This succession of adverse circumstances induced Bolingbroke to dispatch a messenger to London to inform the earl of Mar of them, and to state that, as England would not stir without assistance from abroad, and as no such assistance could be obtained, he would see that nothing as yet could be attempted. But when the messenger arrived in London, he learnt from Erasmus Lewis, Oxford's late secretary, and a very active partisan of the Jacobites, that Mar was already gone to raise the Highlands, and, if we are to believe the duke of Berwick, by the especial suggestion of the pretender himself, though he had, on the 23rd of September, in writing to Bolingbroke, expressed the necessity of the Scotch waiting till they heard further from him. If that was so, it was at once traitorous towards his supporters and very ill-advised, and was another proof to Bolingbroke of the unsafe parties with whom he was embarked in this hopeless enterprise.
GREAT SEAL OF GEORGE I.
So soon as this news reached France the pretender hastened to St. Malo in order to embark for Scotland, and Ormonde hastened over from Normandy to Devonshire to join the insurgents, whom he now expected to meet in arms. He took with him only twenty officers and as many troopers from Nugent's regiment. This was the force with which Ormonde landed in England to conquer it for the pretender. There was, however, no need of even these forty men. The English government had been beforehand with him; they had arrested all his chief coadjutors, and when he reached the appointed rendezvous there was not a man to meet him. On reaching St. Malo, Ormonde there found the pretender not yet embarked. After some conference together, Ormonde once more went on board ship to reach the English coast and make one more attempt in the hopeless expedition, but he was soon driven back by a tempest. By this time the port of St. Malo was blockaded by the English, and the pretender was compelled to travel on land to Dunkirk, where, in the middle of December, he sailed with only a single ship, for the conquest of Scotland, and attended only by half a dozen gentlemen, disguised, like himself, as French naval officers.
Mar had left London on the 2nd of August to raise the Highlands. In order to blind the agents of government he ordered a royal levee on the 1st, and on the following night got on board a collier bound for Newcastle, attended by major-general Hamilton and colonel Hay. From Newcastle they got to the coast of Fife in another vessel, and repaired to the house of John Bethune, at Elie. Thence they went to Invercauld, and on the way met five gentlemen of Fife, who complaining that government was going to deprive them of their arms, Mar advised them to summon their neighbours and rise at once; though, as nothing was ready, they could only have insured their own ruin. On the 27th there was a large meeting at Aboyne, at which were present the marquises of Huntley and Tullibardine, the dukes of Gordon and Athol, the earl marshal, the earl of Southesk, the chief of Glengarry, and others.
Mar there addressed them at great length, telling them that he bitterly repented having signed the accursed treaty of union, and was now resolved to retrieve his fault by endeavouring to restore Scotland to its ancient independence, and the rightful king to his throne. He declared that he had his majesty's command to rise; that he himself was coming; that France was ready to furnish ample supplies; and that England was ripe for insurrection. The Scotch chiefs did not appear very sanguine of success in going to war against England, and with only their own followers and resources; but they were weak enough to follow Mar's counsel. On the 6th of September he erected the standard of the chevalier at Kirkmichael, a village of Braemar. He was then only attended by sixty men; and the highland chiefs, extremely alive to omens, were startled by the gilt ball falling from the summit of the pole as it was planted in the ground. The standard was consecrated by prayers, and he was in a few days joined by about five hundred of his own vassals. The gentlemen who came on horseback, only about twenty at first, soon became several hundreds, and were named the Royal Squadron. The white cockade was assumed as the badge of the insurgent army, and clan after clan came in; first the Mackintoshes, five hundred in
