The marriage was not, it was said by those who were disposed to scandalize the Earl of Kilmarnock, productive of happiness. The young Countess was possessed, indeed, of beauty, wit, and good sense: but her husband, if we may accredit the memoirs of his life, gave her much cause to complain of his conduct. They lived, however, as the same doubtful authority states, "if not happily, at least civilly together." Such is the statement of a contemporary writer; it must, however, be adopted with just as much allowance as we give to similar reports raised by party writers in the present day: and it will be shown[324] not to accord with the dying declarations of Lord Kilmarnock. "I leave behind,"
he wrote to his agent, "in Lady Kilmarnock, what is dearest to me."[325]
Subsequently to his marriage, Lord Kilmarnock"s necessities and the additional burden of a family induced him to apply to the English Government for a pension, founded, as it is probable, on his father"s services to Government in 1715. But this statement, and the conditions upon which the bounty was given are left in obscurity. "Whether," says the anonymous biographer of Lord Kilmarnock, "my Lord Kilmarnock"s pension was a ministerial bribe, or a royal bounty, is a question I cannot determine with any certainty; but I have reason to suspect the former, since few pensions, granted by a certain administration, that of Sir Robert Walpole, deserved the latter." The same writer truly observes, that little or no dependance is to be placed on that loyalty which wants the support of bribes and pensions. "The practice," he adds, "is too general, and a defection of this kind of men may be fatal to the state."[326] The pension, as it appears from Horace Walpole"s letters, was taken from Lord Kilmarnock by Lord Wilmington. "Lord Kilmarnock," he writes to Sir Horace Mann, "is a Presbyterian, with four earldoms in view, but so poor since Lord Wilmington"s stopping a pension that my father had given him, that he often wanted a dinner."[327]
In the last days of his existence the Earl, indeed, acknowledged that the state of his affairs was, in part, the reason of his defection from Government. He attributed it, (though, it must be stated, under the pressing arguments of a minister of religion who considered what he termed "rebellion" as the most heinous sin,) to the great and pressing difficulties into which he had brought himself, by extravagance and dissipation: and declared, according to the account of his spiritual guide, that the "exigency of his affairs was very pressing at the time of the rebellion; and that, besides the general hope he had of mending his fortune by the success of it, he was also tempted by another prospect, of retrieving his circ.u.mstances if he followed the Pretender"s standard."[328]
Until the commencement of the insurrection of 1745, Lord Kilmarnock enjoyed the possession of Dean Castle, a very ancient edifice, situated about half a mile north east of the town of Kilmarnock, in Ayrshire. "It is," says Grose in his Antiquities of Scotland, "at a small distance from the main road leading from Kilmarnock to Stewarton, and consists of a large vaulted square tower, which seems to have been built about the beginning of the fifteenth century: this is surrounded by a court and other buildings more modern."[329] Such is the description of Dean Castle before the year 1735; when, to add to Lord Kilmarnock"s other necessities, it was partially destroyed by fire, leaving only a ruin which he was too much impoverished even to restore to its former habitable state. In the "great square tower," referred to by Grose, and of which a view is preserved in his work on Scotland, the Boyd family had dwelt in the days of their greatness, when one of their race was created Earl of Arran. In that tower had the Earl imprisoned his royal wife, the Lady Margaret, sister of James the Third, who was divorced from him, pleading, as some say, a prior contract with the Lord Hamilton, to whom she was afterwards united, taking to him the Isle of Arran as her dower.
It does not appear that the Earl of Kilmarnock was originally in the confidence of the Jacobite party: and their designs were not only matured, but far in full operation before he took an open or active part in the Stuart cause. It happened, however, that when Charles Edward resided at Holyrood, the Countess of Kilmarnock was living in Edinburgh.
Her beauty, and the gaiety of her manners, attracted the admiration of the young Prince, who bestowed no small portion of attention on the fascinating daughter of one of his father"s adherents. Lady Kilmarnock was as much attached to pleasure as the young and beautiful usually are: she delighted in public diversions, and led the way to all parties of amus.e.m.e.nt. Her ambition, no less than her early prepossessions conspired, it is said, to make her a Jacobite; and she hoped, by the favour of Charles Edward, to obtain the restoration of her father"s t.i.tle. Her entreaties to the Earl of Kilmarnock to join the standard of the Prince were stimulated, therefore, by a double motive; and, indeed, to a generous and romantic mind, there required neither the inducements of ambition, nor of gratified vanity, to espouse that part which seemed most natural to the Scotch. After the battle of Preston Pans, Lady Kilmarnock"s persuasions took effect: her husband presented himself to the young Chevalier, who received him with every mark of esteem and distinction, declared him a member of the privy council, raised him to the rank of a general, and appointed him colonel of his guards.[330]
Another occurrence is, however, stated to have had a considerable influence in forming the Earl"s decision.
