which were charged upon Lord
Kilmarnock; but they appear to have met with only a transient credence;
whilst a general impression of his gentleness, and a prevailing regret
for his fate endured as long as the memory of the dire contest, and of
its tragical termination, dwelt in the recollection of those who
witnessed those mournful times.

After the battle of Culloden, the prisoners were immediately set free.
The Duke of Cumberland, as he entered Inverness, taking his road amid
the carcasses of the dead strewed in the way, called for the keys of the
prisons, and with his own hands released the captives there, and,
clapping them on the shoulders as they came down stairs, exclaimed,
"brother soldiers, you are free."[338] Unfortunately his compassion was
of a party nature, and was only aroused for his own adherents.

At Culloden, fatal to so many brave men, Lord Kilmarnock was spared only
to taste much more deeply of the pangs of death than if he had met it in
battle. His fate had, indeed, been anticipated by the superstitious; and
it was considered a rash instance of hardihood in the unfortunate
nobleman to resist an omen which, about a year before the rebellion had
broken out, is said to have happened in his house.

One day, as the maid who attended usually upon Lady Kilmarnock was
inspecting some linen in an upper room of Dean Castle, the door of the
apartment suddenly opened of its own accord, and the view of a bloody
head, resembling that of Lord Kilmarnock, was presented to the
affrighted woman. As she gazed in horror, the head rolled near her. She
endeavoured in vain to repel it with her foot. She became powerless, but
she was still able to scream; her shrieks brought Lord Kilmarnock and
his Countess to the chamber. The apparition had vanished; but she
related succinctly the story "which, at that time," says the historian
who repeats it,[339] "Lord Kilmarnock too much ridiculed, though it
could have been wished that he had been forewarned by the omen. Such was
the superstition of the times, in which ignorance and credulity found
such ready supporters."

At Culloden, this ill-fated nobleman occupied a post not far from the
Prince, in the rear of whom was a line of reserve, consisting of three
columns, the first of which, on the left, was commanded by Lord
Kilmarnock; the centre column by Lord Lewis Gordon and Glenbucket; and
the right by the justly-celebrated Roy Stewart. In the opposite ranks,
an ensign in the r