Part 8

And now were the merits of Lord George Murray as a General, certain very soon to be called into active play; for, on the twenty-sixth of November, William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, had left London at the head of an army, to oppose the insurgents.

On the character of the royal individual who, in his twenty-fifth year came forward to rescue his country, as it was said, from the yoke of a foreign invader; and whose promising, but immature talents, backed by a great military force, were effectual in defeating the skill of an experienced General, some reflections will naturally arise.

William, Duke of Cumberland, was born in the year 1721. He very early demonstrated that predilection for military affairs which obtained for him from Walpole the praise of having been "one of the five only really great men whom he had ever seen." He very soon, also, betrayed that cruel and remorseless spirit which was wreaked on the brave and the defenceless; that indifference to suffering which too aptly was repaid by an indignant people with the name of "the Butcher;"--that thirst for blood which we read of in Heathen countries, before the commandments of the God of Israel, or the beautiful commentary of a Saviour of Mercy upon those sacred commandments, had chastened and humanized the people. Those tendencies which, whilst England was elate with success, and when she gloried in a suppressed rebellion, raised the Duke of Cumberland to a hero;--and, when reflection came, sank him to a brute; were manifested in the dawn of youth. In after years, (what extreme of odium could be greater?)--even children instinctively feared him. One day, when playing with his nephew, afterwards George the Third, a child, the Duke drew a sword to amuse him. The incident occurred long after the mouldering bones upon the field of Culloden were whitened in the sun; long after the brave Balmerino had suffered, and vengeance had revelled in the doom of the beloved Kilmarnock. But the sins of the remorseless Cumberland cried to Heaven. They were registered in the mind of a child. The boy turned pale and trembled, and acknowledged that he thought his "uncle Cumberland was going to kill him." The Duke shocked and deeply hurt, referred to popular prejudice the impression which was the result of crime.

Imperious, aspiring, independent, the grasping and able intellect of the Duke soon imbibed a knowledge of affairs beyond his years. When scarcely out of the nursery he loved the council chamber, and delighted in the recitals of foreign wars. As he reached manhood, he affected a lofty and philosophical coldness; a dangerous attribute in youth, and one which either springs from a frigid disposition, or else infallibly contracts the heart. But, in the case of the Duke of Cumberland, it concealed a proud and selfish spirit, which could ill brook the superiority of his elder brother, Frederic, Prince of Wales, or bear with temper the popularity of another. When, in after years, his brother's death was communicated to him, those jealous and disdainful feelings broke forth. "It is a great blow to the country," he said, sarcastically; "but I hope, in time, it will recover it." That want of faith in human nature, of reverence for good motives, that absence of a generous confidence which one can suppose strongly characterise the lost angels, were among the many odious features in the character of this truly bad man. The prevailing feeling of his mind was, contempt for everything and everybody;--a contempt for renown;--a contempt, in after life, for politics, which he conceived were below his attention; a contempt for women, whom he lowered by a sort of preference consistent with the rest of his coarse character, but whose modest virtues he mistrusted. With this affectation of superiority, the Duke combined the littleness of envy. When he had attained the height of his popularity, his satisfaction was tarnished by the reputation of Admiral Vernon, who was the idol of the public. As a General, his acknowledged and eminent qualities were sullied by the German puerilities of an exact attention to military trifles; any deficiency in etiquette was punished like a crime: the formation of a new pattern of spatterdashes was treated as an important event. Nor was this all. He introduced into an army of Englishmen the German notions of military severity; he fostered a system which it has taken nearly a century of great efforts, and good works in the humane, to annul. "He was," says Horace Walpole, "a Draco in legislation;" adding, "that in the Duke's amended mutiny bill the word 'Death' occurred at every clause."[111]--Such is the general colouring of his public character. A strong and sensitive feeling with regard to the national honour; a devoted reverence for the sovereign authority; which were the only principles and institutions which he seemed to respect, are the milder traits. In private, he countenanced, by his own practice, most of those vices which scarcely existed with greater impunity, or with less inconvenience from public opinion, in the days of Charles the Second, than in those in which Cumberland flourished, and left a finished model of a character without one redeeming excellence.

As a soldier, however, the merits of the Duke, if merits those can be called which were the natural effects of animal courage, and of a strong, remorseless mind, must be, at all events, acknowledged. He behaved with great gallantry in his first campaign with his royal father, and was wounded at the battle of Dettingen. At too early an age, in 1744, he was placed at the head of a great army, in order to oppose Marshal Saxe; and the event of the battle of Fontenoy proved the error. But, in that engagement, the valour of the young General was admitted on all hands. "His Royal Highness," relates the author of "The Conduct of the Officers at Fontenoy considered," "was everywhere, and could not without being on the spot have cheered that Highlander who with his broad sword killed nine men, and making a stroke at the tenth, had his arm shot off,--by a promise of something better than the arm which he, the Duke, saw drop from him."[112]

It was with the hope of retrieving the lost reputation of the Duke at Fontenoy, and in order to remedy the glaring defects of General Hawley, that this young man, old in hardened feelings, but full of ardour and courage, was sent to repel the forces of the Chevalier. It was also thought by the Government that the placing a prince of the blood-royal at the head of the army would have a powerful influence on the minds of the people, and neutralize the counter-influence of Charles Edward.[113] The Duke therefore assumed the command of an army ten thousand strong, and set out from London to intimidate the enemy.

