Whilst he was thus in treaty with his former friend, Lord Mar was stopped on his way to St. Prix, near Geneva, by the orders of the Hanoverian Minister: his papers were seized and sealed up; and among them, a copy of that which was written to Lord Stair as Captain Brown. Lord Mar, who had borne an assumed name, disclosed his real rank, and wrote to Lord Stair for assistance,—again urging permission to go to the waters of Bourbon, or, if not allowed to go into France, the liberty to return to Italy, "where," he said, "I may end my days in quiet; and those, probably, will not be many in that climate." Whilst awaiting the reply of Lord Stair, the Earl was treated with respect by the authorities of Geneva; and "had only to wish that he had a little more liberty for taking air and exercise." He expected that Lord Stair's answer could not arrive in less than a fortnight: in the meantime, he adds, "I shall be obliged, on account of my health, to ask the Government here a little more tether."[158]

His indulgent friend, Lord Stair, was, meantime, urging his cause by every means in his power. "I wish Lord Mar," he wrote to the English Ministry, "was at liberty upon his parole to the town of Geneva, or he had permission to go to the waters of Bourbon. I should be glad to know what pension you would allow him till he be restored?"

Lady Mar was now in Rome, whither she had followed her husband soon after his leaving Scotland. Her jointure, it appears, was stopped by the Commissioners, and she was unable, without that supply, to travel from Rome to Geneva. She was, probably, aware of Lord Mar's intention to leave the Chevalier's service, for the Earl had written a long letter, explanatory of his situation and intentions, to her father the Duke of Kingston. "I have offered him for Lady Mar's journey," says Lord Stair, "credit upon me for a thousand pounds." Yet notwithstanding this liberality, Lord Mar now began to be extremely uneasy at Geneva, and to fear that the Government meant "merely to expose him." In vain, for some time, did Stair plead for him, with Secretary Craggs and Lord Stanhope. They were evidently, from Lord Stair's replies to their objections, afraid to have any dealings with him. "As to Lord Mar," writes Stair, "the things that shock you, shock me; but our business is to break the Pretender's party by detaching him from it, which we shall effectually do by letting him live in quiet at Geneva or elsewhere, and by giving him a pension. Whatever his Lordship's intentions may be, it is very certain, in a few months, that the Jacobites will pull his throat out,—you know them well enough not to doubt of it. The Pretender," he adds, "looks upon Mar as lost, and has had no manner of confidence in him ever since Lady Mar came into Italy. They looked upon her as a spy, and that she had corrupted her husband. This, you may depend on it, is true." Little more than a week afterwards, Lord Stair informed his friends that "Lord Mar was outré at the usage he had met with. He says our Ministers may be great and able men, but that they are not skilful at making proselytes, or keeping friends when they have them. I am pretty much of his mind."

It was, doubtless, as Lord Stair declared, the full determination of Lord Mar at that time to leave the Chevalier's interests. "The Pretender, I know," said Stair, "wrote him the kindest letter imaginable since his [the Pretender's] return into Italy from Spain, with the warmest invitations to return to his post."

The letters which Lord Stair had received, in the course of this negotiation, from Lord Mar, were instantly sent to Hanover. They were in some instances written in his own hand, but without signature, and in the third person. In the first which he wrote to Lord Stair, Mar announced that he had quitted the service of James, and was desirous of making peace with King George upon the promise of a pardon, and the restoration of his estates.

"You are to consider," says Lord Stair, writing to the Secretary of State at home concerning this proposal, "whether it will be worth the while to receive him. In my humble opinion the taking him on will be the greatest blow that can be given to the Pretender's interest, and the greatest discredit to it. And it may be made of use to show to the world that nobody but a Papist can hope to continue in favour with the Pretender. I wish," adds the Ambassador, "you may think as I do. I own all his faults and misfortunes cannot make me forget the long and intimate friendship and familiarity that has been between him and me." It is consoling to find any politician acting upon such good old-fashioned maxims, the result of honest feeling.

Lady Mar having now joined her husband, Lord Mar resolved to make his escape from Geneva. Lord Stair advised him against it; but adds, in his letters to his friends at home, "I could hardly imagine that a man of his temper, and in his circumstances, will refuse his liberty when he sees he has nothing but ill usage and neglect to expect from us."[159]

Thus ended this negotiation, the main conditions of which were, provided Lord Mar kept himself free from any plots against the Government, an offer of the family estate to his son; and, in the interim, till an act of Parliament could be obtained to that effect, a pension of two thousand pounds sterling, over and above one thousand five hundred pounds paid of jointure to his wife and daughter.[160]

It was the fortune of Lord Mar on this, as on many other occasions, to reap the ignominy of having accepted this pension, without ever receiving the profits of his debasement.

During the absence of Lord Mar at Geneva, his Countess, who remained in Rome, received the following letters from the Chevalier and his Princess, Maria Clementina: these epistles show how desirous the Chevalier still was to retain Lord Mar in his interests.[161]

LETTER FROM THE PRINCESS CLEMENTINA TO THE COUNTESS OF MAR.

A subsequent letter is addressed "A ma cousine La Duchesse de Mar"—and subscribed "votre affectionée cousine, Clementine;" yet notwithstanding these professions of confidence and affection, the seeds of distrust were, it seems, soon sown between James and the Earl and Countess of Mar. At first the suggestions to their disadvantage were repelled, "There has been enough pains," writes James, "taken from Rome within these few days to do you ill offices with me, but I can assure you with truth they have made no impression upon me, nor will they produce any other effect than to make me, if possible, kinder to you. But when I see you I shall say more on this head, for 'tis fitt you should know your false from your true friends; and among the last you shall ever find me.[163]

"James R."

An order, dated the ninth of October, 1719, that all such boxes "as are in the Duchesse of Mar's custody should be first naled by her, and then delivered with their keyes to Sir William Ellis," written in the Chevalier's own hand, shews either that Lady Mar was on the eve of her departure from Italy, or that a breach of confidence had taken place.[164]

Lord Mar, with impaired health, and writhing under the rejection of his offers, returned to Italy. There, had he adhered to a resolution which he had formed, of not interfering in public affairs, he might still have closed his days in tranquillity.

