The Road to Culloden Moor Read online

  The Sergeant was prepared for them. He ‘presented his blunder-buss, which was charged with slugs, threatening to blow out the brains of those who first dared to lay hands on himself or the two who accompanied him, and by turning round continually, facing in all directions, and behaving like a lion, he soon enlarged the circle, which a crowd of people had formed around him. Having continued for some time to manoeuvre in this way, those of the inhabitants of Manchester who were attached to the House of Stuart, took arms, and flew to the assistance of Dickson, to rescue him from the fury of the mob; so that he had soon five or six hundred men to aid him, who dispersed the crowd in a very short time. Dickson now triumphed in his turn, and putting himself at the head of his followers, proudly paraded undisturbed the whole day with his drummer ….’ And so, as a disgruntled Government volunteer put it, ‘Manchester was taken by a Serjeant, a Drum and a Woman’, but he consoled himself with the thought that the only recruits were people of the lowest rank and vilest principles.

  These recruits were the kernel of the Manchester Regiment which was put under the command of Francis Townley, who was given a tartan sash to show his rank. The Regiment’s fate was to be a tragic one, but this lay in the future. For the moment there was a mood of euphoria among Charles’s new adherents. On 29 November he entered Manchester. The crowds huzza’d him to his lodgings, the town was illuminated and the bells rang out. This was more like it as far as Charles was concerned. ‘There were several substantial people came and kis’d his hand, and a vast number of people of all sorts came to see him supp ….’ But young Lord Elcho believed it was just so much flannel and that Charles was ‘so far deceived with these proceedings of bonfires and ringing of bells (which they used to own themselves they did out of fear of being ill Used) that he thought himself sure of Success, and his Conversation that night at Table was, in what manner he should enter London, on horseback or a foot, and in what dress …’

  Elcho left a famous description of the growing dissent. So far Charles had managed to carry his Council with him, but the underlying anxieties of the Scots were never far away. They were hard-headed practical men who believed in fighting at least on equal terms with their enemy. They did not share Charles’s simple faith that his subjects would never take arms against him. ‘The Principal officers of the army … met at Manchester and were of Opinion that now they had marched far enough into England, and as they had received not the least Encouragement from any person of distinction, the French not landed, and only joined by 200 vagabonds [an unfair comment — many were artisans and craftsmen, particularly weavers, and Elcho was a snob], they had done their part; and as they did not pretend to put a King upon the throne of England without their consent, that it was time to represent to the Prince to go back to Scotland. But after talking a great deal about it, it was determin’d to March to Derby, that so neither the French nor the English might have it to Say, the army had not marched far Enough into England to give the one Encouragement to Land and the other to join.’

  So although Charles got his way, the Council meeting on St Andrew’s Day, 30 November, was a highly-charged one. He needed the collective advocacy of Lord Nairne and the recently joined Welsh Jacobite lawyer David Morgan to win the argument. Morgan was one of only two Welshmen to join the army. As Charles was later to remark the Welsh had turned out to be no more than wine-glass Jacobites. He wryly promised to do for them all that they had done for him — drink their health. On 1 December the army moved out, but first Charles did a suitably princely thing. He ordered the repair of a bridge destroyed by the authorities on his approach. A proclamation told the good citizens of Manchester that ‘His Royal Highness does not propose to make use of it for his own army, but believes it will be of service to the country; and if any forces that were with General Wade be coming this road they may have the benefit of it.’

  He had done more for the supposed Jacobites in Cheshire than they had done for him. One of the few bright spots — and pathetic in its own way — was the case of old Mrs Skyring. She was said to have seen Charles II land at Dover when she was a little girl. A convinced Jacobite, she had been sending half her income anonymously to James. She now sold her plate and jewels and gave the proceeds to Charles. Kissing the princely hand she is supposed to have declared, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’ She had her wish a few days later, dying of shock at the news of the retreat from Derby.

