The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1, Thomas Babington Macaulay [ebook pc reader txt] 📗

across the

moors, and led the army into boggy ground. Military order could

not be preserved by undisciplined and disheartened soldiers under

a dark sky, and on a treacherous and uneven soil. Panic after

panic spread through the broken ranks. Every sight and sound was

thought to indicate the approach of pursuers. Some of the

officers contributed to spread the terror which it was their duty

to calm. The army had become a mob; and the mob melted fast away.

Great numbers fled under cover of the night. Rumbold and a few

other brave men whom no danger could have scared lost their way,

and were unable to rejoin the main body. When the day broke, only

five hundred fugitives, wearied and dispirited, assembled at

Kilpatrick.


All thought of prosecuting the war was at an end: and it was

plain that the chiefs of the expedition would have sufficient

difficulty in escaping with their lives. They fled in different

directions. Hume reached the Continent in safety. Cochrane was

taken and sent up to London. Argyle hoped to find a secure asylum

under the roof of one of his old servants who lived near

Kilpatrick. But this hope was disappointed; and he was forced to

cross the Clyde. He assumed the dress of a peasant and pretended

to be the guide of Major Fullarton, whose courageous fidelity was

proof to all danger. The friends journeyed together through

Renfrewshire as far as Inchinnan. At that place the Black Cart

and the White Cart, two streams which now flow through prosperous

towns, and turn the wheels of many factories, but which then held

their quiet course through moors and sheepwalks, mingle before

they join the Clyde. The only ford by which the travellers could

cross was guarded by a party of militia. Some questions were

asked. Fullarton tried to draw suspicion on himself, in order

that his companion might escape unnoticed. But the minds of the

questioners misgave them that the guide was not the rude clown

that he seemed. They laid hands on him. He broke loose and sprang

into the water, but was instantly chased. He stood at bay for a

short time against five assailants. But he had no arms except his

pocket pistols, and they were so wet, in consequence of his

plunge, that they would not go off. He was struck to the ground

with a broadsword, and secured.


He owned himself to be the Earl of Argyle, probably in the hope

that his great name would excite the awe and pity of those who

had seized him. And indeed they were much moved. For they were

plain Scotchmen of humble rank, and, though in arms for the

crown, probably cherished a preference for the Calvinistic church

government and worship, and had been accustomed to reverence

their captive as the head of an illustrious house and as a

champion of the Protestant religion But, though they were

evidently touched, and though some of them even wept, they were

not disposed to relinquish a large reward and to incur the

vengeance of an implacable government. They therefore conveyed

their prisoner to Renfrew. The man who bore the chief part in the

arrest was named Riddell. On this account the whole race of

Riddells was, during more than a century, held in abhorrence by

the great tribe of Campbell. Within living memory, when a Riddell

visited a fair in Argyleshire, he found it necessary to assume a

false name.


And now commenced the brightest part of Argyle's career. His

enterprise had hitherto brought on him nothing but reproach and

derision. His great error was that he did not resolutely refuse

to accept the name without the power of a general. Had he

remained quietly at his retreat in Friesland, he would in a few

years have been recalled with honour to his country, and would

have been conspicuous among the ornaments and the props of

constitutional monarchy. Had he conducted his expedition

according to his own views, and carried with him no followers but

such as were prepared implicitly to obey all his orders, he might

possibly have effected something great. For what he wanted as a

captain seems to have been, not courage, nor activity, nor skill,

but simply authority. He should have known that of all wants this

is the most fatal. Armies have triumphed under leaders who

possessed no very eminent qualifications. But what army commanded

by a debating club ever escaped discomfiture and disgrace?


