(1715.)
[Illustration: Drop-N]ext, the idea of a camp and mimic war in Hyde
Park was viewed, by _some_ ladies, with unconcealed delight. Pope wrote
half sportively, half seriously, to one of those gay women of the
period――most of them Jacobite at heart. ‘You may soon have your wish,’
he says, ‘to enjoy the gallant sights of armies, encampments, standards
waving over your brother’s corn-fields, and the pretty windings of the
Thames stained with the blood of men. Your barbarity, which I have
heard so long exclaimed against, in town and country, may have its fill
of destruction.’ The writer adds a notification of the perils that may
environ lovely women who delight in war, and he thus proceeds:――‘Those
eyes that care not how much mischief is done, or how great slaughter
committed so they have but a fine show, those very female eyes will be
infinitely delighted with the camp which is speedily to be formed in
Hyde Park. The tents were carried thither this morning. New regiments
with new clothes and furniture, far exceeding the late cloth and linen
designed by his Grace for the soldiery――the sight of so many gallant
fellows, with all the pomp and glare of war, yet undeformed by
battles, those scenes which England has, for so many years, only beheld
on stages, may possibly invite your curiosity to this place.’
[Sidenote: _CAMP AND PULPIT._]
The Guards, while encamped in Hyde Park, were preached to, on Sundays,
with an earnestness which stood for an apology. It seemed necessary
to persuade them, as the preachers did, that the happiness of Great
Britain, in having a wise and just Protestant king, was beyond all
conception.
The ‘Friends,’ too, lifted their voice. In November the Quaker spirit
was moved to uplift a shout against the Jacobites. A Ministering Friend
of the people so called gave a blast through the press of ‘a trumpet
blown in the North and sounded in the ears of John Ereskine, called by
the Men of the World Duke of Mar.’ At the Cheshire coffee-house, in
King’s Arms Court, Ludgate Hill, this pamphlet might be bought, or read
over the aromatic cup which was sold in that locality.
Pamphleteers came out with ‘bold advice,’――that Jacobitism should be
stamped out by vigorous laws. Everywhere the clerical Jacobites, who
prayed for the Pretender, by _innuendo_, were denounced. In Holland,
it was said, when a clergyman meddles with affairs of State, the
magistrates send him a staff and a pair of shoes, and that significant
course was recommended for Tory parsons. Another Dutch custom was
highly approved of. It was gravely proposed for adoption here, that the
clergy, generally, should preach only from texts prescribed for them by
the civil authorities!
[Sidenote: _POPULAR SLOGAN._]
Throughout this year, on days popular with either party, the streets
resounded with different cries, according to the anniversary. Now, it
was ‘a Stuart!’ ‘an Ormond!’ ‘No Hanoverians!’ or ‘High Church and
Ormond!’ which last cry was interpreted by the opposite party to mean
‘Pope and Pretender!’ Tory mobs of patriots went about asking High
Churchmen for money, to drink ‘Damnation to Whigs and Dissenters.’ The
same men went to the other side to ask drinking money for damning the
Pope; and when the Tories accused the Whigs of burning down their own
meeting houses, it was perhaps because the leading incendiaries were
recognised by Tories as having been active in supporting with their
sweet voices what they were then destroying torch in hand! The same
men would, the next day, burn the Pretender in effigy, in Cheapside,
and get drunk on the wages of their infamy. On the king’s birthday,
it was observed that loyalty prevailed among the lower orders,
wherever wine was to be had for nothing. Some made a demonstration.
‘In the Marshalsea,’ said the papers, ‘after the king’s birthday, our
prisoners, wherever able, had select companies to drink King George’s
health.’ As some keepers of prisons distributed punch at the prison
gates, nobody refused to drink ‘The king’s health,’ as long as the
liquor lasted.
