Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico) (51 page)

As the grip of Cumberland (and later his successor in Scotland, Lord Albemarle) tightened on the country, the hunt for the prince intensified. At first it was believed he had been captured at Culloden or that he had fled north through Inverness.
⁹⁹
But soon it became clear that Charles had got clean away: ‘apprehending the Young Pretender seems to be a thing much wished for just now’, one of Cumberland’s aides wrote to the duke of Newcastle on 26 April.
¹⁰⁰
By the end of April his trail through Lochaber had been picked up, as also his departure for the Long Island.
¹⁰¹

A seaborne pursuit was ordered. HMS
Greyhound, Baltimore
and
Terror
were first into the fray.
¹⁰²
Almost immediately they collided with the French. The two privateers
Le Mars
and
La Bellone
sailed from Nantes in April with 40,000 louis d’or for the prince, unaware of his defeat at Culloden. Anchoring in Loch-nan-Uamh, the French began to unload the money (later to become notorious as the ‘Loch Arkaig treasure’). They also took on board an assortment of Jacobite refugees, including Elcho, Perth and Lord John Drummond.
¹⁰³
On 3 May, while these operations were going on, the three British warships came upon them. The French cleared for action. A ferocious six-hour slugging bombardment left the English ships dismasted.
¹⁰⁴
They stood away to the Sound of Mull. But the French too had taken severe punishment. There was no longer any question of going looking for the prince.
¹⁰⁵
Le Mars
and
La Bellone
set course for France. As they departed, the prince espied them from his eyrie on Iubhard. This was the occasion when he was unable to persuade his oarsmen to investigate.
¹⁰⁶

The return of the two privateers to France with the full story of
the
Jacobite defeat, but without the prince, caused consternation among his supporters on the Continent. Stung by the accusation that he had left the Stuart prince to his fate, Louis XV ordered a massive rescue operation to be mounted by French privateers.
¹⁰⁷

In Rome meanwhile James and his close friend Benedict XIV went through agonies of anxiety. Their worry had been gathering momentum ever since the retreat from Derby; it was not only the prince who saw that as the cardinal turning point of the rising.
¹⁰⁸
James’s agony is well chronicled in his papers for the summer of 1746.
¹⁰⁹
Benedict described the prince’s reverses as a ‘second Passion’; in his eyes it was the worst cross he had had to bear in five years of a difficult Pontificate.
¹¹⁰
In his private correspondence he bitterly condemned Louis XV for his failure to make an all-out effort on the prince’s behalf: God and God alone commanded the Channel, said to be the insuperable barrier; therefore ‘His Most Christian Majesty’ ought to have more faith in him.
¹¹¹
By June Benedict was reduced to shaking his head and remarking that the justice of the Just God was impenetrable.
¹¹²

The battle of Loch-nan-Uamh – the most serious naval clash of the ’45 – did at least buy Charles Edward some time. Cumberland was convinced that his cousin and rival had made good his escape in the two French privateers, along with Elcho, Perth and the rest.
¹¹³
Just to be sure, he strengthened the naval patrols in the western isles. The battle-hardened trio of
Greyhound, Terror
and
Baltimore
, having repaired the damage sustained in Loch-nan-Uamh, were joined by powerful reinforcements: HMS
Furnace
(under Captain Fergusson), HMS
Scarborough
and
Glasgow
and three sloops: the
Raven, Trial
and
Happy Janet
.
¹¹⁴
Cumberland now had nine ships of the Royal Navy to scour the Scottish coast. Most of their captains were of the Hawley stamp and as such recommended themselves to ‘the Butcher’. The names of Lockhart, Ancram, Scott and Fergusson were soon to join the roll of dishonour.
¹¹⁵
Captain Fergusson showed how he meant to go on by burning down the house in Arisaig where the prince had lodged, together with a couple of neighbouring villages.
¹¹⁶

It was this naval pressure that finally brought the prince’s peaceful sojourn at Corradale to an end. Learning that troops had landed on the Long Island and threatened to hem them in, Charles decided that his hideout could not remain secure much longer.
¹¹⁷
He particularly feared the pincer movement of the Skye chiefs’ men on South Uist and Fergusson on Eigg.
¹¹⁸
It was time to depart.

