ARTHUR ELPHINSTONE, LORD BALMERINO.

201

ARTHUR ELPHINSTONE, LORD BALMERINO.

His early attachment to the Stuarts-Enters the French service after the Insurrection of 1715-Joins the Pretender in 1745 -His arrest and committal to the Tower-The trial-scene, as described by Walpole-His fortitude and cheerfulness after the sentence-His execution.

THIS gallant and ill-fated nobleman was born in 1688. In his youth he had served with distinction in the armies of Queen Anne, but on the breaking out of the insurrection of 1715, he immediately disclaimed his allegiance to that princess, and flew to array himself beneath the standard of his proscribed, but legitimate, Sovereign. The circumstances under which he deserted to the Stuarts were rather remarkable. Previous to the battle of Dumblain, his loyalty had been much suspected; but his colonel, the Duke of Argyll, lulled the suspicions of the Government, by declaring that he would be answerable for his good conduct. He behaved with gallantry during the action, but no sooner had victory decided in favour of the royalists, than he galloped off with his troop to the opposite party, declaring that he had never feared death before that day, when he had been induced to fight against his conscience.

Having seen the last blow struck in the cause of the Stuarts, Lord Balmerino, then Captain Elphinstone, was fortunate enough to effect his escape to the Continent,

202

ARTHUR ELPHINSTONE,

where he entered the French service, and remained an exile till 1734, when his father, without his knowledge or consent, succeeded in obtaining a pardon for him from the Government. Naturally eager, on the one hand, to return to his country and his friends, from whom he had been banished for so many years, he was yet unwilling to accept the boon without the express permission of his legitimate Prince; and, accordingly, he wrote to the old Chevalier at Rome, requesting to be directed by him on the occasion. The Chevalier immediately sent him back an answer in his own handwriting, not only sanctioning his return to Scotland, but adding, with an amiable consideration, that he had given orders to his banker at Paris to defray the expenses of his journey.

From the period of the suppression of the insurrection of 1715, till the landing of Charles Edward in the High. lands, we know little of the private history of Lord Bal merino. Like the generality of the Scottish landholders of the last century, he seems to have contented himself with the amusements and enjoyments obtained by a residence among his own people and on his own estate, and to have been distinguished, even above his neighbours, for his hospitality and convivial habits.

Although thirty years had elapsed since he had last drawn his sword in the cause of the Stuarts, the standard of the young Chevalier was no sooner unfurled in the wild valley of Glenfinnan, than the veteran peer flew, with the fiery enthusiasm which had distinguished him in his youth, to aid in a cause which he believed to be the holiest and noblest which could animate the human mind. "I might easily,” he says, in his dying speech on the scaffold, “have excused myself from taking arms, on account of my age; but I never could have had peace of conscience,

if I had stayed at home when that brave Prince was exposing himself to all manner of dangers and fatigues both day and night."

The military experience and personal gallantry of Lord Balmerino contributed in a great degree to the early successes obtained by the insurgent army; while he was no less distingnished by the forbearance and humanity which he invariably displayed towards the royalist prisoners who fell into his hands. "All this," he says, in his dying speech, "gives me great pleasure, now that I am looking on the block on which I am ready to lay down my head." Having witnessed the last efforts of the gallant Highlanders on the fatal field of Culloden, Lord Balmerino, with many of his brave companions in arms, sought safety in concealment and flight. He was one of the first persons, of any rank or importance, who fell into the hands of the Government; and having been brought by the Grants to Inverness on the 21st of April, 1746, he was shortly afterwards sent by sea to London, in the same vessel with his friends the Earls of Cromarty and Kilmarnock.

Immediately on their arrival in London, these unfortu. nate noblemen were committed to the Tower; and bills of indictment having been found by the grand jury of Surrey, they were brought to trial before their peers in Westminster Hall on the 28th of July, 1746. The scene was a most impressive and magnificent one. About eight o'clock in the morning the prisoners were conducted from the Tower to Westminster in three coaches, attended by a strong guard of foot soldiers. In the first coach was the Earl of Kilmarnock, with General Williamson, the Deputy-Governor of the Tower, and a captain of the guard; in the next was the Earl of Cromartie, attended