[Sidenote: _PERILOUS ANNIVERSARIES._]
The London Jacobites showed their characteristic spirit on the night of
Friday, November 4th, the anniversary of King William’s birthday. They
built up a huge bonfire in Old Jewry, and prepared to hang over it an
effigy of that monarch. The Williamite Club, assembled at the Roebuck
in Cheapside, hearing of the insult, rushed out with ‘oaken plants’ in
their hands, and made furious and effective onslaught on the ‘Jacks,’
They scattered the faggots, broke the heads of all opponents, and
ultimately carried off the effigy in triumph. Some Jacks pleaded that
it was only an effigy of Oliver, but they were kicked for gratuitously
lying. The Whigs installed the captured figure in their club room,
where it was preserved as an ‘undeniable proof of that villainous
Design which the Faction had not then the courage to own and now have
the Impudence to deny.’
On the following day, loyal Londoners had their revenge. They
celebrated the national deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot, and,
through William III., from popery, slavery, and wooden shoes. With
bands of music, flaunting of flags, and continued hurrahs from loyal
and thirsty throats, the procession moved or stumbled through the
city. The effigies borne along with them in derision were those of the
Pope, the Pretender, the Duke of Ormond, Lord Bolingbroke, and the
Earl of Mar. There were men who carried warming pans, in allusion to
the legend that the Pretender had been brought in one into the palace
on the day that the queen, his mother, believed she had borne him.
There were men who represented the prince’s nurses, and others who
carried nursery emblems. The music played ‘Lillibulero,’ and tunes of
similar quality. The effigies of Ormond and Mar rode together in the
same cart. ◆[Sidenote: _POPULAR DEMONSTRATIONS._]◆ The former wore
an extravaganza sort of uniform, with an emblematic padlock on his
sword. Ormond was in scarlet and gold. Mar was in blue and silver,
with a paper pinned to his staff. It bore this inscription: ‘I have
sworn sixteen times to the Protestant religion, and I ne’er deceived
you but once.’ Pope and Pretender followed, cheek by jowl, in another
cart. They were pontifically and royally decked out, in caricature.
Bolingbroke, in absurd court dress, sat at the tail of the cart, as
in dutiful attendance on both masters; and a paper above him bore the
words, ‘Perjury is no crime!’ All these personages rode backwards like
traitors. The lengthy procession passed westward, from the Roebuck in
Cheapside by Holborn to St. James’s Palace, returning by Pall Mall and
the Strand. For the time being they were in full possession of the
streets. They paused at the houses of celebrated personages, to hail
them with blessings or curses equally highly-pitched. ‘Sometime before
their arrival at the Roebuck, on their return, a sneaking Jacobite mob,
perceiving the pile for the bonfire unguarded, came up with a shout of
“King George for ever!” the better to deceive the people, and scower’d
off with the faggots into bye-lanes and corners.’
Eastward, the procession went as far as Grace-church Street, amid vast
multitudes of people. The trumpets and hautboys now played none but
Protestant tunes. A double set of effigies were burnt on gibbets over
two huge bonfires, one in front of the Roebuck, the other before the
Royal Exchange,――the devil being added to the rest as a _bonne bouche_
for the loyal and pious people. The mob at last separated in pursuit of
liquor, and over their cups they talked of how an Irish priest had just
been clapped into Newgate for attempting to blow up the powder magazine
at Greenwich; and how Governor Gibson had saved Portsmouth Castle from
being seized and the fleet in the harbour burnt by rascally Jacks
who had conspired for the purpose. Before the next day had dawned,
expresses were galloping into London with news from the North.
[Sidenote: _NEWS FROM THE NORTH._]
Letters of November 3rd, sent express from Edinburgh, were printed
in the London papers of the 8th. They brought news of London to the
Londoners themselves, namely, that, according to a proclamation made
by Lord Mar, the Pretender’s friends had risen in such numbers in and
about London, that ‘King George had made a shift to retire.’ Fortified
in Perth, and awaiting communications from James, Mar ‘affects to seem
merry, diverts himself with balls, and has a press, with which he
prints and disperses false news, to keep up the spirit of his party.’
