1745. CHARLES NAMES A COUNCIL. 269 thousand stand of arms, a train of six field-pieces, and several French and Irish officers. With these came over, likewise, M. de Boyer, called the Marquis d'Eguilles, and brother of the well-known Marquis d'Argens, who was entrusted with a letter of congratulation to Charles from Louis the Fifteenth. This was the principal business of his mission; but the Prince, with excellent policy, insisted on calling him "Monseigneur "de Boyer,' ,"* and receiving him with studied ceremony, as the accredited ambassador from the King of France to the Prince Regent of Scotland. This belief, together with the promise of a French landing in Charles's favour, tended in no small degree to raise or to sustain the spirits of his partisans. To carry on these and his other measures with an air of royalty, Charles had named a council, consisting of the two Lieutenant-Generals, the Duke of Perth and Lord George Murray; the Quartermaster-General, O'Sullivan; the Colonel of the Horse Guards, Lord Elcho; Secretary Murray, Lords Ogilvie, Nairn, Pitsligo, and Lewis Gordon, Sir Thomas Sheridan, and all the Highland chiefs. This council he appointed to meet him at ten o'clock every morning, in his drawing-room. It was then his custom, first to declare his own opinion, and afterwards to ask that of every other member in their turn. The deliberations were often protracted and discordant, and embittered by rivalry between the Scotch and Irish officers. According to Lord Elcho, "there was one third of the council whose principles were, "that Kings and Princes can never think wrong, so in con"sequence they always confirmed whatever the Prince said;" and he moreover alleges, that "His Royal Highness could "not bear to hear any body differ in sentiment from him, "and took a dislike to every body that did." ** We should not forget that Lord Elcho wrote thus in exile, after a violent quarrel and total estrangement between him and the Prince; * Caledonian Mercury, October 16. 1745. **Lord Elcho's MS. Memoirs: a large extract, inserted in the Tales of a Grandfather, vol. iii. p. 54-58. yet, on the whole, from his and other testimony, we may clearly conclude, that Charles was too fiery in his temper and too fixed in his opinions. Before the council, Charles always held a levee; when the council rose, he dined in public with his principal officers, and then rode out with his Life Guards, usually to his camp at Duddingstone. On returning in the evening, he held a drawing-room for the ladies of his party; and not unfrequently closed the day by giving them a ball in the old picture-gallery of Holyrood. His affability and constant wish to please were neither relaxed by his good fortune nor yet clouded by his cares: at table he often combined a compliment to his followers with a sarcasm on his rival, by saying, that, after his restoration, Scotland should be his Hanover, and Holyrood House his Herrenhausen. * At his camp he talked familiarly even to the meanest Highlanders.** At his balls he was careful to call alternately for Highland and Lowland tunes, so as to avoid showing an invidious preference to either, to such minute particulars did his anxiety to please descend! The fair sex in general, throughout Scotland, became devoted to his cause; those who conversed with him, won by his gaiety and gallantry; those in a remoter sphere, dazzled by his romantic enterprise and situation, and moved by the generous compassion of a woman's heart. The heir of Robert the Bruce come to claim his birthright, and animated, as they fondly believed, by a kindred spirit! the master of a kingdom, yet reigning beneath the cannon of a hostile fortress! an exile two months before! -a conqueror to-day!-perhaps a monarch, or perhaps again an outcast and fugitive to-morrow! Charles, having now collected as large an army as his present means allowed, was eager to employ it in an expedition to England. His Scottish counsellors, on the contrary, argued, that he ought to content himself with the possession of their ancient kingdom; to think only of defending it * Chambers's Hist. vol. i. p. 211. **Report of the spy sent from England, October, 1745. 1745. HIS DESIGN OF AN EXPEDITION INTO ENGLAND. 271 against the English armies when they marched against him, but to run no hazard in attempts at further conquest*: a strange and thoughtless advice, evidently founded on traditional feelings, rather than on sober reason! With better judgment the young Prince perceived, that in his circumstances to await attack was to ensure defeat, and that his only hope of retaining Scotland lay in conquering England. It might indeed, with more ground, be objected to his enterprise, that his present force was wholly insufficient for it, and would expose both his cause and his person to imminent peril. Yet still, considering that the English could hardly be incited to an insurrection, nor the French to a descent, without Charles's personal appearance, and that further delay would probably strengthen the established government in a far greater proportion than himself, the course of present danger was undoubtedly the best for final safety and success. At three several councils did Charles accordingly propose to march into England and fight Marshal Wade, whose army, consisting partly of the Dutch auxiliaries and partly of English regiments, was gathered at Newcastle; but as often was his proposal overruled. At length he declared, in a very peremptory manner, "I see, Gentlemen, you are "determined to stay in Scotland and defend your country, "but I am not less resolved to try my fate in England, though "I should go alone." Thus pressed in honour, the chiefs reluctantly yielded; limiting their consent, however, to a march a little way across the Border. It was then urged by Lord George Murray, that since they needs must enter England, it should be on the Cumberland rather than on the Northumberland side: for, if Marshal Wade advanced towards Carlisle to give them battle, he must harass his troops by a fatiguing march through a difficult See these views vehemently maintained by Chevalier Johnstone; Memoirs, p. 45. 