ad held high office under Queen Anne. One of the
biographers of that period describes Mar as a devoted adherent of the
Stuarts. His career is indeed a fair illustration of the sort of thing
which then sometimes passed for devoted adherence to a cause. When
King George reached England he dismissed Mar from office, suspecting
him of sympathy with the Jacobite movement. Mar had expected something
of the kind, and had written an obsequious and a grovelling letter to
George, in which he spoke of the king's "happy accession," professed
unbounded devotion to the house of Hanover, and promised that "You
shall ever find in me as faithful a subject as ever any king had." The
new king, however, declined to trust to the faithfulness of this
subject; and a year after the faithful subject had returned to his
Jacobite convictions, and was gathering the Highland clans in James
Stuart's name.

The clans were got together at Braemar. The white cockade was mounted
there by clan after clan, the Macintoshes being the first to display it
as the emblem of the Stuart cause. Inverness was seized. King James
was proclaimed at several places, notably at Dundee, by Graham, the
brother of "conquering Graham," Bonnie Dundee, the fearless, cruel,
clever Claverhouse who fell at Killiecrankie. Perth was secured. The
force under Mar's leadership grow greater every day. He had begun with
a handful of men. He had now a little army. He had set up his
standard almost at hap-hazard at Braemar, and now nearly all the
country north of the Tay was in the hands of the Jacobites.

The Duke of Argyll was put in command of the royal forces, and arrived
in Scotland in the middle of September 1716. He hastened to the camp,
which had been got {124} together somehow at Stirling. He came there
almost literally alone. He brought no soldiers with him. He found few
soldiers there to receive him. Under his command he had altogether
about a thousand foot and half as many dragoons, the latter consisting
in great measure of the famous and excellent Scots Grays. His prospect
looked indeed very doubtful. He could expect little or no assistance
from his own clan. They had work enough to do in guarding against a
possible attack from some of the followers of Lord Mar. Glasgow,
Dumfries, and other towns were likewise in imminent danger from some of
the Highland clans, and were kept in a continual agony of apprehension.
It seemed likely enough that Argyll might