Origins of the 'Forty-five : $b and other papers relating to that rising
History
Origins of the 'Forty-five : $b and other papers relating to that rising
Jacobite Rebellion, 1745-1746
Alexander Macbean went from the Western Highlands to Roxburghshire,
where he became chaplain to Douglas of Cavers, and was licensed as a
probationer by the Presbytery of Edinburgh in 1711. In the following
year the right of presentation to the parish of Avoch in the Black
Isle, Ross-shire, having fallen to the Presbytery of Chanonry, _jure
devoluto_, Macbean was selected to fill the vacancy, and was ordained
minister of the parish in June 1712. His appointment met with fierce
opposition. His predecessor had been one of the pre-Revolution
episcopal ministers who had retained his living, and the parishioners,
for the most part episcopalians, resented his intrusion and fretted
him with litigation. He became so unhappy that he obtained permission
to resign his charge. In 1714 he was presented to the rural parish of
Douglas in Lanarkshire, and there he remained for six years. In 1720
he was back in the Highlands as minister of the ‘third charge’ of
Inverness; and in 1727 he was transferred to the ‘first charge’ of that
important town, and there he remained until his death in 1762.
In Inverness he made his individuality strongly felt as champion for
the Government. He was ‘the John Knox of the North,’ and one who
exerted himself to suppress the spirit of rebellion in and about
Inverness in the years 1745 and 1746.
On one occasion he nearly fell a victim to his interest in the
struggle. Having gone with many others to the Muir of Culloden to
witness the battle, one of the flying Highlanders attempted to cut him
down with his broadsword, but the blow was warded off by a bystander.
Alexander Macbean was the father of a very distinguished son,
Lieut.-General Forbes Macbean (1725-1800) of the Royal Artillery.
This officer was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, was
present at Fontenoy in 1745, and at Minden in 1759. At Minden he so
distinguished himself that he was presented with a gratuity of five
hundred crowns and a letter of thanks from the Commander-in-Chief,
Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, written with his own hand. Forbes
Macbean subsequently became Inspector-General of Portuguese Artillery,
1765-69; served in Canada 1769-73 and 1778-80; but his principal claim
to the gratitude of posterity is a collection of manuscript notes
recording the early history of the Royal Artillery.
Of Alexander Macbean’s ‘Memorial’ it is perhaps enough to say that it
is, considering the times, fairly impartial, and corresponds on the
whole with authentic information gleaned from other sources. I have
taken the opportunity of supplementing, perhaps overloading, his text
with notes detailing, so far as I have been able to discover them from
various sources, the names of the principal Highland gentlemen who were
concerned in the Rising of the ’Forty-five.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE LATE REBELLION FROM ROSS AND SUTHERLAND
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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