Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico)

by McLynn, Frank

  Disappointed, the prince returned to Mallaig. With Captain John and Old Mackinnon, Charles walked by night to Morar Cross, a mile south of the bridge over the Morar river.24 Here they found MacDonald of Morar, who was now living in a bothy, since his house had been burned down. The prince was fed on cold salmon and taken to a nearby cave to sleep.25

  Morar meanwhile went in search of Young Clanranald. When he returned after an ‘unsuccessful search’, his entire manner was changed. It was clear that he had been ‘got at’ by Old Clanranald.26

  At this point the prince became distressed. All the feelings of persecution and betrayal that had been palliated by the intense clan loyalty so far burst out anew. Plaintively he asked the Mackinnons not to behave to him as the Clanranalds had.27 The two Mackinnons quickly reassured him and calmed him. Then they took stock. Perhaps a return to Borrodale was the best idea. The prince agreed. But he had not finished with the pusillanimous Morar. To show his contempt, he offered Morar a guinea to get intelligence from Fort Augustus. It would normally have been considered a gross insult to offer a clansman money. Nothing abashed, Morar replied that he could get a pedlar to carry out the assignment but that a guinea was too much to pay him. ‘Well then, sir,’ said the prince, summoning all his royal hauteur, ‘if you think so, give him the one half and keep the other to yourself.’28

  They reached Borrodale in the early morning of 10 July. This time their contact was Angus MacDonald – again a man reduced to living in a bothy after Cumberland’s soldiers had burned down his house.29 MacDonald of Borrodale was a fervent Jacobite. There was no Clanranald ambivalence here. He threw himself with gusto into the task of saving the prince. Seeing him in good hands, the Mackinnons took their leave.30

  At Borrodale the prince lay hidden, first in a wood, later, after news of the capture of the Mackinnons, in a cave.31 Meanwhile Borrodale sent for a man particularly trusted by the prince, Alexander of Glenaladale, a major in Clanranald’s regiment.32 Glenaladale joined the prince on the 16th at ‘Macleod’s Cove’, his hideout on a high precipice in the woods of Borrodale.33 From Glenaladale the prince heard for the first time the true story of his losses after Culloden – they were much less than he had been led to believe.34

  Glenaladale was both a devoted Jacobite (he was still recovering from the wounds he had received at Culloden) and a highly efficient organiser. He had heard from Borrodale’s brother-in-law Angus MacEachine that the prince’s presence in the neighbourhood was suspected. The Hanoverians’ relentless pursuit was paying off. They now knew the prince had slipped through their net in the Hebrides and had traced his devious trail through Raasay and Skye.35 Accordingly, Glenaladale suggested a place of concealment he knew of near Meoble in the Braes of Morar.36 He sent Borrodale’s son to reconnoitre the place and report on its safety.37

  Before this son, Ranald, had returned, Glenaladale and his son John were alarmed to see warships and a flotilla of small boats lying off the nearby coast.38 Without waiting for Ranald to come back, the prince started for MacEachine’s refuge. As Borrodale and Glenaladale and his son walked with the prince, they met up with MacEachine. He assured them that Young Clanranald was only a few miles away and advised them of a safe hideaway he had prepared for the prince. As it was now too late in the day to go to MacEachine’s secret lair, they pressed on to Meoble.39 During the night spent there, they laid future plans. Since General Campbell was in Loch Nevis with a large amphibious force, the first thing was to spy out his movements. Next, Borrodale would lay in a store of food for a prolonged concealment.40

  The 18th of July was a black day for the prince. Borrodale returned earlier than expected with the news that they were surrounded.41 Hearing that the prince was in Moidart, the authorities had acted quickly to establish a chain of military camps and sentry posts from the head of Loch Eil to the head of Loch Hourn.42 Linking up with Young Clanranald was now out of the question.

  Bold tactics were called for. They decided to skirt the line of forts and probe the cordon until they found a weak spot to break through. They would then head for a northern port, possibly Poolewe.

