determine to teach the Highlands such a lesson as will ensure their never again venturing to rise in arms against the house of Hanover.”
“And I don't know that they are altogether to be blamed,” Malcolm said. “I am not so young as I was, Ronald, and I see now that I was wrong in teaching you to be a Jacobite. It is all very well for men like Tullibardine, who knew the Stuarts on the throne, to fight to put them back again; but to your generation, Ronald, the Stuarts are after all only a tradition, and it is a sort of generous madness for you to risk your life to set them again on the throne of England. It cannot matter a brass pin to you whether James or George rules at St. James's. It is not, as in the case of the Royalists in England in Charles's time or of the Covenanters of Scotland, that a great principle is involved —a principle for which men may well risk their lives and all they hold dear. It is a question of persons only, and although I may hold that by right of descent Charles Edward is Prince of Wales and rightful heir to the throne of England, that is no reason why I should risk my life to place him there; and after all it seems to me that if the majority in these islands determine that they will be ruled by the house of Hanover instead of the house of Stuart they have some right to make their own choice.”
“You argue like a philosopher, Malcolm,” Ronald said laughing, “and do not remind me in the slightest degree of the Malcolm who used to chat with me in Glasgow.”
“You are right there, lad. You see I was brought up a Jacobite, and I have been a soldier all my life, accustomed to charge when I was told to charge and to kill those I was told to kill; but I own that since I have been out now I have got to look at matters differently. The sight of all these poor Highland bodies blindly following their chiefs and risking life and all for a cause in which they have no shadow of interest has made me think. A soldier is a soldier, and if he were to sit down to argue about the justice of every cause in which he is ordered to fight there would be an end to all discipline. But these poor fellows are not soldiers, and so I say to myself, What concern have they in this matter? Their chiefs would gain honours and rewards, patents of high nobility, and additions to their estates if the Stuarts conquered, but their followers would gain nothing whatever. No, lad, if we get over this scrape I have done with fighting; and I hope that no Stuart will ever again succeed in getting Scotland to take up his cause. I shall go on fighting for Prince Charles as long as there is a man left with him; but after that there is an end of it as far as I am concerned, and I hope as far as Scotland is concerned.”
“I hope so too, Malcolm. When Scotland is herself divided, Ireland passive, and all England hostile, success is hopeless. The Stuarts will never get such another chance again as they had on the day when we turned our backs on London at Derby, and I hope that they will not again make the attempt, especially as it is manifest now that France has only used them as tools against England, and has no idea of giving them any effectual aid.”
Charles on approaching Inverness found it toughly fortified and held by Lord Loudon with a force of two thousand men. The prince halted ten miles from the town at Moy Castle, where he was entertained by Lady M'Intosh, whose husband was serving with Lord Loudon, but who had raised the clan for Prince Charles. The prince had but a few personal attendants with him, the army having been halted at some distance from the castle.
One evening Ronald had ridden over to Moy Castle with some despatches from Lord George Murray to the prince, and had remained there to dine with him. It was late before he mounted his horse. He was, as usual, accompanied by Malcolm. They had ridden but a short distance through the wood which surrounded the castle when a shot was fired, and almost immediately afterwards four or five men came running through the trees.
“What is the matter?” Malcolm shouted.
“The English army are upon us!” one of the M'Intoshes —for they were clansmen who had been sleeping in the wood —answered.
“They must intend to seize the prince,” Ronald said, “and will already have sent round a body of horse to cut off his retreat. Scatter through the wood, men, and do each of you raise the war cry of one of the clans as if the whole army were here. This may cause a delay and enable the prince to ride off. Malcolm, do you ride back with all speed to the castle and warn the prince of Loudon's approach.”
The Highlanders at once obeyed Ronald's orders, and in a minute or two the war cries of half a dozen of the principal clans in Prince Charles's army rang through the woods, while at the same time the Highlanders discharged their muskets. Ronald also shouted orders, as to a large body of men.