Notwithstanding the apparent continuance of the Chevalier's regard, he never forgot the treaty between Lord Stair and the Earl of Mar. The whole of this intrigue, discreditable as it was, has been reprobated by all who have touched upon this portion of Lord Mar's history. His accepting the loan of a thousand pounds from Stair, an old friend, for the purpose of ensuring Lady Mar's journey, has been censured, I think, with too great severity. But, although it be desirable to set to rights matters of fact, yet, it is always unsatisfactory to begin the defence of a bad cause. There is no evidence to show that Lord Mar ever received a pension: he was not thought worth conciliating; but that circumstance, in this case, and after a display of his willingness to receive all that could be granted, assists very little in his vindication, and rather adds to the degradation of one whom no party could trust.

Soon after Lord Mar's return to Rome, the seeds of disunion between James and his young and high-spirited wife began to disturb the minds of all who were really well wishers to the Stuarts.

Maria Clementina, reported by Horace Walpole to have been "lively, insinuating, agreeable, and enterprising," had encountered, soon after her marriage with James, the too frequent fate of many who were sacrificed to royal marriages. She had quickly perceived that her influence was inferior to that of the Prince's favourites: she was shortly made aware of his infidelities: she became jealous, without affection; and her disappointment in her consort was that of a proud, resentful woman, to whom submission to circumstances was a lesson too galling to be learned.

The Prince, after the fashion of his forefathers, was governed by favourites: like Charles the First, he had his Buckingham and his Strafford; and his miniature Court was rent with factions. But the Chevalier had neither the purity of Charles the First, nor the charm of character which gilded over the vices of Charles the Second. His household was an epitome of the worst passions; and his melancholy aspect, his want of dignity and spirit, his bigotry and even his unpopular virtue of economy, cast a gloom over that turbulent region. It was bitterly, but perhaps truly said of him, "that he had all the superstition of a capuchin, but none of the religion of a Prince."[165] Like most of his immediate family, his character deteriorated as he grew older. He did not rise under the pressure of adversity; and his timid, irresolute nature was crushed by the effects of his cruel situation.

Colonel John Hay, of Cromlix, the brother of the Earl of Mar's first wife, and of George, seventh Earl of Kinnoul, succeeded in obtaining mastery over his subdued nature. The lady of Colonel Hay, Margery, the third daughter of Viscount Stormont, was said, also, to have possessed her own share of influence over the mind of the Chevalier. Of the real existence of any criminal attachment between the Prince and Mrs. Hay, there is, however, considerable doubt; and it has been generally regarded as one of those amours raised for a purpose, during the continuance of a fierce contention for power.

Clementina had also her favourites; and a certain Mrs. Sheldon, who had had the charge of Prince Charles Edward, had acquired her confidence. This choice was peculiarly infelicitous.

Mrs. Sheldon was reported to be about as unworthy a favourite as the unhappy Princess could have selected. According to Colonel Hay, she was the mistress of General Dillon, one of the most ardent adherents of the Stuarts, and the spy of the Earl of Mar.[166] For four or five years, nevertheless, after Prince Charles's birth, she continued to be his governess, and to sway the feelings of his mother, in the same manner as confidants and dependants usually direct the angry passions of their mistresses into the most dangerous channels.

During the height of Colonel Hay's favour, the confidence of the Chevalier in Lord Mar visibly declined, as appears in the following letter to one of his adherents in Scotland.

"I have always been unwilling to mention Marr, but I find myself indispensably engaged at present to let my Scots friends know that I have withdrawn my confidence entirely from him, as I shall be obliged to doe from all who may be any ways influenced by him. This conduct is founded on the most urgent, strongest, and most urging necessity, in which my regard to my faithfull subjects and servants have the greatest share.

"What is here said of Marr, is not with a view of its being made publick, there being no occasion for that, since, many years ago, he put himself under such engagements, that he could not serve me in a publick capacity, neither has he been publickly employed by me."

To this it was answered, by the confidential friend to whom the remarks were addressed, "It is some time agoe since your friends here had doubts of the Earl of Marr; and thence it was that I was directed to mention him in the manner I did in my last two letters, it being matter of no small moment to us to know in whom wee might confide thorowly, and of whom beware,—especially when a person of his figure was the object."[167]

Affairs were in this state; the Chevalier distrustful of Lord Mar, and devoted to his rival, Colonel Hay; the Princess heading an opposite faction, nominally commanded by Mrs. Sheldon, but secretly instigated by Lord Mar; when, in 1722, the conspiracy of Atterbury was discovered by the British Government.

The Earl of Mar was at that time in Paris, and Lord Carteret who was at the head of affairs in England, remembering the Earl's former negotiations with Lord Stair, dispatched a gentleman to Mar, with instructions to sound that nobleman as to his knowledge of the plot. Lord Mar happening to be in Colonel Dillon's company when the messenger reached Paris, and soon divining after one interview the nature of the embassy, it was agreed between him and Dillon that they would do James's cause a service by leading the British Government off the right scent. They therefore drew up, in conjunction, an answer to Lord Carteret. What was the nature of that reply,[168] does not appear; but its result was such as to cast upon Lord Mar a degree of odium far greater than that which he had incurred in Lord Stair's business. He was accused by Atterbury with having, on that occasion, written such a letter as had been the cause of his banishment; with having betrayed the secrets of the Chevalier St. George to the British Government; and of several other charges of "base and treacherous practises, discovered by the Bishop of Rochester, that the like had scarce been heard of, and seem'd to be what no man, endued with common sense, or the least drop of noble blood, could perpetrate; and that the King's friends were at a loss in not knowing what credit to give to such reports, tho' they apprehended the worst, from the directions he had lately given of having no correspondence with Mar or his adherents, from whom he had withdrawn all confidence."

