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Circuit Theory and Networks
Analysis and Synthesis
��������������
About the Author
Ravish R Singh is presently Director at Thakur Ramnarayan College of Arts and
Commerce, Mumbai. He obtained a BE degree from University of Mumbai in 1991, an
MTech degree from IIT Bombay in 2001, and a PhD degree from Faculty of Technology,
University of Mumbai, in 2013. He has published several books with McGraw Hill
Education (India) on varied subjects like Engineering Mathematics, Applied
Mathematics, Electrical Networks, Network Analysis and Synthesis, Electrical
Engineering, Basic Electrical and Electronics Engineering, etc., for all-India curricula
as well as regional curricula of some universities like Gujarat Technological University,
Mumbai University, Pune University, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University,
Anna University, Uttarakhand Technical University, and Dr A P J Abdul Kalam Technical University.
Dr Singh is a member of IEEE, ISTE, and IETE, and has published research papers in national and international
journals. His fields of interest include Circuits, Signals and Systems, and Engineering Mathematics.
Circuit Theory and Networks
Analysis and Synthesis
��������������

Ravish R Singh
Director
Thakur Ramnarayan College of Arts and Commerce
Mumbai, Maharashtra

McGraw Hill Education (India) Private Limited


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Circuit Theory and Networks—Analysis and Synthesis, 2e (MU 2018)

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Dedicated to

My Father

Late Shri Ramsagar Singh

and

My Mother

Late Shrimati Premsheela Singh


Contents
Preface xiii
Roadmap to the Syllabus xv

���� ����������������������� ���


1.1 Introduction 1.1
1.2 Resistance 1.1
1.3 Inductance 1.2
1.4 Capacitance 1.3
1.5 Sources 1.4
1.6 Some Definitions 1.6
1.7 Series and Parallel Combination of Resistors 1.7
1.8 Series and Parallel Combination of Inductors 1.9
1.9 Series and Parallel Combination of Capacitors 1.10
1.10 Star-Delta Transformation 1.10
1.11 Source Transformation 1.13
1.12 Source Shifting 1.19
Exercises 1.21
Objective-Type Questions 1.22
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 1.23

2. ANALYSIS OF DC CIRCUITS 2.1


2.1 Introduction 2.1
2.2 Kirchhoff’s Laws 2.1
2.3 Mesh Analysis 2.2
2.4 Supermesh Analysis 2.15
2.5 Node Analysis 2.23
2.6 Supernode Analysis 2.36
2.7 Superposition Theorem 2.42
2.8 Thevenin’s Theorem 2.62
2.9 Norton’s Theorem 2.82
2.10 Maximum Power Transfer Theorem 2.106
2.11 Reciprocity Theorem 2.118
2.12 Millman’s Theorem 2.122
Exercises 2.127
Objective-Type Questions 2.130
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 2.132
3. ANALYSIS OF AC CIRCUITS 3.1
3.1 Introduction 3.1
3.2 Mesh analysis 3.1
viii�Contents

3.3 Node Analysis 3.9


3.4 Superposition Theorem 3.14
3.5 Thevenin’s Theorem 3.27
3.6 Norton’s Theorem 3.41
3.7 Maximum Power Transfer Theorem 3.51
3.8 Reciprocity Theorem 3.64
3.9 Millman’s Theorem 3.68
Exercises 3.72
Objective-Type Questions 3.74
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 3.75

���� ������������������ ���


4.1 Introduction 4.1
4.2 Self-Inductance 4.1
4.3 Mutual Inductance 4.2
4.4 Coefficient of Coupling (k) 4.2
4.5 Inductances in Series 4.3
4.6 Inductances in Parallel 4.4
4.7 Dot Convention 4.9
4.8 Coupled Circuits 4.15
4.9 Conductively Coupled Equivalent Circuits 4.37
Exercises 4.41
Objective-Type Questions 4.43
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 4.44

���� ������������� ���


5.1 Introduction 5.1
5.2 Graph of a Network 5.1
5.3 Graph Terminologies 5.2
5.4 Incidence Matrix 5.6
5.5 Loop Matrix or Circuit Matrix 5.8
5.6 Cutset Matrix 5.10
5.7 Relationship Among Submatrices of A, B and Q 5.12
5.8 Kirchhoff’s Voltage Law 5.24
5.9 Kirchhoff’s Current Law 5.24
5.10 Relation Between Branch Voltage Matrix Vb, Twig Voltage Matrix Vt and Node
Voltage Matrix Vn 5.25
5.11 Relation Between Branch Current Matrix Ib and Loop Current Matrix Il 5.26
5.12 Network Equilibrium Equation 5.26
Exercises 5.53
Objective-Type Questions 5.54
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 5.55
���������ix

���� ������������������������������������� �.1


6.1 Introduction 6.1
6.2 Initial Conditions 6.1
6.3 Resistor–Inductor Circuit 6.27
6.4 Resistor–Capacitor Circuit 6.49
6.5 Resistor–Inductor–Capacitor Circuit 6.66
Exercises 6.79
Objective-Type Questions 6.82
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 6.85

���� ������������������������������������������ �.1


7.1 Introduction 7.1
7.2 Laplace Transformation 7.1
7.3 Laplace Transforms of Some Important Functions 7.2
7.4 Properties of Laplace Transform 7.4
7.5 Inverse Laplace Transform 7.7
7.6 Frequency Domain Representaion of RLC Circuits 7.12
7.7 Resistor–Inductor Circuit 7.13
7.8 Resistor–Capacitor Circuit 7.19
7.9 Resistor–Inductor–Capacitor Circuit 7.25
7.10 Response of RL Circuit to Various Functions 7.31
7.11 Response of RC Circuit to Various Functions 7.39
Exercises 7.49
Objective-Type Questions 7.52
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 7.53

���� ������������������ �.1


8.1 Introduction 8.1
8.2 Driving-Point Functions 8.1
8.3 Transfer Functions 8.2
8.4 Analysis of Ladder Networks 8.5
8.5 Analysis of Non-Ladder Networks 8.15
8.6 Poles and Zeros of Network Functions 8.20
8.7 Restrictions on Pole and Zero Locations for Driving-Point Functions [Common Factors in N(s)
and D(s) Cancelled] 8.21
8.8 Restrictions on Pole and Zero Locations for Transfer Functions [Common Factors in N(s) and
D(s) Cancelled] 8.21
8.9 Time-Domain Behaviour from the Pole-Zero Plot 8.39
8.10 Graphical Method for Determination of Residue 8.42
Exercises 8.50
Objective-Type Questions 8.53
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 8.55
x�Contents

���� ������������������ ���


9.1 Introduction 9.1
9.2 Open-Circuit Impedance Parameters (Z Parameters) 9.2
9.3 Short-Circuit Admittance Parameters (Y Parameters) 9.8
9.4 Transmission Parameters (ABCD Parameters) 9.18
9.5 Hybrid Parameters (h Parameters) 9.24
9.6 Inter-relationships between the Parameters 9.29
9.7 Interconnection of Two-Port Networks 9.47
9.8 T-Network 9.61
9.9 Pi (� )-Network 9.61
9.10 Lattice Networks 9.66
9.11 Terminated Two-Port Networks 9.69
Exercises 9.79
Objective-Type Questions 9.82
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 9.85

