XIX. A.D. 1660-1689…

XIX. A.D. 1660-1689

BRITISH SOVEREIGNS:--

Charles II., 1660-1685. James II., (VII. of Scotland,) 1685-1688.

Trial and Execution of the Marquis of Argyle--His character--Feud between the Earl of Argyle and the Macleans--The “Highland Host”--The Test--Trial and Condemnation of the Earl of Argyle--Argyle escapes--Argyle and Monmouth’s invasion--Execution of Argyle--Unconstitutional proceedings of the King--Designs of the Prince of Orange--Proceedings of King James--Landing of the Prince of Orange--State of feeling in Scotland--Flight of the King--The Duke of Gordon--Convention of Estates--Duke of Gordon holds Edinburgh Castle--Viscount Dundee.

The news of the king’s arrival was received in Scotland with a burst of enthusiasm not quite in accordance with the national character;[520] but the idea that the nation was about to regain its liberties made Scotsmen forget their wonted propriety. Preparatory to the assembling of the Scottish parliament, which was summoned to meet at Edinburgh on the 1st of January, 1661, Middleton, who had lately been created an earl, was appointed his majesty’s commissioner; the Earl of Glencairn, chancellor; the Earl of Lauderdale, secretary of state; the Earl of Rothes, president of the council; and the Earl of Crawford, lord-treasurer.

It would be quite apart from the object of this work to detail the many unconstitutional acts passed by this “terrible parliament,” as it is well named by Kirkton; but the trial of the Marquis of Argyle must not be overlooked. That nobleman had, on the restoration of the king, gone to London to congratulate his majesty on his return; but on his arrival he was immediately seized and committed to the Tower. He petitioned the king for a personal interview, which was refused, and, to get rid of his importunities, his majesty directed that he should be sent back to Scotland for trial. Being brought to trial, he applied for delay, till some witnesses at a distance should be examined on commission; but this also was refused. He thereupon claimed the benefit of the amnesty which the king had granted at Stirling. This plea was sustained by desire of the king; but as there were other charges against him, arising out of transactions subsequent to the year 1651, to which year only the amnesty extended, the trial was proceeded in. These charges were, that he had aided the English in destroying the liberties of Scotland--that he had accepted a grant of £12,000 from Cromwell--that he had repeatedly used defamatory and traitorous language in speaking of the royal family--and, lastly, that he had voted for a bill abjuring the right of the royal family to the crowns of the three kingdoms, which had been passed in the parliament of Richard Cromwell, in which he sat. Argyle denied that he had ever given any countenance or assistance to the English in their invasion of Scotland; but he admitted the grant from Cromwell, which he stated was given, not in lieu of services, but as a compensation for losses sustained by him. He, moreover, denied that he had ever used the words attributed to him respecting the royal family; and with regard to the charge of sitting in Richard Cromwell’s parliament, he stated that he had taken his seat to protect his country from oppression, and to be ready, should occasion offer, to support by his vote the restoration of the king. This defence staggered the parliament, and judgment was postponed. In the meantime Glencairn and Rothes hastened to London, to lay the matter before the king, and to urge the necessity of Argyle’s condemnation. Unfortunately for that nobleman, they had recovered some letters which he had written to Monk and other English officers, in which were found some expressions very hostile to the king; but as these letters have not been preserved, their precise contents are not known. Argyle was again brought before parliament, and the letters read in his presence. He had no explanation to give, and his friends, vexed and dismayed, retired from the house and left him to his fate. He was accordingly sentenced to death on the 25th of May, 1661, and, that he might not have an opportunity of appealing to the clemency of the king, he was ordered to be beheaded within forty-eight hours. He prepared for death with a fortitude not expected from the timidity of his nature; wrote a long letter to the king, vindicating his memory, and imploring protection for his poor wife and family; on the day of his execution, dined at noon with his friends with great cheerfulness, and was accompanied by several of the nobility to the scaffold, where he behaved with singular constancy and courage. After dinner he retired a short time for private prayer, and, on returning, told his friends that “the Lord had sealed his charter, and said to him, ‘Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven.’” When brought to the scaffold he addressed the people, protested his innocence, declared his adherence to the Covenant, reproved “the abounding wickedness of the land, and vindicated himself from the charge of being accessory to the death of Charles I.” With the greatest fortitude he laid his head upon the block, which was immediately severed from his body by the maiden. This event took place upon Monday, the 27th of May, 1661, the marquis being then 65 years of age. By a singular destiny, the head of Argyle was fixed on the same spike which had borne that of his great rival Montrose.[521]

Argyle was held in high estimation by his party, and, by whatever motives he may have been actuated, it cannot but be admitted, that to his exertions Scotland is chiefly indebted for the successful stand which was made against the unconstitutional attempts of the elder Charles upon the civil and religious liberties of his Scottish subjects. He appears to have been naturally averse to physical pain, deficient in personal courage, the possession of which, in the times in which Argyle lived, “covered a multitude of sins,” and the want of which was esteemed by some unpardonable. We believe that it is chiefly on this account that his character is represented by his enemies and the opponents of his principles in such an unfavourable light, contrasting as it does so strikingly with that of his great opponent, the brave and chivalrous Montrose. That he was an unprincipled hypocrite, we think it would be difficult to prove; genuine hypocrisy, in a man of his ability, would have probably gained for its possessor a happier fate. That he was wary, cunning, reticent, and ambitious, there cannot be any doubt;--such qualities are almost indispensable to the politician, and were more than ordinarily necessary in those times, especially, considering the men Argyle had to deal with. We believe that he was actuated all along by deep but narrow and gloomy religious principle, that he had the welfare of his country sincerely at heart, and that he took the means he thought best calculated to maintain freedom, and, what he thought, true religion in the land. As he himself said in a letter to the Earl of Strafford,[522] he thought “his duty to the king would be best shown by maintaining the constitution of his country in church and state.” On the whole, he appears to have been a well-meaning, wrong-headed, narrow-minded, clever politician. Mr. Grainger, in his Biographical History of England, justly observes, “The Marquis of Argyle was in the cabinet what his enemy, the Marquis of Montrose, was in the field, the first character of his age for political courage and conduct.” Had he been tried by impartial judges, the circumstances of the times would have been considered as affording some extenuation for his conduct; but it was his misfortune to be tried by men who were his enemies, and who did not scruple to violate all the forms of justice to bring him to the block, in the hope of obtaining his vast possessions.

The execution of Argyle was not in accordance with the views of the king, who, to show his disapprobation of the death of the marquis, received Lord Lorn, his eldest son, with favour at court; from which circumstance the enemies of the house of Argyle anticipated that they would be disappointed in their expectations of sharing among them the confiscated estates of the marquis. To impair, therefore, these estates was their next object. Argyle had obtained from the Scottish parliament a grant of the confiscated estate of the Marquis of Huntly, his brother-in-law, on the ground that he was a considerable creditor, but as Huntly was indebted to other persons to the extent of 400,000 merks, the estate was burdened to that amount on passing into Argyle’s possession. Middleton and his colleagues immediately passed an act, restoring Huntly’s estate free of incumbrance, leaving to Huntly’s creditors recourse upon the estates of Argyle for payment of their debts. Young Argyle was exasperated at this proceeding, and in a letter to Lord Duffus, his brother-in-law, expressed himself in very unguarded terms respecting the parliament. This letter was intercepted by Middleton, and on it the parliament grounded a charge of verbal sedition, or leasing-making, as the crime is known in the statutory law of Scotland, an offence which was then capital. Upon this vague charge the young nobleman was brought to trial before the parliament, and condemned to death. The enemies of the house of Argyle now supposed that the estates of the family were again within their grasp; but the king, at the intercession of Lauderdale, the rival of Middleton, pardoned Lorn, released him from prison after about a year’s confinement, restored to him the family estates, and allowed him to retain the title of Earl.[524]

After the suppression of Glencairn’s short-lived insurrection, the Highlands appear to have enjoyed repose till the year 1674, when an outbreak took place which threatened to involve the greater part of that country in the horrors of feudal war, the occasion of which was as follows. The Marquis of Argyle had purchased up some debts due by the laird of Maclean, for which his son, the earl, applied for payment; but the laird being unwilling or unable to pay, the earl apprised his lands, and followed out other legal proceedings, to make the claim effectual against Maclean’s estates. In the meantime the latter died, leaving a son under the guardianship of his brother, to whom, on Maclean’s death, the earl renewed his application for payment. The tutor of Maclean stated his readiness to settle, either by appropriating as much of the rents of his ward’s lands in Mull and Tirey as would be sufficient to pay the interest of the debt, or by selling or conveying to him in security as much of the property as would be sufficient to pay off the debt itself; but he required, before entering into this arrangement, that the earl would restrict his claim to what was justly due. The earl professed his readiness to comply with the tutor’s offer; but the latter contrived to evade the matter for a considerable time, and at length showed a disposition to resist the earl’s demand by force.

The earl, therefore, resolved to enforce compliance, and armed with a decree of the Court of Session, and supported by a body of 2,000 of his tenants and vassals, he crossed into Mull, in which, he landed at three different places without opposition, although the Macleans had 700 or 800 men in the island. The Macleans had sent their cattle into Mull for safety, a considerable number of which were killed or houghed by Lord Neill, brother to the earl, at the head of a party of the Campbells. The islanders at once submitted, and the earl having obtained possession of the castle of Duart, and placed a garrison therein, left the island. Although the Macleans had promised to pay their rents to the earl, they refused when applied to the following year, a refusal which induced him to prepare for a second invasion of Mull. In September, 1675, he had collected a force of about 1,500 men, including 100 of the king’s troops from Glasgow, under the command of Captain Crichton, and a similar number of militia-men, under Andrew M’Farlane, the laird of M’Farlane, the use of which corps had been granted to the earl on application to the Council. The Macleans, aware of their danger, had strengthened themselves by an alliance with Lord Macdonald and other chieftains, who sent a force of about 1,000 men to their aid; but Argyle’s forces never reached the island, his ships having been driven back damaged and dismantled by a dreadful hurricane, which lasted two days.[525]

This misfortune, and intelligence which the earl received from the commander of Duart castle that the Macleans were in great force in the island, made him postpone his enterprise. With the exception of 500 men whom he retained for the protection of his coasts, and about 300 or 400 to protect his lands against the incursions of the Macleans, he dismissed his forces, after giving them instructions to re-assemble on the 18th of October, unless countermanded before that time. The earl then went to Edinburgh to crave additional aid from the government; but receiving no encouragement, he posted to London, where he expected, with the help of his friend the Duke of Lauderdale, to obtain assistance. Lord Macdonald and the other friends of the Macleans, hearing of Argyle’s departure, immediately followed him to London, and laid a statement of the dispute before the king, who, in February, 1676, remitted the matter to three lords of the Privy Council of Scotland for judgment. The earl returned to Edinburgh in June following. A meeting of the parties took place before the lords to whom the matter had been referred, but they came to no decision, and the subsequent fate of Argyle put an end to these differences, although it appears that he was allowed to take possession of the island of Mull without resistance in the year 1680.[526]

Except upon one occasion, now to be noticed, the Highlanders took no share in any of the public transactions in Scotland during the reigns of Charles the Second and his brother James. Isolated from the Lowlands by a mountain barrier which prevented almost any intercourse between them and their southern neighbours, they happily kept free from the contagion of that religious fanaticism which spread over the Lowlands of Scotland, in consequence of the unconstitutional attempts of the government to force episcopacy upon the people. Had the Highlanders been imbued with the same spirit which actuated the Scottish whigs, the government might have found it a difficult task to have suppressed them; but they did not concern themselves with these theological disputes, and they did not hesitate when their chiefs, at the call of the government, required their services to march to the Lowlands to suppress the disturbances in the western counties. Accordingly, an army of about 8,000 men, known in Scottish history by the name of the “Highland Host,” descended from the mountains under the command of their respective chiefs, and encamped at Stirling on the 24th of June, 1678, whence they spread themselves over Clydesdale, Renfrew, Cunningham, Kyle, and Carrick, and overawed the whigs so effectually, that they did not attempt to oppose the government during the stay of these hardy mountaineers among them. According to Wodrow and Kirkton, the Highlanders were guilty of great oppression and cruelty, but they kept their hands free from blood, as it has been correctly stated that not one whig lost his life during the invasion of these Highland crusaders.[527] After remaining about eight months in the Lowlands, the Highlanders were sent home, the government having no further occasion for their services, but before their departure they took care to carry along with them a large quantity of plunder they had collected during their stay.[528]

After the departure of the Highlanders, the Covenanters again appeared upon the stage, and proceeded so far as even to murder some soldiers who had been quartered on some landlords who had refused to pay cess. The assassination of Archbishop Sharp, and the insurrection of the Covenanters under a preacher named Hamilton, followed by the defeat of the celebrated Graham of Claverhouse at Drumclog on the 1st of June, 1679, alarmed the government; but the defeat of the Covenanters by the king’s forces at Bothwell bridge, on the 22d of June, quieted their apprehensions. Fresh measures of severity were adopted against the unfortunate whigs, who, driven to despair, again flew to arms, encouraged by the exhortations of the celebrated Richard Cameron,--from whom the religious sect known by the name of Cameronians takes its name,--and Donald Cargill, another enthusiast; but they were defeated in an action at Airs-moss in Kyle, in which Cameron, their ecclesiastical head, was killed.

To check the diffusion of anti-monarchical principles, which were spreading fast throughout the kingdom under the auspices of the disciples of Cameron, the government, on the meeting of the Scottish parliament on the 28th of July, 1681, devised a test, which they required to be taken by all persons possessed of any civil, military, or ecclesiastical office. The parties taking this test were made to declare their adhesion to the true Protestant religion, as contained in the original confession of faith, ratified by parliament in the year 1560, to recognise the supremacy of the king over all persons civil and ecclesiastical, and to acknowledge that there “lay no obligation from the national covenant, or the solemn league and covenant, or any other manner of way whatsoever, to endeavour any alteration in the government in church or state, as it was then established by the laws of the kingdom.”[529]

The terms of this test were far from satisfactory to some even of the best friends of the government, as it was full of contradictions and absurdities, and it was not until the Privy Council issued an explanatory declaration that they could be prevailed upon to take it. The Dukes of Hamilton and Monmouth, however, rather than take the test, resigned their offices. Among others who had distinguished themselves in opposing the passing of the test, was the Earl of Argyle, who supported an amendment proposed by Lord Belhaven, for setting aside a clause excepting the Duke of York, brother to the king, and the other princes of the blood, from its operation. The conduct of Argyle gave great offence to the duke, who sat as commissioner in the parliament, and encouraged his enemies to set about accomplishing his ruin. The Earl of Errol brought in a bill reviving some old claims upon his estates, and the king’s advocate endeavoured to deprive him of his hereditary offices; but the Duke of York interposed, and prevented the adoption of these intended measures. To gratify his enemies, however, and to show the displeasure of the court at his recent opposition, Argyle was deprived of his seat in the Court of Session. But this did not sufficiently appease their resentment, and, anxious for an opportunity of gratifying their malice, they hoped that he would refuse to take the test. Accordingly, he was required to subscribe it: he hesitated, and craved time to deliberate. Aware of the plot which had been long hatching against him, and as he saw that if he refused he would be deprived of his important hereditary jurisdictions, he resolved to take the test, with a declaratory explanation, which, it is understood, received the approbation of the Duke of York, to whom the earl had submitted it. The earl then subscribed the test in presence of the council, and added the following explanation:--“I have considered the test, and am very desirous of giving obedience as far as I can. I am confident that the parliament never intended to impose contradictory oaths: Therefore I think no man can explain it but for himself. Accordingly, I take it so far as it is consistent with itself and the Protestant religion. And I do declare, that I mean not to bind myself, in my station, in a lawful way, from wishing and endeavouring any alteration which I think to the advantage of Church or State, and not repugnant to the Protestant religion and my loyalty. And this I understand as a part of my oath.” This declaration did not please the council, but as the Duke appeared to be satisfied, the matter was passed over, and Argyle kept his seat at the council board.

Although the Duke of York had been heard to declare that no honest man could take the test,--a declaration which fully justified the course Argyle had pursued,--yet the enemies of that nobleman wrought so far upon the mind of his royal highness as to induce him to think that Argyle’s declaration was a highly criminal act. The earl, therefore, was required to take the test a second time, without explanation; and having refused, he was committed a prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh, and on the slight foundation of a declaration which had been sanctioned by the next heir to the crown, was raised a hideous superstructure of high treason, leasing-making, and perjury.

Argyle was brought to trial on Monday, the 12th of December, 1681, before the High Court of Justiciary. The Earl of Queensberry, the justice-general, and four other judges, sat upon the bench, and fifteen noblemen acted as jurors. The absurdity of the charges, and the iniquity of the attempt to deprive a nobleman, who had, even in the worst times, shown an attachment to the royal family, of his fortune, his honours, and his life, were ably exposed by the counsel for the earl; but so lost was a majority of the judges to every sense of justice, that, regardless of the infamy which would for ever attach to them, they found the libel relevant; and on the following day the assize or jury, of which the Marquis of Montrose, cousin-german to Argyle, was chancellor, found him guilty. Intelligence of Argyle’s condemnation was immediately sent to the king, but the messenger was anticipated in his arrival by an express from the earl himself to the king, who, although he gave orders that sentence should be passed against Argyle, sent positive injunctions to delay the execution till his pleasure should be known. Argyle, however, did not wish to trust to the royal clemency, and as he understood preparations were making for his execution, he made his escape from the castle of Edinburgh, disguised as a page carrying the train of Lady Sophia Lindsay, his step-daughter, daughter of Lord Balcarres, whose widow Argyle married.[530] He went to London, where he lay some time in concealment, whence he went over to Holland. On the day of his escape, being the 21st of December, he was proclaimed a fugitive at the market cross of Edinburgh, and, on the 24th, the Court of Justiciary passed sentence of death against him, ordered his arms to be reversed and torn at the market cross of Edinburgh, and declared his titles and estates forfeited.

In exculpation of their infamous proceedings, the persecutors of Argyle pretended that their only object in resorting to such unjustifiable measures, was to force him to surrender his extensive hereditary jurisdictions, which, they considered, gave him too great authority in the Highlands, and the exercise of which in his family, might obstruct the ends of justice; and that they had no designs either upon his life or fortune. But this is an excuse which cannot be admitted, for they had influence enough with the Crown to have deprived Argyle of these hereditary jurisdictions, without having recourse to measures so glaringly subversive of justice.

The only advantage taken by the king of Argyle’s forfeiture was the retention of the heritable jurisdictions, which were parcelled out among the friends of the court during pleasure. Lord Lorn, the earl’s son, had the forfeited estates restored to him, after provision had been made for satisfying the demands of his father’s creditors.

During the latter years of Charles II., a number of persons from England and Scotland had taken refuge in Holland, to escape state prosecutions with which they were threatened. Among the Scottish exiles, besides Argyle, were Sir James Dalrymple, afterwards Earl of Stair, the celebrated Fletcher of Salton, and Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth,--all of whom, as martyrs of liberty, longed for an opportunity of vindicating its cause in the face of their country. The accession of James II, in 1685, to the crown of his brother, seemed an event favourable to their plans, and at a meeting which some of the exiled leaders held at Rotterdam, they resolved to raise the standard of revolt in England and Scotland, and invited the Duke of Monmouth, also an exile, and the Earl of Argyle, to join them.[531] Monmouth, who was then living in retirement at Brussels, spending his time in illicit amours, accepted the invitation, and having repaired to Rotterdam, offered either to attempt a descent on England, at the head of the English exiles, or to go to Scotland as a volunteer, under Argyle.[532] The latter, who had never ceased since his flight to keep up a correspondence with his friends in Scotland, had already been making preparations, and by means of a large sum of money he had received from a rich widow of Amsterdam, had there purchased a ship and arms, and ammunition. He now also repaired to Rotterdam, where it was finally arranged that two expeditions should be fitted out,--one for England, under Monmouth, and the other for Scotland, under the command of Argyle, who was appointed by the council at Rotterdam captain-general of the army, “with as full power as was usually given to generals by the free states in Europe.”[533]

On the 2d of May, 1685, the expedition under Argyle, which consisted of three ships and about 300 men, left the shores of Holland, and reached Cairston in the Orkneys on the 6th, after a pleasant voyage. The seizure, by the natives, of Spence, the earl’s secretary, and of Blackadder, his surgeon, both of whom had incautiously ventured on shore, afforded the government the necessary information as to the strength and destination of the expedition. A proclamation had been issued, on the 28th of April, for putting the kingdom in a posture of defence, hostages had been taken from the vassals of Argyle as sureties for their fidelity, and all persons whose loyalty was suspected were either imprisoned or had to find security for their fidelity to the government; but as soon as the council at Edinburgh received the intelligence of Argyle’s having reached the Orkneys, they despatched troops to the west, and ordered several frigates to cruise among the Western Isles. After taking four Orcadians as hostages for the lives of his secretary and surgeon, Argyle left the Orkneys on the 7th of May, and arrived at Tobermory in the isle of Mull on the 11th, whence he sailed to the mainland, and landed in Kintyre. Here he published a declaration which had been drawn up in Holland by Sir James Stuart, afterwards king’s advocate, full of invective against the government, and attributing all the grievances under which the country had laboured in the preceding reign to a conspiracy between popery and tyranny, which had, he observed, been evidently disclosed by the cutting off of the late king and the ascension of the Duke of York to the throne. It declared that the object of the invaders was to restore the true Protestant religion, and that as the Duke of York was, from his religion, as they supposed, incapable of giving security on that head, they declared that they would never enter into any treaty with him. The earl issued, a few days thereafter, a second declaration, from Tarbet, reciting his own wrongs, and calling upon his former vassals to join his standard. Messengers were despatched in all directions, bearing aloft the fiery cross, and in a short time about 800 of his clan, headed by Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck, rallied around their chief. Other reinforcements arrived, which increased his army to 2,500 men; a force wholly insufficient to meet a body of about 7,000 militia and a considerable number of regular troops already assembled in the west to oppose his advance.

