Part 11

The Prince and his followers landed, on the twenty-third of July, at the island of Eriska, belonging to Clanranald, and situated between the Isles of Barra and of South Uist, their voyage having been accomplished in eighteen days. Here all the party landed, with the exception of the Marquis, who was laid up with the gout, and unable to move. His condition was supposed to be one of peril, for two ships had been espied, and the Prince and his associates hurried off, with all the expedition they could, to shore. The long boat was got out, and sent to procure a pilot, who was discovered in the person of the hereditary piper of Clanranald, who piloted the precious freight safely to shore. The two vessels which had produced so much alarm, proved afterwards to be only merchant-vessels.

In these "malignant regions," as Dr. Johnson describes them, referring to the severity of the climate and the poverty of the soil, Prince Charles and his adherents were lodged in a small country house, with a hole in the roof for a chimney, and a fire in the middle of the room. The young adventurer, reared among the delicacies of the palace at Albano, was often obliged to go to the door for fresh air. "What a plague is the matter with that fellow," exclaimed Angus Macdonald, the landlord, "that he can neither sit nor stand still, nor keep within nor without doors?" The night, it must be observed, was unusually wet and stormy, so that the Prince had no alternative between smoke and rain. The pride of the Scotch, in this remote region, was exemplified in another trifling occurrence: The Prince, who was less fatigued than the rest of the party, with that consideration for others, and disregard of his own personal comfort, which formed at this period so beautiful a part of his character, insisted that his attendants should retire to rest. He took a particular care of Sir Thomas Sheridan, his tutor, and examined closely the bed appropriated to him, in order to see that it was well aired. The landlord, indignant at this investigation, called out to him, "That the bed was so good, and the sheets were so good, that a prince might sleep in them."

The farm-house in which this little incident took place, and which first received the Prince, who was destined to occupy so great a variety of dwellings in Scotland, was situated in Borrodale, a wild, mountainous tract of country, which forms a tongue of land between two bays. Borrodale, being difficult of access, was well-chosen as the landing-place of Charles; whilst around, in most directions, were the well-wishers to his cause.

The Marquis of Tullibardine accompanied Charles in his progress until the Prince landed at Glenfinnin, which is situated about twenty miles from Fort William, and forms the outlet from Moidart to Lochaber; here the standard of Charles Edward was unfurled. The scene in which this ill-omened ceremonial took place is a deep and narrow valley, in which the river Finnin runs between high and craggy mountains, which are inaccessible to every species of carriage, and only to be surmounted by travellers on foot. At each end of the vale is a lake of about twelve miles in length, and behind the stern mountains which enclose the glen, are salt-water lakes, one of them an arm of the sea. The river Finnin empties itself into the Lake of Glenshiel, at the extremity of the glen. On the eighteenth of August Prince Charles crossed this lake, slept at Glensiarick, and on the nineteenth proceeded to Glenfinnin.

When Charles landed in the glen, he gazed around anxiously for Cameron of Lochiel, the younger, whom he expected to have joined him. He looked for some time in vain; that faithful adherent was not then in sight, nor was the glen, as the Prince had expected, peopled by any of the clansmen whose gathering he had expected. A few poor people from the little knot of hovels, which was called the village, alone greeted the ill-starred adventurer. Disconcerted, Prince Charles entered one of the hovels, which are still standing, and waited there for about two hours. At the end of that time, the notes of the pibroch were heard, and presently, descending from the summit of a hill, appeared the Camerons, advancing in two lines, each of them three men deep. Between the lines walked the prisoners of war, who had been taken some days previously near Loch Lochiel.

The Prince, exhilarated by the sight of six or seven hundred brave Highlanders, immediately gave orders for the standard to be unfurled.

