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clans were at this time acting, and it was their interest to have allowed them to go on without interruption; yet such was their impatience and their folly, that they pursued general Wade in the whole of his progress with menacing letters, and dispersed, by means of special agents every where through the Highlands, printed papers, exciting the people to resistance, which could have been productive only of their own destruction. To this madness they were doubtless driven by the sanguine hopes which James had so recently expressed, but, in the midst of all these favourable circumstances, they were soon mortified with the confession from himself, that notwithstanding the ardour of his solicitations, he could not hope for any of that assistance, which it was so gratifying to them. to hear of, for this year; but he hoped the winter would bring something more favourable to his views, and their ardent expectations. In the meantime, he despatched to the Highlands Allan Cameron, one who had been for some time about his court, to keep alive there the flame of rebellion; and amused his trustees, as he styled them, with plans for corrupting the leading men opposed to his views, appointing generals, &c. to act when this imaginary restoration should be attempted.+ All their activity, however, was rendered unavailing by that discord and spirit of babbling that reigned in his cabinet, and seems to have actuated all his followers. Marr had long before this, become, from an object of envy, a subject of suspicion to many of his fellows in exile. He had accepted of a pension of two thousand a year from the government for himself, his wife and daughter had also fifteen hundred per annum, by way of jointure and aliment, out of the product of his estate; and it was strongly suspected, that all this money was not bestowed without some advantage accruing to the government which so liberally bestowed it. The banishment of the bishop of Rochester, was an unlucky affair for himself, as well as for his party; and the English government, it was alleged, had been enabled to accomplish it by the secret services of Marr. Of course Rochester was Marr's inveterate enemy, and was scarcely landed in France, when he began to cabal, though secretly, with his detractors.

* Report of General Wade, &c.

+ Lockhart Papers, vol. ii.

P.

239.

The consequence was an open rupture with Marr and a party of the pretender's followers, in which they had the address to involve the pretender himself, though at the expense of a rupture in his own family, and during this year, the correspondence between him and his friends, was principally occupied with accusations and defences of that celebrated traitor, who still stood high in the estimation of many of those who had the interest of the pretender seriously at heart, and were in every point of view the best qualified to promote it—even the queen, as she was styled by the Jacobites, by whom she seems to have been fully as much respected as her husband, was partial to Marr, and evidently considered his disgrace as the fruit of spiteful cunning, and of low intrigue; and she carried her resentment so far against the persons she supposed the authors thereof, lord and lady Inverness, as to desert her own house and take refuge in a convent.* This last circumstance

*The following is a memoire which the pretender sent to his friends in Scotland on this extraordinary incident in his family :

"It has been the constant practice of the king's enemies to project measures for sowing divisions and misunderstandings amongst those who are thoroughly fixed in their loyalty to his majesty, and are most capable to serve him; and by the means of those who still pretended to adhere to it, to draw him by specious appearances into steps against his honour and the good of his service.

"His majesty had reason to think, that by the prudent measures he had taken, he would not have been much troubled for the future by such contrivances; but these days past have afforded but too strong and too publick an instance of the contrairy.

"It is some time since the king suspected that his enemies and pretended friends, finding that they could not impose upon his majesty, were endeavouring, by malicious insinuations, to animate the queen against his majesty's most faithful servants, and particularly against him who had the greatest share in his confidence and affairs, in hopes, no doubt, by that means to compass what they despaired of being able to come at by any other; and they so far succeeded, that for some time past, the queen could not conceal her dislike to such persons, and the king could easily see, that her behaviour towards himself was altered, altho' he could not discover any real ground for either one or t'other. His majesty was therefore willing to impute them to ill offices and humour which he hoped would pass, with a little time and patience on his part, and therefore he did not make any change in his conduct towards the queen, who, ever since her marriage, had been entirely mistress of his purse, such as it is in his bad circumstances. His majesty also continued to

gave great uneasiness to the Jacobites, as it afforded a handle to their opponents for ridiculing the character of James, and might be improved by the papal powers as a reason for witholding that aid, upon which his principal hopes depended. James,

her the same liberty she had always enjoyed, of going out and coming home when she pleased, of seeing what company she liked best, and of corresponding with whom she thought fit, and to encourage her diverting and amusing herself more than had hitherto appeared agreeable to her inclinations.

"In this state of things the king could not but be astonished to the last degree, when he was told by one much in the queen's confidence, that if he did not dismiss the earl of Inverness from his service, she would retire into a convent, altho' she did not give any reason for so extraordinary a proposal and resolution; and on Friday last the queen told the king herself that she was resolved to retire, but still without bringing any reasons for it, and has seemed to persist ever since in this resolution, tho' without coming to the execution, altho' on the Friday she had actually taken leave of some ladys here on that account.

"The king could not but be sensible of the indignity done him by this publick way of proceeding; but as he was persuaded the queen had been misled, and might be reclaimed, he had much more compassion for her having thus exposed herself, than resentment against the unjust eclat she had made, and therefore not only continued to live with her as usual, but invited her in the most moving terms to own her error and return to her duty, neither of which she has yet done, but it is to be hoped she soon will, by the prudent and moderate measures the king is taking in order to reclaim her.

