lower gate of the city, and another party of sixty men was directed to follow them half-way up St Mary's Wynd, to be ready to support them, while a third body, still farther removed, and finally the remainder of the detachment, were to come up in succession to the support of the rest. In the event of these dispositions succeeding without observation from the sentinels on the walls, it had been arranged that a Highlander in a lowland garb should knock at the wicket and demand entrance as a servant of an officer of dragoons, who had been sent by his master to bring him something he had forgot in the city; and that if the wicket was opened, the party stationed on each side of the gate should immediately rush in, seize the guard, and make themselves masters of the gate. The different parties having taken the stations assigned them without being perceived by the guards, the disguised Highlander knocked at the gate and stated his pretended errand ; but the guard refused to open the gate, and the sentinels on the walls threatened to fire upon the applicant if he did not instantly retire. The commanders were puzzled by this unexpected refusal, and were at a loss how to act. It was now near five o'clock, and the morning was about to dawn. The alternative of an assault seemed inevitable, but fortunately for the city, the Highlanders were destined to obtain by accident what they could not effect by stratagem.

While the party at the gate was about to retire to the main body in consequence of the disappointment they had met with, their attention was attracted by the rattling of a carriage, which, from the increasing sound, appeared to be coming down the High-street towards the Netherbow-port. It was, in fact, the hackney coach which had been hired by the deputies, which was now on its way back to the Canongate, where the hackney coaches used by the citizens of Edinburgh were at that time kept. The Highlanders stationed at the gate stood prepared to enter, and as soon as it was opened to let out the coach, the whole party, headed by Captain Evan Macgregor, a younger son of Macgregor of Glencairnaig, rushed in, made themselves masters of the gate, and disarmed the guard in an instant. In a short time the whole of the Highlanders followed, with drawn swords and targets, and setting up one of those hideous and terrific yells with which they salute an enemy they are about to encounter, marched quickly up the wide and spacious street in perfect order, in expectation of meeting the foe;† but to the surprise, no less than the pleasure of the Highlanders, not a single armed man was to be seen in the street. With the exception of a few half-awakened spectators, who, roused from their slumbers by the shouts of the Highlanders, had jumped out of bed, and were to be seen peeping out at the windows in their sleeping habiliments, all the rest of the inhabitants were sunk in profound repose.

Having secured the guard-house and disarmed the guards who were within, the Highlanders took possession of the different gates of the city and of the stations upon the walls. They made the guards + Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. p. 488.

Kirkconnel MS.

prisoners, and replaced them with some of their own men, with as much quietness as if they had been merely changing their own guard. The Highlanders conducted themselves on this occasion with the greatest order and regularity, no violence being offered to any of the inhabitants, and the utmost respect was paid to private property.

Anxious about the result, Charles had slept only two hours, and that without taking off his clothes. At an early hour he received intelligence of the capture of the city, and immediately prepared to march towards it with the rest of the army. To avoid the castle guns, the prince took a circuitous direction to the south of the city, till he reached Braidsburn, when, turning towards the city, he marched as far as the Buck Stone,† a mass of granite on the side of the turnpike road, near Morning-side. On reaching this stone, he drew off his army by a solitary cross road, leading to Causewayside and Newington. Arriving near Priestfield, he entered the king's park by a breach, which had been made in the wall, and proceeded to the Hunter's bog, a deep valley between Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, where his army was completely sheltered from the guns of the castle.

Charles was now within the royal domains, and little more than a quarter of a mile from the royal palace of Holyrood, where his grandfather, James the Second, when duke of York, had, about sixty years before, exercised the functions of royalty, as the representative of his brother Charles the Second. Sanguine as he was, he could scarcely have imagined that within the space of one short month, from the time he had raised his standard in the distant vale of the Finnin, he was to obtain possession of the capital of Scotland, and take up his residence in the ancient abode of his royal ancestors. Exulting as he must have done, at the near prospect which such fortuitous events seemed to afford him of realizing his most ardent expectations, his feelings received a new impulse, when, on coming within sight of the palace, he beheld the park crowded with people, who had assembled to welcome his arrival. Attended by the duke of Perth and Lord Elcho, and followed by a train of gentlemen, Charles rode down the Hunter's bog, on his way to the palace. On reaching the eminence below St Anthony's well, he alighted from his horse for the purpose of descending on foot into the park below. On dismounting he was surrounded by many persons who knelt down and kissed his hand. He made suitable acknowledgments for these marks of attachment, and after surveying for a short time the palace and the assembled multitude which covered the intervening grounds, he descended into the park below amid the shouts of the spectators, whose congratulations he received with the greatest affability. On reaching the foot-path in the park, which, from its having been much frequented by the duke of York,

Home, vol. iii. p. 67.

