Part 15

A tradition exists in the family, that when Argyle sent messengers with his proposals to the Castle of Duart, Sir John pushed away the boat, as it neared the shore, with his own hands. This was worthy the pride of a Highland chieftain.

To such a height, in short, did William's favour amount, and so far did he in this instance carry his usual policy of conciliating his enemies by courtesy and aid, that he ordered Maclean to go as a volunteer in his service, assuring him that he would see that no harm was done to his property in his absence. Sir John, previous to his intended departure from England, went to Scotland to put his affairs in order. On his return he was told by Queen Mary that there were reports to his prejudice; he denied them, and satisfied the Queen that all suspicions of his fidelity were unfounded. Upon the strength of this assurance the Queen wrote in Maclean's favour to the King, in Holland, whither Sir John then proceeded to join his Majesty. But this profession of fidelity to one monarch soon proved to be hollow. Maclean was truly one of the politicians of the day, swayed by every turn of fortune, and cherishing a deep regard for his own interest in his heart. To inspire dislike and distrust wherever he desired to secure allegiance was the lot of William, of whom it has been bitterly said, that in return for having delivered three kingdoms from popery and slavery, he was, before having been a year on the throne, repaid "with faction in one of them, with rebellion in the other, and with both in the third." How expressive was the exclamation wrung from him, "that he wished he had never been King of Scotland." Sir John Maclean was one of those who added another proof to the King's conviction, "that the flame of party once raised, it was in vain to expect that truth, justice, or public interest could extinguish it."

On arriving at Bruges, Maclean heard of the battle of Landau, in which the French army had proved victorious against the Confederates; and at the same time a report prevailed that a counter revolution had taken place in England, and that William was already dethroned. Sir John changed his course upon this intelligence, and hastened to St. Germains, where he was, as might be expected, coldly received. He remained there until the death of William, and then he married the daughter of Sir Enaeas Macpherson of Skye.

Upon the accession of Anne, Sir John took advantage of the general indemnity offered to those who had gone abroad with James the Second, and resolved to avail himself of this opportunity of returning home; but, unluckily, he was detained until a day after the act had specified, by the confinement of his wife, who was taken ill at Paris, and there, in November 1703, gave birth to a son, who afterwards succeeded to the baronetcy. Although there was some risk in proceeding, yet Sir John, trusting to the Queen's favourable disposition to the Jacobites, embarked, and with his wife and child reached London. There he was immediately committed to the Tower, but his imprisonment had a deeper source than the mere delay of a few weeks. The Queensbury plot at that time agitated the public, and produced considerable embarrassment in the counsels of state.

It appears that Sir John Maclean had taken no part in this obscure transaction which could affect his honour, or impair his chance of favour from Queen Anne; for, so soon as he was liberated, she bestowed upon him a pension of five hundred pounds a-year, which he enjoyed during the remainder of his life.

For some years Sir John Maclean continued to divide his time between London and the Highlands, where he frequently visited his firm friend Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, at his Castle of Achnacarry. His estates had not been materially benefited by the brief sunshine of King William's favour. Upon finding that Maclean had gone to St. Germains, that monarch had confirmed to the Duke of Argyle the former grant of the island of Tyrie, which the successors of the Duke have since uninterruptedly enjoyed until the present day. Its value was, at the time of its passing into the hands of the Campbells, about three hundred pounds sterling per annum. The chief of the clan Maclean was certain never to escape the suspicions of the Government, after the death of Anne, during whose reign the Highlanders experienced an unwonted degree of tranquillity. Upon her demise the whole state of affairs was changed; and none experienced greater inconveniences from the vigilance of Government than Sir Ewan Cameron and his friend Maclean. Lochiel, as his biographer observes, "drank deeply of this bitter cup."

It was during one of Maclean's visits to Achnacarry, when in company with his now venerable friend, that the Governor of Fort William attempted to take him and Sir Ewan prisoners, but they made their escape. During the night of their flight, however, Sir Maclean caught a severe cold, which ended afterwards fatally.