������������������������������� ���1
10.1 Introduction 10.1
10.2 Hurwitz Polynomials 10.1
10.3 Positive Real Functions 10.16
10.4 Elementary Synthesis Concepts 10.24
10.5 Realisation of LC Functions 10.30
10.6 Realisation of RC Functions 10.47
10.7 Realisation of RL Functions 10.63
Exercises 10.72
Objective-Type Questions 10.74
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 10.76

������������� ��.1
11.1 Introduction 11.1
11.2 Classification of Filters 11.1
11.3 T-Network 11.1
11.4 �-Network 11.4
11.5 Characteristic of Filters 11.6
11.6 Constant-k Low Pass Filter 11.7
11.7 Constant-k High-pass Filter 11.14
11.8 Band-pass Filter 11.18
11.9 Band-stop Filter 11.22
11.10 Terminating Half Sections 11.25
Exercises 11.27
Objective-Type Questions 11.27
Answers to Objective-Type Questions 11.28
���������xi

�����������������������������������������������������������
���������
Circuit Theory and Networks (May 2018) A.1–A.14
Circuit Theory and Networks (December 2017) A.15–A.27
Electrical Network Analysis and Synthesis (May 2018) A.28–A.35
Electrical Network Analysis and Synthesis (December 2017) A.36–A.51

Index I.1
�������
Overview
Circuit Theory and Networks (Analysis and Synthesis) is an important subject for third-semester students of
of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering and Electronics Engineering. With lucid and brief theory,
this textbook provides thorough understanding of the topics of this subject. Following a problem-solving
approach and discussing both analysis and synthesis of networks, it offers good coverage of dc circuits,
network theorems, two-port networks, and network synthesis.
Generally, numerical problems are expected in university examinations in this subject. The weightage
given to problems in examinations is more than 70–80%. Questions from important topics of this subject
are part of competitive examinations such as IAS, IES, etc. Hence, numerous solved examples and exercise
problems are included in each chapter of this book to help students develop and master problem-solving
skills required to ace any examination with confidence. Objective-type questions from various competitive
examinations are also included at the end of each chapter for easy revision of core concepts.

Salient Features
� Up-to-date and full coverage of the latest syllabus of University of Mumbai
� Covers both analysis and synthesis of networks
� Uses problem-solving approach to explain topics
� Lucid coverage of network theorems, transient analysis, two-port networks, network synthesis
� Extensively supported by illustrations
� Examination-oriented excellent pedagogy:
� Illustrations: 1500+
� Solved Examples within chapters 539
� Unsolved Problems: 195
� Objective Type Questions: 130

Chapter Organisation
This text is organised into 11 chapters. Chapter 1 covers basic circuit elements and laws comprising networks.
Chapter 2 elucidates DC network theorems while AC network theorems are covered in Chapter 3. Chapter
4 discusses about magnetic circuits. Further, Chapter 5 discusses the concepts of graph theory. Chapters 6
and 7 elaborate upon transient analysis in time domain and frequency domain, respectively. Chapters 8 and
9 cover network functions and two-port networks. Chapter 10 deals with network synthesis. Lastly, Chapter
11 describes filters.

Acknowledgements
My acknowledgements would be incomplete without a mention of the contribution of my family members. I
feel indebted to my father and mother for their lifelong inspiration. I also send a heartfelt thanks to my wife Nitu;
son Aman; and daughter Aditri, for always motivating and supporting me during the preparation of the project.
I appreciate the support extended by the team at McGraw Hill Education (India), especially Hemant K Jha,
xiv�Preface
Navneet Kumar, Satinder Singh Baveja, Anuj Shrivastava and Jagriti Kundu during the editorial, copyediting
and production stages of this book.
Suggestions for improvements will always be welcome.

Ravish R Singh

����������������
Remember to write to us. We look forward to receiving your feedback, comments, and ideas to enhance the
quality of this book. You can reach us at info.india@mheducation.com. Please mention the title and authors’
name as the subject. In case you spot piracy of this book, please do let us know.
Roadmap to the Syllabus
(As per latest revised syllabus of University of Mumbai)
This text is useful for
Circuit Theory and Networks—ECC304

Module 1: Electrical Circuit Analysis


1.1 Analysis of DC and AC Circuits: Analysis of circuits with and without controlled sources using gen-
eralized loop and node matrix methods, circuit theorems: Superposition, Thevenin’s, Norton’s, Maxi-
mum Power Transfer and Reciprocity theorems
1.2 Magnetic Circuits: Concept of self and mutual inductances, coefficient of coupling, dot convention,
equivalent circuit, coupled circuit-solution using mesh analysis

GO TO:
CHAPTER 1. BASIC CIRCUIT CONCEPTS
CHAPTER 2. ANALYSIS OF DC CIRCUITS

CHAPTER 3. ANALYSIS OF AC CIRCUITS


CHAPTER 4. MAGNETIC CIRCUITS

Module 2: Graph Theory


2.1 Objectives of graph theory, linear oriented graphs, graph terminologies, matrix representation of a
graph: incidence matrix, circuit matrix, cut-set matrix, reduced incident matrix, tieset matrix, f-cutset
matrix.
2.2 Relationship between sub matrices A, B and Q.
2.3 KVL and KCL using matrix

GO TO:
CHAPTER 5. GRAPH THEORY

Module 3: Time and Frequency Domain Analysis


3.1 Time Domain Analysis of R-L and R-C Circuits: Forced and natural response, initial and final values
solution using first order differential equation for impulse, step, ramp, exponential and sinusoidal
signals
3.2 Time Domain Analysis of R-L-C Circuits: Forced and natural response, effect of damping factor, solu-
tion using second order equation for step, ramp, exponential and sinusoidal signals.
xvi�Roadmap to the Syllabus

3.3 Frequency Domain Analysis: Frequency-domain representation of R, L, C, initial value theorem and
final value theorem, applications of Laplace Transform in analyzing electrical circuits

GO TO:
CHAPTER 6. TIME DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF RLC CIRCUITS
CHAPTER 7. FREQUENCY DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF RLC CIRCUITS

Module 4: Network Functions


4.1 Network functions for the one port and two port networks, driving point and transfer functions, poles
and zeros of network functions, necessary condition for driving point functions, necessary condition
for transfer functions, calculation of residues by analytical and graphical methods, time domain
behavior as related to the pole-zero plot, stability and causality, testing for Hurwitz polynomial
4.2 Analysis of ladder and symmetrical lattice network

GO TO:
CHAPTER 8. NETWORK FUNCTIONS

Module 5: Two Port Networks


5.1 Parameters: Open circuits, short circuit, transmission and hybrid parameters, relationship among pa-
rameters, conditions for reciprocity and symmetry
5.2 Interconnections of two port network T and � representation
5.3 Terminated two port network

GO TO:

CHAPTER 9. TWO-PORT NETWORKS

Module 6: Synthesis of RLC circuits


6.1 Positive Real Functions: Concept of positive real function, testing for necessary and sufficient
conditions for positive real functions
6.2 Synthesis of LC, RC and RL Circuits: Properties of LC, RC and RL driving point functions, LC, RC
and RL network synthesis in Cauer-I and Cauer-II , Foster-I and Foster-II forms

GO TO:
CHAPTER 10. SYNTHESIS OF RLC CIRCUITS
������������������������xvii

This text is useful for


Electrical Network Analysis and Synthesis—ELX304

Module 1: Analysis of DC Circuits


1.1 DC Circuit Analysis: Analysis of DC circuits with dependent sources using generalized loop, node
matrix analysis.
1.2 Application of Network Theorems to DC Circuits: Superposition, Thevenin, Norton, Maximum Power
Transfer and Millman theorems.