In the days to come the prince was to look back on his time at Corradale as a halcyon period. It was as well that he had no inkling
of
what was to come. He had been tired and hungry already during his flight. He was now to face new privations and to end up fighting for his life.

(June–July 1746)

HEARING THAT THE
enemy were on Barra in force, the prince and his companions sailed in the opposite direction. They held on in a northerly direction and came to the island of Ouia (or Wiay), to the south-east of Benbecula.
¹
Here they huddled for three days while the searching cruisers zigzagged the Little Minch around them.

It was as well for the prince that Cumberland’s bloodhounds knew only that he was somewhere on the islands. At this stage they could not even be certain he was on the Long Island. Playing a hunch, Commodore Thomas Smith, Royal Navy Commander in Chief in Scottish waters, sailed the
Furnace, Terror, Trial
and a number of other ships to St Kilda. On that desolate rock they found no prince, only some benighted islanders, to whom Europe’s wars were as remote as the Roman Empire to the Chinese. The bewildered people knew only that the laird of Macleod had been at war with ‘a great woman abroad’ and had been victorious.
²

After three days of indecision, the prince crossed to Rossinish with O’Neill.
³
But things were no better there. Militiamen in boats were scouring the shores and coves while their comrades combed the hills above.
⁴
After three more anxious nights, O’Sullivan and Donald Macleod came over from Ouia to Rossinish beach in the boat. The prince had more bad news to give them. There was a very strong rumour that 5,000 Frenchmen had landed in Caithness; alas, further investigation had shown it to be untrue.
⁵
There was also a false report that the Brest fleet was heading for Scotland; in fact its destination was Louisbourg in north America.
⁶
After a hurried consultation, they decided to return to Corradale, reckoning that by now it would have been searched.
⁷

On their way south a violent storm blew up. They were forced to
scramble
ashore at Ushinish Point, a couple of miles north of Corradale.
⁸
They found refuge a little north of here, in a cleft of a rock at Acarseil Falaich.
⁹
In this niche they were pelted with rain, but dared not stir, since patrolling warships were constantly passing to and fro.
¹⁰
A break in the bad weather enabled them to get to Kyle Stuleg.
¹¹
It was night-time when they arrived. Neal MacEachain aroused a known Jacobite family and brought back butter, cheese and brandy for the prince. Charles was all in. ‘Come,’ he said wearily, ‘give me one of the bottles and a piece of bread, for I was never so hungry since I was born.’
¹²
After the improvised supper, they finished off the remaining brandy and fell into a sound sleep.

On 15 June they stayed hidden during the day and sailed for Loch Boisdale at night, in hopes of getting assistance from MacDonald of Boisdale. They soon discovered that he had been taken prisoner.
¹³
Moreover, there were now fifteen enemy sail around Loch Boisdale and parties of militiamen in the neighbourhood. They entered a creek and camouflaged themselves among the rocks. The prince lay down inside the boat and a canvas was stretched over it.
¹⁴
So he spent the day of 16 June. At night they finally entered Loch Boisdale and took shelter in an old tower ‘in the mouth of the island’.
¹⁵

The game of cat and mouse was now on in earnest. General Campbell of Mamore, whom Commodore Smith had sent to St Kilda, returned with his forces, straddling the area from Barra to South Uist.
¹⁶
Fergusson meanwhile was preparing to scour the island from north to south. For a while the prince and his comrades tacked to and fro in the little boat, backwards and forwards to Loch Boisdale.
¹⁷
Since the enemy warships were far out to sea, and the smaller craft were farther inland, Charles was able for a while to cross the loch mouth unobserved.

But this tactic of manoeuvring, waiting for a chance to break out, brought him close to disaster. As they came in to land, the party was met by a wildly gesticulating Highlander, who told them the enemy was approaching. They backed water rapidly and got under way just as a party of militiamen came over the skyline, heading for the exact spot where they had tried to land.
¹⁸

Further information about Boisdale’s arrest at his home now came through via the network of Jacobite sympathisers strung along the prince’s trail. The problem was that Boisdale was one of the principal organisers of this royal chain. His capture was a grievous blow, for it meant there was now no hope of remaining on the Long Isle. The heart of the Jacobite underground movement on South Uist had been cut out.
¹⁹
In a panic, the crew holed the boat and sank it. Begging
only
the sails from them, the prince dismissed them, with orders to meet him with another boat at the most northerly part of the island.