  At Macclesfield — famous for its button-making — Charles received important news. Cumberland, who had taken over Ligonier’s command, was advancing, determined to engage Charles at the first opportunity. His forward troops were at Newcastle-under-Lyme. A council of war was held and it was decided to try and outmanoeuvre Cumberland to get between him and London. Lord George Murray went ahead with the van towards Congleton to make Cumberland believe the Jacobites were about to attack him. He engaged Cumberland’s advance guard whose commander, the Duke of Kingston, fled in such a panic he left his dinner to the enemy.

  Lord George’s men made another interesting discovery in a village two or three miles from Newcastle. They ‘accidentaly Stumbled upon the house where Mr Weir, or Vere, who had acted the Spy, not only at Edr, but all the way upon the road, keeping a few miles before them’ was about to have his supper. The ‘obnoxious’ Weir was immediately bundled off to Macclesfield to receive his just deserts. But Charles’s ‘humanity and good nature’ saved him and instead of being hanged forthwith he was simply carried along with the army as a prisoner. As Murray of Broughton wrote, this was to have dire consequences: ‘It was a pity that so humane an action Should have been followed by such fatal consequences as to have put it in the power of so vile a Creature to be a main Instrument in the Death of so many of his Servants.’ Weir’s evidence was to be the death warrant of many a Jacobite. Lord George Murray had wanted to have his own spy network but Charles had taken the view that it was too costly.

  There was another Government spy hard on the heels of the Jacobites. Enter Captain Dudley Bradstreet, if he is to be believed. According to him the news of the rebels’ entry into Manchester caused universal panic in London, with most people suffering ‘the greatest Confusion and Consternation’. But not, of course, Captain Bradstreet and the Ministers of the Government. They sat down and coolly worked out a stratagem for obstructing Charles. Dudley proposed that he should ‘go among the Rebels, and endeavour to make a Mutiny that might ruin the Pretender’s Affairs, which I hoped to accomplish by their powerful Assistance; the first was, I would make large Promises to some distinguished Rebels, of Desperate Fortunes, to fire their Magazines, if possible, the Danger to be mine, the Success theirs. Another Scheme was, that I would take one of the finest Women in London with me, and, as the young Chevalier was reported to be a Man of Gallantry, she might perhaps get into his Confidence ….’ In the end something less sensational was agreed upon. This was that Bradstreet should put himself into the hands of the rebels, try to gain the confidence of the Council, and find a means of delaying their advance. The arrangements for his departure were the stuff of novels. He went to Monmouth Street and equipped himself with a fine new suit of brown cloth richly laced with gold. It was difficult to get money because ‘Matters were in so dreadful a Situation that Morning, that the Currency of the Bank of England was in a great Measure stopt.’ But Bradstreet had been supplied with funds by his spy masters as well as with the necessary passports. He made his will, buried a spare hundred pounds in his back garden and set out on his mission.

  The Government was right to believe that the adventure was reaching its crisis. Lord George Murray had deceived Cumberland into believing that the Jacobites were making for Wales, and he withdrew. On 4 December the Jacobite army slipped past him and entered Derby. Charles was within a hundred and twenty miles of London and with Cumberland behind him the road was open. His fate and the fate of the kingdom seemed to onlookers to be teetering in the balance. The Westminster Journal had some advice for him: ‘If thou hast any Regard to thy own
Neck or the Necks of thy Followers, retire! before William comes too near with his Father’s Vengeance.’ But nothing was further from Charles’s thoughts.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘… VERY ABUSIVE LANGUAGE’

  Derby was a Whig stronghold and all the charm in the world was not going to secure Charles a rapturous reception. Many of the leading citizens amongst its six thousand population had followed the example of the Duke of Devonshire and decamped towards Nottingham ‘with the utmost precipitation’. Whig propaganda and disinformation had sown the seeds of panic and the appearance of the Jacobite army was not reassuring to the townsfolk. The vanguard may have looked respectable enough ‘clothed in blue faced with red, and scarlet waistcoats with gold lace’. So did Elcho and his Lifeguards when they rode in with many of the chiefs, similarly attired and self-consciously ‘the flower of their army’.