GO TO:
CHAPTER 1. BASIC CIRCUIT CONCEPTS
CHAPTER 2. ANALYSIS OF DC CIRCUITS

Module 2: Analysis of AC Circuits


2.1 Analysis of Steady State AC circuits: Analysis of AC circuits with independent sources using general-
ized loop, node matrix analysis.
2.2 Application of Network Theorems to AC Circuits: Superposition, Thevenin, Norton, Maximum Power
Transfer and Millman theorems.
2.3 Analysis of Coupled Circuits: Self and mutual inductances, coefficient of coupling, dot convention,
equivalent circuit, solution using loop analysis.

GO TO:
CHAPTER 3. ANALYSIS OF AC CIRCUITS
CHAPTER 4. MAGNETIC CIRCUITS

Module 3: Time and Frequency Domain Analysis of Electrical Networks


3.1 Time Domain Analysis of R-L and R-C Circuits: Forced and natural responses, time constant, initial
and final values.
3.2 Solution using First Order Equation for Standard Input Signals: Transient and steady state time re-
sponse, solution using universal formula.
3.3 Frequency Domain Analysis of RLC Circuits: S-domain representation, concept of complex frequen-
cy, applications of Laplace Transform in solving electrical networks, driving point and transfer func-
tion, poles and zeros, calculation of residues by analytical and graphical method.

GO TO:
CHAPTER 6. TIME DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF RLC CIRCUITS
CHAPTER 7. FREQUENCY DOMAIN ANALYSIS OF RLC CIRCUITS
CHAPTER 8. NETWORK FUNCTIONS
xviii�Roadmap to the Syllabus

Module 4: Two Port Networks


4.1 Parameters: Open circuit, short circuit, transmission and hybrid parameters, relationships among pa-
rameters, reciprocity and symmetry conditions
4.2 Series/Parallel Connection: T and Pi representations, interconnection of two port networks.

GO TO:
CHAPTER 9. TWO-PORT NETWORKS

Module 5: Synthesis of RLC Circuits


5.1 Positive Real Functions: Concept of positive real function, testing for Hurwitz polynomials, testing for
necessary and sufficient conditions for positive real functions.
5.2 Synthesis of RC, RL, LC Circuits: Concepts of synthesis of RC, RL, LC driving point functions.

GO TO:
CHAPTER 10. SYNTHESIS OF RLC CIRCUITS

Module 6: Filters
6.1 Basic Filter Circuits: Low pass, high pass, band pass and band stop filters, transfer function, frequency
response, cut-off frequency, bandwidth, quality factor, attenuation constant, phase shift, characteristic
impedance.
6.2 Design and Analysis of Filters: Constant K filters

GO TO:
CHAPTER 11. FILTERS
1 Basic Circuit
Concepts

�1.1����������������
We know that like charges repel each other whereas unlike charges attract each other. To overcome this force
of attraction, a certain amount of work or energy is required. When the charges are separated, it is said that a
potential difference exists and the work or energy per unit charge utilised in this process is known as voltage
or potential difference.
The phenomenon of transfer of charge from one point to another is termed current. Current (I) is defined as
the rate of flow of electrons in a conductor. It is measured by the number of electrons that flow in unit time.
Energy is the total work done in the electric circuit. The rate at which the work is done in an electric circuit
is called electric power. Energy is measured in joules (J) and power in watts (W).

�1.2�������������
Resistance is the property of a material due to which it opposes the flow of electric current through it.
Certain materials offer very little opposition to the flow of electric current and are called conductors, e.g.,
metals, acids and salt solutions. Certain materials offer very high resistance to the flow of electric current and
are called insulators, e.g., mica, glass, rubber, Bakelite, etc.
The practical unit of resistance is ohm and is represented by the symbol �. A conductor is said to have
resistance of one ohm if a potential difference of one volt across its terminals causes a current of one ampere
to flow through it.
The resistance of a conductor depends on the following factors.
(i) It is directly proportional to its length.
(ii) It is inversely proportional to the area of cross section of the conductor.
(iii) It depends on the nature of the material.
(iv) It also depends on the temperature of the conductor.
Hence,
l
R�
A
l
R��
A
where l is length of the conductor, A is the cross-sectional area and � is a constant known as specific resistance
or resistivity of the material.
Another random document with
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to say, while thus setting the law at defiance, he obtained a certain
steady amount of countenance and protection from both of the great
Campbell chiefs, Argyle and Breadalbane. The government made an
effort to impose a check upon his career by planting a little fort at
Inversnaid;[450] but Rob Roy, nevertheless, continued in his lawless
course of life. On the side of Loch Lomond, 1712.
near Inversnaid, there is a cave formed by a
flexure in the stratification of the mountain: here Rob occasionally
took refuge when hard pressed. It is curious to reflect that this
strange exemplification of predatory life was realised in a not very
remote part of our island, in the days when Addison and Pope were
regaling the refined people of London with the productions of their
genius. Rob is described as a short, robust man, with bushy hair and
beard, and legs covered so thickly with red hair as to resemble those
of a Highland bull. His cognomen ‘Roy’ expresses his ruddy
complexion. It is admitted that, amidst his wild life, he was not
without humanity or feeling for the unfortunate, and, what is
perhaps more strange, that he was a sagacious and politic sort of
person, who never would go into any quarrel or contention which
was not likely to result in some practical benefit or advantage. It was
probably owing to this cool temperament, that, though he mustered
a body of clansmen for the Stuart cause in 1715, he yet stood neutral
at the battle of Sheriffmuir, alike afraid to offend King James, on the
one hand, and his patron, the Duke of Argyle, on the other.

A singular and not very decent lawsuit June.


took place at this time between the Earl of
Bute and his stepmother, the Dowager Countess, widow of the first
earl, by whom this family was first raised to any considerable
distinction. When the deceased peer went to Bath in the spring of
1710, a few months before his death, he granted a liferent of 3300
merks (£183, 6s. 8d. sterling) to his lady. The present peer—father,
by the way, of George III.’s celebrated minister—refused to pay this
annuity, and the countess raised an action against him for it, and
also for the annual rents of her own son’s patrimony. The only
objection presented by the earl in his defence was, that the lady had
profited unduly already out of her husband’s property, having at his
death appropriated large sums of ‘lying money.’ The matter being
referred to her oath, she acknowledged having had in hand at her
lord’s death forty pounds, with a purse containing ‘sundry medals
and purse-pennies given by the earl and others to her and her son, in
which number there were some guineas; and the whole might be
about £60 sterling.’ She averred that ‘she had nothing as the product
of any trade she drove, except two or three ells of alamode;’[451] she
had made nothing in her husband’s lifetime 1712.
by lending money; there had been presents
from the tenants in kind and in money, and her husband had given
them to her. The peer seems to have gained nothing by challenging
the claims of his stepmother beyond the forty pounds of ‘lying
money.’[452]

