The Camerons captured Cope’s guns, frightened off his dragoons on the right of the royal army and set about the slaughter of his infantry. The ‘shame’ of Sheriffmuir was expiated. There, British army dragoons, thirty years past, had been the clan’s undoing; now their successors were terrorised into flight. The clans making up the first line of the Highland Arm y had been drawn up three deep, the intention being that they should charge in that formation; but as they went into the charge the Camerons and their Stewart and MacGregor neighbours coalesced into clumps as at Killiecrankie; the Camerons formed one dense mass of shouting Highlanders, twenty men wide, thirty men deep, their plaids discarded, the clan gentry in front. Had Cope paid more attention to the management of his artillery and had his line regiments kept up their fire it would have gone badly for the easy targets presented by these cheering mobs, and they would have suffered heavy loss, as at Killiecrankie. As it was, Lochiel’s regiment had two officers killed. And as it also was, the charge of the clans frightened the whole of the royal army into rout, despite all that ‘Johnny’ Cope and his officers could do to steady cavalry and infantry. That Lochiel’s regiment would fight in this way (d la debandade in disorder - wrote Elcho a little disapprovingly, knowledgeable as he was about the best continental military practice) was foreshadowed by an exchange of words, long remembered in Lochaber, between Lochiel and Donald Mor Cameron, bearer of his banner, as the Highland Arm y crossed the moss north of Tranent to reach the level ground where in the morning mist the royal army was drawing itself into position for battle. In making their way through the moss the men got out of order. Lochiel, mindful perhaps of the instruction in matters military he had sought from Sir John MacDonald, ordered his regiment to halt and dress its ranks. ‘An Diabhul “ halt” na “ dress” bhios an so an diugh. Leigibh leis na daoine dol air an adhairt thad’s a tha iad blaith’, expostulated Donald Mor, - ‘The devil a “ halt” or “ dress” will there be today. Let the men go on while their blood is up’ . ‘Gum beannachadh Dia thu, biodh mar a tha thu ag radh’, replied Lochiel, - ‘God bless you. Let it be as you say’ . And so it was. As John Home was to write with’ Prestonpans in

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Locbiel o f the ’Forty-Five mind, ‘Order and regularity, acquired by discipline they had little or none; but the spirit of clanship in some measure supplied the want of discipline, and brought them on together, for when a Clan advanced to charge an enemy, the head of the Kindred, the chief was in his place.’ At Prestonpans (or Gladsmuir, as the battle was known to them) the Camerons had played their part in a famous victory. N or as so often with Highlanders, did their headlong charge end in loss of control. On Lord Elcho reporting to Lord George and Lochiel that a body of what appeared to be enemy were gathering on the ridge to the south the latter ordered the pipes to be played and quickly called in his men, the regiment marching boldly to confront the ‘enemy’. But the alarm was false. Splendid though the feats of his regiment at Gladsmuir were, a great contribution to victory had also been made by Lochiel two days before. Charles Edward, alive to the strong attachments and fierce rivalries that existed between the clans, had asked the chiefs to agree amongst themselves which clan should hold the position of honour at the right of the line. He suggested, and the chiefs agreed, that the matter should be determined by drawing lots. This was while the army had briefly halted at Perth. Now as they got ready to march from Duddingston to do battle with Cope, the rank and file of the Clan Donald regiments learned to their anger that in the forthcoming battle they were not to stand in their traditional (as they contended) place on the right of the line. That place of honour was, by the chance of the lot, on this occasion to go to the Camerons and Stewarts. As Clan Donald saw it, young Angus MacDonell, only eighteen years old but their chief’s son and commanding the Glengarry men, had been put upon by his seniors from other clans. N o doubt the age-old animosity between MacDonell and Cameron flared up. However, said Murray, ‘after a very long dispute Lochiel, unwilling to create any differences that might the least obstruct his Master’s interest,* offered to give up his regiment’s alloted post ‘in pursueance of which the McDonalds marched from the left the next morning and formed the right of the whole.’ In the battle itself yet another signal service to the Prince was Lochiel’s dissuasion of the fearless Charles Edward from leading the onslaught of the clan regiments in person; the Prince

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‘The Noble Attempt ’ yielded to the Cameron chief’s wise entreaties and viewed the battle from behind the Highland Arm y’s second line. How, one wonders, had so humane a man as Lochiel reacted to the carnage of the battle, as his clansmen hewed away at the hapless and terrified soldiery of Lee’s and Guise’s, making no small contribution to the 350 dead in what had been Cope’s army; or to the spectacle of a fellow-Scot, Colonel Gardiner, being hauled down from his charger and slaughtered by one of his clansmen’s Lochaber axe? It is unlikely that Lochiel flinched. King James’ cause was just: this he had known with a totality of conviction all his life, a conviction inculcated by father and grandfather, and buttressed by his religion. The Cause must prevail, however terrible the road to success. For his part, the Lochaber hero who killed Colonel Gardiner would maintain somewhat apologetically to the end of his days that he had only struck in self defence as Gardiner spurred his charger at him. But amidst the civilian revulsion felt at the carnage on the battlefield - there had been no major battle in the vicinity of Edinburgh since the disaster of Pinkie two hundred years before it would be remembered that it was Lochiel’s Camerons who had killed the godly and courageous Gardiner. But Lochiel’s essential humanity held good. There is a glimpse of him in the aftermath of battle in the memoirs of Alexander Carlyle, son to the parish minister in the manse of Prestonpans, but at that time a divinity student at Edinburgh University. An eye-witness to the battlefield carnage - a Jacobite would recall that the field was ‘a spectacle of horror . . . for the killed all fell by the sword’ - Carlyle had plucked up courage to seek the release of the medicine-chests in Cope’s captured baggage, that the wounded might the better be attended. He saw Lord Elcho pass ‘with an air of savage ferocity’, demanding to know ‘where a publick House was to be found’ ; and then he found Lochiel, ‘who was polish’d and gentle and who ordered a soldier to make all the enquiry he could about the medicine chests.’ Here, incidentally, is the first recorded mention of the ‘Gentle’ Lochiel, the name by which he was to be known to history. Within little more than a month, Lochiel, this middle-aged High­ land gentleman ‘who knew nothing of armies’, had led his regiment to great effect. When the Prince’s army returned to Edinburgh he 83

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five continued to shine as a leader of men. Volunteering to take the guard in the Lawnmarket over the gates of Edinburgh Castle, his regiment bivouacked under the oaken roof of the Parliament House and in the Tron Church. The talk of the town, as Patrick Crichton learned, was that Lochiel (by now made Governor of Edinburgh) had said he would surprise and storm the castle with a picked force of his regiment. N ow followed a week of terror for the doucer elements of the citizenry, as the Prince was intent on preventing the provisioning of the castle and General Guest retorted by threatening to cannonade the town if this were enforced. He was as good as his word. From i to 6 October the castle’s great guns fired repeatedly, setting on fire and demolishing houses on the Castle Hill, the Weigh House at the head of the Lawnmarket where the Camerons stood guard, and Allan Ramsay’s splendid hexagonal house with its views to the Forth. ‘There was a melancholy scene this street battel’ , wrote Crichton, ‘everybody scared off the streets except here and there . . . The castle pouring down small shot from muskets and petrig [partridge] shot from the cannon when ony of them dars peep out. ’Tis not safe being in Lawn or Grass merkets.’ Lochiel was in the forefront. °T is said Lochiell was behind some house on the hill and the fall or flying of some stones hurt his shoulder’ . His Camerons took casulaties from the bombardment and from the couple of sallies the garrison made to drive them back. But dour Presbyterian that he was, Crichton was impressed by the reputation of the Cameron chief, ‘the politest man of his partie and for softer measures’ ; and indeed Lochiel won praise from the Edinburgh whigs by detailing his clansmen to protect their houses from the twin dangers of unruly Donalds and the Edinburgh mob. In her letter to her sister, already referred to, Magdalen Pringle, though she did not know it, had touched on the essential ambiguity of the Rising. The elderly exile at Rome had been proclaimed as ‘King James the Eight of Great Britain’ ; but ‘James the Eight’ was a num­ bering appropriate only to the realm of Scotland. Charles Edward’s ambition was the repossession of the whole of Great Britain (and Ire­ land, and if he ever thought of them, the colonies along the American seaboard). The vision of most of his Council extended no further than

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‘The Noble Attempt* the Tweed. Lochiel was one of these. But October passed with daily meetings of the Prince’s Council in the mornings, reviews of the army at its camp at Duddingston under the steep sides of Arthur’s Seat in the afternoons, balls at Holyroodhouse in the evenings. Mr John Campbell, chief cashier to the Royal Bank of Scotland, put up no very robust resistance to Murray of Broughton’s threats to ‘distress’ the properties of the Bank’s directors. With a pass signed by Lochiel, Mr Campbell went through the Cameron guards at the head of the Lawnmarket to uplift from the besieged castle cash to honour the large quantities of Royal Bank notes the Prince’s army had gathered in, without informing General Guest of his purpose in removing the golden guineas. There were some accessions to the strength of the Highland Arm y; from the North-East; more Camerons and MacDonalds from the Great Glen; a hundred more MacGregors from the Braes of Balquhidder; Cluny MacPherson, whom Lochiel’s regiment had detained on the way south, came with his clan regiment from Badenoch. Like Lochgarry, Cluny was a defecting officer of King George’s army. A distinguished emissary arrived from Versailles; and guns and stores from France, with the promise of more to come, were landed by Dunkirk frigates at Montrose. There was excited talk of a cross-Channel invasion from the Flanders coast in the months to come. But there was silence from the twin potentates of Skye, and Lovat had not as yet quite committed himself or his clan. At last Magdalen Pringle had had a closer look at the Prince. One day in mid-October she joined the daily Jacobite pilgrimage from Edinburgh to Duddingston. ‘Oh lass,’ she wrote to her sister, ‘such a fine show as I saw on Wednesday last.’ The Prince had ‘an air of grandeur and affability capable of charming the most obstinate Whig. I never saw so noble nor so graceful an appearance as His Highness had.’ Young Isabella was given a full, excited description of his attire, from his blue grogram coat trimmed with gold, to his Star and Garter, to his hat trimmed with gold lace with a white feather and a white cockade, to his sword with ‘the finest wrought basket hilt ever I beheld, all in silver.’ Perhaps to calm incipient parental disapproval of this effusion back in the Merse, she added, ‘I don’t believe Cesar [sic] was more engagingly formed or more dangerous to the liberties of his country than this Chap may be if he sets about it.’

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Lochiel o f the *.F orty-Five Edinburgh Castle, ‘that damned angry bitch’ as Miss Pringle had heard the Highlanders term it, remained inviolate, but had ceased firing on the town since on the Prince’s instructions Lochiel’s regiment had given up its efforts to blockade it. Now, she said, there was more danger in the streets from accidental discharge of the firearms the Highlanders were for ever carrying about with them. The city’s tradesmen, as Maxwell of Kirkconnel recalled, made a good thing out of supplying the needs of the Highland Army. But by now the young Lord Elcho was uneasily aware that Murray of Broughton had tricked him into declaring himself for the Prince with false assurances of an expedition led by the Earl Marischal about to set sail from Dunkirk; Lochiel was not alone in having been manipulated by Murray. Towards the end of October the slumbering dispute in the Prince’s Council about what to do flared up. Most of the Scots were for remaining on the defensive in Scotland. The Earl Marischal had not come, but there was still the prospect of the early arrival of King Louis’ Irish Brigade, j,ooo of as good fighting men as were to be found anywhere in Europe. Very few of the army’s leaders - and Lochiel was not one of these few — had ever crossed the Border; a march south would be a march into the unknown. The Prince however was for marching to do battle with the army Field-Marshal Wade had assembled at Newcastle. He was certain of victory in such a clash, fearful of the inroads which desertion, not to mention the Canongate whores, might make on his army’s strength. The reluctant compromise was that the army should make for the hilly terrain of Cumberland, more suitable fighting ground for Highland troops than the coastal plain of Northumberland; and in the first days of November the Highland Army began its southward march. But Charles Edward was not to be deflected from his purpose, and when Carlisle castle fell so easily after its short-lived siege the full-blooded invasion of England became a reality, for him at least. ‘It was a noble attempt’, Samuel Johnson was to say of the march to Derby. But Lochiel felt only intense anger at this turn of events. It glows in the Memoire d ’un Ecossais. Significantly, even a year and a half later (when the Memoire was written) he could not bring himself to blame the Prince, though in truth it was Charles Edward 86

‘The Noble Attempt’ who had been forcing the pace all along. As Lochiel saw it, the culprit was the Prince’s elderly counsellor and confidant Sir Thomas Sheridan. Ever mindful of the need to win popular support rather than command it, Lochiel’s aversion to Sir Thomas may have derived from an altercation at Perth of which he could not but have learned from Lord George Murray - Lord George and Lochiel coming ever closer together as the campaign proceeded. It happened that at Perth Colonel O ’Sullivan had arrested two civic dignitaries on the grounds of non-payment by the town’s postmaster of the ‘Jacobite’ tax levied on him. With great difficulty Lord George had the arrest countermanded by the Prince, while Sheridan at the Prince’s side ‘with knit brows’ - as Lord George recorded - said, ‘We must show these kind of people our power or they will spit upon us.’ According to the Memoirey after the battle of Gladsmuir, being in this way master of the field and of all Scotland, excepting only a few insignificant forts which could be blockaded by only a small force, the Prince had only to arm all the loyal Highlanders, summon the Estates of the realm, and put together an army which could defend itself, or even help the English shake off the usurper’s yoke. But the Prince allowed himself to be blinded by the ardour of his own courageous spirit. Sir Thomas Sheridan, puffed up with the success the Prince’s enterprise had so far enjoyed, and believing that the situation in England was scarcely less favourable than that in Scotland, was so rash as to maintain, against the near unanimous advice of the Scots, that the presence of H .R.H . at the head of five thousand men would bring over a good part of the Government troops to his side and persuade the English nobility to declare themselves. Buoyed up with this hope, and, in addition, since it appeared that His Most Christian Majesty was preparing to transport the Duke of York [Charles Edward’s brother Henry] to England with a large force of his army, the Prince made a hasty march into that country, and left Scotland without having taken the necessary measures to consolidate his authority there. As the Highland Army marched deeper into England, Lochiel’s fears for Scotland seemed to be realised. The Memoire continues, 87

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five This made all Scottish Jacobites despair, and they expected any moment to hear that he had been crushed along with all those who had gone with him. N o longer did anyone dare to declare himself for King James. The Government profited from this public consternation. General Handasyde retook possession of Edinburgh and Lord Loudoun, having joined some independent companies with the Argyll Militia, marched from that county to Inverness; by this deterring those who would have wished to join the Rising. Only the North-East remained in Jacobite hands. Not even Lochaber was safe, as the Fort William garrison sallied out to retrieve the light artillery and the stores the Prince had had to leave behind at Glenfinnan. During this ill-fated invasion of England, of Lochiel himself there are only a few glimpses. At Carlisle he voiced to Lord George Murray his misgivings at the smallness in number of the recruits that came forward. At Derby he sided with Lord George in the heated debate which ended the Highland Arm y’s advance. This shocked and angered Sir John MacDonald, as it did the Prince himself. ‘On arriving at Derby’, he wrote, I saw bonfires and a good reception by the inhabitants. Next day there was a council held, at which, against the opinion of the Duke of Atholl, of Clanranald, and of the Duke of Perth it was decided to right about turn, and return to Scotland. I was quickly informed of this and sought the Councillors, and found in one room, Lochiel, Capoch [Keppoch] Sheridan and Lord George. Taking no notice of the last named, I addressed myself to Lochiel and said to him that I was much astonished that such a gallant fellow as he was, at the head of a troop of brave followers, should think of turning back - that I was very sure that his Camerons like the Macdonalds would follow the Prince to London, that it was absurd to think of making such a long retreat with an undisciplined force like ours, in the face of regular troops in their own country; that if we were to perish, it were better to do so with our faces to London than to Scotland. He answered me that there were many deserters and that ‘if you 88

‘The Noble Attempt9 knew all, you would agree with us.’ His reasons seemed to me so weak and I was so angry that I left the room in haste. I spoke to the Prince, who told me he was overcome with grief. For the Stuart Cause the invasion of England was massively counter-productive, conferring on the Hanoverian monarchy a popularity previously denied it. There was also terror, however unmerited, amongst many common folk as they watched the Highland horde march through peaceful England. James Johnstone, an Edinburgh merchant’s son who had joined the Prince’s army to march with the Glengarry men was to recall in later years a comic incident with serious undertones: One evening, as Mr Cameron of Lochiel entered the lodgings assigned him, his landlady, an old woman, threw herself at his feet, and with uplifted hands, and tears in her eyes, supplicated him to take her life, but to spare her two little children. He asked her if she was in her senses, and told her to explain herself, when she answered, that everybody said the Highlanders ate children, and made them their common food. Mr Cameron having assured her that they would not injure either her or her little children, or any person whatever, she looked at him for some moments with an air of surprise, and then opened a press, calling out with a loud voice: ‘Come out, children; the gentleman will not eat you’. There is mention in Lord George Murray’s papers of his hav­ ing insisted at Preston in Lancashire on having Lochiel with him in selecting suitable ground for battle with the pursuing Duke of Cumberland, in the course of the hazardous but skilfully managed retreat to the North. Lochiel’s presence was wanted by Lord George to help him fight off unwanted advice from Colonel O ’Sullivan, the quartermaster-general, the two Scots insisting on hill ground which would favour the onset of a Highland charge, the Irishman bumbling on ‘that it was against all rules of war to go two miles from the high road.’ The Prince was disconsolate, but for Lochiel and for many others the return to Scotland was the more welcome in that it took place in

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five a climate of renewed hope. The first troop reinforcements had now arrived from France, and the whole of King Louis’ Irish Brigade was expected to follow in compliance with the agreement of ‘the Association* with Cardinal Fleury in 1741. The Memoire describes this upturn in fortune: The Regiment Royal Ecossais and three piquets of Irish fortu­ nately disembarked at Montrose with some cannon and muni­ tions. Lord Lovat sent his elder son to join them at the head of five hundred of his people, all well armed. Lord Lewis Gordon, brother of the Duke of that name came to join them with some of his people or friends of that house. And so on his return from England the Prince had a reinforcement of nearly two thousand men and thought himself strong enough to capture Stirling Castle. As much as any of his military exploits, an intervention by Lochiel, as the ragged and ill-shod Highland Arm y marched into Glasgow on its way to the siege of Stirling, has contributed to his lasting good name. Pennant learned in 1769 that ‘he [Lochiel] saved the city of Glasgow from being plundered when that army returned out of England, irritated with their disappointment’, Pennant’s informant probably being Lochiel’s sole surviving brother John of Fassifem. Dr Archie, in the speech he wanted to make on the scaffold just before he was hanged in 1753 for his part in continuing Jacobite conspiracy, likewise referred to his elder brother’s humane and wise treatment of that profoundly whiggish city. Glasgow’s archives speak of no such intervention by Lochiel, or by anyone else; and the Highland Army did indeed reclothe itself, shirts, shortcoats, shoes, bonnets and stockings for every man, all at the town’s expense. But with his brother a burgess of Glasgow and his Campbell aunt at Shawfield House the Prince’s involuntary hostess, it would be hardly surprising that Lochiel should have prevented any pillaging of the city. In any event ample confirmation of the episode lies in the remarkable welcome given by Glasgow thirty years later to Lochiel’s grandson, by then the twenty-first chief and an officer of Fraser’s Highlanders, come there with his company of Lochaber men for embarkation to the American war. On that occasion the

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‘The Noble Attempt’ city fathers gave Charles Lochiel an official reception and had the Tolbooth bells rung to mark their respect for his grandfather’s memory. The humanity Lochiel shewed to civilian populations throughout this time of civil war is the more marked in that it stands in contrast to the wishes of some others: one suspects some of the Clan Donald regiments. In the notes he was prevented from using on the scaffold Dr Archie had something more to say; and at such a moment he would not fabricate. In the southward march from the Great Glen in the autumn of 1745, ‘it was moved by some of the chiefs,’ he said, ‘to apply to the Prince for a strong detachment of clans to distress Campbell of Invera’s [Inverawe’s] house and tenants in the neighbourhood.’ Lochiel, said D r Archie, successfully resisted the plan ‘to the no small mortification of the proposers.’ Similarly, he continued, his brother had thwarted a plan to have at the Earl of Breadalbane’s house of Balloch near the foot of Loch Tay. From Glasgow, Lochiel wrote to Lovat. That octogenarian chief was still disposed, as his contemporaries would have put it, ‘to play with both hands.’ In the last days of August, as the Prince and his little army marched up the Great Glen, he had sent Charles Edward an urgent message: march at once on Inverness and raise the loyal clans of the eastern Highlands. The same day he had written to Lord President Forbes at Culloden House deploring the conduct of ‘my dear cousin Locheil who, contrary to his promises, engaged in this mad enterprise.’ Then, on learning of the Prince’s victory at Prestonpans, and greatly to the concern of Duncan Forbes and Lord Loudoun, the Campbell peer who was to be military commander in the North, he had the fighting force of his clan armed and paraded on the green in front of Castle Downie. Next, he forced his reluctant young heir, fresh out of St Andrews University, to march at the head of a powerful detachment of Frasers to Perth, there to join the Jacobite army still in Scotland. But at the same time to the authorities he disclaimed responsibility for the ‘irresponsible’ actions of the Master of Lovat. Yet, also at the same time, he wrote a letter to ‘my dear Laird of Lochiel’. 9i

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five I could hardly beleive ane angell from heaven if he had told me that Donald Laird of Locheil wou’d forget Simon Lord Lovat, as you have done. And this is the more surprizeing that you cannot say, nor justly think, that in one article of my life I fail’d to show my singular affection and respect for my dear cousin Locheil, but, on the contrary, gave you all the marks of freindship in my power, or that I was capable off; and yet, my dear cousin, since ever you join’d the Prince you never did me the honour to write me one scrape of a pen, notwithstanding of the strict union and freindship that we always lived in, and our constant correspondence. I solemnly protest, that I know not what to attribute this sillence to, since I cannot accuse myself of anything that deserves it at your hands: for you never saw me fail in my loyalty to the King, or in my affection and freindship towards you, nor never will, tho’ you should continue as unkind as you are. I therefore beg of you, my dear cousin, to let me hear from you, and be so good as to comfort my languishing soul and drooping spirits by assuring me that you are the same affectionate Laird of Locheil to me that ever you was. I truely never had so much need of your comfort and assistance as at this time, for I am in vast distress of body and mind. And so on, and on, turning next to ‘the base and treacherous behaviour of our wretched cousin the Laird of MacLeod’, then commending to Lochiel’s care and protection the eighteen year old Master of Lovat, ‘the darling of my life and soul.’ But still he would not declare openly for the Prince. Lochiel did not receive this letter until his return from England. Now, on 2 January 1746 from Glasgow he wrote to Lovat cour­ teously and temperately - but surely in some exasperation - before coming to the nub of the matter, And now, my Lord, the only proper means that appears to us, in common with all the Prince’s wellwishers, to bring this to the wished-for issue is your Lordship’s openly appearing in arms, and joining the Royall standard, in which case we are certain that there is not a man beyond the Forth, however timorous or cautious (except some few who have already destined themselves

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‘The Noble Attempt’ to perdition), but will appear with the greatest alacrity and chearfulness. But, not to take up too much of your lordship’s time, what His Royall Highness above all things wishes and desires is, to have your Lordship with him to take upon you the command of the army, for though the Prince knows that your Lordship’s age makes it impossible for you to undergo the drudgery part of a Generali yett he is sensible that your advice and council will be of greater value than the addition of several thousand men. Though your Lordship has your own equipage, yett we are apt to believe the Prince’s coach and six (of which he himself makes no use) will be as convenient a voyture for your Lordship, and the French Ambassador, with Lord Pitsligo who has been in itt all along, won’t prove disagreeable company. Lord Pitsligo, nearly as old as Lovat, had joined the Prince from his Aberdeenshire home on the day Magdalen Pringle had visited the camp at Duddingston. She thought the venerable peer had been dressed ‘like an auld carter’ . Within the month the Frasers would take their place in the line alongside Clan Cameron at the battle of Falkirk. Lovat, meanwhile, betook himself to Stratherrick, amidst the wild hill recesses of his country. But still he would not come into the open. On the high moor above the little burgh of Falkirk in the gathering darkness of a January afternoon the Highland Army frustrated the attempt of the royal army to relieve Stirling Castle. Lochiel’s regiment stood on the left of the front line. An interposing ravine prevented it from closing with the redcoat regiments immediately opposite and it had to stand fire and suffer some loss from them. The redcoats could keep up their fire despite the drenching rain of the darkening afternoon, while in the downpour the Highland Army which did not use the modern innovation of cartridges could not reload. Both Lochiel and D r Archie were wounded as they stood in the centre of the front rank, next to the clan banner, with a bodyguard of two picked men from each company of the regiment. But, all in all, it was a victory of a sort. General Hawley, in command of the royal army, remembered too clearly how as a major of Evans’ dragoons he had taken part in the rout of the Jacobite left wing at Sheriffmuir.

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Now, on Falkirk muir, he had set his three regiments of dragoons at a gallop against the Clan Donald regiments on the right of the Prince’s front line. Their withering fire caused the dragoons great loss and enforced their flight, carrying with them the left and centre of the royal army. But it was indeed only a victory of a sort, as Lochiel was to recognise in the M em oire; and all might have been well but for the malign presence of Sir Thomas Sheridan: While he was besieging that place General Hawley at the head of nine and a half thousand Government troops marched to raise the siege. The Prince left twelve hundred men in front of Stirling Castle and marched towards him with the rest of his army. They fought with such bravery that the Government troops were put to flight and forced to quit the field of battle and abandon all their equipment and baggage. But this victory, seemingly so resounding, proved fatal for the Prince’s cause. The highlanders took so much booty that many of them left his army to put it in a place of safety among their mountains. The army was so weakened by this licence that the chiefs protested their inability to fight another battle before they had time to bring their people back. These representations forced the Prince to abandon Stirling and cross to the other side of the River Forth when the Duke of Cumberland, reinforced a few days after the battle, marched towards him. The Prince’s retreat, though dishonourable in the eyes of the world, would have made no other ill consequence had it not bred distrust which made him suspect all those who were in a position to give him sound advice. But Sir Thomas Sheridan, . smarting from the complaints the Scots had made about the Prince’s march into England, got it into his head that the retreat from Stirling was the consequence of discontent felt by some chiefs rather than a traditional liberty taken by the common highlanders. His suspicions fell principally on Lord George Murray. Amidst the acrimony of the Jacobite camp, Lochiel now stood shoulder to shoulder with Lord George Murray who, according

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‘The Noble Attempt’ to the Memoire in words written in defiance of the obloquy some Jacobites were casting on his name after the collapse of the ’FortyFive, ‘had distinguished himself up till then on every occasion that offered itself, just as he did subsequently, bearing himself always with the utmost prudence and resolution so that he has won the esteem and trust of the whole nation.’ Lord George had indeed shown military genius which could not have been predicted. His years of service with the Royals in Flanders had come too late in that war for him to see action. He had been a colonel in Mar’s army in the ’Fifteen, but had been absent on other duties from Sheriffmuir. Though he had commanded the left wing at Glenshiel in 1719 that had amounted to a paltry one hundred and fifty men. It was Sir Thomas Sheridan, with his suspicions of Scottish loyalty, who was the villain of the piece. ‘Distrust so ill-founded,’ the Memoire continues, ‘was the principal cause of all H .R .H .’s ills.’ But Sir Thomas might be forgiven his exasperation at the ways of Highland warriors in returning home after a battle to stash their winnings (‘leur butin’ as the Memoire has it). An incident that took place on the day after the battle on Falkirk muir further illustrated the ‘otherness’ of the clans and of Lochiel’s Camerons in particular. John Home, whom we have already met, and who was later to write the History o f the Rebellion in Scotland in 1745, had been the lieutenant of the company of Edinburgh volunteers attached to Hawley’s army, and as such had the misfortune to be taken prisoner with the rest of his company in the flight from Falkirk. The following day, as he and his fellow prisoners were drawn up in a Falkirk street for inspection as a curiosity by the Prince, and by Lord Kilmarnock who had brought them in, they saw a redcoat soldier armed with his musket and bayonet, the Hanoverian black cockade in his hat, come down the street amidst a swarm of Highlanders. The Prince, as amazed as the captive Edinburgh volunteers at this spectacle, pointed it out to Lord Kilmarnock. Lord Kilmarnock came down stairs immediately: when he got to the street, the soldier was just opposite to the window where Charles stood. Kilmarnock came up to the fellow, struck his hat off his head, and set his foot on the black cockade. At

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five that instant a Highlander came running from the other side of the street, laid hands on Lord Kilmarnock, and pushed him back. Kilmarnock pulled out a pistol, and presented it at the Highlander’s head; the Highlander drew his dirk, and held it close to Kilmarnock’s breast. In this posture they stood about half a minute, when a crowd of Highlanders rushed in, and drove away Lord Kilmarnock. The man with the dirk in his hand took up the hat, put it upon the soldier’s head, and the Highlanders marched off with him in triumph. This piece of dumb shew, of which they understood nothing, perplexed the volunteers. They expressed their astonishment to a Highland officer who stood near them; and entreated him to explain the meaning of what they had seen. He told them that the soldier in the uniform of the Royal was a Cameron: ‘Yesterday,’ said he, ‘when your army was defeated, he joined his clan; the Camerons received him with great joy, and told him that he should wear his arms, his clothes, and every thing else, till he was provided with other clothes and other arms. The Highlander who first interposed, and drew his dirk on Lord Kilmarnock, is the soldier’s brother; the crowd who rushed in are the Camerons, many of them his near relations; and, in my opinion,’ continued the officer, ‘no Colonel nor General in the Prince’s army can take that cockade out of his hat, except Locheil himself.’ As Lochiel had lain on Falkirk muir, felled by the fire from the royal army’s right wing, an ugly incident had taken place. Joining in the pursuit a group of Camerons had encountered the huge, defiant presence of Sir Robert Munro, chief of his clan, and colonel of a regiment which had broken and fled. Sir Robert was a great figure in the northern Highlands, a member of parliament for thirty years, and till lately colonel of the 43rd Regiment of Highlanders, whom he had steadfastly led at Fontenoy some eight months past. N ow he stood his ground, and when confronted by the Camerons was having a slight wound dressed by his brother, D r Duncan Munro of Obdale, a civilian doctor with the army. N o doubt Sir Robert hurled defiance at his attackers; one then pistolled him in the groin, another

