The First Book of Samuel by SAREJESS (epub read online books txt) 📕

forces of the young Charles Edward Stuart. Now the general rode for his life beating the horse furiously. He continued down the road, a couple of young lads sat on a fence and watched him go. "Did yea see that Jimmy?" asked the younger of the lads "Aye did Johnny diny he even stop to drop a penny in our hat." with a disappointed look on his face.

Some clansmen came over the rise in the road towards the lads “What are you doing here laddie’s?” asked one of the clansmen. “We did naught but we did see an English general come flying by scared, he was, as if a devil was chasing him.” “Aye that would be general Cope. We heard he ran before the battle was lost” said one of the clansmen. Samuel in the mean time was going over the battlefield with the prince. Now that they had some guns, the battles of the future looked more assured to go in the favor of the Bonny princes army of clansmen. Right now a number of them was going around stripping the dead and finding what they could use from the bodies of the fallen.

A while later the general could see the city of Berwick as he rode. Soon he would be out of danger, returning from the battle he would be the first to reach the city bringing news of his own defeat and going down in the history books as the only general in history to do this, ever immortalized thereafter in song

O, then he flew into Dunbar,
Crying for a man of war;
He thought to have passed for a rustic tar,
And gotten away in the morning.

Sir Johnie into Berwick rade,
Just as the devil had been his guide;
Gien him the warld he would na stay'd
To foughten the boys in the morning.
.
Says the Berwickers unto Sir John;
'O what's become of all your men?'
'In faith,' says he, ' I dinna ken -
I left them a' this morning.'

Says Lord Mark Car---- ' Ye are na blate
To bring us the news o' your ain defeat,
I think you deserve the back o' the gate!
Get out o' my sight this morning.

He would live out the rest of his days in shame. Whenever this incident was mentioned the general would blush and mumble some thing about dammed Scots.

Samuel Ferreira in the mean time was on the battlefield helping to round up and tend the wounded. There were a lot of Hanoverian wounded but not over a hundred Scots who had fallen. "A mighty victory indeed Highness" said Sir George Murray to the prince "Yes sir a great day for our cause" said the prince. The men were tired but happy they had been on the move most of the night moving under orders without lights to alert the enemy who had drawn up with Preston house on there right during the night. Sir George Murray and the prince gave the order that the clansmen were to move over the ditch and face the government troops from the open field to the left thus when the sun rose Sir John was faced with a mass of fearsome highlanders, screaming war cry and the sound of pipes. The government forces which had not been well trained began to leave the field in droves. Sir John tried for a while to encourage his troops but to no avail. Leavening the battle field he fled. The battle had lasted all of five minutes. The lads sitting on the fence had watched the English general go by and there by got a tale to tell their grandchildren many years later of the day they saw the English general run with his tail between his legs, from the mighty men of Scotland when they had beat the English George.

1746
Culloden battle field Scotland
The end of the house of Stuart
The prince turned in the saddle and looked back for a moment. A look of absolute shock spread across his young face. For one fleeting moment his eyes fell on Samuel who was limping along badly, blood running from his wounds then turning once more the prince galloped off the battlefield.

A troop of Cumberland's soldiers were closing with a small band of the princes men. Now utterly demoralized they were about to give their lives in the hope of doing some service to the bonny prince. "Well lads once more lets give it to them" said Samuel as he tied off a bleeding wound in his arm. They charged. It was a brave effort bound to go down in the history books as the last desperate charge of the Scottish forces at Culloden, they fell under the weight of the shear number they opposed, but not before they had dispatched a number of the enemy. The forces of King George were all over the field now, killing off the wounded. Samuel now close to death once again crawled to the a little dampness in the ground known as the burn to quench his thirst. Drinking he lay a while looking up at the sky. It was a beautiful afternoon and one that he would long remember the hopes of the house of Stuart, now dispersed.

Elsewhere on the field other acts of butchery were been carried out. General Hawley seeing a Frazer chieftain resting a while near the edge of the battlefield asked “For who are you?” The reply came from the wounded man “For the prince” “shoot that dog” said general Hawley to an ADC. The ADC said “sir my commission is at your disposal, I will not shoot that man.” said the general “Then a trooper will”. A trooper did shoot the chieftain of clan Frazer. The young ADC was later to become famous on the heights of Abraham when mortally wounded he fell, his body supported in the arms of Frazer of Lovat who was he General Wolfe.

