Dance The Eight Men of Moidart 1927

On 5 August, 1745, a tall youth dressed in the sober black of a cleric landed on the mainland of Scotland, at Borrodale on Loch nam Uamh (Loch of the Caves), one of the sea lochs that bite deep into the northwest coast. Charles Edward Louis John Sylvester Maria Casimir Stuart, the Jacobite Prince of Wales, had arrived in the land of his paternal ancestors to claim the throne of Scotland, England, Wales, and Ireland in the name of his father, James VIII (III) of the Jacobites, the “Old Pretender” of the Hanoverians.

For several weeks Prince Charles Edward, his disguise thrown aside, and the seven men who had come with him from France in the Du Teillay operated on the wild and mountainous peninsula of Moidart, the home of Clan Donald. There they rallied the loyal clans and amassed an army. On 19 August the Royal Standard was ceremoniously raised at Glenfinnan, at the head of long Loch Shiel, and the army of the prince began the long march that was to lead them to Edinburgh, to victory at Prestonpans, as far into England as Swarkstone Bridge, beyond Derby, and, ultimately, to total defeat at Culloden eight months later.

The “Eight Men of Moidart“, in spite of the romance that transformed them into legendary heroes, were a headstrong and ill-assorted band, indeed.

The first was Prince Charles Edward, handsome, charming, and obstinate.

The second was Lord William Murray, Marquess of Tullibardine, recognised by the Jacobites as the second Duke of Atholl, middle aged, plagued by gout, who had been attainted for his part in the Rising of 1715 and who had been succeeded in the dukedom by his younger brother, James. (See “The Duke of Atholl’s Reel”)

The third was Aeneas or Angus MacDonald, a young Jacobite banker in Paris, brother of Donald MacDonald of Kinlochmoidart and brother-in-law of the MacNeil of Barra, who though sympathetic to the cause had come along on the expedition against his wishes and better judgement.

The fourth was an English Jacobite from Westmorland, a former tutor to the prince, Colonel Francis Strickland.

The other four were Irish:

Sir Thomas Sheridan, another former tutor to the prince, a man in his seventies who had fought at the battle of the Boyne in Ireland in 1690 with James VII (II), the grandfather of the prince.

Sir John MacDonald, a hard-drinking Ulsterman who had served in the French cavalry;

Colonel John William O’Sullivan, a veteran of the French army, whose bad advice contributed heavily to the disaster at Culloden;

The Reverend Mr George Kelly, a non-juring clergyman who had been arrested in 1722 for his part in a Jacobite plot to seize the Royal Exchange, St. James’ Palace and the Tower of London for which he was sentenced to imprisonment in the same tower he sought to capture and from which, after fourteen years, he escaped.

There were others who came from France with the prince: the Abbé James Butler, the band’s chaplain; Michele Vezzosi, an Italian in the suite of the prince and his father; Duncan Buchanan, a business employee of Aeneas MacDonald; Anthony Walsh, the Irish master of Du Teillay; and the son of Sir Thomas Sheridan. However, history did not touch them with the dubious glory reserved for the “Eight Men of Moidart”, for as the prince himself said, he came “without men, without money, but with seven friends of my own”.

On 20th September, 1746, Charles Edward Stuart, son of James, son of James, son of Charles, son of James, son of Queen Mary, boarded the rescuing French frigate L’Hereux from the same place, Loch nam Uam, where he had landed a little over a year before and returned to exile and bitterness.

The news frae Moidart cam’ yestereen,
Will soon gar mony ferlie,
For ships o’ war ha’e just come in,
And landed Royal Charlie!
Chorus
Come through the heather, around him gather,
Ye’re a’ the welcomer early,
Around him cling with a’ your kin,
For wha’ll be King but Charlie?
Come through the heather, around him gather,
Come Ronald, come Donald, come a’ thegither,
And crown your rightfu’, lawfu’ King!
For wha’ll be King but Charlie?

The Highland clans, wi’ sword in hand,
Frae John o’ Groats to Airlie,
Ha’e to a man declar’d to stand
Or fa’ wi’ Royal Charlie!

The Lowlands a’ baith great and sma’,
Wi’ mony a lord and laird,
Ha’e declared for Scotia’s King and law,
And spier ye wha’, but Charlie!

Then here’s a health to Charlie’s cause,
An’ be’t complete an’ early;
HIs very name our heart’s blood warms –
To arms for Royal Charlie!
– Carolina Oliphant (Baroness Nairne) (1766–1845)

A positive effusion of misplaced optimism written at least a half century after the event!