The stricter Presbyterians, commonly July 23.


called Cameronians—the people chiefly
involved in the persecutions of the Stuart reigns—had been left
unsatisfied by the Revolution, and were now as antagonistic to the
presbyterian church as they had ever been to the late episcopacy. For
years they held together, without ministers, or the means of getting
any trained in their peculiar walk of doctrine; but at length one or
two schismatics cast off by the church put themselves at their head,
the chief being Mr John Macmillan, formerly minister of Balmaghie
in Galloway. Oaths to the state, neglect of the Covenant, and general
compliances with the spirit of the times, were the stumbling-blocks
which these people regarded as disqualifying the national
establishment for their allegiance.
The Cameronians chiefly abounded in the counties of Lanark,
Dumfries, and Kirkcudbright, and their Canterbury was the small
burgh of Sanquhar in Nithsdale. Whenever any remarkable political
movement was going on in the country, these peculiar people were
pretty sure to come to the cross of Sanquhar and utter a testimony on
the subject. The last occasion when this was done was at the Union, a
measure which it pleased ‘the Antipopish, Antiprelatic, Antierastian,
Antisectarian, True Presbyterian Church of Scotland’ (for so they
styled themselves), to regard as ‘sinful,’ because it involved a
sanction to that English prelatic system which the Solemn League
and Covenant had bound the Scottish nation to extirpate.
While still brooding over the ‘land-ruining, God-provoking, soul-
destroying, and posterity-ensnaring-and-enslaving Union,’ the act of
toleration, so manifestly designed for a relief to the prelatists, came
like a bellows to blow up the fire. Sundry meetings were held, and at
length a general one at the upland village of Crawford-John (26th of
May 1712), where it was finally decided on that the faithful and true
church should renew the Solemn League and Covenant.
It was at a place called Auchensaugh, on the top of a broad
mountain behind the village of Douglas, 1712.
that the meeting was held for this purpose.
The transaction occupied several days. On the first, there was a
prayer for a proper frame of spirit, followed by a sermon, as this was
again by an engagement to duties, amongst which the uprooting of
all opinions different from their own was the most conspicuous. The
people were dismissed with an exhortation from Mr Macmillan upon
their ‘unconcerned carriage and behaviour.’ On the second day, it
was reckoned that about seventeen hundred were present, including,
however, many onlookers brought by curiosity. There was now read
an acknowledgment of sins, and the people were invited to clear their
consciences by declaring any of which they had been guilty. One
confessed having made a rash oath; another that he had attended the
Established Church; several that they had been married by the
Erastian clergy. One, hearing of the sinfulness of tests and oaths,
rather unluckily confessed his having sworn the Covenant at
Lesmahago. A number had to deplore their having owned William
and Mary as their lawful sovereigns. Mr Macmillan seems to have
been a little perplexed by the innocent nature of their sins. After all
this was at an end, the Solemn League was read and sworn to, article
by article, with uplifted hands. A day of interval being allowed, there
was a third of devotion. On the fourth, a Sunday, there was an
administration of the communion, which must have been a striking
sight, as eight tables were set out upon the moor, each capable of
accommodating sixty persons. ‘It was a very extraordinary rain the
whole time of the action.’
Even Wodrow, who has taken such pains to commemorate the
sufferings of these people under prelacy, seems to have been unable
to look with patience on their making such demonstrations against
the church now established.[453] Such earnestness in intolerance,
such self-confidence in opinion, cannot be read of in our age without
strange feelings. After all, the Covenanters of Auchensaugh were
good enough to invite the rest of the community to join them, ‘being
anxious to get the divisions which have long wrecked this church
removed and remedied;’ nay, they were ‘willing, for peace and unity,
to acknowledge and forsake whatever we can rationally be convinced
to be bad in our conduct and management,’[454] though it would have
probably been a serious task for a General 1712.
Assembly of angels to produce such a
conviction.
About this time, and for long after, there flourished an enthusiast
named John Halden, who considered himself, and a friend of his
named James Leslie, as above all and peculiarly the proper
representatives of the martyrs Cameron, Cargill, Hackston, Hall,
Skeen, Balfour, &c., according to the tenor of the Rutherglen,
Sanquhar, and Lanark Declarations. John, like his predecessors,
declared not merely spiritual but temporal war against all the
existing powers, seeing they had declined from the Covenant,
exercised an Erastian power in the church, and were tyrants over the
state. Nay, he declared war against ‘the enemies of Christ’ all over the
world, denouncing the curse of Meroz against all who would not join
him. Halden and Leslie, since there was no government they could
submit to, professed their desire and endeavour to ‘set up a godly
magistracy, and form a civil state’ themselves; and it is to be feared
that the community remained grievously insensible to the offered
blessing. The Lord Advocate did not even do them the honour to
consider them dangerous. The only active step we hear of John
Halden taking was to burn the Abjuration Oath at the Cross of
Edinburgh, on the point of a dagger (October 28, 1712), proclaiming
with a loud voice, as he went off up the High Street: ‘Let King Jesus
reign, and let his enemies be scattered!’

Dr Pitcairn, the prince of wits and July.


physicians in his day, being an Episcopalian
and a Jacobite, moreover a man of gay and convivial habits, did not
stand in good repute among the severer of the Presbyterian clergy.
Regarding many things connected with religion from a peculiar point
of view, which was not theirs, he sometimes appeared to them, by the
freedom of speech he assumed on such points, and by the cast of
comicality which he gave them, to be little better than an unbeliever.
Wodrow in his Renfrewshire parish heard of him and his associates
with serious concern. It was reported, he tells us, that ‘Dr Pitcairn
and others do meet very regularly every Lord’s Day, and read the
Scriptures, in order to lampoon and ridicule it. It’s such wickedness
that, though we had no outward evidences, might make us
apprehensive of some heavy rod.’[455]
The Rev. James Webster, one of the Edinburgh clergy of that day,
was distinguished by the highest graces as 1712.
an evangelical preacher. He had been a
sufferer under the ante-Revolution government, and hated a Jacobite
with a perfect hatred. To the Jacobites, on the other hand, his high
Calvinism and general severity of style were a subject of continual
sarcasm and epigram; and it is not unlikely that Pitcairn had
launched at him a few jokes which he did not feel over meekly. In a
poem of Pitcairn’s, Ad Adenas, there is, indeed, a passage in which
Mr Webster, as minister of the Tolbooth kirk, a part of St Giles’s, is
certainly glanced at:
‘Protinus Ægidii triplicem te confer in ædem,
Tres ubi Cyclopes fanda nefanda boant.’

Perhaps this very remark gave rise to all that followed.