James the Fourth is said to have planted the lion standard of Scotland on this stone, as a signal for mustering his army, before its fatul march to Flodden.

Lockhart Papers, vol. ii. p. 446.

afterwards James the Second, when he resided at Holyrood, obtained the name of the Duke's walk, Charles stopped for a few minutes to exhibit himself to the people.*

His figure

In person Charles appeared to great advantage. and presence are described by Mr Home, an eye-witness, as not ill suited to his lofty pretensions. He was in the bloom of youth, tall † and handsome, and of a fair and ruddy complexion. His face, which in its contour exhibited a perfect oval, was remarkable for the regularity of its features. His forehead was full and high, and characteristic of his family. His eyes, which were large, and of a light blue colour, were shaded by beautifully arched eye-brows, and his nose, which was finely formed, approached nearer to the Roman than the Grecian model. A pointed chin, and a mouth rather small, gave him, however, rather an effeminate appearance; but on the whole, his exterior was extremely prepossessing, and his deportment was so graceful and winning, that few persons could resist his attractions. The dress which he wore on the present occasion, was also calculated to set off the graces of his person to the greatest advantage in the eyes of the vulgar. He wore a light-coloured peruke, with his hair combed over the front. This was surmounted by a blue velvet bonnet, encircled with a band of gold lace, and ornamented at top with the Jacobite badge, a white satin cockade. He wore a tartan short coat, and on his breast the star of the order of St Andrew. Instead of a plaid, which would have covered the star, he wore a blue sash wrought with gold. His small clothes were of red velvet. To complete his costume, he wore a pair of military boots, and a silver-hilted broadsword.

Charles remained some time in the park among the people, but as he could not be sufficiently seen by all, he mounted his horse, a fine bay gelding which the duke of Perth had presented to him, and rode off slowly towards the palace. Every person was in admiration at the splendid appearance he made on horseback, and a simultaneous huzza arose from the vast crowd which followed the prince in triumph to Holyrood-house. Overjoyed at the noble appearance of the prince, the Jacobites set no bounds to their praises of the royal youth. They. compared him to King Robert Bruce, whom, they said, he resembled in his figure as they hoped he would in his fortune. The whigs, on the other hand, regarded him differently; and though they durst not avow their opinions to the full extent, and were forced to admit that Charles was a goodly person; yet they observed that even in that triumphant hour when about to enter the palace of his fathers, the air

† Mr Home says that one of the spectators in the king's park endeavoured to measure shoulders with him, and considered him more than 5 feet 10 inches high. An Englishman who came from York to see him thought him about an inch taller.— -MS. in the possession of the late George Chalmers, quoted in his Caledonia, vol. ii. p. 717. ↑ Home's Works, vol. iii. p. 71.

of his countenance was languid and melancholy,—that he looked like a gentleman and a man of fashion, but not like a hero or a conqueror. Their conclusion was, that the enterprise he had undertaken was above the pitch of his mind, and that his heart was not great enough for the sphere in which he moved.

On arriving in front of the palace Charles alighted from his horse, and entering the gate proceeded along the piazza within the quadrangle, towards the duke of Hamilton's apartments. † When the prince was about to enter the porch, the door of which stood open to receive him, a gentleman stepped out of the crowd, drew his sword, and raising it aloft, walked up stairs before Charles. The person who took this singular mode of joining the prince, was James Hepburn of Keith, a gentleman of East Lothian. When a very young man he had been engaged in the rebellion of seventeen hundred and fifteen, not from any devoted attachment to the house of Stuart, (for he disclaimed the hereditary indefeasible right of kings, and condemned the government of James the Second,) but because he considered the union, which he regarded as the result of the Revolution, as injurious and humiliating to Scotland, and believed that the only way to obtain a repeal of that measure, was to restore the Stuarts. In speaking of the union, he said that it had made a Scottish gentleman of small fortune nobody, and that rather than submit to it, he would die a thousand deaths. For thirty years he had kept himself in readiness to take up arms to assert, as he thought, the independence of his country, when an opportunity should occur. Honoured and beloved by both Jacobites and whigs, the accession to the Jacobite cause of this accomplished gentleman, whom Mr Home describes as a model of ancient simplicity, manliness, and honour, was hailed by the for.. mer with delight, and deeply regretted by the latter, who lamented that a man whom they so highly revered, should sacrifice himself to the visionary idea of a repeal of the union between England and Scotland.‡

