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[1745 A.D.] of Newcastle and his brother desired a coalition of parties. They wanted old jacobites, like Sir Hinde Cotton, to be associated with young patriots, like Chesterfield and Pitt. The greatest member of the opposition refused to take an office inferior to that of secretary of state. But Pitt did not oppose the new government. At the risk of that charge of inconsistency which feeble statesmen always dread, he supported a grant for the continuance of the army in Flanders-a measure which he had before opposed.

The earl of Chesterfield, before he entered upon the appointment he had accepted as lord-lieutenant of Ireland, went upon a mission to the Hague, to concert military operations with the Dutch government. The great object to be obtained was, that the duke of Cumberland should be appointed commander-in-chief of the confederate army. Before the campaign of 1745 was opened, the emperor Charles VII died at Munich. His son, the new elector of Bavaria, withdrew his claim to the Austrian succession, and separated his troops from the army of the French. Maria Theresa restored her conquests in Bavaria. In March, 1745, Lord Orford died. The evils which he had for many years averted by his pacific policy were coming thick upon his country.

The campaign of 1745 in Flanders was long memorable for such a display of the qualities of the British soldier as have often made the purely military nations of Europe look on with wonder. As often, in the long interval between the days of Marlborough and of Wellington, have they equally wondered at the incapacity of those commanders under whom these qualities were displayed. On the 30th of April, 1745, a battle of more importance was fought between the French and allied armies of English and Dutch at Fontenoy. The duke of Cumberland, the king's younger son, was in command, and was opposed to the king of France and the dauphin, who followed the advice of the famous Marshal Saxe. Prodigies of valour can do no good unless they are directed to practical objects. The march of that column of Englishmen across a rough plain, in face of a great army, and commanded on both the flanks by infantry and artillery, filling up their ranks as the men fell, and keeping step as regularly as on parade-onward, onward-till the French princes were ordered to retire till the marshal despaired of the battle till all chance seemed gone of stopping that great avalanche of bayonet and sword that made so terrible an advance - this march is commemorated by French historians themselves as one of the greatest feats of arms on record. But the heroism was useless. Their Dutch auxiliaries took shamefully to flight at the very crisis of the engagement. A cannonade was opened on their front, and tore through the whole length of the column. They turned, but did not flee. With the same imperturbable steadiness they reversed their march, and the retreat of the whole army was conducted with such order that it lost all the obloquy of defeat. It was magnificent, but it was not war.

THE YOUNG PRETENDER IN SCOTLAND (1745-1746 A.D.)

Events thickened as the contest went on. The visit of George to Germany, and his threat of invading France, were returned by a visit from the pretender no longer the stubborn James III, who had been so nearly crowned at Scone, but his gay and graceful son, the chevalier de St. George, well known to us in legend and ballad as the winner of every heart, and the "darling Charley" of a repentant nation. But the "young chevalier" is depicted in the soberer hues of history as a weak and selfish adventurer, who never comprehended the generosity of the high-souled supporters of his

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cause, and who, in the words of one of his gallant adherents, when the day of trial came, "knew neither how to fight like a man nor to die like a gentleman." We can only remark that all the sad songs and beautiful laments which have gathered round this crazy expedition were never heard of till all chances of its success had disappeared. While it was going on, there was a little alarm at first, and afterwards a great deal of contempt; but it was left for the peaceful times of thirty years after the event to clothe with romance and poetry the attempt of a few savages and a few fanatics to overthrow a rapidly spreading civilisation and a religion of progress and improvement. Let us enjoy the jacobite ballads, and rejoice in the defeat of the jacobite

cause.

The course of the rebellion was run within the year. Landing in July in the north of Scotland, with seven companions, of whom the majority were Irish, the prince was joined, though slowly and with a foreknowledge of their fate, by several Highland chiefs, who summoned their clans to aid. Their clans came to aid with the same alacrity with which they would have come to resist; for the laird's will was their only law. Clanronald, M'Donald, and, finally, Cameron of Lochiel, were great names to utter to Highland ears, and the march began. In August the royal standard was hoisted, and fifteen hundred of the Gael gathered round it, and prepared for a rush on the fertile lowlands. There were very few troops to oppose them. Of the three thousand constituting the garrison of all Scotland, not above a half could be collected, under Sir John Cope-one of those wretched pedants from whom England has suffered so much who would rather be defeated by rule than successful by original measures. The burden of the ballads, with reference to this hero of pigtail and pipe-clay, turns constantly on his want of watchfulness; and insulting inquiries are made whether he is asleep or awake. It makes very little difference whether a Sir John Cope's eyes are open or shut. Perth opened its gates on the 3rd of September. Edinburgh was entered on the 17th, and something like royalty began to hedge the prince when he dwelt in Holyrood, and held a levee in the capital. On the 21st was the battle of Pinkey, where the same impetuous rush of the wild men of the hills which had carried the victory of Killiecrankie, astonished the mechanical mind of Cope, who expected to be attacked in a regular and gentlemanly manner, and sent him, with horse, foot, and marines, in headlong flight before it.

