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A Heroine of "The '45"
AMONG persons concerned in
the last Jacobite Rebellion of whom tradition still lingers in Edinburgh,
not the least romantic figure is that of the lady popularly remembered as
"Bonnie Jeanie Cameron." Apparently her story was well enough known in her
time. She is referred to even in Fielding's "Tom Jones" more than once.
Yet, probably just because the events of her career were so commonly known
then, they are indistinct and uncertain now. No "life" of the lady has
been written, and all that remains to tell of what must have been a
dramatic and eventful story are a few scattered references of somewhat
conflicting sort. By means of these, however, if gathered together, it may
still be possible to throw some light upon a detail of the rising which
does not receive much attention in the histories-the after-effect on thee
lives and fortunes of individuals concerned.
To begin with, the references in Fielding's masterpiece, to which allusion
has been made, are interesting but tantalisingly vague. It will be
remembered, for example, how, when Sophia Western lies fainting in an inn
parlour, in the eleventh book, the concern and sympathy of the landlady
are greatly stimulated by the supposition that the fair sufferer is "hiss
Jenny Cameron." From so scant an allusion not much is to be gathered.
Nearly all that can be inferred is that the Jenny Cameron mentioned must
have been young and lovely. Further, when "Tom Jones" was written, about
the year 1749, a reference to hiss Jenny Cameron apparently was a matter
as plain and obvious as it is now obscure, and, from the whispered style
of the allusion, her name evidently possessed some kind of forbidden
interest.
These conclusions, scant as they are, from Fielding's reference, find
exact corroboration in what remains of popular tradition in Scotland on
the subject. The popular account- of the story of Jenny or Jeanie Cameron
is contained in an old ballad, which only the other day found its way into
print. ["Ancient Scots Ballads, with their Traditional Airs." Glasgow:
Bayley & Ferguson.]
BONNIE JEANIE CAMERON.
Yell a' ha'e heard tell o'
Bonnie Jeanie Cameron,
How she fell sick, and she was like to dee
And a' that they could recommend her
Was ae blithe blink o' the Young Pretender.
Rare, oh rare, Bonnie Jeanie Cameron !
Rare, oh rare, Jeanie Cameron !
To Charlie she wrote a very long letter,
Stating who were his friends and who were his foes;
And a' her words were sweet and tender,
To win the heart of the Young Pretender.
Rare, oh rare, Bonnie Jeanie Cameron !
Rare, oh rare, Jeanie Cameron !
Scarcely had she sealed the letter wi' a ring,
When up flew the door, and in cam' her king ;
She prayed to the saints, and bade angels defend her,
And sank in the arms o' the Young pretender.
Rare, oh rare, Bonnie Jeanie Cameron !
Rare, oh rare, Jeanie Cameron !
According to two accounts,
however, " Bonnie Jeanie Cameron" was by no means so young at the time of
the Prince's coming as popular tradition, and the rumour of the time,
embodied in " Tom Jones," would make her out to be. One of these accounts,
a most circumstantial one, furnished amply with dates and details, appears
in Ray's "Complete History of the Rebellion" (Bristol, 1752). In this
account the lady's character certainly does not suffer from any excessive
charity on the historian's part, but Pay, it is only fair to note, was a
strong Hanoverian. Jenny, according to this writer, was the favourite
daughter of Cameron of Glendessary, and was born about the year 1695. When
no more than sixteen years of age, it appears, she made her first slip
from the paths of rectitude. This occurred while she was attending school
in Edinburgh, and, to bury the scandal, her relatives hurried her off to a
convent in France. Her conduct among the nuns, however, proved no more
circumspect than it had been at home, and several further incidents, all
more or less compromising, are recorded of her there. Four years later she
was back in Scotland, and on the death of her brother, who meanwhile had
succeeded to the family estates, she secured the appointment of "tutor" or
guardian to her nephew, the new laird, who was of doubtful intellect. She
was still guardian at the time of Charles Edward's landing in 1745, and
upon that event, urged by motives of intrigue no less than of loyalty to
the Stuart cause, she raised two hundred and fifty of the clansmen,
marched with them to the Jacobite headquarters, and in person offered
their services to the prince. Her devotion, we are led to infer, met with
a warm enough return, and she remained for some time in the immediate
following of Charles. Ray refers to her again when describing the retreat
of the Jacobite army from Stirling in 1746. "From thence," he says, "the
Mock Prince fled with so much precipitation that he neglected to carry off
his female Colonel Cameron, who was taken, and, some time after, sent to
Edinburgh Castle."
Ray's account, so far as the age of the heroine is concerned, finds
support in a slight reference in the volume of "Jacobite Memoirs," edited
from the Forbes papers by Robert Chambers. In the matter of the lady's
character, however, the account in these memoirs, taken from the statement
of an eye-witness nearly concerned in the affairs of the rising, has
another thing to say. In a description of the raising of the prince's
standard in Glenfinnan, shortly after the landing on the mainland, this
writer says, "Here a considerable number of both gentlemen and ladies met
to see the ceremony. Among the rest was the famous Miss Jeanie Cameron, as
she is commonly, though very improperly called, for she is a widow nearer
fifty than forty years of age. She is a genteel, well-looking, handsome
woman, with a pair of pretty eyes, and hair as black as jet. She is of a
very sprightly genius, and is very agreeable in conversation. She was so
far from accompanying, the prince's army that she went off with the rest
of the spectators as soon as the army marched; neither did she ever follow
the camp, nor was ever with the prince but in public, when he had his
Court at Edinburgh."