Although Argyle’s obvious plan was at once to have dashed into the western Lowlands, where the spirit of disaffection was deeply prevalent, and where a great accession of force might have been expected, he, contrary to the advice of some of his officers, remained in Argyle a considerable time in expectation of hearing of Monmouth’s landing, and spent the precious moments in chasing out of his territories a few stragglers who infested his borders. Amid the dissensions which naturally arose from this difference of opinion, the royalists were hemming Argyle in on all sides. Whilst the Duke of Gordon was advancing upon his rear with the northern forces, and the Earl of Dumbarton with the regular troops pressing him in front, the Marquis of Athole and Lord Charles Murray, at the head of 1,500 men, kept hanging on his right wing, and a fleet watched his ships to prevent his escape by sea. In this conjuncture Argyle yielded to the opinion of his officers, and, leaving his stores in the castle of Allangreg, in charge of a garrison of 150 men, he began his march, on the 10th of June, to the Lowlands, and gave orders that his vessels should follow close along the coast. The commander of the castle, on the approach of the king’s ships under Sir Thomas Hamilton, abandoned it five days thereafter, without firing a single shot, and the warlike stores which it contained, consisting of 5,000 stand of arms and 300 barrels of powder, besides a standard bearing the inscription “Against Popery, Prelacy, and Erastianism,” fell a prey to the royalists. The vessels also belonging to Argyle were taken at the same time.[534]

On the 16th of June Argyle crossed the Leven near Dumbarton, but finding it impracticable, from the numerous forces opposed to him, and which met him at every point, to proceed on his intended route to Glasgow by the ordinary road, he betook himself to the hills, in the expectation of eluding his foes during the darkness of the night; but this desperate expedient did not succeed, and next morning Argyle found his force diminished by desertion to 500 men. Thus abandoned by the greater part of his men, he, in his turn, deserted those who remained with him, and endeavoured to secure his own safety. Disguised in a common dress he wandered for some time in the company of Major Fullarton in the vicinity of Dumbarton, and on the opposite side of the Clyde, but was at last taken prisoner by a few militiamen in attempting to reach his own country.[535] About 100 of the volunteers from Holland crossed the Clyde in boats, but being attacked by the royalists were dispersed. Thus ended this ill concerted and unfortunate expedition.[536]

Argyle was carried to Glasgow, and thence to Edinburgh, where he underwent the same ignominious and brutal treatment which the brave Montrose had suffered on being brought to the capital after his capture. As the judgment which had been pronounced against Argyle, after his escape from the castle of Edinburgh, was still in force, no trial was considered necessary. He was beheaded accordingly on the 26th of June, evincing in his last moments the fortitude of a Roman, and the faith of a martyr. “When this nobleman’s death,” observes Sir Walter Scott, “is considered as the consequence of a sentence passed against him for presuming to comment upon and explain an oath which was self-contradictory, it can only be termed a judicial murder.” His two sons, Lord Lorn and Lord Neill Campbell, were banished. Monmouth, who did not land in England till the 11th of June, was equally unfortunate, and suffered the death of a traitor on Tower Hill on the 15th of July.

The ill-fated result of Argyle’s expedition, and the suppression of Monmouth’s rebellion, enabled James to turn the whole of his attention to the accomplishment of an object more valuable, in his opinion, than the crown itself--the restoration of the Catholic religion. In furtherance of this design, the king adopted a series of the most unconstitutional and impolitic measures, which destroyed the popularity he had acquired on his accession, and finally ended in his expulsion from the throne.

It was not, however, till the Scottish parliament, which met on the 28th of April, 1686, and on the obsequiousness of which the king had placed great reliance, had refused to repeal the test, that he resolved upon those desperate measures which proved so fatal to him. This parliament was prorogued by order of the king on the 15th of June, and in a few months thereafter, he addressed a succession of letters to the council,--from which he had previously removed some individuals who were opposed to his plans,--in which he stated, that in requiring the parliament to repeal the penal statutes, he merely meant to give them an opportunity of evincing their loyalty, as he considered that he had sufficient power, by virtue of his prerogative, to suspend or dispense with those laws; a most erroneous and dangerous doctrine certainly, but which could never be said to have been exploded till the era of the revolution. In these letters the king ordered the council to allow the Catholics to exercise their worship freely in private, to extend the protection of government to his Protestant as well as Catholic subjects, to receive the conformist clergy in general to livings in the church, and to admit certain individuals whom he named to offices in the state without requiring any of them to take the test.[537]

But these letters, though disapproved of in part by the council, were merely preparatory to much more important steps, viz., the issuing of two successive proclamations by the king on the 12th of February and the 5th of July in the following year, granting full and free toleration to Presbyterians, Catholics, and Quakers, with liberty to exercise their worship in houses and chapels. He also suspended the severe penal statutes against the Catholics, which had been passed during the minority of his grandfather; but he declared his resolution to preserve inviolate the rights and privileges of the then established (Episcopal) church of Scotland, and to protect the holders of church property in their possessions.

By the Presbyterians who had for so many years writhed under the lash of persecution, these proclamations were received with great satisfaction; and at a meeting which was held at Edinburgh of the Presbyterian ministers, who had assembled from all parts of the country to consider the matter, a great majority not only accepted the boon with cheerfulness, but voted a loyal address to his majesty, thanking him for the indulgence he had granted them. Some there were, however, of the more rigorous kind, who denounced any communication with the king, whom they declared “an apostate, bigoted, excommunicated papist, under the malediction of the Mediator; yea, heir to the imprecation of his grandfather,” and who found warm abettors in the clergy of the Episcopal church in Scotland, who displayed their anger even in their discourses from the pulpit.[538]

Although the Presbyterians reaped great advantages from the toleration which the king had granted, by being allowed the free and undisturbed exercise of their worship, and by being, many of them, admitted into offices of the state, yet they perceived that a much greater proportion of Catholics was admitted to similar employments. Thus they began to grow suspicious of the king’s intentions, and, instead of continuing their gratitude, they openly declared that they did not any longer consider themselves under any obligation to his majesty, as the toleration had been granted for the purpose of introducing Catholics into places of trust, and of dividing Protestants among themselves. These apprehensions were encouraged by the Episcopal party, who, alarmed at the violent proceedings of the king against the English universities, and the bishops who had refused to read his proclamation for liberty of conscience in the churches, endeavoured to instil the same dread of popery and arbitrary power into the minds of their Presbyterian countrymen which they themselves entertained. By these and similar means discontent spread rapidly among the people of Scotland, who considered their civil and religious liberties in imminent danger, and were, therefore, ready to join in any measure which might be proposed for their protection.

William, Prince of Orange, who had married the Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of James, next in succession to the Crown, watched the progress of this struggle between arbitrary power and popular rights with extreme anxiety. He had incurred the displeasure of his father-in-law, while Duke of York, by joining the party whose object it was to exclude James from the throne, by the reception which he gave the Duke of Monmouth in Holland, and by his connivance, apparent at least, at the attempts of the latter and the Earl of Argyle. But, upon the defeat of Monmouth, William, by offering his congratulations on that event, reinstated himself in the good graces of his father-in-law. As James, however, could not reconcile the protection which the prince afforded to the numerous exiles from England and Scotland who had taken refuge in Holland, with the prince’s professions of friendship, he demanded their removal; but this was refused, through the influence of the prince with the States, and though, upon a hint being given that a war might ensue in consequence of this refusal, they were removed from the Hague, yet they still continued to reside in other parts of Holland, and kept up a regular communication with the Prince. Another demand made by the king to dismiss the officers of the British regiments serving in Holland, whose fidelity was suspected, met with the same evasive compliance; for although William displaced those officers, he refused commissions to all persons whom he suspected of attachment to the king or the Catholic faith. The wise policy of this proceeding was exemplified in the subsequent conduct of the regiments which declared themselves in favour of the prince’s pretensions.[539]

Early in the year 1687, William perceived that matters were approaching to a crisis in England, but he did not think that the time had then arrived for putting his intended design of invasion into execution. To sound the dispositions of the people, he sent over in February, that year, Dyckvelt, an acute statesman, who kept up a secret communication with those who favoured the designs of his master. Dyckvelt soon returned to Holland, with letters from several of the nobility addressed to the prince, all couched in favourable terms, which encouraged him to send Zuleistein, another agent, into England to assure his friends there that if James attempted, with the aid “of a packed parliament,” to repeal the penal laws and the test act, he would oppose him with an armed force.[540]

Although the king was aware of the prince’s intrigues, he could never be persuaded that the latter had any intention to dispossess him of his crown, and continued to pursue the desperate course he had resolved upon, with a pertinacity and zeal which blinded him to the dangers which surrounded him. The preparations of the prince for a descent on England went on in the meantime with activity; but a temporary damp was cast on his hopes by reports of the pregnancy of the queen, an event which, if a son was the result, might prevent the accession of his wife, the Princess Mary. On the 10th of June, 1688, the queen gave birth to a prince, afterwards known as the Pretender.

It was not till the month of September, when James was on the verge of the precipice, that he saw the danger of his situation. He now began, when too late, to attempt to repair the errors of his reign, by a variety of popular concessions; but although these were granted with apparent cheerfulness, and accepted with indications of thankfulness, it was evident that they were forced from the king by the necessity of his situation, and might be withdrawn when that necessity ceased to exist, an idea which appears to have prevailed among the people.

Being now convinced that the Prince of Orange contemplated an invasion of England, James began to make the necessary preparations for defence. In September, 1688, he sent down an express to Scotland to the members of the Privy Council, acquainting them with the prince’s preparations, and requiring them to place that part of his dominions on the war establishment. The militia was accordingly embodied, the castles of Edinburgh, Stirling, &c. provisioned, and orders were sent to the chiefs of the Highland clans to be ready to assemble their men on a short notice. Many persons at first discredited the report of an invasion from Holland, and considered that it was a mere device of the king either to raise money or to collect an army for some sinister purpose; but their suspicions were allayed by intelligence being brought by some seamen from Holland of the warlike preparations which were making in the Dutch ports. The jealousies which were entertained of the king’s intentions were dissipated by the dread of a foreign invasion, and addresses were sent in to the Privy Council from the different towns, and from the country gentlemen, with offers of service.[541]

Whilst the Privy Council were engaged in fulfilling the king’s instructions, they received an order from his majesty to concentrate the regular army, and despatch it without delay into England. This force, which did not exceed 3,000 men, was in a state of excellent discipline, and was so advantageously posted throughout the kingdom that any insurrection which might break out could be easily suppressed. As the Prince of Orange had many adherents in Scotland, and as the spirit of disaffection to the existing government in the western counties, though subdued, had not been extinguished, the Privy Council considered that to send the army out of the kingdom under such circumstances would be a most imprudent step; and they, therefore, sent an express to the king, representing the danger of such a movement, of which the disaffected would not fail to avail themselves, should an opportunity occur. They proposed that the army should remain as it was then stationed, and that, in lieu thereof, a body of militia and a detachment of Highlanders, amounting together to 13,000 men, should be despatched to the borders, or marched into the north of England, to watch the movements of the king’s enemies in that quarter, and to suppress any risings which they might attempt in favour of the prince. But, although the Council were unanimous in giving this advice, the king disregarded it altogether, reiterated the order he had formerly given, and intimated, that if any of them were afraid to remain in Scotland, they might accompany the army into England.

Accordingly, the Scottish army began its march early in October, in two divisions. The first, consisting of the foot, at the head of which was General Douglas, brother of the Duke of Queensberry, who had the chief command of the army, took the road to Chester; and the second, consisting of the horse, under the direction of Graham of Claverhouse, as major-general, marched by York. These detachments, on their arrival at London, joined the English army under the command of the Earl of Feversham, about the end of October.

To supply the absence of the regular troops, and to prevent the disaffected from making the capital the focus of insurrection, a large body of militia, under the command of Sir George Munro, was quartered in Edinburgh and the suburbs; but no sooner had the army passed the borders, than crowds from all parts of the kingdom congregated, as if by mutual consent, in the metropolis, where they held private meetings, which were attended by the Earls of Glencairn, Crawford, Dundonald, and others. The objects of these meetings were made known to the council by spies, who were employed to attend them; and although they were clearly treasonable, the council had not the courage to arrest a single individual. Among other things, the leaders of these meetings resolved to intercept all correspondence between the king and the council, a task which Sir James Montgomery undertook to see accomplished, and which he did so effectually that very few despatches reached their destination.[542]

For several weeks the Privy Council, owing to this interruption, was kept in a state of painful uncertainty as to the state of the king’s affairs in England; but at last an express arrived from the Earl of Melfort, announcing the important intelligence that the Prince of Orange had landed in England with a considerable force, and that his majesty had gone to meet him at the head of his army.

The landing of the prince, which was effected without opposition on the 5th of November 1688, at Torbay in Devonshire, excited the greatest alarm in the mind of the king, who had entertained hopes that a well appointed fleet of thirty-seven men-of-war, and seventeen fire-ships which had been stationed off the Gun-fleet under the Earl of Dartmouth, an old and experienced commander, would have intercepted the prince in his voyage. Unfortunately, however, for the king, the cruisers which the admiral had sent out to watch the approach of the enemy had been driven back by the violence of the wind, and when the fleet of the prince passed the Downs towards its destined place of disembarkation, the royal fleet was riding at anchor abreast of the Long-sand, several miles to leeward, with the yards and topmasts struck; and as twenty-four hours elapsed before it could be got ready to commence the pursuit, the commander, on the representation of his officers, desisted from the attempt.

As soon as the king had recovered from the panic into which the news of the prince’s arrival had thrown him, he ordered twenty battalions of infantry and thirty squadrons of cavalry to march towards Salisbury and Marlborough, leaving six squadrons and six battalions behind to preserve tranquillity in the capital.[543] The prince, who had been led to expect that he would be received with open arms by all classes on his arrival, met at first with a very cold reception, and he felt so disappointed that he even threatened to re-embark his army. Had James therefore adopted the advice given him by the King of France, to push forward his troops immediately in person and attack the invader before the spirit of disaffection should spread, he might, perhaps, by one stroke, have for ever annihilated the hopes of his son-in-law and preserved his crown; but James thought and acted differently, and he soon had cause to repent bitterly of the course he pursued. Owing to the open defection of some of his officers and the secret machinations of others, the king soon found, that with the exception perhaps of the Scottish regiments, he could no longer rely upon the fidelity of his army. On the 20th of November he arrived at Salisbury, and reviewed a division of the army stationed there; and intended to inspect the following day, another division which lay at Warminster; but being informed that General Kirk, its commander, Lord Churchill and others, had entered into a conspiracy to seize him and carry him a prisoner to the enemy’s camp, he summoned a council of war, at which these officers were present, and without making them aware that he was in the knowledge of such a plot, proposed a retreat beyond the Thames. This proposition met with keen opposition from Churchill, but was supported by the Earl of Feversham, his brother the Count de Roye, and the Earl of Dumbarton, who commanded one of the Scottish foot regiments. The proposal having been adopted, Churchill and some other officers went over to the prince during the night.[544]

The army accordingly retired behind the Thames, and the king, without leaving any particular instructions to his officers, proceeded to London, to attend a council of peers which he had summoned to meet him at Whitehall. The departure of the king was a subject of deep regret to his real friends in the army, and particularly to the Earl of Dumbarton, and Lord Dundee, who had offered to engage the enemy with the Scots troops alone. This offer his majesty thought proper to decline, and in a conference which Dundee and the Earl of Balcarras afterwards had with him in London, when he had made up his mind to retire to France, he gave them to understand that he meant to intrust the latter with the administration of his civil affairs in Scotland, and to appoint the former the generalissimo of his forces.

In the Scottish Privy Council there were several persons who were inimical to the king, and who only waited for a favourable opportunity of offering their allegiance and services to the Prince of Orange. These were the Marquis of Athole, the Viscount Tarbet, and Sir John Dalrymple, the Lord-president of the Court of Session. The two latter, in conjunction with Balcarras, had been appointed by the council to proceed to England, to obtain personally from the king the necessary instructions how to act on the landing of the prince; but on some slight pretext they declined the journey, and Balcarras, a nobleman of undoubted loyalty, was obliged to go alone, and had the meeting with his majesty to which allusion has been made. These counsellors were duly apprised of the advance of the prince, the defection of some of the king’s officers, and of his return to London; but as the result of the struggle seemed still to be dubious, they abstained from openly declaring themselves. In order, however, to get rid of the chancellor, the Earl of Perth, and get the government into their own hands, as preliminary to their designs, Viscount Tarbet proposed that, with the exception of four companies of foot and two troops of horse to collect the revenue, the remainder of the troops should be disbanded, as he considered it quite unnecessary to keep up such a force in time of peace, the Prince of Orange having stated in a declaration which he had issued, that that was one of the grievances complained of by the nation. The chancellor, not foreseeing the consequences, assented to the proposal, and he had the mortification, after the order for dismissal had been given, to receive an intimation from the Marquis of Athole and his party, who waited personally upon him at his lodgings, that as they considered it dangerous to act with him and other Catholic counsellors who were incapacitated by law, they meant to take the government into their own hands in behalf of the king, and they demanded that he and his party should retire from the administration of affairs. The Duke of Gordon and the other Catholic members of the council, on hearing of this proceeding, assembled in the chancellor’s house to consult with him as to the nature of the answer which should be given to this extraordinary demand. As they saw resistance hopeless, they advised the chancellor to submit, and, probably to avoid personal danger, he retired immediately to the country.

The Marquis of Athole called a meeting of the council, and proposed an address of congratulation to the Prince of Orange, strongly expressive of gratitude to him for his generous undertaking to relieve them from popery and arbitrary power, and offering a tender of their services; but this address was warmly opposed by the two archbishops, Sir John Dalrymple, Sir George Mackenzie and others, and was finally negatived. They even opposed the voting of any address under existing circumstances, but the marquis and his party succeeded in carrying a short address, drawn up in general terms. Lord Glammis was sent up with it, but it was so different from what the Prince expected, that it met with a very cold reception.

The fate of the unfortunate monarch had by this time been decided. Before his return to London a great defection had taken place among the officers of the army, and he had at last the mortification to see himself deserted by his son-in-law, Prince George of Denmark, and by his daughter the Princess Anne, the wife of the Prince. “God help me! my very children have forsaken me;” such was the exclamation uttered by the unhappy monarch, his countenance suffused with tears, when he received the afflicting intelligence of the flight of Anne from Whitehall. When the king saw he could no longer resist the torrent of popular indignation, and that an imperious necessity required that he should leave the kingdom, his first solicitude was to provide for the safety of the queen and his son, whom he managed to get safely conveyed to France.

The resolution of the king to quit the kingdom was hastened after a fruitless attempt at negotiation with the Prince of Orange, by the appearance of an infamous proclamation against Catholics, issued under the signature of the prince, and which, though afterwards disowned by him, was, at the time, believed to be genuine. Having, therefore, made up his mind to follow the queen without delay, the king wrote a letter to the Earl of Feversham, the commander of the forces, intimating his intention, and after thanking him and the army for their loyalty, he informed them that he did not wish them any longer to run the risk of resisting “a foreign army and a poisoned nation.” Shortly after midnight, having disguised himself as a country gentleman, he left the palace, and descending by the back stairs, entered into a hackney coach, which conveyed him to the horse-ferry, whence he crossed the river, into which the king threw the great seal. Having arrived at Emley ferry near Feversham by ten o’clock, he embarked on board the custom-house hoy, but before she could be got ready for sea the king was apprehended, and placed under a strong guard.

When the king’s arrest was first reported in London, the intelligence was not believed; but all uncertainty on the subject was removed by a communication from James himself in the shape of a letter, but without any address, which was put into the hands of Lord Mulgrave by a stranger at the door of the council chamber at Whitehall. A body of about thirty peers and bishops had, on the flight of the king, formed themselves into a council, and had assumed the reins of government, and many of these, on this letter being read, were desirous of taking no notice of it, lest they might, by so doing, displease the prince. Lord Halifax, the chairman, who favoured the prince’s designs, attempted to quash the matter, by adjourning the meeting, but Mulgrave prevailed on the members of the council to remain, and obtained an order to despatch the Earl of Feversham with 200 of the life-guards to protect the person of the king.