The Duke of Cumberland was by no means so ignorant of the force which he was now destined to attack, as were most of the other "good people of England, who knew as little of their neighbours of the Scottish mountains, as they did of the inhabitants of the most remote quarter of the globe."[114] In the battle of Fontenoy, the Duke of Cumberland had become acquainted with the peculiar mode of fighting practised by the Highlanders, in the manoeuvre of the "Black Watch," or 42nd; and had shown his judgment in allowing them to fight in their own way. This gallant regiment, in which many of the privates were gentlemen, were exempted at this time from the service of crushing the rebellion, only to have a duty, perhaps more cruel and more unwarrantable, forced upon them, after the battle of Culloden. By a singular circumstance, the Black Watch was commanded by Lord John Murray, a brother of Lord George Murray's, Sir Robert Munro officiating as acting colonel.[115]

At Macclesfield, Prince Charles gained the intelligence that the Duke of Cumberland had taken the command of Ligonier's army, and that he was quartered at Lichfield, Coventry, Stafford, and Newcastle-under-Line. The Prince then resolved to go direct to Derby; and it was to conceal his design, and to induce the Duke to collect his whole army at Lichfield, that Lord George Murray marched with a division of the army to Congleton, which was the road to Lichfield. Congleton, being on the borders of Staffordshire, was sufficiently near Newcastle-under-Line for Lord George to send General Ker to that place to gain intelligence of the enemy. General Ker advanced to a village about three miles from Newcastle, and very nearly surprised a body of dragoons, who had only time to make off. He took one prisoner, a man named Weir, who was a noted spy, and who had been at Edinburgh during the whole of the Prince's stay there, and had since always kept within one day's march of the army. It was proposed to hang him; but Charles could not be brought to consent to the measure, and insisted that Weir was not, strictly speaking, a spy, since he wore no disguise. "I cannot tell," observes Mr. Maxwell, "whether the Prince on this occasion was guided by his opinion or by his inclination: I suspect the latter, because it was his constant practice to spare his enemies when they were in his power. I don't believe there was an instance to the contrary to be found in this expedition."[116]

Upon the third of December, Lord George Murray with his division of the army marched by Leek to Ashbourn; and the Prince, with the rest of the forces, came from Macclesfield to Leek, where, considering the distance of the two columns of his army, and the neighbourhood of the enemy, he naturally considered his situation as somewhat precarious. It was possible for the enemy, by a night-march, to get betwixt the two columns; and, contemplating this danger, the Prince set out at midnight to Ashbourn, where it was conceived that the forces should proceed in one body towards Derby. "Thus," remarks a modern historian, "two armies in succession had been eluded by the Highlanders; that of Wade at Newcastle, in consequence of the weather or the old Marshal's inactivity, and that of Cumberland through the ingenuity of their own leaders."[117]

Charles Edward and his officers slept at Ashbourn Hall, now in the possession of Sir William Boothby, Baronet; into whose family the estate passed in the time of Charles the Second.[118]

The young Prince had now advanced far into that county which has no rival in this Island in the beauty and diversity of its scenery, in the simple, honest character of its fine peasantry, or in the rank and influence of its landed proprietors. The history of these families is connected with the civil, and foreign wars of the kingdom; and already had the moors and valleys of Derbyshire been the scene of contest which had the Restoration of the Stuarts for their aim and end. In 1644, a battle was fought near Ashbourn, in which the Royalists were defeated; in 1645, just a century before Charles Edward entered Ashbourn, Charles the First had attended service in the beautiful gothic church of Ashbourn, as he marched his army through the Peak towards Doncaster.

The inhabitants of the district retained some portion of their ancient loyalty to the Stuarts. As Prince Charles ascended the height, from which, leading towards Derby, a view of the town of Ashbourn, seated in a deep valley, and of the adjacent and romantic country, may be seen, the roads were lined with peasantry, decorated with white cockades, and showing their sentiments by loud acclamations, bonfires, and other similar demonstrations. "One would have thought," remarks Mr. Maxwell,[119] "that the Prince was now at the crisis of his adventure; that his fate, and the fate of the three kingdoms, must be decided in a few days. The Duke of Cumberland was at Lichfield; General Wade, who was moving up with his army along the west side of Yorkshire, was about this time at Ferry Bridge, within two or three days' march. So that the Prince was, with a handful of brave, indeed, but undisciplined men, betwixt two armies of regular troops, one of them above double, the other almost double, his number." It was owing to the skill and prudence of Lord George Murray that this gallant but trifling force was enabled to return to Scotland, for scarcely ever was there a handful of valiant men placed in a situation of more imminent peril.