During the course of the conflict, he met, at Linlithgow, that incomparable man, and excellent officer, Colonel Gardiner. This individual, whose character forms so fine a relief to the party-spirited and debased condition of the British army in the time of George the Second, was a native of Linlithgowshire, having been born at Carriden, in the year of the Revolution, 1688. His life commencing in that important era, had been one of events. He had first entered the Dutch service; then had served in Marlborough"s army at Ramilies. Until this incident of his life, the young soldier, then only nineteen, had run a course of dissolute pleasure, and had obtained, from the frankness and gaiety of his disposition, the name of the _happy rake_. Being in the Forlorn hope, he was wounded, and left in a state hovering between life and death, on the field, and in state of partial insensibility, from which he was aroused at times to perfect consciousness.
The ball which had struck Gardiner, had entered his mouth; and without breaking a single tooth, or touching the forepart of his tongue, had pa.s.sed through his neck, coming out above an inch and a half on the left side of the vertebrae. He was abandoned by Marlborough"s troops, who, according to their custom, left the wounded to their fate, while they pursued their advantages against the French.
In this state, the first serious emotions of grat.i.tude, the first convictions of a peculiar Providence suggested themselves to the mind of the young officer: and although they did not, for some years, produce an absolute amendment of life, they laid the foundation of his future conversion, and of that exemplary piety and purity which extorted admiration even in a dissolute age. After being present at every battle that Marlborough had fought in Flanders, Colonel Gardiner had signalized his courage in the Insurrection of 1715; and in 1745 he was again ordered to the north to meet the Jacobite forces near Edinburgh.[331]
It was during this, his last campaign, when broken by ill health and premature age, for this brave and good man despaired of the restoration of peace to his country, that he supped in company with Lord Kilmarnock, at Linlithgow. Colonel Gardiner"s prognostications had long been most gloomy. "I have heard him say," declared Dr. Doddridge, "many years before the Scottish Insurrection, that a few thousands might have a fair chance for marching from Edinburgh to London, uncontrolled, and throw the whole kingdom into an astonishment." This opinion was derived from his knowledge of the defenceless state of the country, and the general prevailing disaffection. And the pious, but somewhat distrustful views of Gardiner led him to a.s.sign yet more solemn reasons for his antic.i.p.ations of evil. "For my own part, though I fear nothing for myself, my apprehensions for the public are very gloomy, considering the deplorable prevalency of almost all kinds of wickedness among us; the natural consequences of the contempt of the Gospel. I am daily offering up my prayers to G.o.d for this sinful land of ours, over which His judgments seem to be gathering; and my strength is sometimes so exhausted with those strong cries and tears, which I pour out before G.o.d upon this occasion, that I am hardly able to stand when I arise from my knees."[332]
Imbued with these convictions, Colonel Gardiner, when he was retreating at Linlithgow with the troops under his command, spoke unguardedly to Lord Kilmarnock of the prospects of the English army, and thus confirmed the wavering inclination of that ill-fated n.o.bleman to follow Charles Edward.[333] The decisive step was not, it appears, taken until after the battle of Preston Pans, in which Colonel Gardiner, who had a mournful presentiment of the event of that engagement, fell, after a deportment truly worthy of the British soldier, and of the Christian.
This brave officer, after having received two wounds, fought on, his feeble frame animated by the almost supernatural force of strong determination. As he headed a party of foot who had lost their leader, and cried out, "Fire on, my lads, fear nothing;" his right-arm was cut down by a Highlander who advanced with a scythe, fastened to a pole. He was dragged from his horse; and the work of butchery was completed by another Highlander, who struck him on the head with a broadsword: Gardiner had only power to say to his servant, "Take care of yourself."
The faithful creature hastened to an adjoining mill for a cart to convey his master to a place of safety. It was not until two hours had elapsed, that he was able to return. The mangled body, all stripped and plundered, was, even then, still breathing; and the agony of that gallant spirit was protracted until the next day, when he expired in the house of the minister of Tranent.