On the arrival of Feversham the king resolved to remain in the kingdom, and to return to London, a resolution which he adopted at the urgent entreaty of Lord Winchelsea, whom, on his apprehension, he had appointed lord-lieutenant of Kent. James was not without hopes that the prince would still come to terms, and to ascertain his sentiments he sent Feversham to Windsor to invite the prince to a personal conference in the capital, and to inform him that St. James’s palace would be ready for his reception. The arrival of the earl with such a proposal was exceedingly annoying to William and his adherents, the former of whom, on the supposition that the king had taken a final adieu of the kingdom, had begun to act the part of the sovereign, while the latter were already intriguing for the great offices of the state. Instead of returning an answer to the king’s message, William, on the pretence that Feversham had disbanded the army without orders, and had come to Windsor without a passport, ordered him to be arrested, and committed a prisoner to the round tower, an order which was promptly obeyed.

At Rochester, whence he had despatched Feversham, the king was met by his guards, and thence proceeded to London, which he entered on the 16th of December amidst the acclamations of the citizens, and the ringing of bells, and other popular manifestations of joy, a remarkable proof of the instability and inconstancy of feeling which actuate masses of people under excitement.

As James conceived that the only chance he now had of securing the confidence of his subjects and preserving his crown, consisted in giving some signal proof of his sincerity to act constitutionally, he made the humiliating offer to Lewis and Stamps, two of the city aldermen, to deliver himself up into their hands on receiving an assurance that the civil authorities would guarantee his personal safety, and to remain in custody till parliament should pass such measures as might be considered necessary for securing the religion and liberties of the nation. But Sir Robert Clayton dissuaded the common council from entering into any engagement which the city might possibly be unable to fulfil, and thus a negotiation was dropt, which, if successful, might have placed William in a situation of great embarrassment.[545]

But although James did not succeed in his offer to the city, his return to Whitehall had changed the aspect of affairs, and had placed William in a dilemma from which he could only extricate himself by withdrawing altogether his pretensions to the crown, or by driving his uncle out of it by force. William considered that the most safe and prudent course he could pursue would be to force James to leave the kingdom; but in such a manner as to induce the belief that he did so freely and of his own accord. Accordingly, to excite the king’s alarms, a body of Dutch guards, by order of the prince, marched into Westminster, and, after taking possession of the palace of St. James’s, marched with their matches lighted to Whitehall, of which they also demanded possession. As resistance, owing to the great disparity of numbers, was considered by the king to be unavailing, he, contrary to the opinion of Lord Craven, the commander of his guards, who, though eighty years of age, offered to oppose the invaders, ordered the guards to resign their posts, of which the Dutch took possession. This event took place late on the evening of the 16th of December.[546]

The king now received orders from William to quit Whitehall by ten o’clock next morning, as the latter meant to enter London about noon, and that he should retire to Ham, a house in Surrey belonging to the dowager duchess of Lauderdale, which had been provided for his reception. The king objected to Ham as a residence being uncomfortable, but stated his willingness to return to Rochester. Permission being granted by the prince, James left Whitehall about twelve o’clock noon, after taking an affectionate adieu of his friends, many of whom burst into tears. He embarked on board the royal barge, attended by Viscount Dundee and other noblemen, and descended the river, surrounded by several boats filled with Dutch guards, in presence of an immense concourse of spectators, many of whom witnessed with sorrow the humiliating spectacle.[547]

The king arrived at Rochester the following day from Gravesend, where he had passed the previous night. Having remained four days at Rochester, he, accompanied by two captains in the navy, his natural son the Duke of Berwick, and a domestic, went on board the Eagle fireship, being unable to reach, on account of the unfavourable state of the weather, a fishing smack which had been hired for his reception. On the following morning he went on board the smack, and after a boisterous voyage of two days, arrived at Ambleteuse, in France, on the 25th of December, and joined his wife and child, at the castle of St. Germain’s, on the 28th. Thus ingloriously and sadly ended the reign of the last of the unfortunate and seemingly infatuated royal race of Stuarts.

Considering the crisis at which matters had arrived, the course which the king pursued, of withdrawing from the kingdom, was evidently the most prudent which could be adopted. All his trusty adherents in England were without power or influence, and in Scotland the Duke of Gordon was the only nobleman who openly stood out for the interests of his sovereign. He had been created a duke by Charles II. James had appointed him governor of the castle of Edinburgh, and he had been thereafter made a privy-counsellor and one of the lords of the treasury. Though a firm and conscientious Catholic, he was always opposed to the violent measures of the court, as he was afraid that however well meant, they would turn out ruinous to the king; not indeed that he did not wish to see the professors of the same faith with himself enjoy the same civil privileges as were enjoyed by his Protestant countrymen, but because he was opposed to the exercise of the dispensing power at a time when the least favour shown to the professors of the proscribed faith was denounced as an attempt to introduce popery. The king, influenced by some of his flatterers, received the duke coldly on his appearance at court in March, 1688, and curtailed some of his rights and privileges over the lands of some of his vassals in Badenoch. Even his fidelity appeared to be questioned, by various acts of interference with the affairs of the castle, of which he disapproved. He resented these indignities by tendering his resignation of the various appointments he held from the crown, and demanded permission from the king to retire beyond seas for a time; but James put a negative upon both proposals, and the duke returned to his post at Edinburgh.[548]

Notwithstanding the bad treatment he had received, the duke, true to his trust, determined to preserve the castle of Edinburgh for the king, although the Prince of Orange should obtain possession of every other fortress in the kingdom. He requested the privy council to lay in a quantity of provisions and ammunition, but this demand was but partially attended to, for though the garrison consisted only of 120 men, there was not a sufficiency of materials for a three months’ siege. The duke shut himself up in the castle, and invited the Earl of Perth, the chancellor, to join him; but the earl declined the offer, and, in attempting to make his escape to the continent, was seized near the Bass, in the Frith of Forth, by some seamen from Kirkcaldy, under a warrant from the magistrates of that burgh, and committed to Stirling castle, where he remained a close prisoner for nearly four years.[549] A few days after the duke had retired to the castle, an attempt was made by some of the prince’s adherents to corrupt the fidelity of the garrison, by circulating a false report that the duke meant to make the whole garrison, who were chiefly Protestants, swear to maintain the Catholic religion. A mutiny was on the eve of breaking out, but it was detected by the vigilance of some officers. The duke, thereupon, drew out the garrison, assured them that the report in question was wholly unfounded, and informed them that all he required of them was to take the oath of allegiance to the king, which was immediately done by the greater part of the garrison. Those who refused were at once dismissed. To supply the deficiency thus made, the duke sent notice to Francis Gordon of Midstrath to bring up from the north 45 of the best and most resolute men he could find on his lands; but, on their arrival at Leith, a hue and cry was raised that the duke was bringing down Papists and Highlanders to overawe the Protestants. To calm the minds of the people, the duke ordered these men to return home.[550]

As soon as the news of the arrival of the Prince of Orange in London, and the departure of the king, was received in Edinburgh, an immense concourse of persons, “of all sorts, degrees, and persuasions,” who “could (says Balcarras) scrape so much together” to defray their expenses, went up to London, influenced by motives of interest or patriotism. The Prince of Orange took the wise expedient of obtaining all the legal sanction which, before the assembling of a parliament, could be given to his assumption of the administration of affairs in England; obtaining the concurrence of many of the spiritual and temporal peers, and of a meeting composed of some members who had sat in the House of Commons during the reign of Charles II., as also of the Lord-Mayor of London, and 50 of the common council. He now adopted the same expedient as to Scotland, and taking advantage of the great influx into the capital of noblemen and gentlemen from that country, he convened them together. A meeting was accordingly held at Whitehall, at which 30 noblemen and 80 gentlemen attended. The Duke of Hamilton, who aimed at the chief direction of affairs in Scotland, was chosen president. At this meeting a motion was made by the duke that a convention of the estates should be called as early as possible, and that an address should be presented to the prince to take upon him the direction of affairs in Scotland in the meantime; but this motion was unexpectedly opposed by the Earl of Arran, the duke’s eldest son, who proposed that the king should be invited back on condition that he should call a free parliament for securing the civil and religious liberties of Scotland. This proposition threw the assembly into confusion, and a short adjournment took place, but on resuming their seats, the earl’s motion was warmly opposed by Sir Patrick Hume, and as none of the members offered to second it, the motion was consequently lost, and the duke’s being put to the vote, was carried.

A convention of the estates, called by circular letters from the prince, was accordingly appointed to be held at Edinburgh, on the 14th of March, 1689, and the supporters of the prince, as well as the adherents of the king, prepared to depart home to attend the ensuing election. But the prince managed to detain them till he should be declared king, that as many as might feel inclined might seal their new-born loyalty by kissing his hand; but William had to experience the mortification of a refusal even from some of those whom he had ranked amongst his warmest friends. The Earl of Balcarras and Viscount Dundee, the former of whom had, as before mentioned, been invested by the king with the civil, the latter with the military administration of affairs in Scotland, were the first of either party who arrived in Scotland, but not until the end of February, when the elections were about to commence. On their arrival at Edinburgh they found the Duke of Gordon, who had hitherto refused to deliver up the castle, though tempted by the most alluring offers from the prince, about to capitulate, but they dissuaded him from this step, on the ground that the king’s cause was not hopeless, and that the retention of such an important fortress was of the utmost importance.

The elections commenced. The inhabitants of the southern and western counties (for every Protestant, without distinction, was allowed to vote), alarmed for the extinction of their religious liberties, and excited by the recollection of the wrongs they and their forefathers had suffered, gave their suffrages to the popular candidate, and the adherents of the king soon perceived that the chances were against him. Yet, when the convention met, a respectable minority seemed, notwithstanding, to be in favour of the king, but they had neither the courage nor address to oppose the popular current. To overawe, as is supposed, the friends of the king, or to prevent the convention from being overawed by the troops in the castle, the Duke of Hamilton and his friends, a few days before the meeting of the convention, introduced a considerable number of armed men into Edinburgh, some of whom were concealed in cellars and houses, ready to act as occasion might require. The first trial of strength between the two parties took place on the election of a president. To the Duke of Hamilton the adherents of the king opposed the Marquis of Athole, who, in consequence of being slighted by the prince, had promised his support to the royal party; but the duke was elected by a considerable majority. This vote sealed the fate of the Tory party, and many who had hitherto wavered in their allegiance now openly abandoned the cause of James. The consequence was, that within a few days, the number of the adherents of the king was greatly reduced.

The first act of the convention was to send the Earls of Tweeddale and Leven, with an order to the Duke of Gordon to deliver up the castle within twenty-four hours. The duke, overcome by the smooth and insinuating behaviour of Tweeddale, reluctantly yielded, and promised to surrender the castle next morning at ten o’clock. When this answer was brought to the convention, Balcarras and Dundee were alarmed, and immediately despatched a confidential servant to the duke reminding him of his promise to hold out, and imploring him not to give way. The duke wavered, but on obtaining a writing which he required under the hands of these noblemen that the retention of the castle was absolutely necessary for the success of the king’s affairs, and being visited the following morning by Lord Dundee, who impressed on him the importance of holding out, he resolved to break with the convention. To prepare matters in the north he despatched thither the Earl of Dunfermline, his brother-in-law, to whom he granted a written commission, authorising him to raise his friends and vassals in support of the king.[551]

In consequence of the refusal of the duke to deliver up the castle, he was, by order of the convention, summoned by the heralds at the gate of the castle to surrender, and a proclamation was read at the same time prohibiting all persons from having any communication with him, and promising a reward of six months’ pay to the Protestants in the garrison who should seize him and deliver him and the castle up to the convention. The duke addressed the heralds from within the gate, and told them, that he kept the castle by commission from their common master, and would defend it to the last extremity; and after handing them some guineas, which he requested they would spend in drinking the king’s health, and the healths of all his loyal subjects, he facetiously advised them not to proclaim men traitors with the king’s coats on their backs till they had turned them. Upon the departure of the heralds, the duke drew out the garrison and gave them their option, either to remain in the castle and share with him the dangers that awaited them, or to depart. Upwards of a third of the garrison took advantage of the permission to depart, and left the castle on that and the following day.[552]

As the king’s friends saw that any efforts they could make in the convention would be quite unavailing, they agreed at a private meeting which they held on the 17th of March, to repair to Stirling and there hold a convention by themselves. This resolution was adopted agreeably to the wish of the king himself, who had sent a written authority, dated from Ireland, empowering the Archbishop of St. Andrews, the Earl of Balcarras, and Viscount Dundee, to call a meeting of the estates at Stirling. Balcarras and Dundee received an assurance from the Marquis of Athole, who, ever since the cold reception he had met with from William, had been wonderfully loyal, that he would accompany them, and a similar promise was obtained from the Earl of Mar, governor of Stirling castle. Athole, however, began to waver, a circumstance which deferred the departure of the king’s friends.

Here it may not be improper to notice a circumstance which probably had its weight in the deliberations preceding the departure of Dundee. On the morning of 16th March, just as Lord Dundee was on the point of going to the convention, he was waited upon by James Binnie, a dyer, who informed him that he had overheard a conversation the day before among some persons of their intention of murdering him and Sir George Mackenzie, and Binnie offered, if a warrant were granted him, to apprehend them. Dundee immediately went to the convention and applied for protection, but they refused to act in the matter, and passed to the order of the day. Whether this affair was the device of the Whig party, as has been supposed, to get quit of two individuals particularly obnoxious to them, there are no means of ascertaining; but when the circumstances of the times, and the opinions then held by many of the people are considered, the design of assassinating them is far from improbable.[553]

But be this as it may, Dundee resolved to remain as short as possible in a place where he might be every moment exposed to the dagger of the assassin; and, accordingly, he and his friends fixed on Monday the 18th of March for their departure for Stirling. With the exception of Dundee, they all assembled at the appointed place of rendezvous in the city at the hour which had been fixed; but as the Marquis of Athole, who had promised to accompany them and to protect them on their arrival at Stirling with a body of his vassals, wished them to postpone their departure till the following day; they consented to remain, and were in the act of dispersing and proceeding to the convention when Dundee made his appearance. Such an unexpected resolution greatly surprised him, but he told Balcarras, that whatever were the views of his friends, he would not remain another day in Edinburgh. Balcarras remonstrated with him, and represented, that his departure would give the alarm to their enemies, who would not fail to take advantage of the discovery; but he replied, that as he had a select body of between forty and fifty troopers ready mounted and prepared to start, he would not remain any longer within the city, but would clear the walls with his party and wait without for such friends as might choose to join him. Dundee accordingly left the city at the head of his troopers, to go, as he is said to have emphatically replied to a friend who put the question to him, wherever the spirit of Montrose should direct. After passing the Nether Bow port, he turned to the left down Leith Wynd, and after clearing the suburbs of the Calton, he faced to the west, and proceeded along the line of road known at the time by the name of the Lang-gate, and which now forms the splendid terrace of Princes’ street. On arriving opposite the castle, Dundee ordered his men to halt, and alighting from his horse, he clambered up the steep precipice on the west side of that fortress, and from the bottom of the wall held a conference with the Duke of Gordon, who stood in an adjoining postern gate immediately above. No account has been preserved of the nature of the conversation which passed between these two devoted adherents of the king, but it is understood that the viscount entreated the duke to hold out the castle as long as he could, and that he would endeavour to raise the siege as soon as he had collected sufficient forces.[554]

The convention despatched a Major Bunting with a party of horse in pursuit, but although he overtook Dundee, he had not the courage to attack him, alarmed by a threat with which, it is said, Dundee menaced him, that he would send him (Bunting) back to the convention, in a pair of blankets, did he dare to molest him.[555] Dundee crossed Stirling bridge the second day of his departure, and proceeded to his residence of Dudhope, near Dundee, to ruminate over the events which had just passed, and to concoct his plans, under the new and extraordinary circumstances in which he was placed, for the restoration of James.

FOOTNOTES:

[520] “I believe there was never accident in the world altered the disposition of a people more than that (the king’s return) did the Scottish nation. Sober men observed, it not only inebriat but really intoxicate, and made people not only drunk but frantick; men did not think they could handsomely express their joy except they turned brutes for debauch, rebels, and pugeants; yea, many a sober man was tempted to exceed, lest he should be condemned as unnatural, disloyal, and unsensible. Most of the nobility, and many of the gentry, and hungry old souldiers, flew to London, just as the vulture does to the carcase. And though many of them were bare enough, they made no bones to give 15 of the 100 of exchange.”--Kirkton, p. 65.

[521] State Trials, vol. v., 1369-1508.--Kirkton, 100-4.

[522] Strafford’s Letters, vol. ii. pp. 187-290.

[523] This is the veritable instrument devised by the Regent Morton, and by which were beheaded the Marquis and Earl of Argyle, “and many more of the noblest blood of Scotland.”

[524] Kirkton, pp. 143, 166.

[525] “A rumour went that there was a witch-wife named Muddock who had promised to the M’Lains, that, so long as she lived, the Earle of Argile should not enter Mull; and indeed many of the people imputed the rise of that great storme under her paction with the devil, how true I cannot assert.”--Law’s Memorials, p. 83.

[526] Note to Kirkton by Sharpe, p. 391.

[527] Law’s Memorials, pp. 80, 1, 2, 3, 94, 159.

[528] “But when this goodly army retreated homeward, you would have thought by their baggage they had been at the sack of a besieged city; and, therefore, when they passed Stirling bridge every man drew his sword to show the world they hade returned conquerors from their enemies’ land; but they might as well have showen the pots, pans, girdles, shoes taken off country men’s feet, and other bodily and household furniture with which they were burdened; and among all, none purchast so well as the two earles Airly and Strathmore, chiefly the last, who sent home the money, not in purses, but in bags and great quantities.”--Kirkton, pp. 390-1.

[529] Scots Acts, 1681, c. vi.

[530] “He was lying a prisoner in Edinburgh castle in daily expectation of the order arriving for his execution, when woman’s wit intervened to save him, and he owed his life to the affection of his favourite step-daughter, the sprightly Lady Sophia, who, about eight o’clock in the evening of Tuesday, the 20th of December, 1681, effected his escape in the following manner, as related to Lady Anne Lindsay, by her father, Earl James, Lady Sophia’s nephew:--‘Having obtained permission to pay him a visit of one half-hour, she contrived to bring as her page a tall, awkward, country clown, with a fair wig procured for the occasion, who had apparently been engaged in a fray, having his head tied up. On entering she made them immediately change clothes; they did so, and, on the expiration of the half-hour, she, in a flood of tears, bade farewell to her supposed father, and walked out of the prison with the most perfect dignity, and with a slow pace. The sentinel at the drawbridge, a sly Highlander, eyed her father hard, but her presence of mind did not desert her, she twitched her train of embroidery, carried in those days by the page, out of his hand, and, dropping it in the mud, “Varlet,” cried she, in a fury, dashing it across his face, “take that--and that too,” adding a box on the ear, “for knowing no better how to carry your lady’s garment.” Her ill-treatment of him, and the dirt with which she had besmeared his face, so confounded the sentinel, that he let them pass the drawbridge unquestioned.’ Having passed through all the guards, attended by a gentleman from the castle, Lady Sophia entered her carriage, which was in waiting for her; ‘the Earl,’ says a contemporary annalist, ‘steps up on the hinder part of her coach as her lackey, and, coming forgainst the weighhouse, slips off and shifts for himself.’”--Lives of the Lindsays, vol. ii. p. 147.

[531] Hume’s Narrative, pp. 5-9.

[532] Hume’s Nar., p. 15. Wellwood App., p. 323.

[533] Hume’s Nar., pp. 9, 12-14, 15-18.

[534] Hume’s Narrative, pp. 46-56. Gazette, 2044.

[535] He was attacked by two troopers who were ignorant of his quality, till the exclamation “Unfortunate Argyle,” uttered as he fell, betrayed him. “The clan of the Riddells,” says Dr. Burns, editor of Wodrow, “have taken the honour, or the disgrace of having furnished one of these two militiamen. A person of this name from Lochwinnoch, within forty years ago, had gone to the Balloch fair, near Dumbarton, in the capacity of a horse-dealer. The Campbells from Argyleshire heard his hated name, which called up to their imaginations one of the principal murderers of their chief, and they were preparing themselves for a feudal clan battle, when the companions of the Lowlander interposed and prevented bloodshed by a cunning device or ruse de guerre, transforming his name from Riddell to Ridet.”--“The spot where Argyle was taken [commonly said to have been near Inchinnan in Renfrewshire] is marked out by a stone, which passes among the country-people by the name of ‘Argyle’s Stone.’” Hist. &c., tom. iv. p. 297.

