Part 5

Thus ended this singular, successful, and heroic scheme. It was now necessary that the devoted Lady Nithisdale should secure her own safety.

She had, it seems, been bent upon proffering a last petition to King George, in case her attempt had failed. She drove home to her lodgings, where a friend, named Mackenzie, waited to take her petition. "There is no need of a petition," were the words that broke from the agitated woman; "my lord is safe, and out of the Tower, and out of the hands of his enemies, though I know not where he is." Lady Nithisdale then discharged the coach which had brought her to her lodgings, a precaution which she always observed for fear of being traced,--never going in the same vehicle to more than one place. She sent for a chair, and went to the Duchess of Buccleugh, who had promised to present her petition, having taken her precaution against all events. The Duchess expected her, but had company with her; and Lady Nithisdale barely escaped being shown into the room where her friend was with her company. She, however, excused herself, and, sending a message to her Grace, proceeded to the residence of the Duchess of Montrose. "This lady had ever," said Lady Nithisdale, "borne a part in my distresses;" she now left her company to see and console the wife of the rebel lord, of whom, she conjectured, Lady Nithisdale must have taken, that night, a last farewell. As the two friends met, the Duchess, to her astonishment, found her visitor in a transport of joy; "she was extremely shocked and frightened," writes Lady Nithisdale; "and has since confessed to me that she thought my troubles had driven me out of myself." She cautioned Lady Nithisdale to secrecy, and even to flight; for the King had been extremely irritated by the petition already sent in by Lady Nithisdale. The generous Duchess was, among those who frequented the Court, the only person that knew Lady Nithisdale's secret. After a brief interview, Lady Nithisdale, sending for a fresh chair, hurried away to a house which her faithful attendant Evans had found for her, and where she was to learn tidings of Lord Nithisdale. Here she learned that Lord Nithisdale had been removed from the lodging to which he had at first been conducted, to the mean abode of a poor woman just opposite the guard-house. Here the former Lord of Carlaverock and of Nithisdale met his wife. Lady Nithisdale hurries over the meeting, but her simple account has its own powers of description.

The good woman of the house had, it seems, but one small room up a pair of stairs, and a very small bed in it. "We threw ourselves on the bed that we might not be heard walking up and down. She left us a bottle of wine and some bread, and Mrs. Mills brought us some more in her pockets the next day. We subsisted on this provision from Thursday till Saturday night, when Mr. Mills came and conducted my lord to the Venetian Ambassador's. We did not communicate the affair to his Excellency, but one of the servants concealed him in his own room till Wednesday, on which day the Ambassador's coach-and-six was to go down to Dover to meet his brother. My lord put on a livery, and went down in the retinue, without the least suspicion, to Dover; where Mr. Michel (which was the name of the Ambassador's servant) hired a small vessel, and immediately set sail for Calais. The passage was so remarkably short, that the captain threw out this reflection,--that the wind could not have served better if the passengers had been flying for their lives, little thinking it to be really the case.

"Mr. Michel might have easily returned without suspicion of being concerned in my lord's escape; but my lord seemed inclined to have him with him, which he did, and he has at present a good place under our young master. This is an exact and as full an account of this affair, and of the persons concerned in it, as I could possibly give you, to the best of my memory, and you may rely upon the truth of it. For my part, I absconded to the house of a very honest man in Drury Lane, where I remained till I was assured of my lord's safe arrival on the Continent. I then wrote to the Duchess of Buccleugh (everybody thought till then that I was gone off with my lord) to tell her that I understood I was suspected of having contrived my lord's escape, as was very natural to suppose; that if I could have been happy enough to have done it, I should be flattered to have the merit of it attributed to me; but that a bare suspicion without proof, would never be a sufficient ground for my being punished for a supposed offence, though it might be motive sufficient for me to provide a place of security; so I entreated her to procure leave for me to go about my business. So far from granting my request, they were resolved to secure me if possible. After several debates, Mr. Solicitor-General, who was an utter stranger to me, had the humanity to say, that since I showed such respect to Government as not to appear in public, it would be cruel to make any search after me. Upon which it was resolved that no further search should be made if I remained concealed; but that if I appeared either in England or Scotland, I should be secured. But this was not sufficient for me, unless I could submit to see my son exposed to beggary. My lord sent for me up to town in such haste, that I had not time to settle anything before I left Scotland. I had in my hand all the family papers, and I dared trust them to nobody: my house might have been searched without warning, consequently they were far from being secure there. In this distress, I had the precaution to bury them in the ground, and nobody but myself and the gardener knew where they were. I did the same with other things of value. The event proved that I had acted prudently; for after my departure they searched the house, and God only knows what might have transpired from those papers! All these circumstances rendered my presence absolutely necessary, otherwise they might have been lost; for though they retained the highest preservation after one very severe winter, (for when I took them up they were as dry as if they came from the fire-side,) yet they could not possibly have remained so much longer without prejudice."