Shortly after this declaration the Chevalier declared Colonel Hay to be his Secretary, and created the favourite Earl of Inverness; between whom and the Earl of Mar an antipathy, which had now become open hostility, prevailed. "The Duke of Mar," wrote the Earl of Inverness to Lockhart, "has declared himself my mortal enemy, only because I spoke truth to him, and could not, in my conscience, enter into his measures nor approve his conduct, tho' I always shunned saying any thing to his disadvantage, but to the King alone, from whom I thought I was obliged to conceal nothing."[169]

With respect to the treachery towards Atterbury, the justification of Lord Mar rests upon the testimony of Colonel Dillon, and other persons who saw the Earl's letter to Carteret. It is also certain that James accorded his approval to Mar's conduct in that affair. No positive intention of mischief can be made out against Mar; but his habit of rarely acting a straightforward part, his insatiable love of interference, and his mistaking cunning for policy, brought upon him the mournful indignation of the exiled Atterbury, and fixed upon him a grave imputation which it were almost impossible to wipe away.

Another charge brought by Atterbury against Lord Mar, was his advising James to barter his pretensions to the Crown for a pension. But this accusation is refuted by the two letters, of which vouchers are given in the Lockhart Papers, on which the allegation is founded. These letters were written from Geneva to the Prince and to Colonel Dillon.[170]

Lastly, Lord Mar stood charged with a scheme, discovered to Atterbury by Lord Inverness, for the restoration of the Stuarts, which, under pretence of replacing them on the throne, would for ever have rendered that restoration impracticable. From this allegation Lord Mar justified himself by referring to the scheme itself, which he was declared to have laid before the Regent of France with the intent to ruin James. Of this scheme, the two main features were, first to re-establish the ancient independence of Scotland and Ireland: secondly, that a certain number of French troops should remain in England, and that five thousand Scots, and as many Irish troops, should be sent to France and kept in pay by the French King, for a certain number of years. There is certainly a great deal of Mar's double policy, his being all things to all men, in such a scheme. He declared, however, and proved that he acquainted James with his plan in confidence, and that Colonel Hay sent a copy of it to the Bishop of Rochester. Little as one can approve of Mar's conduct, it is manifest that, by a deeply-laid intrigue, it was resolved for ever to uproot him from the confidence of James.

But the public career of Lord Mar had now drawn to its ignoble close. That he had his partisans, who repelled the charges against him by counter allegations, Lord Inverness soon found; and he began to think that "the less noise that was made about Mar," the better.[171]

During the year 1725, James further evinced his distrust of Lord Mar, by dismissing Mr. Sheldon, his supposed spy, and placing Mr. James Murray, a Protestant, as preceptor to the young Prince.

The retirement of the Princess Clementina into a convent, followed this last step. The correspondence of the royal couple, their recriminations, furnished, for some months, conversation for the continental courts, and even for St. James's, until the dismissal of Colonel Hay and his wife appeased the resolute daughter of the Sobieski, and produced an apparent reconciliation.

From the close of this altercation, and after the disgrace of Colonel Hay, the name of Lord Mar occurs no more in the history of the period. He resided at Paris until 1729, when, falling into ill health, he repaired to Aix la Chapelle, where he died in May 1732.

His wife survived him twenty-nine years, only to be the victim of mental disease, and, as it has been said, of cruelty and neglect. She became insane, and was placed under the charge of her sister, Lady Mary W. Montague, who, it has been reported, from avarice, stinted her unfortunate sister of even the common necessaries of life, and appropriated the allowance to herself. But this statement has been disproved.[172]

The latter years of Lord Mar were passed neither in idleness, nor wholly in the intrigues of the Court at Albano. His amusement was to draw plans and designs for the improvement of Scotland, which he had loved "not wisely," but to which his warmest affections are said to have ever recurred. In 1728 he composed a paper, in which he suggested building bridges on the north and south sides of the city of Edinburgh: he planned, also, the formation of a navigable canal between the Forth and the Clyde. His beloved Alloa was sold by the Commissioners of the forfeited estates to his brother, Lord Grange, who, in 1739, conveyed it to Lord Erskine, his nephew. Lord Mar's children were enriched by the gratitude of Gibbs, the architect, who bequeathed to the offspring of his early patron the greatest part of his fortune.

The Earl of Mar was succeeded by his son, Thomas Lord Erskine, who was deprived of the famed title of Mar by his father's attainder. Lord Erskine was appointed by Government, Commissary of Stores at Gibraltar. His marriage with Lady Charlotte Hope being without issue, the title was restored to the descendant of Lord Grange, and consequently to the children of the unfortunate Lady Grange, whose sufferings, from the effects of party spirit, seem to belong more properly to the page of romance, than to the graver details of history.

The conduct of John Erskine, Earl of Mar, has afforded a subject of comment to two men of very different character, John Lockhart of Carnwath, and the Master of Sinclair. Neither of the portraits drawn by these master-hands are favourable; and they were, in both instances, written under the influence of strong, yet transient impressions of disappointment and suspicion. The mind naturally seeks for some safer steersman to guide opinion than the intemperate though honest Jacobite, Lockhart, or the sarcastic and slippery friend, Sinclair. The worst peculiarity in the career of Mar was, that no one trusted him; towards the latter portion of his life he had even lost the power of deceiving: it had become impossible to him to act without mingling the poison of deception with intentions which might have been honest, and even benevolent. The habits of a long life of intrigue had warped his very nature. When we behold him fleeing from the coasts of Scotland, leaving behind him the trusting hearts that would have bled for him, we fancy that no moral degradation can be more complete. We view him soliciting to be a pensioner of England, and we acknowledge that it was even possible to sink still more deeply into infamy.

With principles of action utterly unsound, it is surprising how much influence Lord Mar acquired over all with whom he came into collision. He was sanguine in disposition, and, if we may judge by his letters, buoyant in his spirits; his disposition was conciliatory, his manners were apparently confiding. At the bottom of that gay courtesy there doubtless was a heart warped by policy, but not inherently unkind. He attached to him the lowly. Lockhart speaks of the love of two of his kinsmen to him:—his tenantry, during his exile, contributed to supply his wants, by a subscription. These are the few redeeming characteristics of one made up of inconsistencies. He conferred, it must be allowed, but little credit on a party which could number among its adherents the brave Earl Marischal, the benevolent and honourable Derwentwater, and the disinterested Nithisdale. When we contrast the petty and selfish policy of the Earl of Mar with the integrity and fidelity of those who fought in the same cause, and over whom he was commander, his character sinks low in the estimate, and acts like a foil to the purity and brightness of his fellow sufferers in the strife.