  But when the main body marched in under the Duke of Perth, six or eight abreast with their banners flying and bagpipes playing, the spies and journalists gave free rein to their indignation. ‘Most of their main body,’ wrote one, ‘are a parcel of shabby, lousy, pittiful looking fellows, mixed up with old men and boys.’ He described their dirty plaids and dirty shirts and lack of breeches with disgust, and their plaid stockings reaching barely half way up their legs. Some were without shoes or next to none, and all were so worn out with the march that ‘they commanded our pity rather than our fear.’ Yet to most onlookers they were a despicable crew — short, wan, meagre and carrying their arms with difficulty. A gentleman wrote indignantly to the press, describing how the Gaelic tongue made them sound like ‘a herd of Hottentots, wild monkies in a desert, or vagrant gipsies’. It was only in the field that their sneering critics discovered how terrifying these shoeless, stockingless warriors could be. Before Charles arrived to claim the city, the ceremony of the Proclamation was enacted in the Market Place. Most of the city dignitaries obeyed the summons to appear in their robes, though some had fled and others pleaded rather lamely that they could not find their gowns. Charles entered at the head of the last body of the Jacobite force towards evening. As usual he was marching on foot and as usual he made an impression, even on a hostile audience. An eye-witness wrote: ‘It is justice to say that he is a fine person, six foot high, a very good complexion, and presence majestic. He had a Scotch bonnet with a white silver rose … Another gentleman described him as ‘tall, straight, slender and handsome, dressed in a green bonnet laced with gold, a white bob-wig, the fashion of the day, a Highland plaid and broadsword’.

  His reception was warmer than he might have expected. O’Sullivan described how Charles was ‘perfectly well received. Bonfires on the roads, the Bells ringing … it was really a fine sight to see the illuminations of the Town.’ There are even tales that the ladies of fashion — always susceptible to Charles — were soon busy making white cockades. Some of them were to be castigated as the ‘rebel sluts of Derby’ but a verse captured Charles’s attraction:

  If you saw him once …

  Do see him once! What harm is there in seeing?

  If after that there be not an agreeing,

  Then call me twenty rebel sluts if you

  When you have seen him, ben’t a rebel too!

  Followed by a lively and curious crowd Charles made his way to Exeter House which was to be his residence in Derby. Every other house in the surrounding streets was crammed with tired clansmen. After a supper of bread, cheese and ale they fell asleep where they could — some in beds but mostly lying on heaps of straw. Some of the very best accommodation was reserved for the handful of ladies who were travelling with the army, their carriage rumbling along with the marching clansmen. These included Lady Ogilvy, so young and beautiful that her husband had been afraid to leave her behind, knowing the morals of the age. There was also Murray of Broughton’s wife, who had sat on her horse at the market cross in Edinburgh, handing out white cockades, and who probably insisted on coming. Unreliable rumours persisted that Jenny Cameron was also with them, delighting in administering soothing cordials to her lover the Prince.

  As usual Charles was already considering the next step. That night at dinner his conversation was again about what to wear when he entered London — only ninety-four miles from his advance guard of some eighty men at Swarkston Bridge. Should it be Highland or Lowland dress, and would he would look best on foot or on horse-back? With untarnished optimism he predicted that ‘the people of England, as was their duty, still nourished that allegiance for the race of their native Princes which they were bound to hold sacred, and that if he did but persevere in his daring attempt, Heaven itself would fight in his cause.’ It also seemed as if the French might do the same. At Manchester Charles had received encouraging news from his brother Henry that ‘the King of France was absolutely resolved upon the expedition into England … and that you might count upon it being ready towards the 20 December.’ On arriving at Derby there were further optimistic signs — Charles heard that six French transports had slipped through the Royal Navy’s net and successfully landed some eight hundred men of the Royal Scots and Irish Regiments of the French army at Montrose and Peterhead, commanded by the Duke of Perth’s brother Lord John Drummond.

