The Road to Culloden Moor Read online

  It was a perfectly staged event. The citizens of Perth who thronged the streets in some bewilderment saw the personification of the Jacobite dream. Charles rode at the head of his troops, a vision in a suit of tartan trimmed with gold lace. The people ‘dazzled by his appearance, hailed him with loud acclamations’. His father was proclaimed King at the Cross to the cheers of the Jacobite supporters and he was appointed Regent. He did his very best to endear himself to the populace, displaying ‘great courteousness of manner’. Spies might report that his only support came from those ‘who had little to lose, Bankrupts, Papists, and such as were outlawed by Church and State’ who resorted to Perth ‘as to an Asylum’, but there is no doubt he was on a roll. He boasted to his father that ‘I have got their hearts’.

  He now gained some further and very important adherents in the form of the Duke of Perth, Lord George Murray, Lord Ogilvy, Lord Strathallan and Lawrence Oliphant of Gask. Lord George Murray, brother to the Duke of Atholl, was the most significant of these and was pivotal to the campaign from the moment he bowed his knee to Charles. The Athollmen called him ‘cluine firinneach’ meaning ‘true or righteous man’. Like so many others he was a mature man who had been out in earlier risings. Pardoned in 1725 he had set about repairing the family fortunes and had become a friend of Duncan Forbes. He was risking everything by following his Prince. But like Lochiel he was a Jacobite by conviction and could not fail to respond to this call to do his duty. Also like Lochiel, he did it with a heavy heart, unlike the excitable young men whose eyes were dazzled by the glamour of the cause.

  It seems that Charles was openly suspicious of Lord George and his links with the Government from the outset. However, in deference to his military experience he appointed him joint Lieutenant-General, together with the Duke of Perth who had narrowly escaped being caught and locked up in his own castle before he could join the Jacobite forces. Charles tried to achieve a modus vivendi between the two by giving each of them the same number of men in battle, alternate command of the left and right wings and supreme command on alternate days. O’Sullivan was appointed Quartermaster.

  The first priority was money — Charles had apparently entered Perth with no more than a guinea in his pocket. He and his advisers decided to appoint collectors to gather money from the city of Perth, and other neighbouring cities like Dundee, on the grounds that it was a legitimate activity for the lawful King to levy excise money. Ever mindful of appearances Charles even went to call on one Perth dignitary to explain the levy he was imposing on the city. However, this backfired a little. His zealous Highland attendant was disgusted to see the bailie wearing a large wig while Charles stood bareheaded. He seized it and jammed it on Charles’s head exclaiming that: ‘It was a shame to see ta like o’her, clarty thing, wearing sic a braw hap when ta very Prince hersel’ had naething on ava.’

  More generally the levying of taxes was deeply resented by the town dignitaries, but it meant that the Jacobites could claim that they did not plunder the countryside, despite reports to the contrary. The Whig press were quick to describe and to invent events in which wild Highlanders ravished the countryside not to mention its people. However, a Government spy acknowledged that at Perth Charles’s men ‘keep good discipline and pay for everything’, except apparently for Keppoch and Glengarry’s men who were harder to control. To counter the charges about Papism Charles was careful to attend an Episcopal service in Perth. It was a strategy he was to follow in other cities to rid himself of the spectre of religious intolerance.

  Charles was comfortably lodged in a house belonging to Viscount Stormont ‘one of whose sisters is credibly said to have spread a bed for his Royal Highness with her own fair hands’. During the few days he was in Perth he found time to attend balls, though it was remarked that he offended the ladies ‘by the shortness of his stay’. He was preoccupied. Time was of the essence and he and his chiefs needed to decide on their next move. It was agreed that Edinburgh must be the goal. The psychological advantage of taking the capital would be tremendous, and it might encourage the French to send the reinforcements that Charles still hoped for. However, this could not be achieved if the army was not properly provided for. It was a well-known fact that if the Highlanders were not adequately fed they would melt away to look for their own supplies. Lord George ordered all the bakers in Perth to bake loaves for the Highlanders and he had knapsacks or ‘pokes’ made for them to carry the bread in as they marched.

