No More Learning

The ranks of Balfour's regiment
broke. He was cloven down while struggling in the press. Ramsay's men
turned their backs and dropped their arms. Mackay's own foot were
swept away by the furious onset of the Camerons. His brother and nephew
exerted themselves in vain to rally the men. The former was laid dead on
the ground by a stroke from a claymore. The latter, with eight wounds
on his body, made his way through the tumult and carnage to his uncle's
side. Even in that extremity Mackay retained all his selfpossession.
He had still one hope. A charge of horse might recover the day; for
of horse the bravest Highlanders were supposed to stand in awe. But he
called on the horse in vain.

Belhaven indeed behaved like a gallant gentleman: but his troopers,
appalled by the rout of the infantry, galloped off in disorder:
Annandale's men followed: all was over; and the mingled torrent of
redcoats and tartans went raving down the valley to the gorge of
Killiecrankie.

Mackay, accompanied by one trusty servant, spurred bravely through the
thickest of the claymores and targets, and reached a point from which
he had a view of the field. His whole army had disappeared, with
the exception of some Borderers whom Leven had kept together, and of
Hastings's regiment, which had poured a murderous fire into the Celtic
ranks, and which still kept unbroken order. All the men that could be
collected were only a few hundreds. The general made haste to lead them
across the Carry, and, having put that river between them and the enemy,
paused for a moment to meditate on his situation.

He could hardly understand how the conquerors could be so unwise as to
allow him even that moment for deliberation. They might with ease have
killed or taken all who were with him before the night closed in. But
the energy of the Celtic warriors had spent itself in one furious rush
and one short struggle. The pass was choked by the twelve hundred beasts
of burden which carried the provisions and baggage of the vanquished
army. Such a booty was irresistibly tempting to men who were impelled to
war quite as much by the desire of rapine as by the desire of glory. It
is probable that few even of the chiefs were disposed to leave so rich
a price for the sake of King James. Dundee himself might at that moment
have been unable to persuade his followers to quit the heaps of spoil,
and to complete the great work of the day; and Dundee was no more.

At the beginning of the action he had taken his place in front of his
little band of cavalry. He bade them follow him, and rode forward. But
it seemed to be decreed that, on that day, the Lowland Scotch should in
both armies appear to disadvantage. The horse hesitated. Dundee turned
round, and stood up in his stirrups, and, waving his hat, invited them
to come on. As he lifted his arm, his cuirass rose, and exposed the
lower part of his left side. A musket ball struck him; his horse sprang
forward and plunged into a cloud of smoke and dust, which hid from both
armies the fall of the victorious general. A person named Johnstone was
near him and caught him as he sank down from the saddle. "How goes the
day? " said Dundee. "Well for King James;" answered Johnstone: "but I am
sorry for Your Lordship. " "If it is well for him," answered the dying
man, "it matters the less for me. " He never spoke again; but when, half
an hour later, Lord Dunfermline and some other friends came to the spot,
they thought that they could still discern some faint remains of life.
The body, wrapped in two plaids, was carried to the Castle of Blair,
[367]

Mackay, who was ignorant of Dundee's fate, and well acquainted with
Dundee's skill and activity, expected to be instantly and hotly pursued,
and had very little expectation of being able to save even the scanty
remains of the vanquished army. He could not retreat by the pass: for
the Highlanders were already there. He therefore resolved to push across
the mountains towards the valley of the Tay. He soon overtook two or
three hundred of his runaways who had taken the same road. Most of them
belonged to Ramsay's regiment, and must have seen service. But they were
unarmed: they were utterly bewildered by the recent disaster; and the
general could find among them no remains either of martial discipline or
of martial spirit. His situation was one which must have severely tried
the firmest nerves. Night had set in: he was in a desert: he had no
guide: a victorious enemy was, in all human probability, on his track;
and he had to provide for the safety of a crowd of men who had lost both
head and heart. He had just suffered a defeat of all defeats the
most painful and humiliating. His domestic feelings had been not less
severely wounded than his professional feelings. One dear kinsman had
just been struck dead before his eyes. Another, bleeding from many
wounds, moved feebly at his side. But the unfortunate general's courage
was sustained by a firm faith in God, and a high sense of duty to the
state. In the midst of misery and disgrace, he still held his head nobly
erect, and found fortitude, not only for himself; but for all around
him. His first care was to be sure of his road. A solitary light which
twinkled through the darkness guided him to a small hovel. The inmates
spoke no tongue but the Gaelic, and were at first scared by the
appearance of uniforms and arms. But Mackay's gentle manner removed
their apprehension: their language had been familiar to him in
childhood; and he retained enough of it to communicate with them. By
their directions, and by the help of a pocket map, in which the routes
through that wild country were roughly laid down, he was able to
find his way. He marched all night. When day broke his task was more
difficult than ever. Light increased the terror of his companions.
Hastings's men and Leven's men indeed still behaved themselves like
soldiers. But the fugitives from Ramsay's were a mere rabble. They had
flung away their muskets. The broadswords from which they had fled were
ever in their eyes. Every fresh object caused a fresh panic. A company
of herdsmen in plaids driving cattle was magnified by imagination into
a host of Celtic warriors. Some of the runaways left the main body and
fled to the hills, where their cowardice met with a proper punishment.
They were killed for their coats and shoes; and their naked carcasses
were left for a prey to the eagles of Ben Lawers. The desertion would
have been much greater, had not Mackay and his officers, pistol in hand,
threatened to blow out the brains of any man whom they caught attempting
to steal off.

