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Of the genus of Bradwardine, Colonel Stewart gives the following account:—

“The armies of Sweden, Holland, and France gave employment to the younger sons of the Highland gentry, who were educated abroad in the seminaries of Leyden and Douay. Many of these returned with a competent knowledge of modern languages added to their classical education—often speaking Latin with more purity than Scotch, which, in many cases, they only learned after leaving their native homes. The race of Bradwardine is not long extinct. In my own time, several veterans might have sat for the picture of that most honourable, brave, learned, and kind-hearted personage. These gentlemen returned from the continent full of warlike Latin, French phrases, and inveterate broad Scotch. One of the last of these, Colonel Alexander Robertson, of the Scotch Brigade, uncle of the present” (now late) “Strowan, I well remember.

“Another of the Bradwardine character is still remembered by the Highlanders with a degree of admiration bordering on enthusiasm. This was John Stewart, of the family of Kincardine, in Strathspey, known to the country by the name of John Roy Stewart, an accomplished gentleman, an elegant scholar, a good poet, and a brave officer. He composed with equal facility in English, Latin and Gaelic; but it was chiefly by his songs, epigrams, and descriptive pieces, that he attracted the admiration of his countrymen. He was an active leader in the rebellion of 1745, and, during his ‘hiding’ of many months, he had more leisure to indulge his taste for poetry and song. The country traditions are full of his descriptive pieces, eulogies and laments on friends, or in allusion to the events of that unfortunate period. He had been long in the service of France and Portugal, and had risen to the rank of colonel. He was in Scotland in 1745, and commanded a regiment, composed of the tenants of his family and a considerable number of the followers of Sir George Stewart of Grandtully, who had been placed under him. With these, amounting in all to 400 men, he joined the rebel army, and proved one of its ablest partizans.”—Sketches, vol. ii. notes.

Diligent research, however, has enabled us to point out a much nearer original.

The person who held the situation in the rebel army which in the novel has been assigned to the Baron, namely, the command of their few cavalry, was Alexander, fourth Lord Forbes of Pitsligo. This nobleman, who possessed but a moderate fortune, was so much esteemed for his excellent qualities of temper and understanding, that when, after the battle of Prestonpans, he declared his purpose of joining Prince Charles, most of the gentlemen in that part of the country put themselves under his command, thinking they could not follow a better or safer example than the conduct of Lord Pitsligo. He thus commanded a body of 150 well mounted gentlemen in the subsequent scenes of the rebellion, at the fatal close of which he escaped to France, and was attainted, in the following month, by the title of Lord Pitsligo, his estate and honours being of course forfeited to the crown. After this he claimed the estate before the Court of Session, on account of the misnomer, his title being properly Lord Forbes of Pitsligo; and that Court gave judgment in his favour, 16th November, 1749; but on an appeal it was reversed by the House of Lords, 1750.

Like Bradwardine, Lord Pitsligo had been out in 1715 also—though it does not appear that much notice was then taken of his defection. His opposition to the whiggery of modern times had been equally constant, and of long standing; for he was one of those staunch and honourable though mistaken patriots of the last Scottish Parliament, who had opposed the Union.

He could also boast of a smattering of the belles lettres; and probably plumed himself upon his literary attainments as much as the grim old pedant, his counterpart. In 1734, he published “Essays, Moral and Philosophical;” and something of the same sort appeared in 1761, when he seems to have been in the near prospect of a conclusion to his earthly trials. He died at Auchiries, in Aberdeenshire, December 21, 1762, at an advanced age, after having possessed his title, counting from his accession in 1691, during a period of seventy-one years.

It is not unworthy of remark, that the supporters of Lord Pitsligo’s arms were two bears proper; which circumstance, connected with the great favour in which these animals were held by Bradwardine, brings the relation between the real and the fictitious personages very close.