Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/224

 then met William at the Loo, having, according to his own account, agreed, at the special request of King James, to ‘make his peace with the reigning government in order to save his clan.’ He played before William the part of a devoted subject with such seeming sincerity that, if he is to be believed, William gave instructions that there should be drawn up for him ‘an ample and complete pardon for every imaginable crime’ (ib. 105). The limitation of the pardon, after it passed through the various forms, to offences against the state was, Lovat asserts, due to the ‘unnatural treachery’ of his cousin who had charge of the matter; but the records of the privy council, on the contrary, prove that William declined to interfere in regard to offences against private persons. For his outrage against the Dowager Lady Lovat he was consequently summoned before the high court of justiciary, and failing to appear was outlawed 17 Feb. 1701. On 19 Feb. of the following year the lady also presented a petition for letters of ‘intercommuning’ against him, which were a second time granted. After the death of King William, acting, he asserted, on the advice of Argyll, Lovat for greater security went to France, which he reached in July 1702. He can scarcely, however, have been following Argyll's advice when he pretended to have authority from some of the Scottish nobility and chiefs of the highlands to offer their services to the court of St. Germain (MACPHERSON, Original Papers, 629). King James was then dead, but Lovat succeeded in obtaining an audience, not only of Mary of Modena, but of Louis XIV. It was probably to secure this that he found it expedient to become a convert to the catholic faith, and as a matter of fact it was through Gualterio, the papal legate, that he opened communications with the French king. Louis bestowed on him a valuable sword and other tokens of regard. Lovat's proposal was that the Scottish Jacobites should raise as many as twelve thousand men, on condition that the French king should land five thousand men at Dundee and five hundred at Fort William. The unsatisfactory condition of Lovat's private affairs was his chief reason for coquetting with Jacobitism, and he doubtless did not intend to do more than coquet until he was more certain of success and rewards. Though his proposals were regarded with favour by Louis, the Scotch Jacobites at St. Germain were far from satisfied with his credentials. It was therefore resolved to send him to Scotland to make further inquiries, John Murray, a naturalised Frenchman, brother of the laird of Abercairny, accompanying him to act as a check on his procedure, and to afford some assurance of the genuineness of his information (instructions to Simon Fraser, lord Lovat, in Original Papers, i. 630–1). Murray confined his attention chiefly to the lowland nobles and gentry, while Lovat made a tour through the clans. Not improbably Lovat intended at first to do his utmost to promote a rising in the highlands, but the clans were distrustful. Lockhart of Carnwath asserts (as did also the tories at the time) that Lovat had all along been acting as the spy of Argyll and Queensberry, and that he went to the highlands with their knowledge; but it would rather appear that Fraser introduced himself to Queensberry because he had met with insufficient encouragement in the highlands. Lovat states that he was particularly on his guard with Queensberry in order to ‘amuse him and throw him on the wrong scent;’ and this he certainly did, in so far as he made Queensberry the instrument of gratifying his own personal revenge against the Duke of Atholl. He showed Queensberry a letter from Mary of Modena addressed to Atholl, in which she wrote: ‘You may be sure that when my concerns require the help of my friends you are one of the first I have in my view.’ The letter was probably intended for any nobleman whom Lovat might select, but Queensberry having also a special grudge against Atholl did not fail at once to accept the bait. He gave Lovat a pass to proceed to the continent to obtain further evidence against Atholl and others. Lovat was of course seriously desirous to ruin Atholl, and would have fabricated sufficient evidence for this purpose but for the interposition in the matter of Robert Ferguson, the plotter [q. v.] Lovat actually justifies his accusations by pleading that they were groundless; that Atholl was ‘notoriously the incorrigible enemy of King James,’ and that he was bound not to spare this ‘incorrigible villain’ (Memoirs, 175). He asserted that he never made any revelations to Queensberry except regarding those who were not Jacobites; but there can be little doubt that, besides revenging himself on Atholl, Lovat's aim was, as his enemies asserted, by ‘treachery and villainy’ to regain through Queensberry the ‘complete possession of his province and estates.’ His machinations were, however, completely upset by the revelations of Ferguson, for while Queensberry was by means of them driven from power and rendered unable to assist him, the double part Lovat had been acting became known to the Jacobites at St. Germain. With a pass from Queensberry, Lovat succeeded in reaching Holland, and after many hair-breadth escapes arrived