In his way to the palace Charles had been cheered by the acclamations of the people; and on his entering that memorable seat of his ancestors, these acclamations were redoubled by the crowd which filled the area in front. On reaching the suite of apartments destined for his reception, he exhibited himself again to the people from one of the windows with his bonnet in his hand, and was greeted with loud huzzas by

Home's Works, vol. iii. p. 72.

+ It has been stated on the questionable authority of a local tradition, that when Charles arrived in front of the palace, a large bullet was fired from the castle, with such direction and force as to make it descend upon the palace,-that it struck a part of the front wall of James the Fifth's tower, near the window which lights a small turretchamber connected with Queen Mary's state apartments; and that it fell into the courtyard, carrying along with it a quantity of rubbish which it had knocked out of the wall, If such a remarkable incident had occurred, it could scarcely have been overlooked by Mr Home, who was near the spot at the time; and the fact that it is not alluded to in the pages of the Caledonian Mercury, the organ of the Jacobite party, seems conclusive that no such occurrence took place.

Home's Works, iii. p. 73.

the multitude assembled in the court-yard below. He replied to these congratulations by repeated bows and smiles.

To complete the business of this eventful day, the proclaiming of the Chevalier de St George at the cross alone remained. The Highlanders who entered the city in the morning, desirous of obtaining the services of the heralds and the pursuivants, to perform what appeared to them an indispensable ceremony, had secured the persons of these functionaries. Surrounded by a body of armed men the heralds and pursuivants, several of whom had probably been similarly employed on the accession of " the Elector of Hanover," proceeded to the cross, a little before one o'clock afternoon, clothed in their robes of office, and proclaimed King James, amid the general acclamations of the people. The windows of the adjoining houses were filled with ladies, who testified the intensity of their feelings by straining their voices to the utmost pitch, and with outstretched arms waving white handkerchiefs in honour of the day. Few gentlemen were however to be seen in the streets or in the windows, and even among the common people, there were not a few who preserved a stubborn silence.* The effect of the ceremony was greatly heightened by the appearance of Mrs Murray of Broughton, a lady of great beauty, who, to show her devoted attachment to the cause of the Stuarts, appeared decorated with a profusion of white ribbons, sat on horseback near the cross with a drawn sword in her hand, during all the time the ceremony lasted.†

The principal personage who acted on this occasion was one Beatt, a schoolmaster in the city, of Jacobite principles. Along with the commission of regency and the declaration of the Chevalier de St George, he read a manifesto in the name of Charles as regent, dated at Paris, sixteenth May, seventeen hundred and forty-five. It ran thus:

"By virtue and authority of the above commission of regency granted unto us by the king, our royal father, we are now come to execute his majesty's will and pleasure, by setting up his royal standard, and asserting his undoubted right to the throne of his ancestors.

"We do, therefore, in his majesty's name, and pursuant to the tenor of his several declarations, hereby grant a free, full, and general pardon for all treasons, rebellions and offences whatsoever, committed at any time before the publication hereof against our royal grandfather, his present majesty, and ourselves. To the benefit of this pardon we shall deem justly entitled all such of his majesty's subjects as shall testify their willingness to accept of it, either by joining our forces with all convenient diligence; by setting up his royal standard in other places; by repairing for our service to any place where it shall be so set up, or at least by openly renouncing all pretended allegiance to the usurper, and all obedience to his orders, or to those of any person or persons commissioned, or employed by him, or acting avowedly for him.

Home's Works, vol. ii. p. 73. + Boyse, p. 77.