Bonnie Prince Charlie: A Biography Read Free Page A

9, James rode into Perth and settled into the old royal palace of Scone, from which he issued written orders "given at our court of Scone ... in the fifteenth year of our reign, 1715-16." His pride was intact, but all else was virtually in ruins. Privately, his leading supporters had abandoned hope. In his journal, published some time later, Mar wrote that he had never believed he could hold Perth, with or without James's presence. 8 Pretenses were kept up, on the chance that by some miracle the cause might be revived. The citizens of Perth were informed that their monarch, James III and VIII, was to be formally crowned on January 23, and a number of aristocratic Jacobite ladies came forward to donate jewels to be set into his crown. But the rebels were living on borrowed time. The government army, commanded by the Duke of Argyll, was making its way slowly northward, hampered, to be sure, by the snowbound roads and by the need to send to Berwick for cannon and mortars. Reprisals had begun, and were certain to spread throughout every district where men had come forward to fight for James. Soon Argyll would reach Perth, and then all would be lost.
    In a vain effort to hold off Argyll and his men James was persuaded to order the burning of six villages that lay between the government army and his own forces. Scrupulous to a fault and tenderhearted as he was, James disliked giving the order, but yielded to the argument that to deny Argyll's men the food and forage the villages could provide might make the difference between immediate surrender and rescue thanks to the last-minute arrival of reinforcements—a fiction born of desperation. So, to prevent the inevitable, the six villages were sacrificed.
    The villagers were driven out of their homes and into the deep snow. Their houses and barns were set on fire, their horses taken for James's army, their provisions destroyed. The "mournful screeches and frightful cries" of the inhabitants, left foundering in the deep snow in freezing temperatures, were a pitiful epilogue to the failed rising. No exceptions were made for infants, the aged, or the feeble, all were left exposed to the weather, "it being in the midst of a terrible storm of frost and snow, such as was not in Scotland these many years bygone." Some died within hours in the snow-covered fields, others lingered on for a day or two. Most survived, destitute and distracted by their ordeal, and full of hatred for James III and VIII.
    By the last day of January James realized that he had no choice but to abandon the city. "I am in despair at finding myself compelled to withdraw from Perth," he confided, "but to offer battle would be to expose brave men for no reason." He wished, he said, to preserve the lives of his men "for a more fitting occasion." He had some hope of joining his "friends in the north," but what friends he had had taken to their heels, and by the time he reached Montrose James saw that he too had to flee if he was to save himself. The remnant of his ragged army was melting away. A few drunken stragglers had remained in Perth, others deserted on the way northward. It was over.
    A small ship, the Maria Theresa of St. Malo, was pressed into service to take the Chevalier de St. George back to France. His leave-taking had to be secret; to announce it would have meant certain pursuit and capture. Yet it must have galled his sense of honor to sneak away on foot, hurrying down an alley to the waterside, looking over his shoulder like a common thief. He had had to lie to his men, assuring them that he would be with them in Aberdeen "where he assured them a considerable force would soon come from France." 9 He had failed them, not once but twice—for the fiasco of 1708 was still lively in his memory. Whether he would have a third opportunity was in the hands of fate—and fate inevitably served him badly.
    The Maria Theresa remained anchored in the harbor from nine o'clock until well after two o'clock the next