When the Earl of Mar raised the standard of the Chevalier in Scotland, Sir John joined him at Achterarder, some days before the battle of Sherriff Muir. In that engagement the clan Maclean distinguished themselves, and some of their brave chieftains were killed in the battle. After the day was over, Sir John retired to Keith, where he parted from his followers, never to rejoin them. A consumption, incurred from the cold caught in his escape, was then far advanced. He declined an offer made to receive him on board the Chevalier's ship, bound for France, and went to Gordon Castle, where, on the twelfth of March, 1716, he expired.

Thus ended a life characterized by no ordinary share of vicissitude and misfortune. If the fate of Sir John Maclean be less tragical than that of other distinguished Jacobites, it was, it must be acknowledged, one replete with anxiety and disappointment. He may be said to have been peculiarly "born to trouble." To our modern notions of honour and consistency, his conduct in becoming a courtier of William the Third, appears to betray that unsoundness and hollowness of political principle which, more or less, was the prevalent moral disease of the period, and which was attributable to some of the most celebrated men of the day. It undoubtedly forms an unfavourable contrast to the stern independence of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, and of other Highland chieftains, and too greatly resembles the code of politics adopted by the Earl of Mar. But those who knew Sir John Maclean intimately, considered him a man of straightforward integrity; they deemed him above dissimulation, and have placed his name among those who despised every worldly advantage for the sake of principle, and who loved the cause which he had espoused for its own sake. The broken towers of Duart and of Aros, the ruins of those once proud lords of the soil, attest the sacrifices which they made, and form a melancholy commentary upon their history.

The castle of Aros, in the Island of Mull, "is interesting," says Macculloch, "from the picturesque object which it affords to the artist; the more so, as the country is so devoid of scenes on which his pencil can be exerted. Still more striking, from its greater magnitude and more elevated position, is Duart Castle, once the stronghold of the Macleans, and till lately garrisoned by a detachment from Fort William. It is fast falling into ruin since it was abandoned as a barrack. When a few years shall have passed, the almost roofless tenant will surrender his spacious apartments to the bat and the owl, and seek shelter, like his neighbours, in the thatched hovel which rises near him. But the walls, of formidable thickness, may long bid defiance even to the storms of this region; remaining to mark to future times the barbarous splendour of the ancient Highland chieftains, and, with the opposite fortress of Ardtornish, serving to throw a gleam of historical interest over the passage of the Sound of Mull."

Hitherto Iona had received the last remains of the Lords of Duart; but Sir John Maclean was not carried to the resting-place of his forefathers. He was buried in the church of Raffin in Bamffshire, in the family vault of the Gordons of Buckie. In Iona, that former "light of the western world," are the tombs of the brave and unfortunate Macleans. Their bones are interred in the vaults of the cathedral, which, after coasting the barren rocks of Mull, buffeted by the waves, the traveller beholds rising out of the sea, "giving," as it is finely expressed, "to this desolate region an air of civilization, and recalling the consciousness of that human society which, presenting elsewhere no visible traces, seems to have abandoned these rocky shores to the cormorant and the gull." On the tombs of the Highland warriors who repose within St. Mary's Church in Iona, are sculptured ships, swords, armorial bearings, appropriate memorials to the island lords, or, as the Chevalier not inaptly called them, "little kings;" and, undistinguishable from the graves of the chiefs, are the funereal allotments of the Kings of Scotland, Iceland, and Norway.

Sir John Maclean left one son and six daughters. His son Hector was born in France, but brought to Scotland at the age of four, and placed under the care of his kinsman, Maclean of Coll, where he remained until he was eighteen years of age; when he repaired to Edinburgh, and in the college made considerable progress in the usual course of studies in that institution. After various journeys abroad, chiefly to Paris, Sir Hector Maclean returned in 1745 to Edinburgh, intending again to lead his clansmen to the standard of Prince Charles; but a temporary imprisonment, occasioned by the treachery of a man in whose house he lodged, prevented his appearance in the field. He was detained in confinement until released as a subject of the King of France. He died at Rome in the year 1758, in the forty-seventh year of his age. At his death the title of Baronet devolved upon Allan of Brolas, great-grandson of Donald, first Maclean of Brolas, and younger brother of the first baronet.

