d him dead, having been
fourteen months in France, without writing any word to his country. They
came from all quarters to see him. He showed them the King's
instructions, and the King of France's great promises. They were
ravished to see them, and prayed to God to have their King there, and
they should soon put him on the throne. My Lord Lovat told them that
they must first fight for him, and beat his enemies in the kingdom. They
answered him, that, if they got the assistance he promised them, they
would march in three days' advertisement, and beat all the King's
enemies in the kingdom."[175] This statement, though possibly not wholly
untrue, must be taken with more than the usual degree of allowance for
the exaggeration of a partisan. Many of the Highland noblemen and
chieftains were, indeed, well disposed to the cause of which Lord Lovat
was the unfortunate and unworthy representative; but all regretted that
their young King, as they styled him, should repose trust in so bad a
character, and in many instances refused to treat with Lovat. And,
indeed, the partial success which he attained might be ascribed to the
credit of his companion Captain John Murray, a gentleman of good family,
whose brother, Murray of Abercairney, was greatly respected in his
county.

The embryo of the two Rebellions may be distinctly traced in the plain
and modest memorial which Captain Murray also presented, on his return
from Scotland, at the Court of St. Germains. "The Earl and Countess of
Errol," he relates, "with their son Lord Hay, were the first to whom I
spoke of the affairs of the King of England." "Speaking at Edinburgh
with the King's friends, about his Majesty's affairs, in a more serious
way than I had done before, I found that these affairs had not been
mentioned among them a long time before, and that it was to them an
agreeable surprise to see some hopes that they were to be revived by my
negotiation."

The greatest families in Scotland were, indeed,[176] ready to come
forward upon condition of a certain assistance from France; and a scheme
seems even to have been suggested for the invasion of England, and to
have formed the main feature in one of those various plots which were as
often concerted, and as often defeated, in favour of the excluded
family.[177]

In France, these continual schemes, and the various changes in the
English Government, were regarded with the utmost contempt. "The
people," writes the Duke of Perth,