THE RISING OF 1715. 395 



a matter of policy, no graver error could have been made 

 by George I. The King acted like a boor, and had soon 

 to pay a heavy price for his rudeness. Mar swore 

 revenge, and the insulted chiefs were heartily with him 

 in his resentment. No Stuart would have behaved so 

 ungraciously as this German new-comer had done ; and 

 their secret attachment to the native House was intensi- 

 fied by the attitude of the foreigner. They were ripe for 

 a rising, and the man to lead them was ready to place 

 himself at their head. But they had yet to learn that 

 an able statesman is not necessarily a skilful soldier. 



The convocation of the Jacobites, held at Braemar, on 

 27th August, 1715, under cover of a great hunting match, 

 was the first move in the projected insurrection. Those 

 of the assembly who hesitated to take the irrevocable step 

 were won over by the persuasiveness of Mar, who was 

 more fitted for the council-chamber than for the field. 

 The youthful Earl of Seaforth was one of the Highland 

 chiefs present. His adhesion to Mar evidently preceded 

 the Braemar gathering, for he was attainted for treason 

 on 24th June, 1715, and his estates were forfeited to the 

 Crown.* He was suspected of, and arrested for, com- 

 plicity in the ill-fated French expedition of 1708, and 

 was probably kept under close surveillance after his 

 temporary detention. Mar himself, as the great-grandson 

 of George, second Earl of Seaforth, had Mackenzie blood 

 in his veins, and, curiously enough, was the vassal of the 

 head of Clan Kenneth for certain lands which he held in 

 the Highlands. 



The Government attempted to meet the threatening 

 danger by means of legislation. They passed the Clan 

 Act, hoping to detach loyal vassals from Jacobite Superiors, 

 and vice-versa. They passed an Act, calling upon those 

 noblemen and chiefs who were suspected of Jacobite 

 proclivities to appear at Edinburgh, within stated periods, 



'Appeals to the House of Lords (1719), p. 156. Elsewhere, it is stated 

 that he was attainted on 7th May, 1716, for the part he took in the rising of 

 1715. The correct date is given on the Earl's portrait in Brahan Castle. 