Although the chief was thus prevented from following Prince Charles to the field of Culloden, many of his clan distinguished themselves there; Charles Maclean of Drimnin appeared at the head of five hundred of the clan, and his regiment, which was under the command of the Duke of Perth, was among those that broke forward with drawn swords from the lines, and routed the left wing of the Duke of Cumberland's army. The whole of the front line of this gallant regiment was swept away as they presented themselves before their foes. They were afterwards overpowered by numbers, and obliged to retire. Their leader, as he retreated, inquired for one of his sons, who was missing. "I fear," said an attendant to whom the inquiry was addressed, "that he has fallen." The fate of the father is well told in these few words, "If he has, it shall not be for naught," was his reply; and he rushed forward to avenge him.

Many of the clan fell in the massacre after the battle of Culloden Muir. Hundreds of the Highlanders who escaped the inhumanity of their conquerors, died of their wounds or of hunger, in the hills, at twelve or fourteen miles' distance from the field of battle. "Their misery," says a contemporary writer, "was inexpressible." While the cannon was sounding, and bells were pealing in the capital cities of England and Ireland, for the united events of the Duke of Cumberland's birth and the battle of Culloden Moor, fires were seen blazing in Morvern, in which numerous villages were burned by order of the victorious Cumberland. The Macleans who came from Mull, seem generally to have escaped; they made off in one of the long boats for their island, the night after the engagement, and were fortunate enough to carry with them a cargo of brandy and some money.

A calmer, though less interesting career has, since 1745, been the fate of the chiefs of the clan Maclean. Sir Allan, respected and beloved, became a colonel in the British army. He retired eventually to the sacred Isle of Inch Kenneth, in Mull, where he exercised the hospitality characteristic, in ancient times, of the Lords of Duart. Dr. Johnson has handed down the memory of the venerable chief, not only in a few descriptive pages of a Tour to the Hebrides, but in a Latin poem, translated by Sir Daniel Sandford. In the lines he refers to Sir Allan in these terms.

"O'er glassy tides I thither flew, The wonders of the spot to view; In lowly cottage great Maclean Held there his high ancestral reign."

Sir Allan Maclean died in 1783: he was succeeded by his nearest male relation, Sir Hector Maclean, of the family of Brolas. The brother of Sir Hector, Sir Fitzroy Grafton Maclean, a distinguished officer, and formerly Governor of the island of St. Thomas, is now chief of the clan Maclean. Two sons continue the line. Of these, the eldest, Colonel Charles Fitzroy Maclean, has chosen, like his father, the profession of arms. He commands the eighty-first foot: and has, by his marriage with a daughter of the Hon. and Rev. Dr. Marsham, an heir to the ancestral honours of the house. The youngest son of Sir Fitzroy Maclean is Donald Maclean, of Witton Castle, Durham, the member for Oxford, married to Harriet, daughter of General Frederick Maitland, a descendant of the Duke of Lauderdale, whose former injustice to the clan Maclean has been noticed in this work. It is remarkable, that the same fidelity, the same loyalty, that sacrificed every possession to the cause of James Stuart, has been, since the extinction of that cause, worthily employed, with distinguished talent and success, in the service of Government. Such instances are not uncommon in the history of the Jacobites.

FOOTNOTES:

Historical and Genealogical Account of the Clan Maclean, by a Seneachie.

Brown's Highlands.

Historical Account of the Clan Maclean, p. 4.

"Eriska is interesting as having been the first place where Charles Edward landed in Scotland. It is the boundary of Ottervore toward the north, and is separated from South Uist by a narrow rocky sound. Upon a detached and high rock at its southern end are to be seen the remains of a square tower, the abode of some ancient chieftain."--Macculloch, vol. i. p. 87.

Hist. Account.

Memoirs of Lochiel, p. 193. This account is preferable to that given by the historian of the house of Maclean, as it is of course a more dispassionate statement, although the facts stated are nearly the same. See Hist. and Gen. Acct. pp. 140, 141.

Memoir of Lochiel, p. 194.

According to the Memoirs of Lochiel, it appears that Sir Allan must have died in 1673 or 1674; since the author speaks, in 1674, of the "late Sir Allan."

Archibald, ninth Earl, was only restored to the Earldom.

Memoirs of Lochiel, p. 196.