One day, in a company where the magistrates of Edinburgh were
present, Mr Webster fell into conversation with Mr Robert
Freebairn, the bookseller. The minister complained that, in his
auctions, Freebairn sold wicked and prohibited books; in particular,
he had lately sold a copy of Philostratus’s Life of Apollonius
Tyanæus, which deists and atheists were eager to purchase, because
it set forth the doings of that impostor as on a level with the miracles
of Jesus. It being insinuated that these auctions ministered to an
infamous taste, Mr Freebairn asked Mr Webster to ‘condescend upon
persons;’ whereupon the latter unguardedly said: ‘Such persons, for
example, as Dr Pitcairn, who is known to be a professed deist. As a
proof of what I say, at that very sale where you found so many eager
to purchase the Life of Apollonius, when some one remarked that a
copy of the Bible hung heavy in comparison on your hands, Pitcairn
remarked: “No wonder, for, you know, Verbum Dei manet in
æternum,” which was a direct scoffing at the sacred volume.’
Pitcairn, having this conversation reported to him by Freebairn,
took it with lamentable thin-skinnedness, and immediately raised an
action against Webster before the sheriffs for defamation. Webster
advocated the case to the Lords, on the ground that the sheriffs were
not the proper judges in such a matter; and, after a good deal of
debating, the Lords, considering that the pursuer shewed too much
keenness, while the defender appeared willing to give reasonable
satisfaction, recommended the Lord-justice Clerk ‘to endeavour to
settle the parties amicably;’ and so the affair seems to have ended.
[456]

In the early part of this month, the Rev. 1712. Sep.


Mr Wodrow made an excursion into
Galloway, and noted on the way several characteristic circumstances.
‘I find,’ he says, ‘they have no great quantity of straw, and necessity
has learned them to make thrift of fern or breckans, which grow
there very throng [close]. They thatch their houses with them ...
stript of the leaves ... and say it lasts six or eight years in their great
storms.’ He adverts to the moat-hills near some of the parish
churches, and great cairns of stones scattered over the moors. Of a
loch near Partan, he says: ‘There seem to be tracks of roads into it
upon all hands;’ a description reminding us of the glacial grooves
and scratches seen on rocks dipping into several of the Scottish lakes.
‘I notice,’ he says, ‘all through the stewartry [of Kirkcudbright] the
houses very little and low, and but a foot or two of them of stone, and
the rest earth and thatch. I observe all the country moorish. I noticed
the stones through many places of far more regular shapes than in
this country [Renfrewshire]. On the water of Ken they are generally
spherical [boulders]. Through much of the moorish road to Crogo,
they are square and long. The strata that with us lie generally
horizontally, there in many places lie vertical.’
The worthy martyrologist received from a Galloway minister, on
this tour, an account of the witches who were rife in the parish of
Balmaclellan immediately after the Revolution. ‘One of them he got
discovered and very clear probation of persons that saw her in the
shape of a hare; and when taken she started up in her own shape.
When before the judge, he observed her inclinable to confess, when
of a sudden, her eyes being fixed upon a particular part of the room,
she sank down in the place. He lifted her up and challenged her,
whether her master had not appeared in that place. She owned it was
so, confessed, and was execute. All this process is in the records of
the presbytery, of which I am promised ane abstract.’[457]
Wodrow seems to have had a taste for geology, though the word
did not then exist. He thus wrote to Edward Lluyd, August 26, 1709:
‘My house [is] within a quarter of a mile of the Aldhouse Burn, where
you and I were lithoscoping. My pastoral charge does not allow me
that time I once had, to follow out these subterranean studies, but
my inclination is just the same as when I saw you, or rather greater,
and I take it to be one of the best diversions 1712.
from more serious work, and in itself a
great duty, to view and admire my Maker in his works, as well as his
word. I have got together some stone of our fossils hereabout, from
our marl, our limestone, &c.’[458]

The Edinburgh Courant newspaper Sep. 24.


contains several notices of a flood which
happened this day in the west of Scotland, generally admitted to be
the greatest in memory. Wodrow, who calls it ‘the greatest for ane
age,’ says it prevented all travelling for the time between Glasgow
and Edinburgh. The lower parts of the western city were, as usual on
such occasions, deep in water, to the ruin of much merchandise, and
the imprisonment of (it is said) twelve hundred families in the upper
parts of the houses. A boat sailed about in the Briggate. The house of
Sir Donald Macdonald—a gentleman regarded with great jealousy in
Glasgow on account of his unpopular religion—is described in one
account as immersed to the depth of three fathoms; which is
probably an exaggeration. But we may believe Wodrow when he tells
us that ‘the water came up to the well in the Saltmarket.’
Great anxiety was felt at Glasgow for the safety of the fine old
bridge, which had its arches ‘filled to the bree.’ Vast quantities of
country produce and of domestic articles of all descriptions were
brought down on the surface of the Clyde and other rivers of the
province involved by the flood. Several lives were lost. At Irvine and
other parts of Ayrshire, as well as in Renfrewshire, bridges were
carried away, and great general damage inflicted. ‘A man and a
woman were lost upon the water of Kelvin, and if the Laird of
Bardowie had not sent his boat from his loch, to the said water of
Kelvin, there had been a great many more people lost therein.’
If we are to believe the observant minister of Eastwood, the whole
air at this season seemed ‘infected.’ He notes the frequency of
madness in dogs, and that, owing to various epidemics, as ‘the
galloping fever,’ sore throat, and measles, scarce a third of the people
of Glasgow were able to appear in church.
‘I am told,’ he adds, ‘the Blantyre Doctor did presage this evil
harvest and the floods; and they talk, but whether true or false I
know not, that there is to be another and greater flood, wherein the
Clyde shall be three steps up the Tolbooth stair in Glasgow.’
Mr Robert Monteath was at this time 1712. Dec.
preparing his celebrated Theater of
Mortality, a collection of the sepulchral inscriptions existing
throughout Scotland. It had already cost him ‘eight years sore travel,
and vast charges and expenses.’ He now advertised for assistance in
his task, ‘desiring all persons who have any valuable epitaphs, Latin,
prose or verse, English verse only, or any historical, chronological, or
moral inscriptions,’ to send just and authentic copies of them to him
‘at his house in the College Wynd, Edinburgh.’ He took that
opportunity of stating his hope that ‘all generous persons will
cheerfully subscribe his proposals in a matter so pious, pleasant,
profitable, and national.’[459]

Died, Sir James Steuart, Lord Advocate 1713. May 1.


for Scotland, aged about seventy-eight,
greatly lamented by the Presbyterians, to whom he had ever been a
steadfast friend. The General Assembly, in session at the time, came
in a body to his funeral, which was the most numerously attended
ever known in Edinburgh, the company reaching from the head of
the close in which his lordship lived, in the Luckenbooths, to the
Greyfriars’ Churchyard. For several years, bodily infirmity confined
him to a chair; but his mind continued clear to the last. Sir James
had shewn some unsteadiness to his principles in the reign of James
II., but nevertheless was forced to fly his country, and he only
returned along with King William, whose manifesto for Scotland he
is understood to have written.
Great general learning, legal skill, and worldly policy, marked Sir
James Steuart; but the most remarkable characteristic of the man,
considering his position, was his deep piety. Wodrow, who speaks of
him from personal knowledge, says: ‘His death was truly Christian,
and a great instance of the reality of religion.... He had a great value
for religion and persons of piety. He was mighty in the Scriptures;
perfectly master of [them]; wonderful in prayer. That winter, 1706–
7, when he was so long ill, he was in strange raptures in his prayers
sometimes in his family. He used to speak much of his sense of the
advantage of the prayers of the church, and in a very dangerous
sickness he had about thirteen years ago, he alleged he found a
sensible turn of his body in the time of Mr George Meldrum’s prayer
for him. He never fell into any trouble but he gave up his name to be
prayed for in all the churches of the city of 1713.
Edinburgh. His temper was most sweet and
easy, and very pleasant. He was a kind and fast friend, very
compassionate and charitable.’[460]

