A Jacobite Exile | Page 2

hopeless, and therefore preserved
my property, when many others were ruined.
"No, Marmaduke, it is just as well that the house was not fortified. I
believe in fighting, when there is some chance, even a slight one, of
success, but I regard it as an act of folly, to throw away a life when no
good can come of it."

Still, Sir Marmaduke never ceased to regret that Lynnwood was not one
of the houses that had been defended, to the last, against the enemies of
the king. At the Restoration he went, for the first time in his life, to
London, to pay his respects to Charles the Second. He was well
received, and although he tired, in a very short time, of the gaieties of
the court, he returned to Lynnwood with his feelings of loyalty to the
Stuarts as strong as ever. He rejoiced heartily when the news came of
the defeat of Monmouth at Sedgemoor, and was filled with rage and
indignation when James weakly fled, and left his throne to be occupied
by Dutch William.
From that time, he became a strong Jacobite, and emptied his glass
nightly "to the king over the water." In the north the Jacobites were
numerous, and at their gatherings treason was freely talked, while arms
were prepared, and hidden away for the time when the lawful king
should return to claim his own. Sir Marmaduke was deeply concerned
in the plot of 1696, when preparations had been made for a great
Jacobite rising throughout the country. Nothing came of it, for the
Duke of Berwick, who was to have led it, failed in getting the two
parties who were concerned to come to an agreement. The Jacobites
were ready to rise, directly a French army landed. The French king, on
the other hand, would not send an army until the Jacobites had risen,
and the matter therefore fell through, to Sir Marmaduke's indignation
and grief. But he had no words strong enough to express his anger and
disgust when he found that, side by side with the general scheme for a
rising, a plot had been formed by Sir George Barclay, a Scottish
refugee, to assassinate the king, on his return from hunting in
Richmond Forest.
"It is enough to drive one to become a Whig," he exclaimed. "I am
ready to fight Dutch William, for he occupies the place of my rightful
sovereign, but I have no private feud with him, and, if I had, I would
run any man through who ventured to propose to me a plot to
assassinate him. Such scoundrels as Barclay would bring disgrace on
the best cause in the world. Had I heard as much as a whisper of it, I
would have buckled on my sword, and ridden to London to warn the
Dutchman of his danger. However, as it seems that Barclay had but

some forty men with him, most of them foreign desperadoes, the
Dutchman must see that English gentlemen, however ready to fight
against him fairly, would have no hand in so dastardly a plot as this.
"Look you, Charlie, keep always in mind that you bear the name of our
martyred king, and be ready ever to draw your sword in the cause of the
Stuarts, whether it be ten years hence, or forty, that their banner is
hoisted again; but keep yourself free from all plots, except those that
deal with fair and open warfare. Have no faith whatever in politicians,
who are ever ready to use the country gentry as an instrument for
gaining their own ends. Deal with your neighbours, but mistrust
strangers, from whomsoever they may say they come."
Which advice Charlie, at that time thirteen years old, gravely promised
to follow. He had naturally inherited his father's sentiments, and
believed the Jacobite cause to be a sacred one. He had fought and
vanquished Alured Dormay, his second cousin, and two years his
senior, for speaking of King James' son as the Pretender, and was ready,
at any time, to do battle with any boy of his own age, in the same cause.
Alured's father, John Dormay, had ridden over to Lynnwood, to
complain of the violence of which his son had been the victim, but he
obtained no redress from Sir Marmaduke.
"The boy is a chip of the old block, cousin, and he did right. I myself
struck a blow at the king's enemies, when I was but eight years old, and
got my skull well-nigh cracked for my pains. It is well that the lads
were not four years older, for then, instead of taking to fisticuffs, their
swords would have been out, and as my boy has, for the last four years,
been exercised daily in the use of his weapon,