  In fact Lord George ‘took charge of everything, and attended to everything’. He drilled the troops at Perth, which required particular techniques. He later wrote: ‘It was told me that all Highlanders were gentlemen, and never to beat them. But I was well acquainted with their tempers. Fear was as necessary as love to restrain the bad and keep them in order. It was what all their Chiefs did and were not sparing of blows to them that deserved it which they took without grumbling when they had committed an offence. It is true that they would only receive correction from their own officers; for upon no account could the Chief of one clan correct the faults of the meanest of another. But I had as much authority over them all as each had amongst his own men … At any time when there was a post of more danger than another [I] had more difficulty in restraining those who were too forward than in finding those who were willing.’ In other words they were jealous, touchy, temperamental and needed careful handling. They would take almost anything from their chiefs, including being burned out of their homes to raise them for the Jacobite standard, but no one else exercised authority over them without their consent.

  Lord George was equal to the challenge of the Highlanders. Neither did the Duke of Perth cause him much difficulty. Educated at the Scots College in Paris, the Duke had an over-fondness for attempting to speak broad Scots, but he was a brave and unassuming man who gave way to Lord George’s stronger personality and greater experience without rancour. ‘About 34 years of age, six foot high, of a slender make, fair complection and weakly constitution’, his weak lungs were said to have been caused by his chest being crushed by a barrel when he was young. He was good natured and affable, if not overly intelligent. His tastes were for horse-racing and a quiet country life but he was not to enjoy these again.

  Lord George was destined to fall out with Charles who, nurtured in a world of rumour and intrigue, listened to ill-founded warnings about Murray’s allegiances and in particular about his friendship with Duncan Forbes. However, any friction in these early days was as much to do with Murray’s bossiness as with any more deep-seated doubts Charles had. Charles was quite honest about what he expected. At their very first meeting he explained ‘it is the obedience of my subjects I desire, not their advice’, but he never succeeded in making Lord George behave with due humility.

  On II September the Jacobite army, enriched by its new recruits, and now numbering some two thousand four hundred men, marched out towards Dumblane. The clansmen apparently seemed ‘extremely fatigued with this march, which could only be imputed to the good quarters and plentiful diet which they had had at Perth, and their being so many days without exercise’. For all his strictness Lord George had let the Highlanders grow soft.

  But to the population of Edinburgh they were as terrifying as ogres. Panic spread at the news of their approach, even among the dragoons who were meant to defend the city. The fact that Cope had thought it prudent to evade Charles had begun the rot. ‘The citizens had previously looked upon the insurrection as but a more formidable sort of riot, which would soon be quelled and no more heard of; but when they saw that a regular army had found it necessary to decline fighting with the insurgents … it began to be looked upon in a much more serious light.’

  From Dunblane Charles intended to march to the Fords of Frew and there to cross the Forth. Passing by Doune an incident occurred ‘which showed that he was at least the elected sovereign of the ladies of Scotland’. He stopped at the house of a Mr Edmonstone where all the gentlewomen of Monteith had assembled to see him pass. He gallantly d
rank to the health ‘of all the fair ladies present’ who begged the honour of kissing his hand. One of the ladies decided ‘it would be a much more satisfactory taste of royalty to kiss his lips, and she accordingly made bold to ask permission to pree his Royal Highness’s mouth. Charles did not at first understand her homely language, but it was no longer explained to him than he took her kindly in his arms, and kissed her fair and blushing face from ear to ear; to the no small vexation, it is added, of the other ladies, who had contented themselves with a less liberal share of princely grace.’

  He reached the Fords of Frew to find no one to dispute his crossing. Colonel Gardiner’s dragoons who should have been defending the river had fled in sheer panic — ‘those doughty heroes, who had hitherto talked of cutting the whole host in pieces as soon as it approached the Lowlands, now thought it proper to retire upon Stirling.’ It was a critical moment for Charles who ‘in crossing Forth may be said to have passed the Rubicon; he had now no rough ground for a retreat in case of any disaster, and being entered into the low country must fairly meet his fate.’ But he had no doubts about the strategy and plunged into the historic waters of the Forth. Fielding was quick to distort this heroic picture by reporting that in his eagerness he slipped and had to be preserved by one of his lieutenants ‘who at the hazard of his own Life, rescued him from the Waves’.

