An Ancient Strife

by Michael Phillips

  He was John Campbell, duke of Argyll.

  Four

  Even as the two Highlanders lifted juice of the barley to their lips, back at the castle, Robert MacGregor’s wife was bringing the object of their toast gently to his mother’s bedside. Aileana Gordon had fallen asleep in utter exhaustion thirty minutes earlier, almost before the delivery was complete. She had only moments before begun to come awake, glancing groggily about for the midwife. Sarah now laid the child, whom she had washed and dried, into the mother’s arms.

  “Ye’ve got yersel’ a muckle wee son, my lady,” she said as she bent down over the bed and tucked the swaddled infant under the weary arm.

  A thin gasp sounded from the mother’s lips. Her pale eyes widened, seeking first the midwife. As at last she came fully to herself, she glanced to her side.

  “A son! Sarah . . . is it—”

  In the passing of an instant, a new image came into Lady Gordon’s memory.

  She was only six. A rider came slowly toward the cottage. She heard the approach. She crept to the window and looked outside. A stranger reined in and began talking to her mother.

  Suddenly her mother’s hand went to her mouth, and young Aileana heard a forlorn wail in a voice she hardly knew. Now the stranger leaned down and handed her mother a folded plaid—a tartan blanket. He reached and drew up a corner, showing that the plaid was wrapped around a Highland dirk.

  Her father’s dirk . . . her father’s plaid!

  The horseman straightened himself in the saddle and now turned and rode away. A few moments more her mother stood, then walked back toward the cottage. Her face was red, her cheeks glistening with tears.

  Aileana shrank back, sensing that some awful change had come to their lives. The door slowly creaked open. Her mother entered, said nothing, only sought a chair, where she sat many long minutes holding the plaid and dirk in her lap, quietly weeping. One of Aileana’s older sisters and her two younger brothers approached with eyes wide like her own.

  At last the poor widow spoke. From her mouth came words that pierced young Aileana’s heart as surely as had the tip of a razor-sharp sgian-dubh been plunged into her flesh.

  “Guard yer herts, my lassies,” she said in prophetic tone. “’Tis no land where women should let themselves love. ’Tis an evil land that takes its men frae its women. Sons grow an’ become husbands. Husbands fight an’ dee, an’ tis jist the women wha are left t’ grieve . . . alone an’ desolate.”

  “Ay, my lady,” came Sarah MacGregor’s voice. No more than a second had passed. “He’s a healthy wee bairn.”

  Lady Gordon turned her face away. The courage of the Pict warrioress shrank from sight. For the present she could summon only the mother side of her nature—and the mother in her mourned. But she could not let Sarah see the tears falling from her eyes at what should be a joyous occasion.

  After a moment she heard the midwife tiptoe from the room. She cradled the child close, reached under the blanket and offered the tiny mouth her breast, then closed her eyes and continued to weep.

  Five

  Hae ye named the bairn yet, m’lord?” asked MacGregor.

  “Ay, Robert,” replied the earl. “It’s Alexander—Sandy we’ll call him.”

  “Sandy Gordon—‘tis a braw name, m’lord. There’ll be nae mistakin’ the lad fer any but a Scot.”

  Gordon laughed, thinking that neither would such a mistake be made about the shepherd MacGregor.

  “An’ Lady Aileana—is she weel?”

  “Asleep when I left,” answered the earl. “Your wife came to me with the boy and said Aileana had fallen asleep without yet laying eyes on him.”

  “She’ll ken soon enough, I’m thinkin,’” rejoined MacGregor, “an’ be rejoicin’ wi’ ye, nae doobt.”

  Even as they spoke, the sound of a horse galloping toward the cottage interrupted them. Both men went to the door to see a man of obvious noble bearing dismounting from an enormous steed, the same whose thundering hooves Gordon had heard earlier.

  “Ho, Murdoch!” cried Gordon, “you couldn’t wait for me to return to the castle to offer me congratulations! But how did you know? I was planning to ride over to Tullibardglass as soon as—”

  “I offer congratulations, my friend,” interrupted the newcomer, striding forward and shaking the other’s hand. “But I knew nothing of the birth until I arrived at Cliffrose.”

