Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 | Page 7

with few exceptions, were soon
under the control of the insurgents. An attempt was made upon the
southern parts of Scotland, by sending Brigadier Mackintosh, with a
strong detachment of men, to cross the Firth of Forth, and to land in the
Lothians, there expecting to be joined by friends on the borders and
from England. In the west, a rising of the south-country Scots, under
the command of Lord Kenmure, was projected; whilst in
Northumberland the English Jacobites, headed by Mr. Forster, with a
commission of General from Lord Mar, and aided by the Earl of
Derwentwater, was to give the signal and incentive to the adherents of
James in the sister Kingdom, as well as to co-operate with the Scottish
forces under the commands of Brigadier Mackintosh and Viscount
Kenmure. An attack upon Edinburgh was also concerted.
Such is the outline of a plan of an insurrection to the effect of which the
Earl of Mar declared the Jacobites had been looking for six and twenty

years. How immature it was in its conception--how deficient in energy
and union was its execution--how unworthy was its chief
instrument--how fatal to the good and great were its results--and, by a
singular fortune, how those who least merited their safety escaped,
whilst the gallant and honest champions of the cause suffered, will be
fully detailed in the following pages. Let it be remembered that the task
of compiling these Memoirs has been undertaken with no party spirit,
nor with any wish to detract from the deep obligations which we owe to
those who preserved us from inroads on our constitution, and
oppression in our religious opinions. It has been, however, begun with
a sincere wish to do justice to the disinterested and the good; and, as
the task has proceeded, and increased information on the subject has
been gained, it has been continued with a conviction that, whatever
may be the nature or merits of the abstract principles on which it was
undertaken, the Insurrection of 1715 forms an episode in the history of
our country as creditable to many of the ill-fated actors in its tragic
scenes, as any that have been detailed in the pages of that history.
LONDON, October 28, 1845.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Dalrymple.
[2] Rapin. Dissertation on the Origin and Government of England, vol.
xiv. p. 423.
[3] See Introduction to the Memoirs of Cameron of Lochiel, p. 22.
[4] Lockhart, vol. i. p. 239.
[5] Lockhart, vol. i. p. 324.
[6] Reay, p. 187.

CONTENTS

TO
THE FIRST VOLUME.
PAGE JOHN ERSKINE, EARL OF MAR (with a Portrait) 1
JAMES RADCLIFFE, EARL OF DERWENTWATER (with a Portrait)
224
THE MASTER OF SINCLAIR 282
CAMERON OF LOCHIEL 313

MEMOIRS OF THE JACOBITES.

JOHN ERSKINE, EARL OF MAR.
"The title of Mar," observes Lord Hailes, "is one of the Earldoms
whose origin is lost in its antiquity." It existed before our records, and
before the era of general history: hence, the Earls of Mar claimed
always to be called first in the Scottish Parliament in the roll of Earls,
as having no rival in the antiquity of their honours.
From the time of Malcolm Canmore, in the year 1065, until the
fourteenth century, the family of De Mar enjoyed this Earldom; but on
the death of Thomas, the thirteenth Earl of Mar, in 1377, the direct
male line of this race ended. The Earldom then devolved upon the
female representatives of the house of De Mar; and thence, as in most
similar instances in Scotland, it became the subject of contention, fraud,
and violence.
Isabel, Countess of Mar and Garioch, the last of the De Mar family,
was won in marriage by a singular and determined species of courtship,
formerly common in Scotland; the influence of terror. The heiress of
the castle of Kildrummie, and a widow, her first husband, Sir Malcolm
Drummond, having died in 1403, her wealth and rank attracted the

regards of Alexander Stewart, the natural son of Robert Earl of Buchan,
of royal blood. Without waiting for the ordinary mode of persuasion to
establish an interest in his favour, this wild, rapacious man appeared in
the Highlands at the head of a band of plunderers, and planting himself
before the castle of Kildrummie, stormed it, and effected a marriage
between himself and the Countess of Mar. Alexander Stewart, in cooler
moments, however, perceived the danger of this bold measure, and
resolved to establish his right to the Countess and to her estates by
another process. One morning, during the month of September 1404, he
presented himself at the Castle gate of Kildrummie, and formally
surrendered to the Countess the castle, its furniture, and the title-deeds
kept within its chests; thus returning them to her to do with them as she
pleased. The Countess, on