Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) (24 page)

If Charles Edward is arraigned for not having foreseen all the possible consequences of his actions, one can only retort that nobody ever can. In this case there is the additional consideration that none of the available evidence warranted the conclusion that a failed Jacobite rising would lead to the ferocious and draconian backlash that actually transpired. The 1715 rebels had been treated mildly. Executions were few; the authorities had connived at the reacquisition by proxy of the forfeited estates of the great Jacobite families. Nobody in August 1745 could have predicted that another failure by the Stuarts would lead inevitably to the barbarities of ‘butcher Cumberland’, the savagery of ‘hangman Hawley’; and still less to the abolition of the heritable jurisdictions, the banning of the plaid and the breakdown of social relations between chieftains and clansmen.

The 1745 campaign always looked winnable without enormous bloodshed. The ease with which the initial conquest of Scotland was achieved shows this clearly. Where Charles Edward can be faulted
is
in his too-ready assumption that France would be easily drawn in to administer the
coup de g
ace
to the tottering Hanoverians. As we have seen, rebellion in Scotland first as an incentive to French invasion was every bit as rational an assumption as revolution first in Russia as a precursor to general European revolution after 1917. It was hardly Charles Edward’s fault that he eventually confronted the equivalent of ‘socialism in one country’, i.e a Jacobite rising without the French. He could not have foreseen the singular French incompetence in response to the rising during 1745–6, nor the inept way they squandered a unique opportunity to disable their chief competitor for world supremacy.
¹⁰⁸

Could Scotland be detached from England? Many factors made it rational to assume that this conquest could be achieved. Widespread dislike of the Act of Union combined with economic grievances over the Malt Tax and the Excise (which had led to the notorious Porteous riots) kept the big cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow volatile. The ideological support of the Episcopalian Church was another important element in Jacobite support on which the prince could count. Meanwhile the much-diluted Jacobite loyalty of the Highland clans was stiffened by the attacks on the traditional system of land-holding essayed by the government after 1737.

The outbreak of a general European war was a necessary condition for the 1745 rising, but the peculiar circumstances of Scotland in the early 1740s made it much more likely that an attempt like the prince’s would catch fire. These circumstances can be conveniently classified as military and political. In the military sphere two trends were noticeable: the denuding of Scotland of regular troops, and the military eclipse of clan Campbell. With the outbreak of a general European war in 1740, many of the regular army units were sent to fight in Flanders, leaving exiguous forces at the disposal of Sir John Cope, Commander in Chief, Scotland. Despite Cope’s warnings on the appalling state of Scottish defences, the London government took no action. Meanwhile the 2nd duke of Argyll’s attempt to switch from feudalism to capitalism by eliminating the tacksmen or Campbell gentry, and letting farms directly to their former tenants, bade fair to extinguish the Campbell fighting machine. The 3rd duke grasped the military implications of the demise of the tacksmen, the muscle and sinews of clan Campbell. By 1744 he had started to put his brother’s policies into reverse.
¹⁰⁹

Politically, Scotland by 1745 displayed two ominous signs. The English government was vastly unpopular even among non-Jacobite Scots. This meant there would be little enthusiasm for rallying to the
defence
of the House of Hanover. At the same time a kind of political ossification had taken place among the élite as a result of the stalemate between the Squadrone faction, led by Lord Tweeddale, Secretary of State for Scotland, supported by George II and containing all the anti-Argyll nobility, and the Argyll faction, supported by the most powerful law officers, including Lord President Duncan Forbes, and backed by the Pelhams in London. To make matters worse, both factions disliked Cope, the Commander in Chief.

Scotland by 1745, then, presented many features favourable to Charles Edward’s adventure: a virulent nationalism, opposed to the Act of Union; an Episcopalian and Catholic north-east committed
a priori
to the House of Stuart; and the Jacobite clans of the Highlands, determined to preserve their way of life but confronted with both a short-term and a long-term threat. The short-term menace was personified by the Campbells; the long-term by the growth of Scottish capitalism after the 1707 Act of Union.
¹¹⁰
The political leadership in Scotland was in disarray, although by 1745 Duncan Forbes and the 3rd duke of Argyll had repaired some of the damage of the late 1730s. It is unquestionable that their conciliatory policies kept loyal some of the Jacobite sympathisers who would have risen for Charles Edward if the Squadrone party had been in power.

To energise all this Jacobite potential and weld it into a Stuart Scotland that could then be reinforced from France does not at all look like the political programme of a madman, blockhead or rash adventurer.

One final piece of good fortune attended the prince’s departure and seemed a singularly good omen both for his future success and for French co-operation. On 11 May 1745 the Jacobite Irish brigade snatched victory from the maw of defeat at Fontenoy. The result was a great triumph for Marshal Saxe and a serious reverse for the duke of Cumberland and his British forces. Although the prince at first claimed to find in Fontenoy an ambiguous result for his own future,
¹¹¹
it was clear that its effects were twofold. More troops would be sent from England to Flanders, thus weakening the opposition to a rising in Scotland. Then, once the standard of revolt was raised, the London administration would be faced with a ticklish choice of Scotland or the Netherlands on which to concentrate their military resources.

In more ways than one, then, the key to the success of a rising in Scotland lay with France. This was to be a recurring motif in the prince’s high adventures that now followed.