Charles Edward had defeated the king's troops, and was now a potentate carrying on war. For a month he limited his exertions to assemblies and feasts in Edinburgh, watching the castle, which still held out against him, and then marched forward, and crossed the border on the 8th of November. Carlisle yielded, after a brief resistance, and the advance continued. Those five or six thousand Scotsmen, ill armed and not very decently apparelled, went forward from town to town in the populous Cumberland and industrious Yorkshire, wondering at all they saw, and expecting every moment to be met by troops. But they were neither met by troops nor joined by friends. They were neglected, and began to despair. They saw noble houses, and cultivated fields, and foreign gardens, and many other things they had never seen before, and were so impressed with awe that they only robbed larders and hen-roosts. Meantime, parties of ladies and gentlemen of the towns near the road hired post-chaises and drove across to see the Highlanders go by, as if they had been a caravan of wild animals. Soldiers were gathering from abroad; the relics of the glorious column of Fontenoy came over with the duke of Cumberland; the archbishop of York mounted his horse as a prince of the church; newspapers roused the people to defend their Protestant

[1746 A.D.] freedom, and resist a nominee of the French king, who had promised him twelve thousand men. So when the poor mountaineers from Kinloch Moidart had got all the way up to Derby, and found that the panic had passed away, that old George was courageous as at Dettingen, and pooh-poohed the whole business as a farce, the leaders differed, quarrelled, and fought, and Charles Edward, finding no enemy to oppose him, no multitudes to assist him, lost confidence in his followers and himself, and gave orders for retreat (December 6th).

Battles of Falkirk and Culloden

He got back to Carlisle, and left a garrison to protect his rear. Cumberland came thundering in pursuit, and took the garrison prisoners, earning the detested name of the Butcher by his cruelty to the misguided men. Onward the prince proceeded through Dumfries, which he put to ransom; Glasgow, where he raised a forced contribution; and, finally, to Stirling, where he counted his forces, and found he had nine thousand men. General Cope had a fitting rival in General Hawley, who commanded the king's troops at Falkirk (January 18th, 1746). The same faults were committed with the same result. The Highland rush discomposed the martinet, and in twenty minutes half of each army considered itself defeated. Hawley persisted longest in this erroneous belief, and retired to Edinburgh, and Charles Edward believed himself every inch a king once more.

But the Butcher was on his track. By the time Cumberland got to Aberdeen, the prince was at Inverness, for all hope of England or Scotland was at an end. Enough if he could effect his escape, and get his followers to defend him to the last. This they resolved to do and, after a mad attempt to surprise the enemy at Nairn, waited, grim and terrible, on the dark moor that stretches near the town of Inverness.

On the 16th of April, 1746, at the battle of Culloden, weary expectation came to an end. Trained soldiers from the Flemish wars, well fed, well clothed, and well officered, were now opposed to the wasted, hungry battalions of the Gaël, who scarcely recognised their chiefs in their military characters, and were broken down with the fatigues they had undergone. Courage, of course, was there, and desperate effort and generous devotion to the cause they had adopted; but these were of no avail against unflinching bayonets, heavy charges of horse, and a battery of artillery well served. In an hour alí was confusion and dismay. The Highlanders, once broken, never could form again. The prince fled with his chief officers, and the infuriated English knocked out the brains of the wounded as they lay on the field, or dragged prisoners into the open air, and shot them by the dozen at a time. The pitiless executions of that sanguinary son of George II brought more weakness to the Hanoverian cause than a defeat would have done. By the Scots it was looked on as brutal hard-heartedness towards their own countrymen, for after all Donald was a Scotsman too; and by the English as a cowardly revenge for the alarm he had suffered. Hated, therefore, by both nations as a revengeful tyrant, the duke of Cumberland, while in England, retired from public life.

Escape of Charles; Prosecution of his Adherents

Charles Edward got safely off at last after a series of surprising and delightful adventures, which, even without the colouring given them by party spirit,

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revealed such truthfulness in the Celtic character, and such devotion and purity in the heroic maidens, like Flora Macdonald, who aided his escape, that they are read like a chapter of romance.

For some time he and his followers resided in a singular retreat, called the Cage, on the side of Mount Benalder; it was concealed by a close thicket, and half-suspended in the air. At this place Charles received intelligence that two French vessels, sent out expressly for his deliverance, under the direction of Colonel Warren of Dillon's regiment and with that officer on board, had anchored in Lochnanuagh. Immediately setting off for that place, but travelling only by night, he embarked on the 20th of September, attended by Lochiel, Colonel Roy Stuart, and about one hundred other persons, who had gathered at the news. It was very same spot where Charles had landed fourteen months before, but how changed since that time, both his fate and his feelings! With what different emotions must he have gazed upon those desolate mountains, when stepping from his ship in the ardour of hope and coming victory; and now, when he saw them fade away in the blue distance, and bade them an everlasting farewell! Rapidly did his vessel bear him from the Scottish shores; concealed by a fog, he sailed through the midst of the English fleet; and he safely landed at the little port of Roscoff, near Morlaix, on the 29th of September.