JAMES, EARL OF DERWENTWATER.

This was once the favourite abode of the Ratcliffes, or Radcliffes, supposed to be a branch of the Radcliffes in Lancashire,[173] from whom were, it is said, descended the Earls of Sussex,[174] who became the owners of Dilstone in the days of Queen Elizabeth.

During several generations after the Conquest, a family of the name of Devilstone was in possession of Dilstone, until the time of Henry the Third. The estates then passed to many different owners; the Tynedales, the Crafters, the Claxtons, were successively the masters of the castle; and it was not, according to some accounts,[175] until the tenth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, that it first owned for its lord one of that unfortunate race to whom it finally belonged, until escheated to the Crown. But certain historians have asserted that, so early as the reign of Henry the Sixth, Dilstone was the seat of Sir Nicholas Radcliffe.[176] At this period, too, other estates were added to those already enjoyed by the Radcliffes. Sir Nicholas married the heiress of Sir John De Derwentwater, to whom had belonged, for several centuries, the manors of Castlerigg and Keswick, and who, since the time of Edward the First, had enjoyed great consideration in the county of Cumberland. This alliance with the Derwentwater family, although it brought to the Radcliffe the possession of a territory, which, for its beauty and value, monarchs might envy, did not for many years, entice them to a removal to the mansion of Castlerigg. That old dwelling-place, a gloomy fortress, among "storm-shaken mountains and howling wildernesses," was far less commodious than the castle at Dilstone, then in great fame from the flourishing monastery which reared its head in the Vale of Hexham. Castlerigg, being, eventually, abandoned by the Radcliffes, went utterly to decay; the materials of the old manor-house are supposed to have been employed in forming a new residence on Lord's Island, in Keswick Lake; and the estate was divided into tenancies, which, in process of time, were infranchised. The ancient demesne of the De Derwentwaters has now passed into the hands of the Trustees of Greenwich Hospital, and the oaks of the park which skirts the lake have of late years supplied much valuable timber.

The family of Radcliffe continued, during several centuries after the intermarriage with the De Derwentwaters, to increase in wealth and importance. It was not, however, ennobled until the reign of James the Second, in 1688, when, in consequence of the eldest son of Sir Francis Radcliffe having married during his father's life time the Lady Mary Tudor, a natural daughter of Charles the Second, by Mistress Mary Davis, Sir Francis was created Earl of Derwentwater, Baron Dilstone, and Viscount Langley.[177] "This alliance to the royal blood," says the biographer of Charles Radcliffe, "gave them a title to match with the noblest families in the kingdom, and was likewise the occasion of that strict attachment which the several branches of the Derwentwater family have inviolably preserved for the line of Stuarts ever since."[178] There was also another reason for this act of royal favour on the one hand, and for this devotion on the other: Sir George Radcliffe, we find by the Macpherson papers, was Governor of James the Second when he was Duke of York, and during the troubles of the Great Rebellion; and, under his care, the young prince remained some time in the city of Oxford.[179]

Whatsoever may be thought of the effect of this connection with royalty, in ennobling an ancient and loyal race, the marriage produced a lasting influence on the fortunes of the family. That they were proud of the alliance appears from the circumstance that the children of that marriage used to wear the prince's feather, that plume which has, since the days of Edward the Black Prince, distinguished the heir apparent to royalty. But the consanguinity in blood to the Stuarts produced another, and a far more serious result. The sons of the Lady Mary Tudor and of Francis, second Earl of Derwentwater, were educated, like brothers, with the son of the abdicated monarch. James Radcliffe, who was born about the year 1692, and who afterwards became Earl of Derwentwater, passed his childhood at St. Germains with his royal namesake, James Stuart. The brother of the Earl, Charles, was also brought up in France; both of these youths, whose fate was afterwards so tragical, were reared in the faith of the Church of Rome, and under the tuition of the Roman Catholic clergy. They thus grew up, without perhaps hearing, certainly without entertaining, a doubt of those rights which they died to assert. "The late Earl of Derwentwater," writes the biographer of Charles Radclyffe, "and his brother Charles were so strongly attached to the Pretender's party, that their advice or consent was not so much as asked in those consultations that were held among the disaffected previous to the Rebellion; neither did the party think it necessary, because they were always sure of them whenever they should come to action."

In 1705, Francis, Earl of Derwentwater, died; and during a season of domestic tranquillity, whilst as yet the Jacobites were full of hopes that the succession would be restored to the Stuart line, his son James succeeded to the Earldom, and to the vast estates which had accumulated to give dignity and influence to rank. Besides the castle of Dilstone and Castlerigg, which Leland, who visited Cumberland in 1539, describes as still being the "head place of the Radcliffes," many other valuable properties, had been gradually added to the patrimonial possessions.

It was the disposition of Lord Derwentwater to employ the advantages of wealth and birth to the benefit of others. He returned to England, English in heart, and became the true model of an English nobleman. "He was a man," said a contemporary writer, "formed by nature to be beloved; for he was of so universal a beneficence, that he seemed to live for others."[180] Residing among his own people, among them he spent his estate, and passed his days in deeds of kindness, and in acts of charity, which regarding no differences of faith as obstacles to the course of that heavenly virtue, were extended alike by this unfortunate nobleman to Protestant and to Roman Catholic. In his days, Dilstone was the scene of an open-hearted hospitality, "which," observes the renegade Jacobite who has chronicled the events of the period, "few in that country do, and none can, come up to." That castle-hall, now ruined and for ever deserted, was thronged by the distressed, who, whether the poor denizens of the place or the wanderer by the way side, found there relief, and went away consoled. The owner of the castle gave bread to thousands, who long remembered his virtues, and mourned his fate. He conciliated the good will of his equals, and disarmed the animosity of those who differed from him in opinion. Beloved, trusted, almost reverenced in the prime of youth, James Earl of Derwentwater held, at the period of the first Rebellion, the enviable position of one whose station was remembered only in conjunction with the higher dignity of virtue. To the solid qualities of integrity, he added a sweetness and courtesy of manner which must have lent to even homely features their usual charm.[181] Blessing and blest, he thus dwelt amid the romantic scenery of the Vale of Hexham.

