CHAPTER LV.
GEORGE I.—1714 to 1727.
How the Elector of Hanover became George the First of England;
how the Pretender tried to make himself King, but was defeated;
how Lady Nithisdale saved her husband’s life; and
how the Spaniards were beaten at sea.
George the First was Elector of Hanover, in Germany; and as it was settled in King William’s reign that nobody but a Protestant should be king of England, he was sent for and made king of England, rather than the son of James II., who was a Roman Catholic.
But a great many people in Scotland still wished to have a king of the old Scotch family of Stuart again; so they encouraged young James Stuart, that is the Pretender, whom they called King James, to come to Scotland, and promised they would collect men and money enough to make an army, and buy guns and everything fit for soldiers, and march into England, and make him king instead of George I. From this time all those who took the part of the Pretender against George were called Jacobites, from Jacobus, the Latin for the Pretender’s name, James.
James’s chief friend in Scotland was Lord Mar, and he was in hopes that a great many English gentlemen would join him, and send money from England, and get another army ready there to help him.
But the Pretender and his friends were disappointed. They lost a great many men in battle at the Sheriffmuir, near Dunblane, in Perthshire. Their English army was beaten at Preston in Lancashire, and the Pretender was obliged to get away as fast as he could to France again.
I wish King George had forgiven both the Jacobite officers and men, who thought they were doing right in fighting for the son of their old king: but he would not; and besides putting to death a few common soldiers and gentlemen, he ordered six lords to have their heads cut off. One of them escaped, however, and three were afterwards pardoned. Lord Nithisdale, who escaped, was saved by the devotion and courage of his wife. She had tried by every means to prevail upon the king to pardon him, but he would not; however, she had leave to visit him in prison. She went, you may be sure, often, and she took a friend with her, whom she called her maid, till she had used the jailers to see two people go in and out. Then she made her friend put on double clothes one day, and as soon as she got into Lord Nithisdale’s room half those clothes were taken off, and he was dressed in them, and so they managed that he should go out with one of the ladies, who pretended that her companion had so bad a toothache that she could not speak. Lady Nithisdale had a coach waiting at the prison-door, and they went to a safe place where her husband was hidden till he could get to France. And this was the end of the first civil war begun in Scotland for the sake of the Pretender. Although his friends often tried to begin another, they always failed, while George the First was king.
The King of Spain also tried to assist the Pretender, but he could only make war with England by sea, and his ships were always beaten; and so he made peace.
George the First died while he was visiting his own country of Hanover, after he had been King of England thirteen years. He was a brave and prudent man, but he was too old, when he came to be King of England, to learn English, or to behave quite like an Englishman; however, upon the whole, he was a useful king.