Among the reports sent to London was one that Mar’s detachments had
crossed the Forth, and swept the country clear as far as Newcastle.
Other chiefs, Lord Ogilvy, the Earl of Seaforth and Glengarry, were
said to be in occupation of the most important roads, bridges, and
passes.
Letters from Stirling assured the Londoners that the Duke of Argyle
was fully prepared to meet and defeat any movement that could be made
by the rebels. Great comfort was it to the Whigs in the metropolis
to hear that in some places those rebels were met on their march by
members of synods, who urged on the insurgents the duty of loyalty to
King George. Jacobite Foot and Horse were said to be in extremely bad
condition. The newspapers then say:――
[Sidenote: _REPORTS FROM SCOTLAND._]
‘Before they went into Kalso, they plundered the house of the Right
Hon. George Baillie of Jerviswood, and broke open everything that was
locked. They did the like to Sir John Pringle’s house at Stitchel.
When they went from Hawick, the Highlanders being unwilling to march,
they gave them a crown a-piece to go with ’em to Langham, where, being
alarm’d in the night, the Horse mounted, abandoned the Foot at two
o’clock in the morning, and marched towards Lancashire, upon which the
Foot marched to Ecclefechan, where they were divided about the course
they should take. Some of them were for going to Moffat and some to
Dumfries, but hearing that there were four thousand of the king’s
friends at the latter, seven hundred of them marched to Moffat, where
they dispersed to make the best of their way. Two hundred of them got
as far as Lamington in Clydesdale, where they were made prisoners in
the churchyard. The rest are picked up in parties of fifty or sixty, as
they march. The Lord Kenmure, with the Scots horse, is gone along with
the English; and Mackintosh of Borland with him. Mr. Forster commands
the (rebel) English Horse. The Lords Derwentwater and Widdrington be
with him, but they decline command because they are Papists. Borland
left his nephew sick at Kelso, under the care of Dr. Abernethy.’
[Sidenote: _FURTHER INTELLIGENCE._]
London laughed at the simplicity of Mar, who sent a trumpet to Argyle,
soliciting him to spare Mar’s plantations at Alloway. Mar also hoped
Argyle would ‘treat his prisoners civilly.’ The report that ‘Cameron of
Lochiel had been prevailed upon by some means or other from Inverary to
stay at home,’ made curses ring against him in the Tory coffee-houses
of London. The loungers and politicians in the Whig coffee-houses
laughed as they read or heard read that ‘Mar wrote to Captain
Robertson, offering him great Incouragement if he would come over to
him and bring others with him. The letter was delivered to the captain
by a lady, but he was so honest that he carried both the lady and the
letter to the Duke of Argyle.’――From Tiviotdale, under date of October
31st, the London papers of November 8th gave accounts of dissensions
among the rebels. ‘The Highlanders were unwilling to cross into England
in support of the rebel English Horse; and although they offered the
Highlanders 12_d._ a day, could not prevail with them.’
Then there is report of irresolute tarrying here, and of equally
irresolute wending elsewhere――of scares and scurries, of hurried
saddling of horses, leaving mangers full of corn, and of panics――which
sent crowds of rebels pell mell into rivers, which they forded at
great peril,――all to avoid General Carpenter, who was supposed to
be at their heels. In various ways they were said to have helped
themselves. ‘Kelso has lost 7,000 marks by them, and Selkirk in the
article of shoes 100_l_. sterling.’ Numbers of the gentry and common
people were said to have joined Carpenter. This day’s news must have
been discouraging to the Tories. It had such a depressing effect on Dr.
Sacheverel, that he gave up the Jacobite cause. On the following day,
November 9th, the reverend gentleman, with another or two of less note,
quietly slipped into the Court of Exchequer, and took the oaths of
allegiance to King George!!!
[Sidenote: _NEWS FROM PRESTON._]
The news of the battle of Sheriff Muir and of the crowning affair at
Preston reached London only four or five days after the events. The St.