At length the weary fugitives came in sight of Weems Castle. The
proprietor of the mansion was a friend to the new government, and
extended to them such hospitality as was in his power. His stores of
oatmeal were brought out, kine were slaughtered; and a rude and hasty
meal was set before the numerous guests. Thus refreshed, they again
set forth, and marched all day over bog, moor, and mountain. Thinly
inhabited as the country was, they could plainly see that the report of
their disaster had already spread far, and that the population was every
where in a state of great excitement. Late at night they reached Castle
Drummond, which was held for King William by a small garrison; and,
on the following day, they proceeded with less difficulty to Stirling,
[368]

The tidings of their defeat had outrun them. All Scotland was in a
ferment. The disaster had indeed been great: but it was exaggerated by
the wild hopes of one party and by the wild fears of the other. It was
at first believed that the whole army of King William had perished; that
Mackay himself had fallen; that Dundee, at the head of a great host of
barbarians, flushed with victory and impatient for spoil, had already
descended from the hills; that he was master of the whole country beyond
the Forth; that Fife was up to join him; that in three days he would
be at Stirling; that in a week he would be at Holyrood. Messengers were
sent to urge a regiment which lay in Northumberland to hasten across
the border. Others carried to London earnest entreaties that His Majesty
would instantly send every soldier that could be spared, nay, that he
would come himself to save his northern kingdom. The factions of the
Parliament House, awestruck by the common danger, forgot to wrangle.
Courtiers and malecontents with one voice implored the Lord High
Commissioner to close the session, and to dismiss them from a place
where their deliberations might soon be interrupted by the mountaineers.
It was seriously considered whether it might not be expedient to abandon
Edinburgh, to send the numerous state prisoners who were in the Castle
and the Tolbooth on board of a man of war which lay off Leith, and to
transfer the seat of government to Glasgow.

The news of Dundee's victory was every where speedily followed by the
news of his death; and it is a strong proof of the extent and vigour of
his faculties, that his death seems every where to have been regarded
as a complete set off against his victory. Hamilton, before he adjourned
the Estates, informed them that he had good tidings for them; that
Dundee was certainly dead; and that therefore the rebels had on the
whole sustained a defeat. In several letters written at that conjuncture
by able and experienced politicians a similar opinion is expressed. The
messenger who rode with the news of the battle to the English Court was
fast followed by another who carried a despatch for the King, and, not
finding His Majesty at Saint James's, galloped to Hampton Court. Nobody
in the capital ventured to break the seal; but fortunately, after the
letter had been closed, some friendly hand had hastily written on the
outside a few words of comfort: "Dundee is killed. Mackay has got to
Stirling:" and these words quieted the minds of the Londoners, [369]

From the pass of Killiecrankie the Highlanders had retired, proud
of their victory, and laden with spoil, to the Castle of Blair. They
boasted that the field of battle was covered with heaps of the Saxon
soldiers, and that the appearance of the corpses bore ample testimony to
the power of a good Gaelic broadsword in a good Gaelic right hand. Heads
were found cloven down to the throat, and sculls struck clean off just
above the ears. The conquerors however had bought their victory dear.
While they were advancing, they had been much galled by the musketry of
the enemy; and, even after the decisive charge, Hastings's Englishmen
and some of Leven's borderers had continued to keep up a steady fire. A
hundred and twenty Camerons had been slain: the loss of the Macdonalds
had been still greater; and several gentlemen of birth and note had
fallen, [370]

Dundee was buried in the church of Blair Athol: but no monument was
erected over his grave; and the church itself has long disappeared.
A rude stone on the field of battle marks, if local tradition can be
trusted, the place where he fell, [371] During the last three months of
his life he had approved himself a great warrior and politician; and his
name is therefore mentioned with respect by that large class of persons
who think that there is no excess of wickedness for which courage and
ability do not atone.

It is curious that the two most remarkable battles that perhaps were
ever gained by irregular over regular troops should have been fought
in the same week; the battle of Killiecrankie, and the battle of
Newton Butler. In both battles the success of the irregular troops was
singularly rapid and complete. In both battles the panic of the regular
troops, in spite of the conspicuous example of courage set by their
generals, was singularly disgraceful. It ought also to be noted that, of
these extraordinary victories, one was gained by Celts over Saxons, and
the other by Saxons over Celts. The victory of Killiecrankie indeed,
though neither more splendid nor more important than the victory of
Newton Butler, is far more widely renowned; and the reason is evident.
The Anglosaxon and the Celt have been reconciled in Scotland, and have
never been reconciled in Ireland. In Scotland all the great actions of
both races are thrown into a common stock, and are considered as making
up the glory which belongs to the whole country. So completely has the
old antipathy been extinguished that nothing is more usual than to
hear a Lowlander talk with complacency and even with pride of the
most humiliating defeat that his ancestors ever underwent. It would be
difficult to name any eminent man in whom national feeling and clannish
feeling were stronger than in Sir Walter Scott. Yet when Sir Walter
Scott mentioned Killiecrankie he seemed utterly to forget that he was
a Saxon, that he was of the same blood and of the same speech with
Ramsay's foot and Annandale's horse. His heart swelled with triumph
when he related how his own kindred had fled like hares before a smaller
number of warriors of a different breed and of a different tongue.

In Ireland the feud remains unhealed. The name of Newton Butler,
insultingly repeated by a minority, is hateful to the great majority
of the population. If a monument were set up on the field of battle, it
would probably be defaced: if a festival were held in Cork or Waterford
on the anniversary of the battle, it would probably be interrupted by
violence. The most illustrious Irish poet of our time would have thought
it treason to his country to sing the praises of the conquerors. One
of the most learned and diligent Irish archeologists of our time has
laboured, not indeed very successfully, to prove that the event of the
day was decided by a mere accident from which the Englishry could derive
no glory. We cannot wonder that the victory of the Highlanders should be
more celebrated than the victory of the Enniskilleners, when we consider
that the victory of the Highlanders is matter of boast to all Scotland,
and that the victory of the Enniskilleners is matter of shame to three
fourths of Ireland.

