* * *
Since news had spread of Cope’s amazing defeat at Prestonpans, offers of support, of men and money, poured in from the north. In some cases, these offers even materialized: Lord Ogilvy, the eldest son of the Earl of Airlie, brought six hundred of his father’s tenants, while Stewart of Appin appeared at the head of four hundred men from the shires of Aberdeen and Banff. Lord Pitsligo was single-handedly responsible for most of the Highland cavalry, bringing in a large number of gentlemen and their servants from the northeastern counties, all well mounted and well armed—at least by comparison with some of the miscellaneous clansmen, who came armed with claymores saved by their grandsires from the Rising of the ’15, rusty axes, and pitchforks lately removed from the more homely tasks of cleaning cow-byres.
They were a motley crew, but none the less dangerous for that, I reflected, making my way through a knot of men gathered round an itinerant knifegrinder, who was sharpening dirks, razors, and scythes with perfect indifference. An English soldier facing them might be risking tetanus rather than instant death, but the results were likely to be the same.
While Lord Lewis Gordon, the Duke of Gordon’s younger brother, had come to do homage to Charles in Holyrood, holding out the glittering prospect of raising the whole of clan Gordon, it was a long way from hand-kissing to the actual provisioning of men.
And the Scottish Lowlands, while perfectly willing to cheer loudly at news of Charles’s victory, were singularly unwilling to send men to support him; nearly the whole of the Stuart army was composed of Highlanders, and likely to remain so. The Lowlands hadn’t been a total washout, though; Lord George Murray had told me that levies of food, goods, and money on the southern burghs had resulted in a very useful sum being contributed to the army’s treasury, which might tide them over for a time.
“We’ve gotten fifty-five hundred pounds from Glasgow, alone. Though it’s but a pittance, compared to the promised moneys from France and Spain,” His Lordship had confided to Jamie. “But I’m not inclined to turn up my nose at it, particularly as His Highness has had nothing from France but soothing words, and no gold.”
Jamie, who knew just how unlikely the French gold was to materialize, had merely nodded.