"The king really thought all this while that lord Inverness was the chief object of these designs, for tho' her majesty's great and publick uneasyness had begun on her first being acquainted with the princes' being to be taken out of Mrs. Sheldon's hands, yet her majesty had expressed herself to severall persons, favourably of lord Dunbar, and had never mentioned to the king the least dislike or disapprobation of that lord's being governour to the prince, which made it appear the more extraordinary to his majesty, when in a conversation he had on Monday last with a person of great worth and consideration of this place (who he knew had been endeavouring to prevail on her majesty not to do both the king and herself the injury of retireing into a convent) he found that she was, if possible, more uneasy on lord Dunbar's account than on lord Inverness's, under pretence that the princes' religion was in danger while he had the care of them, and that her majesty was persuaded that those two lords were obnoxious to his English friends, and that their being about his person was one of the greatest obstacles to his restoration.

"As lord Inverness was extremely afflicted at the queen's behaviour on this occasion, and to think that he might be represented as the unfortunate, tho' innocent occasion of a disunion betwixt their majesties, he did most earnestly intreat of the king, that he would allow him to retire from business, which nothing but his majesty's orders to the contrairy, in the most peremptory mau

however, maintained his own part with characteristic obstinacy; and with a felicitous self-complacency, which is generally the sheet-anchor of the unfortunate, persuaded himself, and attempted to persuade all his friends of the same thing, that upon

ner, could have prevented; his majesty having, at the same time, assured both lord Dunbar and him that their remaining in his service under circumstances so very disagreeable, was the strongest instance they could possibly give him of their inviolable attachment to his person and cause.

"All these facts and circumstances put together, it is very easy to see, that in all these matters the queen must have been originally imposed upon, and guided, not by turbulent and factious friends, but by real enemies, who would have drove the king to that extremity, as either to see his wife abandon him, or by yielding to her unjust demands, give up the management of his children and his affairs, and put himself into the hands, not of the queen, but of those who, it was manifest, had in their view the ruin of both.

"The king is sensible how prejudicial to his interest, this unfortunate eclat must be, but he is persuaded that the malice of his enemies on this occasion must turn against themselves, when the true state of the question is known." After having seen the colour put upon this affair by James himself, it is but natural that the reader should have a desire to see what his queen had to say for herself. This desire, the following letter, written by her on this occasion, will, we should suppose, fully gratify :

"Dear Sister, I received yours of the third of November. I was so much in haste when I wrote you last that I had not time to inform you of a piece of newes, which I doubt not has very much surprised you. Mr. Hay and his lady [lord and lady Inverness] are the cause that I am retired into a convent. I received your letter in their behalf, and returned you ane answer only to do you a pleasure, and to oblige the king; but it all has been to no purpose, for instead of making them my friends, all the civilitys I have shown them have only served to render them more insolent. Their unworthy treatment of me has in short reduced me to such an extremity, and I am in such a cruel situation, that I had rather suffer death than live in the king's palace with persons that have no religion, honour, nor conscience, and who, not content with having been the authors of so fatall a separation betwixt the king and me, are continually teazing him every day to part with his best friends and his most faithful subjects. This at length determined me to retire into a convent, there to spend the rest of my days in lamenting my misfortunes, after having been fretted for six years together by the most mortifying indignitys and affronts that can be imagined. I desire you to make my compliments to the bishop of Ambrun, and to tell him from me, that as I take him to be my friend 1 doubt not but he will do me justice on this occasion. He is very sensible that they were strong and pressing reasons that determined me to take so strange a resolution, and he has been a witness of the retired life I always led. And you, my dear sister, ought to have the same charity for me. But whatever happen, I assure you that I should rather chuse to be silent under

the whole his affairs, instead of being retarded, would be in no small degree promoted by the circumstance; and seems, if we may give credit to his own letters, not to have been afraid for the displeasure of the pope himself:-" The court of Rome," he remarks," at first saw clearly the unreasonableness of the queen's insisting on Inverness's removal, but they are now endeavouring to remove James Murray from my son. The pope sent to tell me that if he were removed, and Mrs. Sheldon taken back into favour, that he hoped matters might be made up between the queen and me-what he said of Mrs. Sheldon, was only by way of entreaty, but as for Murray, he could not approve or consent to his being about my son. To which I replied, that I had no occasion for the pope's advice in an affair which concerned my private family. It has been talked of in Rome, as if the pope might take from me the pension he gives me; but neither threats of this kind, nor any want of regard the pope may shew me, will induce me to alter my conduct, and will only serve to afford me an opportunity of shewing my subjects that nothing can make me alter a conduct which I think right and just."*

In less than a month after writing the above, however, James Murray, was removed. Nor did his removal satisfy the pontiff:-"We are now persecuted in matters of religion," says Inverness, writing to Lockhart in the month of January, 1726, " and instances are made to make us give over our prayers in the family, as we have practised them ever since the king has been in Rome, but he has declared positively that he will not forbid them, and I have told the pope's secretary, after using all the arguments I could to dissuade him from entering into that affair, as to which he is convinced the pope is in the wrong, that, nevertheless, if the pope insist on it, we will of ourselves desist, providing that he give it me in writing that he will have it so, which I find they do not care to do, lest it might be brought as an example and applied to the papists at home, and

censure than to offer at the least thing which may prejudice either the person or affairs of the king, for whom I alwayes had, notwithstanding my unhappy situation, and for whom I shall retain as long as I live a sincere and respectful affection."-Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. p. 243—245, 265, 266.

* Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. pp. 253, 254.

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