As far as the great interests of the State were concerned, it mattered
not at all whether the battle of Killiecrankie were lost or won. It is
very improbable that even Dundee, if he had survived the most glorious
day of his life, could have surmounted those difficulties which sprang
from the peculiar nature of his army, and which would have increased
tenfold as soon as the war was transferred to the Lowlands. It is
certain that his successor was altogether unequal to the task. During a
day or two, indeed, the new general might flatter himself that all
would go well. His army was rapidly swollen to near double the number of
claymores that Dundee had commanded. The Stewarts of Appin, who, though
full of zeal, had not been able to come up in time for the battle, were
among the first who arrived. Several clans, which had hitherto waited
to see which side was the stronger, were now eager to descend on the
Lowlands under the standard of King James the Seventh. The Grants
indeed continued to bear true allegiance to William and Mary; and the
Mackintoshes were kept neutral by unconquerable aversion to Keppoch.
But Macphersons, Farquharsons, and Frasers came in crowds to the camp at
Blair. The hesitation of the Athol men was at an end. Many of them
had lurked, during the fight, among the crags and birch trees of
Killiecrankie, and, as soon as the event of the day was decided, had
emerged from those hiding places to strip and butcher the fugitives
who tried to escape by the pass. The Robertsons, a Gaelic race, though
bearing a Saxon name, gave in at this conjuncture their adhesion to
the cause of the exiled king. Their chief Alexander, who took his
appellation from his lordship of Struan, was a very young man and a
student at the University of Saint Andrew's. He had there acquired a
smattering of letters, and had been initiated much more deeply into Tory
politics. He now joined the Highland army, and continued, through a long
life to be constant to the Jacobite cause. His part, however, in public
affairs was so insignificant that his name would not now be remembered,
if he had not left a volume of poems, always very stupid and often very
profligate. Had this book been manufactured in Grub Street, it would
scarcely have been honoured with a quarter of a line in the Dunciad. But
it attracted some notice on account of the situation of the writer. For,
a hundred and twenty years ago, an eclogue or a lampoon written by a
Highland chief was a literary portent, [372]

But, though the numerical strength of Cannon's forces was increasing,
their efficiency was diminishing. Every new tribe which joined the camp
brought with it some new cause of dissension. In the hour of peril, the
most arrogant and mutinous spirits will often submit to the guidance of
superior genius. Yet, even in the hour of peril, and even to the genius
of Dundee, the Celtic chiefs had gelded but a precarious and imperfect
obedience. To restrain them, when intoxicated with success and confident
of their strength, would probably have been too hard a task even for
him, as it had been, in the preceding generation, too hard a task for
Montrose. The new general did nothing but hesitate and blunder. One of
his first acts was to send a large body of men, chiefly Robertsons, down
into the low country for the purpose of collecting provisions. He seems
to have supposed that this detachment would without difficulty occupy
Perth. But Mackay had already restored order among the remains of his
army: he had assembled round him some troops which had not shared in the
disgrace of the late defeat; and he was again ready for action. Cruel as
his sufferings had been, he had wisely and magnanimously resolved not
to punish what was past. To distinguish between degrees of guilt was
not easy. To decimate the guilty would have been to commit a frightful
massacre. His habitual piety too led him to consider the unexampled
panic which had seized his soldiers as a proof rather of the divine
displeasure than of their cowardice. He acknowledged with heroic
humility that the singular firmness which he had himself displayed in
the midst of the confusion and havoc was not his own, and that he
might well, but for the support of a higher power, have behaved as
pusillanimously as any of the wretched runaways who had thrown away
their weapons and implored quarter in vain from the barbarous marauders
of Athol. His dependence on heaven did not, however, prevent him from
applying himself vigorously to the work of providing, as far as human
prudence could provide, against the recurrence of such a calamity as
that which he had just experienced. The immediate cause of his defeat
was the difficulty of fixing bayonets. The firelock of the Highlander
was quite distinct from the weapon which he used in close fight. He
discharged his shot, threw away his gun, and fell on with his sword.
This was the work of a moment. It took the regular musketeer two or
three minutes to alter his missile weapon into a weapon with which he
could encounter an enemy hand to hand; and during these two or three
minutes the event of the battle of Killiecrankie had been decided.
Mackay therefore ordered all his bayonets to be so formed that they
might be screwed upon the barrel without stopping it up, and that his
men might be able to receive a charge the very instant after firing,
[373]

As soon as he learned that a detachment of the Gaelic army was advancing
towards Perth, he hastened to meet them at the head of a body of
dragoons who had not been in the battle, and whose spirit was therefore
unbroken. On Wednesday the thirty-first of July, only four days after
his defeat, he fell in with the Robertsons near Saint Johnston's,
attacked them, routed them, killed a hundred and twenty of them, and
took thirty prisoners, with the loss of only a single soldier, [374]
This skirmish produced an effect quite out of proportion to the number
of the combatants or of the slain. The reputation of the Celtic arms
went down almost as fast as it had risen. During two or three days it
had been every where imagined that those arms were invincible. There was
now a reaction. It was perceived that what had happened at Killiecrankie
was an exception to ordinary rules, and that the Highlanders were
not, except in very peculiar circumstances, a match for good regular
soldiers.

Meanwhile the disorders of Cannon's camp went on increasing. He called
a council of war to consider what course it would be advisable to take.
But as soon as the council had met, a preliminary question was raised.
Who were entitled to be consulted? The army was almost exclusively a
Highland army. The recent victory had been won exclusively by Highland
warriors. Great chiefs, who had brought six or seven hundred fighting
men into the field, did not think it fair that they should be outvoted
by gentlemen from Ireland and from the low country, who bore indeed King
James's commission, and were called Colonels and Captains, but who were
Colonels without regiments and Captains without companies. Lochiel spoke
strongly in behalf of the class to which he belonged: but Cannon decided
that the votes of the Saxon officers should be reckoned, [375]

