Part 13

So the Convention passed a number of resolutions, embodied in what was termed a Declaration of Rights,—defining the royal prerogative, and the powers of parliament; and the Prince and Princess, having signified their adhesion thereto, it was resolved that William and Mary be jointly King and Queen of England, Ireland, and the dominions belonging thereto; the administration to rest in William. The crown was settled,—first on the survivor of the royal pair,—then on the children of Mary, then on those of her sister Anne, and next on the children of William by any other wife. The son of James and his posterity were thus shut out entirely from the succession.

The Scottish Convention of Estates passed resolutions nearly similar to those in the English Declaration of Rights, closing with a declaration against Prelacy, asserting that there was no higher office in the Church than presbyter.

On the leading question then before the country, their resolution had a more decided tone than that of the English Convention. They declared that James had assumed the throne without taking the oaths prescribed by law, that he had proceeded to subvert the constitution of the country from a limited monarchy to an absolute despotism; that he had employed the powers thus usurped for violating the laws and liberties, and altering the religion of Scotland; for doing these things he had _forfeited_ his right to the crown, and the throne had thereby become vacant. The Scottish royalty was conferred on William and Mary, in like terms as that of the English Convention.

BATTLE OF KILLIECRANKIE.

In the crisis of his affairs, James had summoned his Scottish troops to England. Their commander, Lord Douglas, went over to William; but the second in command, John Graham of Claverhouse—now Viscount Dundee—had an interview with the King—assured him of the loyalty of his troops, about 6,500 well disciplined men, advised the King either to hazard a battle, or to fall back with these troops into Scotland. On the King declining both propositions, Lord Dundee took up a position at Watford, about eighteen miles north-west of London, expecting an attack by William. But Dundee had served his early campaigns under the Prince, having in one engagement rescued him from imminent danger. So the Prince now sent him a message that he had no quarrel with him. Then came James’s flight, and the Prince’s entry into London; and Dundee seeing he could do nothing more to help James in England, rode back with about twenty-five of his dragoons into Scotland. The Scottish army was placed under General Mackay, one of William’s adherents, and he was shortly after sent as commander of the royal forces into Scotland.

Lord Dundee came to Edinburgh, for some time hovering like a hawk over the then sitting Convention. The Duke of Gordon still held the Castle for King James; Dundee had an interview with the Duke and advised “no surrender,” he then, with a few horsemen, left the city. (We all know the ringing song in which Sir Walter Scott narrates his departure.) Like a fiery-cross he went through the highlands, rousing the clansman to battle for the fallen Stuart King. The man must have had a dominating personality; in a short time he had assembled an army, feeble in discipline and cohesion no doubt; but, as it proved, good for the kind of work it befell them to do.

The highlanders were posted on an open slope at the head of the pass of Killiecrankie in the north Perthshire hills. To give them battle, Mackay, on 17th June, 1689, advanced up the pass. When the royal troops entered the defile, no enemy was to be seen,—only the pines towering high upon the cliffs on either hand, and the river Garry rushing swiftly by the narrow pathway through the pass. To the Lowland and Dutch soldiers, who composed the royal army, it was a scene novel and magnificent, but bewildering, awe-inspiring.

Dundee allowed the whole of Mackay’s army to emerge from the pass, and even to form in order of battle, before he began the attack. It was an hour before sunset that the highlanders advanced. They fired their muskets only once, and throwing them away, with fierce shouts they rushed down with broadsword and target. Mackay’s line was broken by the onset. When it came to disordered ranks, and the clash of hand to hand combats, the superior discipline of the royal troops was of no account. Agility, hardihood, and the confidence of assured victory were on the side of the clansmen. It was soon a rout; but with such a narrow gorge for retreat it became a massacre. Two thousand of Mackay’s troops were slain. The highlanders’ loss was eight hundred; but amongst these was their gallant leader. Near the end of the battle, Dundee, on horseback, was extending his right arm to the clan Macdonald, as directing their movements, when he was struck by a bullet under the arm-pit, where he was unprotected by his cuirass. With him perished the cause of King James in Scotland. After his death his army melted away, and both highlands and lowlands submitted to the Government of William.

General lenity and toleration were the watchwords of William’s policy. The episcopal church was to be maintained in England, and the presbyterian in Scotland; but neither were to ride rough-shod over dissenters. In Scotland, much against the desires of the more rigid, as the Cameronians, there were to be no reprisals for former persecution and oppression. Even obnoxious officials were maintained in their old places. When the Jacobite rising in Ireland was quelled by the surrender of Limerick, a treaty was there made by which Catholics were to be allowed the free exercise of their religion. William endeavoured to get parliament to ratify this treaty, but two months after it had been entered into, the English Parliament imposed a declaration against Transubstantiation on members of the Irish parliament, and this parliament, entirely composed of Protestants, whilst giving nominal confirmation, really put the Catholics in a worse condition than they were before. The Irish Catholics have since then called Limerick, “the town of the broken treaty.”