This digression, introducing as it does, one of the _real_ heroes of this mournful period, may be pardoned.
According to the evidence on his trial, Lord Kilmarnock first joined the standard of Charles Edward on the "banks of the river which divides England from Scotland;"[334] but Maxwell of Kirkconnel mentions that the Earl marched from Edinburgh on the thirty-first of October, 1745, at the head of a little squadron of horse grenadiers, with whom were some Perthshire gentlemen, who, in the absence of their own commander, were placed under the conduct of Lord Kilmarnock.[335] After this decisive step, Lord Kilmarnock continued to follow Charles during the whole of that ill-fated campaign, which ended in the battle of Culloden. During the various events of that disastrous undertaking, his character, like that of many other commanders in the Chevalier"s army, suffered from imputations of cruelty. That this vice was not accordant with his general disposition of mind, the minister who attended him on his death-bed sufficiently attests. "For myself," declares Mr. Foster, "I must do this unhappy criminal the justice to own, that he _never_ appeared, during the course of my attendance upon him, to be of any other than a soft, benevolent disposition. His behaviour was always mild and temperate. I could discern no resentment, no disturbance or agitation in him."[336] So gentle a character is not the growth of a day; and if ever Lord Kilmarnock were betrayed into actions of violence, it must have been under circ.u.mstances of a peculiar nature.
Among other charges which were specified against him, was a partic.i.p.ation in the blowing up of the church of St. Ninian"s, in the retreat from Stirling. But when, in the retirement of his prison chamber, the unfortunate n.o.bleman reviewed his conduct, and confessed the errors of his life, he fully and satisfactorily cleared himself from the heinous imputation implied in this work of destruction. When the army of Charles were retiring from Stirling he was confined to his bed ill of a fever. The first intimation that he had of the blowing up of the tower of St. Ninian"s was the noise, of which he never could obtain a clear account. By the insurgents it was represented as accidental: "this can I certainly say, as to myself, that I had no knowledge before hand, nor any concurrence in a designed act of cruelty." Such was Lord Kilmarnock"s declaration to Mr. Foster.
Another instance of barbarity also laid to the charge of the Earl was, his alleged treatment of certain prisoners of war who were intrusted to his care in the church of Inverness. He was accused of stripping these unfortunate persons of their clothes. Upon this point he admitted that an order to deprive the prisoners of their garments for the use of the Highlanders was issued by Charles Edward: that the warrant for executing this order was sent to him. He did not, as he declared, enter the church in person, but committed the office of execution to an inferior officer.
The prisoners, as might be expected, refused to submit to this indignity; upon which a second order was issued, and their clothes were taken from them. The well-timed remonstrance of Boyer, Marquis D"Eguilles, who had been sent by the court of France in the character of Amba.s.sador to Charles Edward, arrested, however, the act of cruelty, which not even extreme necessity can excuse. This n.o.bleman had arrived some time previously at Montrose, bringing in the ship in which he sailed, arms and a small sum of money,[337] and his influence, which was exerted in behalf of the captives, was happily considerable. He represented to the Earl of Kilmarnock, that the rules of war did not authorise the outrage which was contemplated. Lord Kilmarnock, convinced by his remarks, repaired to Charles Edward, leaving heaps of the clothes lying in the streets of Inverness, with sentinels standing to guard them. By the arguments which he addressed to the Prince, these garments were restored to their unfortunate owners; and a great stain on the memory both of Charles and of his adherent was thus partially effaced.
Of such a nature were those imputations which were charged upon Lord Kilmarnock; but they appear to have met with only a transient credence; whilst a general impression of his gentleness, and a prevailing regret for his fate endured as long as the memory of the dire contest, and of its tragical termination, dwelt in the recollection of those who witnessed those mournful times.
After the battle of Culloden, the prisoners were immediately set free.
The Duke of c.u.mberland, as he entered Inverness, taking his road amid the carca.s.ses of the dead strewed in the way, called for the keys of the prisons, and with his own hands released the captives there, and, clapping them on the shoulders as they came down stairs, exclaimed, "brother soldiers, you are free."[338] Unfortunately his compa.s.sion was of a party nature, and was only aroused for his own adherents.
