"I have had sons; I no longer have any. I have brought them up with difficulty, but I would be willing to bear them all again and to lose them for love of Charles."
Whilst the prince, the object of a devotion so passionately disinterested, was receiving at the court of Louis XV. a welcome as impressive as it was vain, his illustrious partisans thronged the prisons and scaffolds, while their lands were laid waste by the English soldiers. In vain did Duncan Forbes claim the application of laws. "Laws!" replied the conqueror; "I will make laws with a brigade." Colonel Townley and his companions had already endured their horrible sentence at Kennington Common in sight of an eager and terrified crowd. Lord Cromarty, Lord Kilmarnock, and Lord Balmerino were confined in the Tower. When they were brought before the Court of Peers the first two pleaded guilty. Lord Cromarty implored the compassion of his judges for his wife and eight children. Lord Balmerino pleaded not guilty. "I wish to be judged by God and my peers," said he proudly. All three were condemned to the punishment of traitors; Lord Cromarty alone obtained pardon. "I do not consider him worthy of life who is not ready to die," said Lord Balmerino when his sentence was confirmed. { 218} As the sheriff pronounced the customary formula, "God save King George," Kilmarnock uttered an "Amen." Balmerino raised his head. "So God save King James," exclaimed he; "if I had a thousand lives I would give them all for this cause." He knelt down on the scaffold. "My God, reward my friends, forgive my enemies, bless King James, and receive my soul," he uttered in a loud voice. The agitated executioner had scarcely strength to cut his head off.
Last of all, Lord Lovat had suffered the punishment merited by his entire life rather than by his part in the Jacobite rebellion. A coward and a suppliant as long as he believed pardon possible, he recovered on the day before his death the theatrical pride of his best days, and even on the scaffold he murmured the line of Horace: "_Dulce et decorum est pro patriâ mori._" Legal measures had followed these bloody executions; the highlanders were disarmed; hereditary jurisdictions were abolished; their national costume was forbidden to the mountaineers. Along with the power of the Jacobites the feudal spirit was slowly extinguished in Scotland. Keppoch had sorrowfully said on the battle-field of Culloden, when he saw the Macdonalds quietly retire without fighting, "Have I lived long enough to see myself deserted by the children of my people?" Death had seconded fatigue and private grudges. "It is to the Duke of Cumberland that we owe this peace," was what was written on the monument of Culloden battle-field.