AT the request of the Northumberland rebels for a
body of infantry, as previously noticed, M'Intosh of Borlum, with a
force of about 2,500, was detached from the main army at Perth, and
descended to the coasts of Fife, covered by some squadrons of horse
under the command of Sir John Areskine of Alva, the Master of
Sinclair, and Sir James Sharp, grandson of the Archbishop. The
expeditionary force had difficulties of the first magnitude to
encounter, and such as perhaps none in the rebel camp but Brigadier
M'Intosh would successfully undertake to surmount. The royal fleet
anchored at the mouth of the Firth, and cruisers and custom-house
smacks incessantly scoured from point to point, and removed to Leith
all the boats they found, pursuant to orders from the
Commander-in-Chief. Argyle, with his forces, lay ready to take them
up should they by any accident escape the fleet; for Mar had been in
this, as in all other matters during the rebellion, a day
behindhand. The movement on Stirling, which was calculated to draw
off Argyle from molesting M'Intosh, had been executed only after the
latter had effected the passage of the Forth. A feint was made to
embark at Burntisland, while under cover of night (12th October),
the main body secretly embarked in open boats at Pittenweem, Crail,
Elie, and other places on the coast. The fleet, having espied the
embarkation, weighed anchor ; but the wind was in favour of the
rebels, and the greater number landed on the south coast. One boat
with 40 men was captured, and others were driven upon the Isle of
May, from which they got back to the coast of Fife next night. In
all about 1,600 effected the passage; and though but a small body,
the fame of the leader, the courage of his followers— who were all
picked men—and the success with which they accomplished the passage
of the Forth, augured well for the cause in which they had embarked,
and wonderfully revived the hopes of the rebels, whose spirits had
been drooping under the inactivity of Mar, and the divided councils
in the camp at Perth.
The first night they rested at Haddington; but
next day, instead of marching southward to join Dervventwater and
his friends in the north of England, as intended by their leaders,
and expected by every person, they suddenly faced about and marched
for Edinburgh. It was one of those moments in which the authority of
the chiefs, far less the military obedience to which they had never
been accustomed, failed to check the instinctive impulse of the
Highlanders.
Among the many causes conducive to the eccentric
movement, was the Highlanders' traditional respect for Edinburgh as
the capital of Scotland. What Delhi is, or was, to the Hindus, "Auld
Reekie" was to the rebels— the city of sacred recollections, the
seat of the tribunals, which they feared even while they disobeyed
them, the abode of their ancient kings, from St. David downwards,
and until recently the place of the national legislative assembly.
It is not to be forgotten that the avowed object of
the rebellion was twofold—the restoration of the Stuarts and the
repeal of the Act of Union, which from the first had been
distasteful to a large section of Scotchmen, and was by this time
reprobated nearly by all. The passage in the manifesto issued by Mar
and the leading rebels at the commencement of the struggle, bearing
upon the subject of the union, gave expression, in well chosen
words, to the feeling generally prevalent among their countrymen,
and gratified the honest but blind patriotism which sheltered itself
behind ancient associations and time-honoured prejudices:—"Our
fundamental constitution has been entirely altered and sunk amidst
the various shocks of unstable faction ; while in the searching out
of new expedients, pretended for our security, it has produced
nothing but daily disappointments, and has brought us and our
posterity under a precarious dependence upon foreign councils and
interests, and the power of foreign troops. The late unhappy
union, which was brought about by the mistaken notions of some,
and the ruinous and selfish designs of others, has proved, so far
from lessening and healing differences betwixt his Majesty's
subjects of Scotland and England, that it has widened and increased
them. And it appears by experience so inconsistent with the rights,
privileges, and interests of us and our good neighbours and
fellow-subjects of England, that the continuance of it must
inevitably ruin us, and hurt them; nor can any way be found out to
relieve us and restore our ancient and independent constitution, but
by the restoring of our rightful and natural king who has the only
undoubted right to reign over us."