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‘The Noble Attempt’ with a broadsword slash cleft his head. Then they also despatched Dr Munro. Next day Sir Robert was interred with due ceremony in the graveyard at Falkirk Parish Church, the Prince in attendance. But the Munros would remember which clan had killed their chief. The retreat from Stirling, only two weeks after the supposedly victorious battle of Falkirk, ‘was made with the utmost hurry and confusion,* as John Cameron, the Presbyterian chaplain to Lochiel’s regiment, remembered it. The confusion nearly cost Lochiel his life. Unable to ride or walk on account of his wounds at Falkirk he was driving by the Parish Church of St Ninian’s in a chaise when the recently built church, pressed into service as a gunpowder store, blew up. The violence of the explosion showered stones on the chaise and startled the horses, LochiePs travelling companion, the lovely young wife of Murray of Broughton, being thrown concussed on to the road. The precipitate retreat from Stirling was indeed a shambles of disorder. When the Highland Army halted at Crieff there was an angry debate among its leaders about the strategy which should now be adopted. Lochiel spoke about the need for retreat into the hills to make the Highlands into a Jacobite fortress, and this too was Lord George’s theme. The Prince and Sheridan argued for holding to the east coast with retreat by Aberdeen so that the longed for further reinforcements from France might have ports for disembarkation. In the end it was decided to split the army, the clans moving northward by the military road, the rest of the army marching by Aberdeen. These divided counsels bred ill-success. The retreat by the east coast did not give sufficient time for adequate reinforcements from France to arrive. On io February the brig La Sophie from Dunkirk had landed the Franco-Irish cavalry regiment Fitz James Horse at Aberdeen, but this was the last reinforcement to get through. The 26-gun privateering frigate L ’Em eraude, escorting four others, with a strong reinforcement from the renowned Irish Brigade aboard, had got away from Dunkirk in a North Sea fog on 18 February, but when she made landfall near Aberdeen and sent her long-boat ashore to reconnoitre they were, as they reported, given the bleak news ‘by a man with a gun accompanied by a dog’ that the Duke of

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Cumberland’s army would be in Aberdeen that evening. They were also wrongly told that Charles Edward and his Highland Arm y had abandoned Inverness and retreated into the hills. Their commander was undecided what to do, and his ships were then hit by bad weather and returned to Dunkirk. Sheridan, seeing clearly what was needed, had written to Paris soon after the battle of Falkirk pleading for reinforcement from France. That call had been answered, but had now been frustrated by the failure of the Highland Army to keep open the east coast ports. The failure in strategic vision was Lord George’s and Lochiel’ s, not the Prince’s. But equally, because Charles Edward never believed that a ‘fortress Highlands’ strategy would work, such opportunities as it offered were not taken up. One was the possibility of attacking the 5,000 Hessian troops which had arrived at Leith and were now quartered around Perth. The Memoire took up this theme. In early March, from the Highland Army’s headquarters in Inverness from which Lord Loudoun had been evicted, Lord George with H .R .H .’s agreement marched into Atholl where he scooped up the greater part of the garrisons which the enemy had put there; and having noted that the Hessian troops in the vicinity were split up in three bodies far enough distant from each other for them easily to be cut off and overcome before they could come to each other’s assistance, he sent several urgent despatches to the Prince to let him know how matters stood and said he would answer to H .R.H . for the success of the outcome if H .R .H . would send him a reinforcement of a thousand men to join with the vassals of the Duke his brother. Nothing could have been more advantageous than this project, the Hessian troops having been positioned where they were to keep open lines of communication between Cumberland’s army on the one hand and Stirling and Edinburgh on the other and ensure their supplies. Had the Hessians been destroyed or captured the Prince would have been able in his own time to await the help which was being sent him and to arm all the highlanders, and this would have made him strong enough to chase Cumberland out of Scotland and then do whatever he wished. But instead of

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‘The Noble Attempt’ agreeing with Lord George about sealing off Cumberland he was progressively sealed off himself and could no longer draw supplies from the Lowlands. The consequence was that he could not bring together most of the highlanders who had offered to serve him and could only keep with him at Inverness about four thousand men on account of the difficulty in subsisting them there. Such was the celebrated raid on Atholl which, for a little while, warmed Jacobite hearts. It was wildly optimistic of Lord George and Lochiel to think that the Hessians, in their striking blue uniforms and white belts and as fine troops as any in Europe, would be as easily disposed of as had been the inept garrisons of Argyll militia in Atholl. As to the thought that defeat of the Hessians would cut Cumberland’s supplies from the south, this shewed an inability to appreciate what sea-power could achieve: the Duke’s army at Aberdeen was provisioned by naval transports from England. During that month of March 1746, Lochiel had other pressing concerns. There was now a small naval presence on the west coast. On the 10th of the month troops landed from His Majesty’s sloop the Terror had burned the Maclean townships along the Morvern shore of the Sound of Mull. Some Cameron townships in Sunart were also distressed; men from these, returned from the Highland Arm y with pillage won from Haw ley’s abandoned stores at Falkirk, had been inciting the Macleans of Mull to follow their lead and fight for Tearlach. In this day-long punitive expedition, which burned some 400 dwellings, the Argyllshire militia had taken part, officered by a Campbell laird - acting however on the express instructions of Cumberland - by then at Aberdeen with the government army. This was to dismay the Duke of A rgyll; the rebel houses so torched by the landing parties from the Terror were his tenants. Lochiel heard of the burning of Morvern while back in Lochaber and using the house of Cameron of Glennevis under the shadow of the great Ben as his headquarters for the siege of Fort William, with his Camerons and the Highland Arm y’s artillery, such as it was. Since the northward retreat from Crieff the beleaguered garrison at Fort

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five William had been watching the alarmingly increased rebel activity all around. The fall of Fort William was essential to the implemen­ tation of a ‘fortress Highlands’ strategy; that it should remain in government hands a matter of equal moment to Cumberland, to Major-General Campbell of Mamore in command of the government presence in the West Highlands, and to the Lord Justice Clerk at Edinburgh keeping an overall view of the containment of rebellion. For them the burning of Jacobite townships in Morvern had been at one with the safeguarding of Fort William. When the news from Morvern reached Lochiel it provoked an outburst of anger against - not the sloops of the Royal N avy nor the troops of the Scots Fusiliers who had done most of the burning - but the Campbells who had been art and part in the work of destruction. With Keppoch as co-signatory he wrote a letter on 20 March to a gentleman of the Appin Stewarts for onward communication to his Campbell neighbours. Lochiel, hitherto to his contemporaries ‘a man of few words’, now found his voice, and it was a bitter one. He began with a timely, minatory, intimation of the success of Lord George Murray’s raid on the Campbell garrisons in Atholl. ‘Yesternight we had a letter from Clunie, Younger, giving an account of the success of the party sent by his R.H . under the command of Lord George Murray. A part of that letter we thought proper to send you enclosed, as you happen for the present to be stationed contigu­ ous to the Campbells.’ Then to the prelude; Campbell disloyalty to the Stuart cause. It is our opinion that, of all men in Scotland, the Campbells had the least reason of any to engage in the present war against his R .H .’s interest, considering that they had always appeared in opposition to his royal family since the reign of King James the 6th, and have been guilty of so many acts of rebellion and barbarity during that time that no injured prince but would endeavour to resent it when G O D was pleased to put the power in his hand. Yet his present Majesty and his R.H . the Prince R. are graciously pleased by their respective declarations to forgive all past miscarriages to the most virulent and inveterate enemy, and even bury them in oblivion, provided they returned to their

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‘The Noble Attempt* allegiance. And though they should not appear personally in arms in support of the royal cause, yet their standing neuter would entitle them to the good graces of their injured sover­ eign. But in spite of all the lenity and clemency that a prince could show or promise, the Campbells have openly appeared with their wonted zeal for rebellion and usurpation, in a most officious manner. So to the main theme, current Campbell barbarity. There had been earlier instances of retribution inflicted on townships in Lochaber and thereabouts. On 4 March Campbell militia from the government outpost of Castle Stalker in the Firth of Lome in conjunction with armed boats from the Terror and the Serpent and Baltimore sloops at Fort William had burned a township near the Corran along with ferry houses on either side of these dangerous narrows of Loch Linnhe. There had indeed been another side to that story; as the Baltimore sloop under the command of young Lieutenant Richard Howe r n had sailed through the Corran on her way to Fort William on 27 February she had come under musket fire from the shore. Two days later her ship’s boat on its way to Castle Stalker with despatches for Inverary had been cut off at the Corran and captured by a party of Highlanders, and the captain of the Serpent had delivered a warning in mid-February that retribution would be the consequence of interference with the passage of the Royal N avy to and from Fort William. There had however also been the unprompted distressing of Jacobite communities. A party from Fort William, again of Argyll militia, had burned two farms on Lochiel’s estate. Other instances which have gone unrecorded may lie behind the bitter wording that followed in Lochiel’s letter of protest: N or could we ever form a thought to ourselves that any men endowed with reason and common sense could use their fellow creatures with such inhumanity and barbarity as they do; and of which we have daily proof by their burning of houses and stripping of women and children and exposing to the open field and severity of the weather, burning of corns [i.e., corn or grain], houghing of cattle, and killing of horses. To enumerate the which would be too tedious at this time. They must naturally

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five reflect that we cannot but look on such cruelty with horror and detestation and hearts full of revenge. Will certainly endeavour to make reprisals, and are determined to apply to his R.H . for leave and orders to enter their country with full power that we are to act at discretion; and if we are so lucky as to obtain it, we shall show them that we are not to make war against brute creatures, but against men. But as G O D was pleased to put so many of their people in our custody, we hope to prevail with his R.H . to hang a Campbell for every house that shall hereafter be burnt by them. The Highland Army, the letter continued, had at no time waged war on civilians, ‘though we had it in our power. It’s barbarous enough to exert it, when courage fails, against men. It betrays cowardice to a degree to vent their spleen against brutes, houses, women, and children, who cannot resist.’ To Lochiel, this barbarity had been a Campbell initiative. An inter­ cepted letter from Campbell of Airds to Campbell of Stonefield, the Sheriff of Argyll, had made it clear ‘that it was by [their] application that their General Cumberland granted orders for burning.’ This did Cumberland too much honour. The evidence shows that the orders for burning were his own initiative. Whether Lochiel was reading too much into the intercepted correspondence is not known. But his postscript to the letter rammed home his feelings. P.S. I cannot omit taking notice that my people have been the first that have felt the cowardly barbarity of my pretended Campbell friends. I shall only desire to have an opportunity of thanking them for it in the open field. DONALD CAM ERON

The sadness of this letter is that a number of Lochiel’s ‘pretended Campbell friends’ were also his relatives; to such a bleakness the agonies of civil war had brought Lochiel’s feelings. Lochiel’s letter was immediately sent on to Lord Milton, the Lord Justice Clerk at Edinburgh. Within days its full text appeared in the Scots Magazine, the Scottish mouthpiece of government. N o doubt Milton considered it a propaganda coup. To the Duke of Newcastle

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‘The Noble Attempt’ in London he also wrote drily, ‘I send your Grace a copy of a particular Declaration of War by the Camerons and MacDonalds against the Duke of Argyll*. The Rising was indeed now a Civil War which threatened to overstep civilised limits on both sides. As when the Perthshire gentleman, Peter Smith brother to the laird of Methven, proposed to the Prince that prisoners from King George’s army have the thumbs of their right hands hacked off, so that if they evaded custody they would be unable to fire their muskets and so rejoin the Royal Army, as many were doing. Saner minds around the Prince quickly scotched this proposal by the ‘atheist* Smith. But the story got out, and made its contribution to the ‘demonisation’ of Jacobites which would play its part in the tragedy to come on Culloden moor and in the glens of Lochaber. In these past months of the Rising, with Cumberland at Aberdeen, Murray’s ever-questing mind searched for the tactical stroke which would redress Jacobite fortunes. To Lochiel he wrote on 14 March from newly captured Fort Augustus urging him ‘to hasten the siege of Fort William as much as possible*. The Prince, he said, proposed that with Fort William taken, Camerons, MacDonells and Appin Stuarts should march through Argyllshire ‘not only to correct that crew, but to give an opportunity to our friends to join.’ The hope persisted that there was support to be won from that quarter. Meanwhile, Murray continued, the Prince would march on Perth by ‘the Highland road’ - ‘This our scarcity of money renders absolutely necessary as we have no prospect of getting any unless in possession of the Low Country.’ An additional reason was that with Charles Edward marching on Perth, ‘Cumberland must of necessity follow us, [and] the coast will be left clear for our friends [the Irish Brigade from Dunkirk] to land*. With the Prince, Murray saw that the ‘fortress Highlands’ strategy envisaged by Lochiel would not work, and that the loss of control of the east coast ports would be fatal to the Cause. But this was mere moonshine as well; the North Sea Squadron of the Royal Navy would see to that. Lochiel was, as ever, a hero to his clansmen. It may have been about this time, with Lochiel’s regiment temporarily back in Lochaber, that a Cameron bard from Dochanassie, a township by the shores of Loch Lochy renowned for its tall men, wrote a Gaelic song in praise of

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Lochiel and the military prowess of the clan as shewn at Gladsmuir and Falkirk. At Falkirk against Hawley You excelled all his army. When the enemy turned In six ranks on the hill side You flinched not from danger With your ancestors’ courage. When your clan drew together The beasts took to fleeing. The bard looked forward to the regiment’s next encounter under its beloved leader. Woe betide him who would thwart them, Aflame for the battle, With my loved one leading A champion in the fighting, When your banner is raised, B y the fine, fearless heroes, Their strong arms a-striking, Will leave Englishmen lifeless. These months also saw a brief return by Old Lochiel to Achnacarry. From his quarters at Boulogne he had come across with Lord John Drummond’s Regiment Royal Ecossais in November, and had resided for a while with his daughter Margaret at her town house, Balhaldie Close in Dunblane. Now he was back in Lochaber, as his son’s regiment along with Keppoch’s men and some hundreds of the Regiment Royal Ecossais gathered for the siege of Fort William. For Old Lochiel, it can have been a none too cheerful home-coming. ‘They are in a starving way’ reported the Campbell commander of the small garrison at Mingary in Ardnamurchan from information gleaned by his agents about the rebel force, ‘tho’ I am credibly inform’d that they are making up girnells and other conveniencys for stores at Locheill’s house at Auchnacarry.’ The siege of Fort William did not prosper. Lochiel had over­ all command but his and Keppoch’s regiments, shock-troops par excellence, had no chance to shine in the investment and attempted

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‘The Noble Attempt’ reduction of the place. Supplied and reinforced by sloops of the Royal Navy, sea-power once again contributing to the Jacobites’ undoing, under resolute and professional command by Captain Carolina Scott, who in Flanders had already won Cumberland’s good opinion, Fort William held fast throughout the two weeks of bombardment it endured from the field guns of the Highland Army. N or did the besiegers foresee the sally by the besieged which overran their battery and took into the fort their iron six-pounders, brass four-pounders, mortars, and their furnace for heating shot which had been with the Highland Army since it had been taken from Cope’s equipment at Prestonpans. The siege was lifted on 3 April, the Royal Ecossais marching back to Inverness along the military road. Unaware as yet of the threat posed by the Duke of Cumberland’s army, then about to march on Inverness from Aberdeen, Lochiel’s regiment remained in Lochiel’s country. On j April Ewen Cameron of the Errachdt family was writing to his father-in-law (soon to die at Culloden). The long-standing threat from the Fort William garrison was uppermost in his mind. ‘All the news I have to tell you is not very agreeable which I am sorry for. We was obliged to rise [raise] our siege from Fort William . . . The Frenchman made off for Inverness so that we have none now to doe for us but ourselves.’ But Lochiel’s regiment was not long to remain in Lochaber. The previous day Sheridan at Inverness had written at the Prince’s dictation to him and to Keppoch, ‘H .R.H . looks upon what has happen’d at Fort William but as a fleabite and would not have anybody be cast down upon it. What he desires of you is to come away as soon as poss­ ible, bring with you all the men you can. We must turn all our fury against the enemy and that with the utmost expedi­ tion . . . The Prince would rather have you in three days with five hundred men than with a thousand in three days after.’ Belatedly, the Prince had now became aware that Cumberland’s army was already in Strathbogie, Gordon country, in strength and the Duke about to begin the march from Aberdeen with his main force.

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Sheridan’s letter continued: For the officers, H .R.H . expects them all to a man and will nevermore see the face of one that will stay behind. For the common men if they have no sentiments of honour it cannot be helped but sure they may be made to conceive that their houses being burned and their cattle driven away they have nothing to fear and nothing to breathe but revenge. So let nobody think of trifles [but] come away instantly. Those, says the Prince, that love me will follow me. Replying somewhat curtly from Achnacarry on 6 April, Lochiel said he recognised ‘the necessity of our losing no time in marching north with what men we can gett together’ and that he would set out on 8th or 9th ‘at furthest as I write to you this morning.’ The fortunes and fate of Lochiel’s Camerons can now be followed in the narrative Bishop Forbes obtained in 1747 from John Cameron, their Presbyterian chaplain. B y the afternoon of Monday 14 April they were at Inverness. In two days they had marched the fifty miles from Lochaber, along the military road through the Great Glen. N ow they halted by the bridge over the Ness. They had been only two hours there when word came that Cumberland’s army was at Naim , twelve miles distant. ‘Tho’ his men and he were much fatigued’, Lochiel straightway had the regiment on its feet again to join the Prince’s still much diminished army at Culloden moor. There the regiment was ordered to mount guard on the Prince, but somehow they did get some sacks of meal and were able to bake bread before spending the night among the furze and trees round Culloden House. Next day, 1 j April, the Highland Army was drawn up in order of battle, expecting the onset of Cumberland’s redcoats. ‘They continued all day without meat or drink, only a biscuet to each man at 12 o’clock,’ to settle for the night again on the bare moor, cold and hungry. ‘Great numbers being dispersed through the country, many of them did not return.’ There followed the attempted night attack on Cumberland’s encampment which came to nothing. It had been the Prince’s own proposal that a surprise attack should be attempted, a proposal taken up by Lord George Murray in

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‘The Noble Attempt’ enthusiasm bred of despair. But it was Lochiel, recognising that the men were exhausted, the column disordered, and that daylight was near, who told Lord George that the attempt must be called off, and then, at Lord George’s request, rode back to the Prince to face princely wrath by telling him likewise; the army must retreat. ‘We came to Culloden about 9 next morning, being April 1 6th,’ John Cameron’s account continued. The Prince gave orders to each regiment to send officers to Inverness with money to buy whatever food could be got, ‘and sent orders to the inhabitants to send provisions to the army, otherwise he would bum the town.’ The Prince, said the chaplain, ‘intended to give the army a hearty meal and a day’s rest, and to fight next morning.’ But within two hours word came that Cumberland’s army was on the march, the information being brought by a Cameron officer who had dropped out from exhaustion on the night march to Nairn. The Prince there and then resolved to fight that day though ‘Lord George Murray and the chiefs of the clans, especially Lochiel, were against it.’ John Cameron’s account of Culloden can be seen to be wrong in a number of aspects, as is to be expected of the confusion of a battle which ended in defeat. He seemed unaware of the anger felt by the rank and file of the Clan Donald regiments at having been denied their traditional place, as they would have it, on the right wing. Whether from loyalty to Lord George or exasperation at Clan Donald pretensions, Lochiel does not seem to have interceded with the former to give the MacDonalds the right of the front line, as he had done before Gladsmuir. In the chaplain’s narrative the Clan Donald, regiments were the first to move forward to the attack, which was not in fact the case. N or does he make any mention of the preliminary, murderous cannonade from the field-pieces of Cumberland’s army which the clans had to endure. But there are in this narrative some glimpses of Lochiel as the clans formed in line in the imminence of battle. Lochiel and O ’Sullivan standing alongside the irate Prince who was ‘frequently complaining they were long in forming’, Lochiel and his officers recognising the threat of enfilading fire from the Argyll militia, Clan Campbell in arms, which had moved forward from the far left of the Duke’s army. He also described how Lochiel sustained his disabling wounds. These 10 7

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five he incurred as the Camerons, unable to break more than the Duke’s front line, came under the deadly musketry of Wolfe’s Regiment positioned enpotence (at right angles) to the onslaught of the Jacobite right wing, and also the enfilading fire from the Argyllshire militia. And so the last battle of the ’Forty-Five ended with a clan fight, Cameron against Campbell. John Cameron’s account continues: ‘Some of the Camerons on the right gave way . . . Lochiel endeavoured to rally them but could not. On which under the greatest concern he returned to the action and was wounded by a flank shot. Thus did some of the men desert their chief and the cause they fought for, who at the battle of Gladesmuir and Falkirk behaved with so much intrepidity and courage.’ This does the regiment less than justice; but the chaplain would not be in the forefront of the fighting and so be unable to witness the fierce assault by Camerons and Appin Stewarts on Barrell’s regiment on the extreme left of the Duke’s army. A better recognition of how the clan had fought was given by young Major James Wolfe, a company commander of Barrell’s at Falkirk, but at Culloden an officer on General Hawley’s staff. The day after the battle he wrote describing how his old regiment had fought off the fierce attack of the Camerons, ‘the bravest clan among them.’ As a military man he could not but praise their courage, for the Camerons, he informed his father in another letter of that day, were ‘the best clan in the Highlands.’ What has the Memoire to say of all this? It re-emphasised the need there had been for a ‘fortress Highlands’ strategy; and described Lochiel’s ardent wish that battle on the nakedness of Culloden moor be avoided; there is also a hint in it that Lochiel looked on the attempted night attack as asking too much even of Highland troops. But of the battle itself there is nothing of the hesitance of the Clan Donald regiments on the left or the muddle that brought disaster on the right. On the contrary, it had the Highland Army ‘proudly withdraw’ from the field of battle: All the Highland chiefs advised the Prince to break up his army and seek only to hold the passes into the Highlands from which from time to time he would have been able to sally into the

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"The Noble Attempt ’ Lowlands to commandeer food until he had amassed enough supplies for him to be able to reunite his army and do battle with the enemy while the latter was exhausted and overcome by the wearisome campaign with which the highlanders would have incessantly harassed them. This advice was not allowed to prevail. Sir Thomas Sheridan who had no other conception of waging war than to fight at every opportunity wished the Prince to await the enemy and when it was learned that they were marching their army towards him, H R H recalled his detached forces and summoned the absent highlanders to rally round him. They hastened from all over by dint of forced marches, but there were scarcely seven thousand assembled when the Prince resolved to go out to meet Cumberland whom he hoped to surprise in his camp eight or nine leagues from Inverness. In conformity with this plan he marched with the intention of attacking the enemy camp at first light. But before his army had covered two-thirds of the distance there, most of the highlanders, having been on the march for several days, were so exhausted with fatigue and hunger that some made off to the houses of the country people to seek refreshment while others fell out, overcome by fatigue or the weight of their weapons. This forced the chiefs to tell the Prince that his plan was impracticable. H R H , furious at this upset, gave orders to withdraw to Culloden, a country house on the road the enemy must take to reach Inverness. The Prince’s intention, it seems, was to get refreshment and some hours of sleep for his troops so that they would be fit to carry out his plan the following night. But hardly had they piled arms when it was learned that the enemy was approaching and getting ready to attack them. The Prince, taken by surprise instead of himself mounting a surprise attack, had no time to take up a good position. However, nearly four thousand highlanders fought with extraordinary resolution and broke through the enemy’s front line. But in the end, being attacked simultaneously from the front and on both flanks they had to yield to overwhelming numbers and proudly withdraw towards a little river, beyond which the enemy could not follow them.

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Such a roseate view of the Jacobite defeat should cause no sur­ prise. As will shortly be seen, the M em oire was written in the context of Lochiel’s plans to stage a re-run of the ’Forty-Five in 1747!

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A detail from a general map o f Scotland and islands by Jam es Dorret, published 1 7 fo , showing Cameron country. The map was probably compiled before 17 4 5 since it shows Achnacarry, LochieTs house, destroyed from 17 4 6 onwards.

Above: Fort 'William in i j $ o as seen from the site o f the Jacobite battery in 1746. (Paul Sandby; Reproduced with permission from the N ational Galleries o f Scotland) Below: Postscript to LochieVs ‘hang a Cam pbell* letter o f March 1746, bearing the signatures o f Lochiel and Alexander M acD onell o f Keppoch. (Scottish R ecord Office)

Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, by an unknown artist, c.i6yo. (Courtesy of Sir Donald Cameron of Lochiel)

LochieVs backsword - the hilt was made by W alter A llen , Stirling, c. i j $ 2. Broadsw ord the hilt is made o f Irish stiver, early 18th century. LochieVs targe - made o f w ood coated with leather and em bossed w ith the words, T ea r God. H onour the K in g\ c.1670 . (N ote the holes made by musket balls.)

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fThe Summer's Hunting 5

As the action was near over, as has been told, Lochiel was wounded in both his legs. He was carried out of the field by four of his men who brought him to a little barn. As they were taking off his cloaths to disguise him the bam was surrounded by a party of dragoons, but as they were entring the barn they were called off, which prevented his being taken. The dragoons were no sooner out of sight but his four men carried him out, put him on a horse, and brought him to Clunie’s house in Badenoch, where he continued till next morning, and then went to Lochaber. When he left the bam he dismist two of the four men, the other two supported him on the horse.

his is LochiePs escape from Drumossie Moor as described by John Cameron, the Presbyterian chaplain. His account is less colourful than that of John Home, writing from information probably given him by John Cameron of Fassifem in 1781. Home’s narrative had LochiePs brothers, Dr Archie, his lieutenant-colonel, and Alexander, the regiment’s Roman Catholic padre, carry him in their arms from the field of battle. It is an appealing picture, as is Home’s vivid depiction of Lochiel advancing at the head of his Camerons, ‘so near Barrell’s that he had fired his pistol and was

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Lochiel o f the 'Forty-Five drawing his sword’ when grapeshot from Colonel Belford’s guns felled him. But John Cameron was to be much in the company of Lochiel and Dr Archie in the months that followed; and he may also have been an eye-witness to the manner in which Lochiel was brought down and made his escape from Culloden. The Memoire also brings out the confusion of the next four days as the Highland Army sought to regroup by the waters of the Spey; and many thought fleetingly that they had lived to fight again: The Highland chiefs who had taken themselves off [from the battle], awaited H .R .H .’s orders to reunite the army. Lord George Murray who had behaved like a hero at Culloden was for several days at the head of two thousand men, and sent urgent messages in all directions to learn the Prince’s intentions. Lochiel, who had been wounded, had himself carried to the house of Macpherson of Cluny, his relative, where, in the absence of any news of his whereabouts, were brought all the Prince’s papers and baggage. Uncertainty could not but lead to general consternation. In despair, all the chiefs went off to their homes, greatly concerned about what had become of H .R.H . Lochiel was, as John Cameron said, being carried on horseback the forty miles to his own country; Lord George Murray, incensed at the destruction of his Atholl Brigade from the flanking fire which O ’Sullivan’s dispositions had invited, was writing an angry letter to the Prince, demitting command of the Highland Army. Murray o f Broughton had not been at Culloden. Stricken by illness two weeks before the battle, he had been in his sickbed at the house of one of the Fraser gentry on the south side of Loch Ness when on the afternoon of Culloden day news of the calamity reached him. That evening he was rowed across the loch, and the following day conveyed to the head of Glenmoriston. There he met MacDonell of Barrisdale’s force of Knoydart men and of Clan Gregor on their way from the north to answer the Prince’s summons which, they said, had only reached them on 13 April. With them he went back down the glen to Fort Augustus where he found the Duke of Perth, close to total exhaustion and holding out no prospect of a stand being made against the victorious Hanoverians. Barrisdale went off

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to Knoydart; Murray resolved to make for Lochiel’s country and there await news of the Prince. B y the 20th Murray of Broughton was at Achnacarry. Fear was gripping that household, for the word was that their chief was dead, and Murray was carried to the great fir forest of Glen Mallie three miles away. But within hours he had the glad news that Lochiel was back; and later that day Lochiel joined him in this forest retreat. With Lochiel was the large, hefty figure of Charles Stewart of Ardshiel whose Appin regiment had suffered so grievously alongside the Camerons at Culloden. Lochiel and Murray, the one wounded in both ankles, the other still sick, now moved westward with Ardshiel along the track towards the head of Loch Arkaig, crossing over to the still less accessible south side of that lengthy loch among the hills where ‘some little hutts’ had been hastily put up for them. All was indecision, but there were thoughts of keeping an armed body together to await events, and it was resolved to convene a meeting of the surviving chiefs. But the sinews of war, money especially, were lacking. And where was the Prince? Here on 28 April Sir Thomas Sheridan joined them. He had been unable to travel further with the Prince in his headlong flight to the west, and he had bitter news to impart: the Prince was intent on quitting the mainland to seek in the Long Island a ship that would take him back to France. Charles Edward’s valedictory letter which Sir Thomas now showed to Lochiel and Murray, insisting as it did that his purpose was to seek help from the French King and then return with it, lessened neither their consternation nor Lochiel’s longstanding antipathy to Sheridan. Lochiel immediately despatched Dr Archie to Arisaig to dissuade the Prince from a flight, in the words of the Memoire, ‘so dishonourable to himself and so harmful to the whole Scottish nation.’ But it was too late. The Prince had sailed from the shores of Loch nan Uamh on the evening of the 25th. If 28 April was a day of gloom, late on the 29th Lochiel and his companions were presented with an opportunity, as dramatic as it was unforeseen, to find the means to continue the war - or to escape to France. That morning two big privateering frigates from Nantes, Le Mars and La Bellone, dropped anchor in Loch nan Uamh, less than a score of miles distant on the other side of

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five the great mountain range to the west of Loch Arkaig. They carried vast quantities of money and arms and brandy, enough to sustain a summer campaign by the Highland Army among the hills; and, having sailed from France over a month past, their commodore was in total ignorance of the disaster of Culloden. B y now there were in the rough bounds of Moidart and Arisaig a number of Jacobite nobility and gentry seeking escape to France. Sheridan was too old and unfit for any campaign among the hills. The Duke of Perth was gravely ill and had to be got away. His brother, Lord John Drummond, now wished only to return to France and to his career in the French army. Among them was also Lord Elcho who had witnessed the Prince’s total rejection of his Scots in the immediate aftermath of Culloden, and was now grimly resolved to have done with the Jacobite cause. The ships from France would be their salvation. It was otherwise with Lochiel, icily disapproving of those who at this juncture thought only of escape. In Murray’s words, Whilest other people present seemd without any hesitation to resolve to lay hold of the present opportunity, Mr Cameron of Locheil retired into a little hutt with Mr Murray where he expressed his unwillingness to desert his Clan in the unhappy Situation they were then in, as Inconsistant with his honour and their Intrest; and observing that as them two had gone all along hand in hand during the whole affair, he hoped he would not now leave him, but begd they might share the same fate together: This passage in Murray’s narrative, so eloquent of Lochiel’s hon­ ourable, fatalistic cast of mind, is followed by one as indicative of the new found optimism generated by the arrival of the ships from France. The aim, said Murray, should now be ‘to raise a body of men sufficient to protect the country and to keep on foot during that summer until they should see whether or not the succours promised from France were really intended.’ But the immediate need was to persuade the reluctant Capitaine Rouillee, commodore of the two ships, to offload the money and arms, essential as they would be to a summer campaign; and then to