  Having crossed without incident Charles decided he must press on and take Edinburgh before Cope could get there. He bypassed Stirling Castle, unmoved by the cannonball that fell near him and reputedly observing that ‘the dogs bark but dare not bite.’ On 14 September the Jacobites took Falkirk and Charles dined that night at Callandar House with Lord Kilmarnock. The Earl’s affairs were desperate and his property was in imminent danger of being seized. It seemed to this handsome young aristocrat that a successful Jacobite campaign would be a good way to repair the family fortunes. He had another motive as well for throwing in his lot with Charles. After a wild and misspent youth he had married an ardent Jacobite, Anne Livingstone, and she implored him to come out for the Prince. Her passionate entreaties coupled with increasing pressure from his creditors clinched it. His reward was to be death on the scaffold, but all this lay in the future while the present looked promising.

  Kilmarnock told Charles that Gardiner’s dragoons had fallen back on Linlithgow and intended to defend the bridge there. Charles sent Lord George ahead with one thousand men to attack them. Hungry for action, he wanted to go himself, ‘but the rest of the men declared they’d all march if he did, so was obliged to stay, to contain the rest’. But when they arrived the birds had flown, retreating towards Edinburgh. So Charles took possession of Linlithgow unopposed on 15 September.

  Mindful that it was a Sunday he sent messages that the citizens would not be disturbed in their worship ‘notwithstanding of which, the Minister either left the Town, or declined preaching, to enduce the ignorant vulgar to believe that if he had, he would have been insulted and persecuted’. That night Charles slept in a small farmhouse, having ordered his army to be under arms by five o’clock next morning ready to advance on Edinburgh.

  The good citizens of Edinburgh received their first communication from Charles the next day. It was a judiciously worded summons to the provost and magistrates to fling wide the gates and receive him into the town. He promised to preserve their rights and liberties but made it clear that if there was any opposition he would not be answerable for the consequences.

  This put the city dignitaries in a quandary. They had been trying to organise the city’s defences but it had been a farce. The provost was ‘so slow in his deliberations, backward in executing things agreed. He fixed upon a dismal signall — the ringing the alarmer or fryer bell — to call the volunteers or the burgers, and this was a public intimation to the rebel friends within and without the city. The volunteers had old crassey officers ….’

  But what of the regular troops to whom the burgers would naturally look for protection? There had been a complete fiasco which became entrenched in the folklore. Gardiner had fallen back on the little village of Coltbridge, just outside Edinburgh where he had joined up with the other regiment left behind by Cope in the Lowlands, commanded by Colonel Hamilton. His mood was not improved by the arrival of Brigadier Thomas Fowke to take command of the two regiments. Gardiner complained that his men had been ‘harass’d and fatigued for Eleven Days and Nights’, that they would be massacred if they stayed where they were, but that he did not care as he would soon be dead anyway. He was a strange character, a reformed rake who had suffered a religious conversion during a liaison with a married woman.

  In the light of this rather negative view of things, it was decided to fall back to Leith Links where the two regiments could shortly join up with Cope. However, before the weary, dispirited dragoons could be galvanized into action there were reports that the Jacobites were advancing. Tradition has it that the alarm was sparked off by a dragoon who had tumbled into a disused coal pit and whose cries for help were mistaken for the savage yells of the advancing Highland hordes.

  Whatever the cause, the effect was electric. The whole party immediately broke up, and commenced a retreat, not to Edinburgh, but to the open country beyond. In what was afterwards styled the ‘Canter of Coltbrigg’ the soldiers rode off in full view of the citizens. The Jacobites exulted and the Whigs despaired at this ignominious flight which ‘spread a panick thro’ the City’. The only soldiers left were those in Edinburgh Castle and they were sitting tight.

  Hence the uncertainty of the provost and the magistrates. There were scenes of ‘civic pusillanimity’ with would-be defenders, including one sick old man who insisted on guarding the Netherbow Port in his armchair, arguing furiously with those who wanted to throw in the towel.