The great calamity which had fallen on Argyle had this advantage,

that it enabled him to show, by proofs not to be mistaken, what

manner of man he was. From the day when he quitted. Friesland to

the day when his followers separated at Kilpatrick, he had never

been a free agent. He had borne the responsibility of a long

series of measures which his judgment disapproved. Now at length

he stood alone. Captivity had restored to him the noblest kind of

liberty, the liberty of governing himself in all his words and

actions according to his own sense of the right and of the

becoming. From that moment he became as one inspired with new

wisdom and virtue. His intellect seemed to be strengthened and

concentrated, his moral character to be at once elevated and

softened. The insolence of the conquerors spared nothing that

could try the temper of a man proud of ancient nobility and of

patriarchal dominion. The prisoner was dragged through Edinburgh

in triumph. He walked on foot, bareheaded, up the whole length of

that stately street which, overshadowed by dark and gigantic

piles of stone, leads from Holyrood House to the Castle. Before

him marched the hangman, bearing the ghastly instrument which was

to be used at the quartering block. The victorious party had not

forgotten that, thirty-five years before this time, the father of

Argyle had been at the head of the faction which put Montrose to

death. Before that event the houses of Graham and Campbell had

borne no love to each other; and they had ever since been at

deadly feud. Care was taken that the prisoner should pass through

the same gate and the same streets through which Montrose had

been led to the same doom.349 When the Earl reached the Castle

his legs were put in irons, and he was informed that he had but a

few days to live. It had been determined not to bring him to

trial for his recent offence, but to put him to death under the

sentence pronounced against him several years before, a sentence

so flagitiously unjust that the most servile and obdurate lawyers

of that bad age could not speak of it without shame.


But neither the ignominious procession up the High Street, nor

the near view of death, had power to disturb the gentle and

majestic patience of Argyle. His fortitude was tried by a still

more severe test. A paper of interrogatories was laid before him

by order of the Privy Council. He replied to those questions to

which he could reply without danger to any of his friends, and

refused to say more. He was told that unless he returned fuller

answers he should be put to the torture. James, who was doubtless

sorry that he could not feast his own eyes with the sight of

Argyle in the boots, sent down to Edinburgh positive orders that

nothing should be omitted which could wring out of the traitor

information against all who had been concerned in the treason.

But menaces were vain. With torments and death in immediate

prospect Mac Callum More thought far less of himself than of his

poor clansmen. "I was busy this day," he wrote from his cell,

"treating for them, and in some hopes. But this evening orders

came that I must die upon Monday or Tuesday; and I am to be put

to the torture if I answer not all questions upon oath. Yet I

hope God shall support me."


The torture was not inflicted. Perhaps the magnanimity of the

victim had moved the conquerors to unwonted compassion. He

himself remarked that at first they had been very harsh to him,

but that they soon began to treat him with respect and kindness.

God, he said, had melted their hearts. It is certain that he did

not, to save himself from the utmost cruelty of his enemies,

betray any of his friends. On the last morning of his life he

wrote these words: "I have named none to their disadvantage. I

thank God he hath supported me wonderfully!"


He composed his own epitaph, a short poem, full of meaning and

spirit, simple and forcible in style, and not contemptible in

versification. In this little piece he complained that, though

his enemies had repeatedly decreed his death, his friends had

been still more cruel. A comment on these expressions is to be

found in a letter which he addressed to a lady residing in

Holland. She had furnished him with a large sum of money for his

expedition, and he thought her entitled to a full explanation of

the causes which had led to his failure. He acquitted his

coadjutors of treachery, but described their folly, their

ignorance, and their factious perverseness, in terms which their

own testimony has since proved to have been richly deserved. He

afterwards doubted whether he had not used language too severe to

become a dying Christian, and, in a separate paper, begged his

friend to suppress what he had said of these men "Only this I

must acknowledge," he mildly added; "they were not governable."


Most of his few remaining hours were passed in devotion, and in

affectionate intercourse with some members of his family. He

professed no repentance on account of his last enterprise, but

bewailed, with great emotion, his former compliance in spiritual

things with the pleasure of the government He had, he said, been

justly punished. One who had so long been guilty of cowardice and

dissimulation was not worthy to be the instrument of salvation to

the State and Church. Yet the cause, he frequently repeated, was

the cause of God, and would assuredly triumph. "I do not," he

said, "take on myself to be a prophet. But I have a strong

impression on my spirit, that deliverance will come very

suddenly." It is not strange that some zealous Presbyterians

should have laid up his saying in their hearts, and should, at a

later period, have attributed it to divine inspiration.


So effectually had religious faith and hope, co-operating with

natural courage and equanimity, composed his spirits, that, on

the very day on which he was to die, he dined with appetite,

conversed with gaiety at table, and, after his last meal, lay

down, as he was wont, to take a short slumber, in order that his

body and mind might be in full vigour when he should mount the