'The Summer's Hunting ’ have him take his ships over to the Long Island to seek the Prince. If Charles Edward could be so persuaded, Rouillee should bring him back to Arisaig. As to the stores, Sheridan would have it that the commodore’s orders were to hand over the money to none but him, and that his influence was crucial. But Rouillee’s hand was forced on the morning of 3 May with the entry into the loch of Captain Noel’s Greyhound frigate and the Baltimore and Terror sloops of the Royal Navy. With action imminent, the hogsheads of money, the arms and the kegs of brandy were put ashore; and a morning-long cannonade ensued. The following day Le Mars, severely damaged from her fight with Noel’s intrepid ships, made a precipitate departure for France along with La Bellone. Murray, who had arrived at the shores of Loch nan Uamh in time to witness the end of the action, took charge of the French gold, now seen to be no less than 36,000 louis d ’or, keeping it out of the hands of Barrisdale and the Moidart gentry who had hastened to the scene ‘as it was then resolved to goe again to arms’ - so D r Archie, Lochiel’s brother would recall. It could have been during the next few days, while Murray was absent in Arisaig, and the chiefs were rallying on Loch Arkaig-side, that word may have come to Lochiel of an overture for peace. A stratagem of luring individual chiefs from the Prince’s army had been used by Cumberland at least once before in this campaign. When the Clan Gregor regiment was in Badenoch in March and the Duke of Cumberland at Aberdeen the latter - or perhaps his secretary, the intelligent Sir Everard Fawkener, Voltaire’s friend had approached a Badenoch minister, himself of MacGregor descent, to approach in turn the Clan Gregor colonel, Robert Murray of Glencamaig, ‘a man of genteel education, of great honour and probity’ . Glencamaig we last met in the heady September days of 1745 laying a wager with Lochiel that it was not his men who had been guilty of sheep-stealing. Like all of MacGregor descent Glencamaig had been obliged to assume a different name with the long-standing prescription of the clan’s name. The bait offered in return for laying down arms, or (better still) coming over to the royal army, was the restoration of the name of MacGregor. Sir Robert Douglas, sennachie to the landed gentry and author of The Baronage o f Scotland in 1798, had this story - presumably from

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Glencamaig’s relatives. It is the more believable in that he quotes at length the precise wording with which the Duke’s offer was firmly but courteously rejected: ‘having embarked in this affair they could not now desert, whatever they might suffer if it misgave. T h at. . . though his highness might love the treason, he must needs hate the traitors . . . that therefore they chose rather to risk their lives and fortunes, and die with the characters of honest men than live in infamy, and hand down disgrace to their posterity/ So a similar approach to Lochiel at this stage to detach him from the Prince’s cause would appear to have a precedent. In the words of the Memoire, It was at this point that the Duke of Cumberland offered Mr Cameron of Lochiel very favourable terms to try to win him over, and it was made known to the other chiefs that the Duke, greatly impressed by their bravery, would use his good offices in their favour if they would only resolve in good faith to lay down their arms. For all who would list Cumberland in the Scottish demonology this is surely the most startling passage of all in the Memoire. What credence is to be given it will be discussed shortly when we look at the events of the weeks following Culloden ‘on the other side of the hill.’ As to this peace overture itself the Memoire continues: ‘Lochiel rejected these overtures with disdain, and none of the chiefs would hear of surrender. On the contrary they were convinced that France would not leave them in the lurch, and that, should the Prince have crossed over to France, he would soon return with the support that had so often been promised them.’ Murray was back with Lochiel on Loch Arkaig-side by 8 May, having seen to the safe-keeping of the gold from France. There he also found Lord Lovat. The octogenarian Lovat, corpulent and lame, carried on the shoulders of his gillies, was now acting his favourite part as ‘the oracle of the country’, and in contrast to his vacillations of the previous winter he was now enjoining resistance a outrance. Lovat was just as eloquent the following day when the meeting of chiefs which Lochiel and Murray had convened took place. Young Clanranald who had been slightly wounded in the

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‘The Summer’s Hunting ’ battle was there. So were Lochgarry and Barrisdale and a nephew of Alexander MacDonell of Keppoch, he who had fallen in the battle so gallantly and despairingly. Colonel Roy Stuart was also present, already harbouring unfounded suspicions of Lord George Murray’s loyalty. So was the aged Gordon of Glenbucket whose initiative eight years past had begun the train of events leading to the present plight. They were, said Murray, all moved by Lovat’s stern reminder that no one could expect simple forgiveness from King George, and that honour demanded that they ‘stand it out to the last’, and get together a force to protect the country ‘until such time as they could procure terms, or had a final answer from abroad’ . Lovat no doubt felt that he had little to lose. His home, Castle Downie, had gone up in flames and his country north of Loch Ness had been pillaged mercilessly in the week after Culloden. As if the Highland Arm y were still in being instead of a shadow of its former self, a plan of action was now spelt out by Murray. Such was ever his style. At Muirlaggan, the 8th of May, 1746. We, subscribers, heads of Clans, commanders and leaders, do hereby unanimously agree, and solemnly promise forthwith, with the utmost expedition, to raise in arms, for the interest of His Royal Highness Charles Prince of Wales, and in defence of our country, all the able-bodied men that all and every one of us can command or raise, within our respective interests or properties. /tern, We hereby promise and agree, that the following Clans, viz. Lochiel, Glengary, Clanronald, Stewarts of Appin, Keppoch, Barrisdale, Mackinnon, and Macleods [of Raasay] shall rendeavous on Thursday next the 1 jth instant, at Auchnicarry, in the braes of Lochaber. Item y To facilitate the function of our army, with all possible speed, it is agreed, that the Frasers of Aird, and others our friends on the north side of the river Ness, shall join the people of Glenmoriston and Glengary; and that the Frasers of Stratherrick, the Macintoshes, and Macphersons, shall assemble

Locbiel o f the ’Forty-Five and meet at the most convenient place in Badenoch, on Thurs­ day the 15 th current. /tern, The Macgregors, Menzies, and Glenlyon’s people, shall march to Rannoch, and join the Rannoch and Athol men; and be ready to receive intelligence and orders to meet the main body in the braes of Mar, or any other place that shall be most convenient. Item yIt is agreed, that Major-General Gordon of Glenbucket, and Colonel Roy Stuart, shall advertise Lord Lewis Gordon, Lord Ogilvie, Lord Pitsligo, the Farquharsons, and the other principal gentlemen of the North, with the resolutions taken at this meeting; and that they shall agree among themselves as to a place of rendezvous, so as to be able to join the army where it shall be judged most proper. Item , That Clunie Macpherson, and Colonel Roy Stuart, shall advertise the principal gentlemen of the Macintoshes, of our resolutions. Lastly, We further promise and engage ourselves, each to the other, to stand and abide by these our resolutions, for the interest of His Royal Highness, and the good of our country, which we apprehend to be inseparable, to the last drop of our blood; and never to lay down our arms, or make a separate peace, without the general consent of the whole. And in case any one engaged in this association shall make separate terms for himself, he shall be looked upon as a traitor to his Prince, and treated by us as an enemy. In the 1780’s, along with Murray’s plan of action of 8 May, John Home recovered a letter of a week later, dated 1 j May, from Lochiel to Cluny Macpherson. ‘We are preparing for a summer campaign’, Lochiel wrote, ‘and hope soon to conjoin our forces.* If any of the piquets from the Irish Brigade or of the Regiment Royal Ecossais, ‘or any other pretty fellows’ were ‘straggling in your country’, Cluny should get them together ‘until we join you.’ This was mere moonshine. The Royal Ecossais and the Irish piquets, after covering the retreat of the clans from Culloden field with some loss to themselves, had all surrendered to the Duke. The Appin

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‘The Summer's Hunting ’ men had by now handed in their arms to General Campbell as, after some hesitation, had the MacDonalds of Glencoe led by their chief. And, although Cluny Macpherson was still holding out, his clansmen were now making their submission to King George’s army. Menzies of Shian had fallen at Culloden, and what was left of the Atholl Brigade had dispersed, Lord George Murray himself now skulking in the great fir woods at the head of Glen Lyon. What now happened is described in detail by Murray, writing within two years of these events in which he had taken a leading part. (But he surely magnified his own role - it would be Lochiel who gave the orders; Camerons would not take kindly to being ordered about by a Tweeddale laird.) About noon on 21 May Lochiel’s little force, only four hundred strong, ‘so difficult was it to persuade the country people . . . to keep together in a body’, marched to Achnacarry, and there waited for Lochgarry’s men to join them so that they might all cross the Lochy and join with the Keppoch MacDonells, as the first stage in rebuilding the Highland Army. But Lochgarry did not appear, and this bred unease, for he had been entrusted with the watch on troop movements from Fort Augustus, now reoccupied by Lord Loudoun and eighteen companies of his own regiment of Highlanders and of the Munro and MacLeod militias, and three battalions of English foot. Meanwhile at Achnacarry some more Camerons joined, and there was word that Major Cameron of Dungallon was on his way with his following from Sunart and Ardnamurchan. The following day Barrisdale announced that he must return forthwith to Knoydart to see to his own affairs and (he said) to bring out the rest of his men. Though he left his nineteen-year old son with some six score of his following, Barrisdale’s going off thickened the air of distrust. N or were young Clanranald and the Moidart men to be seen. By now Clanranald’s twenty-year old heir had probably had his fill of fighting. A letter of his of 26 April now in the Cumberland Papers, and presumably picked up in the sweep through Moidart that was to come, indicates the shock Culloden had been to him and his clan: ‘Dear Glen’, he wrote to his second-in-command, the wounded Alexander of Glenaladale, ‘I never expected to return once the small arms began.’ The Furnace bomb-ketch of the Royal Navy

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five had also now carried out her retributive visitation of Loch nan Uamh and Loch Ailort. To this young Clanaranald and his men had only been able to offer ineffectual resistance. At Borradale and Glenuig not a house had been spared. At Achnacarry, as a precaution, scouts were sent that evening to watch the hills over to Glengarry, and any movement of enemy troops down the military road to Fort William along the far side of the Lochy. A witness of events on this tense day was a grandson of MacDonell of Scotus, an eighteen-year old lieutenant of the Regimenta Irlanda of the Spanish Service. Tain Spanneach’ - Spanish John - as he was known to his people in Glengarry’s Knoydart, had landed at Loch Broom from a Dunkirk cutter two weeks past with money and despatches for the Prince from the Duke of York. There Spanish John learned of Culloden, and that Lochiel was still holding out in Lochaber. ‘After a very fatiguing march’ he later wrote, we came to the side of Locharkaig in Lochiel’s country, where we met about 50 Highland soldiers of my native part of the Country, commanded by my cousin Colonel Coll M’Donell younger of Barisdale, whose face I immediately recollected, and saluting him said I was glad to see him. He said that I had the advantage of him, that he had never seen me before. I then told him who I was; enquired about the rest of my relations; what number of men were yet in arms for Charles, and where they were? He told me that all was over - that Cameron of Lochiel was with 500 men at his seat of Achnacarrie; that Mr Murray of Broughton one of Charles’ Secretaries, and some officers were likewise. Lochgarry and he, said Barrisdale, were getting their men together ‘to try what terms could be obtained from the Duke of Cumberland.’ Lochiel wanted only to continue the fight: Barrisdale had submission in mind. But young Lieutenant MacDonell pressed on to Achnacarry that evening to hand over to Murray the despatches and money he had brought. Writing many years later, an emigrant to Canada from his native Knoydart, he also called to mind that he ‘was most kindly received by Lochiel, tho’ he was badly wounded.’

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‘The Summer's Hunting 9 Murray’s narrative of these last days of the Rising continues: Things being now put upon the best footing their circum­ stances would allow, they determined next day to cross the River of Lochy and march to Braelochaber, to join with the Mcdonalds of Kepoch, and from thence to Badenough, to meet the Mcfersons; but in the morning, about four o clock, whilst they were all asleep, one of the Scouts dispatched the night before, brought intelligence that the Enemy was then in motion, but whether to Fort William, or against them, he could not say, having lost sight of them before they passed Laterfinlay [Letterfinlay on the shores of Loch Lochy] some miles short of the Road leading to Achnacary. This did not immediately cause alarm. It was thought to be a detachment on its way to Fort William there to join with Gen­ eral Campbell’s Argyllshire levies moving up through Appin and Glencoe. But two hours later a second scout reported that the enemy had left the military road and were preparing to cross the Lochy and to march on Achnacarry. Lieutenant MacDonell also recalled the moment: how he was ‘awakened at break of day by all the Highland Bagpipes playing the general Cogga na si, having been alarmed by their scouts.’ What was now developing was in fact a pincer attack on Lochiel’s force; 600 picked men from the line regiments and Munro of Culcairn’s company of clansmen, the red cross of the government service in their bonnets, coming at Achnacarry from the south; and, though Lochiel did not as yet know it, Lord Loudoun with 2,000 of his Highlanders marching through Glengarry, then up Glen Kingie to come at Loch Arkaig from the north. With the immediate threat from the south, Lochiel ordered his force to dispute the crossing of the Lochy, but the enemy were soon seen to be ‘so numerous, both in Highlanders and in regular troops that to oppose their passage would have been in vain.’ So the Camerons retreated first to the foot of Loch Arkaig, then along the track by its northern shore. ‘They had not been long at the head of the lake’, noted Murray, ‘when they had the melancholy and dismal prospect of the whole country on fire.’ Lochiel ordered his small

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five force to disperse, and it faded away among the hills. So ended the ’Forty-Five. As the government troops crossed the Lochy they had ‘observed a great smoke’ which they supposed to be Achnacarry set on fire by the rebels, but ‘it was found to be a mill where they had a quantity of meal which they had not time to carry off.’ A body of Camerons were now seen retreating along the north side of Loch Arkaig. Loudoun was confident that they would be cut off by the northern arm of the pincer, ‘but the roads being extremely bad, this party could not come up soon enough.’ That anonymous Perthshire gentleman, the ‘Whig historian’ of 1747, acknowledged that the government troops now ‘burnt some houses, carryed off a great number of cattle and returned next day to Fort Augustus.’ This minimises what happened; John Cameron gives a truer picture. The invading force ‘burnt and plundered from M oy to the head of Loch Arkaig’, Achnacarry itself going up in flames on the 28th; Captain Munro of Culcaim in command of the Munro contingent, said John Cameron, was in charge of this last purposeful retribution, Lord Loudoun wishing the task on to his shoulders. It is unlikely that Culcaim had kindly feelings for the Camerons. Sir Robert Munro of Foulis and D r Duncan Munro, slaughtered by Cameron swords at Falkirk, had been his brothers. How indeed had it all seemed ‘on the other side of the hill’ ? How had these five weeks between his victory at Culloden moor and the ‘battle’ of Achnacarry been viewed by Cumberland? And is there any hint among the hundreds of letters for these weeks in the Cumberland Papers of the olive branch which, according to the Memoire d'un Ecossais, he offered to Lochiel? As to the Duke’s alleged conciliatory cast of mind, there is in his surviving papers no scintilla of regret either for the carnage of the battle or for its dark aftermath - unless there is to be seen as such the notorious doctoring of Lord George Murray’s captured Orders of the Day to make it appear that it had been the Highland Arm y which was intent on taking no prisoners. Recent biographers of the Duke have sought to show that the wording in these Orders, ‘and to give no quarter to the Elector’s troops, on any account whatsoever’,

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‘The Summer’s Hunting ’ was in fact in the original, and not an insertion after the battle by one of Cumberland’s minions feebly to excuse the killing of some of the prisoners and wounded: the ‘black wark\ as a private of the Scotch Royals remembered it long after. But the late Henrietta Tayler, doyenne of Jacobite historians, found the indisputable evidence of the forgery in the Cumberland Papers all of fifty years ago. Scanning Cumberland’s letter of 19 April to Lord President Forbes, still on Skye, the eye lights on the beefy young Duke’s admission that ‘some excesses may have been comitted . . . which I shall be sorry for.’ But the rest of the letter makes it clear that Cumberland was here referring not to the killing of Jacobite prisoners but to damage done by his troops to Forbes’ fine house on the edge of the moor. This unfeeling attitude towards the notorious ‘excesses’ of 16 April stands in contrast to the kindly word he had for the ailing Duncan Forbes: ‘I hope this event will restore tranquility to the Country and put an end to your long fatigue’ . N or is there any hint that Cumberland, as the Memoire d ’un Ecossais would have it, was impressed by the bravery the clans had shown on the field of battle, though recognition by him, as by young Major Wolfe, of the valour that had been shown by Lochiel’s Camerons and other regiments of the Highland Army would not have been surprising. The quality of some of the British Infantry was poor, and the value there would be to British arms of fighting men such as these Highlanders was obvious. It was less than a year past that Cumberland had praised the heroic endurance of the kilted 43rd at Fontenoy. Again, like Major Wolfe, he could have reflected that if rebel clansmen were enlisted in the British Army for its continental wars there would be ‘no great mischief if they fall’ . As to his alleged conciliatory cast of mind, the ‘Whig historian’ of 1747 would have it that ‘His R.Hs had no desire to shed more blood provided that it could be prevented by the Enemies’ surrendering themselves’ ; and from his camp at Inverness on 1 May Cumberland issued a proclaimation implying that common people who had been ‘out’ in the rebellion had nothing to fear if they would now lay down their arms. But his instructions of 25 April to Lord Loudoun, by then landed from Skye on the mainland of Inverness-shire with his Highlanders in government service and

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five about to sweep through Jacobite Glenmoriston - these had been to a different tune. The copy in the Cumberland Papers of this letter shows significant deletion, presumably to the Duke’s dictation. What had been ‘ You w ill constantly have in m ind to destroy or take prisoner as many o f those who have been in the rebellion . . . ’ becomes (You w ill constantly have in m ind to destroy a ll persons you can fin d who have been in the rebellion ’ The more humane Loudoun did not quite comply, though all of Glenmoriston was burned. But euphoria at a victory which none had believed could be won so cheaply was dominant in Cumberland’s mind as it was throughout the royal army in these first weeks after Culloden. It had been wrongly reported to Cumberland that Lochiel had been killed, and that so had the Duke of Perth, Lord Nairne of the Atholl Brigade and Charles Stewart of Ardshiel who had led the Appin Stewarts; and indeed that ‘most of the Camerons and McDonalds were killed at the battle’ . This last was probably true of Lochiel’s regiment but not of those of Clan Donald. There was however one further act of vindictiveness to be ordered, and it serves to illustrate the Duke’s nature. Eleven regimental colours had been captured on the field of battle, along with what was believed to have been that of the Young Pretender. These, Cumberland reported to Newcastle on 23 April, he was sending forthwith to Edinburgh to be ‘burnt there by the hands of the Common Hangman as that town has been so very ill-affected.’ No doubt reports of the Holyroodhouse balls of the previous autumn rankled in his mind. All that remained, it seemed, was to make his Stuart cousin prisoner. Major-General Campbell with his Argyllshire levies at Fort William could see to that. To Campbell, Cumberland wrote reminding him how near he was ‘to a great prize’ - the capture of Charles Edward. He had now learned that the report of Lochiel’s death was false, but he was as yet little concerned on that account. To the Duke of Newcastle in distant Whitehall he reported on 30 April that the Young Pretender with Lochiel were ‘dodging about the Cameron’s country’, but that they ‘never have above twenty or thirty men with them at any time.’ If Lord Lovat - in the Duke’s eyes ‘one of the mainsprings of the rebellion* - could also be apprehended, resistance must surely be at an end.

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‘The Summer’s Hunting ’ General Campbell at Inverary would dub the search for the Prince and other Jacobites ‘the summer’s hunting’. It was he who now sounded the first warning note. Something infinitely more serious was involved. On 3 May he wrote to say that he had learned ‘that a great many of the chiefs were said to be retired to Loch Arkaig, Knoydart, Moydart, Arasaig and Morvan’ . The following day he added to this. Lochiel was forcibly keeping his people in rebellion though many were ready to bring in their arms. The MacPhersons in Badenoch and the Frasers in Stratherrick were standing to theirs, and ready to give battle. He added, ‘There is great talk of a French vessel on the coast of Moydart and cannonading was heard on Saturday, suppos’d to be themselves.’ This was the action in Loch nan Uamh where Captain N oel’s Greyhound frigate and his two sloops the Terror and the Baltimore encountered the two big privaters from Nantes; money, munitions of war and brandy being landed in quantities which put new heart into Lochiel’s remnants of the Highland Army. Captain Carolina Scott, hero of the siege of Fort William, reported from there more fully on 7 May, ‘The rebels have got airms, money, brandy by these vessels from France’ ; and it was still not known whether the Young Pretender had gone off to France with the big privateers. Scott accompanied his report with the alarming news that ‘3200 are encamped at Glendishery [Glen Dessary].’ His intelligence source exaggerated, but the Rising was indeed about to blaze briefly into renewed life. Like General Campbell, Scott also reported that Lochiel was the head and fore-front of the offending. ‘Most of the Camerons would lay down their arms but are afraid of Lochyeal who threatens all who shall choose to submit to H R H .’ No doubt stung by this news, on 8 May Cumberland wrote to Newcastle giving his opinion that wholesale transportation of the rebel clans was the only answer, ‘because it is feared, and I believe with great reason, that while they remain on this island their rebellious, thievish nature is not to be kept under without an army always within reach of them.’ On 10 May, now at ruined Fort Augustus, Loudoun wrote to Colonel Napier, Cumberland’s aide-de-camp, at Inverness. Reports were confusing, he said, but he had prevailed on MacDonell of I2 S

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Glengarry - now trying to work his way into the good graces of the victors - to send a man into Lochaber to find out the truth of the matter. The following day Loudoun wrote to the Duke with alarming information so gleaned. The vast quantity of money landed from the French ships was ‘as much as could maintain ten thousand men for two or three months/ There was also ominous talk in the rebel force of greater landings to come. The next four days brought news from the Duke of Newcastle in Whitehall, which could only serve to accentuate Cumberland’s anxiety to put a speedy end to rebellion. The Hessian troops were to be embarked for Flanders ‘where from the situation of the armies and the great superiority of the French they will be very much wanted.’ The ’Forty-Five had been an expensive distraction for the British from the main theatre of this continental war, and a great success for France as Saxe’s army recaptured Brussels. It was that doughty Aberdeenshire man, Captain Fergussone r n , of the Furnace bomb-ketch (soon also to take his place in Jacobite demonology) who was next to report on the flaring-up of rebellion. Cruising off Raasay, on 12 May he sent urgent word to Cumberland that ‘400 men in the islands were ready to embark on the first westerly wind.’ This was untrue, though it may reflect in garbled form what was to be the Wester Ross tradition that a strong force of MacKenzies from Lewis, recruits for the Highland Army, had only turned back from Poolewe on learning of Culloden. He also reported accurately that ‘Lochiele, Barrasdal and Clanronald with many of the chiefs had met on the 8th of M ay’, and that ‘afterwards it was given out amongst the rebels orders to hold themselves in readiness to joyn in a day’s warning, for they were to be joynd by some thousands of French and be payed all their arrears.’ Fergussone had also got it out of a Moidart man that Charles Edward was no longer on the mainland, and had sailed off to the Outer Hebrides as far back as three weeks past. Ever a man for prompt action, Fergussone had set Jacobite Raasay on fire, burning all the houses. He also demolished Barrisdale’s fine slated house on the shores of Loch Nevis. Further intelligence of the rebels’ intentions came from Captain Scott on 12 May. Their plan, he rightly reported, was to move

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‘The Summer's Hunting ’ east from Loch Arkaig to join with the Badenoch Jacobites. To all this, Cumberland’s response was to give firm orders on 13 May to General Campbell, now at Fort William, ‘to distress the rebels by all the ways and means possible to bring them to a total submission to His Majesty’s mercy.’ He added, ‘As the Camerons have distinguished themselves by their forwardness in this infamous rebellion, you will direct your operations and pursuits chiefly among them.’ In a telling reference of Lochiel’s ‘hang a Campbell’ letter of the spring he went on, ‘besides more general considerations this is due to the security of your own friends against whom they have express’d a very uncommon degree of rancour.’ Loudoun, perhaps sensing the disaster that was now about to fall on the Jacobite clans of the West, was at pains on 16 May to inform Cumberland that the ‘Glengarry men were beginning to submit’, as were the Stratherrick Frasers, the Macintosh clansmen in Badenoch and the Keppoch MacDonells. What was deterring the Glengarry men, he added reproachfully (and rather courageously) was the treatment accorded the Glenmoriston Grants who had thought they would be sent home after their mass submission to the Duke at Inverness but were instead made prisoners with transportation in prospect. Those applications for submission he had received, Loudoun said, ‘have come to me from the acquaintance I have with some of the people of those clans.’ Leave it to me, he implied, and I will see to a general submission, obviating the need for drastic military intervention. If Cumberland were at all inclined to heed Loudoun’s views, he would be dissuaded by other reports now coming in daily. On 17 May from Mingarry castle in Ardnamurchan came word from the Campbell officer commanding the government outpost there. He had had full information from ‘a gentleman of Moydart forced out by his chief much against his inclination who had deserted the Highland Army soon thereafter.’ He was, said Captain Campbell, ‘a relation of mine whom I know intimately’, and had been present at the meeting of the chiefs on Loch Arkaig-side (which one of the Moidart gentry was this?). All the Camerons, said the informant, were in arms. Young Clanranald was on the march from Moidart with 200 men to join them. ‘They aim to have 4000 at least formed in

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five the Braes of Lochaber on Tuesday first. . . They call but the ablest bodied men. All are bound by solemn oath/ At Lovat’s instigation they were resolved ‘to accept of no terms without procuring an honourable capitulation for them all, sword in hand/ But they also expected ‘strong succours from France and Spain/ and that their Prince would return to lead them. From the French ships they had their war-chest equal to £40,000 sterling, and they were determined to sustain themselves by raiding Argyllshire. ‘They choose to die like men of honour (as they say) rather than surrender their arms and die like dogs\ But, for all that, the ‘small tenants and poor, illiterate people that were deluded and most of them forced by their chieftains into rebellion’ wanted only to give up their arms and submit. Also on 17 May from Taymouth Castle, Lord Glenorchy, whiggish heir to the aged Jacobite-minded Earl of Breadalbane, reported that Cameron gentry had come into Rannoch to rouse the Camerons there. That same day the Badenoch laird, William Macintosh of Borlum, reported to Loudoun that Colonel R oy Stuart, on his way from Loch Arkaig-side, had passed his door, travelling east; so fears were heightened that the conflagration was about to spread. From Fort William on 19 May General Campbell, who by this stage was referring to the Camerons and the other rebels on Loch Arkaig-side as ‘vermin’, reported to Cumberland that the Glengarry men were not about to submit, nor was a general submission in prospect. ‘The Glengarry men that gave up their arms is expected to join upon Barrisdale and Lochgarry who have new arms to give them. The MacPhersons are ready at a call, so are most of the Frazer . . . This comes from one who is with Lochiel.’ If confirmation was needed that the situation was volatile there was that week the added enormity of a messenger on his way up the Great Glen being ambushed in a wood along Loch Lochy-side by Lochiel’s people, and his despatches taken. As the crisis approached, Duncan Forbes sought unavailingly to counsel moderation. From Inverness he wrote to the Duke on 20 May, ‘N o severity that is necessary ought to be dispensed with’, but ‘unnecessary severity is the most dangerous nurse of disaffection especially if continued for any time.’ Spare the common people,

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‘The Summer’s Hunting 3 he advised; ‘great numbers of them were compelled to join the active rebels by threats that were justly terrible to them.* By then, however, the die had been cast. On 17 May a veteran of Marlborough’s wars, Major-General Humphrey Bland - he whom Cumberland had reported to the Duke of Newcastle with satisfaction as having made ‘great slaughter’ in the pursuit of rebel Highlanders on the afternoon of Culloden - moved to Fort Augustus with the main force of the royal army. Loudoun had been put under his command and ordered to move his Highlanders half-a-dozen miles down the Great Glen to Aberchalder at the head of Loch Oich, preparatory to the plan of action now about to unfold. This was the pincer move on Achnacarry, from the south by Colonel Howard’s ‘Old Buffs’ with Culcairn’s Munros, from the north by redcoat troops and Loudoun’s Highlanders coming up Glen Kingie from Glengarry. Bland was clear that Lochiel’s Camerons were the target. His orders to Loudoun, as he reported to Cumberland on 22 May, were to ‘destroy as many of them as he can, since prisoners would only embarrass him; and in case the country people did not come in immediately, deliver up all their arms and submit to the king’s mercy, he was to bum and destroy their habitations, seize all their cattle, and put the men to death, being pretty well assured it will be difficult for him to shed innocent blood on that count.’ So was the scene set for the final tragedy of the ’Forty-Five. On 20 May Loudoun went down Loch Lochy-side to reconnoitre. ‘He went within sight of Logheal’s house’, Bland reported to Cumberland now at Fort Augustus, ‘where he is inform’d a body of rebels between five or six hundred are, and that Logheal was with them’. Loudoun’s spies also reported that the chiefs were putting it about that there could be a landing soon of a body of French troops ‘which’, Bland drily observed, ‘the disaffected here swallow down like whiskey . . . nothing but another smash amongst them will cure them of the disease.’ Loudoun, he continued, was obtaining precise intelligence of the rebel strength. ‘When that is known and that they remain there, I believe it would be no difficult matter to give them a blow and probably take Logheal.’ The capture of the Cameron chief was seen as the main objective. ‘N or dare the Camerons and their neighbours surrender their arms and submit to the King’s Mercy

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five (which it is said they are willing to do) till Logheal and his party are destroy’d or drove from thence.* On 22 May Captain Scott reported from Fort William that ‘yesterday forty arm’d men were seen at the back of Ardgour going by the head of Locheil towards the rendezvous at Erkig [Arkaig]’ . But by then the royal army was on the move, taking up position four miles beyond Aberchalder so that an early morning attack might be effected by daylight on Achnacarry. From Achnacarry - ‘Saturday [22 May] 1 o’clock after noon’ - Colonel Howard wrote to General Bland on what had been, and had not been, achieved. The rebels had got away; only five prisoners had been taken, one an officer ‘Ewen Cameron, ensign’. The expedition had failed since Loudoun’s arm of the pincer attack had not been able to come over the hills from Glengarry in time. For Howard it had been ‘the worst and most fatiguing march I ever made.’ However, he concluded, ‘we are now in Lochyell’s house where we are going to dinner’ . Further instructions were awaited from Cumberland about the fate of Achnacarry, but as a footnote Howard added, ‘Yesterday I demolished everything before me, but it was not much.’ The devastation of Loch Arkaig-side went on apace, but there was less killing than Bland’s orders had envisaged. ‘Sunday [23 May] 3 o’clock in the afternoon’, Howard reported to Bland that he had heard from Loudoun that ‘the Camerons have sent to him and will surrender this night or tomorrow morning.’ And so they did, near to a hundred of them. Cumberland would report to Newcastle on 27 May that these had submitted themselves to the King’s mercy, ‘which has been accepted for the present.’ But the savaging of the countryside continued, burning itself into local memory. The parish minister of Kilmallie wrote, a century later, of ‘the plundering parties to Lochaber who drove away all the cattle of the country, burnt the houses and drove the miserable inhabitants, old and young, without food or clothing to the hills’, and, he added, ‘They killed several persons in cold blood.’ But immediately in that summer of 1746 the shock was felt throughout Scotland. Tobias Smollet, a Lowland Scot as well as a successful novelist, wrote The Tears o f Scotland in an outburst of rage and protest:

