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CHAPTER VIII.

THE 'FORTY-FIVE.

The voyage-The red flag-March to Edinburgh-Prestonpans-To Derby -The retreat--Falkirk-Culloden-Wanderings-Later days-Aix-laChapelle.

W

E left Charles Edward at Gravelines. Weary of waiting for French aid, he resolved to fling himself and his father's cause on the devotion of the Scottish Highlanders. Having borrowed money from two friends, and having induced his father to pawn his jewels, he secretly collected fifteen hundred muskets, twenty small cannon, eighteen hundred swords, and a quantity of ammunition, which he managed to stow on board an armed privateer called the Elizabeth. Embarking himself in the Doutelle, a fast brig of eighteen guns, he pushed out of the mouth of the Loire and joined the Elizabeth off Belleisle. They sailed on the 13th of July 1745.

A fight of six hours took place between the Elizabeth and a British ship, the Lion, during which both suffered so severely that they had to return to their respective harbours. The Doutelle went on alone, and but for her swift sailing might have been caught by another British cruiser. The islet of Erisca, between Barra and South Uist, was the first Scottish land pressed by the Pretender's foot. An eagle came wheeling out from the shore as they approached, an omen on which Lord Tullibardine congratulated the delighted prince. It was not until the Doutelle entered Loch Na-nuagh in Inverness-shire,

between Moidart and Arisaig, that he could persuade the Macdonalds to join him.

July 25,

1745

Attended by the "seven men of Moidart," among whom Tullibardine was prominent, the prince landed, and took up his quarters at Kinloch Moidart. Alarmed by vague rumours of what had happened, the governor of Fort Augustus sent two companies to strengthen the garrison at Fort William. The Highlanders met them at Spean Bridge, and after shooting a few, took the rest prisoners. Small as the triumph was, it fanned the flame of rebellion. Having tasted blood, the clansmen grew wild with the fever of war. On the 19th of August the banner of red silk with a white centre rolled out on the breeze in Glenfinnan. The muster was encouraging enough, for it amounted on the following day to sixteen hundred men..

On that very day Sir John Cope, the commander-in-chief for Scotland, left Edinburgh. Moving northward by way of Stirling and Crieff, he found the rocky steeps of Corry Arrack, leading to Fort Augustus, in the possession of the clansmen. This diverted the general from his intended course. With the prospect of joining the loyal clans of the north, he turned aside toward Inverness, expecting to draw the insurgents after him. It was a false move, leaving the road to the capital open and undefended.

Through wild Badenoch and lovely Athol the gathering band of tartaned men marched toward Perth, fascinated more and more every day with the frank demeanour and Highland enthusiasm of their handsome prince, whose stature overtopped them all. On the 4th of September he entered Perth. Opposition melted before him as he pressed on towards Edinburgh, his great centre of attack. Crossing the Forth at the Fords of Frew, eight miles above Stirling, he marched past that rockbuilt town, whose guns sent a few ineffective balls after the rebel array. Over the classic sod of Bannockburn he then

proceeded to Falkirk, and next day (15th) took possession of Linlithgow. His vanguard soon reached Kirkliston, eight miles from the capital.

An amusing incident occurred when a body of the invader's horse rode up to reconnoitre Gardiner's dragoons and the Edinburgh town guard, who had taken post at Coltbridge to defend the western approach to the capital. The cavalry fired a few pistol-shots, which struck so violent a terror into the breasts of the dragoons that they galloped away to Edinburgh, dashed past the Castle and Arthur's Seat, never staying spur until they reached Preston. A further alarm sent some of them as far as to Dunbar. The ride has been called "The Canter of Coltbrigg."

Sept. 17,

1745

A band of Camerons under Lochiel, having surprised the gate of the Nether Bow, secured an entrance to the city. "King James the Eighth" was proclaimed at the Market Cross by the heralds in all their finery. On the same day the prince, dressed in tartan and wearing a white cockade in his blue bonnet, passed through the King's Park to Holyrood, which a ball from the Castle struck as he was about to enter it.

