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
may be on pain of being hanged. The woman suspected of inveigling men
to list in the French service is to be carried in the same cart.’[74]
On April 8th, the Duke of Cumberland left Aberdeen, concentrated his
army on Cullen, and crossed the Spey on the 12th, when Lord John
Drummond retired before him. Four days later the battle of Culloden was
fought.
CAPTAIN DANIEL’S PROGRESS WITH PRINCE CHARLES
This narrative, written by an English officer, who served in Lord
Balmerino’s regiment, is occasionally referred to by modern historians
of the Jacobite period, but has never been printed. Two manuscripts
are known to exist. One, which belongs to an English gentleman, was
shown to me by the late Mr. Andrew Lang. It is evidently contemporary,
or nearly so, but the spelling is so eccentric that it is exceedingly
difficult to read. The second manuscript is preserved at Drummond
Castle, and is a certificated copy of the original, but it is written
with modern spelling. Both were put at my disposal, but as there was
nothing to show that the older version was Daniel’s holograph--indeed
the evidence was against it--I preferred to use the Drummond Castle
copy. The matter in both was practically identical. Of the writer
nothing is known beyond what he tells of himself. Apparently he came
from the Fylde country of Lancashire, the district between the Lune and
the Ribble, and he was brought up in Jacobite principles.
The narrative is particularly interesting as giving the adventures of
an English Jacobite. Daniel, stimulated by the call of conscience, had
determined to embrace the cause. He had the good fortune to meet the
Duke of Perth when the Prince’s army was near Preston on the march to
Derby. The Duke invited him to join, offering him his friendship and
patronage. Daniel accepted the offer, and he continued with the army
until the end, when he escaped to France in the same ship as the Duke
of Perth, whose death he witnessed on the voyage from Arisaig to France
in the following May.
On joining, Daniel was attached to the first troop of Life Guards,
of which Lord Elcho was colonel, but on the retreat from Derby he
was transferred to the second troop of the same regiment, which was
commanded by the Hon. Arthur Elphinstone, who about three weeks later
succeeded his brother as sixth Lord Balmerino. Daniel conceived a great
affection and admiration for his colonel, yet in his laudatory account
he mentions a painful characteristic of the times. A gentleman, and a
scholar who could recite pages from the Classics, Lord Balmerino was
of a noble personage and had the courage of a lion. Moreover he never
failed in his military duties. His ‘sole and predominant passion’ was
for hard drinking. But for this weakness, ‘he would have shone with the
same lustre in the army as he afterwards did on the scaffold.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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