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'The Summer's Hunting ’ Thy swains are famish’d on the rocks Where once they fed their wanton flocks; Thy ravish’d virgins shriek in vain, Thy infants perish on the plain. . . Is this then the whole story as seen from ‘the other side of the hill’ ? Must the passage in the Memoire d'un Ecossais about Cumberland’s peace overture to Lochiel and its rejection be looked upon as a fiction, made up in 1747 to impress Louis X V ’s ministers? The Duke, his eye on war in Flanders, had the most pressing reasons for his own speedy return there, and that of his army. The royal army was rightly apprehensive about the costly dangers of a protracted campaign amongst rain-swept hills - mountains which filled Private Thomas Atkins (in the words of a volunteer attached to the 21 st the Royal Scots Fusiliers) with ‘a hypochondriacal mel­ ancholy’ . That there is no direct documentation in the Cumberland Papers of the proferring of an olive branch to Lochiel or its rejection is not in itself conclusive: the Duke might not wish to risk his father’s wrath by seeming to be ‘soft’ on rebels, and, so would keep no record of the demarche. Or could it have been Loudoun at Fort Augustus, anxious that the full weight of the royal army should not be felt in Lochaber, who, at his own initiative or on behalf of the Duke, made a tentative peace overture to Lochiel? We cannot know. However the Cumberland Papers contain what may well be a piece of indirect evidence. On 15 May Captain Scott at Fort William had an unusual caller who handed him a package. To the Duke’s aide he wrote: The inclosed packet was brought to me yesterday in the afternoon by a widow woman who lives four miles off. She told me that Mon­ day last six arm’d men came to the house and made her promise on oath to deliver the packet to me. I shew’d the letter to Maj-Gen. Campbell by whose orders I sent back word to the person that the letters should be forwarded to Inverness and if any answer came if she would let me know the place of her abode that it might be sent her and further she was desired to explain who she was. [Scott’s underlining]

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five General Campbell, apparently, did not take Captain Scott into his confidence about the contents of the package. The latter continued: T can guess no further than the men who brought this packet belonged to Lochyiel whose name they made use of in order to make the woman the more careful in coming to this place where she used to come to market formerly/ Had the widow of Strone, or Erracht, or whatever other Lochaber township within four miles distance of Fort William, been conveying Lochiel’s response to Cumberland? Whatever the truth of this intriguing matter, the fact remains that by his gallant insistence on keeping up the struggle so long as there seemed any chance of some sort of eventual success, Lochiel had miscalculated most lamentably, and had in effect courted the disaster which now fell on his people. Awareness of this was to haunt him for the two remaining years of his life. At the head of Loch Arkaig, at the end of the desperate 23 May, with the last stand of the Highland Army dispersed, his ancestral home about to go up in flames and his people’s already on fire, Lochiel had news which for him was still worse in its import. The Prince had not after all escaped from the Long Island to France, and was yet in South Uist urgently seeking his help. This was serious enough. What made the Prince’s plight potentially calamitous was separate information which arrived that day, also from the Long Island: MacLeod at Dunvegan had heard of the Prince’s whereabouts and was only too likely to pass this information onwards to Cumberland, now at Fort Augustus. Murray, writing within two years of events, remembered this double blow. Whilest every one was consulting what Com er of the Coun­ try would be the most proper where to conceal themselves, Mr Murray was told by Locheil that he had that moment received a message from the Prince, acquainting him with his being in the Isle of Uist, where he had not yet been able to procure a Vessell, and desiring to know if he could provide one upon that Coast. Another Gentleman at the same time brought certain Accounts by letters from that Country that the Laird of

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‘The Summer's Hunting ’ McLeod had been wrote to by one of his Presbiterian preachers, of the Princes being there, which made Mr Murray naturaly conjecture that from McLeod’s former treachery and the orders he had given to his people not to grant him protection, he would in all probability be taken. The emissaries who had crossed the Minch with the news that the Prince was concealed at Glen Corodale, where the hills of South Uist run down abruptly to its eastern coastline, were Father Allan MacDonald, who had been the Prince’s confessor throughout the campaign, and the elderly Skyeman, Donald MacLeod. Father Allan, being a Uist man, had accompanied Colonel O ’Sullivan and Captain O ’Neil, the Prince’s two Irish henchmen, on his precipitate flight to the Outer Hebrides a month past; Donald MacLeod of Galtrigil had been the pilot on that hazardous voyage. Their message from the Prince was that he could find no means of getting off to France. Could Lochiel, from the mainland, assist him? This information about the ‘Presbiterian preacher’ having informed the MacLeod chief at Dunvegan caused the sharper anxiety, indi­ cating as it did that the net could soon close round the Prince in his South Uist hideout. With no time to lose, it was resolved there at the head of Loch Arkaig that Murray should follow Father Allan and Donald MacLeod back to the Arisaig coast. With him should go Major Kennedy, an officer of the French service, who had gallantly elected not to surrender himself to Cumberland after Culloden. The plan was that they should all go across to South Uist to bring the Prince over to the mainland; Lochiel, still lame from his wounds, and his posse meanwhile made their way over the hills to the Cameron side of Loch Shiel, there to await him. Lochiel would not yet concede that the Rising was at an end. On 26 May, by which date his small band would have carried him up and over the intervening hills to Loch Shiel-side, he wrote to the Jacobites of Badenoch, principally his cousin Cluny Macpherson, whom he had addressed so hopefully only eleven days back about reassembling a Highland Army, I send you this, to acquaint you of the reasons of our not being in your country ere now, as I last wrote you. Our 133

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five assembling was not so general nor hearty as was expected, for Clanranald’s people would not leave their own country, and many of Glengarry’s have delivered up their arms, so that but few came back with Lochgarry to Invermely on Tuesday last, where he staid but one night, and crossed Locharkaik with his men, promising to return with a greater number in two days, and that he would guard the passes on that side; neither of which was done, nor have we had any return from the Master of Lovat; so that there was only a few men with Barrisdale, and what men I had on this side of Lochy, who marched Wednesday night to Auchnacarry, where, trusting to Lochgarry’s information, we had almost been surprised on Friday morning, had we not learned by other look-outs, that the enemy was marching from Fort-Augustus towards us. For Lochiel, MacDonell of Lochgarry perhaps had been an uncertain comrade-in-arms. Lochiel’s men had been all but surrounded as they retreated to the head of Loch Arkaig where it was thought prudent and proper to disperse, rather than to carry the fire into your country without a sufficient number . . . It is now the opinion of Mr Murray, Major Kennedy, Barrisdale, and all present, that your people should separate, and keep themselves as safe as possible, and keep their arms, as we have great expectations of the French doing something for us, or until we have their final resolutions what they are to do. I think they have little encouragement from the Government [to surrender] as they get no assurances of safety . . . I beg you will acquaint all your neighbours of this, viz., the Mackintoshes, Macgregors, etc., for at present it is very inconvenient for me to acquaint them from this; and be so good as let us hear from you as oft as possible, and when there is anything extraordinary, you may expect to hear of it, and the particulars of the enemy’s motions. Let me hear from you by the bearer, who will find me; and when any of you write to me, please direct as the bearer shall inform you, and let him know how I shall address to you.

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'The Summer's Hunting 3 ‘Great expectations of the French . . . ’ - LochiePs disastrous delusion persisted. But hopes like his seem to have been general among Jacobites unable to believe that the military might of France would not come to their assistance. The intensely moving Gaelic poem A Prayer fo r the Prince which has survived from that summer ends with the lines, Mary Mother Grace on him doubly, A price on his head, Scourged by Lowlanders May the army of France Come over to save him. In a postscript to the letter LochiePs counsel of resistance a outrance faltered. It might well bring on Badenoch the savaging his Lochaber was now enduring. With a final request that the Master of Lovat be sent at once a copy of this letter he concluded, The above is our present resolutions, and what I have advised all my people to do as the best and safest course, and the interest of the public; yet some of them have delivered up their arms without my knowledge; and I cannot take it upon me to direct in this particular, but to give my opinion, and let every one judge for himself. Two days later, on 28 May, Murray returned from his mission to make contact with the Prince and bring him over to the mainland. He met Cameron of Dungallon at his house in Glen Hurich which runs from Loch Shiel into the hills of Ardgour, and then was reunited with Lochiel at a loch-side farmhouse. Murray’s fever had returned. This and his want of Gaelic had forced him to recognise that it would be better that Father Allan MacDonald and Donald MacLeod should cross to South Uist by themselves and bring the Prince to Lochiel. Before they departed it had been agreed that the Prince, or, should he have decided not to come, an emissary from him, should meet Murray and Major Kennedy ‘the Munday se’night following’ - 1 June - ‘at a Gentleman’s house about three miles from the coast’, a location, probably Dalilea, which in 1748 Murray was prudently reticent in 135

Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five identifying. However, Father Allan had disclosed on parting that the Prince might by then have succeeded in making his escape from Uist to France; Clanranald’s brother, Alexander MacDonald of Boisdale, he said, was busying himself in winning over for this purpose the master of the D avid, a little mealship off-loading her cargo in South Uist. If this was hopeful news it was offset by word that came to Lochiel that day. General Campbell with a strong force of both Argyllshire Campbells and ‘red soldiers’, as they were known to Highlanders, had disembarked at Strontian at the head of Loch Sunart, only a day’s march from Loch Shiel. Murray also had received this news. B y now he had gone back down the loch to liaise with Cameron of Dungallon at his home at Glen Hurich. Murray had also met two hapless fugitives from Strontian on his journey. One was Dr Archie’s lady, who was Cameron of Dungallon’s sister, the other was his own wife. Both were heavy with child. The following day, 29 May, the plan to bring the Prince to join Lochiel was seen to be in great jeopardy should General Campbell’s men come across from Strontian to wreak the same havoc that had been brought to Loch Arkaig-side. A curious sequence of events now took place at Glen Hurich as Lochiel and his band of followers sought greater security on a little island in Loch Shiel, (surely the one which the Ordnance Survey mapper of the 1860s, on local information, named Eilean Mhic Dhomhail Dhuibh - ‘Lochiel’s island’). Major Alexander Cameron of Dungallon had been junior only to Lochiel and his brother in the Clan Cameron regiment. He had also been standard bearer to the Prince himself. On 23 May he had been on the march to join Lochiel, having re-mustered a Cameron following from Ardnamurchan. He could now expect to be as harshly dealt with by the authorities as any of the Jacobite chiefs should he become a prisoner. However on this day, 29 May, Murray disbursed a hundred louis d ’or of French gold to Dungallon - and Dungallon wrote to General Campbell at Strontian making his submission. That evening he went over the hills to surrender himself in person. Dungallon, in Murray’s words, was ‘a sweet blooded young fellow’. The General was much impressed by the submissive tone of his letter, and by his demeanour. ‘He seems a bashfull, modest

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‘The Summer's Hunting ’ man, extremely sensible of his crime’ , wrote the General to Sir Everard Fawkener, Cumberland’s secretary, and he also wrote to the Sheriff at Inverary requiring him to treat Dungallon well. General Campbell was also much taken with what Dungallon had to say as he delivered up his arms that evening. ‘He desir’d I would allow him to send round the country and call in such as depended on him to do the same’, and Dungallon gave ‘a very ingenuous and satisfactory answer to such questions as I have asked him’. But the information which the General would wish to know above all else - Lochiel’s whereabouts - was not disclosed. The question arises, was Dungallon’s surrender the falling apart of Cameron resistance, of a piece with the laying down of arms by many clansmen that day to the garrison at Fort William, or was it made for the express purpose of keeping General Campbell’s troops away from Loch Shiel-side while Lochiel had perforce to remain there, awaiting the possibility of the Prince’s arrival? On this interpretation another factor could have been the danger to which Dr Archie’s pregnant wife (Dungallon’s sister) and also Murray’s wife, likewise with child, would be exposed should Glen Hurich and Loch Shiel-side suffer the fate of the Lochaber townships. That evening Murray joined Lochiel on his islet refuge. On the 30th they crossed back to the loch-side, moving by night to the concealment of a wood further up the loch towards Glenfinnan, probably the ancient woodland at Scammadale where the gleh pro­ vides for a backdoor escape to the Ardgour massif. First they burned a large parcel of letters and other papers ‘which had been preserved with some of the Prince’s baggage after the Battle of Culloden.’ Charles Steuart, Murray’s clerk, was despatched to Moidart to the proposed rendezvous with the Prince, ‘the gentleman’s house three miles from the coast’, the coast road being now guarded by the Argyllshire levies and Murray being unfit to make the arduous journey himself. As the crisis worsened, a plan that Murray should cross the loch by boat to Glenaladale on the far side, there to make contact with Major Kennedy who had gone ahead to find its laird, still recovering from his wounds, had also to be given up. It happened that Dungallon’s ruse - if ruse it was - succeeded. General Campbell in the next week confined his rebel-hunting efforts 137

Lochiel o f the 3Forty-Five to Moidart where Kinlochmoidart’s house had already been burned. But this relief to the fugitives on Loch Shiel-side was now offset by the alarming news that troops from Fort William were at Kinlocheil, no great distance from Glenfinnan or from LochiePs latest refuge. However, with their plight looking more and more desperate, hope of salvation came that day from Appin. Charles Stewart of Ardshiel had gone back there after the dispersal of 23 May. He now sent a messenger with advice that, General Campbell having quitted Appin for Sunart, Lochiel and his band should make their way across Loch Linnhe to Appin’s relative safety. So it was arranged; Lochiel instructed ArdshiePs clansmen to have a boat ready on the Ardgour shore of Loch Linnhe in four days time, and with his own small band he set out over the high hills to the east. There were nine of them; Lochiel, Dr Archie, LochiePs uncle Ludovic Cameron of Torcastle, Murray and his ailing nephew Sir David Murray, Sir Steuart Thriepland, the third baronet of a profoundly Jacobite Perthshire family, Major Kennedy, and two Cameron gentlemen, one of whom was LochiePs principal servant, ‘Alan Cameron, a young genteel lad* of the Callart family, the other the Revd John Cameron. LochiePs continuing lameness from his wounds made their travel slow, shielings for summer grazing among the hills sheltering them on the two nights of the journey. But on the night of 4 June, having reached the Ardgour coast, they crossed successfully to Loch Leven, landing a ‘a little above the ferry at Ballachulish’ and meeting there once again the huge, corpulent and most welcome presence of the laird of Ardshiel. In this Loch Leven-side refuge, close to the house at Invercoe of Alexander MacDonald of Glencoe who had already surrendered to General Campbell, they waited for news from the coast. It came on 6 June with the return of Murray’s clerk, Charles Steuart, a notary public at Maryburgh beside Fort William, and surely one of the heroes of this saga. He had, he said, remained at the agreed rendezvous throughout 1 June, and waited there for a further day, but there had been no word from Uist. Hope now rose that the Prince had indeed made his escape to France on the D avid, but Steuart was again sent back to the coast to make sure that there

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‘The Summer's Hunting ’ was no delayed message from the Long Island, and to ‘make all haste back’ . The need for haste was clear. With each day that passed the danger of discovery of their Loch Leven-side hideout increased. General Campbell was about to sail off on his celebrated wild-goose chase to distant St Kilda in search of the Prince, but not before he had on io June ordered Colonel ‘Jack* Campbell, his son ‘to once more sweep both sides of Loch Shiel with the force left at Strontian.’ The pressing danger now came from the Fort William garrison under Captain Carolina Scott. Scott’s determi­ nation to root out Jacobites was to give him too a lasting place in Jacobite hatred; and later that summer, though the Stewarts had long since surrendered their arms, he descended on Ardshiel’s fine house in Appin which General Campbell had spared in April, destroying it completely, Ardshiel being known to be skulking in the vicinity of his home. Next to the Prince himself, Lochiel was still the most prized quarry, though he was now thought to be, like the Prince, somewhere in the Long Island. ‘If Locheil could be catch’d, it wou’d give a notable eclat to your expedi­ tion’, the Sheriff of Argyll had written to the General before he set off. Despite the danger of discovery Lochiel and Murray waited by the mouth of Glencoe for five more days, till 12 June. Then, ‘conjecturing that there was no probability of hearing of or from the Prince’, they were rowed in the brief darkness of the summer night to the head of the loch, Ardshiel remaining behind to be the link with Murray’s Charles Steuart should he return from the coast with news of the Prince. At daybreak in a wood near Kinlochleven, Major Kennedy with general agreement having already gone to Fort William to surrender himself as an officer of the French service, the party split up. Murray with his young, ailing nephew and Dr Archie moving eastward to Rannoch, vainly to seek Cluny Macpherson who was thought to be skulking thereabouts. In accordance with the plan Murray had concerted with Lochiel the former was then to make his way to the Lowlands, to the port of Leith where he might hope to find a Jacobite-minded shipmaster of his acquaintance who would pick up Lochiel and himself in due course from the East Neuk of Fife. On horseback - a highland garron no doubt - with Thriepland 139

Locbiel o f the ’Forty-Five and Allan Cameron, Lochiel moved along the north edge of the Moor of Rannoch. About midsummer’s day he succeeded in his quest for his cousin when Cluny Macpherson met him in the Braes of Rannoch. It would not be by chance; there were many gentlemen-fugitives adrift in the Highlands that month, and many ordinary men (and women) in their cabins of turf and rough stone eager to help them on their way. From Rannoch, Cluny took Lochiel and his two companions northwards to the slopes of Ben Alder. This was a landscape of ‘mountains, braes and rocks’, as Cluny was later to describe it, but one ‘plentifully stock’d with deer, red hares, moorfoul and other game of all kinds.’ It was also the summer grazing for Cluny’s sheep and herds of black cattle, with no shelter for humans except that afforded by the summer shielings; all in the presence of towering Ben Alder, and the shining dagger among the hills of Loch Ericht. Here Lochiel found safe harbour at last. His efforts of the previous three weeks - at huge risk to himself - to provide a mainland refuge for the Prince had been not the least of his lifelong services to the Jacobite cause. The story of Lochiel’s sojourn that summer in the fastness of Ben Alder is now taken up by the narrative of John Macpherson of Strathmashie - the Mashie Water not ten miles from Ben Alder - as he gave it in 1750 to Robert Forbes, episcopalian priest at Leith. Ever since his release from Edinburgh Castle in 1747, Forbes had dedicated himself to the collection of narratives and reminiscences of the summer of Charles Edward’s Highland adventures. His appetite for information about Clan Macpherson’s part in these had been whetted earlier that year by what he had been told by two other of the clan’s gentry, Donald Macpherson, younger of Breakachie and John Macpherson of Benchar. In 1750 Cluny was still in concealment on the slopes of Ben Alder, but Forbes was known to be piecing together the story for posterity, not for publication, and the gentlemen of his clan, rightly proud of the part it had played, were anxious to put him in the picture. The slopes of Ben Alder were a mere ten miles distant from the

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‘The Summer's Hunting 3 outposts of Lord Loudoun’s Highland regiment at Dalwhinnie. Having timeously laid down their arms, Clan Macpherson (Cluny’s fine house in Badenoch excepted) had not endured the burnings and pillage that had been the lot of Clan Cameron. Starvation had not driven the people away. There was no shortage of clansmen to keep a close watch on Loudoun’s outposts at Dalwhinnie and Garvamore, and throw a cordon of sentries round their chief’s mountain hideouts to ensure that no word of the fugitive’s where­ abouts leaked out. Lochiel, as young Breakachie was to say to Forbes, was still ‘crippling about in his wounds.’ These were tended by Thriepland; his family estates having been forfeited after the ’Fifteen, Sir Steuart had trained as a surgeon to earn himself a living. By the end of July Lochiel’s wounded ankles had healed sufficiently for Thriepland to consider taking his departure for the Lowlands. But though Lochiel’s wounds were healing, his distress of mind did not; he, as young Breakachie recalled, ‘was not able to stand the melancholy accounts that were ever reaching his ears about the cruelties and severities committed by the military upon the people round about him in Lochaber.’ These ‘bore very hard upon him,’ and Breakachie gave Forbes an instance of this. One day, when accounts were brought to Lochiel in Badenoch that the poor people in Lochaber had been so pillaged and harrassed, that they had not really necessaries to keep in their lives, Lochiel took out his purse and gave all the money he could well spare to be distributed among such in Lochaber. ‘And,’ said Breackachie, ‘I remember nothing better than that Sir Stewart Threpland at that time took out his purse and gave five guineas, expressing himself in these words, “ I am sure,” said Sir Stewart, “ I have not so much to myself. But then, if I be spared, I know where to get more, whereas these poor people know not where to get the smallest assistance” .’ There would also be reflection on the losses Lochiel’s regiment had endured. Macpherson of Breakachie and John of Benchar ‘joined in affirming it to be their opinion that the Camerons suffered the loss of three hundred good men from first to last.’

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Lochiel would also have learned, such was the speed with which news of the severities inflicted by King George’s army and navy raced round the Highlands, that his brother, Father Alexander, had been taken prisoner. It was as well that he would not as yet know of the treatment being meted out to Alexander by Captain Fergussone of His Majesty’s bomb-ketch Furnace, or of the squalor and deadly privations in the prison-hulk on the Thames which awaited him there. Lochiel does not seem to have confided to his hosts what he now knew - that the Prince had abandoned his army immediately after the defeat on 16 April in a frenzy of distrust of all Scots, Highland and Lowland. When they met on Loch Arkaig-side in mid-May Lovat would have told Lochiel of his meeting with the Prince on the evening of Culloden day at the house in the wilds of Stratherrick where he was residing, and of Charles Edward’s reaction to his impassioned plea that he should make a Jacobite fortress of the Highlands. Hitherto there has been no wholly reliable account of what passed between the two that evening at Gortleg House. The narrative of Edward Burke, servant to the Prince’s aide-de-camp, says only that at Gortleg ‘they met with Lord Lovat’, and - as a servant would recall - ‘drank three glasses of wine with him.’ The drama of that historic meeting also lived in the memory of a Highland lady, then a girl in Lovat’s household, who would recall how the strath, still in the grip of winter weather, was suddenly filled with horsemen galloping towards the house - Fitzjames’ Horse, escorting the Prince - and how to her young mind they seemed supernatural beings. But as to what was said there is only an anecdote, possibly from Alexander MacLeod, the aide, that Lovat ‘exhorted him [the Prince] most pathetically to keep up his courage, and remember his ances­ tor Robert the Bruce, who after eleven battles lost, (he said) by winning the twelfth recovered the kingdom. On the other hand, O ’Sullivan and O ’Neille [Captain O ’Neill, an Irishman from the Spanish service] taking their master aside, begged him to con­ sider the imminent danger, and to listen to no insinuation of another rising.’ This is now corroborated by the M em oire:

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‘The Summer's Hunting ’ The Prince withdrew some ten miles from the field of battle into Lord Lovat’s country where this aged nobleman gave him the kind of welcome he might have expected after a victory. He represented to H .R.H . that the set-back he had endured could only win him more glory provided he did not let it discourage him. In particular, Lord Lovat swore that he would be faithful to him whatever happened and offered, despite his years, to have himself carried wherever H .R.H . went. He assured him that the Scots in general and the Highlanders above all had the spirit to ride out the injustices of fortune, and that the mishap they had just endured could have no other result than to make them thirst for revenge. He even set out a plan of campaign which could have restored his fortunes in a few days. Lochiel, recounting this in the Memoire, blamed Sheridan for the Prince’s reaction to this plea. Perhaps Lovat had done so as well. The Memoire continues: But Lord Lovat was one of these bright spirits who could never be to Sir Thomas Sheridan’s liking; to him all plans were suspect except those he himself had suggested. He filled the Prince with such mistrust of my Lord’s views that H .R.H . ordered Fitzjames’ Horse which had escorted his retreat to remain on guard all the while he had supper. After this, having retired for the night under the pretext of getting some sleep, he fled from this peer’s house as if from that of a traitor, and hastened without let-up right to the west coast opposite the isles of the Hebrides. But Charles Edward needed little dissuading. Lord Elcho’s unpub­ lished Journal confirms that in the aftermath of battle a corroding distrust of his Scots had indeed pervaded the Prince’s mind; confirms too the authenticity of the well-known anecdote of Elcho, furious and shouting ‘damned cowardly Italian’ after Charles Edward as the latter rode away to the West. For Lochiel, awareness that his Prince no longer trusted his Highlanders was as grievous as the loss of the battle. Through Ju ly and until late August no word came to the fugitives

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five on the slopes of Ben Alder of where the Prince was to be found. Since Lochiel had reports of the continuing barbarities in Lochaber, he would no doubt also hear that the Prince had fled from Uist to Skye and from there to somewhere on the mainland. Cluny’s men, alert to every move of government forces, would also be aware of the cordon of troops sent out from the line regiments at Fort Augustus to seal off Knoydart, Morar and Moidart; and that, rain soaked, bedraggled and empty-handed, they had been recalled by mid-July and then marched south with Cumberland. Was this simply governmental recognition that the war in Flanders was the priority, or had the sometimes sagacious King George recognised the huge dilemma what to do with a prisoner Prince - which would confront him in the event of Charles Edward’s capture? To catch the Prince, Lochiel and the other fugitive chiefs, wherever they might be, there were now only a much diminished naval presence, Loudoun’s equally depleted Highland regiment, and eighteen independent companies from the ‘Hanoverian’ clans strung out in detachments from Strath Tay to Stornoway. The relief felt on 23 August was great indeed when Dr Archie and Donald MacDonell of Lochgarry arrived unheralded at Lochiel’s shieling ‘of very narrow compass’ in Mullach Coire an Iubhar of the Ben Alder range with news that the Prince was in the Braes of Achnacarry. It was still greater a week later when Dr Archie and Lochgarry returned with the Prince in company. But it was a reunion preceded by a near tragedy. From the shieling Lochiel and his small band, nervously awaiting the arrival of the Prince, saw five armed men in Highland dress climbing the hillside towards where he was. Taking them to be Loudoun’s men, Lochiel, ‘at the time being quite lame and not in any condition to travel [walk], much less to fly’, ordered ‘a general discharge of all the firearms, in number twelve firelocks and some pistols.’ Strathmashie’s narrative continues, Whereupon all was made ready, pieces planted and levelled from within and (in short) they flattered ’emselves of getting the better of the searchers there being no more than their own number, and likewise considering the great advantage they

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had of firing at ’em without being at all observed and the conveniency of so many spare arms. But as the auspicious hand of Almighty God and his Providence, which was so conspicuous in the escorting his Royal Highness at all times prevented those within the hut from firing at the Prince with his four attendants, they came so near at last that they were known by those within, and then Locheil tho’ lame made the best of his way to meet his Royal Highness without, who it may be believed received him very graciously. The joy at this meeting was certainly very great and much easier to be conceived than express’d. However, such was his Royal Highness’ circumspection that when the other would have kneeld at his coming up to him he said, ‘Oh! no, my dear Lochiel,’ clasping him on the shoulder, ‘you don’t know who may be looking from the tops of yonder hills, and if they see any such motions they’ll immediately conclude that I am here, which may prove of bad consequence.’ Strathmashie’s narrative speaks of the ‘anker of whiskie of twenty Scots pints’ with which the Prince was regaled; also of the plentiful beef, mutton and the ‘minch’d collops dressed in butter’ from the shieling’s solitary frying-pan. Do you always live in such style? asked the Prince remembering the days when a morsel of oatcake and a piece of dirty cheese was all his dinner. ‘Yes, sir,’ replied Lochiel, ‘and I thank Heaven that your Royal Highness has come safe through so many dangers to take a part.’ The words would not be lightly spo­ ken; for Lochiel there was surely some Divine Plan behind all that the Prince, and the Highlands, had suffered. For the Prince there would be relief that he had found Lochiel at last, for his march to Lochaber earlier that month across mountain range and swollen river from the hills of the Ross-shire border had expressly been to find Lochiel. Robert Forbes’ informants of 1750 do not seem to have been party to the serious discussion which, according to the Memoire, then took place. Lochiel, Cluny and Lochgarry, now joined also by Colonel John Roy Stuart, respectfully took the Prince to task for the ‘consternation his absence had caused, and the chaos and despoliation that had followed.’ It was then that the Prince came to see the lamentable outcome 145

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five of his own hasty action and the prejudices of his Governor. He was cut to the heart by the evils the country had endured, and he declared that he was ready to try anything to revenge or make good the calamities it had suffered. He exhorted the chiefs to consider what had to be done, and assured them that he would abide by their advice. They were delighted to see in him an unconquerable spirit and sentiments which gave them grounds for hoping that in future he would honour them with much greater trust. Some of them proposed that enough men be got together to destroy the troops encamped in Lord Lovat’s country, and then capture all their outposts among the mountains. But others represented that though such a campaign would be all very glorious in appearance, it would be of little use, and perhaps even harmful in that it would be necessary, if they were to keep it going, to defend the passes through which the government troops would be able to re-enter the highlands; and this was an impossibility with the general dearth wrought by the enemy’s ravages which meant that subsistence would be lacking for even the small force which would have to be kept together throughout the winter. From his own narrative of 1748 (which would have it that Clan Donald was at the centre of everything) it appears that Lochgarry was the fire-eater on this occasion. ‘Fortress Highlands’ was no longer an option. From Dublin Castle, Lord Chesterfield had been urging the Duke of Newcastle to initiate a blockade of the entire Highlands, starving loyalist and Jacobite alike; that would have been the governmental answer to ‘fortress Highlands*. But for the fugitives on Ben Alder the Rising was by no means over. The Memoire continues: The worst the enemy could do had already been done, and the advanced season would force the withdrawal of his troops. This being so, it would be foolish to alarm the government once more. It would be better to remain hidden as they had done till then and endeavour throughout the winter to find the necessary help for striking vigorously in the spring. These views prevailed. At the same time it was considered that

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there would be advantage in the Prince himself crossing over to France to seek help, in that the government would never be convinced that he had left the country until he turned up somewhere else. On the other hand his arrival in France would remove all their worries as regards Scotland and could move the Elector of Hanover to recall his troops to use them, as previously, in carrying on the war abroad. This would give the Prince an opportunity to achieve a great deal with only a little help. Reculer pour mieux sauter was uppermost in their minds. The war must go on. But all was well. The Prince trusted his Highlanders once more. So to the conclusion at Loch nan Uamh: Some time after all this was decided, two frigates of His Most Christian Majesty arrived on the coast. H. R. H. took the opportunity they offered to cross over to France with several chiefs, leaving the others behind to keep alive the highlanders’ hopes, to safeguard as many arms as possible and to receive whatever orders were sent to them from time to time. This matter of fact passage in the Memoire does not bring out the sense of deliverance when, at one o’clock on the morning of 13 September, word came to Ben Alder of the arrival seven days past on the Moidart coast of two big St Malo privateers. This was the sixth attempt from France to bring the fugitive Prince safely off, Louis X V recognising that French interests as well as his own gloire would suffer if Charles Edward were to fall into Hanoverian hands. The arrival of Le Mars and La Bellone from Nantes at the end of April had been the first of these rescue missions, though it served the dual purpose of keeping the Rising going. Then in June two privateering cutters, Le.Levrier Volant and Le Hardi Mendiant, had sailed from Dunkirk separately to seek the Prince; the volunteer officers of the Irish Brigade they carried would never know how close they came to success. Also in June there sailed from Dunkirk Le Bien Trouve, a brigantine of the King’s