James’s ‘Running Post’ was the first in the field with anything like
details. The public were told that Major-General Wills, being informed
that the Popish Lords Derwentwater and Widdrington, with the Scotch
and Northumberland rebels, in all between 4,000 and 5,000 men, were in
Preston, Wills marched upon that town on Saturday, November 12th. He
had with him regiments of horse and dragoons, known as Pitt’s, Wynne’s,
Honeywood’s, Dormer’s, Munden’s, Stanhope’s, and Preston’s. Other
dragoons held Manchester, and prevented the Jacobites there from rising
in arms as they had promised.
On arriving at the bridge over the Ribble, about a mile from Preston,
Wills saw about 300 of the insurgent horse and foot precipitately
retreating towards Preston, which they entered and barricaded. The
bridge was at once crossed, the town was reached, and a hot engagement
took place at the first barricade. The assailants suffered severely
from the shots fired by men from windows and in cellars. The infantry,
however, got a lodgment. When night came on, all the avenues of the
town were blockaded by Wills’s cavalry, the men keeping by the horses’
heads throughout the night. At nine on Sunday morning General Carpenter
joined Wills with three additional regiments of cavalry.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE FURY._]
Private letters confirmed the report of the deadly nature of the
defence made by men under cover. This led Wills to fire the houses,
upon which the Jacobites withdrew to the centre of the town and into
the church, fighting again behind new barricades. When the resistance
became hopeless, offers to capitulate were sent to the attacking
general, but Wills refused all terms. They must surrender, he said, at
discretion. He would not treat with rebels. The surrender followed; and
the same day saw the fatal issues of Preston and of Sheriff Muir.
[Sidenote: _STREET FIGHTING._]
This news from Preston infuriated rather than depressed the London
Jacobites. On Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, November 17th, it was
whispered about that they intended to profane the day by burning the
effigies of his sacred Majesty King George himself, as well as that
of King William. The Whigs of the Roebuck assembled in and about that
hostelry, armed and resolved to prevent the profanation. At seven
p.m. one of their scouts rushed in breathless with the news that the
‘hellish crew’ were mustered in St. Martin’s-le-Grand to cries of
‘High Church and Ormond,’ ‘Ormond and King James,’ ‘King James and
Rome for ever!’ The Roebucks, thus interrupted when they were drinking
to the memory of Queen Elizabeth, while keeping their powder dry for
contingencies, at once marched out. The hostile forces encountered at
the east end of Newgate Street. The Jacobites were thoroughly thrashed,
and the assailants carried in triumph to the Roebuck the figures,
which had been destined for the flames in Smithfield, of the above
two kings, and also that of ‘the victorious Duke of Marlborough.’ The
figures were carried to the tavern-head-quarters of loyalty, and with
them a sort of Scaramouch, who had brandished in their defence a huge
scymitar, four fingers broad. The Whigs had scarcely got safe within
their stronghold when it was vigorously assaulted by at least five
hundred Jacobites. The latter, after whetting their rage by smashing
windows on their march, commenced their attack on the Roebuck fortress
by pulling down the sign, and breaking everything that was breakable
in front of the house. Finally, the crowning assault was made by the
hatchet and cleaver wielders against the gates. They laughed at being
rather politely requested to desist, and were amused when shot at
from the windows with powder only. Then, in self-defence, the Whigs
fired into the mass with ball. Down went two or three into the London
November mud, dead for James and the High Church. Up went, at the
same time, the shrieks and curses of the wounded. The remnant were
staggered; for a moment indecisive, they soon came to a resolution and
to action upon it. At this moment appeared in Cheapside the Lord Mayor
with a guard, some officers and citizens, shouting, ‘King George for
ever!’ The Jacobites fled in precipitation. The Scaramouch and some
other prisoners were lodged in Newgate. Great tribulation prevailed in
all the Jacobite quarters. In London, as at Preston, the star of the
Stuarts paled before the fire of Brunswick.
