Bonnie Prince Charlie: Charles Edward Stuart (Pimlico)

by McLynn, Frank

  Lord George Murray, Lochiel and O’Sullivan selected a battlefield outside Lancaster. All seemed set for an encounter with Cumberland. Then Wade’s advance guard under Oglethorpe blundered on to the scene. They had been dispatched across the Pennines by ‘Grandmother Wade’ in partial atonement for his earlier failures to intercept the Highlanders. There was a skirmish with Elcho’s Lifeguards. Some of Oglethorpe’s rangers were taken prisoner. Their intelligence seemed to suggest that both Wade’s and Cumberland’s armies were close at hand.90 Even the prince did not want to call on such a hand. On the 15th the army marched on to Kendal. Lord George Murray could not resist a taunt as they quit Lancaster: ‘As Your Royal Highness is always for battles, be the circumstances what they may, I now offer you one in three hours from this with the army of Wade which is only about three miles from us.’91

  The prince made Murray pay for the jibe. Beyond Kendal loomed the dreadful Shap Fell, a dismal prospect of snow, ice and mud. At Derby Lord George had sugared the pill of defeat for the prince by promising always to be in the rearguard on the retreat and to oversee the baggage and the artillery. Now the prince took advantage of this. In the interests of the safety of the army, Murray proposed abandoning the big guns at Kendal. The prince refused adamantly: not a single cannonball must be left behind, he averred.92

  The consequence was that while the van got to Penrith with some difficulty (it took two days and a stopover at Shap), Lord George and the Glengarry men, in the rear with the unwieldy baggage waggons, took the same time to get only as far as Shap.93 Cumberland sent a flanking column under Oglethorpe (who had linked up with the duke at Preston) to get round in front of the Highlanders and catch them in a pincer movement. Fortunately for Lord George, Oglethorpe bungled his part of the plan.94 Even so, Cumberland’s vanguard was now close on Murray’s heels.

  The inevitable happened. On the 18th, while struggling along the dreadful road to Penrith, Murray and the Jacobite rearguard were overhauled by the first of Cumberland’s dragoons and mounted infantry.95 All afternoon a running fight raged in and around Lowther Hall and the approaches to Clifton village. As dusk fell and the Highlanders were in danger of being surrounded, Murray learned from a prisoner that this was not Cumberland’s main force (which numbered some 8,000 men) but merely the first 2,000 of them, commanded by the duke.

  Here was a great opportunity to apply the maxim of concentration of force. For once the Hanoverians were outnumbered. A severe defeat this night would tarnish Cumberland’s image, perhaps irremediably.96

  To the fury of Lord George and his faction, the prince would not hear of returning. All he was prepared to do was to send back sufficient reinforcements to prevent Murray from being engulfed. Piqued at his lieutenant-general’s reluctance to fight pitched battles, the prince now paid him back in his own coin. As Elcho, already disenchanted with the prince, remarked: ‘As there was formerly a contradiction to make the army halt when it was necessary to march, so now there was one to march and shun fighting when there could never be a better opportunity for it.’97

  Cluny MacPherson’s regiment and the Appin Stewarts raced back to Clifton on the double. In the early evening moonlight Murray drew up his men in strong positions in hedges on either side of the Clifton road. A roughly equal number of Cumberland’s dragoons dismounted and advanced on foot. A short, sharp, furious fight took place. Accurate shooting by Cumberland’s men merely had the effect of drawing the snake from its hole. At the cry of ‘claymore!’, Cluny MacPherson’s, one of the prince’s crack regiments, drove Bland’s regiment out of the Clifton ditches. After half an hour’s fighting Murray had done more than enough to secure an unpursued Highland retreat.98

  Lord George joined the prince in Penrith. Next day the Jacobite army moved on to Carlisle. Cumberland, left in Clifton to lick his wounds, felt no inclination to follow them.99 The prince expressed himself very pleased with the night’s work. But in effect, consciously or unconsciously he had sabotaged what could have been a decisive check to the Hanoverians.