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Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five navy. Aboard her were the band of young naval officers VElisabeth had carried a year earlier as a would-be bodyguard for the Prince on his Scottish adventure, and with her had returned disconsolate to Brest after her savage encounter with the British Lion. Now, off Loch Broom, the brigantine had been cornered by sloops of the Royal Navy, but not before the senior of the Frenchmen, the English-speaking Chevalier de Lancize, had set out for Lochaber. Heroically, he found his way to Loch Arkaig-side. What happened then is unclear, but there are good grounds for believing he helped persuade the Prince’s friends there that rescue from France would eventually come. And so the gentlemen of Clan Donald set up a hundred mile chain of communication from Clanranald’s South Uist to Clanranald’s Moidart, and from there to the country of the Camerons and onward to the slopes of Ben Alder. When he learned of this from Dr Archie in late August, Lochiel would have none of it; and indeed if ships from France could not come before September was out, they would not venture at all into these uncharted waters, their only guidance a naval atlas of Louis X IV ’s time and whatever Hebridean sailors could be found in France. Nor, for all that Lochiel knew, had Commodore Smith’s squadron yet left its base at Tobermory on Mull for the east coast. With all this in mind, Lochiel there and then despatched John Cameron to the Lowlands to find some Jacobite-minded shipmaster at Leith or one of the Fife harbours who would take the Prince off to France. But with east coast ports now closely watched by the triumphant Whigs, this was a remedy of desperation courting disaster. It had been the escape route that Murray of Broughton had attempted in June, and that had been his own undoing. For his part, and perhaps sceptical of either escape possibility, Cluny Macpherson had set about preparing quarters for the Prince, Lochiel and himself under towering Ben Alder, that they might survive the rigours of winter in the Central Highlands. This was the famous ‘Cage’ to which they moved only two days before word came of the ships in Loch nan Uamh (and which in Robert Louis Stevenson’s imagination David Balfour and Alan Breck were to visit six years later). But now rescuing ships from St Malo were swinging to their anchors in Loch nan Uamh. The Prince’s and Lochiel’s escape to

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the coast travelling by night, the journey completed in six days, is described in Strathmashie’s narrative. There was an episode of light relief during the night of the 15 th at the crossing of the Lochy which lived in the minds of the Macpherson gentry. As they were approaching LochiePs seat, Achnicarry, they came to the river Lochy at night, being fine moonshine. The difficulty was how to get over. Upon this Cluns Cameron met them on the water side, at whom Lochiel asked how they would get over the river. He said, ‘Very well, for I have an old boat carried from Lockharkaig that the enemy left unburnt of all the boats you had, Lochiel.’ Lochiel asked to see the boat. Upon seeing it he said, ‘I am afraid we will not be safe with it.’ Quoth Cluns, ‘I will cross first and show you the way.’ The matter was agreed upon. Cluns upon reflection said, ‘I have six bottles of brandy, and I believe all of you will be the better of a dram/ This brandy was brought from Fort Augustus, where the enemy lay in garrison, about nine miles from that part of Lochy where they were about to cross. Lochiel went to the Prince and said, ‘Will your Royal Highness take a dram?’ ‘O ’, said the Prince, ‘can you have a dram here?’ ‘Y es/ replied Lochiel, ‘and that from Fort Augustus too/ Which pleased the Prince much that he should have provisions from his enemies, etc. He said, ‘Come, let us have it/ Upon this three of the bottles were drunk. Then they passed the river Lochy by three crossings, Cluns Cameron in the first with so many, then the Prince in the second with so many, and in the last Lochiel with so many. In the third and last ferrying the crazy boat leaked so much that there would be four or five pints of water in the bottom of the boat, and in hurrying over the three remaining bottles of brandy were all broke. When the Prince called for a dram it was told that the bottles were broke, and that the common fellows had drunk all that was in the bottom of the boat as being good punch, which had made the fellows so merry that they made great diversion to the company as they marched along. For all this ‘great diversion to the company/ the following day must have been an ordeal for Lochiel as they rested at ruined 14 9

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Achnacarry with fire-blackened buildings all around, and then moved along the south side of Loch Arkaig. Dearth was general; there was, said young Breakachie, no meal to be had anywhere in the Lochaber glens. But there was a little mealship, the May of Glasgow, on the coast. She had been sheltering from the northerly squalls in Loch nan Uamh on 6 September when the two big frigates from France, VH eureux and Le Prince de Conti, came into the loch. The master of the May, one Lachlan Maclean, had been taken aboard the commodore’s ship; and he had been held in custody there for the following fortnight as word sped to Ben Alder that the rescue ships had come. So it was that he was able subsequently to describe to the authorities the evening of the Prince’s arrival: About six in the evening, after sitting to supper, a message came from Le Conti9 upon which Colonel Warren [in overall command] and the captain of the Frigate got up in a great hurry, got on their best clothes, ordered us on board our V essell. . . where we remained guarded by their men and an officer until two next morning the 20th when Colonel Warren and one of his officers came on board of us . . . he was in top spirits, telling us plainly that he had now got the Prince (meaning the Young Pretender) on board with Lochiel. Within the hour the two big ships sailed for France, ‘the wind very fresh at north.’ And so he left us, Alexander of Glenaladale’s gallant (and level-headed) cousin was to write, ‘and left us all in a worse state than he found us’. With Lochiel, Dr Archie, Colonel John Roy Stuart and ‘one hundred more persons of some distinction’, took passage on the two frigates. Also Coll of Barrisdale, but he was in irons, and his followers had been dumped ashore. This was at the Prince’s express command, Barrisdale’s double-dealing that summer having become known throughout the West Highlands. Whether Barrisdale had indeed tried to get the Prince into his clutches and hand him over to Fort Augustus is not known. But to save his land, his cattle and his neck he had entered into some sort of bargain with the authorities;

‘The Summer's Hunting ’ and the Prince’s awareness of this now lost him his liberty. The two French officers from Le Bien Trouve of the fourth rescue attempt had also alleged that Barrisdale’s men had sought to entrap them in the hills of Knoydart as they made their way to Lochaber in search of the Prince. What Lochiel thought of all this is not known, but with the ancient animosity between Camerons and Glengarry MacDonells, it is unlikely that he objected. To the Highlanders who had escorted him to the shores of Loch nan Uamh that moonlit September night, the Prince’s valedictory words were manly and confident. ‘M y lads,’ he said, ‘be in good spirits. It shall not be long before I shall be with you . . .’ He meant it. Lochiel likewise intended to return, as events would soon show, and though Cluny was to remain in Scotland, this was for a purpose. During the three weeks voyage to France, the Prince dictated to Colonel Warren, the Irish commander of the rescue mission, a scrappy narrative of the first three months - but only the first three months - of his Highland odyssey. It was probably from the Prince himself, and from Neil MacEachain, adjutant of Charles Edward’s escape across the Minch to Skye, that Lochiel fashioned the brief narrative of the Prince in the heather which was included in the Memoire. On Uist, said the Memoire, the Prince had been ‘obliged to entrust himself to a gentleman [Clanranald the elder] who had refused to take part in the Rising, but whom he found to be ready to risk everything for the safeguarding of his royal person.’ He had crossed to Skye ‘along with a lady [Flora MacDonald] who took it on herself to lead him to safety at the house [Monkstadt in Trottemish] of Lady MacDonald, wife of the baronet of that name.’ Whether this much of the Memoire reflects what the Prince really thought of his Clan Donald hosts and hostesses may be doubted. His own version, as dictated to Warren, was that on his bedraggled and storm-tossed arrival on Benbecula in April the islanders had been ‘so cautious and timorous as not to assist him.’ He had been led astray in the boggy moorland of southern Lewis ‘by ignorance or malice’ in his attempt to find a ship at Stornoway which might take him off; and there Donald MacLeod - whom Jacobite historians honour for his fidelity - ‘indiscreetly blabbed for whom it was which spoiled the whole.’ In

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five his princely way, Charles Edward also seems to have resented Lady MacDonald’s inability herself to give him safe harbour. The Memoire continues with the briefest of mention of ‘a MacDonald gentleman’ (Alexander MacDonald of Glenaladale) who led him from the west coast through the mountains of Knoydart and the cordon of troops from Fort Augustus on the lookout for him. This reticence in the Memoire was no doubt deliberate; the axe of authority could still fall on Charles Edward’s Highland protectors. But it is in marked contrast to the effusive mention of the protection given the Prince by the band of one-time cattle thieves to whom Glenaladale entrusted him during the weeks of Ju ly and August in the caves among the hills above Glenmoriston. The Prince sensed in the feelings of these highlanders a nobility with which he had reason to be well content. They all knew the price on his head and that they could win a great fortune by handing him over. But so far were they from being tempted that they were the more incensed against the Government, protesting that they would rather suffer the cruellest death than harbour such a horrid thought. What is more, their wives cried out against the barbarous ways of the Elector of Hanover in offering so much money for the assassination of so lovable a Prince, and said that they would weep no more for the deaths of those near to them if these evils could at last bring down the blessings of God on their true Prince, and on their good lord and master Lord Lovat. So H R H remained in concealment with these brave people who went every day to buy food in the enemy camp until an opportunity was found to lead him through the cordon of troops in Lochaber, where . he shortly had the pleasure of being in company with Lochiel and the other chiefs. Both Lochiel and Balhaldie would be well aware that the Glenmoriston men would not look to Lord Lovat as their ‘lord and master’, though the Glen marched with his ‘country’ . So the question arises, do we have here Sempill’s embroidery of a good story? But Sempill does not seem to have been given to exaggeration (though Balhaldie was) and this is the only error of

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‘The Summer's Hunting ’ fact to be detected in the entire Memoire. As to the wails of the Glenmoriston women, Lieutenant John MacDonald of the Borradale family, who accompanied Glenaladale throughout, left it on record that the cattle-thieves let their wives and families form a bodyguard for the Prince. It may be presumed that they knew what was afoot, and Glenmoriston women, like their menfolk, were firm in their Jacobite loyalties. Their fear that the £30,000 price on the Prince’s head was an open invitation to any would-be assassin seems to have been the general view in the Highlands. For example at Cromarty the young Frenchmen of Le Bien Trouve, by then prisoners aboard h m frigate the Glasgow, picked up the rumour that the Prince when taken was to be summarily disposed of because - as the scribe noted - ‘it was considered to be undesirable that he should be given a public execution lest his death cause too great a stir’ . The more one looks at it, the more one feels that the passage in the Memoire stems from an account given by the Prince himself to Lochiel of his two months of peril in the mainland Highlands; and Charles Edward would probably be ignorant of the boundaries of Lovat’s country. It would have been in keeping with the expectations of a Stuart prince that gentry should risk their necks in his service as a matter of course; it would be the simple devotion of the unlettered ‘broken men’ of Glenmoriston that would more impress him. In his account to King James at Rome (also of 1747) of the Prince’s Highland adventures - an account which certainly reflected the latter’s view of the matter - O ’Sullivan reported that Charles Edward was most anxious that the Glenmoriston men should accompany him to France. They had, he said, ‘served him too well that he shou’d forget them.’ The story of the Prince’s protection by a band of Highland desperados was to have a curious sequel. Writing to his friend Sophie Vollard in 1760, Denis Diderot bolstered his argument that ‘nature has not made us wicked’ by citing the protection given to Charles Edward ‘in the caves of those unfortunate highlanders who could have gone from wretched poverty to opulence by handing him over’ . That they never thought of doing so, concluded Diderot, ‘is another proof of the natural goodness of man.’ Perhaps Diderot had heard the tale from Sempill, his neighbour of the 1740s in the Rue de 153

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five l’Estrapade in Paris. Early histories of the Prince’s adventures had made only the briefest of mentions of the ‘thieves’ of Glenmoriston. However he learned of them, it is to be remembered that Diderot’s belief in the ‘natural goodness of man’ was the optimistic view of human nature which would underlie the beginnings of the French Revolution. Thus is 1746 linked with 1789. The passage in the Memoire makes a surprising assertion, for which there is no other authority. O f the days of crisis in Uist and Benbecula, as government troops were seen to be closing in on the Prince, it implies that Charles Edward was able to make his get-away as the result of a tip-off from General Campbell to Clanranald. The precise wording is ‘The General, having landed in the islands with a large detachment of troops, told the chief of the locality on landing, “ tomorrow we are going to carry out some thorough searches. If there is any contraband I think you would do well to get it under cover tonight.” ’ That the General should have given such a warning is believable. Though in his exasperation in May he had described the clans still in rebellion as ‘vermin’, it was he who would congratulate old Donald MacLeod for spuming the 30,000 guineas which would have been his had he betrayed the Prince. As we have seen, the General had also gone out of his way to recommend lenient treatment for Alexander Cameron of Dungallon on his surrender at the end of May, (and so, inadvertently or otherwise, enabled Lochiel to escape from Ardgour at his moment of supreme peril). Perhaps the General’s warning to Clanranald was simply the kind of courtesy that might be expected of one Highland gentleman to another. At any rate Lochiel clearly valued the anecdote: one hopes it gave him some little consolation in the still darker days that lay ahead.

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VI

‘The Reproach o f Their Blood’ ‘ T t is an absolute necessity I must see the French King as soon J . as possible, for to bring things to a write [sic] Head/ This, with his characteristic relaxed attitude towards correct spelling, was Charles Edward’s urgent message to his mild and intelligent brother, Henry, Duke of York on the day - now (by the French calendar) in mid-October 1746 - on which UHeureux landed her passengers at Morlaix in Brittany. In the same letter Charles Edward asked his brother to write in person to Louis X V about his safe arrival and to request an audience. Characteristically for his part, Henry left this task to Colonel O ’Brien, King James’ representative at the French court. An audience would be granted, O ’Brien informed his royal master in Rome; but, ominously for Charles Edward’s hopes, he added ‘I see the French Court more of a mind to seek a peace than to think about a new expedition to Scotland.’ Lochiel accompanied the Prince when he appeared at court on 25 October. From his vantage point close to the Queen, the elderly Due de Luynes watched their arrival. For the autumn hunting in the surrounding forests the court had now moved from the classical splendour of Versailles to the renaissance palace of Fontainebleau. ‘Prince Edward arrived here yesterday with the Duke of York’, 155

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five De Luynes wrote in his Journal. ‘He is quite tall and has a fine appearance. Those who know him say he is much thinner than he was.’ With the Prince were ‘two highland chiefs who are faithfully devoted to him. One is called Lokel and the other Cameron.’ De Luynes was at a loss how to address them. ‘One cannot address them as milords, because they are not that, and I am told that one should not call them monsieurs. It is all very embarrassing.’ There was also brief comedy at Fontainebleau when the Prince first met his brother and Henry threw his arms round Charles Edward’s neck. Not knowing who this stranger was, and fearing an attempted assassination Lochiel flashed out his sword. ‘But he’s my brother!’ said the Prince. All-attentive to this hero of the hour, De Luynes picked up as best he could from the Prince an account of the latter’s days of peril among the mountains of Knoydart in the country of Coll MacDonell of Barrisdale. The supreme danger had come from this ‘traitor highland chief whose name is Magdanel’ . Foxed by the peculiarity of the Scottish custom of naming a laird by his estate, just as he had been at a loss how to address the Cameron chief, De Luynes noted that MacDonell ‘had another name which no one can tell me’ . Happily, before they left the Highlands, the Prince and his friends had found a way to capture ‘Magdanel’, De Luynes adding that ‘the two trusty highlanders [Lochiel and Dr Archie] were for tearing him apart, but the Prince expressly forbade this.’ Thus the age-old animus between Cameron and MacDonell had come to France with the passengers of UHeureux. Amidst the adulation at Fontainebleau, his audience with the King, splendid dinners given him by Louis’ ministers, supper with Mme de Pompadour, Charles Edward kept resolutely to his purpose. To Louis he wrote on 22 October, ‘Might I beg your Majesty would have the goodness, as soon as he wishes, to let me speak to him of an important matter.’ Three days later he informed Louis that he had compiled a paper on what he had in mind (un petit memoire de mes affaires) which he wished to give to the King in person. A fortnight later, by which date Charles Edward had taken up residence in Paris and there had been no response from the court, he sent Louis this memoir. The copy which survives in the Stuart Papers is uniquely

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‘The Reproach o f Their Blood ’ entitled in Charles Edward’s own hand ‘Memoir to ye French King from me o f ioth Novem ber 1746’ . Perhaps he felt proud of the lucidity of the argument he now presented to Louis. ‘The plight of Scotland as I left her calls for your Majesty’s close attention. That Kingdom is about to be destroyed and the English government is resolved to treat alike those who supported it and those who took up arms for me.’ Word of the new laws about to be imposed by the Westminster parliament on all the clans, be they Jacobite or Hanoverian, would now have reached France; the end of the heritable jurisdictions which were the source of chiefly power; the Disarming Act; the prohibition of the tartan, associated as it was in southern minds with Highlanders on the war-path. ‘So it is obvious that the national discontent is general, and that I would find three today to fight for me for every one whom I found on my arrival there.’ However, said Charles Edward, if his Majesty waits until these penal measures have taken effect it will be too late, and he will for ever have to give up hope of seeing a revolution there. Reproachfully, he continued: Had I had three thousand regular troops from France after I had defeated Cope I could have taken London. Had I had supplies from France, I could have followed up the victory of Falkirk and destroyed Hawley’s army. Had I received three months earlier the supply of money your Majesty sent me in April I would have been able to defeat Cumberland. But all this could be remedied, said the Prince, if Louis would now give him an army of eighteen to twenty thousand strong. ‘Your interests and mine are inseparable and must be seen as such by all those around your Majesty who have your good name [gloire] and the interests of your Kingdom at heart.’ This last was a thrust at those of Louis’ ministers who, Charles Edward would by now have recognised, were more inclined to a general peace than to a renewal of the Jacobite war in Britain. The specification of an army of a score of thousands indicated that the Prince sought nothing less than a revival of the full-scale cross-Channel invasion project which had been aborted the previous January. It is unlikely that in this demarche the Prince was acting in 157

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five concert with Lochiel. Charles Edward had life-long leanings towards secrecy; he did not even bring his brother into his confidence over the nature of this approach to the French King. But Lochiel was now attending the Prince’s household at Clichy, on the outskirts of Paris as it then was. There the Prince engaged as his secretary and confidant George Kelly, the one-time non-juring parson who had been deep in Jacobite counsels in the 1720s, and then a state prisoner for long years in the Tower of London. Kelly had come to Scotland with the Prince on Le dti Teillay in Ju ly 1745; perhaps in Charles Edward’s mind he was associated with those now far off days of burgeoning hope. Lochiel for his part disliked Kelly; and it is unlikely he viewed with anything but abhorrence the drunkenness and debauchery (which Kelly encouraged) for which the petty court at Clichy and its swarm of refugee officers soon became notorious. In these late autumn months of 1746, Lochiel was as anxious as his royal master to resume the Jacobite war, but in Scotland, not in Sussex. Lochiel would later tell King James that shortly after their arrival from Scotland, the Prince had raised with him the possibility of Louis being moved to give him a regiment in the French army. To his credit, Charles Edward was seeking to honour the promise he had made to the Cameron chief in July 1745 that, should the Rising fail, he would be compensated for the value of his Lochaber estate. A regiment in the French army had also been proposed for Lord Ogilvy, now likewise in exile in France. ‘I represented to H .R .H .’, wrote Lochiel, ‘that such applications might make the Court of France look on our affairs to be more desperate than they really are, and hinder them from granting the body of troops which they would otherwise be willing to transport into Scotland.’ Lochiel wished to keep a free hand for himself in the new Rising in his native land so ardently desired. For his own part Lochiel now benefited from the payments awarded by the French court to the ‘Scottish Officers who disembarked at Brittany with Prince Edward’ . Lochiel ‘Chef de Camerons Brigadier et Colonel’, headed this list with a payment of 4,000 livreSy D r Archie, ‘Cameron Colonel’ received 3,000 as did their octogenarian father, ‘Lochiel l’aine, commission de Colonel’. This, incidentally, until his death the following year, is the last we hear of John Cameron, Lord Lochiel. Five Cameron officers were

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‘The Reproach o f Their Blood 3 also listed, 1,000 livres for the captains, 600 for the lieutenants. At 24 livres to the louis, a louis equivalent to a guinea, these last would be in straitened circumstances. In Paris, Lochiel was now in company with his cousin Balhaldie, and with his associate Lord Sempill at the latter’s house in the Rue de l’Estrapade near the Place de la Contre l’Escarpe. Out of favour with the Prince during the year preceding the ’Forty-Five, on the sidelines in Paris throughout the course of the Rising, they had yet retained the trust of King James in Rome, on whose payroll they continued to be. Sempill’s marked empathy with James continued, and Balhaldie was still considered by his King ‘an honest and sensible man’. That Charles Edward should have shut out Sempill and Balhaldie from his confidence in the run-up to the launching of the ’Forty-Five was no black mark against their names in James’ eyes; they had simply been loyal to his declared opposition to any mad-cap Scottish adventure. What the ‘gentle and polish’d’ Lochiel thought of Balhaldie, a much rougher man, is not clear. Murray of Broughton would have it that in 1744 Lochiel had been incensed at the falsity of his cousin’s information about French intentions. That may or may not have been an accurate recollection. But by the winter of 1746 it lay far in the past; and for Lochiel, kinship counted. In the following year he sought to have Balhaldie made lieutenant-colonel in his regiment. While Charles Edward and Lochiel were fugitives in the High­ lands, Balhaldie and Sempill, ever optimistic, had proposed to the French court a new initiative in Scotland to retrieve the Jacobite Cause. It may well have been this proposal which Lochiel now had in mind. It may also have been this plan, envisaging the use of some 6,000 troops, which Louis now proposed to his ministers in the last month of 1746 as some sort of response to Charles Edward’s demand for a full-scale cross-Channel invasion of England. The Marquis d’Eguilles, Louis’ ‘ambassador’ to the Prince in Scotland, now returned to France, also seems to have been its protagonist. That the ’Forty-Five should as it were be re-run in 1747 was more feasible than it seems. King George’s navy had learned how to seal the ports of eastern Scotland the previous winter, even in wild weather, but it had not yet learned how to seal Louis’ Atlantic fleet in its Brittany base. Ships of the Due d’Anville’s squadron at H

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Lochiel o f the 'Forty-Five Brest could well have taken on board some half-dozen regiments of the Army of France with a fair prospect of being able to disembark them in the Highlands. There they would still find a response from the western clans. In mid-November the Earl of Albemarle, who had succeeded Cumberland in the Scottish command, wrote from Edinburgh to the Duke of Newcastle in Whitehall to impart ‘intelligence from the hills’ . He explained that he now had agents in the heart of the rebels’ country, let into all their secrets . . . I do not think the money ill-bestowed that is laid out upon them.’ Two of these, Patrick Campbell and a fellow-spy named Stuart, had set out from Inveraray to Mull in mid-October. There they ‘found the MacLeans, inhabitants of that country . . . in great expectations of a landing from France in the Spring which they seem’d very fond of and would willingly join.’ From Tobermory Campbell and Stuart were ferried across to Morvern. There the people of the ten townships burnt in March were likewise ‘full of expectation of a landing from France in the Spring’. They had preserved their cattle-stocks and had plenty of arms, ‘as also French gold and Spanish money.’ Crossing the Firth of Lome to Appin where ‘a great many of the inhabitants of this place [were] killed at Culloden’, and many of their townships had been burnt, they found ‘such of them as were at home in the same expectations of a landing and ready to join it.’ Ardshiel and other Jacobite lairds were still skulking in the bounds of Appin, and a dangerous presence there. Eager expectation of a landing from France the spies also found in Sunart and in Clanranald’s Moidart, in Arisaig and Knoydart. There, they said, only the houses of the gentry had been burned. The people still had most of their cattle. There was great plenty of arms, money and brandy. (This last had probably come from Le Mars and La Bellone.) The louis d ’or from France were also buying meal from Ireland. But in Glenmoriston the Grants of the score of clachans burned after Culloden were starving. They too, however, were ‘full of the spirit of rebellion’ as were the Keppoch MacDonells of Glen Spean and Glen R oy ‘which are all burnt’

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‘The Reproach o f Their Blood ’ (but on the initiative of Captain Scott, in this actually exceeding Cumberland’s orders). Messrs Campbell and Stuart were particular in reporting on the country of the Camerons. Cameron of Kinlochleven kept an armed band in the hills of Mamore. All round Loch Eil was burnt ‘except the town of Fassifern which is possess’d by John Cameron, Lochiel’s brother’. Along Loch Arkaig-side, they said, such of the people who were not killed at Culloden had taken to the hills, ‘much afraid of the Red Coats.’ But here too the people were ‘full of the spirits of rebellion’. Only the Glencoe MacDonalds, who had given up their arms to General Campbell and had been spared their houses and cattle, ‘seem’d to be weary of rebellion’ . Overall,, it seems, the vengeance wreaked by the royal army and its Highland auxiliaries had had the opposite to its intended effect, as is often the way with retribution. But to Lochiel in Paris it seemed that his clan was about to be anni­ hilated. Charles Edward was immediately dismissive of Louis’ counter­ proposal, seeing it for what it was, an attempt to keep the British army out of Flanders, whatever the cost to the Scots. But from Paris Balhaldie sought to have King James endorse this Scottish project. In mid-January 1747 James wrote to his self-willed elder son. He was, he said, being importuned by Balhaldie about ‘a project which was on foot before you returned from Scotland . . . and that it may be renewed’. But to James the matter of a Stuart restoration was in God’s hands; he did not greatly wish to jog the Almighty’s elbow. ‘What foundation there is for all this I know not,’ he went on, ‘and all the return I made was to refer him [Balhaldie] as well as Sempill to you.’ Then he turned to his main purpose in writing - to reprove Charles Edward for being so at odds with the French court with his persistent agitation for a cross-Channel invasion. In Paris, Lochiel was now taking over the lead from Balhaldie and Sempill. Also in mid-January he wrote to King James begging him to instruct the Prince to drop his own unrealistic proposal and support the more attainable Scottish one. But now there was a difference.

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five Out of the searing experiences of the previous year, especially perhaps his miscalculation that support from France would not be long in coming, and the ensuing calamity that befell the country of the Camerons in the last days of May, Lochiel’s motives in seeking a renewal of the Rising were now also highly personal. ‘I must’, he told James, ‘share in the fate of the people I have undone, and, if they must be sacrificed, to fall along with them. It is the only way I can free myself from the reproach of their blood.’ This letter crossed with one of 20 January from James, dis­ tancing himself somewhat from any new military adventure. In kingly fashion he praised Lochiel’s ‘great zeal for us and singular attachment to the Prince’, urging him to be a restraining influence on Charles Edward ‘with a candour and freedom suitable to your character.’ The hint in this was accompanied by a display of James’ feelings about the beginnings of the failed Rising. ‘I thank God,’ he wrote, ‘I had neither hand in, nor knowledge of, the unfortunate undertaking, and whoever encouraged it has much to answer fo r . . .’ This must have cut Lochiel to the quick as he recognised that, had he given a blank refusal to join the Prince in Ju ly 1745, he would have been acting in accordance with his royal master’s true wishes. Belatedly and ineffectively, James now gave the Scottish project his backing. On 21 February 1747 he wrote to Charles Edward, whom he thought to be still in Paris, asking him to consider carefully its merits. He also said it was his intention ‘to authorise Lord S. to demand in my name the body of troops that it is supposed the King of France has already promised for Scotland’. On the same day he wrote to Lochiel informing him that he had so Written. But by now Charles Edward was not in Paris. In what, by the ways of royal protocol was an appalling affront to the French King, he had quitted his realm for the Papal enclave of Avignon without informing Louis. On 23 February, Lochiel wrote to the Prince in a desperate attempt to put matters to rights, and make him see how he had now played into the hands of Louis’ peace-minded ministers:

'The Reproach o f Their Blood ’ I must beg Y.R .H . will be pleased to observe that since you left this place, the talk and expectation of peace is become more general and popular. It is said that the Marshall de Bellisle who is quickly expected here will be sent as Plenipotentiary to the Conference of Breda [about the possibility of a European peace] and from thence to England. Though the King’s equipages are getting ready for the field few people make any doubt but a peace will be soon concluded. The pressing danger, said Lochiel, was that ‘the Elector of Hanover’ [King George] would obtain whatever terms he wished as to Louis’ relinquishing all support for the Stuart cause. Such terms, as Lochiel saw only too clearly, the French court would now feel they could agree to, ‘since Y.R .H . has of your own accord left their domin­ ions’. There was a remedy: if we could return to the Highlands with artillery, arms, and ammunition, and only 4 or 5 battallions of foot, we would not only relieve our distressed friends and save the remains of our country, but deliver the whole kingdom of Scotland from the slavery to which it is, or will soon be, reduced, . . . since you can’t obtain such an embarkation of troops as would be necessary to land in England and overturn the Government with one blow, it is surely advisable to try if you can compass what may be sufficient for Scotland. Louis, Lochiel reminded the Prince, had actually ordered prepara­ tions for the embarkation of ten battalions for Scotland the previous August when enthusiasm in the French court for the fugitive Prince was at its height. ‘I beg you’, he concluded, ‘now to write to the King of France excusing your precipitate departure for Avignon and agreeing to a landing in the West Highlands’. I hear from all hands, and have great reason to believe, that all Scotsmen, not excepting those who are most distinguished in the Government’s service, are so incensed at the inhumanity with which the Elector has proceeded, and the neglect they have met with since the unhappy action of Culloden, that they only

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five want an opportunity to shew their resentment . . . If Y .R .H . obtains an embarkation of a small body of French troops for Scotland, the Court of France being once more engaged with Y .R .H . will not refuse to reinforce you by wafting your brave Irish regiments, as soon as you are master of the east coast of Scotland, and I am persuaded that they will also be willing to transport 3 or 4000 into Wales, or any place where your English friends shall desire; and I know your English friends will be glad of that small body as soon as they see Y .R .H . master of the field in Scotland. It was already too late for this, even had it not been most desperately unrealistic in that winter of Hanoverian jubilation. Charles Edward had not let Lochiel into the secret purpose of his departure from Paris. Avignon was to be only a staging point on a journey to Madrid, there to try to persuade the King of Spain to undertake an invasion of England, since Louis of France would not do so. But that would involve an extension of the European war at a time when France was moving towards a European peace. The purpose of the Prince’s wild-goose chase to Madrid was therefore directly opposed to Louis’ current foreign policy. Charles Edward soon returned from Madrid, nothing achieved. It was now, with news coming across the Channel of Lord Lovat’s trial in Westminster Hall and Murray of Broughton’s infamy in saving his own neck by incriminating ‘the Highland Nestor*, that Lochiel and his two associates appear to have made one last despairing attempt to keep the Scottish project alive. This initiative seems to have been the lengthy Memoire d ’un Ecossais of April 1747 which developed in more detail the theme of Lochiel’s letter to the Prince of 21 February - the feasibility of a landing in the West Highlands which, with support from the clans, would cleanse Scotland of King George’s troops. It recognised that, under the malign influence of Kelly, the Prince would have no part in such a project; but it argued that King Louis, as ‘friend, protector and ally of the Scottish nation’, should nonetheless carry it through. It was at this point in the Memoire that its authors, pressing home their affirmation of Scottish readiness to renew the fight, assert that after Culloden the