[536] Hume’s Narrative, pp. 56-67. Wodrow, vol. ii. pp. 533-537. Gazette, 2045.

[537] Fountainhall, p. 1177.

[538] Wodrow, vol. ii. p. 624, App. 187, 192, 194, 195. Fountainhall, State Trials, vol. x. p. 785, vol. xi. p. 1179. Balcarras’s Account, p. 3.

[539] D’Avaux.

[540] Dalrymple, pp. 200-210.

[541] Balcarras, p. 9.

[542] Idem, p. 19.

[543] Barillon.

[544] James’ Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 222. &c. Burnet, vol. iii. p. 316.

[545] James (Memoirs), vol. ii. p. 271.--Great Britain’s Just Complaint, p. 8.

[546] “A day or two after his return, Earl Colin (of Balcarras) and his friend Dundee waited on his Majesty. Colin had been in town but three or four days, which he had employed in endeavours to unite his Majesty’s friends in his interest. ‘He was received affectionately,’ says his son, ‘but observed that there were none with the king but some of the gentlemen of his bed-chamber.’ L---- came in, one of the generals of his army disbanded about a fortnight before. He informed the king that most of his generals and colonels of his guards had assembled that morning upon observing the universal joy of the city upon his return; that the result of their meeting was to appoint him to tell his Majesty that still much was in their power to serve and defend him; that most part of the army disbanded was either in London or near it; and that, if he would order them to beat their drums, they were confident twenty thousand men could be got together before the end of next day.--‘My lord,’ says the king, ‘I know you to be my friend, sincere and honourable; the men who sent you are not so, and I expect nothing from them.’--He then said it was a fine day--he would take a walk. None attended him but Colin and Lord Dundee. When he was in the Mall, he stopped and looked at them, and asked how they came to be with him, when all the world had forsaken him and gone to the Prince of Orange? Colin said their fidelity to so good a master would ever be the same; they had nothing to do with the Prince of Orange,--Lord Dundee made the strongest professions of duty;--‘Will you two, as gentlemen, say you have still attachment to me?’--‘Sir, we do.’--‘Will you give me your hands upon it, as men of honour?’ they did so,--‘Well, I see you are the men I always took you to be; you shall know all my intentions. I can no longer remain here but as a cypher, or be a prisoner to the Prince of Orange, and you know there is but a small distance between the prisons and the graves of kings; therefore I go for France immediately; when there, you shall have my instructions,--you, Lord Balcarres, shall have a commission to manage my civil affairs, and you, Lord Dundee, to command my troops in Scotland.’”--Lives of the Lindsays, vol. ii. pp. 161, 162.

[547] James, vol. ii. pp. 265-267.

[548] Gordon’s Hist. of the Family of Gordon, vol. ii. pp. 585, 586.

[549] Balcarras, p. 29.

[550] Gordon’s Hist. of the Family of Gordon, vol. ii. pp. 587, 588.

[551] Balcarras, pp. 41-2. Gordon’s Hist. of the Family of Gordon, p. 592.

[552] Gordon’s Hist. of the Family of Gordon, pp. 593-4.

[553] Balcarras, p. 24.--Minutes of Convention, 16th March.

[554] It is to this interview that Sir Walter Scott alludes in his well-known and stirring ballad of “Bonnie Dundee.”

--“The Gordon has asked of him whither he goes? ‘Wherever shall guide me the soul of Montrose! Your grace in short space shall have tidings of me, Or that low lies the bonnet of Bonnie Dundee!

‘There’s lands beyond Pentland, and hills beyond Forth, If there’s lords in the South-land, there’s chiefs in the North, And wild dunnie-wassels three thousand times three, Will cry hoigh! for the bonnet of Bonnie Dundee?

‘Away to the hills, to the woods, to the rocks-- Ere I own an usurper I’ll couch with the fox; So, tremble, false Whigs, though triumphant ye be, For ye’ve not seen the last of my bonnet or me!’

He waved his proud arm and the trumpets were blown, The kettle-drums clashed, and the horsemen rode on, Till by Ravelston craigs and on Clermiston-lea Died away the wild war-note of Bonnie Dundee.

--‘Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, Come saddle my horses and call up my men, Fling all your gates open and let me go free, For it’s up with the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee!’”

[555] Life of Dundee.

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XX. March to July, 1689

BRITISH SOVEREIGN:--William III., 1688-1703.

Viscount Dundee--Proceedings of the convention--General Hugh Mackay--Attempt to apprehend Dundee, who retires to the north--Mackay follows Dundee--Dundee joined by Keppoch--Movements of the two commanders--Movements of Colonel Ramsay--Disaffection among Mackay’s troops--Ruthven Castle surrenders to Dundee--Mackay retreats down Strathspey--Followed by Dundee--Retreat of Dundee, who disbands his forces--Mackay returns to Edinburgh--Probabilities of success--Dundee solicits aid from Ireland--Preparations of Mackay--Lord Murray and the Athole-men--Departure of Mackay to Perth--Dundee marches into Athole--Battle of Killiecrankie--Death and character of Dundee.

Before giving the details of Dundee’s insurrection, the following short sketch will not be out of place. John Graham, Viscount Dundee, descended from the royal line of the Stuarts by the marriage of William, Lord Graham of Kincardine, his ancestor, with the Princess Mary, second daughter of King Robert III., was the eldest son of Sir William Graham of Claverhouse in Angus or Forfarshire, and was born in 1643. Besides a royal descent, Viscount Dundee also claimed to be descended, through the family of Morphy in Mearns, from the illustrious house of Montrose, and was also allied to the noble family of Northesk by his mother, Lady Jean Carnegy, who was fourth daughter of the first earl. Young Graham entered the university of St. Andrews in the year 1660, where, according to his partial biographer, he made “very considerable progress” in “Humanity and Mathematics.” He was chiefly remarkable for his enthusiastic predilection for Highland poetry and the established order of things. He left the university in 1670 and went to France, where he entered as a volunteer. He afterwards transferred his services to Holland, and received the commission of a cornet in one of the Prince of Orange’s troops of guards. He distinguished himself at the battle of Seneffe, in 1674, by saving the life of the prince, who had been dismounted, and carrying him off upon his own horse. Having been refused the command of one of the Scottish regiments in the employment of the States, he left the Dutch service and returned to Scotland in the year 1677, and was appointed by Charles II. captain of one of the regiments then raising in Scotland for the suppression of the Whigs, in which service he acquired from the unfortunate Covenanters, on account of his severities, the unenviable appellation of “the bloody Clavers.” The confidence which Charles had bestowed on Captain Graham was continued by his successor James, who, after promoting him successively to the ranks of brigadier and major-general, raised him to the peerage under the title of Viscount Dundee, on the 12th of November 1688, seven days after the invasion of the Prince of Orange.

The idea of setting up a counter convention at Stirling, was immediately abandoned on the departure of Dundee from the capital. The Marquis of Athole, whom the adherents of the king had chosen for their leader, showed no disposition to follow Dundee, and the Earl of Mar, who to save his loyalty made a feint to escape by the only guarded way, was apprehended, not unwillingly, as is supposed, by the sentinels, and brought back, but was released on giving his parole that he would not leave the city without the permission of the convention. The ambiguous conduct of these two noblemen tended to cool the ardour of the few remaining adherents of the king, some of whom resolved to support the new order of things, whilst others, less pliant, absented themselves wholly from the convention. That assembly, after approving of the conduct of the English convention, in requesting the Prince of Orange (now declared King of England) to take upon him the administration of the affairs of that kingdom, acknowledged their obligations to him as the assertor of their liberties, and also entreated him to assume the management of the affairs of Scotland.

Popular as the steps were which the convention were about to take for settling the government of the nation, with the great body of the people, they were not insensible to the probability of a formidable opposition being raised to their plans by a determined band of royalists in the north, who, headed by such a warlike and experienced commander as Dundee, might involve the whole kingdom in a civil war. To prepare, therefore, against such an emergency, the convention before proceeding to the important business for which it had assembled issued a proclamation, requiring all persons from sixteen to sixty, and capable of bearing arms, to put themselves in readiness to take the field when called upon; they deprived all militia officers suspected of attachment to the king of their commissions, and filled up the vacancies thus occasioned by others on whom they could rely. Sir Patrick Hume, who lay under an attainder for the part he took in Argyle’s rebellion, was appointed to the command of the horse militia, and the Earl of Leven was nominated to the command of a body of 800 men, raised for a guard to the city of Edinburgh.

Backed by these, and by about 1100 men of the Scotch brigade from Holland, which arrived at Leith from England, on the 25th of March, under General Mackay, as major-general of all the forces in Scotland,[556] and by a force of 200 dragoons which were also sent from England; the leaders of the convention proposed that a committee of eight lords, eight knights, and eight burgesses, should be appointed to prepare and report upon a plan of settling the government.

The throne having been declared vacant, the convention, on the motion of the Duke of Hamilton, appointed the committee to draw up an act for settling the crown of Scotland upon William and Mary, and they were also instructed to prepare an instrument or declaration for preventing a recurrence of the grievances, of which the nation complained. The Earl of Argyle on the part of the lords, Sir James Montgomery for the knights, and Sir John Dalrymple for the burghs, were thereupon despatched to London to offer the crown to William and Mary, on the conditions stipulated by the convention. The commissioners were introduced to their majesties at Whitehall, on the 11th of May, and were of course well received, but on the coronation oath being presented to them by the Earl of Argyle, William, who was rather disposed to support episcopacy in Scotland, demurred to take it, as it appeared by a clause which it contained, importing that their majesties should root out heresy, and all enemies to the true worship of God, to lay him under an obligation to become a persecutor. This difficulty, which it is evident was well founded, was however got over by the commissioners declaring that such was not the meaning or import of the oath.

The convention having thus completed the object for which it was assembled, adjourned to the 21st of May, not however till it had passed an act at utter variance with those principles of constitutional liberty, which it professed to establish. By this act the Duke of Hamilton was vested with full power and authority to imprison any person he might suspect of disaffection to the new government, a violent and arbitrary measure certainly, which nothing but the extraordinary circumstances of the times could justify. The Earl of Balcarras and Viscount Dundee were marked out as the first victims of this unconstitutional law. The latter had been already proclaimed an outlaw and a rebel by the convention, for absenting himself from its meetings, but he had hitherto made no movement, in consequence of instructions from the king, desiring him not to take the field till a force of 5,000 foot, and 300 horse, which he promised to send him from Ireland, should land in Scotland.

These instructions having come to the knowledge of Hamilton, hastened his determination to arrest Balcarras and Dundee. Balcarras was seized at his country seat, carried to Edinburgh, and imprisoned in the common jail, from which he was afterwards transferred to the castle after its surrender; but Dundee, who had received notice of the approach of the party, retired from his house at Dudhope and took refuge in the mountains.

The favourable reception which James had met with in Ireland, and the discovery which the adherents of William in Scotland had made of his intention to land an army in Scotland, joined to the fact that the great body of the Highlanders, and almost the whole of the episcopal party in the north, were hostile to the recent change in the government, could not fail to excite alarm in the minds of the partizans of the new dynasty. The brilliant achievements of Montrose had shown how inadequate the peaceful inhabitants of the south, though impelled by the spirit of religious fanaticism, were to contend with the brave and hardy mountaineers of the north; and as Dundee, as they were aware, was desirous of emulating his great predecessor, and was engaged in an active correspondence with the Highland chiefs, they must necessarily have looked forward to a long and bloody, and perhaps a doubtful contest.

As Dundee possessed the confidence of the Highland clans,[557] and as he looked chiefly to them for support in his attempt to restore the exiled monarch, Viscount Tarbat, one of the ablest politicians of the period, proposed a plan for detaching the chiefs from the cause of James, some of whom he averred were not so inimical to William nor so attached to James, as was supposed; but who, jealous of the power of Argyle, were justly apprehensive that if, as appearances indicated, that nobleman acquired an ascendency in the national councils, he would make use of his power to oppress them, and would obtain a revocation of the grants of certain lands which belonged to his family, and which had been forfeited in the reign of Charles II. Besides these reasons, there was another which was supposed to influence others in their determination to restore the fallen dynasty, and thereby crush the rising power of Argyle, viz. that they were greatly in arrears to him as their superior. Tarbat, therefore, suggested to General Mackay, that an attempt should be made, in the first place to obtain the submission of these last by making them an offer to discharge Argyle’s claims against their lands, which he computed would amount to £5,000 sterling, and that a separate offer should be made to the chief of the Macleans to make good a transaction which had been in part entered upon between him and the late earl for adjusting their differences. This plan was approved of by the English government, but the affair is said to have been marred by the appointment of Campbell of Cawdor as negotiator, who was personally obnoxious to the chiefs. Mackay attempted to open a correspondence with Cameron of Lochiel on the subject, but could obtain no answer, and Macdonell of Glengary, to whom he also made a communication, heartily despising the bribe, advised the general, in return, to imitate the conduct of General Monk, by restoring James.[558]

Dundee crossed the Dee, and entered the Duke of Gordon’s country, the inhabitants of which were friendly to the cause of James, and where he was joined by about 50 horse under the Earl of Dunfermline, who, as has been stated, was sent north by the Duke of Gordon to raise his vassals in support of his royal master. Whilst Dundee was occupied in raising forces in this district, Mackay was despatched from Edinburgh with a considerable body of troops in pursuit. Mackay appointed the town of Dundee as the rendezvous for his troops, being the best station he could select for keeping the adjoining country, which was disaffected to the new government, in awe, and whence he could send parties to the north to watch the motions of Dundee. On arriving at Dundee, Mackay, leaving a part of his troops there under the command of Lieutenant-colonel Livingston, proceeded north with a body of about 500 men, consisting chiefly of dragoons, in quest of the viscount. At Brechin he received intelligence that Dundee, ignorant of course of Mackay’s movements, was on his return to his seat of Glenogilvie in the braes of Angus, that he had already passed the Cairn-a-mount, and that he was expected to pass the night at Fettercairn, only a few miles north from Brechin. The viscount, however, having been apprized of Mackay’s movements, recrossed the Dee.

As soon as Mackay was informed of this retrograde movement, he resolved to pursue Dundee, and, if possible, to overtake him before he should have time to collect any considerable body of forces. With a small but select body of horse and foot, therefore, he crossed the Dee at Kincardine, in the expectation of being joined in the course of his march by some country gentlemen who had given him assurances of support before leaving Edinburgh. In this expectation, however, he was sadly disappointed, for, with the exception of the Master of Forbes, who met him after he had crossed the Dee, with a party of 40 gentlemen of his name on horseback and a body of between 500 and 600 men on foot, chiefly raw peasantry, not one of them showed any inclination to join him. The fact was, that, with few exceptions, the people residing to the north of the Tay, were either indifferent to the course of events, or were opposed upon principle to any change in the hereditary succession to the crown, which many of them considered an infraction of the Divine law, and which they believed no misconduct on the part of the king could justify. No man knew these things better than Dundee, who calculated that by means of this feeling he would soon be able to arouse the war-like north against the more peaceful south. But valuable as such a body of auxiliaries as that brought by the Master of Forbes may be supposed to have been under these circumstances, Mackay, who had been accustomed to the finest troops in Europe, considered that they would be of no service to him, as, according to his own account, they were “ill armed,” and appeared “little like the work” for which they were intended. He therefore declined the services of the Forbeses in the meantime, and after thanking the master for having brought them together, he ordered him to dismiss them to their homes, with instructions that they should re-assemble whenever a necessity occurred for defending their own country against the inroads of Dundee.

Having received intelligence of Dundee’s route through Strathdon towards Strathbogie, Mackay continued his march in that direction through Aberdeenshire and Moray. On arriving at Strathbogie, he was informed that Dundee had crossed the Spey with about 150 horse without opposition, although Mackay had given particular instruction to the laird of Grant, while in Edinburgh, to occupy all the fords of that river. Mackay also learned, on the following day, by a letter sent to him by the magistrates of Elgin, which had been addressed to them by Dundee, that the viscount was at Inverness, that he had been there joined by Macdonald of Keppoch at the head of 1,000 Highlanders, and that he intended to make Elgin his head-quarters preparatory to an attack upon Mackay. The accession of the Macdonalds was of immense importance to Dundee, and was as seasonable as unexpected. A deadly feud had for some time existed between Macdonald and Mackintosh, arising out of certain claims by the former upon the lands of the latter; and to such a pitch of armed violence did Keppoch carry his pretensions, that James II. felt himself called upon to interfere, by issuing a commission of fire and sword against him as a rebel. Keppoch, taking advantage of the unsettled state of the government, renewed his claims against Mackintosh; and having defeated the Mackintoshes in battle, he had advanced to Inverness, the inhabitants of which had supported the Mackintoshes against him, and was threatening to wreak his vengeance upon them if they did not purchase forbearance by paying him a large pecuniary fine. It was at this critical moment that Dundee arrived, who, anxious at once to secure the aid of Keppoch and the friendship of the citizens of Inverness, who had only a few days before proclaimed the Prince of Orange, interposed between them and their exasperated foe, and satisfied the latter’s supposed claims by collecting the amount of his demands by subscription among the inhabitants.[559]

The news of the junction of the Keppoch Highlanders with Dundee, and of their intention to march to the south, was exceedingly disconcerting to Mackay, who had advanced into a hostile country with a handful of troops quite incapable of resisting the powerful force now opposed to them. The obvious and apparently most prudential course which presented itself, was, on the approach of the enemy, to make a sure and as slow a retreat as possible, and to bring up the forces which he had left behind him; but Mackay, rightly judging that a retreat, besides giving Dundee the command of a large tract of country favourable to his views, might create an impression that his adversary was much stronger than he really was, resolved not only to stand firm, but even to cross the Spey, and take possession of Elgin before Dundee should arrive there. Accordingly, after despatching a courier to bring up his reserves from Brechin without delay, he crossed the Spey and advanced upon Elgin, with his dragoons at a hard trot, followed by 200 veteran foot, who were so desirous of coming to action that they kept up with the horse the whole way from the river to the town. From Elgin, Mackay despatched messengers to some of the principal Whig proprietors in Moray, Ross, and Sutherland, desiring them to prepare themselves for joining him as soon as they should receive his orders.

Mackay lay a few days at Elgin in expectation of Dundee’s advance; but as the latter did not appear, Mackay, who had just received a reinforcement of horse from Brechin, left Elgin and took the road to Inverness. When he reached Forres, he ascertained that Dundee had left Inverness, and had crossed the heights of Badenoch on his way to Athole. It is said that Dundee intended to have advanced upon Elgin, and to have engaged Mackay, but he was counteracted in his design by the refusal of a party of Camerons, who were under Keppoch, to march without the consent of their chief, their real motive apparently being that they were desirous of securing what booty they had taken. Mackay continued his march to Inverness, where he was joined by 500 of the Mackays, Grants, and Rosses. From Inverness, he despatched couriers to the adherents of the new government in the north to join him; and at the same time sent an express to Colonel Balfour at Edinburgh, to despatch Colonel Ramsay north with a select body of 600 men to be drawn from the Dutch regiments. To effect as speedy a junction with him as possible, Mackay directed that Ramsay should march through Athole and Badenoch. These transactions, Burton[560] thinks happened probably about the beginning of May.

Dundee, on the other hand, was no less busy in his preparations for the ensuing campaign. He never ceased to carry on an active correspondence with many of the Highland chieftains whose confidence he possessed; and on his march through Badenoch he received the most gratifying assurances of support from the gentlemen of that country, with the exception of Mackintosh, who had taken offence at Dundee. Having fixed upon Lochaber as the most central and convenient district for mustering his forces, Dundee appointed the friends of King James to assemble there on the 18th of May, and in the meantime he descended into Athole, with a body of 150 horse, where he met with a cordial reception from Stewart of Ballechan, factor or steward to the Marquis of Athole, and from the other vassals of the marquis. Whether Stewart and the other gentlemen of the district, in taking this decided part, acted from a private understanding with their chief, who still remained at Edinburgh, where he had given in an equivocal adherence to the government, or whether they were yet ignorant of the course he meant to follow, are questions which, for want of information, do not admit of solution. The omission on the part of the marquis to send instructions to Stewart to raise a body of 400 Athole Highlanders, to oppose the passage of Dundee through his bounds to the south, should he attempt it, to which effect he had pledged himself to Mackay, before the latter left Edinburgh for the north, raises a suspicion that the gentlemen of Athole acted agreeably to the understood wishes of their chief.[561]

Being informed that the lairds of Blair and Pollock were lying in Perth with a troop of horse, which they had raised for the service of the government, Dundee determined to surprise them, and accordingly left Athole, and proceeded with celerity during the night towards Perth, which he entered unawares early next morning, and seized both these gentlemen and two other officers in their beds, carrying them off prisoners. He also took away 30 horses, and a sum of 9,000 merks of the public revenue which he found in the office of the collector. Leaving Perth, Dundee ranged through Angus, augmenting his cavalry, and after an ineffectual attempt to surprise Lord Rollo, who was raising a troop of horse, he appeared before the town of Dundee, then guarded by two troops of Livingston’s dragoons. Their commander, unwilling to encounter Dundee, shut himself up in the town, and the viscount, after spending two nights at Dudhope, his country seat, returned to the Highlands, to meet his friends at the appointed place of rendezvous.

