Cluny's Lament

Cluny MacPherson

Ewen MacPherson: 11 February 1706 to 30 January 1764. Chief of Clan Chatten.

By the fall of 1746, the Jacobite cause lay fractured against a backdrop of blood-stained heather. While the Prince prepared to secretly board L'Heureux, the Badenoch residents stood as an invisible wall between their Chief and the gallows. As they watched the French ships vanish toward the horizon, Cluny stood bound to the hills by a Prince’s word, loyally choosing a bed of mountain and stone over comfort.

Lord Lochiel and Dr. Archibald Cameron urged him to flee, but the Prince’s word was absolute: Cluny was the only person in whom he could "repose the greatest confidence." He was ordered to stay, manage the secret affairs of the Highlands, and wait for a "promised visit" that Charles Edward Stuart swore was coming soon.

For nine years, the people of the Macpherson lands lived in a state of despair. Despite twenty-four government garrisons stationed in the houses of their kin to "spey" on them, and massive rewards offered for the least discovery, not a single clan member would break. They protected their Chief in a "melancholly" existence; Cluny lived in woods and caves, enduring brutal winters without a fire, often lacking even gloves or breeches.

The tragedy of this loyalty reached its peak in 1755. When Cluny finally reached France, he found the Prince’s promises had withered. The regiment he was meant to lead had been disbanded. The King of France, citing his "absence" from his post while he was actually hiding in caves for the Prince, denied him his back-pay. He was reduced to "soliciting low bread" at a foreign court, a Chief who could no longer afford a single servant to clean his shoes. His wife, who had once managed a hundred servants in plenty and honour, was left behind in a Highland cottage, watched by the very enemies he had stayed behind to fight.

Cluny’s final reflection was one of noble bitterness: he had been "qualified to suffer" more than any soldier in the warmest war, only to find that his "ready obedience" was the very thing the French Ministry of War used to justify his neglect. The Prince never returned, leaving the man who had been his most faithful guardian to die in exile—a victim of a loyalty that outlasted the cause itself.

Image Credit: Image licensing terms and conditions. National Galleries of Scotland collection. Photo, National Galleries of Scotland.

Photograpy by Antonia Reeve.

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