coward nor a traitor, but he was a
terrible blunderer, and while the English general was marching upon
Inverness Charles was triumphantly entering Perth. From Perth the
young prince, with hopeless, helpless Cope still in his rear, marched
on Edinburgh.

[Sidenote: 1745--The advance of the clans]

The condition of Edinburgh was peculiar: although a large proportion of
its inhabitants, especially those who were well-to-do, were stanch
supporters of the House of Hanover, there were plenty of Jacobites in
the place, and {211} it only needed the favor of a few victories to
bring into open day a great deal of latent Jacobitism that was for the
moment prudently kept under by its possessors. The Lord Provost
himself was more than suspected of being a Jacobite at heart. The city
was miserably defended. Such walls as it possessed were more
ornamental than useful, and in any case were sadly in want of repair.
All the military force it could muster to meet the advance of the clans
was the small but fairly efficient body of men who formed the Town
Guard; the Train Bands, some thousand strong, who knew no more than so
many spinsters of the division of a battle; the small and undisciplined
Edinburgh regiment; and a scratch collection of volunteers hurriedly
raked together from among the humbler citizens of the town, and about
as useful as so many puppets to oppose to the daring and the ferocity
of the clans. Edinburgh opinion had changed very rapidly with regard
to that same daring and ferocity. When the first rumors of the
prince's advance were bruited abroad, the adherents of the House of
Hanover in Edinburgh made very merry over the gang of ragged rascals,
hen-roost robbers, and drunken rogues upon whom the Pretender relied in
his effort to "enjoy his ain again." But as the clans came nearer and
nearer, as the air grew thicker with flying rumors of the successes
that attended upon the prince's progress, as the capacity of the town
seemed weaker for holding out, and as the prospect of reinforcements
seemed to grow fainter and fainter, the opinion of Hanoverian Edinburgh
concerning the clans changed mightily. Had the Highlanders been a race
of giants, endowed with more than mortal prowess, and invulnerable as
Achilles, they could hardly have struck more terror into the hearts of
loyal and respectable Edinburgh citizens.

Still there were some stout hearts in Edinburgh who did their best to
keep up the courage of the rest a