During all this time, Mackay remained at Inverness, waiting for the arrival of Ramsay’s detachment from the south, which he had long and anxiously looked for. In conformity with Mackay’s orders, Colonel Balfour immediately put the troops under Colonel Ramsay in readiness to march, but just as they were about to pass across the Frith of Forth, from Leith to Burntisland, an alarm was created by the appearance of a large number of vessels at the mouth of the Frith, which were at once supposed to be a French fleet with troops on board for the purpose of making a descent upon the coast in support of Dundee. As the seizure of the capital, it was naturally supposed, would be the first object of the invaders, the embarkation of Ramsay’s detachment, which in such an event would be necessary for its defence, was countermanded; but in two or three days the fears of the government were dispelled, by having ascertained that the fleet in question consisted of a number of Dutch herring vessels which were proceeding on their annual voyage to the fishing stations on the northern coast. This delay occasioned great embarrassment to the operations of Mackay, and almost proved fatal to him, as Dundee was thereby enabled to throw himself with a large force between Mackay’s and Ramsay’s corps, and to threaten both with annihilation.

In terms of his instructions, Ramsay, after reaching Perth, proceeded through Athole, on his way to Inverness. Though the Athole-men, many of whom he found armed, offered no opposition to his march, yet as every thing around him assumed a warlike appearance, and as reports were continually brought to him that Dundee had placed himself between him and Mackay, with a very large force, he grew alarmed, and so strong had his fears become when within a dozen of miles of Ruthven in Badenoch, that he resolved to return to Perth. He had previously despatched a letter to Mackay, informing him of his advance, and appointing a meeting at Ruthven on a given day, but he neglected to send another express acquainting Mackay of his design to return to Perth. The retreat of Ramsay was disorderly, and some of his men deserted. The Athole-men, who kept hovering about him, were desirous of attacking him, but they were prevented, though with difficulty, by the gentlemen of the district. Mackay having received Ramsay’s despatch, was so anxious to form a speedy junction with the latter’s detachment, that he left Inverness the following (Sunday) morning, taking with him only two days’ provisions. When about half-way between Inverness and Ruthven, he received an express from the governor of the castle, informing him of Ramsay’s retreat, and that Dundee acting on information contained in an intercepted despatch of Mackay’s, had entered Badenoch on Sunday morning, (the morning of Mackay’s march from Inverness,) with an immense force, and was within a few miles of the castle.

The first person who had met Dundee in Lochaber on the appointed day was Glengary, who had with him a body of between 200 and 300 men. He was followed by Macdonald of Morer, at the head of nearly 200 of Clan Ranald’s men, and by Appin and Glencoe, with about the same number. Dundee had been subsequently joined by Lochiel (now 60 years of age), who had 600 men under him, and by Keppoch, at the head of 200; but Sir Alexander Maclean, who had promised also to attend, failed to appear.

The intelligence communicated by the commander of Ruthven castle was exceedingly perplexing to Mackay, who must have felt keenly the disappointment of Ramsay’s flight. He saw himself with a handful of men surrounded by a warlike and hostile population, and within a short march of a powerful force, which he could not singly resist--with few friends on whom he could place much reliance. He had, in the unfortunate situation in which he was placed, only a choice of evils before him. To have proceeded on his march with the view of cutting his way through the enemy, would have been, even if practicable, an imprudent and very dangerous step, and to have taken up a position in a district where he would have been exposed to be surrounded and cut off from his resources, would have been equally rash. He had, therefore, no alternative which he could prudently adopt, but either to fall back upon Inverness, or retire down the vale of the Spey. He preferred the latter course; for, although such a movement would leave Inverness quite exposed to Dundee’s army, that disadvantage would be more than counterbalanced by the protection which would be thereby afforded to the laird of Grant’s lands, near the borders of which Dundee was now hovering, and by the obstruction which the interposition of Mackay’s troops would present to any attempt on the part of Dundee to recruit his army in the Duke of Gordon’s country. Besides, by making Strathspey the scene of his operations, Mackay expected to be able to keep up a communication with the south through Angus and Aberdeenshire, and the adjoining parts of Moray, which he could not maintain if he returned to Inverness.

Accordingly, after despatching an express to Inverness, apprising the garrison of his intentions, and promising assistance, should Dundee venture to attack the town, Mackay began a rapid march towards Strathspey, which he continued during the night, and did not halt till he had descended a considerable way down that vale. Dundee, who had closely pursued him, afraid of exposing his men to the attacks of Mackay’s cavalry, did not follow him after he had gained the flatter part of the Strath, but kept aloof at the distance of some miles in a more elevated position where he encamped. Notwithstanding his inferiority in point of numbers, the revolutionary general determined to endeavour to allure Dundee from his stronghold by offering him battle, and having refreshed his men, wearied by a long march of twenty-four hours, he advanced next morning to within a mile of Dundee’s camp, and, after reconnoitring the position of the enemy, made preparations for receiving them; but Dundee, secure from danger, by the nature of the ground he occupied, showed no disposition to engage. It is probable that, in acting thus passively, he was influenced by the conduct of the Highlanders, who were averse to engage with cavalry, and some of whom (the Camerons, according to Mackay,) fled to the neighbouring hills on Mackay’s approach. Seeing no hope of drawing the viscount out of his trenches, Mackay returned in the evening to his camp, which he removed the following day to Colmnakill, about six miles lower down the Spey, where he considered himself more secure from any sudden surprise or attack, and where he was speedily joined by two troops of Livingston’s dragoons from Dundee. The ground occupied by Mackay was a spacious plain, bounded on the south by the Spey, which effectually protected his rear, whilst his front was covered by a wood and some marshes which skirted the plain on the north. The right of Mackay’s position was protected by a small river with a rough and stony bottom. The general himself took up his quarters at Belcastle, a summer-house in the neighbourhood belonging to the laird of Grant, whence he despatched ten or twelve of Grant’s tenants, selected by Grant himself as the most intelligent and trustworthy, to watch and bring him notice of Dundee’s motions. These scouts kept up a constant communication with Mackay, who received a report from one or other of them almost every alternate hour. In the meantime, he kept his whole army under arms, and to prevent surprise, small parties of horse and dragoons patrolled the neighbouring woods, and some foot were stationed along the banks of the little river on the right. But these precautions would probably have been unavailing, if the government general had not timeously been made acquainted with the fact, that there were enemies in his camp who were watching an opportunity to betray him.

For some time, a report had been current that Livingston’s regiment of dragoons was disaffected to the government; but as Mackay could not trace the rumour to any authentic source, he disbelieved it, and to mark his confidence in its fidelity, he had ordered the two troops which were stationed at Dundee to join him in the north. But two days after two deserters from Dundee’s camp informed Mackay that, with few exceptions, all the dragoon officers had entered into a conspiracy to betray him. They said that they had heard Dundee frequently assure the chiefs of the clans that he could depend upon the dragoons, and heard him inform the chiefs, that till he saw a favourable opportunity for requiring the services of the dragoons, he would allow them to remain in the enemy’s camp, where they might be useful to him. The deserters likewise informed Mackay that they had not left Dundee’s camp altogether of their own accord, but partly at the instigation of the lairds of Blair and Pollock, who had been carried about by Dundee as prisoners ever since their capture at Perth, and who were anxious to prevent Mackay from engaging, under these circumstances, with such a small party of troops as he then had.

This information, though calculated to shake the general’s confidence in the fidelity of these dragoons, was too vague and unsatisfactory to be relied upon. Mackay appears at first to have had some doubts of the truth of the statement; but his unwillingness to believe the accusation gave place to an opposite impression when, after ordering the deserters to be confined in Belcastle, and threatening them with exemplary punishment should it turn out that they were spies sent by Dundee, they expressed themselves quite satisfied to abide the result of any investigation he might institute.

Mackay, though now satisfied that there were traitors in his camp, took no steps to secure them, but continued to remain in his position waiting for the arrival of Barclay’s dragoons and Leslie’s foot from Forfar and Couper Angus. Mackay might have retreated down the river, but he was advised to remain at Colmnakill by Sir Thomas Livingston and the laird of Grant; because by retaining his ground, his expected succours would be every day drawing nearer to him, and every day thus spent would be lost to Dundee, who was prevented, by his presence, from communicating with those places in the low country from which he expected reinforcements, particularly in horse, of which he stood in most need. Besides, by retiring, Mackay considered that he might probably be forced to recross the Grampians before the two regiments could join him, in which case he would leave the whole of the north exposed to Dundee, who would probably avail himself of the opportunity to raise a force too formidable to be encountered.

In the meantime, Dundee sent a detachment of his army to lay siege to the old castle of Ruthven, in which Mackay, on his arrival at Inverness, had placed a garrison of about 60 of Grant’s Highlanders, under the command of John Forbes, brother to Culloden. The garrison being in want of provisions, capitulated on the condition that their lives should be spared, and that they should be allowed to return to their homes on their parole. While conducted through Dundee’s camp, Forbes observed all the horses saddled, and his army preparing as if for an immediate march. In proceeding towards Colmnakill, he met, at the distance of about a mile from Dundee’s lines, two men on horseback, one in a red, the other in a blue uniform. The latter immediately challenged him with the usual parole, “Qui vive?” on which Forbes returning the “Vive le Roi Guilleaume,” as indicative of his loyalty to the existing government, the man in red informed him that they had been despatched from Mackay’s camp to obtain intelligence of the enemy. Captain Forbes then cautioned the men of the risk they would run if they proceeded farther, but regardless of his advice, they rode forward in the direction of Dundee’s camp. Forbes having mentioned this occurrence to Mackay the same day, the latter immediately suspected that the officers of dragoons were in communication with Dundee, as he had given no such order as the man clothed in red had pretended. He, thereupon, desired inquiry to be made if any dragoons had been sent out, and by whom; and as blue was the uniform of Livingston’s men, he desired them to be instantly mustered to ascertain if any were absent; but the general had scarcely issued these instructions, when some of his scouts brought him intelligence that Dundee’s army was moving down the Strath towards Colmnakill. This movement, combined with the information which had been communicated to him by Forbes, left no doubt of the treachery of the dragoons.

Under these circumstances, Mackay had no alternative but an immediate retreat. Calling, therefore, his commanding officers together, he ordered them to put their men under arms, and to form them upon the plain in marching order. He next addressed himself to the laird of Grant, and after expressing his regret at the step he was about to take, by which Grant’s lands would be left for a short time exposed to the ravages of Dundee’s army, he requested him to order his tenants to drive their cattle down the country out of the reach of the enemy, who would probably overlook them in their anxiety to follow him in his retreat. Grant listened to this advice with becoming attention, but to show how little he regarded his own personal interest, as opposed to what he conceived his duty to his country, he observed, that though he might lose every thing by Dundee’s invasion of his country, he would not take one step prejudicial to the government.

In fixing the order of his retreat, Mackay adopted the plan he had been accustomed to follow, that he might not excite the jealousy of the dragoons, or make them suspect that he was distrustful of them. Accordingly, as was his usual practice, he divided the dragoons into two bodies, one of which, consisting of Major and Captain Balfour’s companies, he placed in the rear, and the other four companies commanded by the disaffected officers he placed in the front, that he might overawe them by his own presence. Immediately before the two troops of dragoons which formed the rear-guard, Mackay placed 200 foot, chiefly grenadiers of the three Scoto-Dutch regiments, and next to them the English horse, then scarcely 70 men strong, and between those horse and the four companies of dragoons which were led by Sir Thomas Livingston, he posted 200 of Lord Reay’s and Balnagowan’s Highlanders, having previously dismissed Grant’s men, whom he had informed their chief he would leave behind to protect their own country from Dundee’s stragglers.

There were three ways by which Mackay could retreat,--either towards Inverness, or through Strathdown and Glenlivet, a movement which would bring him near his expected reinforcements, or down Strathspey. Of these routes Mackay would have preferred the southern; but as the population of Strathdown and Glenlivet was Catholic, and of course hostile to him, and as the ground in those districts was unfavourable to the operations of cavalry in case of attack, he resolved to march down Strathspey. But as he was desirous to conceal his route from Dundee, he did not begin his march till nightfall, at which time Dundee was within three miles of his camp. In his course down Speyside he passed by the house of Grant of Ballindalloch, who was serving under Dundee, and arrived early the following morning at Balveny, where he halted to refresh his men and procure a supply of provisions. There he met Sir George Gordon of Edinglassie, from whom he obtained some men to act as intelligencers. Some of these he despatched back in the direction he had come, to ascertain if Dundee still remained in the Strath; but apprehensive that Dundee would take a southerly course, by crossing the Strath, with the view of throwing himself between Mackay and his reinforcements, he sent off others in that direction. These scouts soon returned with intelligence that Dundee was still in Strathspey. This information was satisfactory to Mackay, and relieved him from a state of the most painful anxiety; but he was still greatly perplexed by the want of provisions, which, though hourly expected, had not yet arrived.

Desirous, however, to wait for supplies as long as consistent with safety, he again despatched some of Gordon’s men in the direction he supposed Dundee would take, and at the same time sent a sergeant with a party of 12 dragoons back by the course he had marched, to bring him notice of Dundee’s motions. Mackay waited with the greatest impatience till about five o’clock in the evening for the return of the dragoons, without any signs of their appearance, a circumstance which alarmed him so much, that although a quantity of provisions and oats had just reached his camp, he would not allow time for baking bread or feeding the horses, but gave orders for an immediate march. Accordingly, the whole party moved off in the same order as before, and passed a small river about a mile above the place where they had been encamped; but they had scarcely advanced half a mile when Sir Thomas Livingston, who happened to be a little behind, observed the enemy on the other side of the river they had just passed, marching towards the ford by which Mackay’s men had crossed. On being informed of this, Mackay, after ordering Lieutenant-colonel Livingston, who was at the head of the vanguard, to continue at a pretty quick pace; galloped to the rear, and having despatched Sir Thomas Livingston to the front to lead the party, with instructions to keep up a constant pace, but without wearying the troops, he posted himself upon a rising ground with about 50 or 60 horse and dragoons in view of Dundee’s army, where he was joined by the Master of Forbes with about 50 horse.

When Dundee observed the party of dragoons drawn up on the hillock he immediately halted, drew in his stragglers, and marshalled his men into battalions, keeping up the usual distinction of the clans. In the meantime Mackay sent off his nephew, Major Mackay, to a hill which lay about a quarter of a mile to his left, from which he could obtain a nearer and more correct view of Dundee’s force and his motions. The viscount’s horse immediately passed the river, and drew up along the bank to protect the passage of the foot, who in their turn also formed till the baggage was brought over. It was now after sunset, but the viscount continued to advance. Mackay, who was nearly two miles behind his rear; thereupon began to ride off with his party, but he had not proceeded far when a cry of “halt!” met his ears. On turning round he observed galloping after him, Major Mackay, who, having observed a party of horse which he supposed to belong to Dundee, moving along the face of a hill to the General’s left, and which from the twilight appeared more numerous than it really was, had hastened to acquaint the General of the circumstance. It turned out, however, that this party which had occasioned such alarm was no other than the sergeant with the 12 dragoons of Livingston’s regiment which had been sent out by Mackay in the morning to reconnoitre. It was afterwards ascertained that this sergeant was concerned in the plot, and that he was the same individual in blue, whom Captain Forbes had met with within a mile of Dundee’s camp. This man pretended, however, that he had run great danger of capture; and that he had taken such a round-about way merely to avoid the enemy, though he and his party had been with Dundee the whole day, and had conducted him over the ground which Mackay had passed on the preceding day. The government forces continued their march all night till they crossed the river of Bogie, where, from pure exhaustion, they halted at four o’clock in the morning. The General then ordered the provisions which had reached the camp previous to his retreat, to be distributed among his troops, and desired the horsemen to lead their horses into an adjoining corn-field and feed them. When the men were refreshing themselves Mackay received the agreeable intelligence that Barclay and Leslie’s regiments would join him that day, but “to play sure game,” as he himself says, after allowing his men two hours’ rest, he marched three miles further down towards his succours, and took up a position at the foot of Suy-hill upon the common road from the south to the north, by which he expected the two regiments would march.

Having sent a pressing order to Barclay and Leslie to hasten their march, Mackay had the satisfaction of being joined by the former at twelve o’clock noon, and by the latter at six o’clock in the evening, after a long and fatiguing march. Resolved that no time should be lost in turning the chase upon Dundee before he should be aware of these reinforcements, Mackay put his army in marching order, and advanced towards him after ten o’clock at night. But his designs were made known to Dundee by two dragoons who had been despatched by their officers. These men, on the departure of Dundee, were discovered in a wood, and the general being satisfied that the sergeant before mentioned had had a conference with Dundee, and the two dragoons having confessed nearly as much themselves, he immediately put Lieutenant-colonel Livingston and the other suspected officers under arrest. He thereupon continued his march, and arrived at Balveny that night; and on the following day reached Colmnakill, which he had left only five days before. Here having received notice that a party of Dundee’s men was on the other side of the adjoining river, he sent orders to Sir Thomas Livingston to cross with 200 dragoons and drive them away; but Sir Thomas having been previously informed that the laird of Grant was sorely pressed by the retiring forces of Dundee, had anticipated the general’s orders, and had advanced two miles beyond the river with a greater force, in pursuit of a body of Highlanders. These were, according to Balcarras, Sir John Maclean’s men, who were on their way to join Dundee, and who, alarmed at the appearance of such a large number of dragoons, threw away their plaids and betook themselves to an adjoining hill, where they formed. They are stated by the last-mentioned author to have amounted only to 200 men, but Mackay, in his memoirs,[562] states the number at 500. Mackay observes, that but for the indiscretion of Livingston’s adjutant, who by riding a quarter of a mile in advance, gave the Highlanders timeous notice of the approach of the dragoons, not one of them would have escaped, but being thereby enabled to gain the top of the hill before the dragoons came up with them, they sustained a loss of only 80 or 100 men. In this skirmish, a captain of Barclay’s regiment and six dragoons were killed, and some wounded.

Having been joined by Ramsay’s detachment, which during the occupancy of Strathspey by the hostile armies, had, unknown to Mackay, penetrated through Athole and Badenoch and reached Inverness, Mackay continued to pursue Dundee into Badenoch; but as the latter retired into Lochaber, Mackay gave over the pursuit on learning that Dundee had dismissed the greater part of his forces. Mackay, thereupon, marched to Inverness with Livingston’s dragoons, Leslie’s foot, and a party of Leven’s and Hastings’ regiments, and 200 Highlanders, and sent Barclay’s regiment to Strathbogie, and the three Dutch regiments to Elgin. From Inverness, Mackay despatched an express to the Duke of Hamilton, urging upon him the necessity of placing “a formidable garrison” at Inverlochy, and small ones in other places in the north, without which he considered that it would be utterly impossible to subdue the Highlanders, who, on the approach of an army, for which a fortnight’s subsistence could not be found in their mountainous regions, could easily retire to difficult passes and other places inaccessible to regular troops. He, therefore, requested that his grace and the parliament would consider the matter before the season was farther spent, and provide the necessary means for carrying such a design into effect against his arrival in the south, whither he intended to proceed in a few days.

On his way to the south, Mackay despatched 50 horse, as many of Barclay’s dragoons, and 60 foot, to take possession of the house of Braemar, into which he intended to place a garrison to keep the Braemar men in check, and to cover the county of Aberdeen; and he ordered the captain of dragoons, after putting 20 of his men into the house, to march forward, without halting, before break of day, to the house of Inverey, about three miles farther off, for the purpose of seizing Inverey and some other gentlemen who had lately been with Dundee. But, fortunately for Inverey and his guests, the officer trifled off his time in Braemar house, refreshing his horses, till the dawn of the morning, and the approach of him and his party being perceived, Inverey and his friends escaped in their shirts to a neighbouring wood. Disappointed of their prey, the party retired to the house of Braemar, where, after setting their horses loose to graze, they laid themselves down to repose; but they were soon wakened from their slumbers by some firing from a party on a rock above, which had so alarmed the horses that they were found galloping to and fro in the adjoining fields. As soon as the dragoons had caught their horses, which they had some difficulty in doing, they galloped down the country. The party on the rock was headed by Inverey, who had collected a number of his tenantry for the purpose of expelling the dragoons from his bounds, and who, on their retreat, set fire to Braemar house, which was consumed.