The office of honour was entrusted to the Marquis of Tullibardine, on account of his high rank and importance to the cause. The spot chosen for the ceremony was a knoll in the centre of the vale. Upon this little eminence the Marquis stood, supported on either side by men, for his health was infirm, and what we should now call a premature old age was fast approaching. The banner which it was his lot to unfurl displayed no motto, nor was there inscribed upon it the coffin and the crown which the vulgar notion in England assigned to it. It was simply a large banner of red silk, with a white space in the middle. The Marquis held the staff until the Manifesto of the Chevalier and the Commission of Regency had been read. In a few hours the glen in which this solemnity had been performed, was filled not only with Highlanders, but with ladies and gentlemen to admire the spectacle. Among them was the celebrated Miss, or, more properly, Mrs. Jeanie Cameron, whose passionate attachment for the Prince rendered her so conspicuous in the troublous period of 1745. The description given of her in Bishop Forbes's Jacobite Memoirs destroys much of the romance of the story commonly related of her. "She is a widow," he declares, "nearer fifty than forty years of age. She is a genteel, well-looking, handsome woman, with a pair of pretty eyes, and hair black as jet. She is of a very sprightly genius, and is very agreeable in conversation. She was so far from accompanying the Prince's army, that she went off with the rest of the spectators as soon as the army marched; neither did she ever follow the camp, nor ever was with the Prince in private, except when he was in Edinburgh."

Soon after the unfurling of the standard, we find the Marquis of Tullibardine writing to Mrs. Robertson of Lude, a daughter of Lord Nairn, and desiring her to put the Castle of Blair into some order, and to do honours of the place when the Prince should come there. The Marquis, it is here proper to mention, was regarded by all the Jacobites as still the head of his house, and uniformly styled by that party the "Duke of Athole," yet he seldom adopted the title himself; and in only one or two instances in his correspondence does the signature of Athole occur.

On the thirty-first of August the Prince visited the famous Blair Athole, or Field of Athole, the word Blair signifying a pleasant land, and being descriptive of that beautiful vale situated in the midst of wild and mountainous scenery.

After riding along a black moor, in sight of vast mountains, the castle, a plain massive white house, appears in view. It is seated on an eminence above a plain watered by the Gary, called, by Pennant, "an outrageous stream, which laves and rushes along vast beds of gravel on the valley below."

The approach to Blair Castle winds up a very steep and high hill, and through a great birch wood, forming a most picturesque scene, from the pendent form of the boughs waving with the wind from the bottom to the utmost summits of the mountains. On attaining the top, a view of the beautiful little Straith, fertile and wooded, with the river in the middle, delights the beholder. The stream, after meandering in various circles, suddenly swells into a lake that fills the vale from side to side; this lake is about three miles long, and retains the name of the river.

When Prince Charles visited Blair, it was a fortified house, and capable of holding out a siege afterwards against his adherents. Its height was consequently lowered, but the inside has been finished with care by the ducal owner. The environs of this beautiful place are thus described by the graphic pen of Pennant, whose description of them, having been written in 1769, is more likely to apply to the state in which it was when Prince Charles beheld it, than that of any more modern traveller.

"The Duke of Athoel's estate is very extensive, and the country populous; while vassalage existed, the chieftain could raise two or three thousand fighting-men, and leave sufficient at home to take care of the ground. The forests, or rather chases, (for they are quite naked,) are very extensive, and feed vast numbers of stags, which range at certain times of the year in herds of five hundred. Some grow to a great size. The hunting of these animals was formerly after the manner of an Eastern monarch. Thousands of vassals surrounded a great tract of country, and drove the deer to the spot where the chieftains were stationed, who shot them at their leisure.

"Near the house is a fine walk surrounding a very deep glen, finely wooded, but in dry weather deficient in water at the bottom; but on the side of the walk on the rock is a small crystalline fountain, inhabited at that time by a pair of Naiads, in the form of golden fish.

"In a spruce-fir was a hang-nest of some unknown bird, suspended at the four corners to the boughs; it was open at top an inch and a half in diameter, and two deep; the sides and bottom thick, the materials moss, worsted, and birch-bark, lined with hair and feathers. The stream affords the parr, a small species of trout seldom exceeding eight inches in length, marked on the sides with nine large bluish spots, and on the lateral line with small red ones. No traveller should omit visiting Yorke Cascade, a magnificent cataract, amidst most suitable scenery, about a mile distant from the house. This country is very mountainous, has no natural woods, except of birch; but the vast plantations that begin to cloath the hills will amply supply these defects."