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'The Reproach o f Their Blood ’ Duke of Cumberland offered the prospect of honourable terms to secure Lochiel’s surrender and that of the other chiefs he influenced - and that this offer Lochiel rejected with disdain [avec hauteur]. Though 4,000 men had been lost at Culloden, the Memoire claimed there were still 16,000 in the Highlands to fight for the Jacobite cause. The second part of the Memoire is the narrative of the course of the Rising, as seen through Lochiel’s eyes, which has been extensively quoted in the foregoing chapters, and which sought to show how the Rising had needlessly failed. That the Memoire was substantially Lochiel’s thinking seems to be established by his above mentioned correspondence in the Stuart Papers. O f the triumvirate, he alone had been in Scotland during the ’Forty-Five. But it seems unlikely that it was he who clothed it in its very good French which Alice Wemyss considers to have been ‘clearly the work of a Frenchman and one familiar with officialese style’. That must be the work of Sempill. Somewhere at Lochiel’s elbow in its composition would be his cousin Balhaldie; but it could not have been the latter who was responsible for its elegant phrasing. In Murray of Broughton’s venomous recollection he had only ‘as much bad French as to procure him a whore and his dinner’ . The rest is soon told. Jacobites had to live on hope, however vain. Lochiel, writing to James Edgar the King’s Secretary at Rome on 1 June 1747, referred to a letter he had sent to King James about the Scottish project. As for the hopes you would gladly entertain of seeing a more happy prospect of affairs, I wrote in conjunction with Mr Lumley [code for Sempill] and my cousin [Balhaldie] very fully to his Majesty on that important subject, and in view of the state of things both here and at home, am persuaded we have solid grounds to hope for a speedy completion of all we could wish. Lochiel was now pinning his hopes on the King giving the Scottish project his full backing. Nothing for the present was to be hoped for from the Prince: ‘if we were so unhappy to be deprived of his Majesty before our Princes acquire more knowledge and experience, all our

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five endeavours to serve the royall family would be fruitless and in vain.’ But it was King James himself who now delivered the mortal blow to the Jacobite cause in Protestant Britain. B y his influence that month he had his younger son Henry raised to the scarlet. Beside himself with rage Charles Edward saw clearly that ‘Cardinal de York* had killed his hopes. So too did Lochiel, as he sought to reconcile himself to exile and the colonelcy of the Regiment d’Albanie in the army of France which he was now belatedly to accept. A ‘memorial’ written for King James by Sempill in February 1748 on the collapse of the Scottish project the previous spring explained how the Marquis de Puysieux, as Louis’ Foreign Minister, had informed him that ‘an embarkation for Scotland . . . though much relished and approved’ was laid aside because it could not be concerted with the Prince. And that, on learning of this, Lochiel and his cousin had been ‘sunk in an extremity of grief and despair’. It is something to the credit of Charles Edward that, during a visit to Versailles in the summer of 1747, he should have moved Louis to give Lochiel a regiment in the army of France. It is something to the credit of the French King, too that he should have done so. The ordinance ‘Pour la levee d 3un regiment d 3Infanterie Ecossoise sous le nom d 3Albania was signed by Louis on 20 October. There were now three Scottish regiments in the French Service. The Royal Ecossais had been raised in 1743 as the yet undeclared war with Britain intensified and the possibility of a descent on Scotland came over the horizon. The part the Royal Ecossais played in the ’Forty-Five, their sturdy defence of the retreating clans at Culloden and their subsequent surrender to Cumberland’s army has already been mentioned. By now they had been repatriated to France. Le regiment d’Ogilvie had been raised in February 1747, also at Louis’ behest, with Lord Ogilvy its Colonel; and it was here that most of the refugees from the Highland Army seeking further military service found a haven. Le regiment d’Albanie was to consist of thirteen companies, a grenadier company of forty-five men and twelve fusilier companies of fifty men each. All its officers were Scottish. Lochiel was its Colonel, the captaincy of the Grenadier Company going to Dr Archie (‘Cameron de Glen Kengy’). The regiment’s

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'The Reproach o f Their Blood ’ Lieutenant-Colonel was Cluny Macpherson, holding the post in absentia. A few of the junior officers were Camerons and a small minority of the rank and file, the majority of whom were not Scots but foreign mercenaries, German and Swiss as well as Frenchmen. At 30 livres a day the regiment’s Colonel was well rewarded, especially since he would not be tied to command of the regiment day in, day out. The regiment’s uniform, as Lord Elcho would recall when he later took on the colonelcy of the Royal Ecossais, was ‘red coats with white waistcoats, facings and breeches’. With his wife and young family safely in France and in residence at Fontainebleau a new life should now have been opening up for Lochiel. However, as 1748 advanced, and with the passing of the months the certainty emerged that there would soon be a general peace, and that the treaty enshrining it would include French renunciation of Stuart claims to the throne of Great Britain, Lochiel and his fellow exiles must have been wracked with foreboding. For Charles Edward was now making it clear to the French court, and to anyone who would listen, that he would resist his own expulsion from France which the peace treaty would require, and would gamble on Louis’ hand being stayed by the tide of adulation in Paris which still lapped round the Prince. But, emigre Jacobites could only ask themselves, if it came to an open breach between Louis and Charles Edward what would become of the regiments of Scottish infantry in the King of France’s service? What indeed would become of the pensions from the French court without which they might well starve? In the autumn of 1748, with signature of the peace treaty imminent, the leading Jacobites met in Paris to discuss what was to be done. With Lochiel were the aged Gordon of Glenbucket, titular Major-General since 1737; Stewart of Ardshiel who had shared with Lochiel some of the desperate summer days of 1746; Lord Lewis Gordon; Lord Naime who had accompanied Lochiel in the taking of Perth on that heady September day now three years past and then commanded the 1st Battalion of the Atholl Brigade in the Rising; and Sir Hector Maclean whose arrest in Edinburgh in 1745 had been the Rising’s first major misfortune and was now once more in exile. They agreed that the Prince must be counselled not in any circumstance to break with Louis, and that as Lochiel alone could

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five expect a hearing from the Prince, he must proffer such advice. We do not know if this audience ever took place, for the unfore­ seen now happened. From Paris on 4 November 1748 Balhaldie wrote to King James at Rome: It is so long since the situation of affairs I had any concern in permitted my troubling your Majesty directly with accounts from this place, that it becomes cruel in me now to be obliged to begin to inform you of the loss your Majesty has of the most faithful and zealously devoted subject ever served any Prince, in the person of Donald Cameron of Lochiel. He died the 26th of last month of an inflammation within his head at Borgue, [Bourges] where he had been for some time with his regiment, and where I had the melancholy satisfaction to see all means used for his preservation, but to no valuable effect. Then Balhaldie, the life-long Jacobite, gave his own tribute to his cousin and dead leader, perhaps in this embellishing Cumberland’s proferred olive branch after Culloden. There is no great moment to be made of the death of people who continue in their duty to your Majesty, having no temptation to swerve from it, or of others who have an affectation of zeal and duty to procure themselves subsistence,. . . Lochiel was not in any of their cases. He had all the temptations laid in his way that Government could. The late Duke of Argyle, Duncan Forbes the President, and the Justice Clerk, never gave over laying baits for him, though they knew his mind was as immovable as a mountain on that article, and since he came here he has not been left at ease. The Duke of Cumberland caused information that, if he would apply in the simplest manner to him, he would never quit his father’s knees until he had obtained his pardon and favour: this he disdained, or rather had a horror at. I need say no more; his own services, and the voice of your Majesty’s enemies, speak loudly the loss. At the end of October of that year the Scots Magazine, which carried the text of the European treaty concluded that month at Aix-la-Chapelle, and with it the end of all Stuart hopes, also reported

‘The Reproach o f Their Blood ’ without comment the death in France of Lochiel, ‘one of the attainted persons’ . The two events were perhaps not unconnected. One might well say he had died of a broken heart. But perhaps Lochiel was fortunate in his death. He would have found hard to bear the Prince’s final humiliation that December, his forcible arrest at the Paris Opera and expulsion from King Louis’ France. In Edinburgh even ‘the ranks of Tuscany’ could scarce forbear to honour Lochiel’s passing. The December issue of the Scots Magazine carried, again without comment, these verses: Dead is Lochiel, the terror of whose arms, So lately shook this island with alarms. Be just ye Whigs and though the Tories mourn, Lament a Scotsman in a foreign urn, Who, born a Chieftain, thought the right of birth, The source of all authority on earth. Mistaken as he was, the man was just, Firm to his word and faithful to his trust, He bade not others go, himself to stay, As is the pretty, prudent modern way, But, like a warrior, bravely drew his sword, And raised his target for his native lord. Humane he was, protected countries tell, So rude a host was never ruled so well. Fatal to him, and to the cause he loved Was the rash tumult which his folly moved, Compell’d for that to seek a foreign shore, And ne’er behold his mother country more, Compell’d by hard necessity to bear, In Gallia’s hands a mercenary spear, But Heaven, in pity to his honest heart, Resolved to snatch him from so mean a part. To cure at once his spirit and his mind, With exile wretched and with error blind, The mighty mandate unto death was given, And good Lochiel is now a Whig in heaven. A touching elegy, but the unctuous sense of the last line may be 16 9

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five doubted. Lochiel was a Jacobite to the end, and - if you will beyond. N o memorial stone marks Lochiel’s grave. The France of Louis X V was still notoriously intolerant of Protestant burial rites, and to the end, as his prayer book now at Achnacarry shows, Lochiel was staunchly Protestant and Episcopalian as well as Jacobite. There was however a small colony of Jacobite emigres forming at Sancerre on the Loire, under the leadership of Lord Naime. By 1762 they had laid out for themselves a Protestant cemetery, long since vanished. There Lochiel may have found his last resting place. Colonel MacDonald of Glenaladale, of the early years of the present century, whose ancestor of 1745 had played such a distinguished part and whose forebear of 1814 had the Glenfinnan monument to the Rising built in its spectacular loch-side setting, believed that this was so; and he was an authority on the history of the last Jacobite Rising. There is a posthumous portrait of Lochiel, painted in 1762 by Sir George Chalmers, an artist of middling distinction. This bears Sir George’s signature, but the experts have reservations about it being the authentic likeness of Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five. The wig, they say, is of a later period than the 1740s; neither are the epaulettes right for that decade. And, contrary to the Chalmers portrait, they add, a posthumous portrait was usually painted with the eyes turned away. The smaller portrait now in the West Highland Museum at Fort William is thought to be a copy of the Chalmers portrait. Sir Walter Scott in the last summer of his life is recorded as saying that he once saw a portrait of Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five and that it was of ‘a dark, hard-faced man’, which the Chalmers portrait is not. The present Lochiel thinks that Sir Walter was mistakenly recalling the portrait of Sir Ewen Dubh, grandfather to the Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five. The tradition in his own family, he says, is that the Gentle Lochiel, unlike his ancestors, was fair-haired; and he mentions the Lochaber saying - surely the long suffering clansman’s comment on the events of 1746 - ‘I would not like to be living in the day when there is again a fair-haired Lochiel’ . But Lochiel needed no memorial. By the year of his death, as the Scots Magazine versifier attested, he had already secured himself an

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'The Reproach o f Their Blood’ enduring place in the hearts and minds of his countrymen, despite the efforts of the authorities to break the clan, from the hanging at Tyburn of D r Archie when caught on a Jacobite mission to Scotland in 1752, to the harrying of John of Fassifern, to their mean refusal to allow Lochiel’s eldest son burial in the family resting place on the island in Loch Arkaig. This popular respect for Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five never faltered. The bells of whiggish Glasgow honoured his memory; as did Thomas Pennant, reflecting as he passed down Loch Lochy-side within sight of ruined Achnacarry on the fate of the Cameron chief. So too did James Boswell. It was however John Home’s History o f the Rebellion published in 1802 which placed Lochiel firmly in the Scottish Pantheon, this being endorsed in Sir Walter Scott’s lengthy account of the Rising in the famous Tales o f a Grandfather. This heroic view of Lochiel was also fostered by a once wellknown poem by the Scots-bom poet Thomas Campbell, who in his day was more generally praised than his contemporary Wordsworth. Around the year when Scott’s Waverley took the country by storm Campbell published a narrative poem ‘Lochiel’s Warning’ which would be learned by heart by generations of school-boys and is remembered today only for its line ‘Coming events cast their shadow before’ . The ‘warning’ is delivered by a seer as the Cameron chief sets out for Glenfinnan: ‘Lochiel, Lochiel beware of the day, when the Lowlands shall meet thee in battle array, for the field of the dead masks red on my sight. And the clans of Culloden are scattered in flight.’ The poem concludes with Lochiel’s reply, Lochiel, untainted by flight or by chains, While the kindling of life in his bosom remains, Shall victor exult, or in death be laid low, With his back to the field and his feet to the foe, And leaving in battle no blot on his name, Look friendly to Heaven from the death-bed of fame. None of this referred to the Cameron chief as ‘the Gentle Lochiel’, as he had come to be known by the middle of the nineteenth century. The earliest published mention seems to have been in Robert Chambers’ immensely popular History o f the Rebellion in

Locbiel o f the 'Forty-Five i/4 $ and 1/4 6 which first appeared in 1828. There, harking back to the Whig versifier in the Scots Magazine for December 1745, Chambers misquoted him in recalling his hope that *gentle Lochiel was now a Whig in Heaven’ . However, this slip, (if slip it was; writing in 1800 Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk had described Lochiel as ‘polish’d and gentle’) matched the nineteenth century’s perception of ‘the most amiable and accomplished of the highland heroes’ whose humanity matched his courage and his loyalty. Down the years that perception did not change. One might ponder on the fact that Lochiel was never blamed in public estimation for his decisive role in setting the Rising a-going. It was as if in mundane, work-a-day Scotland there was an intuitive grasp that the way in which Lochiel’s high sense of honour had prevailed over his awareness of the disaster it invited gave his story lasting significance. From the clever, deceitful laird of Broughton, from devious Lovat, from Macleod who gave his word and broke it, from Lord George Murray whose soldierlike qualities were vitiated by his own hot temper, from the Prince’s Irish confidants with their malign and sycophantic influence - from the Prince himself - Lochiel stands apart. B y his qualities the rest may be measured. In the words of that sentimental Jacobite, Robert Bums, Lochiel was one of those who ‘shook hands with ruin for what they esteemed the cause of their King and their Country.’ In the autumn of 1914, at Kitchener’s request, the 25 th Chief of the Cameron clan raised the 5th and 6th battalions of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders for Britain’s N ew Army, battalions which were to win renown and know devastating loss a year later at the battle of Loos. Perhaps it was something more than the considerable prestige of the then Lochiel which evoked such an immediate, eager response from young men in banks and offices in Glasgow, and from students en masse (including the author’s father) from Gilmorehill, all flocking to the special recruiting office for the regiment set up in the city. Somewhere in the background was Lochiel of the ’Forty-Five.

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Memoire d'un Ecossais A pril 17 4 7 here had been something close to complete accord among the Scottish Highlanders to serve their rightful King. Mr MacGregor, who had brought this about, had given convincing proof to Cardinal Fleury that this was so ever since 1740, and that it seemed that 20,000 of these brave people were ready to declare as soon as arms, munitions, and the small amount of money they would need to embark on a campaign, were sent to them. Mr Murray (whose treason now horrifies all Britain) having come to Paris in September 1744, divulged the secret of these undertakings to Sir Thomas Sheridan who, having been under-governor of the Prince of Wales, had gained the complete trust of H .R .H . Conse­ quently Sir Thomas was so rash as to persuade his young master to come over to Scotland in June 1745, with only 200 weapons, very little munitions of war, and with only £2,000 sterling to serve as a military chest. This was done without either the knowledge of the King his father or participation by the French court, and despite dissuasion from Mr Cameron of Lochiel and several other Scottish gentlemen whom Mr Murray had sounded on behalf of the Prince. Nevertheless, after making fruitless attempts to persuade H .R.H . to go back to where he came from, Lochiel was in the end alarmed at the dangerous position in which His Royal Person was placed, and brought out 900 of his clan. His example having been followed by

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five some of the most zealous Jacobites [royalistes] there were successes and favourable opportunities which should have led all Jacobites in the Kingdom to declare themselves had Sir Thomas Sheridan had the ability to manage something of such importance, or had the Prince trusted his Scots more, at least as regards the affairs of their native land. But a succession of initiatives not properly understood, and all too clear distrust of those who had proposed them in good faith, meant that the majority of those faithful to King James stood idly by, and those who had taken up arms were ultimately forced to scatter after the unfortunate business of Culloden. It was at this point that the Duke of Cumberland offered Mr Cameron of Lochiel very favourable terms to try to win him over, and it was made known to the other chiefs that the Duke, greatly impressed by their bravery, would use his good offices in their favour if they would only resolve in good faith to lay down their arms. Lochiel rejected these overtures with disdain, and none of the chiefs would hear of surrender. On the contrary they were convinced that France would not leave them in the lurch, and that, should the Prince have crossed over to France, he would soon return with the support that had so often been promised them. Buoyed up with this hope, though without orders and each making up his own mind, they resolved to skulk in their hide-outs, and to tell their people to save as much as they could out of the destruction which the government troops were wreaking throughout their clan lands. This then was the position when the Prince found the chiefs after his ordeal in the Hebrides. H .R.H . now displayed all the firmness of purpose that could have been wished of him, and he shewed himself keenly alive to the calamity that had befallen the country. He exhorted them to reflect on how matters might be righted and assured them that from now on he would be guided by them, offering either to put himself at their head and evict the government troops from their posts among the mountains, or to remain concealed along with them and eventually cross over to France with some of them to expedite the help they had reason to expect from there. This latter seemed the wisest course to the gentlemen assembled, since the country was so ravaged that the government forces could hardly make matters worse. Besides, the 174

Memoire d yun Ecossais season was now advanced and it would be impossible to make them believe that the Prince had left the country while he did not turn up anywhere else, with the consequence that the attention of government would remain fixed on the Highlands of Scotland. On the other hand, government would cease to be apprehensive once it was known that H .R.H . had left. This decided, means were being sought to get the Prince away when two frigates of His Most Christian Majesty [Louis XV] came to take him on board. He took with him Mr Cameron of Lochiel along with one of his brothers, Mr MacDonald of Lochgarry, Colonel Stuart and several other gentlemen of quality. All these gentlemen kept entreating the Prince to hasten his return to Scotland with the help which they did not doubt His Most Christian Majesty was disposed to give them. But, convinced though he was on his return to France of the fidelity and valour of his dear Highlanders, and anxious though he seemed to lead them again, no sooner had he had a number of sessions with Mr Kelly, friend and confidant of Sir Thomas Sheridan, than it appeared that he lost touch with reality, and dreamt only of a large-scale invasion such as is not to be looked for as matters stand at present, and which would probably not enjoy the success which there is every reason to expect from a small-scale expedition to Scotland. Although the more cautious Jacobites did not wish to take part in the Prince’s enterprise, the Government has been at pains to keep them under restraint, since three-quarters of the whole nation is still attached to the House of Stuart. And so two laws, both of great importance, have been passed. One is to abolish the jurisdictions of the nobility and free their vassals from the services which they owe to them in accordance with the traditional ways of the Kingdom. The other is to disarm all Highlanders without exception, and to force them to change their dress. The purpose of the first of these laws is to deprive the nobility of their most cherished rights; of the second to deprive the whole nation of a militia which until now has been its greatest safeguard. The Scots are well aware of the purpose and the consequences of these laws. Those who have recently come across assure us that they have fired everyone with indignation and that even the Whigs 175

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five look on them as manifest breaches of the Treaty of Union with England. Ever since his return from Spain, attempts have been made to make the Prince understand how much he could profit from this general state of unrest, and to remind him of the Highlanders’ zeal, the constancy of their devotion to him, and also their expectation that they will see him again. To all this he gives answer that what he is doing is for the best, but that the appropriate level of help [from France] is not on offer. It becomes ever clearer that the above-mentioned Kelly, who has totally dominated his mind, and does not dare to show his face in Scotland after the part he played with Sir Thomas Sheridan, has made up his mind to bring dishonour on the Prince and to extinguish the hopes of the House of Stuart, rather than participate in initiatives which could be at variance with his own petty interests. In this ruinous situation, without informing the Prince, we have made up our minds to have recourse to His Most Christian Majesty as the friend, protector and ally of the Scottish nation and to represent to him that of the 20,000 Highlanders whose chiefs are committed by association to take up arms for the restoration of their rightful King, there perished in the Prince’s enterprise only 4,000. Consequently we can count on 16,000 to put themselves into the field, and to have in present circumstances support and general approval of the rest of the Kingdom provided His Majesty has the goodness to grant us the modest amount of help which is needed. We ask for only four battalions of infantry, three or four good engineers, eight large cannon and three mortars with artillerymen, bombardiers and the appropriate munitions, 10,000 muskets, 10,000 pistols and, if possible, swords, 12,000 sacks of flour, and 600,000 livres in coin. We are sure that the embarkation could be effected from the coast of Brittany in total secrecy under the cover of sending help to the French colonies, the more so in that the British government knows little of what the Prince is doing, and no one has any inkling that the French court still concerns itself with our affairs. We propose a landing on the shores of the sea-loch of Inverlochy in the country of Mr Cameron of Lochiel, where we will be joined

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Memoire d 3un Ecossais first of all by all his vassals, and shortly afterwards by the associated neighbouring clans. This loch is wide and penetrates right into the central Highlands. The Prince of Orange caused Fort William to be built there in an attempt to contain the Highlanders. There is at the moment a battalion on garrison duty there. Operations will begin with the attack on this fort, which is on its own and will hardly be able to offer resistance. We will then march with the bulk of our army to Inverness while a detachment of our Highlanders along with the help from abroad we will have been given will, we are sure, raise the county of Argyll for our cause. As there are only five battalions of infantry along the entire western coast of Scotland they will not be able to concentrate their forces and so we will liberate the country as we advance. We will reach Edinburgh in five weeks from the date of our landing and we are sure that we will have taken its castle which dominates the capital, as well as Stirling Castle, before the Government has brought its troops back from the Low Countries and is in a position to oppose our progress. [An Account o f the 174 5/6 Rising] The arrival of the Prince of Wales in such an unexpected fashion astonished and alarmed all faithful subjects of the King his father. They told him that it would be impossible for them to take up arms for him with any chance of success without the help that they had requested; and they begged him to go back and wait until he could obtain it. But the Prince told them that he had resolved to perish rather than put up with such a humiliation, and that he had only come with such a small band of supporters and so poorly supplied to give them the opportunity to display the zeal they had always professed; and that if they gave proof of it now His Most Christian Majesty would give them all the help they needed. On the other hand if they allowed their Prince to perish, he who had thrown himself on their mercy, they would earn for themselves eternal shame and would persuade all Europe that the Royal House of Stuart no longer had friends in Scotland, and that the Scots had fallen away from the bravery displayed by their ancestors. Three weeks passed in argument on one side and the other, but at last 177

Locbiel o f the ’Forty-Five Mr Cameron of Lochiel, alive above all else to the danger to which the Prince’s person was exposed, came out in his support along with the majority of his people whom he made take up arms. The example of the Camerons, who count for a lot in the Highlands, brought in some neighbouring clans, and the Prince soon found himself at the head of 2,500 men, reasonably well armed. But General Cope who commanded Government troops in Scot­ land, as soon as he had news of the Prince’s landing, had marched into the Highlands with four battalions of infantry to try to contain the Highlanders. The Prince marched towards him and he first of all retreated to Inverness and then had to embark at Aberdeen to return to the central counties of Scotland where he had left his cavalry. General Cope’s retreat gave a boost to the Prince’s enterprise and he took possession of Perth where Lord George Murray, brother of the Duke of Atholl, joined him with some of the Duke’s people. The Duke of Perth and several of the nobility and gentry of the Lowlands having declared themselves at the same time, H .R .H .’s force grew to 4,000 strong. With this small army he marched with haste tp Edinburgh, capital of the Kingdom, which opened its gates to him although it lay under the guns of the Castle where some officers of general rank were shut up with the garrison. The Prince had scarcely time to proclaim the King his father and to publish His Majesty’s declarations before he had word that General Cope was marching towards him with all the forces he had been able to assemble. Immediately H .R.H . decided to seek battle with him, and having come up with him nine miles out of Edinburgh he gained a complete victory. Being in this way master of the field and of all Scotland, excepting only a few insignificant forts which could be blockaded by only a small force, the Prince had only to arm all the loyal Highlanders, summon the Estates of the realm, and put together an army which could defend itself, or even help the English shake off the usurper’s yoke. But the Prince allowed himself to be blinded by the ardour of his own courageous spirit. Sir Thomas Sheridan, puffed up with the success the Prince’s enterprise had so far enjoyed, and believing that the situation in England was scarcely less favourable than that in Scotland, was so rash as to maintain, against the near unanimous

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Memoire d ’un Ecossais advice of the Scots, that the presence of H .R.H at the head of j,ooo men would bring over a good part of the Government troops to his side and persuade the English nobility to declare themselves. Buoyed up with this hope and, in addition, since it appeared that His Most Christian Majesty was preparing to transport the Duke of York to England with a large force of his army, the Prince made a hasty march into that country, and left Scotland without having taken the necessary measures to consolidate his authority there. This made all Scottish Jacobites despair, and they expected any moment to hear that he had been crushed along with all those who had gone with him. N o longer did anyone dare to declare himself for King James. The Government profited from this public consternation. General Handasyde retook possession of Edinburgh and Lord Loudoun, having joined some independent companies with the Argyll Militia, marched from that county to Inverness; by this deterring those who would have wished to join the Rising. However the Regiment Royal Ecossais and three piquets of Irish fortunately disembarked at Montrose with some cannon and muni­ tions. Lord Lovat sent his elder son to join them at the head of joo of his people, all well armed. Lord Lewis Gordon, brother of the Duke of that name, came to join them with some of his people or friends of that house. And so on his return from England the Prince had a reinforcement of nearly 2,000 men and thought himself strong enough to capture Stirling Castle. But he could not bring this about as he lacked both artillerymen and engineers able to throw up the necessary earthworks. While he was besieging that place General Hawley at the head of 9,500 Government troops marched to raise the siege. The Prince left 1,200 men in front of Stirling Castle and marched towards him with the rest of his army. They fought with such bravery that the Government troops were put to flight and forced to quit the field of battle and abandon all their equipment and baggage. But this victory, seemingly so resounding, proved fatal for the Prince’s cause. The Highlanders took so much booty that many of them left his army to put it in a place of safety among their mountains. The army was so weakened by this licence that the chiefs protested their inability to fight another battle before they had time to bring their people back. 179

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five These representations forced the Prince to abandon Stirling and cross to the other side of the River Forth when the Duke of Cumberland, reinforced a few days after the battle, marched towards him. The Prince’s retreat, though dishonourable in the eyes of the world, would have had no other ill consequence had it not bred distrust which made him suspect all those who were in a position to give him sound advice. But Sir Thomas Sheridan, smarting from the complaints the Scots had made about the Prince’s march into England, got it into his head that the retreat from Stirling was the consequence of discontent felt by some chiefs rather than a traditional liberty taken by the common Highlanders. His suspicions fell principally on Lord George Murray, though that nobleman had distinguished himself up till then on every occasion that offered itself, just as he did subsequently, bearing himself always with the utmost prudence and resolution so that he has won the esteem and the trust of the whole nation. Distrust so ill founded was the principal cause of all H .R .H .’s ills. After chasing Lord Loudoun from Inverness, Lord George with H .R .H .’s agreement marched into Atholl where he scooped up the greater part of the garrisons which the enemy had put there; and having noted that the Hessian troops in the vicinity were split up in three bodies far enough distant from each other for them easily to be cut off and overcome before they could come to each other’s assistance, he sent several urgent despatches to the Prince to let him know how matters stood and said he would answer to H .R.H . for the success of the outcome if H .R .H . would send him a reinforcement of 1,000 men to join with the vassals of the Duke his brother. Nothing could have been more advantageous than this project, the Hessian troops having been positioned where they were to keep open lines of communication between Cumberland’s army on the one hand and Stirling and Edinburgh on the other, and ensure their supplies. Had the Hessians been destroyed or captured the Prince would have been able in his own time to await the help which was being sent him and to arm all the Highlanders, and this would have made him strong enough to chase Cumberland out of Scotland and then do whatever he wished. But instead of agreeing with Lord George about sealing off Cumberland he was progressively sealed off himself, and could no longer draw supplies

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from the Lowlands. The consequence was that he could not bring together most of the Highlanders who had offered to serve him and could only keep with him at Inverness about 4,000 men on account of the difficulty in maintaining them there. In these circumstances all the Highland chiefs advised the Prince to break up his army and seek only to hold the passes into the Highlands, from which from time to time he would have been able to sally into the Lowlands to commandeer food until he had amassed enough supplies for him to be able to reunite his army and do battle with the enemy, while the latter was exhausted and overcome by the wearisome campaign with which the Highlanders would have incessantly harassed them. This advice was not allowed to prevail. Sir Thomas Sheridan, who had no other conception of waging war than to fight at every opportunity, wished the Prince to await the enemy, and when it was learned that they were marching their army towards him, H .R .H . recalled his detached forces and summoned the absent Highlanders to rally round him. They hastened from all over by dint of forced marches, but there were scarcely 7,000 assembled when the Prince resolved to go out to meet Cumberland whom he hoped to surprise in his camp eight or nine leagues from Inverness. In conformity with this plan he marched with the intention of attacking the enemy camp at first light. But before his army had covered two-thirds of the distance there, most of the Highlanders, having been on the march for several days, were so exhausted with fatigue and hunger that some made off to the houses of the country people to seek refreshment while others fell out, overcome by fatigue or the weight of their weapons. This forced the chiefs to tell the Prince that his plan was impracticable. H .R .H ., furious at this upset, gave orders to withdraw to Culloden, a country house on the road the enemy must take to reach Inverness. The Prince’s intention, it seems, was to get refreshment and some hours of sleep for his troops so that they would be fit to carry out his plan the following night. But hardly had they piled arms than it was learned that the enemy was approaching and getting ready to attack them. The Prince, taken by surprise instead of himself mounting a surprise attack, had no time to take up a good position. However, nearly 4,000 Highlanders fought with extraordinary resolution and broke through the enemy’s front

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Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five line. But in the end, being attacked simultaneously from the front and on both flanks they had to yield to overwhelming numbers and proudly withdraw towards a little river, beyond which the enemy could not follow them. The Prince withdrew some ten miles from the field of battle into Lord Lovat’s country, where this aged nobleman gave him the kind of welcome he might have expected after a victory. He represented to H .R.H . that the set-back he had endured could only win him more glory provided he did not let it discourage him. In particular, Lord Lovat swore that he would be faithful to him whatever happened and offered, despite his years, to have himself carried wherever H .R.H . went. He assured him that the Scots in general and the Highlanders above all, had the spirit to ride out the injustices of fortune, and that the mishap they had just endured would have no other result than to make them thirst for revenge. He even set out a plan of campaign which could have restored his fortunes in a few days. But Lord Lovat was one of those bright spirits who could never be to Sir Thomas Sheridan’s liking; to him all plans were suspect except those he himself had suggested. He filled the Prince with such mistrust of my Lord’s views that H .R.H . ordered Fitzjames’ Horse, which had escorted his retreat, to remain on guard all the while he had supper. After this, having retired for the night under the pretext of getting some sleep, he fled from this peer’s house as if from that of a traitor, and hastened without let-up right to the west coast opposite the isles of the Hebrides. Sir Thomas, unable himself to follow his pupil in such a precipitate flight, gave him as companions two Irish officers who like him were strangers to the country. In company with these gentlemen he sailed off in a fishing boat that he might seek among the islands some merchant vessel which would be prepared to take him under a borrowed name to Gothenberg or to some Norwegian port. Meanwhile the Highland chiefs, who had taken themselves off, awaited H .R .H .’s orders to reunite the army. Lord George Murray who had behaved like a hero at Culloden was for several days at the head of 2,000 men, and sent urgent messages in all directions to learn the Prince’s intentions. Lochiel, who had been wounded, had himself carried to the house of Macpherson of Cluny, his relative,