  The authorities sent a deputation to Charles to ask what exactly was expected of them. Murray of Broughton spelled it out — they must open the gates of the city, deliver up the arms of both the town and the garrison, together with any ammunition and military stores. However, the dignitaries continued to play for time, hoping that Cope would come to their rescue. But their scheming was pretty transparent and the Jacobites’ patience was wearing thin. As the deputation’s great cumbersome carriage came rolling back into the city after yet another parley, the Jacobites took their chance: ‘The coach brought them back to Edinburgh, set them down in the High-Street, and then drove towards the Cannongate. When the Netherbow Port was opened to let out the coach, 800 Highlanders, led by Cameron of Lochiel, rushed in and took possession of the city.’

  And so, as Murray of Broughton observed, Charles became ‘master of the Capital without shedding a drop of Blood ….’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘A RESOLUTE RAGE’

  The city drew its breath as the Highlanders surged in with drawn sword and target, the savage impression heightened by their ‘hideous yell and their own particular manner of making an attack’. Uncertain what resistance they would face, the clansmen raced through the narrow streets to seize the city’s guard-house. But their behaviour was restrained and the Jacobites were able to record with pride how civil and innocent it was ‘beyond what even their best friends could have expected’. Not that their opponents saw it like that. To their outraged eyes these wild-looking men were just verminous scum. One Whig sourly recorded, ‘I entered the town by the Bristol port, which I saw to my indignation in the keeping of these caterpillers. A boy stood with a rusty drawn sword, and two fellows with things like guns of the 16 century sat on each side the entry to the poorhouse, and these were catching the vermin from their lurking places about their plaids and throwing them away. I said to Mr Jerdin, minister of Liberton, “Are these the scoundrels [who] have surprised Edinburgh by treachery?” He answered, “I had rather seen it in the hands of Frenchmen, but the devil and the deep sea are both bad.”’

  There was worse to come from an anti-Jacobite viewpoint. One of the Highlanders’ first acts was to seize the heralds and poursuivants who were essential ing
redients of any great ceremonials. At midday they were marched out to the Market Cross, magnificent in their ‘fantastic but rich old dresses’. Ringed by watchful Highlanders, they proclaimed James as King. The usual manifesto and commission of regency were then read out to the excited crowd. It was the sort of scene beloved of Victorian artists, with women leaning from their ‘lofty lattices’ in the High Street waving white handkerchiefs in an ecstasy of loyalty. Even more picturesque, Murray of Broughton’s beautiful wife sat on horseback near the cross, in a white dress, drawn sword in her hand, distributing white cockades to the populace. The Highland guard ‘looked around the crowd with faces expressing wild joy and triumph; and with the license and extravagance appropriate to the occasion, fired off their pieces in the air.’ The wailing of bagpipes rose over the hubbub with a loyal pibroch. Charles’s critics bemoaned as a ‘commick fars or tragic commody’ but there was a dignity and magnificence about those moments.

  Charles’s arrival was the icing on the cake. Nobody could deny his handsome appearance and regal bearing when he rode to the ancient palace of Holyrood House later that day. His entry into Perth had only been a dress rehearsal for this triumphal progress. Now there was something messianic about him as the crowd pressed close trying to touch the boots on his feet or the bridle of his horse. His most hardened enemies had to admit that ‘The figure and presence of Charles Stuart were not ill suited to his lofty pretensions. He was in the prime of youth, tall and handsome, of a fair complexion; he had a light coloured periwig with his own hair combed over the front; he wore the Highland dress, that is, a tartan short coat without the plaid, a blue bonnet on his head, and on his breast the star of the order of St Andrew. Charles stood some time in the park to shew himself to the people; and then, though he was very near the palace, mounted his horse, either to render himself more conspicuous, or because he rode well, and looked graceful on horseback …’ To the Jacobites he was like Robert the Bruce. The Whigs looked at him with more jaundiced eyes — they found him ‘languid and melancoly’ and concluded that ‘he looked like a gentleman and a man of fashion, but not like a hero or a conqueror’.