The Scottish prisoners were removed for trial to England, lest their own countrymen should show them partiality or pity. At one time there were no less than 385 crowded together at Carlisle; of these, however, the common men were permitted to cast lots, one in twenty to be tried and hanged, the rest to be transported. There was no difficulty in obtaining proofs against individuals who had so openly appeared in arms. Amongst the earliest sufferers were Colonel Townley and eight other officers or privates of the Manchester regiment, who were hanged on Kennington Common near London. Other executions took place at York, at Brampton, and at Penrith; in all there were nearly eighty. The barbarous ceremony of unbowelling, mangling, and casting the hearts into a fire was not omitted, nor did it fail- such is the vulgar appetite for the horrible! - to draw forth exulting shouts from the spectators. Differing as the sufferers did in age, in rank, and temper, they yet, with scarcely an exception, agreed in their behaviour on the scaffold; all dying with firmness and courage, asserting the justice of their cause, and praying for the exiled family. Amongst these numerous condemnations the one perhaps of all others most open to exception was that of Charles Radcliffe, brother of the earl of Derwentwater, beheaded in 1716. Charles Radcliffe had then avoided a like fate by breaking from prison; he had lately been captured on board a French vessel bound for Scotland, with supplies for the insurgents; and he was now, after a long confinement, put to death upon his former sentence, which had slumbered for thirty years.

The noblemen who appeared for trial before their peers in July, 1746, were the earls of Cromarty and Kilmarnock, and Lord Balmerino. The two earls pleaded guilty, expressing the deepest remorse for their conduct, while Balmerino endeavoured to avail himself of a flaw in the indictment, as not having been at Carlisle on the day it set forth; but this being overruled, he declared that he would give their lordships no further trouble. On being brought up to receive sentence, both Cromarty and Kilmarnock earnestly sued for mercy. "My own fate," said Cromarty, "is the least part of my sufferings. But, my lords, I have involved an affectionate wife with an unborn infant as parties of my guilt to share its penalties. I have involved my eldest son, whose youth and regard for his parents hurried him down the

[1747 A.D.] stream of rebellion. I have involved also eight innocent children, who must feel their parent's punishment before they know his guilt. Let the silent eloquence of their grief and tears supply my want of persuasion!" Kilmarnock urged, in extenuation of his own offence, the excellent principles he had instilled into his heir, "having my eldest son in the duke's army fighting for the liberties of his country at Culloden, where his unhappy father was in arms to destroy them!" But no acknowledgment of error, no application for mercy could be wrung from the haughty soul of Balmerino. In compassion chiefly to Lady Cromarty, who was far advanced in pregnancy, a pardon was granted to her husband, but the two others were ordered for execution on Tower Hill on the 18th of August. Kilmarnock met his fate with sufficient steadiness combined with penitence, owning to the last the heinousness of his rebellion. His companion in misfortune, on the contrary, as a frank resolute soldier, persevered and gloried in his principles. When at the gate of the Tower and on their way to the scaffold, the officers had ended the words of form with the usual prayer "God save King George! Kilmarnock devoutly sighed "Amen "; but Balmerino stood up and replied in a loud voice, "God save King James!" And as he laid his head on the block he said: "If I had a thousand lives, I would lay them all down here in the same cause!"

The last of the martyrs, as their own party chose to call them, was Lord Lovat. Not having appeared in arms, nor committed any overt act of treason, this grey-haired hypocrite could not be so readily convicted as the bolder and better men who had walked before him to the scaffold. But a king's evidence was obtained in John Murray of Broughton, lately Prince Charles' secretary, who now consented to purchase safety for himself by betraying the secrets and hazarding the lives of his former friends. It was he who revealed to the government the whole train and tissue of the jacobite conspiracy since 1740, although, as the law requires two witnesses in charges of treason, it was not possible to proceed further against the duke of Beaufort, Sir Watkin Wynn, or other English jacobites; nor indeed did the government show any wish for their impeachment. In the case of Lovat, however, his own letters to the chevalier were produced by Murray, other conclusive documents and some corroborating evidence from his clansmen were also brought forward, and his guilt was thus established in the clearest and most legal manner. His trial, which did not commence until March, 1747, continued during several days. Lovat's own behaviour was a strange compound of meanness, levity, and courage-sometimes writing to the duke of Cumberland for mercy, and pleading how he had carried his royal highness in his arms, when a child, about the parks of Kensington and Hampton Court; sometimes striving by chicanery to perplex or rebut the proofs against him; sometimes indulging in ridiculous jests. "I did not think it possible," says Horace Walpole, "to feel so little as I did at so melancholy a spectacle, but tyranny and villany wound up by buffoonery took off all edge of compassion." When after his sentence he was taken from the bar, he cried, "Farewell, my lords, we shall never all again meet in the same place!" Like Balmerino and Kilmarnock, he was beheaded on Tower Hill; and he died with great composure and intrepidity, attended by a Roman Catholic priest, and repeating on the scaffold the noble line of Horace, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. But in truth no man was less strongly imbued with that sentiment - except perhaps its writer!

A few weeks afterwards, there happily passed an Act of Indemnity, granting a pardon to all persons who had committed treason, but clogged

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