A Capital Crime

PROLOGUE

Tuesday 17th September 1745

Shortly after midnight a force of nine hundred men made up of mainly by Camerons of Clan Donald supported by a smaller number of clansmen from the Stewarts of Appin and MacDonalds of Keppoch slipped silently out of their camp near the village of Slateford three miles from the city of Edinburgh under the command of Cameron of Lochiel and guided by Murray of Broughton who more normally served as private secretary to His Royal Highness Charles Edward Stewart, Prince of Wales.

Donald Cameron of Lochiel, aged forty five and from a family whose Jacobite credentials could not be questioned was keen for action and the chance to enhance the glory of his clan. However he was a man who by his own admission knew nothing of the arts of war but never the less knew the importance of enforcing the strictest discipline for silence on his men as they advanced eastwards and skirted around the southern outskirts of the city avoiding the houses and farms in their path.

John Murray of Broughton at the age of twenty eight was already one of the most prominent Jacobite figures in Scotland. University educated at Edinburgh and Leyden and handsome though short of stature. During his studies at the University of Leyden he had made covert missions to meet with the prince and become his confidant at his court-in-exile in Rome from 1735 onwards. This contact and friendship had continued after his return to Edinburgh in 1738. His intimate knowledge of the local terrain around the city was of the greatest help to Cameron of Lochiel as they marched onwards through the darkness of a moonless night and without him the whole enterprise would have been at risk of failure.

Shortly after four o'clock that morning the party crept silently up the slope of St Mary's Wynd beneath the crumbling Flodden Wall unseen by the sleeping residents of the city and there squatted in silence in the deepest shadows close by the high arch of the Nether Bow Port. With a whisper Lochiel sent one man wrapped in a heavy cavalry cloak forward to complete the most hazardous part of their plan.

Nervously the man walked openly to the great high gate and after a moments hesitation he knocked loudly upon it. A small hatch in a wicket gate snapped open and an unseen voice demanded to know what business he was on. Hiding any trace of anxiety in his voice he declared he was the servant of a dragoon officer sent to retrieve his masters belongings from his lodgings. The reply he received was in no uncertain terms. There was no access to the town for anyone that night. The gates were closed and were staying closed. His attempts to remonstrate with the unseen gatekeeper had eventually only the result that of he did not remove himself immediately he would be fired upon. With a hissed curse he was forced to return to Lochiel to report his failure and the attempt to trick their way into Edinburgh had failed.

Lochiel and Murray stood in whispered conference amidst the shadows as the sky to the east grew noticeably clearer. Dawn would soon reveal them and under the strictest orders from Prince Charles they knew that they were to avoid bloodshed. With failure staring them in the face they debated whether they should retire to the high ground of Salisbury Crags on the shoulder of the volcanic plug of Arthurs Seat and attempt their entry again the following night at another gate. While they were deep in this conversation a message was passed down the line of crouched clansmen to them. There may yet be hope for their cause.

“Listen man, I don't understand a single word you're saying!” the bored looking sentry in his weathered redcoat told his companion for the fifth time in as many minutes. The man merely smiled, shrugged and carried on his prattling in Gaelic. In exasperation the soldier turned towards the third man who formed the night guard on the Nether Bow Port of Edinburgh.

“Can't you make him understand that I haven't a clue what he's saying?” he asked hopelessly but the man did little more than shrug in reply.

With a scratch at his whiskery chin he replied eventually to the soldier, “dinnae look tae me son, I've nae an inkling tae ony o' his heathen haverings!”