The Massacre of Glencoe.

To counteract the spirit of disloyalty which was still lurking amongst the Highland clans, the Earl of Breadalbane, cousin to the Duke of Argyle, was entrusted with £16,000, to be distributed among the various chieftains, conditionally on their making submission to William and Mary. The Earl did not make an impartial distribution of the money; the leading chiefs were bought off, the lesser were intimidated by threats. A branch of the clan MacDonald were settled in a wild valley, Glencoe, in north Argyleshire; a small river, the Coe (the Cona of Ossian—a name which sounds musically sweet—calling up thoughts of serenity and peace,) runs through the valley towards Lochleven—the arm of the sea which separates Argyleshire from Inverness-shire. The valley spreads flatwise to the bases of the surrounding hills, which seem to stand as fortressed walls to guard it from all danger. But in this secluded spot—shut off as it seemed from the outer world—was enacted the basest of all the acts of treachery and barbarity which disgrace this seventeenth century.

MacIan, the chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe, was an old man, stately, venerable, sagacious. He now charged Breadalbane with having defrauded him of his share of the government money; the earl retorted that MacIan and his tribe had been persistent marauders over his Campbell clansmen’s lands round Glencoe, which was probably true enough, as there had been a feud of long standing between the clans. A proclamation had been issued that—under severe penalties for non-compliance—submission had to be made before the 1st of January, 1692; MacIan, out of a spirit of contrariness, put off taking the oath, and the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Master of Stair, a friend of Breadalbane’s, reported officially to the government that the MacDonalds were not making submission, and that they were an incorrigibly lawless tribe of thieves and murderers.

On the 31st of December, MacIan and several of his leading clansmen went to Fort-William, and proffered to take the oath of allegiance before Colonel Hill, the commanding officer. Not being a civil official, the Colonel was not empowered to administer the oath, but, moved by the distress of the old man, who saw the danger to which his obstinacy had exposed his people, he gave him a letter to Sir Colin Campbell, the Sheriff of Argyleshire, requesting him to receive, although after the official date, the submission of the chief. With this letter MacIan hastened on, through snowstorms, by swollen streams, and rugged mountain paths, to Inverary. The road passed near his own home, but he was now in such haste that he went right on; but it was the 6th of January, before he had accomplished the weary fifty miles, and presented himself before the sheriff. The sheriff, considering all the circumstances, administered the oath; he gave MacIan a certificate, and wrote to the Privy Council, detailing the facts, and giving explanatory reasons for his own conduct in the matter.

But the secretary had hoped to have had MacIan in his power, and was chagrined by the submission; so the sheriff’s letter was suppressed, and the submission deleted from the records of the council. On the 16th of January, the secretary obtained the king’s signature to the following order, addressed to the commander of the forces in Scotland:—“As for MacIan of Glencoe, and that tribe, if they can be well distinguished from the rest of the Highlanders, it will be proper for the vindication of public justice to extirpate that set of thieves.” Burnet says that William did not read the order, but signed it, thinking it was only a detail in ordinary business. Another explanation is, that the fact of MacIan’s submission being treacherously withheld from William, he thought that the extirpation meant by the order was, that _as_ a “set of thieves” they were to be broken up, and brought under ordinary law. William could not have meant to order or to sanction the horrible event which followed; but still the name of Glencoe ever sounds as a blast of judgment against the fair fame of the Deliverer.

And now, as under the royal order, the secretary gave explicit instructions for the indiscriminate butchery of the whole “damnable race.” The passes were to be guarded to prevent any escape. “In the winter,” he wrote, “they cannot carry their wives, children, and cattle to the mountains. This is the proper season to maul them, in the long dark nights.” A detachment of troops, belonging Argyle’s regiment, under Campbell of Glenlyon, were sent into the glen. They were hospitably received, and were quartered amongst the inhabitants. A niece of Glenlyon’s was married to a son of MacIan’s, and for twelve days there was hunting by day, and feasting, card-playing, and healths-drinking in the long evenings. Glenlyon and a party accepted an invitation to dine with MacIan on the 13th of February, but, as had been previously arranged, at four o’clock of the morning of that day, the work of blood began. The old chief was shot in his bed; his wife was stripped naked, and died next day from terror and exposure. The two sons of MacIan were aroused by the musket shots, the shouts of the murderers, and the screams of the victims; they, with many others, men, women, and children, fled, half-naked, in darkness, snow, and storm, into the less savage wilderness. The falling snow proved fatal to several of the fugitives, but it was the salvation of the others, for it prevented the troops, who were to have guarded the passes, from arriving at the time appointed, to intercept and slay all who had escaped from death in the glen. It was mid-day when these troops, by the several passes entered the glen, and they found no MacDonald alive but an old man of eighty, and him they slew. Every hut was burned, the cattle and horses of the tribe were collected, and driven to the garrison of Fort-William.