  This was not the prince’s first eccentric decision. The desire to stay in Manchester for a second day; listening to Perth and d’Eguilles’s siren song about a stand in Preston; the extra days spent in Preston and Lancaster; finally Clifton: already Charles Edward was exhibiting clear signs of self-destructive behaviour. But all this faded into insignificance alongside the decision he took at Carlisle. At a council called to consider the next move, now that Cumberland had called off his immediate pursuit, the prince proposed and carried the idea that a garrison be left in Carlisle.100 The Manchester regiment, some two hundred and fifty strong, plus about a hundred Jacobites in the service of France, were left in Carlisle Castle.

  What was widely predicted came to pass. On arrival outside Carlisle, Cumberland summoned heavy cannon from Whitehaven, blasted down the defences, and compelled the unconditional surrender of Charles Edward’s few English volunteers.101 The ill-fated Manchester regiment was led away to trial and barbarous execution.

  The prince’s action in leaving behind a garrison has always seemed inexplicable. Such military justification as can be adduced is remarkably flimsy. To explain the inexplicable, Chevalier de Johnstone proposed a hypothesis that the prince left the English volunteers in Carlisle to a certain fate as a calculated act of vengeance against an England that had failed to rise to his standard.102

  Johnstone was on the right lines in suggesting a pathological origin for the prince’s behaviour, but his explanation is too pat and contrived. This egregious error, one of the prince’s worst mistakes in the ’45103 is so out of character that it seems more convincingly explained by an unconscious impulse of self-destruction. It is note-worthy that, throughout the ’45, the worst excesses of the prince’s self-destructive behaviour occurred after bruising encounters with Lord George Murray. This is compatible with the notion that at an unconscious level Charles Edward consistently conflated Murray with James as parents who had failed him. At a conscious level, he simply hated being thwarted.

  It was a sombre and despondent prince who crossed the Esk into Scotland. The Jacobite army had achieved great things. Its five-hundred-mile round trip to Derby and back would long be remembered as an outstanding military exploit. But the prince was numb to the positive side of what had been achieved.

  15

  ‘Mired in shallows’

  (January 1746)

  THE PRINCE CROSSED the Esk back into Scotland on his twenty-fifth birthday (20 December OS; 31 December NS). Immediately on gaining Scottish soil, the army split into two columns: Lord George and the Lowland regiments trekked up through Ecclefechan, Locherby, Moffat, Douglas and Hamilton, aiming for Glasgow.1 It was the intention that the Lowland brigade would enter Glasgow one day ahead of the prince and make all ready for him.

  Charles Edward meanwhile travelled ‘over cruel roads’ via Dumfries and Drumlanrig.2 Marching up Nithsdale, he crossed the Mennock pass by Leadhills and spent the night of 23 December in Douglas Castle.3 The next day he came to the castle at Hamilton. This pleased him so much that he halted for a day and went hunting.4

  On the 26th the prince entered Glasgow.5 The reason for this choice of rendezvous was mainly financial.6 The Jacobites intended to levy contributions in cash and kind from these hostile burghers, who had already shown a spirit of defiance to the prince.7 Charles remarked that Glasgow was indeed a fine town. But it was clear he had no friends in it; what was worse, the Glaswegians did not trouble to hide their feelings.8

  During the week in Glasgow Charles Edward reviewed his entire army on Glasgow Green and brought himself up to date on Scottish developments in his absence. The general review showed that remarkably few men – no more than two dozen – had been lost during the invasion of England.9

  Scottish developments, on the other hand, presented a mixed picture. Edinburgh had been reoccupied by the Hanoverians almost the second the prince crossed the border into England.10 Cope’s successor General Handasyde had marched up from Berwick and ente
red it without opposition. Then General Hawley had been appointed as Wade’s successor and moved the army of the north across the border. Hawley despised the Highlanders as a rabble, and was so confident of an imminent victory over them that he erected gibbets in Edinburgh.11 Meanwhile in the north Lord Loudoun still held Inverness for the Whigs.