  “Then what brings you out at—”

  “I fear my journey was not on account of your son,” again interrupted Murdoch Sorley.

  “What then?”

  “Bobbing John has heard from James Edward in France. King James has called him to raise the clans.”

  “Has the rising come?” said Gordon, his expression suddenly grave, though there could be no mistaking the heightened pitch of excitement in his tone. Behind him, MacGregor inched closer.

  “Lord Mar has summoned Scotland’s nobles to a tinchal on the Braes of Mar. I only heard of it last evening and set out this morning to tell you. We shall both receive invitations within days.”

  “When is the event set?”

  “Next week. The word is that we shall likely muster in Braemar and march on Perth within the month. You had better sharpen your sword too, MacGregor,” Sorley added, turning to the shepherd. “The new King will need every man who is loyal to the Jacobite cause.”

  MacGregor would need no persuading. His eyes were already aglow for the chance to fight for the cause of the Stuart kings against the Hanoverian usurpers.

  “Come, Kendrick,” Sorley said, “we must return to Cliffrose. Notwithstanding the birth of your son, we have much to discuss. Time is short.”

  Gordon nodded, bid MacGregor farewell, then turned toward the door.

  “And your wife, Murdoch?” he said as they walked. “Any news?”

  “Feeling well, but no news. It is yet early.”

  “Perhaps by our return from Perth, she will have given you a son as comrade to my own bairn.”

  Sorley laughed and slapped Gordon affectionately on the shoulder.

  “So we may hope, my friend,” he replied.

  “What could be better,” added Gordon, “than to see our own two firstborn grow and ride and romp together over the Highlands of a Scotland again free from the tyranny of the south?”

  Sorley leapt onto the back of his giant horse, then reached down with his hand and pulled his friend up behind him. The moment he felt the earl’s arms clutching his midsection, he dug his heels into the horse’s side. Within seconds, the two were flying back over the heathland toward the ancient stone castle of Cliffrose.

  MacGregor watched the two nobles disappear, then turned back inside. The open bottle of whiskey yet stood on the table beside the two empty glasses. Thoughtfully he recapped it and then placed the bottle on the single shelf of the nearest wall.

  He would not drink a drop of it until Lord Kendrick returned to visit his humble cottage again—when the two could raise a toast to James Edward Stuart on his throne in Edinburgh . . . and when all in Scotland called him their King.

  Six

  In the duke of Argyll, the English had a powerful and persuasive Scottish ally. He, therefore, had traveled to Edinburgh in 1705 as Queen Anne’s personal representative. His assignment had been straightforward: to set before the Scottish Parliament the advantages of entering into a treaty of union with England and thus to form a single nation.

  Debate throughout Scotland on the matter had been heated—and not surprisingly, for nationhood itself was at stake. The Jacobites objected fiercely to the treaty, as did a number of other Scots who held dear the cause of Scottish independence. And yet many in the cities and Lowlands believed Campbell’s claim that in the new nation Scotland and England would be equals and that the union would prove greatly to Scotland’s benefit.

  The chief argument in favor of union was financial. Scotland was nearly bankrupt from a tragically failed colonial venture that had taken place between 1695 and 1700 for the purpose
of boosting Scotland’s trading prowess in the world. The Darien Scheme, as it was known, had involved an attempt to establish a Scottish trading port on the isthmus of Panama, from which goods would be transported overland between the Atlantic and Pacific, thus effectively shrinking the distance between Europe and the Far East. Vast sums of Scottish money—by some estimates, up to half Scotland’s available capital—had been invested in this scheme. But everything, along with thousands of lives, had ultimately been lost. The failure of the Darien Scheme was by some accounts the greatest single disaster in Scottish history and had reduced the country to the direst of financial straits.

  Five years later, Scotland was still reeling from the repercussions of the affair, and financial confusion had provided the English just the opportunity they needed. Campbell came to Edinburgh promising a lifeline that would enable Scots to recoup their staggering losses.