It was next considered what was to be the plan of the campaign. Lochiel
was for advancing, for marching towards Mackay wherever Mackay might be,
and for giving battle again. It can hardly be supposed that success
had so turned the head of the wise chief of the Camerons as to make
him insensible of the danger of the course which he recommended. But he
probably conceived that nothing but a choice between dangers was left to
him. His notion was that vigorous action was necessary to the very being
of a Highland army, and that the coalition of clans would last only
while they were impatiently pushing forward from battlefield to
battlefield. He was again overruled. All his hopes of success were
now at an end. His pride was severely wounded. He had submitted to the
ascendancy of a great captain: but he cared as little as any Whig for
a royal commission. He had been willing to be the right hand of Dundee:
but he would not be ordered about by Cannon. He quitted the camp, and
retired to Lochaber. He indeed directed his clan to remain. But the
clan, deprived of the leader whom it adored, and aware that he had
withdrawn himself in ill humour, was no longer the same terrible
column which had a few days before kept so well the vow to perish or to
conquer. Macdonald of Sleat, whose forces exceeded in number those of
any other of the confederate chiefs, followed Lochiel's example and
returned to Sky, [376]

Mackay's arrangements were by this time complete; and he had little
doubt that, if the rebels came down to attack him, the regular army
would retrieve the honour which had been lost at Killiecrankie. His
chief difficulties arose from the unwise interference of the ministers
of the Crown at Edinburgh with matters which ought to have been left
to his direction. The truth seems to be that they, after the ordinary
fashion of men who, having no military experience, sit in judgment on
military operations, considered success as the only test of the ability
of a commander. Whoever wins a battle is, in the estimation of such
persons, a great general: whoever is beaten is a lead general; and no
general had ever been more completely beaten than Mackay. William, on
the other hand, continued to place entire confidence in his unfortunate
lieutenant. To the disparaging remarks of critics who had never seen
a skirmish, Portland replied, by his master's orders, that Mackay was
perfectly trustworthy, that he was brave, that he understood war better
than any other officer in Scotland, and that it was much to be regretted
that any prejudice should exist against so good a man and so good a
soldier, [377]

The unjust contempt with which the Scotch Privy Councillors regarded
Mackay led them into a great error which might well have caused a great
disaster. The Cameronian regiment was sent to garrison Dunkeld. Of this
arrangement Mackay altogether disapproved. He knew that at Dunkeld
these troops would be near the enemy; that they would be far from all
assistance; that they would be in an open town; that they would be
surrounded by a hostile population; that they were very imperfectly
disciplined, though doubtless brave and zealous; that they were
regarded by the whole Jacobite party throughout Scotland with peculiar
malevolence; and that in all probability some great effort would be made
to disgrace and destroy them, [378]

The General's opinion was disregarded; and the Cameronians occupied the
post assigned to them. It soon appeared that his forebodings were just.
The inhabitants of the country round Dunkeld furnished Cannon with
intelligence, and urged him to make a bold push. The peasantry of
Athol, impatient for spoil, came in great numbers to swell his army.
The regiment hourly expected to be attacked, and became discontented and
turbulent. The men, intrepid, indeed, both from constitution and
from enthusiasm, but not yet broken to habits of military submission,
expostulated with Cleland, who commanded them. They had, they imagined,
been recklessly, if not perfidiously, sent to certain destruction.
They were protected by no ramparts: they had a very scanty stock of
ammunition: they were hemmed in by enemies. An officer might mount and
gallop beyond reach of danger in an hour; but the private soldier
must stay and be butchered. "Neither I," said Cleland, "nor any of my
officers will, in any extremity, abandon you. Bring out my horse, all
our horses; they shall be shot dead. " These words produced a complete
change of feeling. The men answered that the horses should not be shot,
that they wanted no pledge from their brave Colonel except his word, and
that they would run the last hazard with him. They kept their promise
well. The Puritan blood was now thoroughly up; and what that blood was
when it was up had been proved on many fields of battle.

That night the regiment passed under arms. On the morning of the
following day, the twenty-first of August, all the hills round Dunkeld
were alive with bonnets and plaids. Cannon's army was much larger than
that which Dundee had commanded.
More than a thousand horses laden with
baggage accompanied his march. Both the horses and baggage were probably
part of the booty of Killiecrankie. The whole number of Highlanders was
estimated by those who saw them at from four to five thousand men. They
came furiously on. The outposts of the Cameronians were speedily driven
in. The assailants came pouring on every side into the streets. The
church, however, held out obstinately. But the greater part of the
regiment made its stand behind a wall which surrounded a house belonging
to the Marquess of Athol. This wall, which had two or three days
before been hastily repaired with timber and loose stones, the soldiers
defended desperately with musket, pike, and halbert. Their bullets were
soon spent; but some of the men were employed in cutting lead from the
roof of the Marquess's house and shaping it into slugs. Meanwhile
all the neighbouring houses were crowded from top to bottom with
Highlanders, who kept up a galling fire from the windows. Cleland,
while encouraging his men, was shot dead. The command devolved on Major
Henderson.

In another minute Henderson fell pierced with three mortal wounds.
His place was supplied by Captain Munro, and the contest went on with
undiminished fury. A party of the Cameronians sallied forth, set fire to
the houses from which the fatal shots had come, and turned the keys in
the doors. In one single dwelling sixteen of the enemy were burnt alive.
Those who were in the fight described it as a terrible initiation for
recruits. Half the town was blazing; and with the incessant roar of
the guns were mingled the piercing shrieks of wretches perishing in the
flames. The struggle lasted four hours. By that time the Cameronians
were reduced nearly to their last flask of powder; but their spirit
never flagged. "The enemy will soon carry the wall. Be it so. We will
retreat into the house: we will defend it to the last; and, if they
force their way into it, we will burn it over their heads and our own. "
But, while they were revolving these desperate projects, they observed
that the fury of the assault slackened. Soon the highlanders began to
fall back: disorder visibly spread among them; and whole bands began to
march off to the hills. It was in vain that their general ordered them
to return to the attack. Perseverance was not one of their military
virtues. The Cameronians meanwhile, with shouts of defiance, invited
Amalek and Moab to come back and to try another chance with the chosen
people. But these exhortations had as little effect as those of Cannon.
In a short time the whole Gaelic army was in full retreat towards Blair.
Then the drums struck up: the victorious Puritans threw their caps into
the air, raised, with one voice, a psalm of triumph and thanksgiving,
and waved their colours, colours which were on that day unfurled for the
first time in the face of an enemy, but which have since been proudly
borne in every quarter of the world, and which are now embellished with
the Sphinx and the Dragon, emblems of brave actions achieved in Egypt
and in China, [379]