The Highlanders who crossed the Forth interpreted
these declarations more strictly than Mar, who probably used them as
convenient claptrap, ever intended. If they had succeeded in
effecting a permanent footing in the capital— a thing that was
fairly within the range of probability, had the main army at Perth
been sooner on the march and led by an enterprising General—the
Scottish Parliament would have been revived, and the Stuarts
legislatively restored to their ancient kingdom of Scotland. This,
though far from an actual restoration, would be a fiction
calculated, in the temper of the times, when the strength of
prejudices under the force of clique and unionistic suppression had
acquired the virulence of concentrated poison, both to give
immediate eclat and consistency to the cause, and put the
ultimate issue upon a greater footing of equality. It proved a
providential mercy to the British nation, that James's advisers did
not at that critical period rest their claim upon the nationality
question pure and simple. True blue Presbyterians, such was the
feeling then, would risk, for a dissolution of the union, and a
total separation of the kingdoms, the advantages of the Protestant
succession, and take their chance of wrangling afterwards with a
Stuart King of Scotland about religious privileges, rather than
consent to be sacrificed (as in the Darien affair) to England's
merchants, and in the legislature to be swamped (as on the Patronage
Act) by England's commoners and peers.
There is no doubt the Highlanders had also been
deluded into taking this unexpected step by the false
representations of the Edinburgh Jacobites, who waxed confident in
their hopes of success through the absence of Argyle at Stirling,
the unprotected state of the city, and the Jacobite predilections of
the mob. The Provost, John Campbell, was, however, a staunch
Protestant, and took his measures for opposing the attempts of the
rebels with prudence and foresight. He ordered the city guards, the
trained bands, and associate-volunteers, to their respective places,
for guarding the internal peace of the city, and defending it from
the enemy. On the day the Highlanders were marching upon the city,
the volunteers issued a "Resolution" which would have done no
discredit to Louis Napoleon's fire-eating Colonels, wherein they
"protested and declared, before God and the world, that it was their
unanimous and hearty resolution, by the blessing of God, and the
assistance of such of their honest neighbours as God should inspire
with the same sentiments, whether fewer or more, under whatsoever
discouragements, to defend the city against the rebels to the utmost
extremity." The Lord Provost, very wisely, did not choose to commit
the safety of the capital to the untried valour of the associate
volunteers. On the morning of the 14th October, by the time the
Highlanders were leaving Haddington for Edinburgh, an express was
despatched from the latter city for Stirling, to inform Argyle of
the threatened advent of the rebels, and to demand a detachment of
regulars to support the loyal citizens.
Mar still slumbered at Perth, and had as yet made
no demonstration whatever to molest the Duke's front, or draw off
his attention from the detachment of rebels in the Lothians. On
receipt of the Provost's message, Argyle, with his customary
promptitude, marched at the head of 300 dragoons, and 200 picked
infantry mounted on country horses for expedition's sake, to the
relief of the capital. By ten at night the relieving force entered
the West Port, "to the unspeakable joy of the loyal inhabitants."
Argyle was joined immediately after by the horse militia of Lothian
and Merse, and a crowd of armed volunteers, who, with their
commanders the Marquis of Tweeddale and Lord Bel-haven, fled to
Edinburgh before the rebels.
The rebels, marching from the east, were within a
mile of Holyrood, when the Duke andhis reinforcements entered the
city. An exaggerated report of the Duke's arrival with his main army
brought them speedily to a halt. After a Council had been called,
they hastily marched to the right and entered Leith. They broke open
the Tolbooth, and rescued the 40 men captured in the boat while
crossing the Firth. A quantity of brandy and other provisions were
seized in the custom-house, but private property enjoyed every
immunity at the hands of these so-called robbers of the
North. Leith was an open town without fortification: but an old
square fort, called the citadel, built by Oliver Cromwell, had been
left standing, though without gates, or any protection from assault,
beyond what was afforded by a dry ditch half-filled up, and ramparts
crumbling under the effects of time. Here the rebels posted
themselves, and mounted upon the old walls pieces of cannon, which
they had audaciously seized by hoarding the ships in the harbour. In
the same manner, quantities of ammunition, and whatever else was
necessary for the defence, had been provided. That evening was so
actively employed in fortifying the old citadel, that next morning
it was found by the Commander-in-Chief to be a very respectable
place of strength in the hands of the audacious spirits who then
held it.