  The agreement offered by the Queen and the Whigs was relatively simple. Scotland would retain its own legal system and church structure—since the Scottish Reformation in the middle of the sixteenth century, the official Scots church had been Presbyterian—and would be brought into English commerce as an equal trading partner. Shareholders in the Darien Company would be recompensed in the amount of four hundred thousand pounds, paid directly out of England’s coffers. In exchange, Scotland would be required to agree to only two conditions—first, to disband her Parliament and join in nationhood with England, and second, to bind herself to the Hanoverian succession for the united throne. The two countries would link together and become one nation, henceforth to be called Great Britain.

  Even though the Jacobites themselves represented a minority within Scotland, however, hatred toward England in the north had long been widespread. The measure could never have hoped to pass by a vote of the people. Mustering the necessary votes in the Scottish Parliament had seemed equally doubtful. But Campbell was persuasive. And the inducement of four hundred thousand pounds was great for those who had been stung in the Darien Scheme. Moreover, those who had lost most heavily were the same men who held the strings of power and who stood to profit most from union.

  In the end, money carried the day, and the measure passed. Thus by the hand of Scotland’s own guardians of power was its sovereignty relinquished. Caledonia’s own children, remarked one sad opponent, had dealt the country its fatal blow. The proud and ancient nation—independent since 1314—was handed over to its bitterest enemy for four hundred thousand pounds.

  The Act of Union was signed in 1707 and took effect the following year. The Scottish Parliament met one final time in March of 1707, conducted some last minor business, then adjourned. Lord Seafield, the Lord Privy Seal, was heard to say, “There’s ane end of ane auld sang.”

  The Scottish crown, the sword, and the scepter were wrapped in linen and put away in a box in Edinburgh Castle.

  “We are bought and sold for English gold,” the Jacobites had lamented ever since. By the time Sandy Gordon came into the world in ancient Cliffrose Castle, Scotland as a nation was no more.

  Seven

  A week and a half after the birth of his son, Kendrick Gordon, earl of Cliffrose, rode with his second cousin and friend, Murdoch Sorley, viscount of Tullibardglass, southward through the Pass of Drumochter into Glen Garry. At Pitlochry they would turn east through the Atholl hills, then northward to Braemar and the site of the hunt to which they had been invited.

  The Act of Union of eight years earlier had by no means ended Jacobite sentiment in the north, but it would now require rebellion, a coup, or a civil war to regain what Caledonia had given away. The once mighty land conquered by the Wanderer’s grandsons, peopled by the ancient progeny of Cruithne and Fidach, held by the blood of Foltlaig and Maelchon against the Romans, and brought into the family of faith by Columba and Diorbhall-ita had become little more than the northernmost county of England. For Caledonia’s proud heritage and sovereignty to be regained, a hero needed to rise up from within its ranks like the great Bruce of old.

  Unfortunately, these were times when heroes were scarce. James Edward, the would-be King who commanded the loyalty of the Jacobites, was more French than Scot, and had never set foot in the land he would rule.

  Yet if a time for him to claim his birthright arose, no more propitious moment could be imagined than the present—only a year before, in 1714, both Queen Anne and her cousin the Electress Sophia had died. An attempted Jacobite coup had only been prevented by the swift declaration by London’s Whig government that Sophia’s son would become King of England. George of Hanover, a German through and through, thus became King George I of Great Britain. Discontent with the union and offense over this obvious slap in the Stuart face had spread throughout Scotland, and Mar’s correspondence with James Edward in France had been the result.

  “What do you think about Argyll?” asked Sorley as they rode.

  “In regard to what?” rejoined Gordon.

  “I meant, do you think we might be able to convince him to throw his loyalties to the cause?”

  Gordon laughed. “Are you serious, Murdoch?” he said. “John Campbell!”

  “Times change. Perhaps as old friends we might be able to reason with him now that a German is on the throne.”

