The Road to Culloden Moor

by Diana Preston

  In England measures were being taken to contain the Jacobite threat. The Opposition introduced a bill making it a treasonable offence to correspond with the ‘young Pretender’ as he was called. The Lords strengthened the measure by voting for the confiscation of the estates of anyone caught doing so. Sir Robert Walpole, by then Lord Orford, made an emotional address, saying that it was the ‘winds alone’ that had saved Britain from an invasion and that the rebellion he anticipated would be ‘fought on British ground’. Charles certainly still hoped so and was scheming accordingly.

  At the beginning of June he had moved into a pretty little house in Montmartre and was studiously ignoring advice from his father that there was ‘no remedy but patience and courage’. Indeed, patience was never one of his strong points. He continued to assure James that ‘The K. of France kindness for me is very remarcable, by his speking very often about me, and saying that he regretted mitely that sircumstances had not permitted him to see me hitherto.’ However, it was very irksome to him not to be able to go about in public and court the acclamation that he knew he could rouse.

  Charles’s lifestyle was, as always, expensive. Stuart household accounts for 1743 showed that while Charles ran through 31,198 livres, Henry spent only a quarter of that, and James himself an eighth. So it was not surprising that by September Charles was running out of money. To his chagrin he was forced to move to a few rooms in town which were ‘but a hole’. He also complained that ‘The situation I am in is very particular, for nobody nose where I am or what has become of me, so that I am entirely burried as to the publick, and can’t but say but that it is a very great constrent upon me, for I am obliged very often not to stur out of my room.’ But he retained a sense of humour: ‘I very often think that you would laugh very hartily if you saw me going about with a single servant bying fish and other things and squabling for a peney more or less.’ This wry wit frequently undercut the pomposity of some of his youthful pronouncements and remained with him through these early years at least.

  It was an increasingly lonely existence, though, and Charles did not altogether trust the bickering members of the little Jacobite coterie clinging to his coat tails. Their advice was confused and conflicting and it was difficult to know what to make of the situation. He was glad to be joined by his old tutor Sir Thomas Sheridan who had had the burden of accompanying him on all his exploits since the siege of Gaeta. James had previously written that ‘Poor Sheridan is not fit to exert himself very greatly.’ He was going to have to. He found Charles broader and taller — the latter due to Charles’s taste for the French fashion for two-inch heels.

  Meanwhile Murray of Broughton decided in August 1744 to come to Paris and see for himself how things stood. He strongly suspected the likes of Balhaldy and Sempill of misleading Charles about further French assistance. They met for the first time in the stables of the Tuilleries. The Prince ‘informed him that the French had been serious in the Invasion’ and that he ‘had the strongest assurances from the French King and his Ministers that it would be put into execution that Harvest’. However, when Murray argued that this was now highly unlikely Charles expressed his determination to go to Scotland the following summer ‘though with a single footman’. However romantic, this was just the kind of wild scheme that James had been worrying about and which Charles was beginning to see as a serious proposition. The sad truth was dawning that he was nothing but an embarrassment to the French court. In later years he was to write that a blind man could have seen that the French were only making sport of him. But he could not bear the thought of returning to Rome. Also, he ‘had heard much of the loyalty and bravery of the Scotch Highlanders …’. So Murray was despatched back to Scotland to test out opinion while Charles had another go at Louis, arguing that the Scots were ready to rise and only needed arms and a little help from the French to begin the campaign. Louis did not reply.

  James, on the other hand, was writing regularly with worthy, cautious and affectionate advice as well as news of Rome, of Henry and even of Charles’s dog Stellina. Charles’s replies were less frequent and couched in vague but usually optimistic language. ‘Whatever I may suffer,’ he wrote to his father, ‘I shall not regret in the least as long as I think it of service for our great object. I would put myself in a tub like Diogenes if necessary.’ He barely acknowledged his brother’s letters.