8vo ed.; a work that may be consulted for opinions, though not trusted for facts. He adds, "By fomenting the natural hatred "which the Scots have at all times manifested against the English, the 46 war would have become national; and this would have been a most for66 tunate circumstance for the Prince." country, and the Highlanders would fight to advantage among hills not unlike their own. If, on the contrary, the Marshal remained inactive, the Prince would be at liberty to move where he pleased, and more time would be afforded for the French to land, or the English to rise. This scheme, which seems a great improvement on Charles's first idea, was finally resolved upon; the secret, however, was well kept, it being generally given out and believed that they were to march straight against Wade. To mislead the English as long as possible, the Chevalier adopted another suggestion of Lord George, that the army should proceed in two columns, both to join on a day appointed near Carlisle; the first, with the baggage and incumbrances, to go by the direct road of Moffat, but the second and lighter one, under the Prince in person, to pass by Kelso, as if with the design of pushing on into Northumberland. At this period, however, the English Government was no longer, as after Preston, unprepared or defenceless: their regiments had arrived from Flanders, their auxiliaries from Holland. Besides Wade's army at Newcastle, which amounted already to near ten thousand men, another under the Duke of Cumberland was forming in the midland counties. The militia had been raised in many districts, and the Duke of Bedford, with thirteen other noblemen, had undertaken to raise each a new regiment of his own. The House of Commons, moreover, had voted not merely loyal addresses but liberal supplies; and consented to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. On their part, all the ruling statesmen had begun to open their eyes to the magnitude of the impending danger; and the Chancellor, starting as from a lethargy, remarked, that he had thought lightly of the Highlands, but now saw they made a third of the island in the map. Every exertion was used to rouse and stimulate the people, not only by a just representation that their religion and liberties were in peril, but also by lower, and probably more effectual arts. Thus, for example, the *Earl of Marchmont's Diary, October 7. 1745. 1745. STATE OF PUBLIC FEELING. 273 butchers were reminded that the Papists eat no meat in Lent*; and the Highlanders were held forth as brutal savages, from whom the worst excesses might be feared. I have now lying before me a pamphlet, "by a British "Lady." "Let every mother," says the fair authoress, "consider, if this inundation is not stopped, her prattling "boys, the pledges of her love and the darlings of her heart, "may be torn from her sight, and slavery, the French "galleys, and the Spanish Inquisition be their portion. "What may be the fate of her girls, whom she watches over with so much tender care, I have already hinted, "and think the subject too horrible, to resume indeed "too horrible even but to mention: what then must be the "reality?"** It may be doubted, however, whether, with all these exertions and exaggerations, much effect was produced upon the great body of the people. The county of York seems to have been the only one where the gentry and yeomen, headed by their Archbishop, made a public and zealous appearance. The fourteen promised regiments all vanished in air or dwindled to jobs: "These most disinterested "Colonels," writes Horace Walpole, "will name none but "their own relations and dependents for the officers who are "to have rank." *** Great lukewarmness, to say the least of it, appeared in the ranks of opposition. Lord Bolingbroke told Marchmont, that he thought this was the time when people should endeavour to keep themselves cool; and that unless there was a third party for the Constitution, there was none worth fighting for!+ And at a still later period he says, "I wait with much resignation to know to what lion's The placard was as follows: "TO ALL JOLLY BUTCHERS: My bold 66 hearts, the l'apists eat no meat on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays, nor "during Lent. Your friend, JOHN STEEL." — H. Walpole to Sir H. Mann, October 4. 1745. ** Epistle from a British Lady to her Countrywomen, 1745, p. 11. At p. 13. she bids them emulate "the courage of the women in the reign of "Romulus!" *** To Sir H. Mann, November 4. 1745. Lord Marchmont's Diary, September 24. 1745. Mahon, History. III. 18 |