Lord Derwentwater married Anna Maria, one of the five daughters of Sir John Webb, Baronet of Odstock in Wiltshire. An ancestor of Sir John Webb had first acquired the title in the reign of Charles the First for "his family having both shed their blood in the King's cause, and contributed, as far as they were able, with their purses, in his defence," as is expressed in their patent.[182]

During the reign of Queen Anne, Lord Derwentwater took no part in the various intrigues which were carried on by the Jacobite party. He lived peaceably at Dilstone, where his name was long honoured after the tragical events which hurried him into an early grave had occurred. But this tranquil demeanour does not argue, as it has been supposed, that the early playmate of James had become indifferent to the cause of the Stuarts. The friends of the exiled family founded their hopes of its restoration on the well-known partiality of Queen Anne for her brother, and on the circumstance of her having seen the last of her children consigned to the tomb. There seems no reason to doubt but that, had Anne lived longer, she would have taken measures, in unison with the wishes of the bulk of the nobility, and in conjunction with her confidential ministers, to have placed the Chevalier St. George the next in succession. In this hope, the wishes of the most respectable portion of the Jacobite nobility were tranquillized.[183]

The sudden decease of Queen Anne disconcerted the hopes of those who had been thus waiting for the course of events; and the immediate change of ministry depriving those who were favourable to the house of Stuart of power, the succession of George the First was secured, under the aspect, for a few weeks, of the most perfect national repose. It has been well explained, that, unless some circumstances connected with the birth and education of the Chevalier had favoured the interests of Hanover, a very different result would have appeared. The notion so diligently spread abroad, of a supposititious birth—the foreign education of the young Prince—above all, the pains which had been taken to inculcate in his heart a devotion to the faith of both his parents, were considerations which strongly favoured the accession of the Elector of Hanover.[184]

A year passed away, and that tranquillity was succeeded by an ill-concerted, immature enterprise, headed by a man of every talent except the right sort; and chilled, rather than aided, by the presence of that melancholy exile who presented himself for the first and last time, to sadden by the gloom of his aspect, and the inertness of his measures, the hearts that yearned to welcome him back to Britain.

It was towards the latter end of August, in 1715, in the shire of Perth, that the people first began to assemble themselves in a body, until they marched to a small market town, named Kirk Michael, where the Chevalier was first proclaimed, and his standard set up.[185] Meantime several noblemen and gentlemen, both in England and in Scotland, influenced by the Earl of Mar, began to collect their servants and dependants from different places, and under various pretexts, for their proceedings. There were also measures concerted in London by the Chevalier's friends; and among the more active of the partisans, was a certain Captain Robert Talbot, an Irish officer, who, upon being acquainted with the projected insurrection, took shipping and sailed for Newcastle-upon-Tyne. By this agent, the resolutions which had been adopted by the Jacobites in London were conveyed to their friends in the north of England. This was part of the scheme of the Jacobites; London was the centre of all their conferences, and from the metropolis intelligence was secretly conveyed in various directions: measures were concerted; the parties who were to engage were furnished with means to act, and brought together; letters were carried by private hands to various confederates, and debates and correspondence were carried on some months before the Rebellion actually broke out.

The plot was managed with care and address. The common conveyance of letters was dangerous, and the office of delivering them was undertaken by gentlemen of Jacobite principles, who rode from place to place as travellers, pretending merely that they were viewing the country, and making inquiries to gratify curiosity: these travellers were all Irish and Papists.

Another class of agents, consisting of Mr. Clifton, a brother of Sir Gervase Clifton, and of Mr. Beaumont, both gentlemen of Nottinghamshire, and attended by Mr. Buxton, a clergyman of Derbyshire, rode like gentlemen, with servants, but were armed with swords and pistols. These emissaries also continued moving from place to place, and kept up a constant intercourse between the disaffected parties, until all things were ready for action.

Under these circumstances, Government took a decided step, which, as it turned out, brought the whole concerted plot into action sooner than the confederates had originally intended. Means were taken for the apprehension of several suspected Jacobites. Towards the end of September, Lord Derwentwater, among others, received notice that there was a warrant issued by the Secretary of State to apprehend him, and that messengers were actually arrived at Durham in order to seize his person.[186]

On receiving this information, Lord Derwentwater, who had at that time taken no ostensible part in the consultations of the Jacobites, and who, as it was thought by many who knew him intimately, was undecided whether to join the insurgents or not, adopted the line of conduct most suitable to innocence. He repaired to the house of a neighbouring justice of the peace, whose name has not been given at length and boldly placed himself in his hands. He demanded what were the grounds of his accusation. Unhappily the magistrate's loyalty was not unimpeachable. Had this gentleman been zealously affected to the Government, or had he been a true friend to Lord Derwentwater, he would either have persuaded that nobleman to surrender to the messengers of Government, or he would have detained him, and thus prevented the rash outbreak which afterwards ensued. Such is the opinion of one who knew all the parties concerned in the insurrection well. Such is the statement of Mr. Robert Patten, himself a Jacobite, and chaplain to Mr. Forster. He afterwards turned King's evidence, and received for that treachery, or, as he is pleased to call it, penitence, a suitable remuneration.[187]

Lord Derwentwater unfortunately adopted a course which could but have one termination. He concealed himself from those who were employed to apprehend him. Clear from any direct imputation, had he then given himself up, he would have been released; and he might have been deterred from a participation in the disastrous scenes which ensued. He had now two children, a son and a daughter. He had many valuable considerations to forfeit for the one abstract principle of indefeasible right to the throne. Few men had more to venture. Many of the Jacobites went into the field with tarnished characters, and with ruined fortunes: they might gain,—they could not lose by the perilous undertaking. Amid the bands of high-born and highly principled men who co-operated in both the Rebellions, adventurers would appear, whose previous lives shed dishonour upon any cause; but the irreproachable, the prosperous, the beloved, could desire little more for themselves than what they already possessed: they ventured their rich and glorious barks upon the current; and let those who sully every motive with suspicion, say that there was no virtue, no patriotism, in the Jacobite party.