The Lord Drummond, eldest son of the May 11.


exiled Earl of Perth, and his wife, Jean
Gordon, daughter of the Duke of Gordon, had a son and heir born to
them, the same who afterwards took a conspicuous part in the
rebellion of 1745, which he did not long outlive. Politics, long adverse
to the house of Drummond, smiled on the birth of this infant heir, for
never since the Revolution did the Whig interest seem more
depressed. Lord Drummond was encouraged by these circumstances
to take a step which would have been dangerous a few years before.
It is related as follows by Wodrow: ‘The baptism of my Lord
Drummond’s son [was performed in October] at his own house by a
popish bishop with great solemnity. The whole gentlemen and
several noblemen about, were gathered together; and when the mass
was said, there were very few of them went out. Several justices of
peace and others were there. This is a fearful reproach upon the
lenity of our government, to suffer such open insults from
papists.’[461]
Two months later, Wodrow notes: ‘The papists are turning very
open at Edinburgh, and all over Scotland there is a terrible openness
in the popish party.’ It is alleged in a popular contemporary
publication, that there were fully forty Catholic priests living with
little effort at concealment in Scotland; some of them very successful
in winning over ignorant people to their ‘damnable errors;’ while
‘one Mr Bruce, a popish bishop, had his ordinary residence in
Perthshire, where he had his gardens, cooks, and other domestic
servants, and thither the priests and emissaries of inferior rank
resorted for their directions and orders.... Their peats and other fuel
were regularly furnished them ... [they had] also their mass-houses,
to which their blind votaries resorted almost as publicly as the
Protestants did to their parish churches.’[462]

Died Dr Archibald Pitcairn, a man in Oct. 20.


most respects so strongly contrasted with
his recently deceased countryman, Sir James Steuart, as to impress
very strongly the absurdity of trying to ascribe any particular line of
character to a nation or any other large 1713.
group of people. To nearly every idea
associated with the word Scotsman, Pitcairn, like Burns and many
other notable Caledonians, stands in direct antagonism: he was gay,
impulsive, unworldly, full of wit and geniality, a dissenter from
Calvinism, and a lover of the exiled house of Stuart. Conviviality
shortened his life down to the same measure which a worn-out brain
gave to Sir Walter Scott—sixty-one years. But he parted with the
world in great serenity and good-humour, studying to make his last
year useful for the future by writing out some of his best professional
observations, and penning cheerful verses to his friends on his
death-bed. In these, to the refutation of vulgar calumnies, he failed
not to express his trust in a future and brighter existence:
‘Animas morte carere cano:
Has ego, corporibus profugas, ad Sidera mitto,
Sideraque ingressis otia blanda dico.’

Adding, in the Horatian spirit which marked him all through life:
‘Sed fuerint nulli, forsan, quos spondeo, coeli,
Nullaque sint Ditis numina, nulla Jovis;

· · · · ·

Attamen esse hilares, et inanes mittere curas


Proderit, ac vitæ commoditate frui,
Et festos agitâsse dies, ævique fugacis
Tempora perpetuis detinuisse jocis.’[463]

A few months before his death, Pitcairn had completed a volume of


his medical essays, to which he prefixed a page strongly significant of
his political predilections: it contained the following words in large
characters: ‘To God and his Prince this Work is humbly Dedicated
by Archibald Pitcairn,’ with the date, ‘June 10, 1713,’ being the
well-known birthday of the said prince— 1713.
namely, the Chevalier St George. Where
practical matters are concerned, one sees in this volume the
acuteness and good sense which gave the author his professional
eminence. In theoretical matters, we find the absurdities which may
be said to have been inseparable from medical science before either
physiology or organic chemistry was understood. The phenomena of
digestion are described by Pitcairn as wholly physical and
mechanical. It is also rather startling to find him patronising
poultices of ovine and bovine excreta, and powders made of the
human skull.
The volume was published posthumously, and in the friendly
biography prefixed to it, we find a charming professional portrait
—‘always ready to serve every one to the utmost of his power, and
even at the risk of his own life—never sacrificing the health of his
patients for any humour or caprice’—‘not concerned about
fees’—‘went with greater cheerfulness to those from whom he could
expect nothing but good-will, than to persons of the highest
condition’—often, where needful, left marks of his charity, as well as
his art, with the sick. ‘This virtue of charity was indeed quite his own
in its manner, for he usually conducted it in such a way that those
benefiting by it remained ignorant of his being their benefactor.’ It is
also stated of him that he was of ‘a pleasant engaging humour; that
life sat easy upon him in all circumstances; that he despised many,
but hated none.’
In a country journey, Pitcairn discovered the learning and genius
of Thomas Ruddiman, and he succeeded in bringing this remarkable
man into a position which enabled him to exercise his talents.
Ruddiman afterwards repaid the favour by gathering the many clever
Latin poems of his patron, which he gave to the world in 1727. They
are chiefly complimentary to the famous men on the cavalier side, or
directly expressive of his political feelings; but some are general, and
include such happy turns of thought as make us regret their not
being in English. One of the most noted of his pieces was a brief elegy
on the death of Dundee, which was translated into English by
Dryden; and it must be acknowledged as something for a Scottish
writer of Latin verses in that age, to have had men like Dryden and
Prior for translators.
One cannot but reflect with pleasure on such connections amongst
men of genius as that between Pitcairn and Ruddiman; and the
association of ideas leads us to another anecdote connected with
Pitcairn and to a similar purport. When the learned physician acted
as professor at Leyden, he had amongst his 1713.
pupils two men of great eventual eminence,
Herman Boerhaave and Richard Mead, both of whom entertained a
high sense of the value of his instructions. A son of Pitcairn having
forfeited his life by appearing in the rebellion of 1715, Mead, then in
great favour in high places, went to Sir Robert Walpole to plead for
the young man’s pardon. ‘If I have been able,’ he said, ‘to save your
or any other man’s life, I owe the power to this young man’s father.’
The claim was too strong, and put in too antithetic terms, to be
resisted.
My old friend Alexander Campbell, editor of Albyn’s Anthology,
was intimately acquainted with a maiden daughter of Pitcairn, who
lived till the closing decade of the eighteenth century. He spoke of
having once asked her to accompany him to the theatre, to see Mrs
Siddons, when the old lady said gaily: ‘Aih, na, laddie; I have not
been at ony playhouse since I gaed to ane in the Canongate wi’ papa,
in the year ten.’

‘This month there was an incident at Nov.