The party of foot, which, having charge of a convoy of provisions and ammunition for the intended garrison, had not yet arrived, on hearing of the retreat of the dragoons, shut themselves up in a gentleman’s house, to secure themselves from attack, and the commanding officer sent an express after Mackay, who was then on his way to the south, acquainting him with the failure of the enterprise. On receiving this intelligence, Mackay, although he had not a day’s bread on hand, and was in great haste to reach Edinburgh, “to put life in the design of Inverlochy,” turned off his course and crossed the hills towards Braemar, with his foot, after giving directions to Barclay’s dragoons to march up Deeside. Finding Braemar house destroyed, and the vaults of it incapable of holding a garrison, Mackay, after burning Inverey’s house and laying waste all his lands, descended the river to Abergeldie, where he left a detachment of 72 men as a check upon the Farquharsons. And having placed the other troops which he had brought from the north in quarters farther down the Dee, he posted off to Edinburgh, where he arrived in the beginning of July, about a fortnight after the surrender of the castle of Edinburgh, which capitulated on the 14th of June, after a siege of three months.

On his arrival at Edinburgh, Mackay was exceedingly mortified to find that no steps whatever had been taken by the government for putting his design into execution, of erecting a fort at Inverlochy. As the season was now too far advanced to collect materials for such an erection, he proposed that a body of 1,500 pioneers should be levied in the northern counties, each of whom should be obliged to carry a spade, shovel, or pickaxe, along with him, and that a month’s provisions of meal, with horses to carry it, should be furnished, along with a force of 400 men. But this plan, the general himself confesses, “considering the inability, ignorance, and little forwardness of the government to furnish the necessary ingredients for the advance of their service, was built upon a sandy foundation, and much like the building of castles in the air.”[563] As an instance of the slowness and irresolution of government, Mackay mentions, that after his return from the north, they took three weeks to deliberate upon the mode of conveying a fortnight’s provisions for 400 men; by which delay he says he lost the opportunity of preventing Dundee from occupying Athole, Badenoch, and other parts of the southern Highlands.

The return of Mackay to the capital, after a fruitless and exceedingly harassing series of marches and countermarches, seems to have abated the ardour of some of the supporters of the government, who, disappointed in their expectations, and displeased at the preference shown by the court to others they considered less deserving than themselves, had become either indifferent about the result of the struggle, or secretly wished for a restoration. That such an event might occur was indeed far from improbable. James was already in possession, with the exception of two cities, of all Ireland, and William was by no means popular in England. To give, therefore, a decided and favourable turn to James’s affairs in Scotland, nothing was wanting but to aid Dundee immediately with a few thousand men from Ireland; but although the necessity of such a step was urged by Dundee in his communications with the exiled monarch, the latter did not, unfortunately for himself, consider the matter in the same light. The expectation of such a reinforcement, which they confidently looked for, had, however, its due effect upon the minds of the Highlanders, who gladly endured during the recent campaign all those painful privations which necessarily attend an army scantily provided with the means of subsistence. No man was better fitted by nature than Dundee for command under such difficulties, and at the head of such troops. Whilst by his openness, frankness, and disinterestedness he acquired an ascendency over the minds of the chiefs, he was equally successful by attending personally to their wants, by mixing frequently among them, and by sharing their privations and fatigues, in securing the obedience of the clans. But valuable and important as the services were of such a bold and devoted band, it was evident that without a sudden and powerful diversion from Ireland, or a considerable rising in the lowlands, it would be impossible for Dundee, from the paucity of his forces, and the want of cavalry, to carry the war into the south with any possible chance of success.

As the Irish reinforcements were daily expected, Dundee enjoined the chiefs of the clans, who, with their men, had taken a temporary leave of absence on the departure of Mackay, to rejoin him as soon as possible, and from his head-quarters at Moy, in Lochaber, he sent expresses to the other chiefs who had not yet joined him to hasten to the approaching muster.[564]

About the same time he despatched a letter to the Earl of Melfort, in which, after adverting to various circumstances, he advises him to send over from Ireland a body of 5,000 or 6,000 men to Inverlochy, which he considered the safest landing-place that could be selected as being “far from the enemy,” and whence an easy entrance could be obtained for an army into Moray, Angus, or Perthshire. On the return of the transports from Inverlochy, Dundee advised Melfort to send over as many foot as he conveniently could to the point of Cantyre, on hearing of whose landing he would advance as far as the neck of Tarbert to meet them, and that on the junction taking place, Dundee would march “to raise the country,” and afterwards proceed to the passes of the Forth to meet the king, who, it was supposed, would follow the expedition. To deceive Mackay and the Scottish council, and to induce them to withdraw their forces from the north, and thus leave him at greater liberty to organize it, Dundee industriously circulated a report that the forces from Ireland would land altogether in some quarter south of the Clyde. To give an appearance of certainty to the rumour, he wrote a letter to Lady Errol, a warm supporter of James’s interest, acquainting her of the expected landing in the west, and to prevent suspicion of any ruse being intended, he inclosed some proclamations, which, it is presumed, he intended to issue when the Irish arrived. As wished and anticipated, this despatch was intercepted and sent to Edinburgh. The device appears to have in part succeeded, as Dundee informs Melfort, that the government forces were afterwards withdrawn from Cantyre.[579]

Whilst Dundee was thus maturing his plans, preparatory to another campaign, Mackay was urging the privy council to supply him with a sufficient force, for carrying into effect his favourite plan of erecting a strong fortification at Inverlochy. This leads to the supposition that “the General,” a term by which Mackay distinguishes himself in his memoirs, had not taken the bait which had been prepared for him by his artful rival, for it is improbable, had Mackay believed the story invented by Dundee, that he would have insisted on carrying such a large force as 4,000 men, the number he required, into Lochaber, so very remote from the scene of the threatened invasion.

Having collected his forces, Mackay made the necessary preparations for his departure, but he was detained nearly a fortnight in Edinburgh, beyond the time he had fixed for his march, by the delays of the government, in furnishing meal for his troops, and horses for transporting it. In the meantime he was informed by Lord Murray, eldest son of the Marquis of Athole, that Stewart of Ballochin, his father’s chamberlain, and other gentlemen of the county of Angus, had taken possession of the castle of Blair Athole, belonging to the Marquis, and were fortifying it for behoof of King James. Lord Murray offered to go immediately to Athole, and do everything in his power to obtain possession of the castle of Blair, before Dundee should arrive. As Lord Murray’s wife was known to be very zealous for the presbyterian interest, and as his lordship and the Marquis his father, who was secretly hostile to the government, were at variance, Mackay gave a ready assent to the proposal, and pressed his lordship eagerly to depart for Athole without loss of time, informing him that all he required from him, was to prevent the Athole-men from joining Dundee.[584]

Lord Murray accordingly proceeded to Athole, where he arrived about the beginning of July, and lost no time in summoning his father’s vassals to meet him. About 1,200 of them assembled, but no entreaties could induce them to declare in favour of the government, nor could a distinct pledge be obtained from them to observe a neutrality during the impending contest. His lordship was equally unsuccessful in an application which he made to Stewart of Ballochin, for delivery of Blair castle; Stewart telling him that he held the castle for behoof of King James, by order of his lieutenant-general. The failure of Lord Murray’s mission could certainly occasion no disappointment, as it was not to be imagined that a body of men who had all along been distinguished for their attachment to the exiled family, were, at the call of a young man, who by marriage, and the disagreement with his father, may be supposed to have made himself obnoxious to the men of Athole, all at once to abandon long-cherished ideas and to arm in support of a cause in which they felt no interest.

About the period of Lord Murray’s arrival in Athole, intelligence was brought to Dundee that a body of 500 Irish troops, under an officer of the name of Cannon, had reached Mull. The viscount immediately proceeded to Inverlochy to give orders respecting their landing, but, although they all reached the mainland in perfect safety, the ships which carried their provisions being unnecessarily detained at Mull, were all captured by some English frigates which were cruizing amongst the western islands. The loss of their stores was a serious evil; and it embittered the disappointment felt by Dundee and the chiefs, to find that instead of an efficient force of 5,000 or 6,000 men, as they had been led to expect, not more than a tenth part had been sent, and even this paltry force was neither properly disciplined, nor sufficiently armed; so that, according to Balcarras, their arrival did “more harm than good.” Such also was the opinion of Mackay at the time, as expressed in a letter to Lord Melville.[585]

Having given the necessary orders for bringing up the Irish troops, Dundee returned to Strowan, where he had fixed his head quarters. Here he received a letter which had arrived during his absence at Inverlochy, from Lord Strathnaver, eldest son of the Earl of Sutherland, couched in very friendly terms, and advising him to follow the example of the Duke of Gordon, as the course he was following, if persisted in, would lead inevitably to his ruin. But Dundee was not the man who would allow his personal interest to interfere with the allegiance which he considered he owed to his exiled sovereign, and while in his answer he expressed a deep sense of the obligation he lay under to his lordship for his advice and offers of service, which he imputed to his lordship’s “sincere goodness and concern” for him and his family, he assured him that he (Dundee) had no less concern for him, and that he had been even thinking of making a proposal to him, but delayed doing so till his lordship should see things in a clearer point of view.

At Strowan, Dundee was made acquainted by Stewart of Ballochin, with Lord Murray’s proceedings, and with a demand made by his lordship for possession of Blair castle, a demand to which Ballochin had given the most decided refusal. The possession of this place was of vast importance to Dundee, as it commanded the entrance into the southern Highlands, and lay in the line of Mackay’s intended route to Inverlochy. To reward his fidelity, and to counteract Lord Murray’s influence in Athole, Dundee sent a commission to Ballochin, appointing him colonel of the Athole-men. The appointment, however, would probably have been conferred on Lord Murray, to whom Dundee had, on the 19th of July, two days before the date of Ballochin’s commission, despatched a letter, stating the happiness which he felt on hearing that his lordship had appointed a rendezvous of the Athole-men at Blair, and expressing a hope that he would join the viscount with his men; but, instead of answering this letter, his lordship sent it to Lord Melville, the secretary of state for Scotland. Such also was the fate of other letters, which Dundee sent to Lord Murray. Along with the last, which was written on the 25th of July, Dundee despatched Major Graham and Captain Ramsay for the purpose of obtaining a personal interview with Lord Murray; but he declined to see them, or to give any answer to Dundee’s communication. It appears that up to this time the Athole-men, who had, at the call of the son of their chief, assembled to the number of about 1,200, were ignorant of Lord Murray’s intentions; but when he refused to receive Dundee’s officers, they at once began to suspect his designs, and demanded with one voice an immediate explanation, intimating at the same time, that if he would join Dundee they would follow him to a man; but if on the contrary he refused, they would all leave him. His lordship remonstrated with them, and even threatened them with his vengeance if they abandoned him; but regardless of his threats, they left him to join Dundee, having previously filled their bonnets with water from the rivulet of Banovy, in the neighbourhood of Blair castle, and pledged themselves to King James by drinking his health.[586]

In the meantime the government general was busily engaged at Edinburgh, making the necessary preparations for his march. He appointed his troops to rendezvous at Perth, and after completing his arrangements at Edinburgh, he went to Stirling to inspect the castle, so as to make himself acquainted with its means of defence. In a letter[587] dated 24th July, written to Lord Melville on his arrival at Stirling, Mackay alludes to the distracted state of the government in Scotland, and the difficulty he would experience in executing the commission which the king had given him, to keep the kingdom peaceable, in consequence of the divisions which existed even between the adherents of the government. The removal from office of Stair the president of the court of session, and his son, who had rendered themselves obnoxious to the ultra whig party, by their attempts to stretch the royal prerogative too far, appears to have been considered by that party of more importance than keeping Dundee in check. So high did the spirit of party run, that the Earl of Annandale and Lord Ross, who had just been appointed colonels of two newly raised regiments of horse, refused to accompany their regiments, and offered to resign their commissions rather than quit the parliament. This state of matters was highly favourable to James’s interests in Scotland, and if Melfort had followed Dundee’s advice, by sending over a large force from Ireland, the cause of his royal master might have triumphed, but with that fatality which attended the unfortunate monarch in all his undertakings, he allowed to slip away the golden opportunity which was here offered him, of recovering his crown.

From Stirling Mackay proceeded to Perth, after ordering the troops of horse and dragoons of the expedition to follow him. On arriving at Perth, a letter was shown him from Lord Murray, from which he learned, that Dundee, who had been solicited by Stewart of Ballochin to hasten into Athole, was already marching through Badenoch, and so anxious was he to anticipate Mackay’s arrival in Athole, that he had left behind him several chiefs and their men, whose junction he daily expected. Lord Murray added, that if Mackay did not hasten his march so as to reach Athole before Dundee, he would not undertake to prevent his men from joining the viscount. As Mackay informs us, that before leaving Edinburgh he had begun “already to have very ill thoughts of the expedition in gross,” and as on reaching Stirling, the idea that he would be straitened for provisions haunted his mind, this information was assuredly by no means calculated to relieve these fearful apprehensions. He had gone too far, however, to retrace his steps with honour, and although four troops of dragoons and two of horse had not yet joined him, he resolved, for reasons that to him, in the position in which he was then placed, seemed most forcible, to proceed immediately on his march to Athole.

The last and perhaps most important reason given by himself for this step, is that, as the possession, by Mackay, of the castle of Blair, was in his opinion the only means of keeping in awe the Athole-men, (who, from their numbers and strict attachment to the house of Stewart, were more to be dreaded than any other body of Highlanders,) and preventing them from joining Dundee, he had no alternative but to allow Dundee to roam uncontrolled through the disaffected district of Athole, gathering strength at every step, or to attempt to gain the important fortress of Blair.

Such were the grounds, as stated by Mackay in his own exculpation, which made him resolve upon marching into Athole, and which, he observes, “more capable commanders might readily be deceived in.” Those who make the unfortunate result of this movement the rule of their judgment, will be apt to condemn Mackay’s conduct on this occasion as rash and injudicious, but when his own reasons are duly weighed, it is difficult to see how he could have acted otherwise than he did. There can be no doubt, that had he been as successful at Killiecrankie as he was unfortunate, he would have been applauded for the exercise of a sound discretion, and regarded as a tactician of the highest order.

On the 26th of July, Mackay left Perth at the head of an army of 4,500 men. Of this force, notwithstanding that the four troops of dragoons and two of horse already alluded to, had not yet arrived, a fair proportion consisted of cavalry. At night Mackay encamped opposite to Dunkeld, and here, at midnight, he received an express from Lord Murray announcing the alarming intelligence, that Dundee had entered Athole, in consequence of which event he informed him that he had retreated from before the castle of Blair, which he had for some time partially blockaded; and that although he had left the narrow and difficult pass of Killiecrankie between him and Dundee, he had posted a guard at the further extremity to secure a free passage to Mackay’s troops through the pass which he supposed Dundee had already reached. Mackay seems to have doubted the latter part of this statement, and his suspicions were in some degree confirmed by the fact, that Lieutenant-colonel Lauder, whom he despatched with a party immediately on receipt of Murray’s letter, to secure the entrance into the pass from the vale of Blair, did not see a single man on his arrival there.

Discouraging as this intelligence was, Mackay still determined to persevere in his march, and having despatched orders to Perth to hasten the arrival of the six troops of cavalry he had left behind, he put his army in motion next morning, July 27th, at day-break, and proceeded in the direction of the pass, the entrance to which he reached at ten o’clock in the morning. Here he halted, and allowed his men two hours to rest and refresh themselves before they entered upon the bold and hazardous enterprise of plunging themselves into a frightful chasm, out of which they might possibly never return. To support Lauder in case of attack, the general, on halting, despatched through the pass a body of 200 men under the command of the Lieutenant-colonel of the Earl of Leven’s regiment, whom he instructed to send him any intelligence he could obtain of Dundee’s motions. A short way below the pass Mackay fell in with Lord Murray, who informed him, that with the exception of 200 or 300 men, who still remained with him, the whole had gone to the hills to secure their cattle, an answer which Mackay, with the open and unsuspecting generosity of a soldier, considered satisfactory, and made him, as he observes, “not so apt to judge so ill of Murray as others did.”

Having received a notice from Lauder that the pass was clear, and that there was no appearance of Dundee, Mackay put his army again in motion, and entered the fatal pass. Hastings’s regiment (now the 13th), and Annandale’s horse were placed behind to protect the baggage, from an apprehension that Dundee’s Highlanders might make a detour round the hill to attack it, or that the country people might attempt to plunder it if not so guarded. The idea that no opposition would be offered to their passage through this terrific defile, which seemed to forbid approach, and to warn the unhappy soldier of the dangers which awaited him should he precipitate himself into its recesses, may have afforded some consolation to the feelings of Mackay’s troops as they entered this den of desolation; but when they found themselves fairly within its gorge, their imaginations must have been appalled as they gazed, at every successive step, on the wild and terrific objects which encompassed them on every side. They however proceeded, at the command of their general, on their devious course, and finally cleared it, with the loss of only a single horseman, who, according to an Athole tradition, was shot by an intrepid adventurer, named Ian Ban Beg MacRan, who had posted himself on a hill, from which he fired across the rivulet of the Garry and brought down his victim. A well, called in Gaelic, Fuaran u trupar,--Anglicé, the “Horseman’s well,”--is shown as the place where the horseman fell.

As soon as the five battalions and the troop of horse which preceded the baggage had debouched from the further extremity of the pass, they halted, by command of the general, upon a corn field, along the side of the river to await the arrival of the baggage, and of Hastings’s regiment and the other troop of horse. Mackay then ordered Lieutenant-colonel Lauder to advance with his 200 fusileers and a troop of horse in the direction he supposed Dundee might be expected to appear. Lauder had not advanced far when he discovered some parties of Dundee’s forces between him and Blair. Being immediately apprised of this by Lauder, Mackay, after giving orders to Colonel Balfour to supply the troops with ammunition, and to put them under arms without delay, galloped off to the ground, from which Lauder had espied the enemy, to observe their motions before making choice of the field of battle. On arriving at the advanced post, Mackay observed several small parties of troops, scarcely a mile distant, marching slowly along the foot of a hill in the direction of Blair, and advancing towards him. Mackay, thereupon, sent orders to Balfour to advance immediately up to him with the foot. But these orders were no sooner despatched than he observed some bodies of Dundee’s forces marching down a high hill within a quarter of a mile from the place where he stood, in consequence of which movement, he immediately galloped back to his men to countermand the order he had just issued, and to put his army in order of battle.[588]

Dundee, who had been duly advertised of Mackay’s motions, had descended from the higher district of Badenoch into Athole on the previous day, with a force of about 2,500 men, of whom about one-fifth part consisted of the Irish, which had lately landed at Inverlochy under Brigadier Cannon. Some of the clans which were expected had not yet joined, as the day appointed for the general rendezvous had not then arrived; but as Dundee considered it of paramount importance to prevent Mackay from establishing himself in Athole, he did not hesitate to meet the latter, whose force numbered about 4,000.[589]

On his arrival at the castle of Blair, intelligence was brought Dundee that Mackay had reached the pass of Killiecrankie, which he was preparing to enter. Dundee, against the advice of most of his officers, resolved to allow Mackay to enter the pass undisputed. He appealed to the feelings of the Highlanders, whose ancestors, he said, acting upon their national maxim never to attack a foe who could not defend himself on equal terms, would have disdained to adopt the course proposed, (and in saying so he did not, he observed, mean to insinuate that the persons he addressed had degenerated from the honour and courage of their ancestors). One principal reason stated by Dundee for allowing Mackay to advance through the Pass unmolested, was the great advantage they would gain by engaging him on open ground before he should be joined by his English dragoons, who, from their being so formidable to the Highlanders, would, if allowed by him to come up, more than compensate for any accession of force which Dundee might receive.[590] Another reason not less important was, that in the event of Mackay sustaining a defeat, his army would probably be ruined, as he could not retreat back through the Pass without the risk of evident destruction, whereas should the Highlanders suffer a defeat, they could easily retreat to the mountains. He added, that in anticipation of Mackay’s defeat, he had already given orders to his friends in the neighbourhood, to cut off the few remaining stragglers that might attempt to escape.[591]

The forces which had been descried by Lauder, appear to have been a body of 400 men under the command of Sir John Maclean, whom Dundee, on learning that the advanced guard of Mackay’s army, after traversing the pass, had taken up a position near its northern extremity, had despatched from Blair castle to keep them in check. But his scouts having shortly thereafter brought him notice that the whole of Mackay’s army was preparing to enter the pass, he resolved to make a detour with the main body of his army round the hill on which the castle of Lude stands, in the vicinity of the pass, and fall upon Mackay as soon as he should clear that defile. Having made himself acquainted, by inquiries among the most intelligent of the country people, with the localities in the immediate neighbourhood of the pass, and of the suitableness of the ground for the operations of such a force as his, he advanced at double-quick time from Blair along the present line of road, and on arriving at the river Tilt, turned off to the left round the back of the hill, and crossed that river near its confluence with the rivulet of Ald-Chluan. This movement will account for the sudden and unexpected appearance of Dundee on the face of the high hill on Mackay’s right.