By his own descendant, Lord Derwentwater is believed to have hesitated upon the verge of his fate, but to have been urged into it by his brother Charles. Young and ardent, courageous even to rashness, the first to offer himself where an enterprise was the most hazardous, seeming to set no value upon his life where glory was to be obtained, the darling of his party, and, to sum up the whole, only twenty-two years of age, Mr. Radcliffe rashly drew his brother into a confederacy, so agreeable to his own ambitious and fearless spirit. But there was another individual on whom the responsibility of that luckless movement in the North must chiefly rest. This was Mr. Thomas Forster the younger, of Etherston in the county of Northumberland, and member for the county. During the first thirty years of his life, this gentleman had scarcely been known beyond the precincts of his paternal estate. He became a member of Parliament, and was drawn into the vortex of party without talents to adorn or judgment to guide his conduct. Although a Protestant, Mr. Forster soon made his house the place of rendezvous for all the non-jurors and disaffected people of the county in which he lived; and he became involved in the dangers of their schemes, almost before he was aware of the perils which he was about to encounter. The party of the Jacobites was composed of very dissimilar materials. Whilst some adopted its projects to retrieve character, or to attain, as they vainly hoped, fortune, whilst others were actuated by genuine motives, there were many who mingled in the mazes of the intricate politics of that day from vanity, and the love of being at the head of faction: such was Forster; and his career was unsatisfactory and inglorious as his character was weak.

A warrant for Mr. Forster's apprehension having been sent forth, he was, like Lord Derwentwater, obliged to fly from place to place, until he arrived at the house of Mr. Fenwick, at Bywell. Lord Derwentwater, meantime, had been secreted under the roof of a man named Lambert, in a cottage, where he had remained in safety. His horses had been seized by one of the neighbouring magistrates, and had been detained in custody for several weeks, pursuant to an order in council; yet, when he had need of them they were returned. "I afterwards asked that lord," Mr. Patten relates, "how he came so quietly by his horses from the justice's possession, whom the believing neighbourhood esteemed a most rigid Whig. I was answered thus, by that lord's repeating a saying of Oliver Cromwell's, 'that he could gain his ends with an ass-load of gold,' and left me to make the application."[188]

Mr. Fenwick, of Bywell, was a secret, though not an avowed Jacobite; and it was soon agreed that at his house should be collected all those who were favourable to the cause. A meeting of the party was accordingly held: it was decided that finding there was now no longer any safety in shifting from place to place, and that since, in a few days they might all be hurried up to London, and secured in prisons, where they might be separately examined, and induced to betray each other;—it was now time to appear boldly in arms, and to show the loyalty of the confederates to King James.

In pursuance of this resolution, the place and hour of meeting were appointed the very next morning; the sixth of October was named, and all were to assemble at Greenrig. Here those who rode from Bywell were met by Mr. Forster, with a party of twenty gentlemen. The meeting might have recalled the days of the Cavaliers: the winding of the river Tyne in the valley; the rural village of Bywell; on the rising ground to the right a ruin, once the fortress of the vale, and held in former times by the Baliols, presented a scene of tranquil beauty, which some who met that day were destined never to look upon again.

The low situation of Greenrig was deemed inconvenient for the purpose of the insurgents, and the party ascended a hill called the Waterfalls, from which they could see the distant country. This spot is thus described: "As you look upon Bywell from the most pleasing point of view, the landskip lies in the following order:—from the road near the front of the river, the ruined piers of a bridge become the front objects; behind which, in a regular cascade, the whole river falls over a wear, extended from bank to bank, in height above eight feet perpendicular; a mill on the right hand, a salmon lock on the left: the tower and the two churches stretch along the banks of the upper basin of the river, with a fine curvature; the solemn ruins of the ancient castle of the Baliols lift their towers above the trees on the right, and make an agreeable contrast with the adjoining mansion-house. The whole background appears covered with wood."[189]

On this height Mr. Forster and his party paused; but they had not been long there before they saw the Earl of Derwentwater, who came that morning from Dilstone, advancing. He was attended by several friends and by all his servants, some mounted on his coach-horses, and all well armed. As they marched through Corbridge, this gallant troop drew their swords. They were reinforced by several other gentlemen at the house of Mr. Errington, where they stopped; and they then advanced to the spot where their friends awaited their approach. They now mustered sixty horse, mostly composed of gentlemen and their attendants. After a short council it was decided that they should proceed towards the river Coquet, to Plainfield: here they were joined by several stragglers: they marched that evening to Rothbury a small market-town, where they remained all night, and continued their march on the following morning, the seventh of October, to Warkworth Castle.

In thus assembling his friends and his tenantry, Lord Derwentwater was not blameless of undue influence and oppression. The instances, indeed, of threats and absolute compulsion being used to augment the forces of the Jacobites, and to draw unwilling dependants into participation, are very numerous; they may be collected from various petitions, borne out by evidence, among the State Papers for 1715 and 1716. It is true that such excuses were certain to be alleged by many persons unjustly; but, where the charges were substantiated, we must with pain confess that the virtues of the Earl of Derwentwater, as well as those of other Jacobites, are sullied by a violent exercise of power over their tenantry. One man, named George Gibson, afterwards, in memorialising Lord Townshend from Newgate, affirms that upon his refusal to carry a message from Lord Derwentwater to Mr. Forster, two days before the insurrection, and returning to his own house instead, he was one night dragged out of bed by seven or eight men, and hurried off to serve in the said insurrection without a single servant of his own attending him. It was proved also, by King's evidence, that the unfortunate man did all in his power to escape from Kelso, and really made the attempt; but it was defeated, for he was ever an object of suspicion to the Earl of Derwentwater and Mr. Forster, whose watchfulness kept him among the rebel troops.[190] Party may do much to blunt the feelings; yet there was too much of what was good in the character of Lord Derwentwater for him, in the solitude of his own prison, not to remember in after days the heavy responsibilities which even by one act of this nature he had incurred, in compelling a man to act against his will and conscience.

