ACCOUNT OF THE BATTLES OF PRESTON, FALKIRK, AND CULLODEN

This is a beautifully written manuscript of sixty-two folios, small quarto, by Andrew Lumisden, private secretary to Prince Charles when in Scotland. Certain documents bound up with the manuscript give its history. It was originally written for the information of John Home, author of the tragedy of Douglas, when engaged in writing his history of the Rebellion. After Home’s death, it was presented by his nephew, John Home, W.S., to Macvey Napier, Librarian of the Signet Library. In 1840 Napier presented it to Mr. James Gibson Craig, W.S., because, as he says in a letter, he ‘has a just taste and value for such documents.’ On Mr. Gibson Craig’s death in 1886, it passed into the collection of his partner Sir Thomas Dawson Brodie, Bart. On his death, it came into my possession by purchase.

Andrew Lumisden was a grandson of Andrew Lumisden, episcopal minister of Duddingston, who was ‘outed’ at the Revolution. In 1727 the latter was consecrated bishop of Edinburgh, and died six years later. The bishop’s third son, William, was educated for the bar, but he ‘went out’ in 1715, and, refusing to take the oaths to Government after that Rising, he was unable to follow his profession, but practised in Edinburgh as a Writer or law agent. He married Mary Bruce, a granddaughter of Robert Bruce, third of Kennet. To them were born two children, (1) Isabella born in 1719, who, in 1747, was married to the young artist Robert Strange, whom she had induced to join Prince Charles’s Life Guards, and who afterwards became the most famous British engraver of his time, and was knighted by George III.; and (2) Andrew, born in 1720, the author of this ‘Account.’

Andrew followed his father’s profession of Writer, and when Prince Charles came to Edinburgh in 1745 he was, on the recommendation of his cousin Sir Alex. Dick of Prestonfield, appointed private secretary to the Prince, and accompanied him throughout the campaign. After Culloden he was attainted. He concealed himself for some weeks in Edinburgh, escaped to London, and thence to Rouen. Here at first he suffered great privation, but succeeded in obtaining a French pension of 600 livres, which relieved his immediate wants. In 1749 he went to Rome, and in the following year he was appointed Assistant Secretary to the Old Chevalier. On the death of James Edgar, in 1762, he succeeded him as Jacobite Secretary of State. The Old Chevalier died in 1766, and Lumisden was for a time continued in his office by Charles. The great object of Charles’s policy was to be acknowledged by the Pope as King of Great Britain, a title which Clement XIII. refused him in spite of a powerful appeal by Cardinal Henry, Duke of York, to his Holiness.[105] Charles, smarting under the indignity, became intensely irritable, and gave himself up more and more to self-indulgence. In December 1768 Lumisden, along with two other Scottish officials, was summarily dismissed for refusing to accompany his royal master to an oratorio when that master was intoxicated.[106] Leaving Rome, he settled in Paris, where he moved in the highest literary and artistic circles. In 1773 he was allowed to return to Great Britain, and five years later he received a full pardon.

Lumisden, who was never married, continued to spend much of his time in Paris, accounted ‘a man of the finest taste and learning,’ living the life of a dilettante, and paying frequent visits to London and Edinburgh.

There is a pleasant anecdote told of him at this time, which reflects the kindly feeling borne by King George III. to irreconcilable Jacobites. It is very similar to the well-known story of King George’s message to Laurence Oliphant of Gask, told by Sir Walter Scott in the Introduction to Redgauntlet. It must be remembered that to their dying day both the laird of Gask and Andrew Lumisden never referred to King George except as the Elector of Hanover. The story of Lumisden is told in a family paper[107] by his great-niece Mrs. Mure (née Louisa Strange), and may be given in that lady’s own words.

A valuable library was about to be dispersed in Paris, which contained a rare copy or edition of the Bible, and George III. commissioned his bookseller, Mr. Nichol, to procure it for him at a certain limit as to price. Mr. Nichol, intimate with Mr. Lumisden, whose literary character qualified him to pronounce as to the authenticity and value of this work, employed him to examine, and, on approval, to make this purchase, which he did, obtaining it at a far lower price than had been mentioned. The king, delighted with his acquisition, asked Mr. Nichol how he had managed to get it. Mr. Nichol replied he had ‘applied to a friend of his much connected with literature, whom he could trust,’ etc., etc. ‘Well, but who is your friend,’ said the king, ‘I suppose he has a name?’ ‘A gentleman named Lumisden, your Majesty,’ said Mr. Nichol. ‘Oh!’ replied the king, ‘the Prince’s secretary.’ The king, with true courtesy, never called Charles Edward aught but ‘the Prince.’ ‘Yes, your Majesty,’ said Mr. Nichol shyly, ‘the same.’ ‘Well, Nichol,’ said the king, ‘I am much obliged by the trouble Mr. Lumisden has taken; pray, make him my compliments, and tell him so; and I should like to send him some little token of this. What shall it be?’ Nichol suggested ‘a book, perhaps,’ and it is said the king laughed and said, ‘Oh, yes! a book, a book! that would suit you!’ However, the message was sent, and Mr. Lumisden’s reply was, that he should be gratified by the possession of a copy of Captain Cook’s Voyages, then just published, in which he took a deep interest, and considered they owed their success to the individual patronage given them by the king himself.

A very handsome copy of Anson’s and Cook’s Voyages, in nine quarto volumes, was sent to Mr. Lumisden by the king. They were left by Mr. Lumisden to my father [Sir Thomas Strange], and he bequeathed them to his son James, now Admiral Strange, in whose possession they are. [Written in 1883.]

In 1797 Lumisden published a volume at London entitled Remarks on the Antiquities of Rome and its Environs ... with Engravings, his only literary legacy excepting this account of the battles in Scotland. I have failed to discover at what period of his life this manuscript was written.

Lumisden died in Edinburgh in 1801. His usual lodging had been in the Luckenbooths, the very heart of the old town, but he had recently changed his quarters to the then new Princes Street, and to the very newest part of that street, the section west of Castle Street. To the imagination it seems strangely incongruous, yet as a link between the past and the present not entirely unfitting, that this aged partisan of the House of Stuart, probably the last Scottish gentleman who personally served that dynasty whose capital was the ancient city, should meet his death in the newest part of that modern street which is the glory of the Edinburgh that the Stuarts never knew.