The same day Cope, having sailed southward, was landing his troops at Dunbar with the intention of marching on Edinburgh. Charles resolved to give battle at once. Moving eastward, therefore, with a force of twenty-five hundred men, he had reached the brow of Carberry Hill, when he saw the Royalist army in the narrow plain next the sea. Cope's men were full of ardour; the dragoons especially burned to wipe out the disgrace of Coltbridge. The Highland army, too, longed to rush on the enemy, and with much grumbling lay down among the pease and corn to wait for another dawn. The great difficulty was the passage of a deep morass which spread between the hosts. In the middle of the night, however, a gentleman in the Pretender's army struck a pathway which avoided

the difficult bits of swamp. In the darkness the Highlanders followed this guide, and reached firm ground. When day

Sept. 21,

1745

broke, the armies faced each other on the same firm and level field, undivided by any morass. In about six minutes more the Highlanders had won the battle of Prestonpans, or Gladsmuir, as the Jacobites preferred to call it. One rush did all. Maddened by the screaming of the bagpipes, they burst into a yell, flung themselves on the half-dozen cannon that grinned in front, frightened the dragoons with their wheeling claymores, and then, unbroken by the murderous fire of the infantry, caught the bayonet points in their targets, and hewed bloody gaps in the red lines. Driven back to the wall of Colonel Gardiner's park, the royal army broke in two. Some dragoons raced off to alarm the High Street of Edinburgh, as they clattered up to the Castle, into which they could not get admission. The bulk of the army fled, with Sir John Cope at their head, to the shelter of Berwick walls. Charles got the military chest, containing £2,500, as his share of the loot.

After the victory of Prestonpans, Charles lay forty days at Edinburgh, receiving accessions of force from various quarters, raising supplies of money in various ways, and drilling his irregular host, which lay in tents at Duddingston. The last was no easy task. The jails having been flung open, desperadoes of all kinds mounted the cockade. The prince held councils during the day, rode out to Duddingston to review his increasing force, and danced the evening away in the long oaken gallery of Holyrood. So passed precious time, during which the Royalists were drilling and mustering, and straining every nerve for the defence of the throne. During this interval of comparative inaction, Charles began the blockade of Edinburgh Castle; but he gave it up when General Guest the governor threatened to lay the town in ruins.

At six o'clock in the evening of the last day of October,

Oct. 31, 1745

Charles left Holyrood for the purpose of invading England. He had then mustered nearly six thousand men, of whom five hundred were cavalry. The first move was to Kelso, from which he struck along the north slope of the Cheviots, and so through Liddesdale to Carlisle. After the capture of that ancient town, the southward march was resumed in two bodies-the one under the prince himself, the other under Lord George Murray. No sign of the expected English rising greeted the invaders as they passed through Penrith, Kendal, and Lancaster, on to Preston. There the first few recruits were obtained. Manchester broke into joy-bells and illuminations at the Pretender's approach, and so many joined his flag that a Manchester regiment was organized. Then the enemy began to stir. Marshal Wade, whom they had tricked by entering at the Solway side of the Border, was marching down through Yorkshire; Cumberland, lying at Lichfield with eight thousand men, blocked the southward path; while George himself covered London with another force. Crossing the Mersey near Stockport, the prince led his "petticoat-men," as the English called the kilted Highlanders, to Macclesfield. But the hoped-for rising was receding like a mirage. A skilful move of Murray led Cumberland toward Wales, which enabled the prince to march unmolested to Derby.

Entering that town on the 4th of December, he thought with exultation how London now lay only one hundred and thirty miles away. His gaiety at supper that night was remarkable; next morning saw all his bright dreams shattered. Murray and the chief officers came then to his quarters to urge an immediate retreat. They had invaded England, they said, in hopes of either an English rising or a French descent: neither had occurred. Three armies, numbering thirty thousand, hemmed in their little force, now dwindled to scarcely five thousand. An army of fresh levies awaited them in Scotland. Let them go back. Raving, reasoning, imploring,

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