  For Charles Rome was a previous life. The all-consuming question was when and how to get to Scotland, not whether he should go. Murray of Broughton, despite his subsequent denials, has been blamed for urging him on, advising him that he should ‘come as well provided and attended as possible, but rather come alone than delay coming; that those who had invited the Prince, and promised to join him, if he came at the head of four or five thousand regular troops, would do the same if he came without any troops at all; in fine, that he had a very strong party in Scotland, and would have a very good chance of succeeding. This was more than enough to determine the Prince.’ Charles was confident that he would be irresistible to the Highlanders as their true Prince come to rid them of the Hanoverians.

  This idea of selfless Highland chiefs eager to follow their Prince in his noble cause is integral to the legend. But of course it was not quite like that. The general reaction to the messages brought by Murray of Broughton was alarm, even panic. As one Jacobite reflected in later years: ‘The Prince’s friends in Scotland were extremely uneasy, when Murray upon his return, told them that the Prince was coming without troops. They looked upon the success as doubtful even with some thousands of regular troops, but impossible without that support.’

  The situation in the Highlands, and in Scotland generally, was a complex one too subtle for a young man who had never been there and had to rely on others for his information. The Act of Settlement of 1701 had ensured the Protestant succession in England. When Hanoverian George I came to the throne, those Scots who proclaimed his Stuart rival James sang a derisive little song:

  Wha d’ye think we hae gotten for our king

  But a wee, wee, German lairdie,

  And when they went to bring him home

  He was delvin’ in his kail-yairdie [cabbage patch]

  The Act of Union of 1707 which joined Scotland with England under one Parliament was seen as an act of betrayal by the Scots. However, as the century drew on different interests emerged in a society driven increasingly by economics rather than religion. The Act of Union brought prosperity to the Lowland towns. Glasgow, for example, was growing fast and becoming rich from shipbuilding, linen manufacture, the import of tobacco and other trade with the Americas. It was pretty much a Whig stronghold. There was a widening gulf between the trade-loving Lowlanders and the other half of Scotland’s 1.2 million population who lived in the Highlands and whom the Lowlanders regarded as Gaelic-speaking ‘ruffiens’ with ‘uncowth weapons’ who lived by cattle stealing.

  The latter charge was not without foundation. Cattle raiding was integral to Highland life going back to the pre-Christian era. The Highlanders did not regard it as common theft but as a tribal challenge. The practice became so institutionalised it gave rise to the English expression ‘blackmail’. ‘Mail’ meant rent, so ‘blackmail’ became the name given to the levy of black cattle imposed by Highlanders on other clansmen in return for free passage through their territories. It also came to mean the protection money extorted from Lowlanders who were the frequent victims of the raiding parties.

  The Highlanders were divided in their loyalties. Some of the clans were traditionally loyal to the Stuarts. Others followed the Campbells under the Duke of Argyll who abhorred the Stuarts and was a firm supporter of the Government. Religious differences were another part of the picture. Many Highlanders were staunch Roman Catholics whose religion was flourishing in the glens at this time if picturesque tales of hidden seminaries, babies christened in natural fonts in the rocks and warrior priests are to be believed. A large number, though not all, had been devoted to the Jacobite cause for over fifty years.
In theory, at least, they could be expected to help Charles, though many were to hold back. Other Highlanders were Episcopalians and non-jurants who had refused to take the oath of allegiance to the crown. The Lowlanders and their natural Highland allies the Campbells were largely Presbyterian.

  On top of these complexities was the fact that the earlier failed rebellions had left their mark. Many of those to whom Charles now looked for help had been ‘out’ in the 1715 Rebellion and consequently lost their estates. Some of these had since been pardoned and their property restored to them. It was asking a great deal to expect them to risk their lives and lands again. One who eventually agreed to do so was the middle-aged Donald Cameron of Lochiel — the ‘gentle Lochiel’ of the stories who proved one of the most admirable characters of the ’45. He now wrote to Charles: ‘having maturely considered his Royal Highness’s resolution, he was of opinion that to land in Scotland without assistance from abroad might prove an unsuccessful attempt: but as he was entirely devoted to the interest of the Royal Family, if he should land, he would join him at the head of his Clan.’ Others reacted similarly. Though it was a ‘mad project’ they ‘believed they could not hinder themselves from joining in his fortune’.

