The Saber and Scroll Journal Volume 8, Number 3, Spring 2020 | Page 111
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during the ‘45 uprising. William, Duke
of Atholl, a Jacobite riding with the
Prince’s army, sent a message to Charlotte,
his cousin, requesting she prepare
his home, Blair Castle, for the Prince’s
arrival. 83 She planned dinner and dancing
for Charles and his entourage. A
few days later, she offered the same
hospitality at her home at Lude. 84 Often
overlooked, hospitality was an essential
moral builder; women made significant
contributions by providing a soft
bed, exotic meals, and entertainment to
weary, hungry men on the march.
Lady Lude did not escape punishment
for her part in the Jacobite rebellion.
Government soldiers arrested
her for treason near the end of January
1746 and imprisoned her at Blair Castle.
85 Many of the men and families she
bullied into following the Prince turned
evidence on her as a sort of payback.
The Privy Council motioned to prosecute
Lady Lude and her mother, Lady
Nairne. 86 Lady Nairne’s efforts to make
strong Jacobite matches for her children
and grandchildren provided her with
extensive contacts, which she used to
plead for her daughter’s life. In this way,
she wrote to her nephew, a Hanoverian
supporter, James, Duke of Atholl, asking
for leniency for Lady Lude, since
she was “a weak, insignificant woman.”
87 Both women eluded indictment
from the Hanoverian government.
The tea table sisterhood showed
support in a less flamboyant manner.
Because parlors were not common in
the mid-eighteenth-century, women gathered
in their bedrooms to entertain
or shared information around tea