Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. Volume III.

Not only were the seeds of disunion thus sown between the Prince and the Generals, but also between the Marquis of Tullibardine and Lord George Murray.

"I did expect," writes Lord George to the Marquis, "that you would have upon occasion stood my friend; but I find you are too apt to hearken to designing people, by your being so ready to blame me before I was heard; and, except you show some regard for me, how can I expect it of others? I told his Royal Highness that you had acquainted me that he desired to see me. He said, No, he had nothing particular to say to me. I told him I should be as ready to serve in a private station, and as a volunteer, in the first rank of your men, as ever I could be in any other. He said I might do so. Nothing else passed. I spoke a good time to Sir Thomas Sheridan, and told him in particular, that if anything was taken amiss in my letter, as having expressed my attachment to the King, without having mentioned his Royal Highness, it was very injurious to me; for having mentioned the King and royal family, (and designing my letter to be short,) I thought it needless to be more particular; for surely, next to the King, I would serve none on earth before his Royal Highness: which, after what I have shown, and all my actions since I joined the standard, could not be called in question. I mentioned several particulars, wherein I showed that I had no authority in the station I was in, and that others acted as General who had not any call, but used his Royal Highness's name. That in the drudgery, I was employed, but anything of moment was done without my participation. That, in short, I had ventured my all--life, fortune, family--every thing, my honour; which last I had some to lose, but none to gain, in the way things were managed, and therefore resolved upon a private station."[85]

The concluding paragraph of this painful letter is written with a force and bitterness which show how deeply this ardent servant of a failing cause was wounded by what he justly deemed unmerited caprice and disrespect. "I wish you would be careful of the Atholl men, that they be not slighted; which never should have happened as long as I had any command. I find scarce any of them have got even thanks for venturing life and fortune, and even the gallows; and, which is worse, (I don't know how it is come about,) they are not thought equally good with other men. If you would send me the notes, that were made out, of the way of modelling them into two different regiments, I would do, now that I have time to do it, as much as possible for the good of the service and general comfort. I always am, dear brother, your most faithful and humble servant and affectionate brother,

"GEORGE MURRAY."[86]

"Haroby, 16th Nov. 1745."

These acts of indiscretion and intemperance were followed by another proceeding still less worthy of the soldier and the man of honour: Lord George Murray indeed lowered himself, when, at the same time that he wrote to the Prince, he set on foot a petition praying Charles that he would dismiss all Roman Catholics from his councils. This was aimed at the Duke of Perth and Sir Thomas Sheridan; nor can we assign to it any better motive than that it was intended to re-instate Lord George Murray in the command. Some allowance may, nevertheless, be made for the prejudices of a Presbyterian, acting on the determined and overbearing nature of a high-spirited man. But the vital principles of our Christian faith tend to soften animosities, to humble pride, and to accord to others the same intention to act rightly as that of which we ourselves are prone to boast. A sincere, a truly pious member of the Christian church cannot be an intolerant partizan of certain modes of faith. There dwells within his breast a deeper sentiment than that which is inspired by the worldly and sublunary distinctions of sect. And Lord George Murray, seeing his young and blameless rival, the Duke of Perth, brave, honourable, and moderate, had shown greater zeal for true religion had he not availed himself of an unworthy plea to base upon it an invidious and covert insinuation.

He was reproved by the magnanimity of the man whom he desired to remove from the Prince's councils. Although the Duke of Perth did not profess to acquiesce in the opinion that it was unreasonable that he should have the chief command, although he did not pretend to acknowledge the justice of the claim, he nobly gave up, for the sake of a Prince whom he loved, the superiority to Lord George Murray. His conduct on this occasion recalls the generous sentiments of the knight and soldier in ancient times; unhappily it failed in producing that unanimity which it was intended to effect. The rancour between Lord George Murray and the Secretary still remained, although it did not break out on every occasion, and sometimes gave way to the common cause when the interests of all were at stake.[88]

At Carlisle the forces were reviewed and were found to amount to above five thousand foot, with five hundred[89] on horseback, mostly low-country gentlemen followed by their servants, under the name of guards, hussars, &c.[90] After a few days rest, and after completing every arrangement for the preservation of Carlisle, the army marched to Penrith; Lord George preceding the rest of the forces at the head of six regiments and some horse. This was an adventurous undertaking with so small a force; for there were now in England above sixty thousand men in arms including the militia and the newly raised regiments; but the Prince, observes Mr. Maxwell, "had hitherto had a wonderful run of success." He was still buoyed up with hopes of a landing of French troops, and of an insurrection in his favour.[91]

On the twenty-fourth of November the Prince marched from Carlisle to Penrith, and thence to Lancaster, which he reached on the twenty-fifth, at the head of the vanguard of his army. He was dressed in a light plaid belt, with a blue sash, a blue bonnet on his head, decorated with a white rose, the sound of the bagpipes, and the drum playing "The King shall have his own again;" the banners, on which were inscribed the words "Liberty and Property, Church and King," failed, nevertheless, to inspire the cold spectators who beheld them with a corresponding enthusiasm.

The army advanced towards Preston, Lord George Murray commanding the van; and on the twenty-sixth of November, the whole force assembled before that town, the very name of which struck terror into Scottish breasts. Nor were the English Jacobites without their fears, nor devoid of associations with the name of a place in which the hopes of their party had been blighted in 1715, and their banners steeped in blood. The walls of Preston recalled to many of the volunteers of Lancashire the prison in which their fathers had died of fever, or starvation, or of broken hearts. It is remarkable, as one of the newspapers of the day observes, that many of those who joined the Chevalier's ranks were the sons of former insurgents. "Hanging," adds the coarse party writer, "is hereditary in some families."[92] Lord George Murray, in order to avoid the "freit," or, in other words, to humour the superstition of the Highlanders, who had a notion that they never should get beyond Preston, crossed the Ribble bridge, and landed a great many of his men on the other side of the water, about a mile from the town, where they halted the next day, waiting for some intelligence, of which it is presumed, says Lockhart, "they were disappointed." Here it was necessary to divide even this little army for the convenience of quarters.[93] At Preston the Prince was received with enthusiastic cheers, but when officers were ordered to beat up for recruits, no one enlisted. The tents which had been provided had been left on the road from Moffat to Edinburgh; and the season was so severe, that it was impossible even for Highlanders to sleep in them; the town was too small to receive them; the same arrangement that had been begun at Carlisle was still pursued, and the army went in two great divisions, though with scarcely a day's march between them. Lord George Murray commanded what was called the low-country regiments; but the greater part of these was, observes Mr. Maxwell, "Highlanders by their language, and all were in their dress, for the Highland garb was the uniform of the whole army."

One can easily conceive what must have been the effect of this gallant force, unbroken by fatigue or privation, and glorying in their enterprise, as they entered into the friendly county of Lancaster, filled with Roman Catholic gentry, who gathered around the standard of the Prince. The colours of the Tartan, which was worn, as we have seen, by the whole of the army, both Highlanders and Lowlanders, although denominated by a writer in the Scots' Magazine as a "vulgar glare," never offend the eye, but are, according to a high authority, "beautifully blended and arranged." "Great art," observed the celebrated Mr. West, "(that is to say, much knowledge of the principles of colouring with pleasing effect,) has been displayed in the composition of the tartans of several Clans, regarding them in general as specimens of national taste, something analogous to the affecting but artless strains of the native music of Scotland."