The prince and his companions skulked up and down the loch, sleeping in open fields at night, using the boat sails as shelter. In the daytime they would dart in and out of caves, dodging the militia patrols and living off the local bread which they all found nauseating.
²⁰
The area around Loch Boisdale was the wildest part of South Uist, barren and parched, rugged and rocky: ‘not a tree, not a dwelling place of any sort, not even a shepherd’s hut was to be seen. None of the necessities of life were forthcoming.’
²¹

The prince was already in a dreadful physical condition. He described himself later as living ‘like a roe on moors and mountains’.
²²
The reality was grimmer. He could bear having his legs cut open with briars while he skulked, but found the clouds of midges intolerable. Drawn to his pale skin and reddish colour, the insects bade fair to eat him alive.
²³
The prince was unable to resist scratching at their bites; they became infected and flared up as boils and welts. Ever afterwards the prince bore scars from his encounter with the midges.

But there were worse perils than insects. The prince was in deadly danger now, with his living space becoming daily truncated as the Hanoverian net tightened. The last straw was the landing of Captain Caroline Scott – another of Cumberland’s desperadoes in military uniform
²⁴
– barely a mile from his hiding place. This was a moment of supreme jeopardy. Not surprisingly, there was further panic. The prince was convinced that he was surrounded.
²⁵
According to the stories of hostile critics, it was at this point that he contemplated surrender to General Campbell.
²⁶
This is unlikely. It does not square with the prince’s personality. Much more authentic-sounding is O’Sullivan’s tale that he refused to flee before he had packed up his meat supply and taken it with him – an echo of the obstinacy he habitually displayed over the artillery and baggage in the ’45 campaign itself.
²⁷

It is difficult to exaggerate the peril the prince found himself in. He could not escape by sea, Scott was on top of him, and Fergusson was combing the island. There were redcoats to the south and black-coated militiamen to the north. The prince decided to head north, taking only O’Neill with him as companion and Neal MacEachain as guide. At first they would skirt the coast and risk being seen from the sea by the cruisers. Then they would strike inland, hoping to break through the cordon with the help of MacDonald sympathisers.
²⁸

Hugh MacDonald of Armadale, in command of the government militia in South Uist, was one of these secret sympathisers and
had
already engaged his stepdaughter Flora MacDonald to help the prince. In clandestine messages he had suggested to Charles Edward a possible means of escape to Skye.
²⁹
Hitherto the prince had not thought himself to be in grave enough danger to fall in with Armadale’s far-fetched proposal. Now it seemed to be his only chance.

The prince, O’Neill and MacEachain crossed the moor on the night of 21 June.
³⁰
At this time of year in the Hebrides there were no more than five hours of darkness. This night there was also a full moon. At Ormaclett, three miles from Milton, on the west side of South Uist, they came to a summer shieling where the twenty-three-year-old Flora MacDonald was waiting.
³¹
The prince’s identity was revealed to her. She set a dish of cream before him on the table. Then O’Neill explained her stepfather’s plan to get the prince safely over to Skye. This involved his dressing up in women’s clothes and pretending to be Flora’s servant.
³²

It seems that Miss MacDonald was at first taken aback by the audacity of the scheme and declined to be involved. The prince won her round. Though the best efforts of romantic novelists have not been able to work up anything remotely sexual between Charles and Flora, it is clear that the famous magnetism once again did its work.
³³
With wit and charm the prince patiently explained the sheer plausibility of the idea. Flora already had a passport to go to Skye and she was known to be returning within days. The authorities would certainly become suspicious if she asked for a passport for a manservant to accompany her, but would not jib at a female attendant. Finally persuaded, Flora set out for the Atlantic shore of Benbecula to enlist the help of Lady Clanranald.
³⁴
The prince and his comrades meanwhile skulked on a hill three miles from Corradale.