Emery Walker Ltd. ph. sc. Lord Pitsligo of Forbes from the picture by Alexis Belle at Fettercairn House. JACOBITE LETTERS TO LORD PITSLIGO 1745-1746 Preserved at Fettercairn House EDITED WITH NOTES BY ALISTAIR AND HENRIETTA TAYLER Authors of “The Book of the Duffs,” “Lord Fife and his Factor” “Jacobites of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire in 1745,” etc. ABERDEEN MILNE & HUTCHISON 1930 PREFACE. The letters in this volume are the property of Lord Clinton, by whose desire the present editors have under-taken their production. That they should have been preserved to the present day is truly remarkable, when it is considered that Lord Pitsligo, by whom they were received (mostly while he was Governor of Elgin during the few weeks before Culloden), must have carried them with him in his flight after the battle, and concealed them about his person until he had an opportunity of leaving them with his wife at Pitsligo Castle, or with his son at Auchiries. Both these relatives seem to have been unmolested by the Government, with the result that the family pa- pers are intact and have been transmitted to the descendants of his sister, Mary, in the sixth generation, now represented by the present Lord Clinton. Former historiaas of the Forty-five were unaware of the existence of these papers, which are now printed for the first time. They throw new light on various points connected with the disastrous end of Prince Charles’ campaign, especially on the vexed question of why Cumberland’s passage of the Spey was not op- posed. They also show the unquenchable optimism in many of the Prince’s followers, not least in the amiable figure of Lord Pitsligo. The letters, copies and memoranda are printed exactly as found, the Editors having confined themselves to adding a brief resume of events and biographical sketches of the personages introduced. It has been a labour of love. ALISTAIR TAYLER. HENRIETTA TAYLER. DUFF COTTAGE, ANGMERING-ON-SEA, SUSSEX, 1st February, 1930. INTRODUCTION. “Jacobite Letters to Lord Pitsligo.” THE letters are in a packet, docketed on the outside by Sir Wil- liam Forbes, the Banker. This Sir William was great-grandson of Sir William Forbes, 4th Baronet of Monymusk, whose son, John, married Mary, sister of Lord Pitsligo. John died in his father’s lifetime, and his son became Sir William, 5th Baronet, and the son of the 5th became the 6th. Monymusk had been sold in 1711 by Sir William, the 4th Bar- onet, to Sir Francis Grant, Lord Cullen. Sir William Forbes, the Banker, noted the contents of the packet as follows:— “Letters to Lord Pitsligo from Lord George Murray. The Duke of Perth. Lord John Drummond. Sir Thomas Sheridan. Secretary Murray, etc. etc. from 2nd. September 1745 to 11th April 1746,” and added:— “These letters strongly mark the confidence reposed in Lord Pitsligo by the unfortunate grandson of King James the Second, and his Lordship’s zeal to serve the Prince during that disastrous expedition. “An expression in one of Lord Pitsligo’s letters In Sir Thomas Sheridan, dated 6th April 1746, only ten days before the battle of Culloden, is very remarkable, in which it says:— “ I hope we shall soon have more agreeable things to talk and write about, for I will never despair of the Prince’s affairs.” v INTRODUCTION. Another note is made to these letters by Sir John Stuart Forbes, 8th Baronet, grandfather of the present Lord Clinton, to the effect that these papers give— “A most curious and interesting picture of the difficulties the Prince encountered and the Trust reposed in Lord Pitsligo.” The letters themselves, which are, of course, only a very few of those received by the veteran Commander of Horse in the Prince’s army, cover, roughly, the whole period of the campaign. The first two relate to the early days and the march to Edinburgh, and two others to the time when Court was held in the Capital. A most interesting memorial of the date of the retreat from Derby follows, and several letters written just after the battle of Falkirk. From the time of the beginning of the retreat to the north, the letters are much more numerous, and from the middle of February, 1746, when Lord Pitsligo became Governor of Elgin, they are of almost daily dates. The series ends abruptly on 11th April, 1746, when the Jacobite army was compelled to abandon the line of the Spey and decide on retreat to Forres, Nairn and Culloden. Contents BIOGRAPHIES. ........................................................................................................................ 8 LORD PITSLIGO, ................................................................................................................. 8 JOHN MURRAY. .................................................................................................................. 