At Culloden, fatal to so many brave men, Lord Kilmarnock was spared only to taste much more deeply of the pangs of death than if he had met it in battle. His fate had, indeed, been antic.i.p.ated by the superst.i.tious; and it was considered a rash instance of hardihood in the unfortunate n.o.bleman to resist an omen which, about a year before the rebellion had broken out, is said to have happened in his house.
One day, as the maid who attended usually upon Lady Kilmarnock was inspecting some linen in an upper room of Dean Castle, the door of the apartment suddenly opened of its own accord, and the view of a b.l.o.o.d.y head, resembling that of Lord Kilmarnock, was presented to the affrighted woman. As she gazed in horror, the head rolled near her. She endeavoured in vain to repel it with her foot. She became powerless, but she was still able to scream; her shrieks brought Lord Kilmarnock and his Countess to the chamber. The apparition had vanished; but she related succinctly the story "which, at that time," says the historian who repeats it,[339] "Lord Kilmarnock too much ridiculed, though it could have been wished that he had been forewarned by the omen. Such was the superst.i.tion of the times, in which ignorance and credulity found such ready supporters."
At Culloden, this ill-fated n.o.bleman occupied a post not far from the Prince, in the rear of whom was a line of reserve, consisting of three columns, the first of which, on the left, was commanded by Lord Kilmarnock; the centre column by Lord Lewis Gordon and Glenbucket; and the right by the justly-celebrated Roy Stewart. In the opposite ranks, an ensign in the royal regiment, was his son, Lord Boyd. During the confusion of the fight, when half-blinded by the smoke, the unhappy Lord Kilmarnock, as if fated to fulfil the omen, mistook a party of English Dragoons for FitzJames"s Horse, and was accordingly taken prisoner. He was led along the lines of the British infantry. The vaunted beauty of his countenance, and the matchless graces of which so much has been said, were now obliterated by the disorder of his person, and his humiliating position. His hat had been lost in the conflict, and his long hair fell about his face. The soldiers as he was led along stood in mute compa.s.sion at this sight. Among those who thus looked upon this unfortunate man was his son, Lord Boyd, who was constrained to witness, without attempting to alleviate, the distress of that moment. When the Earl pa.s.sed the place where his son stood, the youth, unable to bear that his father should be thus exposed bareheaded to the storm which played upon the scene of carnage, stepped out of the ranks and taking his own hat from his head, placed it on that of his father. It was the work of an instant, and not a syllable escaped the lips of the agitated young man.[340]
Lord Kilmarnock was carried from the moor, which already, to use the words of an eyewitness among the Government troops, "was covered with blood; the men, what with killing the enemy, dabbling their feet in the blood, and splashing it about one another, looked like so many butchers."[341] Never, did even their enemies declare, was a field of battle bestrewn with a finer, perhaps with a n.o.bler race. "Every body allowed," writes one of c.u.mberland"s officers, "that men of a larger size, larger limbs, and better proportioned, could not be found." The flower of their unhappy country; hundreds of these had not yet been blessed with the repose of death, but were left to languish in agony until the next day, when they were butchered by the orders of c.u.mberland. One of them, John Alexander Fraser, in the Master of Lovat"s regiment, was rescued by Lord Boyd from destruction. A soldier had struck him with the b.u.t.t of his musket, intending, according to the orders given, to beat out his brains. The poor wretch, his nose and cheek-bone broken, and one of his eyes pierced, still breathed when this young n.o.bleman pa.s.sed him. He observed the poor creature, and ordered his servants to carry him to a neighbouring kiln, where, in time, his wounds were cured. "He lived," observes Mr. Chambers, "many years afterwards, a dismal memorial of the cruelties of Culloden."[342]
According to one account, Lord Kilmarnock owed his escape from the field of battle with his life to the brave and generous Lord Ancrum, who delivered him to the Duke of c.u.mberland; and the same narrative adds, that the Duke issued orders that no one should mention the Earl"s imprisonment to his son, but considerately imparted the intelligence to the young man himself. It is only fair to mention this redeeming trait in a man who had so many awful, and almost inexpiable sins to answer for at the last day, when not our professions of kindness, but our acts of mercy or of wrong will be placed before a solemn and final account.