Glasgow which made a very great noise in
the country. Mr Gray [one of the clergy] was visiting [his flock], and
in some house meets with one Andrew Watson, a journeyman
shoemaker, lately come into the town from Greenock.’ On inquiry, he
learned that this man did not attend his ministrations, and, asking
the reason, he was told it was because he, the minister, had taken the
oath of abjuration. He seemed a stiff, pragmatical fellow, and in the
course of an altercation which ensued, he called Mr Gray perjured. A
lay elder, accompanying Mr Gray, resented this expression of the
shoemaker, and reported it to Bailie Bowman, who, sending for
Watson, demanded if he called Mr Gray perjured. ‘Yes, and I will so
call every one who takes the oath of abjuration.’ ‘Do you own Mr
Gray as your minister?’ ‘I will own no one who took that oath.’ ‘Do
you own the magistrates?’ ‘No, if they have taken that oath.’ Here
was a rebel for the worthy magistrates and ministers of Glasgow to
be cherishing in their community. It was not to be borne. Bailie
Bowman clapped the man up in jail, till it should be determined what
was to be his ultimate fate. After a day or two, the magistrates sent
for him, and questioned him as he had been questioned before, when
he not only gave the same answers, but subscribed a paper disowning
both ministers and magistrates, on the ground of their having taken
the aforesaid oath. ‘They kept him in prison ten or twelve days, but
could make nothing of him. They offered to 1713.
let him out if he would confess he had given
offence to the magistrates; but that he would not do.’ There were
some who cried out against this procedure as ‘persecution,’ and they
took care that the man did not want for maintenance. The last we
hear of the matter is, that the magistrates ‘resolve to banish him the
town.’ Wodrow, who relates this occurrence,[464] soon after makes the
observation, that ‘the Presbyterians are ill termed bigot and narrow-
spirited:’ that character ‘does best agree to papists and prelatists.’

It was remarked that an unwholesome air Dec.


prevailed at this time, causing many hasty
deaths, and favouring small-pox, of which eighty children died
within a little time in Eglesham parish. ‘I hear it observed,’ says
Wodrow, ‘that in the summer-time never was known such a quantity
of flees [flies.]’
Campbell of Lochnell having died about 1714. Jan. 10.
this day, his son, a Jacobite, kept the corpse
unburied till the 28th, in order that the burial might be turned to
account, or made use of, for political purposes. It was customary for
the obsequies of a Highland chief or gentleman to be attended by a
vast multitude of people, who usually received some entertainment
on the occasion. It seems to have been understood that those who
came to Lochnell’s funeral were making a masked demonstration in
favour of the exiled Stuart. Those of the opposite inclination deemed
it necessary to attend also, in order to be a check upon the Jacobites.
Hence it came to pass, that the inhumation of Lochnell was attended
by two thousand five hundred men, well armed and appointed, five
hundred being of Lochnell’s own lands, commanded by the famous
Rob Roy, carrying with them a pair of colours belonging to the Earl
of Breadalbane, and accompanied by the screams of thirteen
bagpipes. Such a subject for a picture![465]

Keeping in view the article under Feb.


September 1690, regarding the marriage of
Walter Scott of Kelso with Mary Campbell of Silvercraigs, we may
read with additional interest a letter by that person, written from
Glasgow to his wife in February 1714, giving 1714.
an account of the peculiar arrangements
regarding her father’s funeral:
‘Glasgow, Feb. 2, 1714.

‘My Dear—I left Edinr upon fryday the 29th of the last. Dean of [Guild] Allane
nor your sister either durst venture to travell to Glasgow with [me], on account of
the season, but said that Mr Bell, Lisis younge husband, was there, whom Dean of
Guild Allane had trusted with any business that could bee done for him. I called at
Lithkow and saw Lissie, who was very kinde, was at Kilsyth all that night, came to
Glasgow the next day, beeing Saturday, at twelve of the clock, and at two of the
clock that day went down to the chesting of your father. He was buried yesterday
att four a clock afternoon, beeing Monday the first instant, very devoutlie and
honourablie, for Blythswood had ordered all things proper and suitable to a nicety.
All the gentlemen in the place, the magistrates, and the citiezens of best esteem
and substance, accompanied the funerall in very good order. I carried his head,
Blythswood on my right, and Alex. Bell, Lissies husband, on my left hand; other
nerest relations and Sr James Campbell of Auchinbrook carried all the way. After
the funerall, there was prepared in the large room of the Coffee-house a very
handsome and genteele treat, to wh the Magistrates and Gentlemen and friends
were invited. The treat consisted of confections, sweet breads, and bisket of divers
sorts, very fine and well done, and wines. There were at it upwards of thirtie. Wee
are this day to look to his papers in presence of Bailie Bowman and town-clark,
wherof you shall have account of after this. I have sent a letter to Sir Robert Pollock
just now, whose answer I will wait. I am like to stay five days after this here, and
the time I may stay in Edir depends on my success from Sir Rot Pollock. In the
mean time let Robie[466] be making himself ready, for his master told Dean of
Guild that he thought he would bee readie to saill about the middle of this instant.
When I come to Edr I shall know whither it will be needfull to send for him before I
come home myselfe or not. I recommend you all to the protection of God, and am,

‘My dear, your


‘W. Scott.
REIGN OF GEORGE I.: 1714–1727.