For a while Samuel lay he felt his body slowly beginning to recover from the wounds which would have normally killed any other man. He faded in and out of consciousness. Snatches of voices coming and going he began to dream. He remembered the grandfather of the young prince when he himself was a young man nearly 75 years earlier. As a king James II had not inspired great deeds his son acknowledged, as James III by his Jacobite followers had been a weak man. But the bonny prince, well that was another matter he was not cut from the same cloth as his father or grandfather. “What a man” Samuel would follow him anywhere. He had a way of inspiring men to follow where he led. Samuel thought back to the early days of the rising they were halcyon days. Everything seemed to be falling into place. The clans had gathered and had marched south, taking Edinburgh but were unable to take the castle. The forces loyal to the sovereign in London held fast during the long siege. Sterling had been taken without too much difficulty, then the long march south; the prince had been urged to be decisive in all he did. But the young man had the unfortunate ability to hesitate at the most crucial moments. That had been his major flaw. They had reached Preston, only two hundred and fifty miles from London. There reports had reached them of approaching armies. Again the prince hesitated before with drawing. Oh cruel fates to hold the prize so close then to snatch it away! In the mean time the troops, which were abroad, had been brought home to face the forces of the prince. That was the difference between the battles at the beginning of the rising and the final battle. In the beginning, the clans had faced the home guard troops who had never seen battle and were terrified by the famous charge of the clans which brought great destruction. However the forces that had taken the field this day they were well seasoned troops who had fought in Europe and were skilled in the use of the bayonet and the cannon fire of the dukes gunners which was much improved from their stint in the wars on the continent. Now these guns had been turned on the Scottish clansmen. In short order the clans had flung themselves against the guns in a disjointed order not receiving orders from the prince who once again hesitated, the clans no longer able to abide the fact that they were been cut to pieces, charged.

The two forces had lined up about 400 yards from each other the prince’s forces tired out by a long night march. At one stage during the morning, the sound of the pipes been heard from the forces of the duke of Cumberland. This infuriated the clans it was the sound of clan Campbell loyal to London being piped to the rear of the English army. By 1 PM not a shot had been fired. Then the guns of the prince had been fired by the inept volunteers who manned them, the regular gunners having gone to Sterling to find food. The Duke of Cumberland's guns replied it was wholesale slaughter.

Occasionally Samuel heard the sound of the duke’s men slaughtering the wounded and dying. Cries for mercy were ignored. The sound of the slice of the sword and bayonet keptbcoming closer to where he lay. He should have realized that the cause of the house of Stuart had been lost a long time ago but he had hitched his wagon to their cause and had served them for many years. Acting as their go between, a spy and as paymaster for their forces and meeting with one of their financial supporters. A few years earlier the man had seemed for a moment to look far into the future and see this day when the cause was lost and the last hope of the house of Stuart fleeing over the heather.

Once the battle had been joined the English guns had pelted the clans and then for a while by the hail stones which had added to their discomfort. Now as he lay dying on the battle field of Culloden, Samuel realized that the world was changing. The old clan system would be dismantled and the kilt done away with for nearly fifty years before men grew nostalgic and longed for all things Scottish.

The troops were now in the area where he lay. His strength almost fully recovered Samuel was not looking forward to what must come, another death ending his time with the house of Stuart. He had served both brothers, uncles, Grand uncles, cousins, and now grand sons. Even he had to admit that the age of the Stuart was over.


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1747 AD the clergyman and Samuel
The man stood on the back of a farm cart, his voice carrying to the crowds of folk who stood about the wagon. Samuel, sitting on the back of a horse drew nearer. “Was this some political upheaval?” he wondered but he was not yet close enough to hear what was going on. Some of the people stood bare headed with their heads bowed while others looked up into the face of the man on the cart.

"Did the master not say ‘Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth’?" asked the man on the cart, his long black frock coat giving him the appearance of a churchman. Samuel was about to dismiss this gathering and ride on to Canterbury. It was like so many other informal gatherings which had sprung up over the course of a century.