Warkworth was probably chosen as a resting-place for the insurgents, on account of its strength. Situated only three-quarters of a mile from the sea, on the river Coquet, over which is thrown a bridge, guarded by a lofty tower, the Castle of Warkworth, which guards the town, commands a view both varied with objects of interest and importance.

From a lofty turret of the castle a great extent of land and ocean is to be seen. The great Tower of the Percys, from which this turret rises, is decorated with the lion of Brabant, and is seated on the brink of a cliff above the town. From this lofty structure the eye, stretching along the coast, may discern the castles of Dunstanbrough and Bamborough: the Fern Islands, dotted upon the face of the waters, the Port of Alemouth, and, at a little distance, the mouth of the river Coquet, with its island and ruined monastery. To the north, a richly cultivated country extends as far as Alnwick; to the south lies a plain, interspersed with villages and woods; the shore, to which it inclines, is indented with many ports and creeks; the smoke rising from many scattered hamlets, and the spires of churches enliven the smiling prospect.

In this secure station the rebels remained for two days; and here Mr. Forster assumed the rank of General of the Forces in the North, a title which had been bestowed on him by the Earl of Mar. On the day after his arrival at Warkworth, Mr. Forster sent Mr. Buxton, who was chaplain to the troops to desire Mr. Ton, the parish clergyman, to pray for the Chevalier as King; and, in the Litany, for Mary, the Queen Mother, and to omit the petition for King George, the Prince and Princess of Wales, &c. Mr. Ton declining to make this alteration, Mr. Buxton took possession of the reading-desk, and performed the service, whilst the deposed clergyman took flight, and, hastening to Newcastle, gave notice there of what had occurred. This was the first place where the Chevalier was prayed for in England; and Mr. Buxton's sermon, observes our historian, "gave mighty encouragement to his hearers, being full of exhortations, flourishing arguments, and cunning insinuations to be hearty in the cause." These incentives were aided by a "comely personage," and considerable eloquence and erudition.

On the following day, after proclaiming James King of England with all due formality and with the sound of trumpet, Mr. Forster attending the ceremony in disguise, the troops marched to Morpeth, their numbers increasing as they went. At Felton Bridge, they were joined by seventy horse, composed of gentlemen from the borders; and by the time they reached Morpeth, their number had augmented to three hundred: these were all horse-soldiers: Mr. Forster refused the foot as auxiliaries, otherwise the increase would have been considerable. The reason assigned for this rejection was the impossibility of supplying the men with arms; but the fairest assurances were given to the friends of the cause that arms and ammunition would soon be procured, and regiments listed forthwith.

The spirits of the Jacobite army were now high; their hopes were raised by the daily increase of their party. Newcastle was their next object, and thither they prepared to march, having first proclaimed the Chevalier,—Mr. Buxton taking upon himself the office of herald. Newcastle was, however, on her defence: the city gates were closed against the troops, and they turned towards Hexham, and thence marched to a moor near Dilstone Castle, and here they halted for some days. This was a feint, as they intended, it is thought, to have surprised the town of Newcastle. But the news they received from that place were far from encouraging. The gentry in the neighbourhood had rallied for its defence; and Lord Scarborough, the lord-lieutenant of the county, had entered the town with a body of men. Still there was a powerful High Church party, who, as the Jacobites hoped, would declare for the Chevalier. It was from Newcastle that Lord Derwentwater had been apprised, in the first instance, that there were messengers sent to apprehend him. The insurgents therefore, continued near Hexham, where they seized on all the horses and arms they could, read prayers in the churches for King James, and proclaimed him in the market-place.

The Earl of Derwentwater had appointed his brother to the command of his troop, whilst Captain Shaftoe was under Mr. Radcliffe. This, in some respects, was an unfortunate step: the young and brave commander had never even seen an army before: he was inexperienced, and ignorant of all military discipline: what he wanted in knowledge, he is said, however, to have made up for by the influence he acquired over his men, and by the power he had of inciting them to great exploits.[191]

Whilst the rebel forces lay at Hexham, they received the intelligence that Lord Kenmure, the Earls of Nithisdale, of Carnwath, and Wintoun, had risen in Nithisdale, and had marched thence to England to join the troops in Northumberland, and had even advanced as far as Rothbury. On the nineteenth of October, Mr. Forster joined the Scottish army at Rothbury, and afterwards marched with an increasing force to Kelso. Here prayers were read in the great kirk by Mr. Buxton; "and I," relates Mr. Patten, "preached on these words, Deut. xxi. 17,—the latter part of the verse: 'The right of the first-born is his.'" The service of the Church of England was then read for the first time on that side of the Tweed.[192]

William Gordon, Viscount Kenmure, had the command of the Jacobite army until they had crossed the Tweed. Like the Earl of Derwentwater, this unfortunate nobleman is declared to have shewn reluctance to take up arms. On having been solicited by the Earl of Mar to command the forces, and assured that he would join him, he at first refused the offer, but had finally acceded, and had set up the standard of the Chevalier at Moffat, in Annandale. The standard was made, for this occasion, by Lady Kenmure, the sister of Robert, sixth Earl of Carnwath. It was very handsome; one side being blue, with the arms of Scotland wrought in gold; on the other side a thistle,—the words so often uttered during the Rebellion, and re-echoed in many a Scottish heart, "No Union," were wrought underneath the thistle. Above it were the words NEMO ME IMPUNE LACESSIT; white pendants were attached to the standard, on which were inscribed—"For our Wronged King and Oppressed Country!" "For our Lives and Liberties!"

