Waverley; or, 'Tis sixty years since — Volume 2Scott, Walter
History
Waverley; or, 'Tis sixty years since — Volume 2
Scott, Walter
Historical fiction; Jacobite Rebellion, 1745-1746 -- Fiction; Scotland -- History -- 18th century -- Fiction
The Jacobite sentiments were general among the western counties
and in Wales. But although the great families of the Wynnes, the
Wyndhams, and others had come under an actual obligation to join
Prince Charles if he should land, they had done so under the
express stipulation that he should be assisted by an auxiliary
army of French, without which they foresaw the enterprise would be
desperate. Wishing well to his cause, therefore, and watching an
opportunity to join him, they did not, nevertheless, think
themselves bound in honour to do so, as he was only supported by a
body of wild mountaineers, speaking an uncouth dialect, and
wearing a singular dress. The race up to Derby struck them with
more dread than admiration. But it is difficult to say what the
effect might have been had either the battle of Preston or Falkirk
been fought and won during the advance into England.
NOTE 5, p. 43
Divisions early showed themselves in the Chevalier's little army,
not only amongst the independent chieftains, who were far too
proud to brook subjection to each other, but betwixt the Scotch
and Charles's governor O'Sullivan, an Irishman by birth, who, with
some of his countrymen bred in the Irish Brigade in the service of
the King of France, had an influence with the Adventurer much
resented by the Highlanders, who were sensible that their own
clans made the chief or rather the only strength of his
enterprise. There was a feud, also, between Lord George Murray and
John Murray of Broughton, the Prince's secretary, whose disunion
greatly embarrassed the affairs of the Adventurer. In general, a
thousand different pretensions divided their little army, and
finally contributed in no small degree to its overthrow.
NOTE 6, p. 78
This circumstance, which is historical, as well as the description
that precedes it, will remind the reader of the war of La Vendee,
in which the royalists, consisting chiefly of insurgent peasantry,
attached a prodigious and even superstitious interest to the
possession of a piece of brass ordnance, which they called Marie
Jeanne.
The Highlanders of an early period were afraid of cannon, with the
noise and effect of which they were totally unacquainted. It was
by means of three or four small pieces of artillery that the Earls
of Huntly and Errol, in James VI's time, gained a great victory at
Glenlivat, over a numerous Highland army, commanded by the Earl of
Argyle. At the battle of the Bridge of Dee, General Middleton
obtained by his artillery a similar success, the Highlanders not
being able to stand the discharge of Musket's Mother, which was
the name they bestowed on great guns. In an old ballad on the
battle of the Bridge of Dee these verses occur:--
The Highlandmen are pretty men
For handling sword and shield,
But yet they are but simple men
To stand a stricken field.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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