Dance Lochiel's awa' to France 3887

(and “Lochiel’s Rant”)

If young Prince Charles Edward had taken the good advice offered to him by Sir Donald Cameron, 19th of Lochiel, a man twice his age, in the late summer of 1745, the tragic rising with its suffering and bloodshed could have been averted. Go back, Lochiel said, you haven’t the resources to mount a successful campaign, go home and wait until you have men, and money, and munitions and firm commitments from the Highland clans. But the prince, an impetuous youth, insisted that he had come to claim the Crown of his ancestors. “Lochiel, who, my father has often told me was our firmest firend, may stay at home, and learn from the newspapers the fate of his prince.” Lochiel capitulated. He would share the fate of Prince Charles Edward and that is exactly what he did.

The prince had no cause to doubt the loyalty or the depth of Lochiel’s Jacobite sympathies. Cameron of Lochiel had ever been a staunch supporter.

Sir Ewen Cameron, 17th of Lochiel (1629–¹719), set the pattern of dedication to the Stuart cause. With part of his youth spent with Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll, actually as a hostage to ensure the peaceable behaviour of the Camerons, he for some time thought as did his guardian, but when he succeeded as chief in 1647 he became his own man. In 1653 he joined William Cunningham, 9th Earl of Glencairn (1610–1664) in the rising on behalf of Charles II. He never submitted to Cromwell and he remained loyal to the Stuarts when James VII (II) lost the throne in 1688. He had been knighted in 1681 by James when Duke of Albany and York. He raised Clan Cameron to join John Graham, Viscount Dundee, and fought at Killiecrankie in 1689. Called both “the Ulysses of the Highlands” by Thomas Babington Macaulay and “the king of thieves” by Charles II, he was generally known as the “Great Lochiel”. He was said to have killed the last wolf in Scotland and when in hand to hand combat with one of General Monck’s Roundheads, in 1658, he literally bit the throat out of his adversary. He was married three times and died at the age of ninety. It was said of him that he was “always the first that offered himself in any dangerous piece of service and in all that he undertook acquited himself with such conduct and valour that he gained great glory and reputation.” In 1696 he retired from his active life and made over most of his estates to his son, John.

John, 18th of Lochiel, served with John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar (1675–1732) and led the Camerons at the battle of Sheriffmuir on 13 November, 1715. For his part in the Jacobite Rising of 1715, Lochiel was attainted and his estates forfeited. He went into exile and died at Nieuport in Flanders in 1748.

Donald Cameron, 19th of Lochiel (1695–1748), the “Gentle Lochiel”, was the son of John and his wife Isobel, daughter of Sir Alexander Campbell of Lochnell. After uselessly cautioning Prince Charles Edward, Lochiel enjoined his fate with that of his prince and he and seven hundred of his clansmen rallied to the Royal Standard at Glenfinnan on 19 August, 1745. Lochiel, along with Keppoch, sprang the trap at the Netherbow Port that opened the city of Edinburgh to the prince. He fought at Prestonpans and, still the quiet voice of reason, marched with Prince Charles Edward to Derby. When the retreating Jacobite army arrived in Glasgow it was the cool, calm direction of Lochiel that saved the city from the depredations of the Highland army and in gratitude church bells are ordered to ring out whenever the Cameron of Lochiel comes officially to that city. At Culloden on 16 April, 1746, Lochiel led his Cameronians int battle and he fought valiantly with sword and pistol until his ankles were broken by Hanoverian grape-shot and he was carried from the field. From that time until he escaped to exile in France he hid in the hills, sheltered by his loyal clansmen. He died in France in 1748, in the same year as his father.

Lochiel’s two brothers also suffered at the hands of the Hanoverian victors. Alexander Cameron, a Roman Catholic priest, died aboard a prison ship in the Thames, while Archibald, a physician, was executed, without trial, by hanging, drawing and quartering on Tower Hill seven years after Culloden.

The original home of the Camerons of Lochiel was Tor Castle, on the River Lochy, which was built early in the 16th century. Sir Ewen demolished Tor Castle and built Old Achnacarry. During that ghastly period of reprisals after Culloden, Achnacarry was utterly destroyed by the punitive Hanoverian soldiers and Lochiel is reputed to have watched his home devoured by flames. The Gentle Lochiel gave everything he had to his prince, who more than once doubted the unswerving loyalty of this great Highland gentleman.