The Cameronians had good reason to be joyful and thankful; for they had
finished the rear. In the rebel camp all was discord and dejection. The
Highlanders blamed Cannon: Cannon blamed the Highlanders; and the host
which had been the terror of Scotland melted fast away. The confederate
chiefs signed an association by which they declared themselves faithful
subjects of King James, and bound themselves to meet again at a
future time. Having gone through this form,--for it was no more,--they
departed, each to his home. Cannon and his Irishmen retired to the Isle
of Mull. The Lowlanders who had followed Dundee to the mountains shifted
for themselves as they best could. On the twenty-fourth of August,
exactly four weeks after the Gaelic army had won the battle of
Killiecrankie, that army ceased to exist. It ceased to exist, as the
army of Montrose had, more than forty years earlier, ceased to exist,
not in consequence of any great blow from without, but by a natural
dissolution, the effect of internal malformation. All the fruits of
victory were gathered by the vanquished. The Castle of Blair, which had
been the immediate object of the contest, opened its gates to Mackay;
and a chain of military posts, extending northward as far as Inverness,
protected the cultivators of the plains against the predatory inroads of
the mountaineers.

During the autumn the government was much more annoyed by the Whigs of
the low country, than by the Jacobites of the hills. The Club, which
had, in the late session of Parliament, attempted to turn the kingdom
into an oligarchical republic, and which had induced the Estates to
refuse supplies and to stop the administration of justice, continued
to sit during the recess, and harassed the ministers of the Crown by
systematic agitation. The organization of this body, contemptible as
it may appear to the generation which has seen the Roman Catholic
Association and the League against the Corn Laws, was then thought
marvellous and formidable. The leaders of the confederacy boasted that
they would force the King to do them right. They got up petitions and
addresses, tried to inflame the populace by means of the press and the
pulpit, employed emissaries among the soldiers, and talked of bringing
up a large body of Covenanters from the west to overawe the Privy
Council. In spite of every artifice, however, the ferment of the public
mind gradually subsided. The Government, after some hesitation, ventured
to open the Courts of justice which the Estates had closed. The Lords of
Session appointed by the King took their seats; and Sir James Dalrymple
presided. The Club attempted to induce the advocates to absent
themselves from the bar, and entertained some hope that the mob would
pull the judges from the bench. But it speedily became clear that there
was much more likely to be a scarcity of fees than of lawyers to take
them: the common people of Edinburgh were well pleased to see again a
tribunal associated in their imagination with the dignity and prosperity
of their city; and by many signs it appeared that the false and greedy
faction which had commanded a majority of the legislature did not
command a majority of the nation, [380]




CHAPTER XIV

Disputes in the English Parliament--The Attainder of Russell
reversed--Other Attainders reversed; Case of Samuel Johnson--Case of
Devonshire--Case of Oates--Bill of Rights--Disputes about a Bill of
Indemnity--Last Days of Jeffreys--The Whigs dissatisfied with
the King--Intemperance of Howe--Attack on Caermarthen--Attack on
Halifax--Preparations for a Campaign in Ireland--Schomberg--Recess
of the Parliament--State of Ireland; Advice of Avaux--Dismission of
Melfort; Schomberg lands in Ulster--Carrickfergus taken--Schomberg
advances into Leinster; the English and Irish Armies encamp near
each other--Schomberg declines a Battle--Frauds of the English
Commissariat--Conspiracy among the French Troops in the English
Service--Pestilence in the English Army--The English and Irish Armies
go into Winter Quarters--Various Opinions about Schomberg's
Conduct--Maritime Affairs--Maladministration of Torrington--Continental
Affairs--Skirmish at Walcourt--Imputations thrown on Marlborough--Pope
Innocent XI. succeeded by Alexander VIII. --The High Church Clergy
divided on the Subject of the Oaths--Arguments for taking the
Oaths--Arguments against taking the Oaths--A great Majority of
the Clergy take the Oaths--The Nonjurors;
Ken--Leslie--Sherlock--Hickes--Collier--Dodwell--Kettlewell;
Fitzwilliam--General Character of the Nonjuring Clergy--The Plan
of Comprehension; Tillotson--An Ecclesiastical Commission
issued. --Proceedings of the Commission--The Convocation of the Province
of Canterbury summoned; Temper of the Clergy--The Clergy ill affected
towards the King--The Clergy exasperated against the Dissenters by
the Proceedings of the Scotch Presbyterians--Constitution of the
Convocation--Election of Members of Convocation; Ecclesiastical
Preferments bestowed,--Compton discontented--The Convocation meets--The
High Churchmen a Majority of the Lower House of Convocation--Difference
between the two Houses of Convocation--The Lower House of Convocation
proves unmanageable. --The Convocation prorogued

TWENTY-four hours before the war in Scotland was brought to a close by
the discomfiture of the Celtic army at Dunkeld, the Parliament broke up
at Westminster. The Houses had sate ever since January without a recess.
The Commons, who were cooped up in a narrow space, had suffered severely
from heat and discomfort; and the health of many members had given way.
The fruit however had not been proportioned to the toil. The last three
months of the session had been almost entirely wasted in disputes, which
have left no trace in the Statute Book. The progress of salutary laws
had been impeded, sometimes by bickerings between the Whigs and the
Tories, and sometimes by bickerings between the Lords and the Commons.