After his surrender at Culloden, the Earl of Kilmarnock was conveyed to London. That metropolis, in some of its most attractive features, was well known to him: he had frequently resided there for several months during the year, and had a.s.sociated with the friends of government who were near the court. He was now to view it under a very different aspect; and during the period which elapsed between his surrender and his trial, he had ample time to weigh the respective value of that society which had formerly so much delighted him, and in which, it is said he "had affected to talk freely of religion;" and of those great truths which were now his only source of support.
Whatever may have been his early errors, the remaining days of Lord Kilmarnock were characterized by gentleness to those who were placed in authority over him; forbearance to those who slandered him, and submission to G.o.d. Unable to conquer a natural intense love of life, he a.s.sumed no pretended intrepidity:[343] yet manifested a still greater concern for his character, than for his fate. Society in general, as well as the annalists of the times, mourned for him, and with him; and many who beheld his doom, would have sacrificed much of their own personal safety to avert the close of that tragic scene. But these were not times when the generous might venture to interfere with security.[344]
Two n.o.blemen, differing greatly in character from Lord Kilmarnock, shared his imprisonment: Arthur, sixth Earl of Balmerinoch, or, as it is usually spelled Balmerino, (p.r.o.nounced Balmerino), and George, Earl of Cromartie.
Of these individuals, Lord Balmerino, although an uncultured soldier, has excited by far the greatest interest. He was descended, like most of his a.s.sociates from an ancient family. It was of German origin,[345]
first known in Scotland in the reign of Robert Bruce, to whose sister, a German Knight, sirnamed Elphingston, or Elphinstone, was married. Such was the esteem in which Robert Bruce held his foreign brother-in-law, that he gave him lands in Midlothian, which still bear the name of Elphinstone.[346] Hence was he called Elphinstone of that Ilk--a mode of expression employed in Scotland to prevent the repet.i.tion of the same name. In process of time certain estates which a descendant of the German Knight acquired at Arthbeg, in Stirlingshire, were also endowed with that surname; and, during several centuries, the martial and hardy race to whom those lands belonged continued in the same sphere, that of private gentlemen, chiefs of the House of Elphinstone. They were remarkable, in successive generations, for that bold and manly character which eventually distinguished their ill-fated descendant, Arthur Balmerino, and which, in time, extorted applause from the most prejudiced politicians of the opposite party. Alexander Elphinstone, in the reign of David the Second, might have emulated the supposed deeds of Guy Earl of Warwick; he rivalled him in gigantic figure, in immense strength, and knightly prowess. His disposition was not only martial, but chivalric; for, conscious of extraordinary power, "he was more able," says a writer of the last century, "to overlook an affront, than men less capable of resenting it." His son, inferior in bodily strength, equalled him in military exploits, which distinguished indeed a succession of the Elphinstones of that Ilk.[347] At Flodden, John Elphinstone, who was created a Lord of Parliament by James the Fourth, was killed by the side of his royal master, and being not unlike to that monarch in face and figure, his body was carried to Berwick by the English, who mistook it for that of the King.[348] In the reign of James the Sixth, James, the second son of the third Lord Elphinstone, was created a Baron by the name and t.i.tle of Lord Balmerino. He rose to high honours in the State; but the first disgrace that befell the family occurred in this reign. This was the marriage of John, the second Lord Balmerino, to Jane Ker, sister of the infamous Ker, Earl of Somerset, and favourite of James the Sixth, who, for his sake, denounced a curse on his posterity, which seems, says the writer before quoted, "to have followed them and the nation ever since."
Like most of the n.o.ble families in Scotland, the house of Balmerino became impoverished during the civil wars; and when the father of Arthur Elphinstone succeeded to his t.i.tle, he found his estates wofully diminished. He was, however, one of those men who were capable, by ability and prudence, of redeeming the fortunes of his family.
Circ.u.mstances were, indeed, adverse to the prosperity of any whose loyalty to the Stuarts was suspected. Lord Balmerino was prudent, but he was sincere. He was "a man of excellent parts, improved by reading, being, perhaps, one of the very best lawyers in the kingdom, and very expert in the Scottish const.i.tution; he reasoned much and pertinently in Parliament, and testifying, on all occasions, an unshaken loyalty to his Prince, and zealous affection to his country, he gained the esteem and love of all good men."
Such was the father, of whom this n.o.ble character was drawn, to whom Arthur, Lord Balmerino, owed his being. Such was the man whom it would have been the wiser policy of the British Ministry to have conciliated, on the accession of George the First, but whose son they drove into an act of imprudence by their distrust and injustice.