[Sidenote: _THE PRISONERS FROM PRESTON._]
The Londoners now looked for nothing more eagerly than for the arrival
in town of the prisoners taken at Preston. Some officers among them
had been shot for desertion. On the march to London the body consisted
of about three hundred men. The officers walked or rode first. The
gentlemen-volunteers followed, and the Highlanders brought up the
rear. They travelled by easy journeys, and were sometimes fettered, at
others free, according to the caprice of those who had them in guard.
The public were informed that they would enter London in four bodies,
‘according to the several prisons they were to go to,’ the first body
to the Tower, the second to Newgate, the third to the Fleet, the
fourth to the Marshalsea. On the march several attempted to escape. A
few succeeded; others were recaptured; some were cut down by pursuing
soldiery. Among the slain was a Cornet Shuttleworth. There was found
on his body the Chevalier’s banner. It was of ‘green taffety, with
buff-coloured silk fringe round it――the device, a pelica feeding her
young, with this Latin motto, “Tantum valet amor regis et patriæ,” “So
prevalent is the love of King and Country.” All London was in a fever
of agitation for this arrival――friends, that they might condole; foes,
that they might exult.
[Sidenote: _TYBURN TREE._]
Even the march of Major-General Tatton’s detachment of Guards up Gray’s
Inn Lane to Highgate, to meet the prisoners there, attracted crowds,
despite the severe weather. The last day of November a spectacle
of a gloomier character attracted the Londoners. Three Jacobite
captains――Gordon, Kerr, and Dorrell――went up Holborn Hill in carts
to Tyburn. They had been captains under William and under Anne, but
had flung up their commissions under George to take others from ‘King
James.’ Even the Tyburn mob must have respected them――they died in
such heroic, gentlemanlike fashion. They were calm, and declined to
acknowledge the justice of their sentence. ‘Obstinate and sullen’ were
the terms applied to them by the Whigs. To the last they persisted in
justifying themselves. To account for which it was illogically said
that ‘Gordon died a Papist, and ’tis shrewdly suspected the other two
were tainted with the same principles.’ ‘It is therefore no great
wonder,’ said the Whig ‘Evening Post,’ ‘that the precepts of their
Religion as well as the Sake of their Cause should inspire them to
leave the World in such an unrelenting Manner.’ These captains had
striven to secure Oxford for their king.
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE CAPTAINS._]
In rebel times and crimes, every captain is not a captain who is called
by that title. Thus, Captain Gordon was an adventurer who had killed
one man in England and another in Bengal. The captain was brought
in chains to England, but the chief witness against him died on the
voyage, and Gordon was set free. Dorrell had been a hostler at the
inn which gave its name to Hart Street, Covent Garden. Early in King
William’s reign he had risen through a sea of troubles to the rank
of ensign in the army, into which he had enlisted. His scarlet coat,
cocked hat, and sword, rendered him acceptable to a rich old widow,
with a portion of whose money Dorrell bought a share in a brewery near
Clare Market. Bankruptcy carried him to the Fleet, whence, issuing
in due time, he became a ruffler and gambler in taverns. When he was
hanged as a martyr to Jacobitism, the hostile papers said that he had
already earned that fate by cheating one Harper at the Cock and Pye in
Drury Lane, of a hundred pounds. These little incidents illustrate the
morals and customs of the period.
There is tradition of the gallant bearing of Lord Derwentwater on
the progress of the captives towards London. Thus, it is said in the
Jacobite ballad:――
Lord Derwentwater to Lichfield did ride,
With armed men on every side;
But still he swore by the point of his sword,
To drink a health to his rightful lord.
The earl took another view of the cause as he drew nearer to the
capital.