The Revolution had scarcely been accomplished when it appeared that
the supporters of the Exclusion Bill had not forgotten what they had
suffered during the ascendancy of their enemies, and were bent on
obtaining both reparation and revenge. Even before the throne was
filled, the Lords appointed a committee to examine into the truth of
the frightful stories which had been circulated concerning the death of
Essex. The committee, which consisted of zealous Whigs, continued its
inquiries till all reasonable men were convinced that he had fallen
by his own hand, and till his wife, his brother, and his most intimate
friends were desirous that the investigation should be carried no
further, [381] Atonement was made, without any opposition on the part
of the Tories, to the memory and the families of some other victims,
who were themselves beyond the reach of human power. Soon after the
Convention had been turned into a Parliament, a bill for reversing
the attainder of Lord Russell was presented to the peers, was speedily
passed by them, was sent down to the Lower House, and was welcomed there
with no common signs of emotion. Many of the members had sate in that
very chamber with Russell. He had long exercised there an influence
resembling the influence which, within the memory of this generation,
belonged to the upright and benevolent Althorpe; an influence derived,
not from superior skill in debate or in declamation, but from spotless
integrity, from plain good sense, and from that frankness, that
simplicity, that good nature, which are singularly graceful and winning
in a man raised by birth and fortune high above his fellows. By
the Whigs Russell had been honoured as a chief; and his political
adversaries had admitted that, when he was not misled by associates
less respectable and more artful than himself, he was as honest and
kindhearted a gentleman as any in England. The manly firmness and
Christian meekness with which he had met death, the desolation of his
noble house, the misery of the bereaved father, the blighted prospects
of the orphan children, [382] above all, the union of womanly tenderness
and angelic patience in her who had been dearest to the brave sufferer,
who had sate, with the pen in her hand, by his side at the bar, who had
cheered the gloom of his cell, and who, on his last day, had shared with
him the memorials of the great sacrifice, had softened the hearts of
many who were little in the habit of pitying an opponent. That Russell
had many good qualities, that he had meant well, that he had been hardly
used, was now admitted even by courtly lawyers who had assisted in
shedding his blood, and by courtly divines who had done their worst to
blacken his reputation. When, therefore, the parchment which annulled
his sentence was laid on the table of that assembly in which, eight
years before, his face and his voice had been so well known, the
excitement was great. One old Whig member tried to speak, but was
overcome by his feelings. "I cannot," he said, "name my Lord Russell
without disorder. It is enough to name him. I am not able to say more. "
Many eyes were directed towards that part of the house where Finch sate.
The highly honourable manner in which he had quitted a lucrative office,
as soon as he had found that he could not keep it without supporting
the dispensing power, and the conspicuous part which he had borne in the
defence of the Bishops, had done much to atone for his faults. Yet,
on this day, it could not be forgotten that he had strenuously exerted
himself, as counsel for the Crown, to obtain that judgment which was now
to be solemnly revoked. He rose, and attempted to defend his conduct:
but neither his legal acuteness, nor that fluent and sonorous elocution
which was in his family a hereditary gift, and of which none of his
family had a larger share than himself, availed him on this occasion.
The House was in no humour to hear him, and repeatedly interrupted
him by cries of "Order. " He had been treated, he was told, with great
indulgence. No accusation had been brought against him. Why then
should he, under pretence of vindicating himself, attempt to throw
dishonourable imputations on an illustrious name, and to apologise for
a judicial murder? He was forced to sit dorm, after declaring that
he meant only to clear himself from the charge of having exceeded the
limits of his professional duty; that he disclaimed all intention of
attacking the memory of Lord Russell; and that he should sincerely
rejoice at the reversing of the attainder. Before the House rose the
bill was read a second time, and would have been instantly read a third
time and passed, had not some additions and omissions been proposed,
which would, it was thought, make the reparation more complete. The
amendments were prepared with great expedition: the Lords agreed to
them; and the King gladly gave his assent, [383]

This bill was soon followed by three other bills which annulled three
wicked and infamous judgments, the judgment against Sidney, the judgment
against Cornish, and the judgment against Alice Lisle, [384]

Some living Whigs obtained without difficulty redress for injuries which
they had suffered in the late reign. The sentence of Samuel Johnson was
taken into consideration by the House of Commons. It was resolved that
the scourging which he had undergone was cruel, and that his degradation
was of no legal effect. The latter proposition admitted of no dispute:
for he had been degraded by the prelates who had been appointed to
govern the diocese of London during Compton's suspension. Compton had
been suspended by a decree of the High Commission, and the decrees
of the High Commission were universally acknowledged to be nullities.
Johnson had therefore been stripped of his robe by persons who had no
jurisdiction over him. The Commons requested the king to compensate
the sufferer by some ecclesiastical preferment, [385] William, however,
found that he could not, without great inconvenience, grant this
request. For Johnson, though brave, honest and religious, had always
been rash, mutinous and quarrelsome; and, since he had endured for his
opinions a martyrdom more terrible than death, the infirmities of his
temper and understanding had increased to such a degree that he was as
disagreeable to Low Churchmen as to High Churchmen. Like too many other
men, who are not to be turned from the path of right by pleasure, by
lucre or by danger, he mistook the impulses of his pride and resentment
for the monitions of conscience, and deceived himself into a belief
that, in treating friends and foes with indiscriminate insolence and
asperity, he was merely showing his Christian faithfulness and courage.
Burnet, by exhorting him to patience and forgiveness of injuries, made
him a mortal enemy. "Tell His Lordship," said the inflexible priest,
"to mind his own business, and to let me look after mine. " [386] It soon
began to be whispered that Johnson was mad. He accused Burnet of being
the author of the report, and avenged himself by writing libels so
violent that they strongly confirmed the imputation which they were
meant to refute. The King, therefore, thought it better to give out of
his own revenue a liberal compensation for the wrongs which the Commons
had brought to his notice than to place an eccentric and irritable man
in a situation of dignity and public trust. Johnson was gratified with a
present of a thousand pounds, and a pension of three hundred a year for
two lives. His son was also provided for in the public service, [387]

