Glenbucket went on to Rome in January 1738: he delivered his message, was rewarded with a major-general’s commission,[24] and returned to Scotland. Immediately the Jacobite Court was filled with sanguine activity. What the terms of Glenbucket’s mission were, or whom he represented, have never been categorically stated. Murray of Broughton hints that he only represented his son-in-law Glengarry and General Alexander Gordon.[25] Even if this limitation were true, it meant much. Glengarry was one of the greatest of Highland chiefs, while General Gordon was that Nestor of Scottish Jacobites who had been commander-in-chief after the Chevalier left Scotland in 1716, and whose opinions must have carried much weight. Although there is no direct statement of the terms of Glenbucket’s mission, its significance can readily be understood from the communication made to the English Jacobites. The Chevalier at once wrote off to Cecil, his official agent in London, informing him of the encouraging news he had received. The zeal of his Scottish subjects, he said, was so strong that he considered it possible to oppose the Scottish Highlanders to the greater part of the troops of the British Government then available, and there was good cause to hope for success even without foreign assistance, provided the English Jacobites acted rightly.[26] At the time that the Chevalier’s message reached his adherents there happened to be in England a personage who bore the name and designation of Lord Sempill.[27] Though of Scots descent he was French by birth and residence. He was not familiar with English ways, and he did not understand English political agitation. Mingling for the most part with Jacobites avowed or secret, his ears were filled with execration of the reigning dynasty. On every side he heard the Whig Government denounced, and he saw it tottering and vacillating. He mistook general political dissatisfaction for revolutionary discontent, and he came to the conclusion that the country longed for a restoration of the old royal line. Constituting himself an envoy from the English Jacobites,[28] he hurried off to Rome and reported to the Chevalier that the party was stronger than was generally believed, and that affairs in England were most favourable for action. It is necessary here to relate how Glenbucket’s mission to Rome affected the Scottish Jacobites, and to introduce into the narrative the name of one who for five years was a mainstay of the Cause, though in the end he turned traitor. [Sidenote: Murray of Broughton.]