ublic decency was as much
outraged by the three yachts which were prepared to carry over King
George's mistresses and their suite,[70] when he visited Hanover, as by
the empire of Madame de Pompadour. It must, independent of every other
consideration, have been galling to Englishmen to behold, seated on
their throne, a German, fifty-four years of age, who from that very
circumstance, was little likely ever to boast, like Queen Anne, "of an
English heart." "A hard fate," observes a writer of great impartiality,
"that the enthronement of a stranger should have been the only means to
secure our liberties and laws!"[71]

A week after he had been received at the levee of King George, the Earl
embarked at Gravesend in a collier, attended by two servants, and
accompanied by General Hamilton and Captain Hay. They were all
disguised, and escaping detection, arrived on the third day afterwards
at Newcastle. It has been even said, that in order the better to conceal
his rank, the Earl of Mar wrought for his passage.[72] From Newcastle
Lord Mar proceeded northward in another vessel; and landing at Elie, in
Fifeshire, went first to Crief, where he remained a few days. He then
proceeded to Dupplin, in the county of Perth, the seat of his
brother-in-law, the Earl of Kinnoul, and thence, on the eighteenth of
August, crossing the river Perth, he proceeded to his own Castle of
Kildrummie, in the Braes of Mar. He was accompanied by forty horse.

On the day after the arrival of the Earl at Kildrummie, he despatched
letters to the principal Jacobites, inviting them to attend a grand
hunting-match in Braemar on the twenty-seventh of August. This summons
was couched in this form, for fear of a more explicit declaration being
intercepted, revealing the design; but the great chiefs who were thus
collected together were aware that "hunting" was but the watchword.

A gallant band of high-spirited chieftains answered the call. It is
consolatory to turn to those who, unaffected by the intrigues of a
Court, came heartily, and with a disinterested love, to the cause of
which the Earl of Mar was the unworthy leader.

First in rank, was the Marquis of Huntly, eldest son of George, the
first Duke of Gordon, and of that daring Duchess of Gordon, a daughter
of the house of Howard, who, in 1711, had presented to the Dean and
Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh a silver medal, with the head of the
Chevalier on one side, and on the other the British Islands