  On the other hand, a second Jacobite army had been assembled at Perth and Dunblane. Although Lord Lewis Gordon had experienced great difficulty in raising the Gordons, he had collected many men from Aberdeenshire as well as the Farquharsons of Deeside.12 Lady Mackintosh had raised her husband’s clan under MacGilvray of Dunmaglas. Another Jacobite wife of a pro-Hanoverian magnate – Lady Fortrose (Seaforth), whose husband was with Lord Loudoun – had herded together a few Mackenzies.13 Lord Cromarty and Lord Macleod brought in the main Mackenzie regiment. MacDonald of Barisdale and young Glengarry had gathered reinforcements from the west. Glengyle brought in some MacGregors from Perthshire.14

  The most dramatic developments had taken place in the north. At last Lord Lovat had committed himself to the prince. Lord Loudoun had finally forced the issue. On 3 December he marched a force to relieve Fort Augustus, then threatened by the Frasers under the Master of Lovat.15 On 11 December Loudoun took Lovat in person to Inverness as his prisoner.16 This ended the old fox’s prevarication. Escaping from Loudoun’s hands with contemptuous ease, he finally brought out his clan.

  At about the same time Loudoun sent a strong force under Norman Macleod and Grant of Grant to relieve Aberdeen. Lord Lewis Gordon soon demonstrated that the prince had not entrusted him with high command for nothing. On 23 December he marched out from Aberdeen and routed Macleod at Inverurie, forcing him to retire across the Spey. As a result of Inverurie, Lewis Gordon held all the country between Aberdeen and Speyside for the prince.17 In addition, following this reverse a large number of men in Loudoun’s independent companies deserted.18

  But the most heartening news of all was the arrival from France of Lord John Drummond with some 1,100 troops of the Irish brigade. Drummond immediately took over the Jacobite command in Scotland from Strathallan.19 The psychological boost of this landfall at Montrose was immeasurable. Not only had Drummond warned the Dutch that their participation in the fighting would be an infringement of international law, but he published Louis XV’s declaration, which made it clear that Drummond’s contingent was only the first of many troops France intended to pour into Scotland.20

  Since the prince had ordered that no more formal council meetings would be held after his humiliation at Derby, the chain of command began to fall apart at Glasgow. It was suggested privately to the prince that the Jacobites should proceed to a second occupation of Edinburgh, or at least a march to East Lothian to keep the new Hanoverian commander ‘Hangman’ Hawley guessing and so force him to bivouac his men out at night in the cold.21 There was something in this idea, since the particularly cold weather would have taken a toll on Hawley’s troops and sapped morale. But this action would commit the prince sooner or later to a battle with Hawley. For the moment he wanted to keep his options open. He had still not given up hope of a second invasion of England and hoped at any minute to hear that the French had landed with his brother.

  So on 3 January 1746 Charles removed himself from hostile Glasgow to Chevalier Paterson’s seat between Stirling and Bannockburn.22 Once again the army marched in two columns. Lord George’s force (six clan regiments and Elcho’s Lifeguards) travelled to Falkirk via Cumbernauld.23 The prince took the rest of the army by Kilsyth. The purpose in taking up position on the Bannockburn–Stirling–Falkirk line was to link up with the new army under Lord John Drummond now marching down from Perth.24 Drummond had been joined by Lord Lewis Gordon. Mackintoshes, Frasers, Farquharsons and Mackenzies now mingled with the Irish veterans of the battle of Fontenoy.25 Elcho’s Lifeguards were thrown out as far as Falkirk to make it look as though Edinburgh was the objective.26

  While the troops were cantoned in the towns and villages round about (St Ninian’s being a particular centre), the prince made his headquarters at Bannockburn House.27 Now finally removed from stress into a safe haven, his health broke down. The prince’s valetudinarian condition for most of the rest of the ’45 campaign has hardly been commented on, but is surely significant. Nothing could impair his vitality while he took events at the flood, all the way to Derby. But once he was back in relative safety in Scotland, all the pent-up anger since Derby broke loose. The ‘internal saboteur’ in the prince’s mind, responsible for his self-destructive behaviour on the march back through northern England, now manifested itself as illness. From 5–16 January Charles lay seriously ill with influenza and a high fever at Bannockburn House.28

  The prince’s three major illnesses in the months January–April 1746 surely have to be regarded as stress-related. It is more than a little curious that his health should have held up so well from August to December 1745, and again from April to September 1746 during the flight in the heather, only to dip so alarmingly into this trough during the first three months of 1746.