Thirty-eight victims: Was Secretary Stair satisfied? Not he; he was mortified that his plans for total destruction had failed. “I regret,” he wrote, “that any got away.” It is said that two men—one engaged in the contrivance of the massacre, and the other in its execution— Breadalbane and Glenlyon—did feel the stings of conscience, the heart- gnawings of remorse, and were never the same men afterwards.

It was long before the hideous story of Glencoe came to be generally known. On the facts being published, there rose a popular clamour for an inquiry. On the eve of the meeting of the Scottish Parliament, in 1695, it was known to ministers that the war-cry would be “Glencoe.” So in haste they got the King to appoint a Commission. After a searching enquiry, the Commission reported that the slaughter at Glencoe was murder; and that of this murder the letters of the Master of Stair were the sole warrant and cause. As a punishment for his great crime, Stair was _dismissed from office_!

The Union of Scotland and England.

Just at the time when the full realization of the horrors of Glencoe was agitating the public mind, the disastrous Darien scheme was floated. This, the first great national adventure in foreign commerce, was a wild speculation, based upon the fanciful assumptions of one man, William Paterson. His scheme was to establish a trading colony on the narrow isthmus joining North and South America, as a convenient stage between India and Europe. His eloquent tongue, and even more eloquent reservations, produced glowing visions of national and individual wealth. There was a rush for shares in the “Company of Scotland;” for their purchase landowners mortgaged their estates, farmers sold their cattle, widows pledged their jointures. Nearly half-a-million sterling was subscribed. Ships and stores were purchased, and in July, 1698, a colonizing expedition of 1200 men left Leith, amidst the wildest popular enthusiasm. It reached its destination, and under the ninth parallel of north latitude a New Edinburgh was founded.

The enterprise was an utter failure; the climate was found to be a deadly one, and famine was imminent; many died, and there was general sickness and debility. Under instructions from the home government, the governors of English West India settlements issued proclamations, denouncing the Scottish colonists as pirates, and interdicting supplies and communications. The Spaniards, claiming the land as theirs, were fitting out hostile armaments. Finding that to remain meant nothing short of extermination, all who were left took to their ships; drifting almost at the mercy of winds and waves, they arrived at the Hudson river. A second expedition of 1300 men landed to find ruins and a solitude, and to meet a similar fate.

Glencoe had largely weakened the popularity of William in Scotland, and his hostile action towards the Darien scheme excited hatred and disloyalty. Jacobitism, instead of wearing itself out, became more deeply rooted and more formidable. The golden link of the crown, which during the seventeenth century had been the only official tie between the two nations, seemed a fragile one; and the King saw, with the prescience of a statesman, that there must either be closer union, or entire separation. He could see that—comparatively weak as Scotland was— its influence might, under a foreign complication, have to be deducted from the strength of England.

In February, 1702, William met with the accident—a fall from his horse— which resulted in his death. When he knew that his end was approaching he sent his last message under his sign-manual to Parliament, recommending the union of the kingdoms; it would be a comfort to him if Parliament would favourably consider the matter. The Commons agreed to consider the King’s message on the 7th of March—on that day he was in _extremis_—dying in the night.

Then Anne, William’s sister-in-law, reigned. The Scots were still irritable over the English treatment of the Darien scheme, and their Parliament passed what was called _The Act of Security_. By this act it was ordained that the English successor to the then reigning sovereign, would not be adopted by Scotland, unless there was free trade between the two countries, and the internal affairs of Scotland thoroughly secured from English influence. The Queen’s High Commissioner refused the royal assent to this defiant measure, and the English House of Peers passed a resolution, that a dangerous plot existed in Scotland for the overthrow of the Protestant succession in that nation. The Scots highly resented this resolution, declaring it to be an unauthorised interference with the concerns of an independent kingdom. The Estates refused to grant supplies, and ordered the disciplining, by monthly drills, of all men capable of bearing arms. The reply of the English Parliament was, by the enactment of fresh restrictions upon Scottish trade with England and its colonies, and by ordering the border towns of Newcastle, Berwick, and Carlisle to be fortified and garrisoned.