Lord Nithisdale went to Rome, and never revisited his native country; indeed, the project of the Rebellion of 1745, and the unceasing efforts and hopes by which it was preceded on the part of the Jacobites, must have rendered such a step impracticable to one who seems to have been especially obnoxious to the house of Hanover.

His escape, according to Lady Nithisdale, both infuriated and alarmed George the First, "who flew into an excessive passion," as she expresses it, on the news transpiring; and exclaimed that he was betrayed, and that it could not have been done without a confederacy. He instantly dispatched messengers to the Tower, to give orders that the prisoners who were still there, might be the more effectually secured. He never forgave Lady Nithisdale; and the effects of his powerful resentment were such, as eventually to drive her for ever from England.

Inexperienced, young, a stranger in the vast metropolis, Lady Nithisdale was now left alone, to skulk from place to place that she might avoid the effects of the royal displeasure. She absconded to the house of an "honest man" in Drury Lane, where she remained in concealment until she heard of her husband's safe arrival on the Continent. A report, meantime, prevailed of her having been the means of Lord Nithisdale's escape; and it was generally believed that she had gone with him. To the surprise of the Duchess of Buccleugh, Lady Nithisdale one day appeared before her, the object of that sudden and perhaps undesired visit being to obtain, by the influence of the Duchess, leave to quit London; and to disseminate, through her Grace, a belief that the safety of Lord Nithisdale was not procured by his wife's means. It must have been one of the most aggravating circumstances to that noble and affectionate being, to have employed so much artifice in the conduct of this affair; but, if ever artifice be allowable, it is when opposed as a weapon to tyranny. Besides, Lady Nithisdale had now not only her own safety to consider; she had to protect the interests of her son.

Those whom she had mortally offended were eager to punish her courage by imprisonment.

The Solicitor-General, however, showed a more compassionate spirit than his employers, and in the course of several debates in the House of Commons, submitted that if Lady Nithisdale paid so much respect to Government as not to appear in public, it would be cruel to make any farther search after her. It was therefore decided that unless the lady were seen in England or Scotland, she should be unmolested; but if she were observed in either of those countries, she should be secured. This might be a decision of mercy, but Lady Nithisdale could not submit to it, unless she left her son's estate to be ruined by waste and plunder. Hurried as she had been to London, she had found time only to make one arrangement, which proved to be of the utmost importance.

"I had in my hands," she relates, "all the family papers, and dared trust them to nobody. My house might have been searched without warning, consequently they were far from being secure there. In this distress I had the precaution to bury them in the ground, and nobody but myself and the gardener knew where they were: I did the same with other things of value. The event proved that I had acted prudently to save these papers."

Lady Nithisdale determined to return, at all risks, to Scotland; and it was, perhaps, from her care in concealing the important documents to which she refers, that the estates were not escheated. She soon put into execution the heroic determination, of which she made no boast. Her journey was full of perils; not only those incident to the time and season of the year, but the great risk of being betrayed and discovered. Little respect was paid, in that reign, when truly the spirit of chivalry was extinguished, to the weaker sex. Ladies, active and instrumental as they were in political intrigues, if found out, were made to pay the penalty of their dissaffection with hard imprisonment; or, if at large, wandered from place to place, conscious that the eye of the law pursued their footsteps. Lady Seaforth, the wife of one of the rebel lords, was reduced to necessity, even of the common necessaries of life; and Lady Widdrington and her children shared the same cruel privations.

Believing herself, also, to be an object of peculiar dislike to George the First, Lady Nithisdale's courage in braving the royal displeasure a second time, certainly appears to border upon folly and a rash temerity. But she knew well that if she could once reach the land of the Maxwells, the strict respect paid to the head of the clan, and the remarkable fidelity of all ranks of the Scotch to those who trust to their honour, would there prove her safeguard. The great danger was in making the journey. But the young heroic Countess dismissed all fear from her mind, and prepared for her enterprise.

