The History of England, from the Accession of James II Volume III Part 30

[Footnote 281: Creichton's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 282: Mackay's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 283: Memoirs of the Lindsays.]

[Footnote 284: About the early relation between William and Dundee, some Jacobite, many years after they were both dead, invented a story which by successive embellishments was at last improved into a romance which it seems strange that even a child should believe to be true. The last edition runs thus. William's horse was killed under him at Seneff, and his life was in imminent danger. Dundee, then Captain Graham, mounted His Highness again. William promised to reward this service with promotion but broke his word and gave to another the commission which Graham had been led to expect. The injured hero went to Loo. There he met his successful compet.i.tor, and gave him a box on the ear. The punishment for striking in the palace was the loss of the offending right hand; but this punishment the Prince of Orange ungraciously remitted. "You," he said, "saved my life; I spare your right hand: and now we are quits."]

Those who down to our own time, have repeated this nonsense seem to have thought, first, that the Act of Henry the Eighth "for punishment of murder and malicious bloodshed within the King's Court" (Stat 33 Hen.

VIII. c. 2.) was law in Guelders; and, secondly, that, in 1674, William was a King, and his house a King's Court. They were also not aware that he did not purchase Loo till long after Dundee had left the Netherlands.

See Harris's Description of Loo, 1699.]

This legend, of which I have not been able to discover the slightest trace in the voluminous Jacobite literature of William's reign, seems to have originated about a quarter of a century after Dundee's death, and to have attained its full absurdity in another quarter of a century.]

[Footnote 285: Memoirs of the Lindsays.]

[Footnote 286: Ibid.]

[Footnote 287: Burnet, ii. 22.; Memoirs of the Lindsays.]

[Footnote 288: Balcarras's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 289: Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 14. 1689; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; An Account of the Proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, fol. Lond. 1689.]

[Footnote 290: Balcarras's narrative exhibits both Hamilton and Athol in a most unfavourable light. See also the Life of James, ii. 338, 339.]

[Footnote 291: Act. Parl. Scot., March 14. 1688/9; Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland; Life of James, ii. 342.]

[Footnote 292: Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690.]

[Footnote 293: Act. Parl. Scot., March 14. and 15. 1689; Balcarras's Memoirs; London Gazette, March 25.; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Account of the Proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, 1689.]

[Footnote 294: See Cleland's Poems, and the commendatory poems contained in the same volume, Edinburgh, 1697. It has been repeatedly a.s.serted that this William Cleland was the father of William Cleland, the Commissioner of Taxes, who was well known twenty year later in the literary society of London, who rendered some not very reputable services to Pope, and whose son John was the author of an infamous book but too widely celebrated. This is an entire mistake. William Cleland, who fought at Bothwell Bridge, was not twenty-eight when he was killed in August, 1689; and William Cleland, the Commissioner of Taxes, died at sixty-seven in September, 1741. The former therefore cannot have been the father of the latter. See the Exact Narrative of the Battle of Dunkeld; the Gentleman's Magazine for 1740; and Warburton's note on the Letter to the Publisher of the Dunciad, a letter signed W. Cleland, but really written by Pope. In a paper drawn up by Sir Robert Hamilton, the oracle of the extreme Covenanters, and a bloodthirsty ruffian, Cleland is mentioned as having been once leagued with those fanatics, but afterwards a great opposer of their testimony. Cleland probably did not agree with Hamilton in thinking it a sacred duty to cut the throats of prisoners of war who had been received to quarter. See Hamilton's Letter to the Societies, Dec 7. 1685.]

[Footnote 295: Balcarras's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 296: Balcarras's Memoirs. But the fullest account of these proceedings is furnished by some ma.n.u.script notes which are in the library of the Faculty of Advocates. Balcarras's dates are not quite exact. He probably trusted to his memory for them. I have corrected them from the Parliamentary Records.]

[Footnote 297: Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 16. 1688/9; Balcarras's Memoirs; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690; Account of the Proceedings of the Estates of Scotland, 1689; London Gaz., Mar. 25.

1689; Life of James, ii. 342. Burnet blunders strangely about these transactions.]

[Footnote 298: Balcarras's Memoirs; MS. in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates.]

[Footnote 299: Act. Parl. Scot., Mar. 19. 1688/9; History of the late Revolution in Scotland, 1690.]

[Footnote 300: Balcarras.]

[Footnote 301: Ibid.]

[Footnote 302: Act. Parl. Scot.; History of the late Revolution, 1690; Memoirs of North Britain, 1715.]

[Footnote 303: Balcarras.]

[Footnote 304: Every reader will remember the malediction which Sir Walter Scott, in the Fifth Canto of Marmion, p.r.o.nounced on the dunces who removed this interesting monument.]

[Footnote 305: "It will be neither secuir nor kynd to the King to expect it be (by) Act of Parliament after the settlement, which will lay it at his door."--Dalrymple to Melville, 5 April, 1689; Leven and Melville Papers.]

[Footnote 306: There is a striking pa.s.sage on this subject in Fortescue.]