But the queen had in her minister, Earl Godolphin, a wise and sagacious statesman; by his advice she gave in 1704, her assent to the Act of Security. And the English Parliament empowered the queen to nominate commissioners to discuss with commissioners appointed by the Scottish estates terms of a treaty of union between the two nations. Thirty commissioners were thus appointed on each side; ostensibly they represented all parties; but Godolphin’s powerful influence was so exerted in the selection, that not only was there a majority on both sides in favour of union, but also for that union being favourable to England. There is more than mere suspicion that English money was freely given, and English promises of personal advancement were largely made, to induce the Scottish Commissioners to agree to terms which were certainly unjust to Scotland.

The numerical proportion of its population, entitled Scotland to send sixty-six members to a united House of Commons; but the number was restricted to forty-five. Of the Scottish nobility, not one was to be entitled by right of title or of possessions, to sit in the House of Lords; but there were to be sixteen representative peers. For the English bishops holding seats in the upper house, there was to be no Scottish counterpart. The Scottish nobles on the Commission were tempted to agree to the ignominious position their order was to be placed in by the promise that themselves would be created _British peers_, with hereditary seats in the Lords. Scotland was to pay a fair proportion of the general taxation. She was to retain her Presbyterian Church, and her own civil and municipal laws and institutions.

When the articles of the proposed treaty as arranged by the joint Commission were published, there was in Scotland a general outburst of rage and mortification. It seemed as if they were to make a voluntary surrender of their dearly bought independence,—a descent from their position as a free nation, into that of a mere province. When the Scottish Parliament met in October, 1706, the whole country was in a state of dangerous excitement. Addresses against the proposed terms of union were sent from every county and town, from almost every parish in the kingdom. In some towns, copies of the Articles of Union were publicly burned. Edinburgh was in a state of wild tumult; the High Commissioner was hooted; the Provost, who was known to favour the obnoxious treaty, had his house wrecked. In the House of Parliament there were fierce debates, “resembling,” said an eye witness, “not a mere strife of tongues, but the clash of arms.” The opposition, headed by the Duke of Hamilton, did all they could to hinder the measure; finding their resistance ineffectual, they retired from the parliament house, and, clause by clause, the articles of treaty were formally passed by the compliant majority.

In March, 1707, the English parliament ratified the Treaty of Union, and on the 1st of May ensuing, it came into operation. It had been carried through the Scottish Parliament by transparent venality, and under popular disfavour. It was inaugurated in Scotland with sullen discontent, and for six years it was there the ruling passion to discredit and decry it. And so far its results had not contradicted evil forebodings. As had been feared, the very slender representation of Scotland in the Imperial Parliament, gave it only a weak voice in legislature. The English treason laws, and malt-tax were extended to Scotland. The Scottish representatives in the Commons complained that they were not treated as equals by their fellow-members—not as representing a free nation, the equal of England in its rights and privileges, but a subjugated and dependent province. Sneers at their country, and sarcasms on their own accent, manners, and appearance, were daily met with by men who were proud of their native land, and in that land had been accorded the respect due to gentlemen of birth, breeding, and education. And Scottish noblemen, who had not been elected on the representative sixteen, but had been created _British Peers_ by the sovereign, were, by a resolution of the House of Lords, refused seats in that House.

In 1713, the Scottish members in both Houses,—and who included within their ranks men of all political parties—Revolution Whigs, and Tory advocates of kingly prerogative, Jacobites and adherents of the House of Hanover,—unanimously resolved to move in parliament the repeal of the Act of Union, on the grounds that it had failed in the good results which had been anticipated from it. And in the then state of parties in England, there seemed a fair chance of carrying the proposed abrogation. For the Whigs, who had been the dominant party, from the Revolution to 1710, when they were ousted from office, were now—although they had been the active promoters of the Union—prepared to do anything to cripple the government. The defence of the Union now rested with the Tories, who had strenuously opposed it, and obstructed it at every stage.

On the 1st of June, the motion for repeal was brought up in the House of Lords, and after a warm debate was rejected by a majority of only four votes. So, happily for both countries, the Union had farther trial; and as in the generality of prognostications of evil, as the resultant of political or social change, time has proved their falsity. Under the Union, Scotland advanced in material prosperity, and as a nation she has fully maintained her national prestige. Scotsmen have ever taken an active part—at times a leading part—in imperial affairs. In diplomacy and in war, in science and invention, in literature and art, in philosophy and trading enterprise, Scotsmen have been well in line with men of the other nationalities which together constitute the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Jacobite Risings of 1715.