The Tory ministry of Anne, which had certainly meditated some


attempt at the restoration of the Stuart line, were paralysed, as we
have seen, by her death, and allowed the accession of George of
Hanover to take place without opposition. The new king had no
sooner settled himself in London, than he displaced the late queen’s
advisers, and surrounded himself with the Whigs, whom he knew to
be his only true friends. The sharpness of this proceeding, added to
the general discontent, produced an almost immediate insurrection.
Two of the ex-ministers—the Duke of Ormond and Lord Bolingbroke
—went to France, and attached themselves to the exiled court. The
Earl of Mar, after in vain attempting to obtain the favour of King
George, repaired to his native country, and, on the 6th of September
1715, set up the standard of rebellion in Aberdeenshire, although he
is said to have had no commission to that effect from the rival prince.
This nobleman, who had acted as Secretary of State under the late
government, was speedily surrounded with hundreds of armed men,
chiefly of the Highland clans, who were willing to be led by him to
battle.
The government had at this time only a few regiments in Scotland,
not exceeding in all fifteen hundred men, and these could not be
concentrated in one place, without leaving the rest of the country
exposed. They were, however, put under the command of the Duke of
Argyle, a young soldier who had served under Marlborough, and at
one time commanded the British troops in Spain. The government
could not well spare more men for service in Scotland, as England,
being threatened with a corresponding invasion from France,
required a large number of the disposable troops for its own defence,
and also for the purpose of preventing a rising among the native
Jacobites. An attempt was made to surprise Edinburgh Castle in
behalf of the Chevalier, and it would have in all likelihood succeeded,
but for the folly of one or two of the conspirators. By this enterprise,
if successful, the Duke of Argyle must have been disabled for keeping
together his small army, and the whole of the south of Scotland
would at once have fallen into the hands of the insurgent general, if
he had been gifted with common energy to take it into his
possession.
Mar entered Perth on the 28th of September, having with him
about five thousand horse and foot, fully armed. Among his
Highland adherents were the chieftains of Clanranald and Glengarry,
the Earl of Breadalbane, and the Marquis of Tullibardine (eldest son
of the Duke of Athole), all of whom brought their clansmen into the
field. Among the Lowland Jacobites who had already joined him
were the Earls of Panmure and Strathmore, with many of the
younger sons of considerable families. On the 2d of October, a party
of his troops performed the dexterous exploit of surprising a
government vessel on the Firth of Forth opposite to Burntisland, and
taking from it several hundred stand of arms, which it was about to
carry to the north, for the purpose of arming the Whig Earl of
Sutherland against his Jacobite neighbours. This gave a little éclat to
the enterprise.
The government, in order to encourage loyalty at this dangerous
crisis, obtained an act, adjudging the estates of the insurgents to such
vassals, holding of them, as should remain at peace. The state-
officers were also very active in apprehending suspected persons,
especially in England. Some gentlemen in the northern counties,
fearing that this would be their fate, met on the 6th of October at
Rothbury, and soon increased to a considerable party. Among them
were Mr Forster, member of parliament for Northumberland, and
Lord Widdrington. They made an advance to Newcastle, but were
deterred from attacking it. They then concentrated themselves at
Hexham, and opened a communication with Lord Mar. About the
same time, the Viscount Kenmure, and the Earls of Nithsdale,
Wintoun, and Carnwath appeared in arms in the south of Scotland,
with a considerable band of followers, and a junction was soon after
effected between the two parties.
As the Earl of Mar was loath to leave the Highlands, where
immense bands were mustering to join him, he resolved to make no
attempt upon the Duke of Argyle, who had now posted his small
force at Stirling Bridge, which forms the only free pass between the
north and south of Scotland. The earl, however, thought it expedient
to send a detachment of upwards of two thousand of his infantry
across the Firth of Forth, in order to co-operate with him, when the
proper time should arrive, by falling upon the duke in flank. This
party was placed under the command of Brigadier Mackintosh of
Borlum, an old officer, who had been regularly trained under
Marlborough. By making a feint at Burntisland, to which point they
attracted the war-vessels on the firth, about sixteen hundred got
safely over to East Lothian, and immediately marched upon
Edinburgh, which was then defenceless. The provost, however, had
time to call the Duke of Argyle to his aid, who entered the west gate
of the city with five hundred horse, at the same time that Mackintosh
was approaching its eastern limit. The insurgent chief turned aside to
Leith, and barricaded his men in the old dismantled citadel of
Cromwell. There he was called to surrender next day by the duke, but
returned a haughty defiance, and the assailing party had to retire to
wait for cannon. The brigadier took the opportunity that night to
march back to East Lothian, where for a day or two he garrisoned
Seton House, the princely seat of the Earl of Wintoun. The Duke of
Argyle was obliged to leave him unmolested, in order to return to
Stirling, upon which he learned that the Earl of Mar was marching
with his whole force. The insurgent general was in reality only
anxious to call him off from the party under Mackintosh. The capital
being now protected by volunteers, that officer, in obedience to the
commands of the Earl of Mar, marched to Kelso, where he formed a
junction with the English and Lowland cavaliers.
There were now two Jacobite armies in Scotland—one at Perth,
and another at Kelso. It was the obvious policy of both to have
attempted to break up the Duke of Argyle’s encampment, which was
the sole obstacle to their gaining possession of Scotland; but this the
Earl of Mar either found inconvenient or imprudent, and the party at
Kelso was soon diverted to another scene of action. After a delay of
some days, and much unhappy wrangling among themselves, it was
determined by the leaders of this body to march into the west of
England, where, as the country abounded with Jacobites, they
expected to raise a large reinforcement. They therefore moved along
the Border by Jedburgh, Hawick, and Langholm, followed by a
government force much inferior to themselves in numbers, under the
command of General Carpenter. On the 31st of October they entered
England, all except a few hundred Highlanders, who had determined
to go home, and who were mostly seized by the country people upon
the march.
Hitherto, the insurrection had been a spontaneous movement of
the friends of the Chevalier, under the self-assumed direction of the
Earl of Mar. It was now put into proper form by the earl receiving a
commission as generalissimo from the royal personage in whose
behalf he was acting. Henceforth the insurgent forces were
supported by a regular daily pay of threepence in money, with a
certain quantity of provisions, the necessary funds being raised by
virtue of the earl’s commission, in the shape of a land-tax, which was
rendered severer to the enemies than to the friends of the cause. The
army was now increased by two thousand five hundred men brought
by the Marquis of Huntly, eldest son of the Duke of Gordon, and
nearly four thousand who arrived, under the charge of the Earl of
Seaforth, from the North Highlands. Early in November, there could
not be fewer than sixteen thousand men in arms throughout the
country for the Stuarts, a force tripling that with which Prince
Charles penetrated into England at a later and less auspicious period.
Yet even with all, or nearly all this force at his command, the Earl of
Mar permitted the Duke of Argyle to protect the Lowlands and the
capital with about three thousand men.
At length, on the 10th of November, having gathered nearly all the
forces he could expect, he resolved to force the pass so well guarded
by his opponent. When the Duke of Argyle learned that Mar was
moving from Perth, he resolved to cross the Forth and meet his
enemy on as advantageous ground as possible on the other side,
being afraid that the superior numbers of the insurgents might
enable them to advance upon more points of the river than he had
troops to defend. He drew up his forces on the lower part of a
swelling waste called the Sheriffmuir, with the village of Dunblane in
his rear. His whole force amounted to three thousand three hundred
men, of whom twelve hundred were cavalry. Mar, reinforced on the
march by the West Highland clans under General Gordon, advanced
to battle with about nine thousand men, including some squadrons
of horse, which were composed, however, of only country gentlemen
and their retainers. Although the insurgents thus greatly
outnumbered their opponents, the balance was in some measure
restored by Mar’s total ignorance of the military art, and the
undisciplined character of his troops; while Argyle, on the other
hand, had conducted armies under the most critical circumstances,
and his men were not only perfectly trained, but possessed that
superiority which consists in the mechanical regularity and firmness
with which such troops must act. On the night of the 12th, the two
armies lay within four miles of each other. Next morning, they were
arranged by their respective commanders in two lines, the
extremities of which were protected by horse. On meeting, however,
at the top of the swelling eminence which had been interposed
between them, it was found that the right wing of each greatly
outflanked the left wing of the other army. The commanders, who
were stationed at this part of their various hosts, immediately
charged, and as in neither case there was much force opposed to
them, they were both to some extent successful. The Duke of Argyle
beat back the left wing of the insurgents, consisting of Highland foot
and Lowland cavalry, to the river Allan. The Earl of Mar, in like
manner, drove the left wing of the royal army, which was
commanded by General Whitham, to the Forth. Neither of these
triumphant parties knew of what was done elsewhere, but both
congratulated themselves upon their partial success. In the
afternoon, the Earl of Mar returned with the victorious part of his
army to an eminence in the centre of the field, whence he was
surprised, soon after, to observe the Duke of Argyle leading back the
victorious part of his army by the highway to Dunblane. The total
want of intelligence on each side, and the fear which ignorance
always engenders, prevented these troops mutually from attacking
each other. The duke retired to the village; the earl drew off towards
Perth, whither a large part of his army had already fled in the
character of defeated troops: and thus the action was altogether
indecisive. Several hundreds were slain on both sides; the Earl of
Strathmore and the chieftain of Clanranald fell on the side of the
insurgents; the Earl of Forfar on that of the royalists. The Duke of
Argyle reappeared next morning on the field, in order to renew the
action; but finding that Mar was in full retreat to Perth, he was
enabled to retire to Stirling with all the spoils of the field, and the
credit of having frustrated the design of the insurgent general to

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