The first wife of John, fourth Lord Balmerino, was the daughter of Hugh, Earl of Eglintoun, and, consequently, she was connected with some of the most strenuous supporters of the Stuart cause in the kingdom of Scotland. By her he had two sons, Hugh, who was killed in 1708, at the siege of Lisle, and James, who was educated to the profession of the law. Upon the death of this lady, Lord Balmerino married Anne, daughter of Ross, the last Archbishop of St. Andrews, and by her had two sons: Arthur, who became eventually Lord Balmerino, and Alexander, who died in 1733, unmarried; and a daughter, Anne, who died also unmarried. The subject of this memoir may, therefore, be deemed the last of the House of Balmerino.[349]
Arthur Elphinstone was born in the year 1688. He had, until late in life, no expectation of succeeding to the t.i.tle of his father after the death of Hugh, there being still an elder brother, James. The characteristics of all this branch of the Elphinstone family appear almost invariably to have been those of honour and justice, and James resembled his father in the integrity of his principles. The following character is drawn of him by a contemporary writer: "He was rather a solid pleader than a refined orator; but he understood the law so well, and preserved the chast.i.ty of his character so tenderly, by avoiding being concerned in any scandalous actions, that he was listened to with great attention by the bench, at a time when it was filled by the most eminent lawyers that ever appeared in Scotland."
The abilities of this able and conscientious man soon raised him to the bench, where he discharged his duties with that high and nice sense of integrity which can only be described by the word honour. He never mixed party-spirit with his judgments: he lent himself to no ministerial purposes. The dignity of the judge was preserved in his manly and courageous character: and such was his application to business, that his court was thronged with pract.i.tioners when those of other judges were nearly deserted.
Arthur, his younger brother, possessed not his application, but displayed much, nevertheless, of the natural ability of his family. "He was not much acquainted with books; and though he was rich in repartee, yet he never affected to reason." Such is the remark of a contemporary writer. Yet who might not envy the clear, undisturbed intellect which showed him, in a moment of peculiar temptation, the value of plain dealing, and the inestimable price of a good conscience?
Some members of a family seem fated to suffer for the others. Arthur Elphinstone was educated in the principles which brought him to the scaffold: they were those of his father and brother, who were both fortunate enough to preserve them in their own b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and yet not to encounter trouble on that account. And, during the reign of Queen Anne the family appear to have been deemed so well affected, as to procure them promotion, not only in civil but military service. When very young, Arthur Elphinstone obtained the command of a company of foot in Lord Shannon"s regiment, on the accession of George the First. His real opinions were, however, manifested by his resignation of his commission; and by his joining the standard of Lord Mar, under whom he commanded a company, and served in the battle of Sherriff Muir. By throwing up his commission, he escaped being punished as a deserter, and was allowed to retire to the Continent. According to some accounts, he went first to Denmark; by others it is said, that he entered at once into the French service. He remained, at all events, twenty years in exile from his family; but in 1733, an event occurred, which greatly increased the natural desire which his father, declining in strength, had long cherished of again beholding his son. Alexander Elphinstone, the younger brother of Arthur, died at Leith, two years before the Insurrection broke out. This young man had had the misfortune in 1730, to fight a duel, shortly after which his adversary, Lieutenant Swift, had died of his wounds. The combat took place on the Links of Leith; the affair was notorious, and Alexander had been threatened with a prosecution, which was not, however, put into execution.
This painful circ.u.mstance, coupled with Alexander Elphinstone"s death, may have naturally added to the wish which Lord Balmerino entertained, to rescue his exiled son from the sentence of outlawry under which he stood, and to restore him again to his home. Probably the desire of perpetuating honours which had been gained by legitimate exertions, may have been contemplated by the aged n.o.bleman when he revolved in his mind how he could compa.s.s the safe return of his younger, and surviving son, to Scotland. James, the heir to the t.i.tle, great as was the l.u.s.tre which his abilities and integrity shed upon it, was not likely to perpetuate more honours, having no children by his wife Elizabeth Carnegie, daughter of David, fourth Earl of Northesk.
It is one of the innumerable instances of human short-sightedness, that the very recall of Arthur Elphinstone to Scotland was the cause of the extinction of family honours, and of that line in which they rested.