While the Commons were considering the case of Johnson, the Lords were
scrutinising with severity the proceedings which had, in the late reign,
been instituted against one of their own order, the Earl of Devonshire.
The judges who had passed sentence on him were strictly interrogated;
and a resolution was passed declaring that in his case the privileges of
the peerage had been infringed, and that the Court of King's Bench, in
punishing a hasty blow by a fine of thirty thousand pounds, had violated
common justice and the Great Charter, [388]

In the cases which have been mentioned, all parties seem to have agreed
in thinking that some public reparation was due. But the fiercest
passions both of Whigs and Tories were soon roused by the noisy claims
of a wretch whose sufferings, great as they might seem, had been
trifling when compared with his crimes. Gates had come back, like a
ghost from the place of punishment, to haunt the spots which had been
polluted by his guilt. The three years and a half which followed his
scourging he had passed in one of the cells of Newgate, except when on
certain days, the anniversaries of his perjuries, he had been brought
forth and set on the pillory. He was still, however, regarded by many
fanatics as a martyr; and it was said that they were able so far
to corrupt his keepers that, in spite of positive orders from the
government, his sufferings were mitigated by many indulgences. While
offenders, who, compared with him, were innocent, grew lean on the
prison allowance, his cheer was mended by turkeys and chines, capons and
sucking pigs, venison pasties and hampers of claret, the offerings of
zealous Protestants, [389] When James had fled from Whitehall, and when
London was in confusion, it was moved, in the council of Lords which had
provisionally assumed the direction of affairs, that Gates should be
set at liberty. The motion was rejected: [390] but the gaolers, not knowing
whom to obey in that time of anarchy, and desiring to conciliate a man
who had once been, and might perhaps again be, a terrible enemy, allowed
their prisoner to go freely about the town, [391] His uneven legs and
his hideous face, made more hideous by the shearing which his ears had
undergone, were now again seen every day in Westminster Hall and the
Court of Requests, [392] He fastened himself on his old patrons, and,
in that drawl which he affected as a mark of gentility, gave them the
history of his wrongs and of his hopes. It was impossible, he said,
that now, when the good cause was triumphant, the discoverer of the plot
could be overlooked. "Charles gave me nine hundred pounds a year. Sure
William will give me more. " [393]

In a few weeks he brought his sentence before the House of Lords by a
writ of error. This is a species of appeal which raises no question of
fact. The Lords, while sitting judicially on the writ of error, were not
competent to examine whether the verdict which pronounced Gates guilty
was or was not according to the evidence. All that they had to consider
was whether, the verdict being supposed to be according to the evidence,
the judgment was legal. But it would have been difficult even for a
tribunal composed of veteran magistrates, and was almost impossible for
an assembly of noblemen who were all strongly biassed on one side or
on the other, and among whom there was at that time not a single person
whose mind had been disciplined by the study of jurisprudence, to
look steadily at the mere point of law, abstracted from the special
circumstances of the case. In the view of one party, a party which even
among the Whig peers was probably a minority, the appellant was a
man who had rendered inestimable services to the cause of liberty and
religion, and who had been requited by long confinement, by degrading
exposure, and by torture not to be thought of without a shudder. The
majority of the House more justly regarded him as the falsest, the most
malignant and the most impudent being that had ever disgraced the human
form. The sight of that brazen forehead, the accents of that lying
tongue, deprived them of all mastery over themselves. Many of them
doubtless remembered with shame and remorse that they had been his
dupes, and that, on the very last occasion on which he had stood before
them, he had by perjury induced them to shed the blood of one of
their own illustrious order. It was not to be expected that a crowd of
gentlemen under the influence of feelings like these would act with
the cold impartiality of a court of justice. Before they came to any
decision on the legal question which Titus had brought before them,
they picked a succession of quarrels with him. He had published a paper
magnifying his merits and his sufferings. The Lords found out some
pretence for calling this publication a breach of privilege, and sent
him to the Marshalsea. He petitioned to be released; but an objection
was raised to his petition. He had described himself as a Doctor of
Divinity; and their lordships refused to acknowledge him as such. He was
brought to their bar, and asked where he had graduated. He answered, "At
the university of Salamanca. " This was no new instance of his mendacity
and effrontery. His Salamanca degree had been, during many years, a
favourite theme of all the Tory satirists from Dryden downwards; and
even on the Continent the Salamanca Doctor was a nickname in ordinary
use, [394] The Lords, in their hatred of Oates, so far forgot their own
dignity as to treat this ridiculous matter seriously. They ordered him
to efface from his petition the words, "Doctor of Divinity. " He replied
that he could not in conscience do it; and he was accordingly sent back
to gaol, [395]

These preliminary proceedings indicated not obscurely what the fate of
the writ of error would be. The counsel for Oates had been heard. No
counsel appeared against him. The judges were required to give their
opinions. Nine of them were in attendance; and among the nine were the
Chiefs of the three Courts of Common Law. The unanimous answer of these
grave, learned and upright magistrates was that the Court of King's
Bench was not competent to degrade a priest from his sacred office, or
to pass a sentence of perpetual imprisonment; and that therefore the
judgment against Oates was contrary to law, and ought to be reversed.
The Lords should undoubtedly have considered themselves as bound by this
opinion. That they knew Oates to be the worst of men was nothing to the
purpose. To them, sitting as a court of justice, he ought to have been
merely a John of Styles or a John of Nokes. But their indignation was
violently excited. Their habits were not those which fit men for the
discharge of judicial duties. The debate turned almost entirely on
matters to which no allusion ought to have been made. Not a single peer
ventured to affirm that the judgment was legal: but much was said about
the odious character of the appellant, about the impudent accusation
which he had brought against Catherine of Braganza, and about the evil
consequences which might follow if so bad a man were capable of being a
witness. "There is only one way," said the Lord President, "in which I
can consent to reverse the fellow's sentence. He has been whipped from
Aldgate to Tyburn. He ought to be whipped from Tyburn back to Aldgate. "
The question was put. Twenty-three peers voted for reversing the
judgment; thirty-five for affirming it, [396]