[Footnote 307: Act. Parl. Scot., April 1 1689; Orders of Committee of Estates, May 16. 1689; London Gazette, April 11]

[Footnote 308: As it has lately been denied that the extreme Presbyterians entertained an unfavourable opinion of the Lutherans, I will give two decisive proof of the truth of what I have a.s.serted in the text. In the book ent.i.tled Faithful Contendings Displayed is a report of what pa.s.sed at the General Meeting of the United Societies of Covenanters on the 24th of October 1688. The question was propounded whether there should be an a.s.sociation with the Dutch. "It was concluded unanimously," says the Clerk of the Societies, "that we could not have an a.s.sociation with the Dutch in one body, nor come formally under their conduct, being such a promiscuous conjunction of reformed Lutheran malignants and sectaries, to loin with whom were repugnant to the testimony of the Church of Scotland." In the Protestation and Testimony drawn up on the 2nd of October 1707, the United Societies complain that the crown has been settled on "the Prince of Hanover, who has been bred and brought up in the Lutheran religion which is not only different from, but even in many things contrary unto that purity in doctrine, reformation, and religion, we in these nations had attained unto, as is very well known." They add "The admitting such a person to reign over us is not only contrary to our solemn League and Covenant, but to the very word of G.o.d itself, Deut. xvii."]

[Footnote 309: History of the late Revolution in Scotland; London Gazette, May 16, 1689. The official account of what pa.s.sed was evidently drawn up with great care. See also the Royal Diary, 1702. The writer of this work professes to have derived his information from a divine who was present.]

[Footnote 310: See Crawford's Letters and Speeches, pa.s.sim. His style of begging for a place was peculiar. After owning, not without reason, that his heart was deceitful and desperately wicked, he proceeded thus: "The same Omnipotent Being who hath said, when the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, he will not forsake them; notwithstanding of my present low condition, can build me a house if He think fit."--Letter to Melville, of May 28. 1689. As to Crawford's poverty and his pa.s.sion for Bishops' lands, see his letter to Melville of the 4th of December 1690. As to his humanity, see his letter to Melville, Dec 11 1690. All these letters are among the Leven and Melville Papers, The author of An Account of the Late Establishment of Presbyterian Government says of a person who had taken a bribe of ten or twelve pounds, "Had he been as poor as my Lord Crawford, perhaps he had been the more excusable." See also the dedication of the celebrated tract ent.i.tled Scotch Presbyterian Eloquence Displayed.]

[Footnote 311: Burnet, ii. 23. 24.; Fountainhall Papers, 73, Aug, 1684; 14. and 15. Oct. 1684; 3. May, 1685; Montgomery to Melville, June 22.

1689, in the Leven and Melville Papers; Pretences of the French Invasion Examined; licensed May 25. 1692.]

[Footnote 312: See the Life and Correspondence of Carstairs, and the interesting memorials of him in the Caldwell Papers, printed 1854. See also Mackay's character of him, and Swift's note. Swift's word is not to be taken against a Scotchman and a Presbyterian. I believe, however, that Carstairs, though an honest and pious man in essentials, had his full share of the wisdom of the serpent.]

[Footnote 313: Sir John Dalrymple to Lord Melville, June 18. 20 25.

1689; Leven and Melville Papers.]

[Footnote 314: There is an amusing description of Sir Patrick in the Hyndford MS., written about 1704, and printed among the Carstairs Papers. "He is a lover of set speeches, and can hardly give audience to private friends without them."]

[Footnote 315: "No man, though not a member, busier than Saltoun."--Lockhart to Melville, July 11 1689; Leven and Melville Papers. See Fletcher's own works, and the descriptions of him in Lockhart's and Mackay's Memoirs.]

[Footnote 316: Dalrymple says, in a letter of the 5th of June, "All the malignant, for fear, are come into the Club; and they all vote alike."]

[Footnote 317: Balcarras.]

[Footnote 318: Captain Burt's Letters from Scotland.]

[Footnote 319: "Shall I tire you with a description of this unfruitful country, where I must lead you over their hills all brown with heath, or their valleys scarce able to feed a rabbit..., Every part of the country presents the same dismal landscape. No grove or brook lend their music to cheer the stranger,"--Goldsmith to Bryanton, Edinburgh, Sept. 26.

1753. In a letter written soon after from Leyden to the Reverend Thomas Contarine, Goldsmith says, "I was wholly taken up in observing the face of the country, Nothing can equal its beauty. Wherever I turned my eye, fine houses, elegant gardens, statues, grottos, vistas presented themselves, Scotland and this country bear the highest contrast: there, hills and rocks intercept every prospect; here it is all a continued plain." See Appendix C, to the First Volume of Mr. Forster's Life of Goldsmith,]

[Footnote 320: Northern Memoirs, by R. Franck Philanthropus, 1690. The author had caught a few glimpses of Highland scenery, and speaks of it much as Burt spoke in the following generation: "It is a part of the creation left undressed; rubbish thrown aside when the magnificent fabric of the world was created; as void of form as the natives are indigent of morals and good manners."]

[Footnote 321: Journey through Scotland, by the author of the Journey through England, 1723.]

[Footnote 322: Almost all these circ.u.mstances are taken from Burt's Letters. For the tar, I am indebted to Cleland's poetry. In his verses on the "Highland Host" he says

"The reason is, they're smeared with tar, Which doth defend their head and neck, Just as it doth their sheep protect."]

[Footnote 323: A striking ill.u.s.tration of the opinion which was entertained of the Highlander by his Lowland neighbours, and which was by them communicated to the English, will be found in a volume of Miscellanies published by Afra Behn in 1685. One of the most curious pieces in the collection is a coa.r.s.e and profane Scotch poem ent.i.tled, "How the first Hielandman was made." How and of what materials he was made I shall not venture to relate. The dialogue which immediately follows his creation may be quoted, I hope, without much offence.

"Says G.o.d to the Hielandman, 'Quhair wilt thou now?'

'I will down to the Lowlands, Lord, and there steal a cow.'