[Sidenote: _DRAWING NEAR LONDON._]
After arriving at Barnet, Lord Derwentwater, conversing with an officer
of General Lumley’s horse, which force had the prisoners of quality
in their keeping, asked him if he knew how they were to be disposed
of? The officer communicated his belief that they would be divided
among three or four prisons, according to their rank. Derwentwater
was silent for awhile, and then he remarked, ‘There’s one house would
hold us all, and we have a better title to it than any other people in
Great Britain.’ ‘What house is that, my Lord?’ asked the officer. ‘It
is Bedlam,’ answered Derwentwater, as the madness of the enterprise in
which he had been, not too willingly, engaged presented itself, not for
the first time, to his mind.
On the whole way from Lancashire to Highgate most of the Jacobite
captains were unsubdued in spirit. Many of them, however, on reaching
Highgate, and perceiving preparations for pinioning them, suddenly
became more sedate. Kindly-hearted Whigs in the London papers suggested
that the rebels were sad, from a thought of similar ropes that would
soon be about their necks! Allusion was made to the men of lesser
quality who would speedily be ‘under hatches in the Fleet before they
sailed for _Hanging Island_.’
[Sidenote: _HIGHGATE TO LONDON._]
There were noble men among these unfortunate Jacobites. The Earl of
Derwentwater and his brother Charles Radcliffe; the three brothers,
Lord Widdrington, with Charles and Peregrine Widdrington; old Edward
Howard, brother of the Duke of Norfolk; even Alexander and William,
sons of Sir Alexander Dalmahoy, were bound together. Two other
brothers, John and James Paterson, of Preston Hall, were also in fond,
but melancholy, companionship. William Shaftoe, of Bevington, had his
son, John Shaftoe, at his side; two other Shaftoes, kinsmen of the
former, and also father and son, rode near them. John Cotton, of Geding
in Huntingdonshire, supported his father, Robert Geding. Two brothers
Swinburne were among the prisoners, but not their father, Sir William.
James Dalzell cheered the drooping spirits of his nephew, the Earl of
Carnwath. Two Heskeths of Whitehill, Gabriel and Cuthbert, were pointed
out by the soldiery as another father and son. In the same relationship
were the two George Homes of Wedderburn; the George and Alexander
Home of Whitfield; and George and John Winraham of Eymouth. William
and George Maxwell were two brothers. Of cousins there were many. And
among those of best blood not yet named were the Earls of Nithsdale and
Winton, Viscount Kenmure, and Lord Nairn, with the Master of Nairn,
his son. The flower of Northumberland chivalry, members of the old
church, were there, Ordes, Forsters, Griersons, Riddells, Thorntons,
Claverings, and Scotts. These, with commoner men, yet men in all
essentials of manhood equal in quality, descended Highgate Hill amid
crowds of spectators, who lined the roads from the hill to the Tower,
the Fleet, Newgate, or the Marshalsea, into which prisons the noble
herd was driven, according to their degree of nobility. ‘The crowd gave
most remarkable demonstration of their abhorrence of this rebellion and
of their loyalty to his Majesty,’ so says the ‘London Gazette;’ and no
one expected it to say otherwise.
[Sidenote: _ARRIVAL IN TOWN._]
Even a Quaker could exult at the sight of the procession of captives.
Gerard Penrice, a prisoner, gave the following instance in his
so-called ‘Life of Charles Radcliffe’: ‘A Quaker fixed his eyes upon
me, and distinguishing what I was, said, “Friend, verily thou hast been
the Trumpeter of Rebellion to these men. Thou must answer for them.”
Upon this a Grenadier gave him a push with the butt end of his musket,
so that the Spirit fell into the ditch. While sprawling on his back, he
told the soldier, “Thou hast not used me civilly. I doubt thou art not
a real friend to King George.”’