  Safety dictated a reduction in numbers. The prince went on, accompanied only by Glenaladale and his brother and Borrodale’s son.43 By midday they had climbed to 1,800 feet and reached the top of Sgurr Mhuidhe, three miles north-west of Glenfinnan, where the Stuart standard had been raised nearly a year before. Here Glenaladale’s brother went on to Glenfinnan for news. They arranged to meet that night on the heights of Sgurr Coireachan.44

  The prince’s party, now reduced to three, were at Fraoch Beinn to the north of Glenfinnan by 2 p.m. Falling in with some of Glenaladale’s kinsmen, they discovered that the redcoats were already systematically criss-crossing the country around which they had tightened the cordon. They had reached the head of Loch Arkaig and would soon be athwart the prince’s track.45

  It was time for a quick change of plans. The local pathfinder Donald Cameron of Glenpean was sent for. If anyone could guide them out of Moidart, it was he. But events were moving too fast even for swift improvisation. The remorseless dragnet soon reached the foot of the hill on which they stood waiting. It was too late to wait for Glenpean.

  Under cover of darkness they struck out in thick mist. By great good fortune, at about 11 p.m. they accidentally stumbled across Glenpean in a hollow between two hills at Coire Odhar in the Braes of Morar.46

  All night they walked with Glenpean. At times they were so close to the guards along the cordon that they could hear every word they spoke.47 They wound their way by precipitous paths to a hill overlooking Arkaig. There was a militia camp not one mile away, but the hill on which they lay had already been searched. Unbelievably, they were joined on the hillside during the day by Glenaladale’s brother, whose mountain-man’s instinct took him straight to them after the failed rendezvous at Coireachan.48

  At night they continued their trek to the north and reached Coirenan-Gall at 1 a.m. Glenpean knew of a hideout at the head of Loch Quoich a mile away, so they holed up there during the daytime of 20 July while Glenaladale’s son went to try to get some food.49 They had nothing with them but a little oatmeal and dared not even light a fire to make oatcake.50

  This was the supreme moment of peril for the prince during his entire wanderings, more dangerous even than the predicament he found himself in on South Uist when Flora MacDonald rescued him. Albemarle’s men were ranged in three parallel lines, ten or twelve miles apart: one from Fort William to Inverness; another running through Mull, Strontian, Glenfinnan and Loch Arkaig; the third from Lochleven through Rannoch to Fort Augustus.51 The cordon was particularly tight where the prince was just now. From Loch Eil to Loch Hourn there were camps at half-mile intervals and sentries posted within shout of each other.52

  The danger was not just something that would be encountered once they tried to break through the net. Glenaladale’s brother returned at about 3 p.m. from his scout for food with two cheeses and the news that a hundred redcoats were swarming up the other side of the hill. There was nothing for it but to sit tight and hope that the searchers missed them in their ‘fast place’.

  So it turned out. Despite a meticulous search, the troops failed to uncover the hideout.53 At 8 p.m. the prince and party were able to strike north again. At the top of the hill of Druim Cosaidh, they saw the enemy’s camp fires ahead of them. Creeping close to the sentry posts, they passed by in silence, near enough to hear every word of their conversation.54 They repeated the performance on the next hill in Glen Cosaidh.55

  They were now through the cordon. But having narrowly escaped Scylla, the prince was almost taken by Charybdis. He was walking between Glenpean and Glenaladale when he slipped on a narrow sloping path.56 He tumbled down to the edge of a cliff, over which there was a hundred-foot drop. Breaking his fall by twining his legs around a bush after his body had hurtled past it, the prince hung over the edge for a fraught few seconds until help came.57 Quickly the two Highlanders grabbed hold of him. Had they not pull
ed him up, he would have plunged over the precipice to certain death or fatal injury.58 The prince described the look on Glenpean’s face as one of ‘mortal terror’.59

  They took shelter in a steep glen at the head of Loch Hourn in ‘hollow ground covered with long heather and branches of young birch trees’.60 They were restricted to a daily ration of cheese and oatmeal, washed down with fresh water.61

  By this time Glenpean the pathfinder was beyond the country he knew intimately and into the unknown, with only his woodcraft to guide him. To their alarm, they found that they had been perilously close to two more of the enemy’s camps.62 It was vital to find a new guide, one who knew the country from here to Poolewe. They set out at night under a full moon; for all that, the prince described it as ‘the darkest night ever in my life I travelled’.63

  In the early morning they found themselves near Glenshiel, scene of the Jacobite defeat in the rising of 1719.64 This was Seaforth country. After crossing the Shiel, they spent the whole day on the hillside north of the glen. It was oppressively hot.65 The rigours of the weather found some compensation in the cheese, butter and milk they purchased from a crofter called Gilchrist MacGrath.66 But MacGrath disappointed them with his news about Poolewe: there had been a French ship there but it had now left.