July–August 1745

SETTING SAIL ON
a fair wind, the
Elisabeth
and
Doutelle
bore away on a north-westerly track. For two days the seas were moderate. Then came a brisk gale on the 18th, followed by a dead calm on the 19th.
¹
At noon on 20 July there occurred a near-fatal blow to the enterprise. At latitude 47 degrees 57 minutes, one hundred miles west of the Lizard, they came upon an English ship that had the wind of them.
²

This was HMS
Lion
under Captain Brett, secured for action. All afternoon the
Lion
and the
Elisabeth
, both premier class warships, tacked for advantage. By 5 p.m. they came to close quarters. A dreadful pounding battle ensued. The two warships tore each other to pieces; both sides took heavy casualties.
³
At sunset the grim combatants broke off the carnage. The
Lion
was dismasted and forty-five of her men were dead. She limped back to Plymouth, her captain wounded, her master-of-arms minus a limb.
⁴

Technically the
Elisabeth
was the victor, but she had taken severe punishment and was in no state to continue the voyage. Throughout the combat the
Doutelle
had lain out of range of the big English guns.
⁵
Now, putting out lanterns to signal his position to the
Elisabeth
, Walsh conferred by loud-hailer with Captain Conway, who commanded the contingent from Clare’s. Conway told him that there were so many dead and wounded aboard that there was nothing for it but to return to Brest. Knowing that on board the
Elisabeth
was the nucleus of the Jacobite army, plus 1,500 muskets with matching ammunition and 1,800 broadswords, Walsh offered to take the matériel on to the
Doutelle
. But he had reckoned without the severe damage to the
Elisabeth
. The warship was listing so badly that its captain dared not heave to for the transfer of arms and supplies to the
Doutelle
.
⁶
Bidding
farewell
to the stricken
Elisabeth
at 11 p.m., the
Doutelle
pursued its track to Scotland.

The loss of so many men and weapons was a bad blow to morale. This was tested still further in the following days by the notoriously treacherous seas around the British Isles and by a series of scares. On the 22nd the
Doutelle
was again spotted and chased by enemy warships.
⁷
Fortunately she was a fast and weatherly frigate and threw off her pursuers. But it had been a narrow escape. Thenceforth all lights were extinguished at night except for the compass.

Next came the battering by the storm winds. A two-day gale raged on the 26th and 27th.
⁸
Mercifully, this was followed by a period of exceptionally fine and calm weather. Yet the same serene sea brought its own dangers. The horizon was dotted with ships. As they passed the coast of northern Ireland, they could make out eight separate sail.
⁹

August came in like a lion. At midnight on 31 July the seas began to make up again. By daybreak a full storm was blowing.
¹⁰
Fortunately this blew itself out with the short-lived fury of a typhoon. By now Walsh’s dead reckoning told them they should be off the Outer Hebrides. They took soundings and struck the sea-bed at 108 fathoms. Shortly afterwards the Isle of Barra was sighted.
¹¹

Moving close in to land, Walsh lowered a boat so that Kelly and Aeneas MacDonald could reconnoitre. They quickly ascertained that the laird of Barra was not on the island. But even as the
Doutelle
lay off the coast, another ship came up. This proved to be a merchantman ferrying cattle between the islands. Walsh took off the pilot to guide him. They proceeded to Eriskay, which was reached on 3 August (NS).
¹²

Why this particular approach to Scotland, it may be asked? With the capture of Sir Hector Maclean, Mull, the original destination, no longer made sense. But a landfall in the Catholic Clanranald country, remote, inaccessible and solidly pro-Jacobite, was a good bet from the security point of view. And although it would be difficult for government forces to reach Moidart quickly, clansmen could by forced marches easily get to the Jacobite heartland at the southern end of the Great Glen.

The green and grey island of Eriskay, with its blanched white sands, racked by violent winds and rain even in summer, would have daunted and demoralised ninety-nine out of every hundred men born and raised in Rome. The cruel climate alone would have been too much for the average Roman. Here too was poverty on a scale that would have shocked the citizens of the papal states, cushioned as
they
were against life’s worst buffets by an advanced system of public doles. The impoverished clansmen lived on a diet of milk and whey, eked out with fish and sea food. The dark and dank bothies were windowless and suffused with smoke from the damp peat on the hearth.
¹³
If Charles Edward really had been the petty Italian princeling of Whig (and some later) propaganda, he would instantly have wilted under the impact of this most profound culture shock.

Yet the prince soon made good his boast that he had never cared for Rome, as a society too soft and decadent for a true warrior. If he could not yet exercise his devastating charisma, since the Catholic inhabitants of Eriskay spoke Erse or Gaelic, he could show that he was a hero. Bearded and unshaven, wearing the dress of a student for the priesthood at the Scots college in Rome, the prince settled down for his first night on Scottish soil.

It was a wet and windy night. They were lodged in the cottage of Angus MacDonald, a poor crofter. There was no bread, not even a grain of meal, but they cooked flounder over the peat fire.
¹⁴
It was by fire, or rather smoke, that the prince’s first ordeal came. Since there was no chimney in the bothy, but only a hole in the roof, the lungs accustomed to the groves of Cisterna and the forests of Navarre soon protested. The prince was forced to make frequent trips to the door to inhale fresh air. Eventually Angus MacDonald, not knowing that he was dealing with his rightful prince and seeing only a scruffy cleric, burst out irritatedly in Gaelic: ‘What a plague is the matter with that fellow, that he can neither sit nor stand still and neither keep within nor without doors?’
¹⁵

The news of the prince’s arrival had been taken across the strait to South Uist. In the morning there arrived Alexander MacDonald of Boisdale, brother of the chief of Clanranald MacDonalds. If the prince thought he had problems with smoky hovels and damp beds, these were trifles compared with the news Boisdale brought. The two great Skye chiefs, on whom the prince had depended for his initial strategy, Norman Macleod and Sir Alexander MacDonald of Sleat, absolutely refused to ‘come out’ in rebellion, on the grounds that the prince had not arrived with the promised French troops.
¹⁶
Sir Alexander was within his rights in refusing to rise, for he had indeed always made a French expedition a precondition of his appearing under the Stuart banner; Macleod had not.
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