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Memoire d'un Ecossais where, in the absence of any news of his whereabouts, were brought all the Prince’s papers and baggage. Uncertainty could not but lead to general consternation. In despair, all the chiefs went off to their homes and were greatly concerned at what had become of H .R.H . In coming to his own country Lochiel found there Sir Thomas Sheridan and the infamous Secretary Murray from whom he learned where the Prince had gone and the advice that had been given him to take himself out of the Kingdom. Lochiel there and then sent one of his brothers off on the Prince’s track to stop him taking a step so dishonourable to himself and so harmful to the whole Scottish nation, but he could not come up with the Prince who had already reached the Islands, and indeed it was very doubtful if he was still there. At this juncture two French frigates arrived on the coast with a considerable sum of money for the army’s needs. This money was entrusted to Secretary Murray; and Sir Thomas Sheridan along with the Duke of Perth and some other of the nobility and gentry from the Lowlands who made up their minds to go to France, embarked on the frigates. All this while the Prince, having no word of a ship, was moving from island to island, and since he was recognised everywhere he was obliged to entrust himself to a gentleman who had refused to take part in the Rising, but whom he found to be ready to risk everything for the safeguarding of his Royal person. He remained hidden in this gentleman’s country, where he enjoyed the pleasures of fishing and hunting, until the Government obtained some inkling of where he was hiding himself and ordered General Campbell to make a search there. The General having landed in the islands with a large detachment of troops told the chief of the locality on landing, ‘Tomorrow we are going to carry out some thorough searches. If there is any contraband I think you would do well to get it under cover tonight’ . On receipt of this warning the Prince was obliged to separate from Sullivan and the other Irish officer who had accompanied him until then, so that he might cross to Skye along with a lady who took it on herself to lead him to safety at the house of Lady MacDonald, wife of the baronet of that name - who, although he was a devoted Jacobite, had always looked on the Prince’s enterprise as a folly, for which, according to this

183

Lochiel o f the ’Forty-Five gentleman he ought to be flogged. But this situation, humiliating though it was, was by no means the most vexing that the Prince encountered. Lady MacDonald, being unable to conceal him in her house, had him cross over to the mainland where the country was full of government troops and every common Highlander could not fail to recognise H .R.H . at first sight. On landing the Prince found a MacDonald gentleman who said to him that he could not be safe near the coast because of the frequent landings made by the navy, and that it would be very difficult to break through the cordon which the troops had flung round the country. After much discussion this gentleman led him to Lord Lovat’s country, which H .R.H . had previously left in such ill-feeling and haste, and there entrusted him to the keeping of common Highlanders whom he met, and he himself returned home to avoid suspicion. The Prince sensed in the feelings of these Highlanders a nobility with which he had reason to be well content. They all knew the price on his head and that they could win a great fortune by handing him over. But so far were they from being tempted that they were the more incensed against the Government, protesting that they would rather suffer the cruellest death than harbour such a horrid thought. What is more, their wives cried out against the barbarous ways of the Elector of Hanover in offering so much money for the assassination of so lovable a Prince, and said that they would weep no more for the deaths of those near to them if these evils could at last bring down the blessings of God on their true Prince, and on their good lord and master Lord Lovat. So H .R.H . remained in concealment with these brave people, who went every day to buy food in the enemy camp until an opportunity was found to lead him through the cordon of troops in Lochaber, where he shortly had the pleasure of being in company with Lochiel and other chiefs who told him of the consternation his absence had caused, and the chaos and despoliation that had followed. It was then that the Prince came to see the lamentable outcome of his own hasty action and the prejudices of his Governor. He was cut to the heart by the evils the country had endured, and he declared that he was ready to try anything to revenge or make good the calamities it had suffered. He exhorted the chiefs to consider

184

Memoire d ’un Ecossais what had to be done, and assured them that he would abide by their advice. They were delighted to see in him an unconquerable spirit and sentiments which gave them grounds for hoping that in future he would honour them with much greater trust. Some of them proposed that enough men be got together to destroy the troops encamped in Lord Lovat’s country, and then capture all their outposts among the mountains. But others represented that though such a campaign would be all very glorious in appearance, it would be of little use, and perhaps even harmful in that it would be necessary, if they were to keep it going, to defend the passes through which the government troops would be able to re-enter the Highlands; and this was an impossibility with the general dearth wrought by the enemy’s ravages which meant that subsistence would be lacking for even the small force which would have to be kept together throughout the winter. Moreover, the worst the enemy could do had already been done, and the advanced season would force the withdrawal of his troops. This being so, it would be foolish to alarm the Government once more. It would be better to remain hidden, as they had done till then, and endeavour throughout the winter to find the necessary help for striking vigorously in the spring. These views prevailed. At the same time it was considered that there would be advantage in the Prince himself crossing over to France to seek help, in that the Government would never be convinced that he had left the country until he turned up somewhere else. On the other hand his arrival in France would remove all their worries as regards Scotland and could move the Elector of Hanover to recall his troops to use them, as previously, in carrying on the war abroad. This would give the Prince an opportunity to achieve a great deal with only a little help. Some time after all this was decided, two frigates of His Most Christian Majesty arrived on the coast. H .R.H . took the opportunity they offered to cross over to France with several chiefs, leaving the others behind to keep alive the Highlanders’ hopes, to safeguard as many arms as possible and to receive whatever orders were sent to them from time to time. [From the archives of the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris. MD Angleterre, vol. 82, fos 216 -21.]

185

Abbreviations Albem arle

The Albem arle Papers (Correspondence of 2nd Earl of Albemarle), ed. C. S. Terry (N ew Spalding Club, Aberdeen,

Ardvorlich

John Stewart of Ardvorlich, The Cam erons: A H istory o f Clan Cam eron (Clan Cameron Association, 1974). James Browne, H istory o f the H ighlands and the H ighland Clans (Glasgow, 1835). J. L. Campbell (ed.), H ighland Songs o f the \Forty-Five (Edinburgh, 1984). CuUoden Papers, 1 6 2 1 -1 7 4 8 (London, 1815). John Drummond, M em oire o f Sir Ew an Cam eron o f Locheill (Maitland Club, 1842). Sir James Fergusson of Kilkerran, A rg yll in the Fo rty-Five (London, 1951). John S. Gibson, Ships o f the '4 $ (London, 1967). John Home, A H istory o f the Rebellion in Scotland in 17 4 y (London, 1802).

i 8 95 ).

Browne Campbell CuUoden

Drummond Fergusson Gibson Home Inventarie

Itinerary

Johnstone Jou rn al

Lenman Lochiel

Inventarie o f the Charters etc. o f the fam ily o f Cam eron o f Locheill, compiled by John Drummond, 1727; Scottish

Record Office G D i/658(i). W. B. Blaikie, Itinerary o f Prince Charles E d w a rd Stuart (Scottish History Society, 1897 and 1975). The Chevalier de Johnstone, M emoirs o f the Rebellion in 1 7 4 5 ,1 7 4 6 (London, 1820). Lord Elcho’s (unpublished) Journal. Bruce Lenman, Jacobite Clans o f the Great G len (London, 1984). Lochiel Papers, at Achnacarry.

186

Abbreviations Lyon

MacKenzie McLynn Maxwell

M em oire M iscellany

Murray

NLS Origins

SRO Tayler Tomasson TG SI WH

Bishop Robert Forbes, The Lyon in M ourning (Scottish History Society, 1895 and 1975). Alexander MacKenzie, H istory o f the Cam erons (1884). F. J. McLynn, Charles E d w a rd Stuart (London, 1988). James Maxwell of Kirkconnel, N arrative o f Charles Prince o f W ales' Expedition to Scotland in the year 17 4 $ (Maitland Club, 1841). M em oire d ’un Ecossais; Archives of the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris (Angleterre MD, vol. 82, fos 216-21). H. Tayler (ed.), A Jacobite M iscellany (Roxburghe Club, 1948). M emorials o f Joh n M urray o f Broughton , ed. R. F. Bell (Scottish History Society, 1898). National Library of Scotland. Origins o f the ’Forty-Five, ed. W. B. Blaikie (Scottish History Society, 1915). Scottish Record Office. A. & H. Tayler, 17 4 $ and A fter (London, 1938). Katherine Tomasson, The Jacobite G eneral (Edinburgh, j 958). Transactions o f the G aelic Society o f Inverness . H istory o f the Rebellion in the years 174 f and 1746 , (‘Whig Historian’) anon., ed. H. Tayler (Roxburghe Club, 1944).

Murray of Broughton’s version of events is in six separate narratives, five of them in ‘Murray’, one in O rigins. (1) ‘Negotiations with adherents of the House of Stuart, 1740-5’ (written in 1756-7): Murray, 1-147. (2) ‘A copy of original papers written by John Murray Esq. containing a history of the first Rise and Progress of the Late Rebellion from the end of the year 1742 to 1744’ (fragmentary papers picked up after Culloden, presumably written in 1745-6): O rigins, 3-68. (3) ‘The Expedition from the Prince’s landing to his arrival at Derby’ (probably written after Murray’s release from prison in 1748): Murray, 151-248. (4) ‘Murray’s movements after Culloden’ (written in 1748, cf. p. 267): Murray, 251-314. (5) ‘The Examination of John Murray of Broughton in the Tower of London, 14 February and following’ (Government record of Murray’s confessions): Murray, 474-83. (6) ‘Account of the Highland Clans’ (written for George IPs ministers during Murray’s imprisonment 1746-8): Murray, 439.

187

Sources Preface v ii

Sir Walter Scott: Ardvorlich, 294.

I. 1

2

3 4

5

The Log o f'L e du Teillay *

Darbe’s Journal: A. Murray MacGregor (trans.), A R oyalist Fa m ily , Irish and French (16 8 9 -17 8 9 ) an d Prince Charles E dw ard (Edinburgh, 1904) 17-31. Also in T G S Iy vol. XXVI. the Prince’s companions: Tayler, 1-7. Compagnie Volontaire: Gibson, 10; W H , 31; Les Lettres de M arviUe . . . an Ministre M aurepas (Paris, 1903) vol. II, 127 (letter of 29 July 1745). I can find no authority for the assertion, recently made, that Clare’s Regiment was embarked on V E lisa beth . Aeneas MacDonald: Lyon , I, 289; O rigins, 8n, 83m young Clanranald: M iscellany o f the Scottish H istory Society (1958) 203 ff. Gaelic poem: Campbell, 48-51. Alexander MacDonald: The Lockhart Papers (London, 1817) vol.

H, 4796

8 9

Ranald MacDonald: Home, 39-40. Sir John MacDonald: M iscellany, III passim, young Glengarry: Itinerary , 113. Bishop Hugh MacDonald: L yo n , III, 50. H om e’s narrative: Home, 41-5.

188

Sources

II. 11 17 18

19

20

22

23

24 25 26

27 29

31

The Legend o f Montrose

Ewen Cameron at St Andrews: Drummond, 76-82. Dundee’s campaign: Drummond, 271; James Philp, The Gram eid (Scottish History Society, 1888) 131-2. at Drummond Castle: Memoirs o f the L ife o f Sim on , L o rd Lovat (London, 1797, 1902) 119-20. John Lochiel’s birth: Ardvorlich, 238. John Lochiel in the *15: ‘The Camerons in the Rising of 1715: a vin­ dication by their leader, John Cameron’, T G S I , XXIV, 63-90. in London, 1706: Inventarie , 49. in the ’08: John S. Gibson, Playing the Scottish C a rd: The Franco Jacobite Invasion o f 170 8 (Edinburgh, 1988) 94. in London, 1708: Jean Munro, ‘The ’08 ’, Clan D onald M agazine , N o. 4 (1968). pledge to King George: Bruce Lenman, The Jacobite Risings in Britain 16 8 9 -17 4 6 (1980) 126. offer to Argyll: Duncan Campbell, The Lairds o f Glenlyon (2nd ed. 1984) 230-1 (This seems to be the only authority for this surprising offer, and the source is not identified; but Campbell was a distinguished local historian in the last century.) Lord Lochiel: Ardvorlich, 295. parents’ marriage contract: SRO, RD3/154. date of birth: Ardvorlich, 307. schooling: Inventarie , 71. estate disponed: ibid., 187. further disposition: ibid., 181, 192. his old age: Thomas Pennant, A Tour o f Scotland (London, 1771) 384; Drummond, 24-6. James Keith: Lenman, 94. deforestation: Inventarie , 54, 69; W. T. Kilgour, Lochaber in War and Peace (1908) 316-7. visit to France: Inventarie , 16; Lochiel (letter of Lord Inverness, 25 April 1725). Allan Cameron’s visit: E. O . Dodgson, ‘Secret Agent in the High­ lands’, The Stewarts, X (i), 1955. King James* letter: Hom e, appx II, 266-71. Lockhart of Camwath: Daniel Szechi, Letters o f Lockhart o f Cam w ath (Scottish History Society, 1989) 312-13. Balhaldie’s ‘factory’: Inventarie , 75. Lochiel’s corr. with his father: Lochiel, 20 April 1740; 24 Sept. 1740; 23 June 1742; Dec. 1742; 12 June 1743 (from ‘J. Chalmber’, the code-name for Cameron).

189

Lochiel o f the \Forty-Five 31 32

33

35

36 37

letter of March 1729 to King James: H . Tayler, Jacobite Epilogue (London, 1941) 130-1. Campbells of Auchinbreck: Com plete Baronage , II, 339-40. marriage contract: Inventarie , 150. Hom e’s description: Hom e, 8. want of Gaelic: Lochiel, 12 June 1743. Alexander’s conversion: Lochiel, 15 August 1731; Innes R eview , vol. 45(1), Spring 1994. in West Indies: MacKenzie, 214. Lochiel’s debts: Bailie Steuart’s Letter Book (Scottish History Society, 1915); Lochiel, 11 November 1731. Captain Burt: Letters from a Gentlem an in the N orth o f Scotland to his Friend in London (1754, 1876; Edinburgh, 1974), vol. II. James Boswell: Jo u rn al o f a Tour to the H ebrides (entry for 8 October 1773).

III. The Path to Glenfinnan 39 40 41

42

44

46 47 48

49 50 51

report to King James: Browne, II, 441. Glenbucket’s Memorial: W H , xxvii. Murray on Lochiel: O rigins, 5; Murray, 441. John Drummond’s letter: Drummond, xlv. Sileas na Ceapaich: Colin O ’Boill (ed.), Sileas na Ceapaich (Scottish Gaelic Texts Society, 1982). the Glengarry bard: Colin O ’Boill and Donald Macaulay, Scottish Gaelic Vernacular Verse: A Check List, N o. 473. David Bruce: The H ighlands o f Scotland , ed. Andrew Lang (Edinburgh, 1898). Lovat to Lochiel: Lenman, 146 (Lovat letters at Achnacarry, 9 February 1737). the Association: Murray, 8, 449. Sempill and Balhaldie: ibid., 47. Lochiel to Murray: O rigins, 24-5. Lochiel and Lovat: ibid., 41; Lovat letters at Achnacarry. Lord Kenmure: Murray, 52. Cameronians and the ’08: Gibson, Playing the Scottish C a rd , passim. MacLeod: Origins, 44-5. Duke of Perth: ibid., 37. Sir James Campbell: ibid., 16-17, 45, 51. Murray to King James: ibid., 38. Lochiel’s financial difficulties: Ardvorlich, 306-09. King James’ wish: O rigins, 44. drainage of Blar Mor: SRO, RH 2/8/26. David Bruce: Ardvorlich, 310.

190

Sources 51 52

53

J4

55

56 57 59 61

62 63

66 67

68 69 70

cattle-thieving: T G S I, XIV, 75; W H , 36. Memorial concerning the Highlands: Origins, 208. Fr Cameron: NLS, Ms 20310 (vol. 14 of letters and mss). Commissions of lieutenancy: Murray, 60. at Drummond Castle: O rigins, 52. Lord George Murray: Tomasson, 10. Murray to King James: Origins, 58. returns from France: ibid., 65; Murray, 460. the Loyal Club: Murray, 114; Jou rn al. Sir James Steuart: P. Chamley, Documents relatifs a Sir Jam es Steuart (Paris, 1965) 115-17. Duke of York’s birthday: Murray, 119. MacLeod enlisted: ibid., 108-09; I. F. Grant, The M acLeods: the H istory o f a Clan (1959, 1981) 432-5. Lochiel’s letter: Tayler, Jacobite Epilogue, 13 2-3. Kelly’s letter: SP Dom . 36/81, 2 6 February 1745 (15 February O.S.). Murray to the Prince: Murray, 124 Charles Smith: ibid., 132. Sir Hector Maclean: ibid., 135; W H , 30. Lochiel to Duke of Perth: Lochiel (undated copy). Murray at Achnacarry: Murray, 141-4. Thomas Pennant: op. cit., 222. Fassifem’s account: Home, 44m Voltaire’s account: Precis du Siecle de Louis X V , chapter xxiv. Boswell: L ife o f Johnson, footnote to narrative of 1739. Murray’s account: Murray, 152-3. Lady Strathallan and young Glengarry: Lyon, III, 120-1. Lochgarry’s narrative: Itinerary, 113; W H , 47. Lord President: W H , 56. Lord Elcho: Journal. Sir Alexander MacDonald: C ulloden, 207. Forbes to Cope: ibid., 372. Cluny to Lochiel: ibid., 374-5. Lochgarry’s narrative: Itinerary, 113. The Royals ambushed: Home, 46-9; Bank of Scotland mss 20/11/14, affidavit of 6 September 1745.

IV. ‘ The Noble Attempt* 72 73 74

Sir John MacDonald: M iscellany, III. Glenfinnan: Tayler, 60-1; Murray, 168 ; W H , 39. at Fassifem: M iscellany, III. Keppoch’s intolerance: Murray, 175. forced recruitment: Ardvorlich, 104.

Lochiel o f the yForty-Five 74 75

76 77

78 79 80

81 82 83

85

86 87 88 89 90 91

92 93 95

reluctance in Moidart: Charles MacDonald, M oidart, or among the Clanranalds (Edinburgh 1889, 1989) 175. Cameron of Callart: List o f Persons concerned in the Rebellion (Scottish History Society, 1896) 382. MacLeod, Sir Alexander MacDonald: Murray, 169-70. Duncan Grant: Culloden , 43. the Corryarrack: Itinerary , 114. proposed northwards march: Murray, 190. attack on Ruthven: W H , 48. at Touch: M iscellany , III; A. G. N . McGregor, H istory o f Clan G regor (1901) vol. 2 (narrative by Duncan McPharrie). the taking of Edinburgh: Murray, 194-5; Tayler, 71-3; Itinerary , 114-15. Magdalen Pringle: M iscellany , II. Patrick Crichton’s account: The Woodhouselee M S; a narrative of events during the Jacobite occupation, September to November 1745 (Edinburgh, 1907). battle of Prestonpans (Gladsmuir): Murray, 202; David, Lord Elcho, A Short Account o f the A ffairs o f Scotland in the years 17 4 4 , 1 7 4 f, 17 4 6 (Edinburgh, 1907, 1973) 272. Donald Mor: Greenhill Gardyne, The H istory o f the Gordon H ighlanders , (Edinburgh, 1901) 99. Lochiel restrains Prince: MacKenzie, 224. death of Col. Gardiner: N ew Statistical Account, Inverness-shire, parish of Kilmallie, 121. Lochiel’s humanity: Alexander Carlyle, Anecdotes and Characters o f the Times (London, 1973) 74-6. the Royal Bank: M iscellany o f the Scottish H istory Society , vol. 1 (1893); John Campbell’s Diary. Magdalen Pringle: M iscellany , II. the ‘noble attempt’: Boswell, Life o f Johnson , under 19 September 1777. Sheridan at Perth: Tomasson, 41. Lochiel at Carlisle: ibid., 87. Lochiel at Derby: ibid., h i ; M iscellany, III. Johnstone’s anecdote: Johnstone, 76-7. Lochiel at Lancaster: Tomasson, 119. welcome to Lochiel’s grandson: Ardvorlich, 145. Dr Archie’s scaffold speech: Lyon , III, 132-7. Lovat’s message to the Prince: Murray, 173; The Lockhart Papers (London, 1817) vol. II, 442. Lovat to Lochiel: D . N . Mackay (ed.), Trial o f Simon , Lo rd Lovat o f the ’4 f (Notable English Trials) 215. Lochiel’s reply: ibid., 230-2. Lochiel at Falkirk: Tomasson, 147. Hom e’s anecdote: Hom e, 180-2.

192

Sources 96 97

99 100 103

104 1o j

106 108

death of Sir Robert Munro: Culloden , cccxi (Sir Harry Munro to the Lord President, 22 January 1746). Lochiel at St Ninian’s: Lyon, II, 83. Lochiel at Crieff: Tomasson, 173. French reinforcements: Gibson, 23-4. the Terror: Fergusson, 118-19. Lochiel’s letter: Scots M agazine , April 1746,141; Fergusson, 122-3. Original in SRO, Stonefield Papers, 73. Peter Smith: Johnstone, 125. Murray’s strategy: MacKenzie, 230. Dochanassie bard: Campbell, 256. Mingarry’s report: Fergusson, 144. Ewen Cameron’s letter, letters of Sheridan and Lochiel: Cum berland Papers (Royal Archives, Windsor; microfilm copy in Scottish United Services Museum, Edinburgh), 5 April 1746 (captured letters, to be found between Royal Army letters of 13 and 15 May). John Cameron’s narrative: Lyon, I, 84-8. Major Wolfe: J. T. Finlay, W olfe in Scotland (London, 1928) 107.

V. ‘The Summer's Hunting' h i

112 113 115

John Cameron: Lyon , I, 88. John H om e’s narrative: Hom e, 239. Murray’s narrative: Murray, 276ft. L e Mars and L a Bellone: Gibson, 28-43. Sheridan’s influence: A. & H . Tayler (ed.), Stuart Papers at Windsor ( i 939 )

116 117 118 120

121 122 123 132

i

5i - 2.

Dr Archie’s recollection: M iscellany o f the Scottish H istory Society, 3rd Series (1941) 146. Murray of Glencarnaig: The Baronage o f Scotland (1798) 505. Loch Arkaig: Murray, 275. Murray’s plan of action: Home, appx XLVII, 384-7. Lochiel to Cluny: ibid., 387-8. attack on Achnacarry: Murray, 283-5. ‘Spanish John’: Spanish Jo h n ; being a narrative o f the early life o f Colonel Jo h n M cD onell o f Scottos, written by him self (Royal Celtic Society, Edinburgh, 1931). dispersal of clans at Loch Arkaig: Murray, 285; L yo n , I, 90-1; W H , 234. ‘the other side of the hill’: Cum berland Papers, April-June 1746 (dates of correspondence as given in the text). forgery in Orders of the Day: W H , xviii-xix. Cumberland conciliatory: W H , 228 message from the Prince: Murray, 285.

193

Lochiel o f the 3Forty-Five 133 135 136 139 140 142

146

147 148 149 150

151 153

letter to Cluny: MacKenzie, 207. at Loch Shiel and Appin: Murray, 286-92. Dungallon’s submission: Fergusson, 211. Ardshiel’s house: Albemarle, I, 332. at Ben Alder: Lyon , II, 375-80; III, 38-46. Fr Alexander taken: Lyon , I, 312-3. Prince with Lovat: Lyon , I, 190; Sir Walter Scott, Tales o f a Grandfather, chap, lxxxiv; Journal (also in Miscellany); Narrative of the Several Passages of the Young Chevalier from the Battle of Culloden to his Embarkation for France (London, 1765) 3-4. Lochgarry’s narrative: Itinerary, 124. Lord Chesterfield: B. P. Lenman and J. S. Gibson, The Jacobite Threat (1990) 232.

rescue from France: Gibson, passim; A. Maclean and J. S. Gibson, Summer Hunting a Prince (1991) passim. escape by the east coast: Gibson, 116. crossing the Lochy: Lyon, III, 45. Loch nan Uamh: Albemarle, I, 236, 270-3, 278-81; Gibson, 134-5. John MacDonald’s valediction: Lyon , III, 382. Barrisdale imprisoned: Gibson, 143-6. Prince’s narrative: Miscellany, V. O ’Sullivan: Tayler, 215. Diderot’s letter: Denis Diderot, Correspondence (ed. Roth, Paris, 1957) vol. 3, 228.

VI. ‘The Reproach o f Their Blood ’ 155

156 157 158

159

160 161 162

Prince to Louis X V : Browne, III, 463-4. O ’Brien to King James: ibid., Ill, 466. Due de Luynes: Les Memoirs du Due de Luynes sur la cour de Louis X V (Paris, 1861) 456-9. Prince’s second letter: Browne, III, 466. third letter: ibid., 467. Prince’s memoir: ibid., 469. Lochiel at Clichy: McLynn, 311. offer of a regiment: Browne, III, 477. payments: ibid., 469. Lochiel and Balhaldie: Murray, 105; A. G. N . McGregor, op. cit., 420. Balhaldie’s proposal: Browne, III, 476. Louis XV’s proposal: McLynn, 315. backed by d’Eguilles: Browne, III, 27. the spies’ reports: Albemarle , I, 331-40. Lochiel to King James: Browne, III, 477. King James to the Prince: ibid., 487.

194

Sources

165 166

167 168

169 170 171

172

Lochiel to the Prince: ibid., 489. King James to Lochiel: ibid., 478. Lochiel to Edgar: ibid., 4-5. Sempill to King James: ibid., 26-9. Regiment d’Albanie: Helen McCorry, ‘Rats, lice and Scotchmen: Scottish Infantry Regiments in the Service of France, 1742-62’, Journal of the Society of Army Research (forthcoming). meeting of Jacobite emigres in autumn 1748: McLynn, 348. Balhaldie to King James: Browne, III, 43-4. Borgue: the long-standing identification of ‘Borgue’ with Bourges may be mistaken; the fortress-town of Bergues in Flanders seems more likely. death of Lochiel: Scots Magazine, October 1748. poem in Scots Magazine: ibid., December 1748. Cimitiere des Ecossais at Sancerre: Memoires de la Societe Historique du Cher (1918-19). burial of Lochiel’s son: J. Ramsay of Ochtertyre, Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1888) II, 506. Chambers: R. Chambers History of the Rebellion in 174$ and 1746 (Edinburgh, 1840; 5th ed. 1869) 510. Burns: letter of 16 December 1789 to Lady Winifred Maxwell Constable.

195

Dramatis Personae , w i l l i a m a n n e k e p p e l , 2nd Earl of (1702-54), served at Dettingen and Fontenoy, present at Culloden and succeeded Cumberland as Commander-in-chief in July 1746. A r g y l l , j o h n C a m p b e l l , 2nd Duke of (1680-1743), commanded King George’s army at Sheriffmuir 1715, leading political figure at Hanoverian court. A r g y l l , A r c h i b a l d C a m p b e l l , 3rd Duke of (1682-1761), succeeded his brother in 1743, built Inveraray Castle, dominant in Scottish affairs. a t h o l l , w i l l i a m M u r r a y , Marquess of Tullibardine, titular Duke of Atholl, took part in the Risings of 1715 and 1719, lived in exile, one of the ‘Seven Men of Moidart’, surrendered after Culloden, died in the Tower 1746. a t h o l l , j a m e s M u r r a y , 2nd Duke of (‘the whig Duke’), younger brother of William, succeeded his father the 1st Duke in 1724, consistent Hanoverian. b a l m e r i n o , A r t h u r e l p h i n s t o n e , 6th Baron (1688-1746), fought at Sheriffmuir 1715, colonel of Charles’ 2nd troop of Life Guards 1745-6, surrendered after Culloden, executed 1746. b l a k e n e y , w i l l i a m , Baron (1672-1761), served under Marlborough, lieutenant-governor of Stirling Castle 1744, defended it against Charles 1746. b l a n d , General H u m p h r e y ( i 6 8 6 ? - i 7 6 3 ) , served under Marlborough, major-general in Culloden campaign, commander-in-chief in Scotland

albem arle

J753-

, a n n , daughter of Sir James Campbell of Auchinbreck and wife of Donald C. of Lochiel from 1729, died 1762. c a m e r o n , Fr A l e x a n d e r , brother of Donald C. of Lochiel, became a Jesuit priest, RC chaplain to Lochiel’s regiment in the ’45, captured cam ero n

196

Dramatis Personae after Culloden, died of his privations in prison. , A l e x a n d e r of Dungallon, major in Lochiel’s regiment in the ’ 4 5 and standard-bearer to the Prince, surrendered May 1746, commissioned in the Fraser Highlanders 1757, died 1759. c a m e r o n , a l l a n , brother of John of Lochiel and uncle to Donald C. of Lochiel, served with distinction in the ’15, subsequently a Jacobite agent and in King James’ service at Rome, died 1731. c a m e r o n , A r c h i b a l d , brother of Donald C. of Lochiel, practised as a doctor in Lochaber, lieutenant-colonel of Lochiel’s regiment in the ’45, escaped to France September 1746, executed in connection with the Elibank plot 1753. c a m e r o n , d o n a l d , of Lochiel (c.1700-1748), son of John C. of Lochiel (attainted for share in the ’15), succeeded to chiefship of his clan on the death of his grandfather Sir Ewen C., wounded at Falkirk and Culloden, escaped with Charles to France, received a regiment in French service, attainted. (Sometimes called ‘Young Lochiel*.) c a m e r o n , sir e v e n d u b h (1629-1719) succeeded to chiefship of his clan on the death of his grandfather Allan MacDonald Dubh 1647, took part in Glencaim’s Rising 1653-4, led his clan at battle of Killiecrankie 1689, taken into custody on suspicion after the ’08. c a m e r o n , e v e n , brother of Donald C. of Lochiel, emigrated to West Indies in 1735 where he was a planter on estate his grandfather had bought. c a m e r o n , j o h n of Lochiel, chief of clan 1696, ‘out’ in 1689 and in the ’15 and ’19 and attainted, joined Prince Charles at Perth 1745, died in France 1747. (‘Old Lochiel’; Lord Lochiel in the Jacobite Peerage.) c a m e r o n , j o h n of Fassifern, brother of Donald C. of Lochiel, burgess of Glasgow in 1735, took no part in the ’45 but persecuted by Government in the following years, assisted John H om e in his H istory o f the Rebellion

cam ero n

in 17 4 $ . , The Revd j o h n , presbyterian(?) chaplain at Fort William, padre in Lochiel’s regiment, with Lochiel after Culloden, escaped to France. c a m e r o n , l u d o v i c k of Torcastle, brother of John C. of Lochiel, raised 300 of the clan, evaded capture after Culloden, agent for Cluny in distribution of the Loch Arkaig treasure. C a m p b e l l , sir j a m e s of Auchinbreck, 5th Baronet, father-in-law to Donald Cameron of Lochiel, died 1756. C a m p b e l l , Major-General j o h n of Mamore ( i 6 ^ } } - i j j o ) y commander of troops and garrisons in west of Scotland 1745, 4th Duke of Argyll 1761. C h a r l e s e d w a r d s t u a r t , p r i n c e (1720-88), eldest son of James III and VIII, bom and educated at Rome, escaped to France after the ’45, expelled from France 1748, titular Charles III 1766, died at Rome 1788. c o p e , General sir j o h n , commander-in-chief in Scotland 1745, courtmartialed and exonerated, died 1760. C u m b e r l a n d , w i l l i a m A u g u s t u s , Duke of (1721-65), third son of cam ero n