The English, who had made sure of effecting a successful surprise, hesitated as they heard the war cries of the clans ringing through the woods, and believing that the whole of Prince Charles's army were at hand and they were about to be attacked in overwhelming numbers, they retreated hastily to Inverness. No sooner had Ronald discovered that they had fallen back than he rode off to inform the prince that the danger was over.
He found Prince Charles mounted, with Lady M'Intosh on horseback by his side, and the retainers in the castle gathered round, broadsword in hand, in readiness to cut their way through any body of the enemy's horse who might intercept their retreat. Charles laughed heartily when he heard of the strategy which Ronald had employed to arrest the advance of the enemy, and thanked him for again having saved him from falling into the hands of the enemy.
The English made their retreat to Inverness in such confusion and dismay that the affair became known in history as the “rout of Moy.”
The next morning, the 17th of February, the prince called up his army, and the next day advanced against Inverness. Lord Loudon did not await his coming. The panic of his soldiers two days before showed him that no reliance could be placed upon them, and embarking with them in boats he crossed the Moray Frith to Cromarty, where the troops shortly afterwards disbanded upon hearing that the Earl of Cromarty was marching against them with some Highland regiments.
The town of Inverness was occupied at once, and the citadel surrendered in a few days. The army, now in a barren and mountainous region, were deprived of all resources. Many ships with supplies were sent off from France, but few of them reached their destination; several being captured by British cruisers, and others compelled to go back to French ports.
The supply of money in the treasury was reduced to the lowest ebb, and Charles was obliged to pay his troops in meal, and even this was frequently deficient, and the men suffered severely from hunger. Many deserted, and others scattered over the country in search of subsistence.
In the meantime the Duke of Cumberland's army was receiving powerful reinforcements. In February Prince Frederick of Hesse Cassel, with five thousand of his troops, who had been hired by the British government, landed at Leith. These troops were placed in garrison in all the towns in the south of Scotland, thus enabling the Duke of Cumberland to draw together the whole of the English forces for his advance into the Highlands.
On the 8th of April he set out from Aberdeen with eight thousand foot and nine hundred horse. He marched along the coast accompanied by the fleet, which landed supplies as needed. At the Spey, Lord John Drummond had prepared to defend the fords, and some works had been thrown up to protect them; but the English cannon were brought up in such numbers that Lord John, considering the position untenable, retired to Inverness, while the English army forded the Spey, and on the 14th entered Nairn, where some skirmishing took place between their advance guard and the Highland rear.
Prince Charles and his principal officers rested that night at Culloden House and the troops lay upon the adjacent moor. On the morning of the 15th they drew up in order of battle. The English, however, rested for the day at Nairn, and there celebrated the Duke of Cumberland's birthday with much feasting, abundant supplies being landed from the fleet.
The Highlanders, on the other hand, fasted, only one biscuit per man being issued during the day. Consequently many straggled away to Inverness and other places in search of food. Lord Cromarty, with the regiments under his command, were absent, so that barely five thousand men were mustered in the ranks. At a council of war Lord George Murray suggested that a night surprise should be made on the duke's camp at Nairn, and as this was the prince's own plan it was unanimously agreed to.
Before, however, the straggling troops could be collected it was eight o'clock at night. Nairn was twelve miles distant, and the men, weakened by privation and hunger, marched so slowly across the marshy ground that it was two o'clock in the morning before the head of the columns arrived within four miles of the British camp, while the rear was still far away, and many had dropped out of the ranks from fatigue.
It was now too late to hope that a surprise could be effected before daylight, and the army retraced its steps to Culloden Moor. Worn out and exhausted as they were, and wholly without supplies of provisions, Lord George Murray and the other military officers felt that the troops could not hope to contend successfully against a vastly superior army, fresh, well fed, and supported by a strong force of artillery, on the open ground, and he proposed that the army should retire beyond the river Bairn, and take up a position there on broken ground inaccessible to
