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
Possibly because of bad seamanship, possibly because of
treachery,[4] the French admiral missed the Firth of Forth, and found
himself off Montrose. He turned, and could proceed no nearer Edinburgh
than the Isle of May, off which he anchored. There the British Fleet,
which had followed him in close pursuit, discovered him. The admiral
weighed anchor, and fought a naval action in which he lost one of his
ships. He then retreated towards the north of Scotland. James implored
to be set ashore even if it were only in a small boat by himself, but
his solicitations were in vain. The admiral positively refused, saying
that he had received instructions from the French king to be as careful
of the Chevalier as if he were Louis himself; so Forbin carried him
back to Dunkirk, where the heart-broken exile was landed on the 6th of
April, having been absent only twenty days, and having lost one of the
most likely opportunities that ever occurred for his restoration to his
ancient kingdom of Scotland, if not to England.
[Sidenote: Expulsion from France, 1713.]
After his return to France the Chevalier joined the French army. In
1708 he fought at Oudenarde and Lille, and the following year at
Malplaquet. His gallant conduct won golden opinions from Marlborough
and his troops. The British soldiers drank his health. James visited
their outposts and they cheered him. What Thackeray puts into the
mouth of a British officer well describes the situation: ‘If that
young gentleman would but ride over to our camp, instead of Villars’s,
toss up his hat and say, “Here am I, the King, who’ll follow me?” by
the Lord the whole army would rise and carry him home again, and beat
Villars, and take Paris by the way.’[5] But James stayed with the
French, and the war ended with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This
treaty gave the crown of Spain to the Bourbons, Gibraltar and the
slave-trade to the British, and pronounced the expulsion of the Stuarts
from France. A new asylum was found for the Chevalier in Lorraine,
which, though an independent duchy, was largely under the domination of
France. The Chevalier’s residence was fixed at Bar-le-Duc, and there he
went in February 1713.
In August 1714, on the death of Queen Anne, James made a trip to Paris
to be ready for action should his presence be required, but the French
Government sent him back to Bar-le-Duc. The death of Louis XIV. on 1st
September 1715 (N.S.) was the next blow the Jacobite cause sustained.
The government of France passed to the Duke of Orleans as Regent, and
his policy was friendship with the British Government.
[Sidenote: The Fifteen.[6]]
Then came the Rising of 1715, which began at Braemar on 6th September,
followed by the English rising in Northumberland under Forster. The
movement in England was crushed at Preston on 13th November, the same
day that the indecisive battle was fought at Sheriffmuir in Perthshire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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