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THE LAST JACOBITE


The last Jacobite


A reluctant soldier and a skilled doctor, Archie Cameron was a valued aide of Bonnie Prince Charlie and became the last Jacobite to die for what he knew to be a hopeless cause


WORDS MARY MCGRIGOR A


‘He learnt the skills of the mountains and, most importantly, how to use a sword’


rchie Cameron was born in 1707, the year of the Treaty of Union. The fourth son of John Cameron of Lochiel, he was raised as the son of a Highland chief. Wearing the old fashioned kilt and plaid


(then all in one), going barefoot during the summer, he learnt the skills of the mountains and, most importantly, how to use a sword. His father, having led the clan at Sheriffmuir fighting for the exiled


Stuart king, fled to France, leaving his wife and young family in the care of their eldest son, Donald, 19th chief of Lochiel. Donald, despair- ing of Archie, wrote: ‘My brother Archie has capacity enough but no application.’ Nonetheless, ready to help him when, having finished his education in France he had determined to become a doctor, he gave him the tack as it was known, or lease, of Glen Kingie, lying to the south of Loch Arkaig, where he ran a herd of cattle. It was a profitable business, thanks to trade with the southern markets at that time. Doctor Archie married his cousin, Jean Cameron of Dungallon. They


may have lived sporadically in Glen Kingie, but their main home was Batchelor’s Hall at Strontian, where Archie was employed as a doctor by the York Building Company, caring for the workforce in its mines. The only doctor in the whole of the Ardnamurchan peninsula, he was much loved by the local people, speaking to them in Gaelic. He travelled great distances, often on a Highland pony with his medical bag strapped to his saddle, at night with a ghillie with a lantern leading the way, to his patients far off amongst the hills. Firmly established in his practice, with a family of young children to


provide for, Archie was horrified at the idea of another rising to restore the Jacobite king. Sent by his brother to meet Prince Charles Edward Stuart when he sailed into Loch nan Uamh from France, he gave him unequivocal answers before begging his brother not to rise in arms. ‘It could only bring disaster,’ he told him, but Lochiel, inspired by loyalty, succumbed to the prince’s charm. Refusing at first to join him, Archie eventually agreed on the condi-


tion that he came as a doctor, refusing to bear arms. At the capture of the city of Edinburgh, when the Camerons stormed the Netherbow Port, Prince Charles made Doctor Archie his aide-de-camp. Most notably following the Battle of Prestonpans, although sleepless for 48 hours, he attended to the wounded of both sides. Later, at the Battle of Falkirk, when staunching his brother’s wound, Archie himself was struck in the


Image: Doctor Archie Cameron, the final martyr for the Jacobite cause.


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