The statement contained in this last sentence is hardly borne out by the
single reference to the lady in Chambers's "History of the Rebellion." It
appears in the passage describing the relief of Stirling by the Duke of
Cumberland. The castle there had been besieged by the Jacobite army for
some time after the return from the Raid to Derby, but the siege was
raised on the approach of the duke. At this entry into the town, says the
historian, "a considerable number of straggling adherents of the Chevalier
were taken prisoners, including a lady whom popular report assigned to
Charles as a mistress the celebrated Jeanie Cameron. The prisoners were
all sent to Edinburgh Castle." Chambers gives as his authority for this
capture the Edinburgh Evening Courant of 3rd February, 1746. The Scots
Magazine for November contains the notice that Miss Jeanie Cameron was
admitted to bail on November 15, after lying a prisoner nine months.
As to the subsequent fate of the Jacobite heroine testimony appears to be
equally at variance. In the "History of Rutherglen and East Kilbride," by
the Rev. David Ure, 1793, occurs an account which makes her latter days
out to have been as respectable as her earlier ones had been unjustly
maligned. The worthy minister, writing evidently from personal
acquaintance, describes his parishioner as "Mrs. Jean Cameron, a lady of a
distinguished family, character, and beauty, whose zealous attachment to
the House of Stuart, and the active part she took to support its interest
in the year 1745, made her well known throughout Britain." Her enemies,
indeed, he allows, had taken unjust freedom with her good name; "but
what," he inquires, "can the unfortunate expect from a fickle and
misjudging world?" The lady's life, at any rate within his pastoral
charge, appears to have been . irreproachable. On a small eminence named
Blacklaw, in East Kilbride, she built a house named Mount Cameron. In that
solitary retirement, notwithstanding a prevailing melancholy, she
displayed an occasional vivacity and shrewdness which, with her good
breeding and her remains of striking beauty, seemed sufficiently to
account for the notice which she had previously attracted among the
adherents of Prince Charles. Ure's claim for her of a character above
reproach finds some support from a statement which he adds. In her
retirement, it appears, the old lady was visited with much attention by
her brother and his family. This would hardly have been the case if she
had been guilty of the faux pas generally laid to her charge. She died at
Mount Cameron, according to Ure, in the year 1773, and was buried amid a
clump of trees in the grounds of the house.
If the matter stopped here there would be no difficulty for the historian.
The differences between the accounts of the heroine furnished in the
Forbes Memoirs and by Ure and Ray and by Fielding and popular folk-song
could all be reconciled by an allowance for the vagaries of popular
tradition and political bias. Popular rumour, it might be said, would be
certain to endue a heroine of Mistress Cameron's achievement with youth
and loveliness, and to add to her patriotic and loyal motive in supporting
Charles, the warmer and less disinterested one of a personal attachment.
It is in these directions that popular tradition works. Popular instinct
is never satisfied with impersonal and disinterested motives, especially
where transactions between individuals of opposite sex are concerned; and
more than one old ballad, such as "Young Waters," could be pointed to in
which exactly some such personal and passionate motive as that attributed
to Jeanie Cameron has been read into proceedings which were matters of
absolutely impersonal and dispassionate State policy. On the merits of the
case, therefore, and making these usual allowances, the historian would
probably be quite ready to acquit Mistress Cameron of any impropriety of
conduct, to accept Ray's statement that she was born in 1695, the
statement of the "Jacobite Memoirs" as to her appearance and demeanour at
Glenfinnan, and Ure's account of her latter days at Mount Cameron, and her
death in 1773. Unfortunately, however, there are two other accounts of her
final fate, which go far to lend credence to the more popular -version of
her story.
In the family by which the ballad already quoted has been preserved, there
has been handed down a story bearing on the subject. A member of the
family was, it appears, buying snuff in a shop in Edinburgh when beggar
came in. Without speaking a word the shopkeeper handed the beggar a groat,
which the latter as silently took and departed. But the customer had
noticed an unusual delicacy in the hand extended to receive the coin. He
mentioned the circumstance to the shopkeeper, where-upon the latter
informed him, to his surprise, that the beggar was no man, though in man's
clothes, but a woman, and no other than Jeanie Cameron, the prince's too
ardent sympathiser in the '45. She had, it seemed, followed Charles to
France, only to find herself neglected and cast off; and when she
returned, forlorn enough, to Scotland, it was to be met by her relatives
with set faces and closed doors.
This story finds striking corroboration in Chambers's "Traditions of
Edinburgh," 1825. In a footnote in his second volume the author says,
"Jeanie Cameron, the mistress of Prince Charles Edward (so often alluded
to in 'Tom Jones'), was seen by an old acquaintance of ours standing upon
the streets of Edinburgh, about the year eighty-six. She was dressed in
men's clothes, and had a wooden leg. This celebrated and once attractive
beauty, whose charms and Amazonian gallantry had captivated a prince,
afterwards died in a stair-foot somewhere in the Canongate."
Thus the matter seems to rest. It would almost appear as if there had been
two individuals, both of whom laid claim to the equivocal honour of having
been the "Bonnie Jeanie Cameron" of the '45.
[Among productions of the more dubious character in which the name and
fame of Bonnie Jeanie Cameron were turned to account. one may be referred
to here. Its title is "Memoirs of the Remarkable Life and surprising
Adventures of Miss Jenny Cameron, A Lady who, by her Attachment to the
Person and Cause of the Young Pretender, has render'd herself famous by
her Exploits in his Service, and for whose Sake she underwent all the
severities of a Winter's Campaign." Its author was the Rev. Archibald
Arbuthnot, one of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge, and
'Minister of Kiltarlity, in the Presbytery of Inverness. It was published
in 1746 as a true biography of the lady, but notwithstanding its reverend
authorship, it can be regarded as nothing else than au imaginary story of
the amours of a loose woman, to which the name of Jeanie Cameron was
attached to attract popular attention at a time when that name was in
every one's mouth and memory. The various scenes and passages of the work
are so gross as to be unquotable.] |
