CHAPTER XVI.

TRUST AND MISTRUST.

March! march! why the deil do ye no march? Stand to your arms, my lads, fight in good order; Front about, ye musketteers, all When ye come to the English border. LESLY'S MARCH.

As before related, the Scottish army advanced into England in three columns.

It was by the express desire of James VII., and contrary to the wish of the Council, that these forces left Scotland, where William had many adherents, especially in the western shires. There the old spirit of disaffection was subdued, but far from being extinguished. The Privy Councillors had proposed to retain their troops, and in lieu thereof to send to their frontiers a corps of militia and Highlanders, thirteen thousand strong; but James was urgent for the regulars immediately joining him at Hounslow, and they marched accordingly.

On the first day of October the Scottish army crossed the Tweed, and drew up on English ground, when General Douglas (to quote Captain Crichton, the cavalier-trooper who served in the Grey Dragoons) "gave a strict charge to the officers that they should keep their men from offering the least injury on their march; adding, that if he heard any of the English complain, the officers should answer for the faults of their men."

That night the Scottish drums were ringing in the streets of "merry Carlisle." There Douglas halted for the night, and Dunbarton's regiment bivouacked in a field on the banks of the Eden. Provisions were brought from the city in abundance, fires were lighted, and the cooking proceeded with the utmost dispatch.

English troops kept guard at the gates of the city, which was inclosed by a strong wall, and Saint George's red cross waved on the castle of William Rufus--the same grim fortress where, a hundred and twenty-one years before, Mary of Scotland experienced the first traits of Elizabeth's inhospitality.

General Douglas, who commanded the Scottish troops, was a traitor at heart, and deeply in the interest of William. On the morning after the halt at Carlisle, he ordered the Viscount Dundee, with his division of cavalry, to march for London by the way of York; while he in person led the infantry and artillery by the road to Chester. Anxious that William should land before the army of James could be strong enough to oppose him, Douglas, by a hundred frivolous pretences, and by every scheme he could devise, delayed the march of his infantry, which did not form a junction with the English under the Earl of Faversham at London until the 25th of October.

James VII. had now under his command a well disciplined and well appointed army, led by officers of distinguished birth and courage, and he awaited with confidence the landing of his usurping son-in-law. The whole of his troops were quartered in the vicinity of London.

For many reasons, the people of England, like those of Scotland, were prepossessed against all the measures of King James, and to his brave army alone did this unhappy monarch look for support in the coming struggle; but notwithstanding that for years he had been a father rather than a captain to his soldiers, and had watched over their interests with the most kingly and paternal solicitude, quarrels and disgusts broke out between them, and he was yet to find that he leant on a broken reed. The strict amity subsisting between him and Louis of France, excited the jealousy of the nation, who dreaded an invasion of French and Irish catholics, to enforce the entire submission of the protestants.

Never were fears more groundless; but the Irish appear to have been particularly obnoxious to the English soldiers, who flatly refused to admit them into their ranks. The officers of the Duke of Berwick's regiment, on declining to accept of certain Irish recruits, were all cashiered, and the evident weakness of his position alone prevented James from bringing them to trial as mutineers.

Finding that the civil and ecclesiastical orders opposed him in every measure, James unguardedly made a direct appeal to his English army, by whose swords he hoped to enforce universal obedience. Anxious that each regiment in succession should "give their consent to the repeal of the test and penal statutes," he appealed first to the battalion of the Earl of Lichfield, which the senior Major drew up in line before him, and requested that "those soldiers who did not enter into the King's views should lay down their arms."

Save two catholics, the entire regiment instantly laid their matchlocks on the ground!

Astonishment and grief rendered James speechless for a time; but his native pride recalled his energies.

"It is enough, my soldiers," he exclaimed haughtily. "Resume your arms! Henceforth I will not do you the honour of seeking your approbation."