  After abandoning his plan to make for Poolewe, the prince found himself at sea in another sense. Glenpean confessed himself lost. Providentially, and almost on cue, Donald MacDonald, a Glengarry man, fell in with them and offered to guide the prince to a refuge in Glenmoriston.67 No further use to the prince, Glenpean took his leave.

  Meeting the Glengarry guide was only the first of two pieces of great good fortune the prince enjoyed on that sweltering 22 July. Striking east through Glen Cluanie at nightfall, they had gone no more than a quarter of a mile when Glenaladale announced that he had lost his purse, containing forty louis d’or. Glenaladale turned back for the MacGrath place, suspecting the crofter’s son (rightly) of being the culprit. The prince was left with MacDonald of Glengarry, crouching by the trail in the dark. While he was there a Hanoverian officer and three redcoats went by. It seemed certain the two parties would have run into each other in the normal course of events but for the purse incident. There was not even any contact between the redcoats and Glenaladale as he returned with the restored purse; some instinct brought him back by another trail.68

  They walked until ten o’clock next morning, then rested in another tried and tested bolt-hole on the hillside above Strathclunie. Again the midges proved troublesome. The prince got his followers to swathe him with heather from head to toe for protection.69 They set out again in the afternoon.

  They had not proceeded far when they heard the unmistakable roll and crackle of gunfire. Turning northward, they climbed a high hill between Loch Cluanie and Glen Affrich. The rain began to pelt down heavily. Unable to explore the provenance of the gunfire further, they took refuge in an ‘open cave’ – no more than a niche in the rock. Drenched to the skin, the prince endured another night of discomfort, unable either to lie down or sleep.70

  This turned out to be the dark night before the fine day of changing fortune. The Glengarry men were as good as their boast. On 24 July they delivered the prince into the hands of the ‘Seven Men of Glenmoriston’ at Coiraghoth in the Braes of Glenmoriston.71 They72 were much more indicative of the true sentiments of the Grants than was the leadership, with its ambivalent response. After Culloden, these devoted Jacobites had taken an oath to carry on the fight by guerrilla warfare in the heather.73 Their warrior credentials were impeccable. Three weeks before the prince came into their care, they had ambushed a party of seven redcoats, killed two and put the rest to flight.74 The fact that they had drunk themselves senseless on wine captured from the redcoats particularly endeared them to the prince; as did their ruthlessness in shooting dead a Strathspey man who was among the Grants as a spy. Having stuck his head on a tree on the high road three miles from Fort Augustus, they were beyond the pale of Hanoverian mercy. The prince could therefore be at perfect ease among them, knowing they could not betray him.

  The week that followed was a halcyon period in the prince’s life. He was lodged in the kind of a cave that had some of the qualities of a fairy-tale grotto, in stark contrast to some of the caverns in which he had recently taken refuge.75 Within this grotto a wimpling stream of clear water ran by his bedside.76 The prince was ‘as comfortably lodged as if he had been in a royal palace’,77 He was provided with mutton, venison, butter, cheese and whisky from the expert foraging of the Seven Men.