  “The duke of Argyll is your friend, Murdoch, not mine. I am no ancient and territorial Highland chief. I consider myself a tolerant and modern man. But I still consider the events of 1707 treason against Scotland, and John Campbell’s role in it was, in my eyes, just as vile as that of Campbell of Glenlyon against the Glencoe MacDonalds. He will never join the Jacobite cause. If it comes to a contest, I have no doubt that he will take the government’s side whatever the circumstances.”

  “Strong words, Kendrick,” observed Sorley thoughtfully. “But Glencoe was another time. Those days are long past.”

  “Not so long, Murdoch,” said Gordon. “Only twenty-three years.”

  “It might as well be a century ago, Kendrick,” rejoined Sorley. “I do not think we have anything to fear from Argyll.”

  “The Campbells have cost us our nation,” said Gordon emphatically. “Yes . . . strong words—and deservedly so.”

  The viscount of Tullibardglass did not reply. In the future, it would be best for him to keep his own counsel in matters having to do with his friend the duke.

  The hunt in the middle of August had been called by the earl of Mar to let his allies know what was in the wind—that the moment they had been waiting for was at hand. For two days they hunted together, they feasted, and they planned. Then they departed to carry word of the impending uprising throughout the Highlands.

  They would gather again in two weeks, said Mar, this time bringing the supportive clans of the Highlands with them.

  Eight

  The scene on September 6, 1715, at Castletown in Braemar, could not have offered a more colorful display of Highland regalia and pride. A hundred or more weaves of tartan had come from nearly as many separate clans and septs.

  After the morning’s great hunt across hills and moors, and with the pleasant aroma of roasting venison, grouse, and boar rising from several fire pits, the earl of Mar solemnly raised the old Stuart flag. This was the second hunt he had called within two weeks. The first had been for the purpose of garnering support. This second was to announce rebellion.

  The symbolism of the flag raising was lost on none of those hundreds present. As the banner ascended, however, suddenly the ornamental golden ball atop the flagpole came loose and crashed to the ground.

  “No harm done,” cried Mar with a laugh, trying to make light of the incident, though he had been shaken by it like the rest. “Raise the standard, and may the Jacobite cause triumph!”

  This time the flag rose to the top. They watched for a minute or two as it blew in the breeze, then Mar began to speak.

  “We are all in agreement,” he said, “that the Act of Union of 1707 was a blunder and mistake. By it Scotland’s ancient liberties were delivered into the hands of the E
nglish. With my own hand I signed the act, along with many of my fellow countrymen, not realizing that English promises for equality were but disguises for servitude. We were wrong, my fellow Scots, and it is time we redressed our error. Our rightful monarch is James Edward, and I proclaim him here and now King James VIII of Scotland and King James III of England. I have been in touch with our King, and as soon as those who will gather for him can secure Scotland, he will sail from France and take his rightful place on the throne that was snatched from his father by the usurper William of Orange.”

  Despite his impassioned speech, however, John Erskine, sixth earl of Mar, was hardly the hero the Scots needed. Here was no William Wallace or Robert the Bruce of ancient time, no Montrose or Dundee of more recent years, or even a white-haired giant martyr like MacIain of Glencoe. Rather, Mar was chubby and lackluster, an indecisive leader. Even among his followers, he was known as “Bobbing John” for his tendency to shift political allegiances. James Edward had thus doomed the rising from the start by selecting as his general a man ill equipped to capture the imagination of Caledonia.

  Only James Edward’s son, it would turn out, would be capable of that.

  “But he is a Catholic,” objected one when Mar concluded his opening statement.

  “Ay, and what of it?” objected another, a Highland Catholic himself.

  “He is still our King,” soothed Lord Mar, “and has assured me that he will make no attempt to force his faith on either Scotland or England.”

  His words were confident. Unfortunately, by this time many in Britain suspiciously viewed the Stuarts as more French and Italian than British, and James’s Catholicism did nothing to dissuade them.

  Nine

  With the Highland clans behind him and armed support throughout the Highlands in excess of twelve thousand men, the earl of Mar marched south to Perth. With something less than a third of that number, he took the city without difficulty. Throughout the north, many cities and towns declared their support and their allegiance to King James. The Stuart uprising seemed well begun.