11th Lord Lovat
Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat and known as 'the fox', came from a line of Jacobites which included his father, Thomas, who had played a powerful role in the Jacobite rising under John Graham of Claverhouse, Viscount Dundee, in 1689, for which he suffered imprisonment.
Trouble followed him most of his early life and it took a pardon from King William, only after he had been found guilty of High Treason. However, this plea to King William was for personal gain and he was still harbouring his Jacobite loyalty.
Shortly after the plea, he made two trips to the Jacobite Court in St Germaine. To further enhance his relationship in the Stuart court, and after King William’s death, he converted to Catholicism and met with Mary of Modena and the titular James VIII and III. He aligned himself with the Duke of Perth’s factions and was promoting an uprising from as early as 1703.
By 1715 he had bought his pardon and returned to London. By this time, the Duke of Argyll had convinced him to support King George I. He headed north towards Inverness and took and held the city on behalf of King George. His fortunes now changing for the better, he appeared a Hanoverian. However, the disbandment of his forces and the city handed to others meant his income fell and his rise was short-lived. This likely helped push him away from the Hanoverians and before long, back to the Jacobites.
This change of allegiances was as blatant as it was regular, and it appears it was only his highly regarded charm that kept him out of trouble, balancing the possibilities of uprising and establishment. This renowned charm got him not only into, but more often out of, some rather tricky situations between King George and King James on both sides.
By 1745 it was clear that his Whig allegiances had not given him the power, land, and full title he had expected, and this seems to have sent him back, for a final time, to the Stuart cause. As early as 1690 King James had promised him reward for his support as Lieutenant-General of the Highlands; furthermore, the Pretender might be willing to elevate him to a Dukedom. In 1739 Lovat was the first to join the association formed to invite the Pretender to land in Scotland; his allegiance was secured by the promise of a patent of a dukedom.
By 1746 Lovat was in his 80s and hardly a player on the battlefield. This fell to his son and heir who was threatened by disinheritance not to take part. He indeed was captured and imprisoned in Inverness, only to escape with help from local friends.
After the defeat of Culloden, Prince Charles Edward Stuart fled and sought shelter from Lovat, who urged him on and promised men for another battle, presumably seeing his hopes, land, fortune, and life slipping from his grasp. Charles declined and left, Lovat fleeing his home too, and en route seeing his previous castles burned in retribution by William, Duke of Cumberland. In his escape, he is recorded as having a close shave with Hanoverian troops sailing up Loch Morar and he hid in a hollow tree to evade capture. However, the tree could not hide him, and he was spotted and taken prisoner to Fort William.
He was tried for High Treason before the House of Lords and gave his own defence. At the end of his case, in inimitable fashion and charm, he replied:
“Nothing except to thank your lordship for your goodness to me. God bless you all, and I wish you an eternal farewell. We shall not meet again in the same place; I am sure of that."
While public executions always attracted crowds, that of Simon Lord Lovat attracted one of the largest. Perhaps the larger-than-life character, his life story and advanced age convinced more to turn out but due to this popularity, the crowds were too much for the erected scaffolding platforms to hold, resulting in their destruction under the weight of the crowd, killing 20 spectators.
In his larger than life character, Lovat found this implausibly funny and was seen to laugh heartily and loud all the way to the executioner's block. It is reputed that this is the origin of the saying to ‘laugh your head off’ Lovat apparently laughing till his final moments. This seems a little extension of the truth as his final words are recorded, taken from Horace, ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ (‘It is sweet and proper to die for one's country’), then turned to moralising by quoting Ovid's ‘Nam genus et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco’ (‘For those things, which were done either by our fathers or ancestors, and in which we ourselves had no share, I can scarcely call our own’).
Beheaded and latterly buried at Tower Hill on April 09 1747 (against his wishes, but not expectation) he requested that all pipers from John o’ Groats to Edinburgh play at his Highland funeral. Of the 120 Jacobites executed, he was the last person to be publicly beheaded in Britain.