Immediately above the ground on which Mackay had halted his troops is an eminence, the access to which is steep and difficult, and covered with trees and shrubs. Alarmed lest Dundee should obtain possession of this eminence--which being within a carabine shot from the place on which Mackay stood, would give him such a command of the ground as would enable him, by means of his fire, to force Mackay to cross the river in confusion--he, immediately on his return from the position occupied by his advanced guard, “made every battalion form by a Quart de Conversion to the right upon the ground where they stood,”[592] and then made them march each in succession before him up the hill till they reached the eminence, of which they took possession. Within a musket shot of this ground is another eminence immediately above the house of Urrard, which Dundee had reached before Mackay had completed his ascent, and on which he halted.

At this conjuncture, neither Hastings’s regiment nor Annandale’s troop of horse had yet come out of the pass, but Mackay, nevertheless, at once proceeded to arrange his men in fighting order on a plain between the edge of the eminence and the foot or commencement of the ascent to Dundee’s position, which, from its extent, enabled him to form his men in one line along the eminence. In making his dispositions, Mackay divided every battalion into two parts, and as he meant to fight three deep, he left a small distance between each of these sub-battalions. In the centre of his line, however, he left a greater interval of space, behind which he placed the two troops of horse, with the design, when the Highlanders, after the fire of the line had been spent, should approach, to draw them off by this larger interval, and flank the Highlanders on either side, as occasion should offer. Mackay assigns as his reason for placing his cavalry in his rear till the fire should be exhausted on both sides, a dread he entertained of exposing them to Dundee’s horse, with whom it could not be supposed that these newly-raised levies could cope. Hastings’s regiment, which arrived after Mackay had taken up his ground, was placed on the right; and, for greater security, there was added to it a detachment of firelocks from each battalion. On the extreme left on a hillock covered with trees, Lieutenant-colonel Lauder was posted, with his party of 200 men, composed of the elite of the army. Mackay having been recognised by Dundee’s men busily employed riding along his line, from battalion to battalion, giving orders, was selected by some of them for a little ball practice; but although “their popping shot,” which wounded some of his men, fell around him wherever he moved, he escaped unhurt.

After his line had been fully formed, Mackay rode along the front, from the left wing, which he committed to the charge of Brigadier Balfour, to the right, and having ascertained that every thing was in readiness to receive the enemy, he addressed the battalions nearest him in a short speech. He requested them to reflect that their own personal safety was involved in the issue of that day’s contest; and assured them that if they maintained their ground, and kept firmly and closely united together, their assailants would quickly flee before them for refuge to the hills--that the reason for which the Highlanders stript themselves almost naked before battle was rather to enable them to escape, than from any hopes they entertained of pursuing their foes. Should, however, his men unfortunately give way before the rabble of Highlanders whom they saw marshalled on the adjoining heights--an event which he by no means expected--there was an absolute certainty, as these naked mountaineers were more nimble-footed than they were, and as all the Athole-men were in arms, ready to take advantage of their defeat, that few or none of them would escape with their lives. In conclusion, he warned them that the only way to avoid ruin was to stand firm to their posts, and, like brave men, to fight to the last in defence of their religion and liberties, against the invaders of both, to secure which, and not the desire of a crown, was the sole reason which had induced his majesty to send them on the present service.

Whilst Mackay was thus occupied on the lower platform, his gallant rival was equally busy flying about on the eminence above, ranging his men in battle array. He was particularly distinguished amongst his officers by a favourite dun-coloured horse which he rode, and by his plated armour, which glittered in the sun-beams. Dundee, who had arrived upon the higher platform about the same time that Mackay had gained the ground he now occupied, ranged his men in one line in the following order:--On the right, he placed Sir John Maclean, with his regiment divided into two battalions. On the left, he posted the regiment of Sir Donald Macdonald, commanded by the young chief and Sir George Barclay, and a battalion under Sir Alexander Maclean. In the centre were placed four battalions, consisting of the Camerons, the Macdonells of Glengary and Clanranald, and the Irish regiment, with a troop of horse under the command of Sir William Wallace, who had early that morning produced a commission, to the great displeasure of the Earl of Dunfermline and other officers, appointing him colonel of a horse regiment which the earl commanded.[593] It may be observed, that neither Mackay nor Dundee placed any body of reserve behind their lines.

The great extent of Mackay’s line, which reached considerably beyond Dundee’s wings,[594] compelled the latter, to prevent the danger of being outflanked, to enlarge the intervals between his battalions. A general movement from right to left accordingly took place along Dundee’s line. Before Dundee’s left halted, Mackay, imagining that the object of the movement in that quarter was to get between him and the pass, for the purpose of cutting off all communication between him and Perth, made his line make a corresponding movement to his right, but on observing that Dundee’s left wing halted, Mackay brought his line to a stand. These different movements necessarily occupied a considerable time, and both armies being now finally arranged, they gazed upon each other with great composure for the space of two whole hours.

During this interval of care and anxious suspense, the feelings of both parties--their hopes or their fears--would probably be tinctured by a deeper hue of confidence or despondency as they reflected on the events of former days. Though more than forty years had elapsed since the brilliant achievements of Montrose, the Highlanders,[595] naturally brave, had lost none of their military ardour, and the descendants of the heroes of Tippermuir, Aldearn, and Kilsyth, who now stood in battle array on the upper plain, whence, with a scowl of scorn and defiance, they looked down upon the Sassenachs below, calling to mind the recital of the heroic deeds of their fathers, to which they had listened with wonder and enthusiasm in their childhood, would burn for the moment when, at the command of their chief, they should measure their broad swords with the bayonets of their Lowland foes. On the other hand, Mackay’s men had no such recollections to inspire confidence or to cheer them in their perilous enterprise, and when they beheld the Highland host ready at a moment’s notice to burst like a mountain torrent upon their devoted heads, and called to mind the tales they had heard of the warlike prowess of the Highlanders, they could not but recoil at the idea of encountering, in deadly strife, such determined antagonists. There were, it is true, many men in Mackay’s army to whom the dangers of the battle field were familiar, and in whose minds such reflections would doubtless find no place, but the great majority of his troops consisted of newly raised levies, who had never before seen the face of an enemy.

Mackay himself, though an old and experienced officer, and a brave man, was not without his misgivings; and as the evening advanced without any movement on the part of Dundee to commence the action, his uneasiness increased. Nor were his apprehensions likely to be allayed by the reply made by the second son of Lochiel, who held a commission in his own regiment of Scots fusileers, in answer to a question put to him by Mackay. “Here is your father with his wild savages,” said Mackay to the young man, on seeing the standard of the Camerons, putting on at the same moment an air of confidence, “how would you like to be with him?” “It signifies little,” answered the son of the chief, “what I would like, but I recommend to you to be prepared; or perhaps my father and his wild savages may be nearer to you before night than you would like.”[596] The apparent irresolution of the Highlanders to begin the battle was considered by Mackay as intentional, and he supposed that their design was to wait till nightfall, when, by descending suddenly from their position, and setting up a loud shout, according to their usual custom, they expected to frighten his men, unaccustomed to an enemy, and put them in disorder. As Mackay could not, without the utmost danger, advance up the hill and commence the action, and as the risk was equally great should he attempt to retreat down the hill and cross the river, he resolved, at all hazards, to remain in his position, “though with impatience,” as he observes, till Dundee should either attack him or retire, which he had better opportunities of doing than Mackay had. To provoke the Highlanders, and to induce them to engage, he ordered three small leather field pieces to be discharged, but they proved of little use, and the carriages being much too high, broke after the third firing.

Towards the close of the evening, some of Dundee’s sharpshooters, who had kept up, during the day, an occasional fire in the direction in which they observed Mackay moving, by which they had wounded some of his men, as already stated, took possession of some houses upon the ascent which lay between the two armies, for the purpose of directing their aim with surer effect. But they were immediately dislodged by a party of musketeers despatched by Mackay’s brother, who commanded the general’s regiment, and chased back to their main body with some loss. This skirmish Mackay supposed would soon draw on a general engagement, and his expectations were speedily realized.

It was within half an hour of sunset, and the moment was at hand, when, at the word of command, the Highlanders and their allies were to march down the hill, and with sword in hand, fall upon the trembling and devoted host below, whom, like the eagle viewing his destined prey from his lofty eyry, they had so long surveyed. Having determined, as much to please his men as to gratify his own inclination, to lead the charge in person, at the head of the horse, Dundee exchanged his red coat, which he had worn during the day, and by which he had been recognised by Mackay’s troops, for another of darker colour, to conceal his rank, and thereby avoid the risk of being singled out by the enemy. Dundee, after the manner of the ancient Greek and Roman generals, is said to have harangued his men in the following enthusiastic strain:--[597]

“You are come hither to fight, and that in the best of causes; for it is the battle of your king, your religion, and your country, against the foulest usurpation and rebellion. And having therefore so good a cause in your hands, I doubt not but it will inspire you with an equal courage to maintain it; for there is no proportion betwixt loyalty and treason, nor should there be any betwixt the valour of good subjects and traitors. Remember that to-day begins the fate of your king, your religion, and your country. Behave yourselves, therefore, like true Scotsmen, and let us by this action redeem the credit of this nation, that is laid low by the treacheries and cowardice of some of our countrymen, in making which request, I ask nothing of you that I am not now ready to do myself. And if any of us shall fall upon this occasion, we shall have the honour of dying on our duty, and as becomes true men of valour and conscience; and such of us as shall live and win the battle, shall have the reward of a gracious king and the praise of all good men. In God’s name, then, let us go on, and let this be your word--King James and the church of Scotland, which God long preserve!”[598]

A pause now ensued, and a death-like silence prevailed along the line, when, on a sudden, it appeared in motion, marching slowly down the hill. The Highlanders, who stript themselves to their shirts and doublets, advanced, according to their usual practice, with their bodies bent forward, so as to present as small a surface as possible to the fire of the enemy, the upper part of their bodies being covered by their targets.

To discourage the Highlanders in their advance by keeping up a continual fire, Mackay had given instructions to his officers commanding battalions, to commence firing by platoons, at the distance of a hundred paces. This order was not attended to, as Balfour’s regiment, and the half of Ramsay’s, did not fire a single shot, and the other half fired very little. The Highlanders, however, met with a very brisk fire from Mackay’s right, and particularly from his own battalion, in which no less than 16 gentlemen of the Macdonells of Glengarry fell; but, undismayed by danger, they kept steadily advancing in the face of the enemy’s fire, of which they received three rounds. Having now come close up to the enemy, they halted for a moment, and having levelled and discharged their pistols, which did little execution, they set up a loud shout and rushed sword in hand upon the enemy, before the latter had time to screw on their bayonets to the end of their muskets. The shock was too impetuous to be long resisted by men who, according to their own general, “behaved, with the exception of Hastings’s and Leven’s regiment, like the vilest cowards in nature.” But even had these men been more stout-hearted, their courage would not have availed them, as their arms were insufficient to parry off the tremendous strokes of the axes, and the broad and double-edged swords of the Highlanders, who, with a single blow, either felled their opponents to the earth or struck off a member from their bodies, and at once disabled them. While the work of death was thus going on towards the right, Dundee, at the head of the horse, made a furious charge on Mackay’s own battalion, and broke through it, on which the English horse which were stationed behind, fled without firing a single shot. Dundee, thereupon, rode off to attack the enemy’s cannon, but the officer (Sir William Wallace) who had that morning produced his commission as colonel of the horse, appears to have misunderstood Dundee, who, on arriving near the enemy’s cannon, found himself alone. He, therefore, gave the horse a signal to advance quickly, on which the Earl of Dunfermline, who then served only as a volunteer, overlooking the affront which had been put upon him, rode out of the ranks, followed by 16 gentlemen, attacked the party who guarded the cannon, and captured them.

As soon as Mackay perceived that Dundee’s grand point of attack was near the centre of his line, he immediately resolved to attack the Highlanders in flank with the two troops of horse which he had placed in the rear of his line, for which purpose he ordered Lord Belhaven to proceed round the left wing with his own troop, and attack them on their right flank; he ordered at the same time the other troop to proceed in the contrary direction, and assail them on their left. Mackay himself led round Belhaven’s troop, but it was scarcely in front of the line when it got into disorder, and instead of obeying the orders to wheel for the flank of the enemy, after some confused firing it turned upon the right wing of Lord Kenmure’s battalion, which it threw into disorder, and which thereupon began to give way.

At this critical moment Mackay, who was instantly surrounded by a crowd of Highlanders, anxious to disentangle his cavalry, so as to get them formed, called aloud to them to follow him, and putting spurs to his horse galloped through the enemy, but with the exception of one servant whose horse was shot under him, not a single horseman attempted to follow their general. When he had gone sufficiently far to be out of the reach of immediate danger, he turned round to observe the state of matters, and to his infinite surprise he found that both armies had disappeared. To use his own expression, “in the twinkling of an eye, in a manner,” his own men as well as the enemy were out of sight, having gone down pell-mell to the river where his baggage stood. The flight of his men must have been rapid indeed, for although the left wing, which had never been attacked, had begun to flee before he rode off, the right wing and centre still kept their ground.

Mackay now stood in one of the most extraordinary predicaments in which the commander of an army was ever placed. His whole men had, as if by some supernatural cause, disappeared almost in an instant of time, and he found himself standing a solitary being on the mountain side, not knowing what to do, or whither to direct his course. Whether had they had the courage to follow him, the timid troop would have turned the tide of victory in his favour, may indeed be well doubted; but it is obvious that he adopted the only alternative which could render success probable. Judging from the ease with which he galloped through the Highlanders, who made way for him, he thinks that if he had had but 50 resolute horse such as Colchester’s, he “had certainly,” as he says, “by all human appearance recovered all,” for although his whole line had begun to give way when he ordered the horse to follow him, the right of the enemy had not then moved from their ground.[599] While ruminating upon the “sad spectacle” which he now beheld, his mind preyed upon by the most gloomy reflections, he fortunately espied to the right, “a small heap of red coats,” which he immediately galloped for, and found it to consist of a part of the Earl of Leven’s regiment, mixed with a few stragglers from other regiments who had escaped from the swords of the Highlanders. The Earl himself, his Lieutenant-colonel, the Major, and most of the other officers of the regiment, were with this body. Mackay perceived a part of Hastings’s regiment marching up to the ground it had occupied at the commencement of the action. Having rode up to this party, he was informed by the Colonel that he had left his ground in pursuit of the enemy, a detachment of which had attempted to outflank him, but having wheeled to the right upon them with his pikes, they abandoned the idea of attacking him, and repaired to their main body, which they observed among the baggage at the river-side.

The plunder which the baggage offered was too tempting a lure for the Highlanders, whose destructive progress it at once arrested. It was in fact solely to this thirst for spoil that Mackay and the few of his men who escaped owed their safety, for had the Highlanders continued the pursuit, it is very probable that not a single individual of Mackay’s army would have been left alive to relate their sad disaster.[600]

As soon as Mackay had got up Hastings’s battalion and joined it to that of Leven’s, he despatched his nephew, Captain Mackay,--who, though he had received eight broad-sword wounds on his body, was still able to ride his horse,--in quest of such of his officers as might be within his reach, about the bottom of the hill, with orders to collect as many of their men as they could, and join the general.

This mission was totally unsuccessful, for although he had fallen in with several officers, few of them took any notice of him; and all who had survived the battle were now scattered far beyond Mackay’s reach. While receiving this afflicting intelligence, Mackay descried in the twilight, a large body of men, who appeared to form themselves along the edge of a wood on Balfour’s left, where Lieutenant-colonel Lauder had been posted with 200 men. As he was not yet aware of the fate of Lauder’s corps, which was among the first that fled, he supposed that the body he had observed might either be that party or another body of his men who had retired to the wood on the descent of the Highlanders, and he therefore rode off to reconnoitre them, after directing his officers to endeavour to put their men in a condition to fire one discharge, at least, if attacked. Mackay approached the party sufficiently near to discover that they were Dundee’s men, and having turned his horse’s head he walked slowly back, that he might not excite the apprehensions of the Highlanders. The ground on which Mackay stood with the wreck of his army, amounting to scarcely 400 men, was the farthest removed of any other part of the position he had selected in the morning, from the point to which he was necessarily obliged to direct his retreat, and over the intervening space he could not but expect to fall in with parties of the Highlanders, who would fall upon him, and kill or disperse his tired followers. But he extricated himself from the difficulties which beset him, with considerable adroitness. He advised them on no account to show any inclination to run, as it could not add to their personal safety, but, on the contrary, might endanger it the more, as the Highlanders, observing their terror, would certainly break in among them, and pursue them with the greater avidity. When about to retire down the hill the party was joined by Lord Belhaven, and a few other horsemen, who proved very serviceable as scouts during the retreat. Mackay then led his men slowly down the hill, and evaded the enemy so completely that he did not meet with the least interruption in his march. He retired across the Garry without molestation, and made a short halt to ascertain whether he was pursued. Seeing no disposition on the part of the Highlanders to follow him, he began to think of the best way of retiring out of Athole. All his officers advised him to return to Perth through the pass of Killiecrankie, but he saw proper to reject this advice, and resolved to march several miles up Athole and cross over the hills to Stirling.

Giving orders, therefore, to his men to march, he proceeded to the west along the bank of the river, and had the satisfaction, when about two miles from the field of battle, to come up with a party of about 150 fugitives almost without arms, under the command of Colonel Ramsay, who was quite at a loss what direction to take. Mackay then continued his march along the edge of a rivulet which falls into the Garry, till he came to some little houses. Here he obtained from one of the inhabitants, information as to the route he meant to follow, and having made himself acquainted, as far as he could, by an examination of his map, with the situation of the country through which he had to pass, he crossed the stream and proceeded across the hills towards Weem castle, the seat of the chief of the clan Menzies, whose son had been in the action with a company of 100 Highlanders he had raised for the service of the government. After a most fatiguing journey, he reached the castle before morning. Here he obtained some sleep and refreshment, of which he stood greatly in need, having since his departure from Dunkeld, on the morning preceding, marched about 40 miles.

The news of Mackay’s defeat had preceded his retreat; and on his march during the following day, he found the country through which he passed in an uproar, and every person arming in favour of King James. The people of Strathtay alarmed at the approach of Mackay’s men, whom they took to be Highlanders, and considering their houses and cattle in danger, set up a dreadful shout, which so frightened Mackay’s men that they began to flee back to the hills under an apprehension that the Highlanders were at hand. Mackay and some of his officers on horseback, by presenting their pistols and threatening the fugitives, succeeded in rallying them, but owing to the thickness of the morning more than 100 escaped, all of whom were killed, stripped, or taken prisoners by the country people. Mackay continued his march with very little halting all that day, being Sunday the 28th, and arrived late at night at Drummond castle, in which he had a garrison. Next day he reached Stirling with about 400 men.

On the morning after the battle--for night had thrown its curtain over the horrors of the scene, before the extent of the carnage could be ascertained--the field of battle and the ground between it and the river, extending as far as the pass, presented an appalling spectacle in the vast numbers of the dead which strewed the field, whose mutilated bodies attested the savage and unrelenting ferocity with which Mackay’s men had been hewn down by the Highlanders. Here might be seen a skull which had been struck off above the ears by a stroke from a broad-sword--there a head lying near the trunk from which it had been severed--here an arm or a limb--there a corpse laid open from the head to the brisket; while interspersed among these lifeless trunks, dejectaque membra, were to be seen broken pikes, small swords and muskets, which had been snapt asunder by the athletic blows of the Lochaber axe and broad-sword.[601]

If the importance of a victory is to be reckoned by the comparative numbers of the slain, and the brilliant achievements of the victors, the battle of Killiecrankie may well stand high in the list of military exploits. Considering the shortness of the combat, the loss on the part of Mackay was prodigious. Not less than 2,000 of his men were either killed or captured. Among the slain were Lieutenant-colonel Mackay, brother of the General, Brigadier Balfour, and several other officers. Highland tradition reports that Balfour was cut down by the Reverend Robert Stewart, a Catholic clergyman, nephew to Stewart of Ballochin, for having contemptuously refused to receive quarter when offered him by the priest. The same tradition relates that Stewart, who was a powerful muscular man, followed the enemy in their flight down to the river, and towards the pass, wielding a tremendous broad-sword, with which he cut down numbers of the fugitives, and so much did he exert himself in the use of his fatal weapon, that, at the conclusion of the carnage, his hand had swollen to such an extent, that it could only be extricated from the basket-hilt of his sword, by cutting away the net-work.

But as the importance of a victory, however splendid in itself, or distinguished by acts of individual prowess, can only be appreciated by its results, the battle of Killiecrankie, instead of being advantageous to the cause of King James, was, by the death of the brave Dundee, the precursor of its ruin. After he had charged at the head of his horse, and driven the enemy from their cannon, he was about to proceed up the hill to bring down Sir Donald Macdonald’s regiment, which appeared rather tardy in its motions, when he received a musket shot in his side, through an opening of his armour, the ball probably passing out in front through the centre of his breastplate (See Plate of Dundee’s Armour).[602] He attempted to ride a little, but was unable, and fell from his horse mortally wounded, and almost immediately expired.[603] The loss on the side of Dundee was never properly ascertained, but is supposed to have been about 900.

