A COMPACT HISTORY OF SCOTLAND The Cleveland Morning Herald (Cleveland, Ohio), Friday, November 24, 1871 Contact: Myrtle Bridges May 8, 2016
In the will of the late Dr. Robert Chambers there occurs the following passage respecting a bequest to the Advocates Library in Edinburgh; "That my trustees shall deliver to the Faculty of Advocates, for preservation in their library, and as a mark of my gratitude to them for the free access they have always given me to their library, a manuscript in ten volumes, entitled "The Lyon in Mourning." This mark of gratitude, says the Scotsman, forms an exceedingly curious and valuable collection of manuscripts, altogether unique, and which it is fortunate will now belong to a library in Scotland accessible to the investigation of historians. The collection originated in the painstaking enthusiasm of the Right Rev. Robert Forbes, a bishop in the Scottish Episcopal Church, who was settled as a minister of that communion in Leith at the time of the rebellion of 1745. Falling under suspicion of a Jacobite, dangerous to the Hanoverian dynasty, he was for a time confined to Edinburgh Castle, and liberated on the restoration of tranquility in 1746. Thus prevented from joining the standard of Prince Charles Edward, he was in a leisurely way brought forth into acquaintance with a number of the active insurgents, and had the opportunity for several years afterward of collecting a vast variety of minute particulars regarding not only the unfortunate gentlemen who suffered at Carlisle and elsewhere for their accession to the Rebellion, but of many persons who were liberated and allowed to return to their homes; besides which he ferreted out innumerable details concerning the adventures of "the Prince" after the battle of Culloden, and the noble-hearted Highlanders who so generously furthered his escape. How a poor Episcopal clergyman in Leith should have made all this the business of the last twenty years of his life is not a little remarkable, and the wonder is greater from the manner in which this labor of Love was accomplished. These letters, dying speeches, journals of dangers and distresses, and other particulars were not recorded in separate sheets and scraps, but written neatly and methodically, so as to form a series of small handy volumes, bound like printed books. The work, to call it so, was styled in the title pages "The Lyon in Mourning," in allusion to the woe of Scotland for her exiled races of princes. The first three volumes bear the date 1747, the next three 1748, the seventh is dated 1749, the eighth 1750, the ninth 1761, and the tenth 1775. As belies the nature of the subject, there is a black mourning border round the pages, the volumes are bound in black leather, and the edges of the leaves are tinged with the like dark hue. Fixed inside the boards of several volumes are certain much prized relics, such as a piece of the Prince's garter, a piece of the gown which he wore, when obliged to disguise himself in a female dress, a piece of the apron string which he had worn received from the hands of Flora MacDonald, and a piece of the waistcoat which was given to him by MacDonald of Kingsburgh. The work remains a quarry of authentic information regarding one of the most moving incidents in our history. Grateful to the Faculty of Advocates for their liberalty in laying open the treasures of their extensive library to his investigation, on innumerable occasions, Dr. Chambers has made them this bequest. [Vol. 1 "The Lyon in Mourning" can be purchased from Amazon - Bridges]
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