  However, this was a long way from the whole-hearted commitment Charles was seeking. The situation was threatening to become deadlocked when another more shadowy group of players entered the stage. Lord Clare, who commanded one of the Irish regiments in the service of the King of France, introduced the Prince to a circle of wealthy Jacobite Franco-Irish shipowners. Chief of this group was Antoine Walsh, a forty-two-year-old ‘very rich merchant of Nantes’ whose family had a tradition of loyalty to the Stuart cause. His father had commanded the ship which rescued James II after his defeat at the Battle of the Boyne and brought him to France. They had subsequently made a fortune building ships for the French navy and in those other lucrative eighteenth-century pursuits of slave-trading and privateering. Walsh declared that ‘my zeal for your cause has no limits and I am prepared to undertake anything where the service of your Royal Highness is concerned.’

  To Charles, kicking his heels in Paris, running up increasing debts and chafing under the restrictions of his daily life, this was a godsend. He met other members of this influential circle, such as the Hegartys, the Ruttledges and the Butlers, and saw that they combined shrewd judgement with a wide network of contacts. Charles was soon plotting deeply with this group and the substance of their discussions was revealed only to a few. Such secrecy caused dissension and jealousy in the sensitive Jacobite camp, with Sempill complaining about ‘a spirit of giddiness’ and James becoming increasingly worried in Rome about what his son was up to.

  He was soon to find out. The defeat of the British by the French, and in particular by their Irish Jacobite brigade, at the battle of Fontenoy in May 1745 convinced Charles that it was time to make his move. While he knew it was not ‘easy to forsee if it will prove good or bad for our affairs’, the defeat did mean that the British were under pressure abroad and that the country would be emptied of troops. News of the battle also struck a more personal chord. His young cousin the Duke of Cumberland had distinguished himself there — a veritable ‘Caesar or Hannibal’ as his admirers put it — and Charles wanted to prove his own metal.

  The situation looked auspicious if only the French would help. The Hanoverian royal family were not good at courting popularity with their British subjects — George II preferred to be in Hanover while, on the very night that news came of the seven thousand killed, wounded or missing at Fontenoy, the Prince of Wales continued enjoying himself at the theatre to the rage of the London populace. Surely they would welcome a deliverer with open arms, or so Charles reasoned. He stepped up his arrangements and his appeals to Louis.

  However, the King would not commit himself to anything unless he was given clear guarantees about the levels of support for Charles in England and Scotland. His resources were strained and in many ways the political situation had moved on. But it suited him quite well to have Charles causing his own diversion and he did nothing to stop the schemes of which his army of spies and informants must have told him. His position was pretty cynical. There is probably some truth in the later accusation of one of Charles’s enemies (who hated the French even more than the Jacobites) that: ‘The French Ministers began now to be well pleased to see Things take this Turn, hoping he would make a desperate Attempt himself, at much less Expense than if abetted by them …. In Public therefore, and even under their Hands, they opposed and discountenanced his Scheme for an Invasion, but privately applauded it, and expressed a vast Confidence in the heroick Disposition of the young Pretender ….’

  The heroic young Pretender was very short of money by now. To finance his plans he pawned some of the famous Sobieski jewels and borrowed 60,000 livres from the ‘old Waters’ and 120,000 from ‘the young one’ of the Paris bankers Waters and Son. Walsh, Ruttledge and their friends were busy with the practical arrangements. Walsh had promised to find ‘a little frigate, a good sailor, which I will cause to be ready as soon as possible, but on condition your Royal Highness will allow me to accompany him and share all the perils to which he may wish to expose himself.’