Argyle, who had been equally active in preparing
for an assault, led down his forces early next morning. The numbers
on both sides were nearly equal; but though Argyle had the advantage
of leading 500 regularly trained soldiers, the majority of his
troops, consisting of the militia, new levies, and volunteers, were
in nothing except in framing bold resolutions, to be matched with
the hardy sons of the north. Even their ministers, armed to the
teeth, failed to animate the associate-volunteers. Argyle, however,
summoned the rebels to lay down their arms and surrender, declaring
that if they obliged him to bring cannon to force them, and any of
his men were killed in resisting, he would grant no quarter. David
Stewart of Kynachin, Foss, a descendant of that Stewart of Garth
who, in spite of all James IV. could do,
had burned Castle Menzies in 1502, and made Sir Robert Menzies a
captive, replied resolutely to the arrogant summons of the herald,
"that as to surrendering, such a word was not in their native
language, and they laughed at it; and as to bringing cannon, and
assaulting them, they were ready for him. As to quarter, they would
neither take nor give any quarter with him ; and if he thought he
was able to force them, he might try his hand." The duke was by this
time within 200 paces of the citadel, and the enemy's balls were
grazing among his horse's feet; and finding that the fort could not
be carried without great loss, and "being unwilling to expose the
brave gentlemen-volunteers to such danger (the life of one of whom
was worth ten of the enemy), he retired to Edinburgh in the evening,
to make farther preparations for dislodging the enemy on the
morrow." Such is the account of the loyal historians, but the
Highland version differs considerably. According to the latter,
Argyle was obliged to retire on account of the universal dismay of
his soldiers, and especially of the bold gentlemen-volunteers whose
courage in presence of the enemy oozed out at their fingers'-ends. A
ludicrous panic undoubtedly seized upon the loyal host in the
retreat, and their ranks being all confused and lost, a panting mob,
and not an army, found refuge within the city gates. The incident,
which is well established, confirms the rebel account, and gives
edge to the coarse joke of the Highlanders, that "the men of the
cloak\ and bawbee could that night make a fortune in
Edinburgh"—alluding to a rude substitute for sanitary conveniences
anciently known in "Auld Reekie."
Before leaving their position in Leith, the
rebels sent an express across the Firth to Mar, for hastening his
march to Stirling; but the Earl fatuously delayed putting his army
in motion, and the detachments sent to Dunblane for making a
demonstration were driven back to Perth from fear of an attack by
Argyle, a few days after the rebels abandoned Leith.
Some hours after the Duke's forces retired, the
rebels left the citadel of Leith, and, under cover of night, marched
to Seaton Castle, seven miles from the city. The Duke, enraged at
their escape, made immediate preparations for besieging them in
their new position, but was called off from the undertaking by the
sham movement of Mar's detachments to Dunblane, which necessitated
his return to Stirling with the greater part of his forces.
He left, however, Colonel Ker, with some troops
and the gentlemen-volunteers, with orders to attack Seaton House,
but the moment the gallant horsemen appeared, a party of Highlanders
marched out of the castle and formed in order to receive them, and
so the party from Edinburgh, thinking, as at Leith, that the better
part of valour was discretion, wheeled round and returned to the
city. On the following morning (Monday, the 17th October), Lord
Torphichen and the Earl of Rothes made a similar attack, and with
similar results.
The Highlanders liked their new position too well
to be in any hurry to leave it. Their foraging parties brought in
provisions in abundance, and never had the ceathaimich a
better opportunity for driving creachs, and the opportunity
was very well used. On the 19th, however, they left Seaton House for
England, in accordance with despatches received from the Earl of
Mar, and a pressing letter from Mr. Forster, to join at Kelso or
Coldstream, without delay, the small body of rebels which had been
raised in Dumfries by Lord Kenmure. General Whitman followed the
Highlanders with his horse, but did little damage beyond capturing a
few stragglers. The Northumberland rebels were also on the March to
Kelso at the time the Highlanders left Seaton, and the three bodies
formed a junction in that town upon the 22nd October. The Scots
cavalry mustered at Kelso paid the Highlanders the well-merited
compliment of going out to meet them, and of escorting them, amidst
general enthusiasm, into the town. The Earl of Kenmure assumed the
command of the army, which now amounted to 1,500 foot and 600 horse.