"In short," she thus prefaces her narrative, "as I had once exposed my life for the safety of the father, I could not do less than hazard it once more for the fortune of the son. I had never travelled on horseback but from York to London, as I told you; but the difficulties did not arise now from the severity of the season, but the fear of being discovered and arrested. To avoid this, I bought three saddle-horses, and set off with my dear Evans and a very trusty servant, whom I brought with me out of Scotland. We put up at all the smallest inns on the road, that could take in a few horses, and where I thought I was not known; for I was thoroughly known at all the considerable inns on the northern road. Thus I arrived safe at Traquhair, where I thought myself secure, for the lieutenant of the county being a friend of my lord's, would not permit any search to be made after me without sending me previous notice to abscond. Here I had the assurance to rest myself two whole days, pretending that I was going to my own house with leave from Government. I sent no notice to my house, that the magistrates of Dumfries might not make too narrow enquiries about me. So they were ignorant of my arrival in the country till I was at home, where I still feigned to have permission to remain. To carry on the deceit the better, I sent to all my neighbours and invited them to come to my house. I took up my papers at night and sent them off to Traquhair. It was a particular stroke of providence that I made the dispatch I did, for they soon suspected me, and by a very favourable accident, one of them was overheard to say to the magistrates of Dumfries, that the next day they would insist on seeing my leave from Government. This was bruited about, and when I was told of it, I expressed my surprise that they should be so backward in coming to pay their respects; 'but,' said I, 'better late than never: be sure to tell them that they shall be welcome whenever they choose to come.'

"This was after dinner, but I lost no time to put everything in readiness with all possible secrecy; and the next morning before day-break, I set off again for London with the same attendants, and, as before, put up at the smallest inns and arrived safe once more."

The report of her journey into Scotland had preceded Lady Nithisdale's return to London; and, if we may credit her assertions, which are stated with so much candour as to impart a certain conviction of their truthfulness, their King was irritated beyond measure at the intelligence. Orders were immediately issued for her arrest; and the Monarch protested that Lady Nithisdale did whatever she pleased in spite of him; that she had given him more trouble than any other woman in Europe. Again driven into obscurity, Lady Nithisdale took the opinion of a very celebrated lawyer, whose name she does not specify, and, upon his opinion, determined to retire to the Continent. The reasons which her legal adviser assigned for this counsel was, that although, in other circumstances, a wife cannot be prosecuted for saving her husband, yet in cases of high treason, according to the rigour of the law, the head of a wife is responsible for that of a husband. Since the King was so incensed against Lady Nithisdale there could be no answering for the consequences, and he therefore earnestly besought her to leave the kingdom.

Lady Nithisdale, conscious of the wisdom of this recommendation, and wearied, perhaps, of a life of apprehension, determined to adopt the plan recommended.

It is evident that she joined Lord Nithisdale at Rome, whither he had retired; for the statement which she has left concludes in a manner which shows that the devoted and heroic wife had been enabled to rejoin the husband for whom she had encountered so much anxiety, contumely, and peril. Her son, it appears, also accompanied her, from her reference to "our young Master," meaning the Master of Nithisdale; since, when she wrote, the Prince Charles Edward could not be endowed with that appellation, his father being then alive. Her narrative is thus concluded:--

"This is the full narrative of what you desired, and of all the transactions which passed relative to this affair. Nobody besides yourself could have obtained it from me; but the obligations I owe you, throw me under the necessity of refusing you nothing that is in my power to do. As this is for yourself alone, your indulgence will excuse all the faults which must occur in this long recital. The truth you may, however, depend upon; attend to that and overlook all deficiencies. My lord desires you to be assured of his sincere friendship. I am, with the strongest attachment, my dear sister, yours most affectionately,

"WINIFRED NITHISDALE."

Little is known of the Earl of Nithisdale after his escape to Rome, where he died in 1744. He thus lived through a period of comparative quiet, till his native country was again on the eve of being embroiled in a civil war, more replete with danger, sullied by greater crimes, and more disastrous to his native country, than the short-lived struggle of 1715. An exile from his Scottish possessions, Lord Nithisdale possibly implanted in the mind of his own son that yearning to establish the rights of the Stuarts which appears not to have been eradicated from the hearts of the Scottish Jacobites until their beloved and royal race had become lineally extinct.