Hurried on by the secret advices of the Jesuits, by his religious enthusiasm (bigotry, if you will), and by the evil genius that has seemed to haunt his race since the days of the first Stuart, James rendered yet wider the breach between him and his army. He distributed catholic officers and soldiers throughout the different English regiments, "and many brave protestant officers, after long and faithful service, were dismissed, without any provision, to favour this fatal scheme." The quota of Irish troops joined him at London, and, on chapels being established for the celebration of mass, the murmurs of the protestants became loud and unrestrained, and a storm of indignation was raised, which in these days of toleration, we can only view with a smile.

The ill-advised appointment of the Pope as sponsor for the young Prince of Wales, the vile and unfounded rumours concerning whose birth the hapless king felt keenly, and the universal approbation with which the secretly dispersed manifestoes of the coming invader were received throughout the land, shewed James that his throne was crumbling beneath him. The brave old Earl of Dartmouth, who lay at the Gunfleet, with thirty-seven vessels of war, and seventeen fireships, in consequence of a storm, was unable to attack the armament of William, who arrived at Torbay on the 5th of November, and immediately landed his Dutch, Scots, English, and French troops, under their several standards.

James, who had no small share of courage and military skill, now threw himself entirely on that army, which he had spent so many anxious years in fostering, training, and disciplining. He dispatched his son, the famous Duke of Berwick, to take possession of Portsmouth, and prevent the inhabitants declaring for the invader, who was then on the march for Exeter; meanwhile he hurried to Salisbury plain, and placed himself at the head of twenty battalions of infantry and thirty squadrons of cavalry, with a resolution to defend his crown to the death: but, alas! the spirit of disaffection, disloyalty, and ingratitude had already manifested itself in the camp. The desertions were numerous and alarming, while sullen discontent and open mutiny so greatly marked the conduct of those who remained, that save a few of the Scottish regiments, James found none on whom he could rely.

Lord Colchester, son of the Earl of Rivers, with many of his regiment, were among the first who deserted to the standard of the invader; Lord Cornbury, son of the Earl of Clarendon, followed, with three regiments of horse.

Lord Churchill, who, from a page, had been raised by James to the peerage and a high military command, also betrayed the blackest ingratitude, by forming a plot to seize his royal benefactor, and deliver him as a bondsman to the Prince of Orange. Failing in this, he deserted with several troops of cavalry, and took with him the Duke of Grafton, a son of the late king. Many officers of distinction informed the Earl of Faversham, their general, "that they could not in conscience fight against the Prince of Orange," and thus, hourly, the whole English army fell to pieces.

The spirit of disaffection soon spread into the Scottish ranks. Douglas, the perfidious general, with his own regiment of Red Dragoons, openly marched off to William with the Scottish standard displayed, and their kettle-drums beating, a circumstance which deeply affected James, for this was a corps on which he had particularly relied; but the treason of Douglas was ultimately avenged by a cannon-shot on the banks of the Boyne. James was a Stuart, and naturally founded his hopes on the soldiers of the nation from whence he drew his blood.

A battalion of Scots' Foot Guards next revolted under a corporal named Kempt, and then every regiment went over in succession under their several standards, save a troop of Dundee's Guards, a corps of dragoons, and the Scots' Royals, fifteen hundred strong, which yet remained loyal and true.

These repaired to Reading, where the gallant nobles, Dunbarton and Dundee, by exerting all their energies, re-mustered ten thousand men in ten days.

The former, with his single regiment alone, offered to attack the Dutch, and by a more than Spartan example of heroism and rashness, to shame their faithless comrades.

Meanwhile the Dutch drums beat merrily up for recruits, which poured to the banner of the invader on all hands, and horses were brought to mount the cavalry and drag the artillery.

All was lost!

The unhappy king, deserted nearly by all, found none near him to whom he could apply for consolation or advice, or in whom he could confide. By the instigation of Lady Churchill, even his daughter, the Princess Anne, left him, and retired to Nottingham. On finding himself now, when in the utmost extremity of distress, abandoned by a favourite daughter, whom he had ever treated with the utmost affection and tenderness, James raised his eyes and hands to heaven, and bursting into a passion of tears,--

"God help me!" he exclaimed, in the greatest agony of spirit; "God help me now, for even my own children, in my distress, have forsaken me!"

* * * *