Among the slain, Alister Dhu (black Alexander) the chief of Glengarry, who, at the head of his battalion, mowed down two men at every stroke, with his ponderous two-handed sword, had to lament the loss of a brother, several other relatives, and still nearer and dearer to him, of his son, Donald, surnamed Gorm, from the blueness of his eyes. This youth, who had exhibited early proofs of bravery worthy of his name, and the race whence he sprung, killed, it is said, 18 of the enemy with his own hand. No less than five cousins of Sir Donald Macdonald of the isles fell, together with the tutor of Macdonald of Largo and his sons. Colonel Gilbert Ramsay, and the brave laird of Pitcur, “who, like a moving castle in the shape of men, threw fire and sword on all sides,”[604] were also numbered with the dead on this eventful day.[605]

In the Viscount Dundee, King James lost the only man in Scotland possessed of all the qualifications necessary for conducting to a successful issue the great and important charge which had been committed to him by his sovereign. Educated in the strictest principles of toryism, he could never divest his mind of the abstract ideas of passive obedience and hereditary right, and to him, therefore, any attempt to resist the authority of the sovereign, no matter how far that authority was abused, appeared highly treasonable. Though a sincere Protestant Episcopalian, the heresy of the successor of Charles II. as the religion of James must have appeared to him, in no respect altered his ideas of implicit fidelity to the sovereign, nor did his views undergo any change when the arbitrary and unconstitutional proceedings of James seemed to the leading men of the nation to have solved the great political problem, when resistance should commence and obedience end.[606] In his eye, therefore, the revolution which drove the unfortunate James from his throne, was a great national sin, which could only be atoned for by restoring to him his crown, an object, in the accomplishment of which, he conceived all good men were bound to lend a helping hand. These ideas ingrafted upon a temperament peculiarly sanguine, made him an enthusiast in favour of hereditary right, and his appointment by the fallen monarch as the chosen one by whose instrumentality his restoration was to be effected, imparted a charm to his enthusiasm which dispelled every difficulty that appeared to obstruct the grand object of his ambition and his hopes. With an inflexibility of purpose, which no temptation could overcome, he steadily pursued the course which the duty he conceived he owed to his sovereign and the natural inclination of his own mind directed him to follow. But Dundee had not merely the will, but, what was of no less importance, the ability, had he lived, to have executed the commission intrusted to him, one of his highest qualifications for such a purpose--considering the fickle and unruly bands he had to command--being that he stood unrivalled among his contemporaries in the art of gaining the affections of his troops, and communicating to them a full measure of the spirit which animated himself. His death, therefore, was a fatal blow to James’s prospects, and with him the cause of the Stuarts may be said to have perished. Dundee and his friend Pitcur were interred in the church of Blair-Athole. “Never vaulted roof or marble monument covered the last abode of a more restless and ambitious heart than that which has slept in this quiet spot amidst peasant dust.”[607]

FOOTNOTES:

[556] General Hugh Mackay, third son of Colonel Hugh Mackay of Scowry, was born about 1640. Soon after the Restoration in 1660, he obtained an ensign’s commission in the Royal Scots, now the Scots Greys, and accompanied it to France on that corps being lent by Charles II. to the French king. In 1669 he entered the Venetian service, in which he distinguished himself. Leaving the service of that republic, he again went to France, where he obtained a captaincy in Douglas’s regiment. After serving under Marshal Turenne, in the campaign in the Netherlands, in 1672, Captain Mackay offered his services to the Prince of Orange, who gave him the commission of Major in one of the Scotch regiments, then serving in Holland. After reaching the rank of Colonel in the Dutch service, Mackay was invited to England by James II., from whom, on the 4th of June, 1685, he received the appointment of major-general, or commander in chief, of the forces in Scotland; and was admitted a member of the Scottish Privy Council, by virtue of a warrant from the king, dated the 18th of the same month. But disliking the arbitrary proceedings of James, or preferring the service of his son-in-law, Mackay resigned his commission in 1686, and returned to Holland. The prince raised him to the rank of Major-general, and gave him the command of the British regiments, with which he invaded England. By a warrant signed by William and Mary, dated from Kensington, 4th January, 1689, Mackay was appointed “Major-general of all forces whatever, within our ancient kingdom of Scotland.” Mackay was raised to the rank of Lieutenant-general in 1690, and was killed at the battle of Steinkirk, 3d August, 1692.

[557] “To the regular trained officers, such an army as he commanded was as unstable and capricious as a giddy mob. If he did not study the peculiarities of the race, and of each individual clan, some untoward accident was ever occurring to vex his disciplinarian spirit, and make him suspect that the cause was ruined; and if he did not at once recognise and yield to the peculiarities as they occurred, a trifle might readily sacrifice the army or the cause,--for the Highland soldier’s immediate cause was his leader or his clan. The succession to the crown of Britain, or the preservation of the constitution were distant and secondary objects, to be sacrificed without hesitation to any question of precedence or etiquette.”--Burton’s Scotland from the Revolution, vol. i. pp. 101-103.--“If anything good was brought him (Dundee) to eat, he sent it to a faint or sick soldier. If a soldier was weary, he offered to carry his arms. He kept those who were with him from sinking under their fatigues, not so much by exhortation, as by preventing them from attending to their sufferings. For this reason he walked on foot with the men; now by the side of one clan, and anon by that of another. He amused them with jokes. He flattered them with his knowledge of their genealogies. He animated them by a recital of the deeds of their ancestors, and of the verses of their bards. It was one of his maxims, that no general should fight with an irregular army, unless he was acquainted with every man he commanded. Yet, with these habits of familiarity, the severity of his discipline was dreadful. The only punishment he inflicted was death. ‘All other punishments,’ he said, ‘disgraced a gentleman, and all who were with him were of that rank; but that death was a relief from the consciousness of crime.’ It is reported of him, that, having seen a youth fly in his first action, he pretended he had sent him to the rear on a message. The youth fled a second time. He brought him to the front of the army, and saying, ‘That a gentleman’s son ought not to fall by the hands of a common executioner,’ shot him with his own pistol.”--Dalrymple’s Memoirs, part ii. p. 47.

[558] Mackay’s Memoirs.

[559] Memoirs of Dundee.--Burton’s Scotland from the Revolution, vol. i. p. 112.

[560] Scotland from Revolution, vol. i. p. 114.

[561] “Lord Athole, Lord Tarbet, and Lord Breadalbane, men of great power in the North, were prevailed upon to give him no disturbance: The two first because they thought themselves neglected by the new government; the last to make himself necessary to it.”--Dalrymple’s Memoirs, Part ii. p. 45.

[562] P. 38, of Bannatyne club edition.

[563] Memoirs, p. 46.

[564] The following letter to Macleod of Macleod shows Dundee’s notion of his prospects at this time:--

“For the LAIRD of MACLEOD.[565]

“MOY, Jun 23, 1689.

“SIR,--Glengaire gave me ane account of the substance of a letter he receaved from yow: I shall only tell yow, that if you heasten not to land your men, I am of opinion yow will have litle occasion to do the king great service; for if he land in the west of Scotland, yow will come too late, as I believe yow will thinck yourself by the news I have to tell yow. The Prince of Orange hath wreaten to the Scots councell not to fatig his troops any more by following us in the hills, but to draw them together in a body to the west; and, accordingly, severall of the forces that were in Pearthshire and Angus, are drawn to Edinr., and some of Mackay’s regments are marcht that way from him.... Some of the French fleet hath been seen amongst the islands, and hath taken the two Glasgow frigats. The king, being thus master by sea and land, hath nothing to do but bring over his army, which many people fancy is landed alraidy in the west. He will have little to oppose him there, and will probably march towards England; so that we who are in the graitest readiness will have ado to join him. I have received by Mr. Hay a commission of lieutenant-general, which miscairied by Breidy. I have also receaved a double of a letter miscairied by Breidy to me, and a new letter, dated the 18th of May; both which are so kind, that I am asham’d to tell. He counts for great services, which I am conscious to myself that I have hardly done my deutie. He promises not only to me, but to all that will join, such marks of favor, as after ages shall see what honour and advantage there is, in being loyall. He sayes, in express terms, that his favours shall vy with our loyalty. He hath, by the same letters, given full power of councell to such councellors here, as shall be joined in the king’s service, and given us power, with the rest of his freends, to meet in a convention, by his authority, to counteract the mock convention at Edinr., whom he hath declaired traitours, and comanded all his loyall subjects to make warr against them; in obedience to which, I have called all the clannes. Captain of Glenrannald[566] is near us these severall days; the laird of Baro[567] is there with his men. I am persuaded Sir Donald[568] is there by this. M’Clean[569] lands in Morven to-morrow certainly. Apen,[570] Glenco,[571] Lochell,[572] Glengaire,[573] Keppoch,[574] are all raidy. Sir Alexander[575] and Largo[576] have been here with there men all this while with me, so that I hope we will go out of Lochaber about thre thousand. Yow may judge what we will gett in Strathharig, Badenock, Athol, Marr, and the duke of Gordon’s lands, besides the loyall shires of Bamf, Aberdeen, Merns, Angus, Perth, and Stirling. I hope we will be masters of the north, as the king’s army will be of the south. I had almost forgot to tell you of my Lord Broadalban,[577] who I suppose will now come to the feelds. Dumbeth, with two hundred hors and eight hundred foot, are said to be endeavouring to join us. My L. Seaforth[578] will be in a few dayes from Irland to rais his men for the king’s service. Now, I have layd the whole business before yow, yow will easily know what is fitt for yow to do. All I shall say further is, to repeat and renew the desyre of my former letter, and assure yow that I am,

“Sir

“Your most humble servant,

“DUNDIE.

“Yow will receave the king’s letter to yow.”

[565] The original of this letter, which is addressed to John Macleod of Macleod, is in possession of the present Laird of Macleod, his descendant.

[566] Allan Macdonald, captain of Clanranald, then under age. Ronald Macdonald of Benbecula, his tutor, attended him.

[567] R. Macneil of Barra.

[568] Sir Donald Macdonald of Slate.

[569] Sir John Maclean of Dowart and Morven.

[570] Stewart of Appin.

[571] Alexander Macdonald, or MacIan of Glencoe.

[572] Sir Ewen Cameron of Locheil.

[573] Alexander Macdonell, younger of Glengary.

[574] Dundee “used to call him Coll of the Cowes, because he found them out when they were driven to the hills out of the way.”--Deposition of Lieutenant Colt in appendix to acts of parliament, 1690.

[575] Sir Alexander Maclean of Otter.

[576] Alexander Macdonald of Largo.

[577] John, first Earl of Breadalbane.

[578] Kenneth, fourth Earl of Seaforth.

[579]

“For the EARL of MELFORT.[580]

“MOY IN LOCHABER, June 27, 1689.

After exculpating himself from a charge made against him by the Earl, of his name having been ‘made use of for carrying on designs against the Earl,’ Dundee thus proceeds:--

“When we first came out I had but fifty pounds of powder; more I could not get, all the great towns and seaports were in rebellion, and had seized the powder, and would sell none. But I had one advantage, the Highlanders will not fire above once, and then take to the broadsword.... The advocate[581] is gone to England, a very honest man, firm beyond belief; and Athol is gone too, who did not know what to do. Earl Hume, who is very frank, is taken prisoner to Edinburgh, but he will be let out on security. Earl Breadalbin keeps close in a strong house; he has and pretends the gout. Earl Errol stays at home; so does Aberdeen. Earl Marshall is at Edinburgh, but does not meddle. Earl Lauderdale is right, and at home. The Bishops, I know not where they are. They are now the kirk invisible. I will be forced to open the letter, and send copies attested to them, and keep the original, till I can find out our primate. The poor ministers are sorely oppressed over all. They generally stand right. Duke Queensberry was present at the cross, when their new mock King was proclaimed, and I hear, voted for him, though not for the throne vacant. His brother the Lieutenant General, some say is made an Earl. He has come down to Edinburgh, and is gone up again. He is the old man, and has abused me strangely, for he swore to me to make amends. Tarbat is a great villain. Besides what he has done at Edinburgh, he has endeavoured to seduce Lochiel, by offers of money, which is under his hand. He is now gone up to secure his faction, which is melting, the two Dalrymples and others against Skelmarly,[582] Polwart, Cardross, Ross, and others now joined with that worthy prince, Duke Hamilton. M. Douglas is now a great knave, as well as beast; as is Glencairne, Morton, and Eglinton, and even Cassillis is gone astray, misled by Gibby.[583] Panmure keeps right, and at home, so does Strathmore, Southesk, and Kinnaird. Old Airly is at Edinburgh under caution, so is Balcarras and Dunmore. Stormont is declared fugitive for not appearing. All these will break out, and many more, when the King lands, or any from him. Most of the gentry on this side the Forth, and many on the other, will do so too. But they suffer mightily in the mean time; and will be forced to submit, if there be not relief sent very soon. The Duke of Gordon, they say, wanted nothing for holding out but hopes of relief. Earl of Dunfermling stays constantly with me, and so does Lord Dunkell, Pitcur, and many other gentlemen, who really deserve well, for they suffer great hardships. When the troops land there must be blank commissions sent for horse and foot, for them and others that will join.”

[580] This letter was printed by Macpherson from the Nairne papers.

[581] Sir George Mackenzie.

[582] Sir James Montgomery.

[583] Dr. Gilbert Burnet, the historian.

[584] Mackay’s Memoirs.

[585] No. 14 of Appendix to Mackay’s Memoirs, p. 245.

[586] Balcarras, p. 68. Stewart’s Sketches, vol. i. p. 62.

[587] No. 15 of Appendix to Mackay’s Memoirs, p. 246.

[588] Mackay’s Memoirs, p. 51.

[589] “Mackay’s force was certainly not double that of his adversary; but had it borne a far greater proportion, the trained warriors and command of the ground, when in the hands of one well fitted to use them, were advantages outweighing a large numerical preponderance.”--Burton’s Scotland from Revolution, vol. i. p. 131.

[590] Balcarras, p. 69.

[591] Dalrymple’s Memoirs, part ii. p. 56.

[592] Memoirs, p. 51.

[593] Macpherson’s Original Papers, vol. i. p. 369.

[594] Mackay’s army is said to have outwinged Dundee’s by nearly a quarter of a mile, which obliged the latter to leave large intervals between each clan. On this account there was a deficiency of troops in Dundee’s centre.--Memoir of Dundee in Miscellanea Scotica, vol. iii.

[595] “The night before the battle, Dundee having reflected that the Highlanders had not been tried in general actions since the battle of Philiphaugh, which had been fought 40 years before, and being desirous to put their courage to the test, gave an alarm, and caused a false attack to be made upon his own camp. In an instant he found every man at his post and firm in it. The event of the stratagem removed the diffidence of the general, and confirmed the confidence of the soldiers.”--Dalrymple’s Memoirs, part ii. p. 57.

[596] Stewart’s Sketches, vol. i. p. 63.

[597] Among the papers of the exiled prince’s secretary is a very well composed document, called “Lord Dundee’s speech to his troops before the battle of Killiecrankie,” which he certainly never delivered, for the excellent reason that not a tenth of his audience could have understood a word of it, and he was not a man tempted either by capacity or inclination to the useless composition of flowing sentences. Burton’s Scotland from Revolution, vol. i. p. 132. Burton, however, thinks we may readily believe General Mackay’s statement as to the few homely sentences which he says he dropped to his men.

[598] Macpherson’s Original Papers, vol i. p 371.

[599] Memoirs, p. 57.

[600] In a conversation respecting the battle between General Wade and an old Highlander, who had fought at Killiecrankie, the latter is reported to have spoken lightly of Mackay as a commander, calling him a great fool, because he did not put his baggage in front of his army at Killiecrankie. Wade dissented, of course, but the old man insisted that the baggage should have been placed before the line, in which case Mackay, he observed, would have gained the battle, as the Highlanders would have first attacked the baggage, and would have thus fallen an easy prey to Mackay’s army.

[601] In allusion to this battle, the author of the memoirs of Viscount Dundee, (in His. Scot., vol. iii.,) says, “Then the Highlanders fired, threw down their fusils, rushed in upon the enemy with sword, target, and pistol, who did not maintain their ground two minutes after the Highlanders were amongst them; and I dare be bold to say, that were scarce ever such strokes given in Europe as were given that day by the Highlanders. Many of General Mackay’s officers and soldiers were cut down through the skull and neck to the very breast; others had skulls cut off above their ears like night-caps; some soldiers had both their bodies and cross-belts cut through at one blow; pikes and small swords were cut like willows; and whoever doubts of this, may consult the witnesses of the tragedy.”

[602] Balcarras.

[603] The authenticity of the letter alleged to have been written by Dundee after he received his wound, may well be doubted. 1st. No contemporary writer mentions its existence. 2d. It is probable that Dundee died as stated in the text. King James says, that “when crossing over the plaine to give some orders on the left where the enemy made the most opposition, he was most unfortunately killed by a random shot.” Clarke’s James II., vol. ii. p. 352. See the authorities referred to by Mr. Smythe of Methven, in a note on the letter in the Bannatyne collection of Dundee’s letters. These are supported by the following note, written on a copy of Balcarras’s Memoirs, in the Library of Christ Church, Oxford, upon the passage relative to a bundle of papers found lying near Dundee on the field.

“N.B.--I spoke with some that were at that fight, and saw the Viscount of Dundee’s corpse naked upon the ground, and was of the number that wrapt it in a pladd, and brought it off the field to the Blair of Athole; they said they saw no papers, nor was there any such rumour among them.” ...

His Grace the Duke of Athole has kindly sent us the following note on this matter. “Lord Dundee is reported to have been watering his horse at a spring within gunshot of Urrard House, and at the same time lifted his left arm to point or give some directions. At this instant he was shot out of a window through the chinks of his armour, i.e. between back- and breast-plates, which must have gaped open. The left side of the breastplate, inside, is stained apparently with blood, and the ball must have passed out from back to front through the hole in the centre (See Plate). An old woman who died near here (Blair) within the memory of persons still living, used to relate how her grandfather was skulking on the hill above and saw Lord Dundee fall; and his brother, who was the hostler at the inn at Blair, saw him carried in there, and said that Lord Dundee died in the middle room, upstairs, of the inn. I think I have seen it stated elsewhere that he was taken to the Castle, but I should be inclined to believe the country tradition.”

The alleged letter from DUNDEE to the KING is as follows:--

“SIR,

It hath pleased God to give your forces a great victory over the rebels, in which three-fourths of them are fallen under the weight of our swords. I might say much of the action, if I had not the honour to command it; but of 5,000 men, which was the best computation I could make of the rebels, it is certain there have not escaped 1,200. We have not lost full out 900. This absolute victory made us masters of the field and enemy’s baggage, which I gave to the soldiers; who, to do them all right, both officers and common men. Highlands, Lowlands, and Irish, behaved themselves with equal gallantry to what I ever saw in the hottest battles fought abroad by disciplined armies; and this M’Kay’s old soldiers felt on this occasion. I cannot now, Sir, be more particular; but take leave to assure your majesty the kingdom is generally disposed to your service, and impatiently wait for your coming; and this success will bring in the rest of the nobility and gentry, having had all their assurance for it, except the notorious rebels. Therefore, Sir, for God’s sake, assist us, though it be with such another detachment as you sent us before, especially of horse and dragoons; and you will crown our beginning with a complete success, and yourself with an entire possession of your ancient hereditary kingdom of Scotland. My wounds forbid me to enlarge to your Majesty at this time, though they tell me they are not mortal. However, I beseech your Majesty to believe, whether I live or die,

I am entirely yours,

DUNDEE.”

“The letter is so happily expressed as to be a forgery on its face; for it is not to be imagined that he who vainly struggled after grammar with all his senses with him, would command it when mortally wounded, and utterly unfit for that species of command with which he was familiar.”--Burton, vol. i. p. 134.

[604] Memoirs of Dundee.

[605] “In this battle Lochiel was attended by the son of his foster-brother. This faithful adherent followed him like his shadow, ready to assist him with his sword, or cover him from the shot of the enemy. Soon after the battle began, the chief missed his friend from his side, and turning round to look what had become of him, saw him lying on his back, with his breast pierced by an arrow. He had hardly breath before he expired to tell Lochiel, that, seeing an enemy, a Highlander in General Mackay’s army, aiming at him with a bow and arrow from the rear, he sprung behind him, and thus sheltered him from instant death. This is a species of duty not often practised, perhaps, by an aide-de-camp of the present day.”--Stewart’s Sketches.

[606] “He became a fanatic of the order he found himself in,--the order of the cavalier who is devoted to his monarch and his monarch’s allies, aristocratic and hierarchical. His fanaticism was that of the gentleman. It is not common, perhaps, to associate the reproachful term, ‘fanatic,’ with a word so expressive of estimable social qualities as this word ‘gentleman;’ but as there is no hesitation in applying it to religious opinions carried to excess, surely there can be no desecration in applying it to social qualities when they become offensively prurient.”--Burton’s Scotland from Revolution, vol. i. p. 99.

[607] Burton, vol. i. p. 134.

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