This decision produced a great sensation, and not without reason. A
question was now raised which might justly excite the anxiety of every
man in the kingdom. That question was whether the highest tribunal,
the tribunal on which, in the last resort, depended the most precious
interests of every English subject, was at liberty to decide judicial
questions on other than judicial grounds, and to withhold from a suitor
what was admitted to be his legal right, on account of the depravity of
his moral character. That the supreme Court of Appeal ought not to
be suffered to exercise arbitrary power, under the forms of ordinary
justice, was strongly felt by the ablest men in the House of Commons,
and by none more strongly than by Somers. With him, and with those
who reasoned like him, were, on this occasion, allied many weak and
hot-headed zealots who still regarded Oates as a public benefactor, and
who imagined that to question the existence of the Popish plot was to
question the truth of the Protestant religion. On the very morning after
the decision of the Peers had been pronounced, keen reflections were
thrown, in the House of Commons, on the justice of their lordships.
Three days later, the subject was brought forward by a Whig Privy
Councillor, Sir Robert Howard, member for Castle Rising. He was one of
the Berkshire branch of his noble family, a branch which enjoyed, in
that age, the unenviable distinction of being wonderfully fertile of
bad rhymers. The poetry of the Berkshire Howards was the jest of three
generations of satirists. The mirth began with the first representation
of the Rehearsal, and continued down to the last edition of the Dunciad,
[397] But Sir Robert, in spite of his bad verses, and of some foibles
and vanities which had caused him to be brought on the stage under the
name of Sir Positive Atall, had in parliament the weight which a stanch
party man, of ample fortune, of illustrious name, of ready utterance,
and of resolute spirit, can scarcely fail to possess, [398] When he rose
to call the attention of the Commons to the case of Oates, some Tories,
animated by the same passions which had prevailed in the other House,
received him with loud hisses. In spite of this most unparliamentary
insult, he persevered; and it soon appeared that the majority was with
him. Some orators extolled the patriotism and courage of Oates: others
dwelt much on a prevailing rumour, that the solicitors who were employed
against him on behalf of the Crown had distributed large sums of money
among the jurymen. These were topics on which there was much difference
of opinion. But that the sentence was illegal was a proposition which
admitted of no dispute. The most eminent lawyers in the House of Commons
declared that, on this point, they entirely concurred in the opinion
given by the judges in the House of Lords. Those who had hissed when
the subject was introduced, were so effectually cowed that they did
not venture to demand a division; and a bill annulling the sentence was
brought in, without any opposition, [399]

The Lords were in an embarrassing situation. To retract was not
pleasant. To engage in a contest with the Lower House, on a question on
which that House was clearly in the right, and was backed at once by the
opinions of the sages of the law, and by the passions of the populace,
might be dangerous. It was thought expedient to take a middle course. An
address was presented to the King, requesting him to pardon Oates, [400]
But this concession only made bad worse. Titus had, like every other
human being, a right to justice: but he was not a proper object of
mercy. If the judgment against him was illegal, it ought to have been
reversed. If it was legal, there was no ground for remitting any part of
it. The Commons, very properly, persisted, passed their bill, and sent
it up to the Peers. Of this bill the only objectionable part was the
preamble, which asserted, not only that the judgment was illegal, a
proposition which appeared on the face of the record to be true, but
also that the verdict was corrupt, a proposition which, whether true or
false, was not proved by any evidence at all.

The Lords were in a great strait. They knew that they were in the wrong.
Yet they were determined not to proclaim, in their legislative capacity,
that they had, in their judicial capacity, been guilty of injustice.
They again tried a middle course. The preamble was softened down: a
clause was added which provided that Oates should still remain incapable
of being a witness; and the bill thus altered was returned to the
Commons.

The Commons were not satisfied. They rejected the amendments,
and demanded a free conference. Two eminent Tories, Rochester and
Nottingham, took their seats in the Painted Chamber as managers for the
Lords. With them was joined Burnet, whose well known hatred of Popery
was likely to give weight to what he might say on such an occasion.
Somers was the chief orator on the other side; and to his pen we owe a
singularly lucid and interesting abstract of the debate.

The Lords frankly owned that the judgment of the Court of King's Bench
could not be defended. They knew it to be illegal, and had known it to
be so even when they affirmed it. But they had acted for the best. They
accused Oates of bringing an impudently false accusation against Queen
Catherine: they mentioned other instances of his villany; and they asked
whether such a man ought still to be capable of giving testimony in a
court of justice. The only excuse which, in their opinion, could be made
for him was, that he was insane; and in truth, the incredible insolence
and absurdity of his behaviour when he was last before them seemed to
warrant the belief that his brain had been turned, and that he was not
to be trusted with the lives of other men. The Lords could not therefore
degrade themselves by expressly rescinding what they had done; nor could
they consent to pronounce the verdict corrupt on no better evidence than
common report.

The reply was complete and triumphant. "Oates is now the smallest part
of the question. He has, Your Lordships say, falsely accused the Queen
Dowager and other innocent persons. Be it so. This bill gives him no
indemnity. We are quite willing that, if he is guilty, he shall be
punished. But for him, and for all Englishmen, we demand that punishment
shall be regulated by law, and not by the arbitrary discretion of any
tribunal. We demand that, when a writ of error is before Your Lordships,
you shall give judgment on it according to the known customs and
statutes of the realm. We deny that you have any right, on such
occasions, to take into consideration the moral character of a plaintiff
or the political effect of a decision. It is acknowledged by yourselves
that you have, merely because you thought ill of this man, affirmed
a judgment which you knew to be illegal. Against this assumption of
arbitrary power the Commons protest; and they hope that you will now
redeem what you must feel to be an error. Your Lordships intimate a
suspicion that Oates is mad.