11 LORD GEORGE MURRAY. ................................................................................................. 13 SIR THOMAS SHERIDAN. ................................................................................................. 17 COLONEL O’SULLIVAN. ...................................................................................................20 THE DUKE OF PERTH. ...................................................................................................... 22 LORD JOHN DRUMMOND. ..............................................................................................24 THE MARQUIS D’EGUILLES. ........................................................................................... 26 LORD JOHN DRUMMOND ARRIVES UPON THE SCENE. ............................................ 37 LETTERS OF 1746. ................................................................................................................. 39 COURT MARTIAL. ................................................................................................................ 69 THE FINAL STAGE. ............................................................................................................... 74 GLENBUCKET. .................................................................................................................... 81 JOHN HAY OF RESTALRIG. ............................................................................................. 84 ILLUSTRATIONS. Lord Pitsligo, from painting by Alexis Belle, now at Fettercairn .........................................................Frontispiece FACING PAGE Rebecca Norton, 1st wife of Lord Pitsligo, from painting at Fettercairn .....................................................................4 Elizabeth Allen, 2nd wife of Lord Pitsligo, from painting at Fettercairn ................................................................... 27 Pitsligo Castle, from an old print in University Library, Aberdeen ......................................................................... 52 Pitsligo Castle, from a photograph ................................................ 64 Map of the Mouth of the River Spey ............................................ 76 House of Auchiries, from an old sketch........................................ 92 Miniature of Prince Charles Edward with the Jewel of St. Andrew .....................................................................126 LORD PITSLIGO, 1745-1746. 8 BIOGRAPHIES. SHORT biographies are first given of those correspondents in Sir W. Forbes’ list (on the outside of the packet) and including the French Ambassador. Notes are added on the other writers as they occur, and also on the persons mentioned in the letters. LORD PITSLIGO, To whom the following letters were written, was a very prominent figure in the Rising. ALEXANDER FORBES, 4th and last Lord Forbes of Pitsligo, but always known as Lord Pitsligo, was the only son and heir of Al- exander, 3rd Lord Forbes of Pitsligo, and Sophia Erskine, daughter of the 4th Earl of Mar. He was born in 1678 and educated in France, where he became the friend of Fénélon. His father died in 1690, and he took his seat in the Scottish Parliament in 1700. He protested against the Act of Union between England and Scotland, and retired during the Session in which it was passed to his Castle of Pitsligo. This was an old keep of the 15th century, with walls nine feet thick, and originally consisting of three rooms only— the kitchen on the ground floor, which was twelve feet high, the living room above, twenty feet high, and the topmost floor, which was the sleeping room for the whole household, containing twenty-four beds. By the 18th century the castle had been made more habitable. Lord Pitsligo was “out” with his first cousin, the Earl of Mar, in the Rising of 1715 and escaped to France, but his name not having appeared in the list of attainders he returned to Scotland in 1720 and lived quietly. He had been married in London in 1703 to Rebecca, daughter of John Norton of Saint Lawrence by Guildhall (St. Law- rence Jewry)—by her he had one son, John, the Master of Pitsligo. The date of her death is not known, but in September, 1731, he married another English lady, Elizabeth, sister of Thomas Allen of Finchley, by whom he had no children. His loyalty to the exiled house of Stuart was constant, and though he had, it is said, no great hopes, from the outset, of the success of Prince Charles’ venture, and was, moreover, sixty-seven years of age in 1745, he decided to come out in support and to induce as many as possible of his friends and neighbours to join him. In this he was eminently successful, there being no landowner in the county at that time who was so much loved and respected. He formed a band of volunteer