But the nobleman who had taken this prominent part in the Rebellion of 1715, although possessed of extraordinary knowledge in politics and civil affairs, was an utter stranger to all military business. His mild temper and his unoffending character inspired compassion for his subsequent fate, but unfitted him for the office of command: his gentler qualities were united, nevertheless, to a resolute and lofty mind. The fate of this nobleman, like that of his most distinguished friends, was a brief tragedy.

Lord Kenmure had a troop of gentlemen with him, the command of which he gave to the Hon. Bazil Hamilton of Beldoun, and a nephew of the Duke of Hamilton.

Among other characters who were conspicuous on this occasion, was the celebrated Brigadier Mackintosh. The sixth regiment, named after the Brigadier as chief of the clan, was commanded by a kinsman. The Brigadier had served in Germany, and had there gained his military rank. Descended from the ancient house of Fife, the chieftain had increased his influence by marrying, while a minor, the heiress of Clanchattan, in right of whom he became chieftain of that clan, comprising many others. His motto, "Touch not the cat without a glove," and the coat-of-arms supported by two wild cats, with a cat for the crest, were not inappropriate. No suspicion had been entertained of Mackintosh's adherence to the Chevalier, with whom he became acquainted abroad, until he actually joined the party.

The Earl of Carnwath, Lord Nairn, Lord Charles Murray, and the Earl of Wintoun, commanded the other Scottish regiments, which were generally better armed than those of the English. The Earl of Derwentwater, and the Lords Widdrington had the two principal English regiments, of which there were four.[193]

On the twenty-fifth of October, the united army of Scots and English left Kelso, and marched to Jedburgh. On their march, some of the Scots, taking umbrage, left the army under the guidance of the Earl of Wintoun; and although that nobleman afterwards returned with his troop, above four hundred Highlanders deserted, and returned to their country.

During the progress of the insurgent forces, there is little reason to conclude that Lord Derwentwater took a very active or important part in the various consultations which were held, always with great disunion, and with a melancholy want of judgment, between the General, Mr. Forster, and his military council. The amiable nobleman appears to have assigned to his less discreet brother the entire guidance of his troop. "His temper and disposition," as he expresses it in his defence, "disposed him to peace. He was totally inexperienced in martial affairs; that he entered upon the undertaking without any previous concert with its chief promoters,—without any preparation of men, horses, and arms, or other warlike accoutrements," was at once an instance of his imprudence and a mitigation of his error.[194] There was, indeed, no doubt but that Lord Derwentwater might have brought many hundreds of his followers to the field, even from one portion of his estate only; for he possessed the extensive lead mines on Alstone Moor, where a large body of men were daily employed, and received from him their sole means of support.[195]

But whether or not this unfortunate nobleman failed in energy or in zeal; whether he entered with his whole heart into the cause of James Stuart; or whether, with the conscientious scruples of a gentle nature, he shrank from involving in the risk of this insurrection the majority of his humble dependants, he acted throughout the whole of this brief campaign with the consideration for others so characteristic of his mind. He truly affirmed on his trial, that no one could charge him with any cruel, severe, or harsh action during his continuance in arms: and his conduct in the last extremity corresponded to his previous forbearance. Such dispositions appear to have been cherished, indeed, by the rest of the Jacobite party. The merciful temper of the Chevalier, and his known aversion to destructive measures, may have had its influence over those who asserted his claims. There was something like the spirit of the cavalier of the Great Rebellion in Mr. Forster's reply to some of his officers, who wished to put down or burn a Presbyterian meetinghouse at Penrith: "It is by clemency, and not by cruelty, that we are to prevail."[196]

After the insurgent troops had marched from place to place for some time, it was decided that the English regiments should recross the border; and after many disputes and much loss of time, they resolved on a march into Lancashire, a country abounding at that time in Roman Catholic gentry, and strongly Jacobite.[197] This decision, like most of the other military movements of the unfortunate Jacobites, was the work of a strong party in the camp, and was founded upon the alleged authority of private letters, which gave the assurance of a general insurrection taking place on the appearance of the insurgent force. The unlucky change of plans superseded a meditated attack upon the town of Dumfries. "Nothing," observes Mr. Patten, "could be a greater token of a complete infatuation,—that Heaven confounded all their devices, and that their destruction was to be of their own working, than their omitting such an opportunity." After a rapid march from Langholm in the west of Scotland, across the borders, and through Penrith, Appleby, and Kendal, to Kirby Lonsdale, the combined force entered the county of Lancaster; and having entered Lancaster without opposition, they resolved to proceed to Preston. It is now that the last disastrous events of Lord Derwentwater's brief career brought to light his excellent qualities, his pure and amiable motives of action. It is not possible to read the account of the battle of Preston, in which he was engaged, without a deep regret for the personal misfortunes of one so young, so well intentioned, and so esteemed, as this ill-fated nobleman.

The forces of the Jacobites amounted, after being joined by a party of volunteers under the Lords Rothes and Torpichen, and since their separation from the Highlanders, to about two thousand men. The foot was commanded by Brigadier Mackintosh; and six hundred Northumbrian and Dumfriesshire horsemen, by Lord Kenmure and Mr. Forster.[198]

On the ninth instant the march to Preston was commenced; the cavalry troops reached that town on the same evening; but the day proving rainy, and the roads heavy, the foot regiments were left at a small market-town called Garstang, half-way between Manchester and Preston. Two troops of Stanhope's dragoons, formerly quartered at Preston, having retired as the rebels approached, the spirits of the Jacobite officers and the ardour of their men were greatly encouraged. On the following day, Thursday the tenth of November, the Chevalier was proclaimed at Preston, and here the rebels were joined by many country gentlemen, their tenants and servants: this was the first accession to the party since their entrance into Lancashire. The new allies were chiefly Roman Catholics, a circumstance which aroused the instinctive dread of the Scottish volunteers to persons of that persuasion. The High Church party hung back from joining the cause. The Roman Catholics began, according to the historian of the Rebellion of 1715, "to show their blind side," being never right hearty for their cause until they are "mellow," as they call it "over a bottle or two."[199]