The descendants of William, Earl of Nithisdale, have never been able to ascertain where his Lordship is buried. His noble and admirable wife died at Rome, as well as her husband; but her remains were brought to this country, and they are deposited at Arundel Castle.

John Maxwell, who assumed the title of Earl of Nithisdale, appears to have remained absent from Scotland until the troubles of 1745 began. It was probably on the death of his father in 1744, that he returned to take possession of the family estates,--that this, the representative of the family of Maxwell, ventured to appear in Dumfriesshire.

The following correspondence which passed between the Earl of Nithisdale, popularly so called, and his friend, Mr. Craik, of Arbigland in Dumfriesshire, is a curious commentary upon the motives and reasons which actuated the minds of the Jacobites in the second attempt to re-establish the Stuart family. The first letter from Mr. Craik is dated October the thirteenth, 1745, when Edinburgh Castle was blockaded by Charles Edward, who was publishing his manifestoes from the saloons of Holyrood House. The answer from Lord Nithisdale is written in reply to one of remonstrance addressed to him by his friend. There is no date, but it is obviously written at Edinburgh.

The remonstrances from Mr. Craik were instantly dispatched, to avert, if possible, any decided step on the part of Lord Nithisdale. The arguments which it contains shew the friendly intention of the earnest writer. Lord Nithisdale had, in his former letter, challenged his friend to assign his reasons for dissuading him from the enterprise.

LETTER FROM MR. CRAIK TO LORD NITHISDALE.

"My waiting for a safe hand to convey this to you has prevented my answering yours of the thirteenth sooner. It must give me great pleasure that you have not determined to engage in the present enterprize, which from several apparent symptoms I had reason to apprehend; and if you stick by your promise of doeing nothing rashly (fitt only for desperados indeed!) in a matter of such moment, I shall be sett at ease from the anxiety I felt on your account.

"In mine which gave occasion to yours, I really had no intention to enter into the merits of the cause: all I meant was, to make experiment how far my interest with you could prevail to keep you undetermined till meeting, when I might promise myself more success in reasoning upon the subject, than while you remained in town, where the spirit of the place, the people you converse with, the things you hear and see, all unite to inflame your passions and confound your understanding. But since it has, beyond my intention, engaged you to explain your sentiments at large, and to call upon you to give my opinion, and since I suppose your arguments contain all that can be said by those of the party who would be thought to judge coolly and act reasonably at this juncture, I shall, with the freedom and openness of a friend, consider them as they lye before me in yours; and if I am forced to exceed the limits of a letter, you may blame yourself, who drew me in. You tell me you are ready to believe; I agree in opinion with you, that as matters are come to this length, it's now greatly to the interest of Scotland to wish success to the undertaking, and that nothing but the improbability of success should hinder every Scotsman to join in it. This tho' a verrie material point, you take for granted without assigning a single reason; but as I know it is one of their delusive arguments, now much in use where you are, and the chief engine of the party to seduce well-meaning men to concur in the ruin of the constitution and their country, I shall give you what I apprehend you must mean by it in the most favourable light it will bear; and then from an impartial stating of the fact as it truely stands, leave yourself to judge how far an honest man, a wise one, and a lover of his country, can justify either to himself or the worlde, his being of this opinion. The meaning of your argument I take to be this: that by the unaccountable success of the enterprize and the tame submission of the people in general, if the scheme misgive all Scotland becomes involved in the guilt, and may expect the outmost severitys this Government and the people of England can afflict them with; but on the other hand, should the undertaking be crowned with success, as Scotesmen have the merit of it, they must become the peculiar favourites of the family they have raised to the throne, and reap all the advantages they can promise themselves from a grateful and generous prince. I hope I have done justice to your argument, allow me allso to do justice to facts and truth.

"The people of Great Britain having found, from repeated experiments, how precarious their libertys were in the hands of the princes who founded their title to govern them in hereditary right,--that however absurd the pretence was in itself, no example could make them forego a claim which so much flattered their ambition, and upon which only, with any shew of reason, arbitrary power and tyranny can be built at last,--determined to secure (as far as human prudence can) the possession of that inestimable blessing to themselves and posterity by fixing the royal power in a family whose only title should be the free choice of the people, and who, should they attempt, would be restrained from inslaving those they governed, and would not only act most absurdly, but might reckon upon having the same voice of the people against them.