According to some accounts, he remained abroad until the general Act of Indemnity, from which he was not excepted, took effect:[350] but by others it is stated, that his father, having made a strong application to Government, obtained a free pardon for his son. If such were the case, there seems a degree of ingrat.i.tude in again joining the enemies of Government, which one can scarcely reconcile with the generous character of this brave man.
He was in Switzerland when he received a summons to return to his native country. His conduct upon the arrival of this intelligence was honest and candid towards him, to whom, according to his notions, he owed allegiance. He wrote to the Chevalier (St. George) and laid open the circ.u.mstances of the case before him; stating that he should not accept the proffered pardon without his permission. James answered this explanation with his own hand; and not only gave Arthur Elphinstone permission to return to Scotland, but informed him that he had ordered his banker at Paris to pay his travelling expenses. Thus authorized, Arthur returned home, welcomed by his aged father with a satisfaction which happily was not destined to be alloyed by any adverse circ.u.mstances during the lifetime of the venerable n.o.bleman.
Thus was this ill-fated man restored to that land which probably, although long severed from its glens and mountains, he had not ceased to love. He was now of middle age, being in his forty-fifth year; but his disposition, in spite of his long residence among foreigners, was still thoroughly Scotch. He was as undaunted by danger as any of his valiant ancestors had been, consequently he had no need to have recourse to guile; in short, falsehood would have been impossible to that frank nature. He was blunt in speech, but endowed with the kindest heart that ever throbbed in the dungeons of that grim fortress in which his manly career was closed. He had not, however, the prudence which is characteristic of his countrymen: and which, once well understood, is as distinct from selfishness and craft as their martial vehemence has generally been from cruelty. A service in foreign campaigns had not lessened his ideas of honour; which were perhaps more truly cherished among military men on the Continent, than at that period in England. Few British troops, for example, ever proved themselves more worthy of the name of soldiers than the Hessians who served in Scotland in 1745. To the fine and soldierly attributes of Lord Balmerino, to an intrepidity almost amounting to indifference, to a warm and generous heart, were united that ready and careless humour which accord so well with the loftier qualities of the mind, and certainly rather enhance, than detract from the charm of graver attributes of character.
In appearance, Lord Balmerino was strongly contrasted with the fellow-sufferer with whom his name is indelibly a.s.sociated. "His person," writes a contemporary, "was very plain, his shape clumsy, but his make strong: and he had no marks of the polite gentleman about him.
He was illiterate in respect of his birth; but rather from a total want of application to letters, than want of ability."[351] His manners are said to have been natural, if not courtly; his countenance only inferior in its ungainliness to that of Lovat, but, expressing, we may suppose, a very different temper of mind, harsh as were its features, it captivated, as well as that of the handsome Kilmarnock, female regard.[352]
According to some statements, Lord Balmerino married in 1711, before the first Insurrection;[353] but no distinct allusion to a connection of so early a period is to be found in the authenticated narratives of his life. It was not, it seems evident, until after his return from Switzerland, that he married Margaret, daughter of Captain Chalmers--"the pretty Peggy," who was at once his solace and his sorrow when in the Tower of London. In 1736, the father, whom he had returned to cheer in his decline, died at his house in Leith, and was buried at the family seat at Restalrig in Leith. His son James, succeeded to the t.i.tle.[354]
When the intelligence arrived, that Charles Edward had landed in Scotland, Arthur Elphinstone hastened to the standard of the Prince. On the thirty-first of October, 1745, he marched from Edinburgh, on the expedition to England, having the command of a troop of horse, not complete, in number about forty.[355] His military talents were well known, for he had distinguished himself in several campaigns in Flanders.[356] But, as he took into the field only his menial servants, no very important posts were entrusted to him; and his career appears not to have been signalized by any remarkable military exploits. In short, it may be truly said of him as of Dr. Donne by Izaak Walton, that "nothing in his life became him like the leaving it."