  In the event Ruttledge chartered the Elizabeth, a worthy old vessel of sixty-four guns captured from the British in the reign of Queen Anne some years earlier, while the ship which was to carry Charles was indeed a ‘little frigate’ — the sixteen-gun Du Teillay which Walsh had diverted from her normal run to Sainte Domingue or Martinique. Both were loaded with the muskets, broad-swords and field guns which Charles had bought.

  All that remained was some judicious letter writing. Charles wrote ‘in most engaging terms’ to the King and Queen of Spain asking for help in his gallant enterprise. He also wrote to Louis and to James but took care that the letters should not arrive until after his departure. The letter to Louis was a firm reminder that Charles had only come to France at his request and it ended with an appeal to his self-interest: ‘I beg your Majesty most urgently to consider that in upholding the justice of my rights you will be putting yourself in a postion to achieve a stable and enduring Peace, the sole object of the War in which you are now engaged.’ Charles’s letter to his father was different in tone. He complained about the ‘scandalous usage’ he had received from the French court before making a poignant plea that ‘Your Majesty cannot disapprove a son’s following the example of his Father; you yourself did the like in the year 15, but the circumstances now are indeed very different by being much more encouraging, there being a certainty of succeeding with the least help ….’ Of course the letter also contained some suitably heroic sentiments and is famous for the stirring comment: ‘Let what will happen, the stroke is struck and I have taken a firm resolution to conquer or to dye, and stand my ground as long as I have a man remaining with me.’

  However romantic and chivalrous, this do-or-die approach was not universally welcomed by his supporters. In Scotland when Charles’s intentions became clear ‘every body was vastly alarm’d at this news, and were determinded when he came to prevail upon him to go back ….’ It was true that at least eight chieftains had invited him over and promised to raise their clans but all but two of these had required certain assurances. Not unreasonably, these included that Charles should bring a large number of French troops, adequate supplies of arms and plenty of money. There were frantic attempts to stop Charles from setting out or, if already landed, to advise him to return, but the various letters and anxious messengers never reached him. Even if they had it might not have changed anything. Charles was shrewd enough to know that by throwing himself ‘naked into their arms’ and thereby showing his entire confidence in them he was making it hard for them to refuse him.

  The preparations for his departure were as clandestine as his flight from Rome. The assembly point for his small party was Nantes. At Walsh’s suggestion Charles disguised himself as an abbé and once again he assumed the name of Douglas. He and his companions to
ok their roles seriously, ‘lodging in different parts of the town and if they accidentally met in the street or elsewhere they took not the least notice of each other, nor seemed to be in any way acquainted, if there was any person near enough to observe them’. It was a suitable prelude to a desperate business, but one wonders whether the young Stuart really went unobserved as he flitted theatrically about the backstreets of Nantes. It is much more likely that it was all reported straight back to Versailles. A fishing boat took Charles down the Loire and he boarded the Du Teillay at St Nazaire around seven in the evening on 22 June (old style). She slipped out of the harbour in darkness to rendezvous with the Elizabeth at Belle-Île and Charles was soon ‘a little seasick’.

  Charles’s companions on his journey have become known to history as ‘the Seven Men of Moidart’. They were an ill-assorted and somewhat elderly cocktail of four Irishmen, two Scotsmen and an Englishman. A more unlikely group of men would be hard to imagine. There was William, Duke of Atholl (or Marquis of Tullibardine as the Whigs called him), nearly sixty years old and crippled by gout — on the actual day of landing he was so laid up with it that he could not walk. However, he had impeccable credentials having been out in two previous rebellions and the mere sight of Charles apparently brought tears to his noble old eyes. There was Aeneas Macdonald, the banker, who had been intending to travel to Scotland on his own but was persuaded to join Charles’s party because of his powerful influence among the Scots. The sole Englishman was Francis Strickland, Henry’s ex-tutor, who was much disliked and distrusted and ultimately dismissed by James. He died ‘of a dropsy’ before the campaign was over.