With what sensations must the Marquis of Tullibardine have approached this beautiful and princely territory, from which he had been excluded, his vassals becoming the vassals of a younger brother, and he a proscribed and aged man, visiting as an alien the home of his youth!

Sanguine hopes, however, perhaps mitigated the bitterness of the reflections with which the faithful and disinterested Marquis of Tullibardine once more found himself within the precincts of his proud domain.

Several anecdotes are told of Prince Charles at Blair; among others, "that when the Prince was at the Castle, he went into the garden, and taking a walk upon the bowling-green, he said he had never seen a bowling-green before; upon which Mrs. Robertson of Lude called for some bowls that he might see them, but he told her that he had had a present of bowls sent him, as a curiosity, to Rome from England."

On the second of September, the Prince left Blair and went to the house of Lude, where he was very cheerful, and took his share in several dances, such as minuets and Highland reels; the first reel the Prince called for was, "This is no' mine ain House;" he afterwards commanded a Strathspey minuet to be danced.

On the following day, while dining at Dunkeld, some of the company happened to observe what a thoughtful state his father would now be in from the consideration of those dangers and difficulties which he had to encounter, and remarked that upon this account he was much to be pitied, because his mind must be much upon the rack. The Prince replied, that he did not half so much pity his father as his brother; "for," (he said) "the King has been inured to disappointments and distresses, and has learnt to bear up easily under the misfortunes of life; but, poor Harry!--his young and tender years make him much to be pitied, for few brothers love as we do."

On the fourth of September, Prince Charles entered Perth; the Marquis of Tullibardine, as it appears from several letters addressed to him by Lord George Murray, who wrote from Perth, remained at Blair, but only, as it is evident from the following extract from a letter by Lord George Murray, whilst awaiting the arrangement of active operations. On the twenty-second of September he received a commission from the Prince, constituting and appointing him Commander-in-Chief of the forces north of the Forth; the active duties of the post were, however, fulfilled by Lord George Murray, who writes in the character of a general:

"Dear Brother,

"Things vary so much from time to time, that I can say nothing certain as yet, but refer you to the enclosed letter; but depend upon having another express from me with you before Monday night. But in the meantime you must resolve to be ready to march on Tuesday morning, by Keinacan and Tay Bridge, so as to be at Crieff on Wednesday, and even that way, if you do your best, you will be half a mark behind; but you will be able to make that up on Thursday, when I reckon we may meet at Dumblane, or Doun; but of this more fully in my next. It is believed for certain, that Cope will embark at Aberdeen.

"I hope the meal was with you this day, thirty-five bolls,--for it was at Invar last night. It shall be my study to have more meal with you on Monday night, for you must distribute a peck a man; and cost what it will, there must be frocks made to each man to contain a peck or two for the men to have always with them.

"Buy linen, yarn, or anything, for these frocks are of absolute necessity--nothing can be done without them. His Royal Highness desires you to acquaint Glenmoriston and Glenco, if they come your way of this intended march, so that they may go by Taybridge (if you please, with you), and what meal you can spare let them have. You may please tell your own people that there is a project to get arms for them. Yours. Adieu.

"George Murray."

From his age and infirmities, the Marquis was precluded from taking an active part in the long course of events which succeeded the unfurling of the standard at Glenfinnin. He appears to have exercised a gentle, but certain sway over the conduct of others, and especially to have possessed a control over the high-spirited Lord George Murray, whose conduct he did not always approve.

Whilst at Blair, the Marquis was saluted as Duke of Athole by all who entered his house; but the honour was accompanied by some mortifications. His younger brother, the Duke of Athole, had taken care to carry away everything that could be conveyed, and to drive off every animal that could be driven from his territory. The Marquis had therefore great difficulty in providing even a moderate entertainment for the Prince; whilst the army, now grown numerous, were almost starving. "The priests," writes a contemptuous opponent, "never had a fitter opportunity to proclaim a general fast than the present. No bull of the Pope's would ever have been more certain of finding a most exact and punctual obedience."