After joining the insurgent army, Lord Balmerino engaged in all the various movements of that enterprise. After the siege of Carlisle he entered that city at the head of his troop, with pipes playing, and colours flying, having been at twelve miles" distance when the town was taken; he then proceeded in the fatal expedition to Derby, and returned a second time to Carlisle, preceding in his march the main body of the army towards Scotland. He was present at the battle of Falkirk, but did not engage in it: some of the cavalry having been kept as a _corps de reserve_ in that engagement. His partic.i.p.ation in that day"s victory was, however, afterwards imputed to him as an act of rebellion, although he was merely drawn up in a field near the field of battle, in company with Lord Kilmarnock and Lord Pitsligo. The body which he commanded, went by the name of Arthur Elphinstone"s Life Guards.[357]
A few weeks before the battle of Culloden, the elder brother of Arthur Elphinstone, James Lord Balmerino, died, leaving the t.i.tle which he had enjoyed for so short a period, to the brother, who was then engaged in so perilous a course. This accession of honour brought with it little increase of fortune, but rather the responsibility of succeeding to enc.u.mbered estates. Of these most had, indeed, pa.s.sed into other families. To the first Lord Balmerino charters of numerous lands and baronies had been given; Barntoun, Barrie, Balumby, Innerpeffer, Balgregie, Balmerino, Dingwall, &c., were among his possessions. In 1605, the barony of Restalrig, in South Leith, was sold to Lord Balmerino by the noted and profligate Robert Logan, Baron of Restalrig, to whose family that now valuable property, including the grounds lying near the river, had belonged, until the days of the Queen Regent, Mary.
This estate, on which Lord Balmerino"s father resided, appears to have been almost the only vestige of the former opulence of this branch of the Elphinstone family.[358] His embarra.s.sed circ.u.mstances are deemed by some writers to have had a considerable share in deciding Lord Balmerino to join in a contest in which he had so little to lose; but it appeared, in the hour of trial, that his principles of allegiance to the Stuarts had been unaltered since the days of his youth, and that they were alone sufficient to account for the part which he adopted. At the battle of Culloden Lord Balmerino was made prisoner by the Grants, to whom, as one of the witnesses on his trial affirmed, he surrendered himself. He was conveyed to Castle Grant, and from thence to London, to the same dreary fortress in which Lord Kilmarnock was likewise immured. The fate of these two unfortunate men, hitherto but little dependant on each other, was henceforth a.s.sociated, until the existence of both was closed on the scaffold.
George, the third Earl of Cromartie, was the only one of their fellow-prisoners who was arraigned and tried with Kilmarnock and Balmerino. He had taken even a more decided part in the insurrection than Balmerino, having raised four hundred of his clan, who were with him in the battle of Falkirk. His son, the young Lord Macleod, was also in the Jacobite army, and both father and son were surprised at Dunrobin, by a party of the Earl of Sutherland"s militia, on the fifteenth of April, and taken prisoners. Lord Cromartie had, as well as Lords Kilmarnock and Balmerino, strong ties to life, strong claims upon his reason to have withheld him from a hazardous partic.i.p.ation in a cause of peril. He had been married more than twenty years to Isabel, daughter of Sir William Gordon, and had by her a numerous family. For this n.o.bleman, a powerful interest was afterwards successfully exerted.
These three n.o.blemen were brought to London early in June. They were shortly afterwards followed by about eight hundred companions in misfortune. Of these, who arrived in the Thames on the twenty-first of June, about two hundred were left at Tilbury Fort; while six hundred were deposited in the various prisons of the metropolis. From henceforth scenes of distress, and even of horror, were daily presented to the prisoners. The Marquis of Tullibardine expired soon after his arrival at the Tower; Lord Macleod, with happier fate, rejoined his father; Mr.
Murray of Broughton, who was treated with a distinction, at that time, unexplicable, was also lodged in the same fortress. Those who were led to expect the severest measures, might envy the calm departure of the good old Marquis of Tullibardine; but all hearts bled when the gallant Colonel Townley, a Roman Catholic gentleman of distinction, was dragged on a sledge, along with other prisoners, to Kennington, his arms pinioned; insulted by a brutal mult.i.tude, and there hanged. The horrid barbarities of this sentence being fulfilled on his body, which was still breathing, the hangman preparing to take out the heart and bowels, struck it several times on the chest, before life (and perhaps consciousness) was wholly extinct.
Day after day, the awful tragedies were repeated, exceeding any similar displays of power since the days of the Tudors. Each of these _martyrs_, as the voice of their own party p.r.o.nounced them, in their last moments declared, that "they died in a just cause--that they did not repent of what they had done--that they doubted not their deaths would be avenged." When, after nine executions had taken place in one morning, the heart of the last sufferer was thrown into the fire, a savage shout from the infuriated mult.i.tude followed the words "G.o.d save King George!"