  In the meantime invasion plans had been well under way in France. The indefatigable Walsh had been using his contacts to assemble the necessary shipping in the Channel ports. A nervous Government in London received reports that an invasion force of ten or twenty thousand troops was about to embark. The mood in the capital was already one of panic. The news that the Highlanders had slipped past Cumberland and were between him and the city ‘struck a terror into it scarce to be credited’. The True Patriot described the undignified scenes. ‘On Friday last, the Alarm of the Rebels having given the Duke the Slip, and being in full March for this Town, together with the Express … from Admiral Vernon [that the French were embarking for invasion}, struck such a Terror into several public-spirited Persons that, to prevent their Money, Jewels, Plate &c falling into Rebellious or French Hands, they immediately began to pack up and secure the same. And that they themselves might not be forced against their Wills into bad Company, they began to prepare for Journies into the Country; concluding, that the Plunder of what must remain behind in this City would satisfy the Victors ….’ There was a run on the Bank of England and according to Fielding, in order to gain time, it paid out in sixpences heated up till they were too hot to handle.

  However, there were plans for defending the capital, if it should come to that. The True Patriot rallied its readers with the news that ‘While these fine Ladies, some of whom wear Breeches and are vulgarly called Beaus, were thus taking care of themselves, another Spirit hath prevailed amongst the Men, particularly in the City of London, where many Persons of good Fortune having provided themselves with the Uniform, were on Saturday last inlisted as Volunteers in the Guards.’ These Guards camped out on Finchley common in readiness and some cavalry were stationed at Barnet. Tradespeople shut up shop and London held its breath.

  But when the crisis came it was for Charles, not for the city on which he had set his sights. On the morning of 5 December, just as he was about to leave his lodgings, bonnet on his head, he received a visitor — Lord George Murray. According to an eyewitness Murray was brutally frank. He told Charles that it was high time to think about what they were doing. Charles asked him what he meant — was it not resolved to march on? Lord George replied that most of the chiefs were of a different opinion. He ushered Charles back into the house. The confrontation took place in the oak-wainscotted drawing room on the first floor and an impromptu council was called. Lord George asked the question that was on everyone’s mind — was it prudent to advance any further?

  The fears of the chiefs poured out — Cumberland was pushing on towards London by forced marches and might be at Stafford that very night; Wade was also pushing south by the east road; a third army was being formed near London; this would make thirty thousand Government soldiers; the tiny Highland
force of five thousand would be encircled, overrun, massacred. The arguments for a retreat were ‘unanswerable’ the chiefs said apologetically. The only sensible course was to retreat to Scotland and join up with Lord John Drummond’s forces. Charles did not agree. According to Lord Elcho he ‘heard all these arguments with the greatest impatience, fell into a passion, and gave most of the Gentlemen that had Spoke very Abusive Language, and said they had a mind to betray him’. The rift between the Scots and the Irish had never been more apparent — Charles’s ‘Irish favourites’ were for marching on and were heard to say that if they were captured the worst that would happen to them was a few months’ imprisonment.

  Charles could not believe that his dream was to be snatched away just as it was within his grasp, but it was difficult to dissuade the doubters. He could not produce any letters from Louis committing him unequivocally to an invasion of England. Nor could he be specific about what stage the French expedition had reached. Nor could he prove that the English Jacobites had any intention of doing more than raise their glasses to him. All that day he continued to insist on advancing, lobbying hard but without much success. Later that evening the Council reconvened. O’Sullivan and Murray of Broughton still supported Charles and the gentle Duke of Perth was all for an immediate attack against Cumberland. But ranged against them were the combined forces of Lord George Murray, grimly sure of his argument, and the influential trio of Cluny, Keppoch and Lochiel. They assured Charles that the Highlanders could easily march twenty miles a day. At that pace they could outstrip Cumberland. And if they met Wade on the road to Scotland they had no doubt that they could give him the same bloody nose as they had given Cope. The situation was on a knife-edge when that cheerful adventurer Captain Dudley Bradstreet claims to have stepped out from the shadows into history.