From first to last the prisoners had looked to be rescued. The
Highlanders asked where the High Church Tories were? If they had had
no heart for the fight, could not they now come to the rescue? Forster
told his fellow-captives that a gentleman of Highgate had assured him
that a Tory mob would rescue them before they reached London. Nothing
came of it. Forster thought his quality might have taken him to the
Tower instead of to Newgate. ‘When,’ says a Whig paper, ‘he understood
that Gordon, Carr (Kerr), and Dorrell were executed the day before, and
their quarters then in the box just by, in order to be set upon the
gates, it spoiled his stomach so that he could not eat with his then
unhappy companions. It was the Whig crowd that shouted at the prisoners
in a triumphant manner. Not only were the streets thronged, every
coign of vantage in and about the houses was occupied, and spectators
on horseback and in coaches accompanied, followed, and in some cases
drew up to enjoy the pitiful, yet triumphant spectacle. ‘It gave a very
lively idea,’ said the ‘Flying Post,’ ‘of the triumphs of the ancient
Romans when they led their captives to Rome.’
[Sidenote: _THE JACOBITE CHAPLAIN._]
The rebel chaplain-general, Mr. Patten, rode by the side of the
ex-Northumbrian M.P. Forster, the leader of the English Jacobites. It
is hard to say which was the most coarsely assailed. The chaplain was
audacious enough to talk treason as he went on his way. Forster was
more reticent, but he was loudly taunted as a perjurer. He had taken
the oaths to King George, before he transferred his loyalty to King
James. The slang term for him was, ‘the Man under the Rose.’
Of priests and clergymen among the prisoners, few attracted more
attention than this Rev. Mr. Patten. The Londoners looked with
curiosity on a man who had delivered a sermon from such a significant
text as the following――Isaiah xiii. 15, 16, ‘Every one that is found
shall be thrust through, and every one that is joined unto them shall
fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before
their eyes. Their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.’
This looks like a weak invention of the enemy, but it was believed
in, at least by the Whigs. Even while the procession of captives was
passing, swords were drawn at tavern doors, and in tavern rooms. If a
Whig was there to call Mar a villain, and the prisoners hang-birds, a
Jacobite’s rapier was speedily thrusting at his ribs to teach the other
better manners.
[Sidenote: _LADY COWPER’S TESTIMONY._]
Lady Cowper confirms these accounts. In her Diary, under date,
December, 1715, she says:――‘This week the prisoners were brought
to town from Preston. They came in with their arms tied, and their
horses (with the bridles taken off), led each by a soldier. The mob
insulted them terribly, carrying a warming-pan before them, and saying
a thousand barbarous things which some of the prisoners returned with
spirit. The chief of my father’s family was among them. He is above
seventy years old.’ Lady Cowper’s maiden name was Judith Clavering; and
it was the aged chief of that Jacobite house who rode defiantly through
the Low Church blackguards. ‘A desperate fortune,’ adds Lady Cowper,
‘had drawn him from home, in hopes to have repaired it. I did not
see them come into town, nor let any of my children do so. I thought
it would be an insulting of the relations I had here; though almost
everybody went to see them.’
[Sidenote: _JACOBITE REPORTS._]
From the very outbreak of the rebellion London had teemed with reports
which had no shadow of foundation. They were spread chiefly by Jacobite
incendiaries of figure and distinction. They protested that if King
George reigned, he would make a bridge of boats from Hanover to
Wapping,――a phrase which served to intimate that the kingdom would be
annexed to the electorate. People in the country were told that the
London churches were closed, and that a clergyman could not appear
in the streets in his clerical dress without risking a knock on the
head. As for resisting the Jacobites, the Highlanders were described
as too powerful to be resisted. It was certainly in ridicule of such
exaggerations that a story ran for a few days to the effect that those
terrible Highlanders had cut off the Dutch auxiliaries, had put on
their breeches, and, advancing on an English detachment which did not
recognise them, had cut the Whig soldiers to pieces. It is quite as
certain that the London Jacobites claimed the victory at Preston for
_their_ side, and were not silenced till the cavalcade of Jacobite
captives was passing from Highgate to the London prisons. Even then,
ultra-Tories were found who strongly suspected, or said they did, that
half the prisoners were hired players who were dismissed when the
public performance came to an end!
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