  The only thing the Glenmoriston men insisted on was that they, not the prince, were firmly in charge.78 This point was early made to the prince with some sharpness by the one man in their number who could speak English.79 By this time the prince had mastered the elements of Gaelic.80 But he could not follow all the nuances of his comrades’ conversation. The Seven Men tried to limit their discourse to simple things, but when complex information had to be conveyed, Glenaladale acted as interpreter.81

  The prince’s new protectors were masters of their immediate environment. When, after three days, they learned that Captain ‘Black’ Campbell’s militia was encamped just four miles away, they moved the prince to another grotto ‘no less romantic than the former’ for the next four days.82 Finally, on 1 August, fearing eventual discovery because of the now dense infestation of the black-coated militia in the surrounding area, they moved north to the Braes of Strathglass, again travelling by night and resting by day. By this time the prince was determined to have another shot at possible French shipping in Poolewe. After three nights in a ‘sheally hut’, he sent two of the Seven Men forward to Poolewe to reconnoitre.83

  The recent long waits, combined with lack of progress towards any specific goal, finally wore down Charles Edward’s patience. While his two envoys were away, the prince’s nerves, which had been stretched taut while dodging through the cordon, snapped. Stress brought with it the usual self-destructive behaviour. Suddenly he ordered his companions to march on, without waiting for news from Poolewe. They refused, both on the grounds that their two absent comrades to whom they had sworn an oath were depending on them, and, more relevantly to the prince, that they could not guarantee his safety without the intelligence the absent pair would bring back.

  The prince blustered and threatened. But his royal prerogative cut no ice here. Then he threatened to go on hunger strike. The Glenmoriston men hinted at forced feeding if he would not see reason. At this the prince changed gear at his usual lightning speed and capitulated, exclaiming bitterly: ‘I find kings and princes must be ruled by their privy council, but I believe there is not in all the world a more absolute privy council than what I have at present.’84 Significantly, though, there were no further altercations between him and the Glenmoriston men.

  On 5 August they moved on to their rendezvous point. At midday they reached Glencannich and spent the rest of the day in a wood. After getting shelter for the night in a neighbouring village, they made an early (2 a.m.) start on the 6th and climbed Beinn Acharain, north-west of Invercarrich; this was the most northerly point of the prince’s wanderings on the mainland.85 Following another night in a ‘sheally hut’, they were joined by their comrades from Poolewe. These brought back news that a French ship had indeed put in there recently, but had departed after landing two of Louis XV’s officers.86 The two Frenchmen were now scouring Lochiel’s country in search of the prince.

  This landing at Poolewe was the latest manifestation of a stubborn and determined French effort to rescue the prince, In mid-June Maurepas dispatched two of his most able privateer captains to Scottish waters: Captains Dumont and Anguier, masters respectively of Le Hardi Mendiant and Le Bien Trouvé.87 Le Hardi Mendiant reached the north-west coast of Scotland early in July and brought back O’Sullivan. Had the prince remained on Raasay, he would have been taken off too.88 Le Bien Trouvé meanwhile landed the French officers the prince now heard of, before being herself captured by HMS G
lasgow.89

  When the prince heard of the Frenchmen’s presence on Scottish soil, he decided to strike south, hoping to meet them and learn their exact orders from Versailles. On the dark moonless night of 8 August, he and his companions set out for Strathglass and recrossed the Cannich. Once again the prince emerged from a night’s march caked with dirt and mud. He could keep up with the doughtiest clansman in the daytime, but at night, not being used to the rough, plashy going underfoot, he often fell in holes and puddles. Since he was wearing a short kilt this left him with dirty thighs and mud-splashed belly.90

  They reached Fasnakyle in the morning. There the prince remained for three days, well hidden in a wood, while the Glenmoriston men scouted ahead.91 Hearing that the troops who had been searching for the prince had all been recalled to Fort Augustus, they pressed on in confident mood to the Braes of Glenmoriston, east of Loch Cluanie. It became increasingly clear that the all-out manhunt for the prince had been abandoned.

  Why did the London government call off the hunt at this stage, after coming so close to success? Largely this was a triumph of Jacobite disinformation. The cell-like structure of the chain of helpers along the prince’s trail preserved secrecy admirably, for very few people knew of his exact whereabouts, and fewer still knew his future intentions. But secrecy was not only preserved in this way. Those taken into custody for abetting Charles Edward played their part: they told plausible stories about his intentions which, however, departed from the truth in significant essentials. Both Flora MacDonald and O’Neill, for example, swore up and down that the prince had crossed to the mainland from Portree.92 On 27 July he was reported at Badenoch, a month before he reached that spot.93