Derby, which is fifteen miles from Ashbourn, was thrown into the utmost confusion and disorder when the news that the vanguard of the insurgent army was approaching it became generally known. "The hurry," says a contemporary writer, "was much increased by the number of soldiers, and their immediate orders to march out of town, and nothing but distraction was to be read in every countenance. The best part of the effects and valuables had been sent away or secreted some days before, and most of the principal gentlemen and tradesmen, with their wives and children, were retiring as fast as possible."[120]

The borough of Derby, although by no means so opulent when Charles Edward and his friends visited it as in the present day, presented, perhaps, a far more appropriate scene for the faint and transient shadow of a Court, than it now affords. It had, even within the memory of man, an aspect singularly dignified, important, and antique in its streets; and it still possesses many residences which are adapted for the higher orders, rather than for the industrious burgesses of a town. These are chiefly seated on the outside of the town. They were, so late as 1712, and perhaps much later, "inhabited by persons of quality, and many coaches were kept there." To the west, King's Mead, where formerly there was a monastery of the Benedictine order, is now graced by a series of stately detached residences, which, under the modernized name of Nun's Green, constitute the court end of Derby. But, interspersed in the streets, there are still many ancient tenements in which Prince Charles and his high-born adherents might find suitable accommodation.

Party feeling ran high in Derby, and most of its leading and principal denizens were Tories, and even Jacobites. It was in Derby that Henry Sacheverell preached his famous sermon, on "Communication of Sin." This literary firebrand was first thrown out to the High-Church party in 1709, when the High Sheriff, George Sacheverell, of Callow, was attended by Dr. Henry Sacheverell as his chaplain, and the walls of All Saints Church resounded with the denunciations of that vehement, and ill-judging man. The seed that was thus sown fell into a land fertile in High Church propensities; the Grand Jury intreated Dr. Sacheverell to print his discourse; and, eventually, when they considered that, by the mild sentence given against their Preacher on his trial, they had gained a triumph, bonfires proclaimed their joy, in the market-place of that town, where the warfare of Sacheverell had first begun.

On the accession of George the First, and when the Chevalier landed in Scotland, fresh manifestations of the Jacobite party broke forth. The Church of All Saints was again the scene of its display. Three principal clergymen in the town openly espoused the Stuart cause. Sturges, the Rector of All Saints, prayed openly for "King James"--but, after a moment's pause, said, "I mean King George." "The congregation became tumultuous; the military gentlemen drew their swords, and ordered him out of the pulpit, into which he never returned."[121] Perhaps the event which tended most to quiet the spirit of Jacobitism among the lower classes in the town, was the erection of silk mills, in 1717. Nothing tranquillises extreme views in politics more surely than employment; few things attach men's minds to a Government more, than efforts crowned with success. Notwithstanding the memory of Sacheverell, a Whig member had been returned, in the last election, for the borough; the great merits and influence of the House of Cavendish overpowering the uproarious Tories, who, in vain, broke windows, and attacked their enemies. But discontent again broke forth. The winter of 1745 found the whole nation in a state of suffering and discontent; and many of the constitutional securities for liberty and property had been given up, in order to secure the stability of the throne. Taxation had been imposed, in the worst and most unpopular form, that of excise duties, in order to maintain an expensive Court, and to pay for Continental wars, which were maintained to preserve the hereditary German possessions of the King. Yet, in spite of these crying evils, such is the difficulty of inducing Englishmen to incur the risk of forfeiture and disaster, that even the town of Derby had diligently provided itself with a defence against the Chevalier's divided forces, on hearing of their approach.

During the month of September 1745, in consequence of instructions from London, the Duke of Devonshire, attended by the greatest appearance of gentlemen ever seen in the town before, assembled the clergy, in order to consider of such measures as were necessary for the support of the Government. An association was entered into, and sums were liberally contributed, after a splendid dinner, at that ungrateful inn, the George, which, during the sojourn of Charles Edward at Derby, changed its sign, into the safe and ambiguous title of the King's Head. Two companies of volunteers, of six hundred men each, were raised by the association. A proposal to call out the county militia was vehemently negatived, probably from that spirit of distrust which pervaded the councils of King George's Government. By an order in council, passed in the previous September, all Roman Catholics had been prohibited from keeping a horse of above five pounds in value, and restrained from going five miles from their dwellings. It was, therefore, deemed advisable to select the volunteer forces from the well-affected, and not to employ the militia of a county so manifestly disposed to foster the young adventurer as Derbyshire was at that time considered. During the month of November, a great degree of alarm had disturbed the burgesses of Derby; and from the communications of the Duke of Devonshire, then Lord-Lieutenant of the county, to the Mayor, it appears that the young Chevalier completely baffled the Duke of Cumberland and General Wade, by his rapid movement into the very heart of England.[122]