  The prince had already shown signs of a changed personality. In Glasgow, in contrast to his behaviour in Edinburgh in October, he made a determined effort to exploit his undoubted appeal for the ladies.29 He dressed in his most lavish French clothes, exhibiting finery that he had not been seen in before.30 Every night he supped in public, making a conspicuous display of his sumptuary splendour.31 Unlike at Edinburgh in October, he took part in the dancing. It was almost as though he was signalling the end of his period of heroic strenuousness, acknowledging that his warrior personality had failed.

  The most significant event at Bannockburn was that Clementina Walkinshaw nursed him through his illness and became his mistress.32 She was the daughter of John Walkinshaw of Barrowfield, a Jacobite who had been out in the ’15 and escaped to join James Stuart in Bar-le-Duc.33 John Walkinshaw was one of the party who rescued Charles Edward’s mother from the Emperor in the famous Wogan escapade. He named his own daughter after Clementina Sobieska.

  It is of the utmost importance to appreciate the significance of the open appearance of women in the prince’s life. The contrast between his behaviour in Glasgow and his earlier indifference to the ladies in Edinburgh suggests an inner psychic drama – as does his later dancing at Inverness after the pointed abstention from the ballroom floor at Holyrood. We shall see later too the remarkable difference between his austere, monkish life in France in 1744–5 and his hedonism during 1746–8. We cannot assume, as has been done too readily, that Charles was a male virgin before the ’45. But it is clear that in his positive phase, on the upward climb to the meridian at Derby, women were unimportant to him.

  As the prince lay ill, pampered with the then fashionable cinnamon treatment, he was suddenly confronted with more immediate problems. Lord George Murray burst in on his retreat with a peremptory demand for a solution to the Jacobite decision-making process. Since the prince was not willing to summon any more full war councils, Murray proposed a committee of five or six regimental commanders who could take decisions in an emergency. That was reasonable enough. But relations between the prince and his lieutenant-general were so bad that Lord George could not resist throwing in a taunt. Collective decision-making was what had saved the army from destruction at Derby, he claimed. Had the council met at Lancaster also, the foolish decision to spend an extra day there would not have been taken.34

  The prince’s reply is revealing at several levels and is therefore worth quoting at some length:

  When I came into Scotland I knew well enough what I was to expect from my enemies, but I little foresaw what I meet with from my friends. I came vested with all the authority the king could give me, one chief part of which is the command of his armies, and now I am required to give this up to fifteen or sixteen persons, who may afterwards depute five or six of their own number to exercise it, for fear if they were six or eight that I might myself pretend to the casting vote. By the majority of these all things are to be
determined, and nothing left to me but the honour of being present at their debates. This I am told is the method of all armies and this I flatly deny, nor do I believe it to be the method of any one army in the world. I am often hit in the teeth that this is an army of volunteers, and consequently very different from one composed of mercenaries. What one would naturally expect from an army whose chief officers consist of gentlemen of rank and fortune, and who came into it merely from motives of duty and honour, is more zeal, more resolution and more good manners than in those that fight merely for pay: but it can be no army at all where there is no general, or which is the same thing no obedience or deference paid to him. Everyone knew before he engaged in the cause, what he was to expect in case it miscarried, and should have stayed at home if he could not face death in any shape: but can I myself hope for better usage? At least I am the only person upon whose head a price has been already set, and therefore I cannot indeed threaten at every other word to throw down my arms and make my peace with the government. I think I show every day that I do not pretend to act without taking advice, and yours oftener than any body’s else, which I shall continue to do, and you know that upon more occasions than one, I have given up my own opinion to that of others. I stayed indeed a day at Lancaster without calling a Council, yet yourself proposed to stay another but I wonder to see myself reproached with the loss of Carlisle. Was there a possibility to carrying off the cannon and the baggage, or was there time to destroy them? And would not the doing it have been a greater dishonour to our arms? After all did not you yourself instead of proposing to abandon it, offer to stay with the Atholl Brigade to defend it?

  I have insensibly made this answer much longer than I intended, and might yet add much more, but I choose to cut it short, and shall only tell you that my authority may be taken from me by violence, but I shall never resign it like an idiot.35