197

Lochiel o f the \Forty-Five George II, commander-in-chief in Netherlands 1744, and at battle of Fontenoy 1745, victor of Culloden 1746, received thanks of Parliament and £25,000 a year for services in Scotland 1746, resumed command in Netherlands 1747-57, buried in Westminster Abbey 1765. D RU M M O N D , Lord JO H N , 4th Duke of Perth and brother to titular Duke o f P. of the *45, raised the Regiment Royal Ecossais in France, at Falkirk and Culloden 1746, killed at Bergen-op-Zoom 1747. d r u m m o n d , Lord l e w i s , son of 2nd Earl of Melfort, lieutenant-colonel o f the Regiment Royal Ecossais, lost a leg at Culloden 1746, died at Paris 1792. e g u i l l e s , a l e x a n d r e d e b o y e r , Marquis d \ titular ambassador for Louis XV to Prince Charles, arrived at Holyrood 4 October 1745, surrendered after Culloden. e l c h o , d a v i d w e m y s s , Lord (1720-87), eldest son of 4th Earl of Wemyss, joined the Prince outside Edinburgh in September 1745, served with distinction throughout the *45 in the Prince’s Lifeguards, escaped to France, never pardoned by Government. Wrote The A ffairs o f Scotland in 1 7 4 ; and 17 4 6 and an (unpublished) autobiography. f e r g u s s o n e , Captain j o h n , of HMS Furnace , was active in the search for Prince Charles and his partisans, later gave distinguished service at siege of Louisbourg 1759. f o r b e s , d u n c a n of Culloden (1685-1747), President of Court of Session 1737, first to suggest formation of Highland regiments, the most efficient agent on the government side in Scotland during the Rising. Counselled moderation for the common people after Culloden. g a r d i n e r , colonel j a m e s ( 1688 - i 745), fought at Preston 1715, colonel o f 13th Hussars 1743-5, killed at Prestonpans. G o r d o n , j o h n of Glenbucket, factor or chamberlain to the Duke of Gordon, commanded regiment of Gordons in *15, visited King James at Rome and received major-general’s commission 1738, member of Prince Charles’ Council 1745, escaped to France after Culloden. G o r d o n , Lord l e w i s , third son of 2nd Duke of Gordon, lieutenant R. N ., joined Charles at Edinburgh, defeated Macleod at Inverurie 1745, attainted 1746, died at Montreuil 1754. g u e s t , General j o s h u a (1660-1747), enlisted 1685, served in Ireland, Flanders and Spain, lieutenant-general 1745, held Edinburgh Castle

I745”^General r o g e r , commander-in-chief in Scotland 14 N o v .-j Dec. 1745. h a w l e y , General h e n r y ( i 679?- i 759), served under Argyll in the ’15, at Dettingen 1743 and Fontenoy 1745, defeated at Falkirk 1746, commanded cavalry at Culloden 1746. h e n r y b e n e d i c t s t e w a r t , Cardinal York (1725-1807), younger brother of Prince Charles, followed him to France, on return to Italy created Cardinal 1747, assumed title Henry IX 1788, residence at Frascati sacked by French 1799, relieved by George III, died 1807. h an d asyd e,

198

Dramatis Personae (1722-1808) served while a student at Edinburgh University with King George’s army, captured at Falkirk, subsequently a Church of Scotland minister and (in his day) celebrated playwright. Wrote H istory o f the Rebellion in 17 4 $ (1802). h o m e , w i l l i a m , 8th Earl, served under Cope and commanded Glasgow volunteers 1745, died 1761. k e l l y , g e o r g e , an Irishman, imprisoned in Tower 1723-36 for suspected complicity in Atterbury Plot, one of the seven who sailed with Charles to Scotland 1745, carried despatches to French Court in Oct. 1745, subsequently served and was dismissed by Charles. K i l m a r n o c k , w i l l i a m b o y d , 4th Earl of (1704-46), raised a troop of horse for Charles after Prestonpans 1745, captured at Culloden and executed 1746. l o u d o u n , j o h n C a m p b e l l , 4th Earl of (1705-82), accompanied Cope to Stirling in August 1745, received command of Independent Companies in autumn 1745, failed to surprise Charles at Moy 1746, after fall of Inverness withdrew to Skye, engaged in sweeping the Highlands after Culloden. l o v a t , S i m o n f r a s e r , 12th Baron (i667?-i747) deep in Jacobite plotting 1703 but rallied his clan for the government 1715, joined Association inviting Charles to Scotland 1740, by his instructions the Frasers joined the Prince under his eldest son Simon, Master of Lovat (1726-82), held by Lord Loudoun as hostage for fidelity of clan but escaped, joined Lochiel after Culloden, executed 1747. m a c d o n a l d , a e n e a s , son of Ranald Macdonald of Kinlochmoidart and brother of Donald Macdonald of K., a Paris banker, accompanied Prince Charles to Scotland, surrendered 1746, condemned to death but pardoned, killed in Paris during the Revolution. m a c d o n a l d (or m a c d o n e l l ), a l a s t a i r (1725-60), eldest son of John M. of Glengarry, captain in the Regiment Royal Ecossais, captured at sea on way to join the Highland Army, imprisoned in the Tower, identified by Andrew Lang with Pickle the Spy. m a c d o n a l d , A l e x a n d e r of Boisdale (1698-1768), step-brother to Clanranald, discouraged Charles at the outset, but befriended him after Culloden, made prisoner 1746, released 1747. m a c d o n a l d , A l e x a n d e r of Glenaladale, major in Clanranald regiment, wounded at Culloden, guided Prince Charles through mountains of the Rough Bounds, lived to old age at Glenaladale. m a c d o n a l d , A l e x a n d e r of Glencoe, was ‘out’ in ’15, member of Charles’ Council 1745, surrendered to General Campbell May 1746. M A C D O N A L D (O R M A C D O N E L L ), A L E X A N D E R of Keppoch, W as ‘out’ in ’15, among earliest to join Charles 1745, killed at Culloden. m a c d o n a l d , sir A l e x a n d e r of Sleat (Skye), 7th Baronet, restrained from joining Charles by Duncan Forbes’ influence, died 1747. m a c d o n a l d , Fr A l l a n , Charles’ confessor in the Rising whom he accom­ panied to the Outer Hebrides after Culloden.

h o m e , jo h n

199

Lochiel o f the \Forty-Five , a n g u s , of Borradale, Charles’ host 1745-6, uncle to Alex­ ander M. of Glenaladale. His son John provided the eight-oared boat that carried Prince Charles to the Outer Hebrides. m a c d o n a l d (or m a c d o n e l l ) , a n g u s , youngest son of John M. of Glengarry, accidentally shot at Falkirk 1746. m a c d o n a l d (or m a c d o n e l l ), A r c h i b a l d , son of Coll M. of Barrisdale, major of the Glengarry regiment, attainted 1746, arrested in connection with the Elibank plot 1753, released 1762, died 1787. m a c d o n a l d (or m a c d o n e l l ), c o l l of Barrisdale, in August 1745 joined the Glengarry regiment and later raised regiment of his own, fought at Prestonpans and Falkirk, arrested on the Prince’s orders in September 1746 and taken to France in irons, excluded from Act of Indemnity 1747, died 1750 in Edinburgh Castle (strictly, the younger of Barrisdale). m a c d o n a l d (or m a c d o n e l l ), d o n a l d of Lochgarry; lieutenant in (Hano­ verian) Highland regiment but went over to the Prince’s army, commanded Glengarry regiment, member of Charles’ Council 1745, escaped to France with Charles, concerned in the Elibank plot of 1752, died in Paris. m a c d o n a l d , d o n a l d of Kinlochmoidart, fought at Sheriffmuir, joined the Prince at the outset of the ’45 , made prisoner at Lesmahagow and hanged at Carlisle 1746. m a c d o n a l d (or m a c d o n e l l ), d o n a l d , eldest son of Angus M. of Scotus, joined Prince Charles at the outset and served with the Glengarry regiment, wounded (? killed) at Culloden. His younger sons John and Allan were captains in Glengarry’s regiment; his eldest son Ranald fought on the government side in Loudoun’s regiment. m a c d o n a l d (or m a c d o n e l l ), d o n a l d of Tiendrish (or Timadrish), cousin of Keppoch, was the first to draw blood in the Jacobite cause at High Bridge, 16 August 1745, only Jacobite officer made prisoner at Falkirk, executed at Carlisle 1746. m a c d o n a l d , h u g h , step-brother of Allan M. of Morar, educated in France and consecrated Bishop of Diana inpartibus 1731, vicar-apostolic of the Highlands, visited Charles on his arrival and implored him to return, but blessed the Standard at Glenfinnan, escaped to France with Charles 1746, died 1773. m a c d o n a l d , j o h n , 2nd son of Angus of Borradale, accompanied the Prince July-August 1746, wrote a manuscript account of his adventures with Charles Edward, lived at Dalilea to a much respected old age. m a c d o n a l d , sir j o h n , officer in Spanish service (Carabineers), one of ‘Seven Men of Moidart’, surrendered at Culloden. m a c d o n a l d (or m a c d o n e l l ), j o h n of Glengarry, did not himself join Charles, imprisoned 1746 on an accusation of having ordered out his clan. m a c d o n a l d , R a n a l d of Clanranald, had assured Charles of his readiness to come ‘out’ 1744, but remained inactive in the ’45. m a c d o n a l d , R a n a l d , younger, of Clanranald, joined the Prince at the

m acd o nald

200

Dramatis Personae outset of the ’45, one of Charles’ Council 1745, escaped to France after Culloden, returned to England and imprisoned 1752, released 1754, died 1777. (o r d r u m m o n d ), j o h n , c o m p ile r o f the Inventarie o f Lochiel Charters , a u th o r o f M em oire o f Sir Ew en Cameron o f Locheill.

m acg reg o r

(or d r u m m o n d ), w i l l i a m of Balhaldie, son of Sir Alexander M. of B., grandson of Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel, fought at Sheriffmuir 1715, agent to King James from 1740, in France throughout the *45. m a c k i n t o s h , a n n e of Mackintosh, daughter of James Farquharson, 9th of Invercauld, married Aeneas M., 22nd of Mackintosh (a captain in Loudoun’s regiment), raised her clan for Prince Charles, arrested and then released after Culloden. m a c l e a n , C h a r l e s of Drimnin, lieutenant-colonel of united regiment of MacLachlans and Macleans, joined Charles after Falkirk, killed at Culloden. m a c l e a n , sir h e c t o r of Duart, 5th Baronet (1704-50), major in the Regiment Royal Ecossais, sent to Scotland to announce Charles’ coming 1745, captured and ultimately treated as prisoner of war, died at Rome 1750. m a c l e o d , d o n a l d of Gualtergil, Skye, through his wife related to Angus MacDonald of Borradale, Charles* guide April-June 1746, captured 1746 and released 1747, died 1749 aged 72. m a c l e o d , n o r m a n , 19th of Macleod (1706-72), engaged to join Charles, but broke his word, sided with the government. m a c p h e r s o n , e w a n , younger, of Cluny, eldest son of Lachlan M. of C., held a commission in George II’s service but joined Prince Charles, entertained him in Cluny*s Cage on Ben Alder 1746, entrusted with distribution of the Loch Arkaig treasure, died at Dunkirk 1756. M A R IS C H A L , G E O R G E k e i t h , ioth Earl engaged in the *15 and ’19, corresponded with Charles but took not part in the *45. m e n z i e s , A r c h i b a l d of Shian, lieutenant-colonel in 1st battalion Atholl Brigade, killed at Culloden. M i l t o n , A n d r e w f l e t c h e r , Lord (1692-1766), Lord Justice Clerk 173 5-48, with the Lord President the mainstay of civil government i 7 4 S“”6 * m u n r o , d u n c a n of Obdale, brother to Sir Robert M. of Foulis, physician, killed with his brother at Falkirk. m u n r o , captain g e o r g e of Culcaim (1685-1746), brother of Sir Robert M. of Foulis, joined Cope at Inverness, shot on the roadside of Loch Arkaig August 1746. m u n r o , sir R o b e r t of Foulis (1684-1746), commanded 43rd Regiment at Fontenoy 1745, previously had been MP for Wick Burghs, killed at Falkirk. M u r r a y , Lord g e o r g e (1700-60), son of ist Duke of Atholl, ‘out’ in ’15 and ’19, joined Prince Charles at Perth 1745, retired to France after Culloden, died in Holland 1760.

m acgrego r

201

Lochiel o f the 3Forty-Five Lord j o h n (1711-87), son of 1st Duke of Atholl and brother of Lord George M., colonel of the 42nd Foot (Black Watch) 1745-87. M u r r a y , j o h n of Broughton (1715-1777), from 1740 correspondent between Scottish Jacobites and the court at Rome (and later Prince Charles), secretary to the Prince in the *45, captured 1746, but pardoned on turning Kang’s evidence against Lord Lovat, compiled the Memorials o f Joh n M urray o f Broughton , went mad. n a i r n e , j o h n , 3rd Baron, made prisoner at Preston 1715, colonel in Atholl Brigade in the ’45, escaped after Culloden, died at Sancerre Mu r r a y ,

I77°*

, d a v i d , Lord, titular Earl of Airlie (1725-1803), commanded Jacobite cavalry during retreat from Derby, at Falkirk and Culloden 1746, escaped to France, restored to full rights 1782. o ’ s u l l i v a n , colonel j o h n w i l l i a m , bom 1700, an Irishman educated in France, in French service, entered Charles’ household 1744, quartermaster-general to the Highland Army, accompanied the Prince to the Outer Hebrides 1746, escaped to France, created a titular baronet 1753, died c. 1759. P e r t h , j a m e s d r u m m o n d , 3rd titular Duke of (1713-46), son of James D ., 2nd titular Duke, educated at Douay, lieutenant-general of Jacobite army, died on voyage to France 1746. p i t s l i g o , A l e x a n d e r f o r b e s , 4th and last Baron (1678-1762), took part in the ’15, escaped to France, returned to Scotland 1720, raised a regiment 1745. s c o t , captain j o h n , afterwards general, of Balcomie, captured in first skirmish of the campaign at High Bridge in 1745, released on parole. s c o t t , captain C a r o l i n a F r e d e r i c k , of Guise’s regiment, defended Fort William successfully in March-April 1746, active in search for Prince Charles 1746. s e m p i l l , f r a n c i s , (Lord Sempill) Jacobite agent at French Court, died o g il v y

1748

, sir T h o m a s , son of Thomas D . (Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin and thought to be illegitimate son of King James II), engaged in the ’15, tutor to Prince Charles 1724 or 1725, created a baronet 1726, accompanied Charles to Scotland 1745, escaped to France and died at Rome 1746. SP om sw oD E, sir R o b e r t , secretary of state to King Charles I, imprisoned after Montrose’s defeat 1645, executed at St Andrews 1647. St a p l e t o n , W a l t e r , lieutenant-colonel in French service (Berwick’s regi­ ment), brigadier in the Prince’s army, died of wounds received at Culloden 1746. s t e w a r t , A r c h i b a l d , Provost of Edinburgh, tried 1747 and acquitted for surrendering Edinburgh to Charles 1745. s t e w a r t , C h a r l e s , 5th of Ardshiel, led the Stewarts of Appin 1745, escaped to France 1746, died 1757. s t e w a r t (or s t e u a r t ), s i r j a m e s , 2nd Baronet of Goodtrees, bom 1712,

s h e r id a n

202

Dramatis Personae joined Charles at Holyrood 1745, excepted from Indemnity Act 1747, pardoned 1771, died 1780. s t e w a r t (or s t u a r t ), j o h n r o y , formerly quartermaster of Scots Greys, later in French service, colonel of the Edinburgh regiment in the *45, returned with Prince Charles to France 1746. S T R A T H A L L A N , W IL L IA M D RU M M O N D , 4th Viscount (1690-1746), made prisoner at Sheriffmuir 1715, released 1717, killed at Culloden. t r a q u a i r , C h a r l e s s t u a r t , 5th Earl of, member of the ‘Association* from 1740 but took no part in the ’45, later imprisoned in Tower but released, died 1764. Field-Marshal g e o r g e ( 16 7 3 -17 4 8 ) , made military roads in Scot­ land 1 7 2 6 -3 3 , field-marshal 17 4 3 , commander-in-chief in England 17 4 5, superseded for failing to stop Charles’ advance.

w ade,

, a n t o i n e v i n c e n t (1702-63), of Irish extraction, bom at St Malo, shipowner at Nantes, accompanied Charles to Scotland, created an Irish Earl by King James III, ennobled by Louis XV 1755, died in St Domingo.

w a lsh

2 °3

Index

Achnacarry vii, 6, 1 6, 25, 32, 33, 50, 104, 106, 119 , i20 y 12 1, 122, 129, 130, 149, 150, 17 1 Albemarle, Earl of 160 Argyll, Marquis of 12, 13, 14 Argyll, 3rd Duke of 99, 103, 168 Atholl, 2nd Duke of 98

Baltimore, H M S 10 1, 115 , 125 Bellone, La 1 13 , 1 15 , 147, 160 Bien Trouve, Le 147, i j i , 153 Bland, Major-General Humphrey Boswell, James 37, 54, 171 Bruce, David 4 1, 42, 51 Burke, Edward 142 Burt, Captain 36, 37, j i

129

Cameron, Fr Alexander, SJ 33, 34, 35, 52, 73, m - 1 2 , 142 Cameron, Alexander, of Dungailon 73, 119 , 135, 136, 13 7> 154 Cameron, Allan 20, 26-8, 34, 44 Cameron, Allan, of Callart 75 Cameron, Ann 35, 50 Cameron, Dr Archibald 6, 7, 33, 35,

59* 7b 71* 9°* 9 b 93> m , 113 . ” 5* 136, 137, 139, 144, 148, 150, 156, 158, 166, 171 Cameron, Charles (21st chief) 90 Cameron, Donald, of Clunes 22,

49 > 149 Cameron, Donald (‘Young LochieP) vii, 5, 6, 8, 35, 37-38 , 39: first meets Prince, 9, 1 1 , 22; becomes chief, 2 3 -4 ; visits France, 26-9, 3 0 -1; marriage, 3 2 -3 ; character

of, 4 0 -1; in ‘the Association’ , 4 3 -8 ; financial troubles, 49-50; opposition to cattle-thieving, 5 1 -2 ; and Jacobite conspiracy, 54-60; and Prince’s arrival, 6 1-7 , 6 8 -7 1; at Glenfinnan, 7 2 -5 ; march to Edinburgh, 76 -9; and capture of Edinburgh, 80; and battle of Prestonpans, 8 1 -3 ; at Edinburgh, 8 4-7; in England, 88-9; at Glasgow, 90-2; and battle of Falkirk, 93-6, 9 7-8; and siege of Fort William, 99-102, 10 3-5 * and battle of Culloden, 1 0 7 - 1 1 ; return to Lochaber, 1 1 2 - 1 4 ; and Cumberland's ‘peace offer’, 1 1 5 - 1 6 ; at Loch Arkaig, 117 -2 0 ; and ‘battle’ of Achnacarry, 1 2 1 - 2 ; and actions of royal army, 12 3 -3 2 ; at Loch Shiel, 1 3 3 - 7 ; at Loch Leven, 13 8 -9 ; at Ben Alder, 140-8; and rescue from Loch nan Uamh, 149 -54 ; at Fontainebleau, 15 5 -6 ; at Paris, 158-9 , 1 6 1 - 5 ; as colonel of regiment d'Albanie, 16 6 -7; death of, 168-9; later reputation, 170 -2 Cameron, Donald Mor 81 Cameron, Ewen 105 Cameron, Sir Ewen Dubh: at St Andrews, 1 1 - 1 4 , 15, 16, 25, 26, 30, 31, 4 1, 78, 170; in first Jacobite rising, 17 -18 , 19, 2 1; death of, 23 Cameron, John, of Fassifem 27, 33, 49, 6 1-2 , 73, 74, 90, h i , 160, 17 1 Cameron, John (‘Old Lochiel’) 8: birth of, 18, 19; in the ’Fifteen, 20 -2; in France, 2 5 -7 , 2 9 -3 1, 42, 48, 69; in the ’Forty-Five, 104, 158

204

Index 73, 97, 106-8, 111-12 , 122, 138, 148 Cameron, Ludovick 73, 138 Campbell of Stonefield 102, 139 Campbell, Colonel ‘Jack* 139 Campbell, Sir James 32, 43, 48 Cameron, the Revd John

Campbell, Major-General John

119,

121, 124, 125, 127, 128, 131-2, 136, i 37> 138, 13% i 54> 161 Campbell, John (Royal Bank) 85 Campbell, Thomas 17 1 Carlyle, the Revd Alexander 83, 172 Chalmers, Sir George 170 Chambers, Robert 171-2 Charles Edward Stuart (Young Pretender) 11, 18, 39, 45, 46, 53-4, 55: arrival in Scotland, 1-10 , 5 6 -7 1; at Glenfinnan, 72, 73, 77; and capture of Edinburgh, 78-80; and battle of Prestonpans, 8 1 -2 ; at Edinburgh, 8 4-7; at Derby, 88-9; at Glasgow, 90 -2; at battle of Falkirk, 9 3-7, 98, 103, 10 5-6 ; at battle of Culloden, 10 7-8 ; after Culloden, 1 13 , 115 , 1 17 , 120, 12 4 -5 , i* 6 ; seeks help from Lochiel, 132 -31 136 -9 ; and meeting with Lovat, 14 2 -3 ; joins Lochiel, 144 -9; sails f ° r France, 150; narratives of escape, 1 5 1 - 4 ; at Fontainebleau, 15 5 -7 ; at Paris, 15 8 -9 ; and cross-Channel invasion, 16 1-4 , 166, 167, 172 Chesterfield, Lord 146 Compagnie Volontaire de la Marine de France 2, 147 Cope, General Sir John 67, 68, 69, 75, 76, 77, 81, 15 7 Crichton, Patrick 80, 83 Culloden, battle of 10 6 -12 Cumberland, William Augustus, Duke of vii, 89, 94, 98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 1 1 5 - 1 6 , 12 2 -3 2 , 144, 15 7 ,16 0 , 168: and ‘peace offer’ to Lochiel, 115 -16 , 13 1-2 Darbe, Capitaine 1, 3, 6, 64 Diderot, Denis 153 Douglas, Sir Robert 115 Drummond, Lord John 45, 114 Drummond, John 12, 23, 30, 41 Drummond, William 29, 30,

4 3 ,4 4 , 45, 47, 52, 152, 159, 16 1, 168 Dundee, Viscount James Grahame

17

Edgar, James 165 Eguilles, Marquis d' 85, 159 Elcho, David Wemyss, Lord 54, 67-8, 79, 81, 82, 83, 86, 114 , 143, 167 Elisabeth, V 2, 5, 7, 148 Falkirk, battle of 9 3-4 Fawkener, Sir Everard 115 , 137 Ferguson, Lieutenant 70 -1 Fergussone, Captain John 126, 142 Fleury, Cardinal 43, 44, 45, 90 Forbes, Duncan 8, 52, 55, 67-8, 75, 76, 91, 123, 128, 168 Forbes, Bishop Robert 66, 140, 145 Fort Augustus 103, 132, 144 Fort William 70, 99 -10 5, 12 1, 128, 137 Fraser, Simon (Master of Lovat) 91, 92, 134, 135 Furnace, H M bomb-ketch 119, 126, 142 Gardiner, Colonel James 83 George I 20, 29 George II 144, 152, 163 Glenorchy, Lord 128 Gordon, General Alexander 40 Gordon, John, of Glenbucket 39, 40, 1 1 7, 167 Gordon, Lord Lewis 90, 167 Greyhound, H M S 115 , 125 Guest, General Joshua 8 4,85

Hardi Mendiant, Le

147 Hawley, General Henry 93, 94,

i ° 4 > 157 Heureux, U

150, 155, 156 Home, the Revd John 9, 32, 61, 63, 74, 95, h i , 118 , 17 1 Hooke, Colonel Nathaniel 19 Howard, Colonel 130 Innes, Fr

40

Inventarie of the Charters . . . of the Family of Cameron of Lochetll viii, 19, 25, 29, 3 0 -1, 41

205

Lochiel o f the 'Forty-Five James Francis Edward Stuart (Old Pretender) 19, 25-9, 3 1, 39, 48, 50, 53: in the ‘Fifteen, 20 -2; and proclamation in Edinburgh, 84; after the ‘Forty-Five, 155, 158, 159, 16 1-2 , 165 Johnstone, James 89 Kelly, George 2, 55, 158 Kenmure, Lord 47 Kennedy, Major 133, 134, 135, 137,

.138* 139

Kilmarnock, 4th Earl of

95

Lancize, Chevalier de 148, 15 1 147 Lion, H M S 2, 148 Lockhart, George 27, 29, 47 Loudoun, John Campbell, Lord 88, 91, 98, 119 , 122, 123, 124, 125, 127, 129, 130, 14 1, 144 Louis X V 43, 52, 147, 155, 156, 157, 159, 163, 165, 166, 167, 170 Lovat, Simon Fraser, Lord 18, 28, 43, 44> 47> 52> 59> 85, 90, 91, 93, 1 1 6 -1 7 , 124, 127, 14 2 -3 , 164, 172 Luynes, Due de 15 5-6

Levrier Volant, Le

MacDonald, Aeneas 3, 4 MacDonald, Alexander (poet) 4, 5 MacDonald, Alexander, of Boisdale 3, 136 MacDonald, Alexander, of Glenaladale 4, 119, 152, 153 MacDonald, Sir Alexander of Sleat 5, 6> 7> 39> Si> 53> 68, 75 MacDonald, Fr Allan 133, 135, 136 MacDonald, Angus, of Borradale 1, 2 MacDonald, Fr Charles 75 MacDonald, Donald, of Kinlochmoidart 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 MacDonald, Flora 150, 15 1 MacDonald, Hugh 8 MacDonald, Lieutenant John (Borradale) 153 MacDonald, Sir John 2, 6, 7, 72, 73, 77, 81, 88 MacDonald, Lady Margaret 161 MacDonald, Ranald, of Clanranald 4, 48, 15 1, 154 MacDonald, Ranald, yr. of

Clanranald 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 88, 116 , 119 , 120, 126, 127 MacDonald, Ranald, (Kinlochmoidart) 5 MacDonell, Alexander, yr. of Barrisdale 20, 26 MacDonell, Alexander, yr. of Glengarry 55, 66 MacDonell, Alexander, of Keppoch 5, 8, 48, 49, 51, 69, 73, 88, 100, 105 MacDonell, Angus 82 MacDonell, Coll (n th chief) 112 , 1 17 , 119 , 120, 126, 134, 150, 1 5 1, 156 MacDonell, Donald, of Lochgarry 66, 67* 69, 75, 79, 85, 119 , 12 5 -6 , 134, 144, 155, 166 MacDonell, Donald, yr. of Scotus 6, 8 MacDonell, Donald, of Tiendrish 70 MacDonell, John, of Glengarry 28, 4 0 ,4 8 ,5 1 MacDonell, ‘Spanish* John 120 MacEachain, Neil 15 1 Macintosh, William, of Borlum 128 Maclean, Sir Hector 57, 58, 60, 68, 167 MacLeod, Alexander 142 MacLeod, Donald 133, 135, 15 1 MacLeod, Norman, of Macleod 5, 6, 7, 48, 54-5, 75, 92, 132, 172 Macpherson, Donald 140, 141 Macpherson, Ewan, of Cluny 68-9, 85, 100, 112 , 118 , 119 , 133, 139, 140, 145, 148, 167 Macpherson, John, of Benchar 140, 141 Macpherson, John, of Strathmashie 140, 144, 145, 149 Mar, John Erskine, Earl of 19 -2 1 , 22,

95 Marischal, 10th Earl 24, 52, 53, 86 Mars, Le 1 13 , 115 , 147, 160 Maxwell, James 63, 86 Memoire d’un Ecossais viii, 64-7, 75, 86-7, 94, 95, 98, 10 8 -10 , 112 , 116 , 122, 123, 1 3 1 , 143, 145, 146, 147, 15 1, 152, 15 3, 154, 16 4-5 Milton, Andrew Fletcher, Lord 102 Montrose, James, Graham, Marquis of 11 , 12, 14, 43 Munro, Duncan, of Obdale 98, 122

206

Index Munro, Sir Robert 122 Munro, Captain, of Culcaim 12 1, 122 Murray, Sir David 138, 139 Murray, Lord George 53, 74, 76, 80, 82, 87, 88, 89, 94, 95, 97, 98, 100, 106, 107, 112 , 119 , 12 2 , 172 Murray, John, of Broughton viii, 40, 44, 45, 46-9, 5 3 -7 , 59-64, 67, 72, 78-9, 86, 103: after Culloden, 1 1 2 - 2 1 ; on the run, 13 2 -9 , 148, 164, 172 Murray, Margaret 80, 97, 136 Murray (MacGregor), Robert, of Glencamaig 77, 78, 1 1 5 - 1 6 Naim e, Lord 124, 167, 170 Napier, Colonel 125 Newcastle, Duke of 10 2 -3, 124, 125, 126, 130, 146, 160 O ’Brien, Colonel 155 Ogilvy, David, Lord 166 O ’Neil, Captain Felix 133, 142 O ’Sullivan, Colonel John William 2, 7 2> 73> 79> 87, 89, 107, 112 , 133,

*53

Scott, Captain Carolina Frederick 105, 125, 12 6 -7, 130, 13 1, * 32> 139 Scott, Sir Walter 23, 170, 171 Sempill, Francis 44, 152, 153, 158, 162, 165, 166 Serpent, H M S 101 Sheridan, Sir Thomas 2, 87, 94, 97, 98, 105-6, 1 1 3 - 1 4 Sileas na Ceapaich 4 1-2 Smith, Adam 50 Smith, Charles 55-6 Smith, Peter 103 Smollet, Tobias 13 0 -1 Spottiswode, Sir Robert 12, 13 Steuart, Charles (clerk) 137 -9 Steuart (or Stewart), Sir James, of Goodtrees 54, 57 Stewart, Charles, of Ardshiel 11 3 , 124, 13 9, 167 Stewart, Henry Benedict, Cardinal 39, 54, 87, 15 5-6 , 166 Strathallan, Viscountess 66 Stuart, Colonel John Roy 117 , 118 , 128, 145, 150 Switenham, Captain 70 -1

Pennant, Thomas 23, 6 1, 67, 90, 17 1 Perth, 3rd Duke of 5, 9, 53, 57, 59, 68, 74, 88, 112 , 114 , 124 Pitsligo, Alexander Forbes, Lord 93 Prestonpans, battle of 80-3, 105 Prince de Contiy Le 150 Pringle, Magdalen 79, 84, 85, 86, 93 Puysieux, Marquis de 166

Teillay, Le du 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 63, 64, 74 Tencin, Cardinal 62 Terror, H M S 99, 100, 115 , 125 Thriepland, Sir Steuart 138, 139, 141 Traquair, 5th Earl of 43, 55, 58, 60 Tullibardine, Marquis of 2, 4, 76, 88

Regiment d’Albanie 166 Regiment d’Ogilvie 166 Regiment Royal Ecossais 90, 104, 118 , 166, 167 Rouillee, Capitaine 1 1 4 -1 5

Wade, General George 26, 48, 75, 86 Warren, Colonel Richard 150, 15 1 Wightman, General 24 Wolfe, Major James 10 8 ,12 3

Voltaire

207

62, 115