So late as the twelfth of December, the Duke of Devonshire and his eldest son, the Marquis of Hartington, were stationed at the George Inn, to watch the event of the coming storm, and to concert means for averting the threatened danger. Some days previously, the Duke had reviewed a company of six hundred volunteers, together with one hundred and twenty men raised at his own expense; and those townsmen, who were not Jacobites, were in high spirits, concluding that the Duke of Cumberland must have overtaken and attacked the insurgents. On the evening of the twelfth, the soldiers were summoned to the market-place, where they stood for some hours; they were then sent to quarters to refresh themselves; about ten the drums beat to arms, and, being again drawn out, these valiant defenders of the Borough marched out of the town, by torch-light, towards Nottingham, headed by the Duke of Devonshire.

On the following morning, about eleven, two of the vanguard of the insurgent army rode into the town; and, after seizing a very good horse, belonging to a Mr. Stamford, went to the George Inn, and there inquiring for the magistrates, they demanded billets for nine thousand men, or more.

In a short time afterwards, the vanguard itself rode into the town; this detachment consisted of about thirty men; they are described in the account of a cotemporary writer, probably an eye witness, as "likely men," making a good appearance, in blue regimentals faced with red, with scarlet waistcoats trimmed with gold lace. They posted themselves in the Market-place, where they rested for two or three hours; at the same time bells were rung, and bonfires made upon the pretext of "preventing any resentment" from the rebels that might ensue upon a cold reception. About midday, Lord George Murray, Lord Elcho, and several other chiefs arrived, with troops to the number of one hundred and fifty, the flower of the army, who made "a fine show." Soon afterwards the main body marched into the town in tolerable order, six or eight abreast, with about eight standards, most of them having a white flag with a red cross. But the appearance of the main body was totally different to that of the vanguard, and justified the contemptuous opinion and expectations formed by the loyal inhabitants of Derby, of their coming foe. As they marched along, the sound of their bagpipes was heard, for the first time, in the crowded and ancient streets of the borough; but the dress and bearing of these brave, but ill-accoutred men excited the derision of the thriving population of an important country town. They were, says the writer in the _Derby Mercury_ of the day, "a parcel of shabby, pitiful looking fellows, mixed up with old men and boys, dressed in dirty plaids, and as dirty shirts, without breeches, and wore their stockings, made of plaid, not half way up their legs, and some without their shoes, or next to none, and numbers of them so fatigued with their long march, that they really commanded our pity more than our fear."[123]

About five in the evening, when it was nearly dark, the Prince, with the other column, arrived. He walked on foot, attended by a great body of men, to a house appointed for his reception, belonging to Lord Exeter, and seated in Full-street. Here guards were placed around the temporary abode of the Prince; and here, during his stay at Derby, he held his councils.

"Every house," adds the writer before quoted, "was pretty well filled (though they kept driving in till ten or eleven at night), and we thought we should never have seen the last of them. The Duke of Atholl had his lodgings at Thomas Gisborne's, Esq.; the Duke of Perth at Mr. Rivett's; Lord Elcho at Mr. Storer's; Lord Pitsligo at Mr. Meynell's; Lord George Murray at Mr. Heathcote's; Old Gordon, of Glenbucket, at Mr. Alderman Smith's; Lord Nairn at Mr. John Bingham's; Lady Ogilvie, Mrs. Murray, and some other persons of distinction at Mr. Francey's; and their chiefs and great officers were lodged in the best gentlemen's houses.[124] Many ordinary houses both public and private, had forty or fifty men each, and some gentlemen near one hundred."

The Prince, upon his arrival at Derby, resolved to halt for one day, and to take the advice of his council what was to be done at this juncture. His hopes were high, and his confidence in the good-will of the people of England to his cause was unabated. He continued to entertain the notion that George the Second was an usurper, for whom no man would willingly draw his sword; that "the people of England, as was their duty, still nourished that allegiance for the race of their native Princes which they were bound to hold sacred, and that if he did but persevere in his daring attempt, Heaven itself would fight in his cause." His conversation, when at table, beneath the roof of Exeter House, turned on the discussion "how he should enter London, whether on foot, or on horseback, or whether in Highland or in Lowland garb."[125] Nor was Charles Edward singular in his sanguine state of mind. It was observed, says Mr. Maxwell, "that the army never was in better spirits than while at Derby."[126]