DERVENTIO

Derby, or, more strictly, Little Chester, hard by, was the Roman Derventio, a name it derived from the river Derwent, in the days of the ancient Britons: the Dwr gwent, or clear water. When the Saxons came and settled near the site of Derventio, they styled the place “Northweorthing,” and the Danes, who in turn drove out the Saxons, named it “Deoraby,” whence the transition to the modern “Derby” is easy. The modern arms of Derby display a buck couchant in a park, an allusion to the supposed origin of the Danish place-name, thought to derive from the Teutonic name, thier, for wild beasts, which term would no doubt include deer. But if this be the correct derivation, it is an extraordinary coincidence that the first syllable of the Roman place-name and that of the Danish should be identical.

The untravelled are easily misled as to the appearance of Derby town. If you were to believe the average guide-book, you would never visit the place, and would rank it with Swindon or Wolverton, or the like. It is true that the chief offices and the works of the Midland Railway are centred here, and that modern Derby is the creation of these circumstances; but, lapped round and enfolded though it is by machine-shops and the mean streets of sheer industrialism, ancient Derby is not altogether to be spoken of in the past tense.

The historical incidents connected with Derby are not many, and they are nearly all associated with the unhappy House of Stuart, whose members exhibited so strange an inability to rule themselves that it remains an odd problem how so ill-balanced a family ever raised itself to kingly rank.

Derby entertained Charles the First in 1635 and made him and his followers welcome to the town. They did it in coin and in kind; with a purse stuffed full of sovereigns, and with gifts of an ox, a calf, and six sheep. In 1642, when the Civil War was already in progress, the King was back again, “borrowing” £300. It has ever been an ill investment, this lending to kings, and Derby never again saw the colour of its money. I, for one, am not surprised that Derby afterwards declared for the Parliament.

THE RUNAWAY MUSKETEERS

The burgesses were still incensed against the Stuarts when Prince Charlie came in 1745, at the head of his wild Highlanders, in his futile effort to upset George the Second and regain the throne of his ancestors; and, for all the brave promises made, of five shillings down, and five pounds apiece when they reached London, he obtained only three recruits in the whole town. We have already, at Swarkestone Bridge, heard at length of this ill-fated rising, but Derby affords some amusing incidents. The Duke of Devonshire had raised a regiment of one hundred and fifty men, to oppose the advance of the Highlanders, and the squires and magistrates of the county, and the corporation of Derby, had raised a force of six hundred more. Derby apparently presented an armoured front to the foe, but it was woefully deceptive. At ten o’clock on the night of December 3rd, when scouts brought tidings of the enemy’s advance, the drums sounded to the muster and the warriors fell in. The order was given to march, and they marched accordingly: out of the back door when the rebels were coming in at the front. In short, they and the Duke who led them emulated the example of the “runaway musketeers,” or, like a billiard-player, uncertain of the game, played for safety. Whether it were policy, seeing that the invaders were advancing with so bold a front, and looked like being successful, or whether it were cowardice, seems to have been a debated point. But it was certainly not military genius. They were led towards Nottingham, and ravaged the farmhouses for food and drink as they went, making war on the poultry, and forgetting to pay.

Meanwhile, horrid reports reached them from Derby. The Pretender had arrived and had extorted £3,000 from the town. But what sent shivers of apprehension down their spinal columns was the news that the enemy had in great numbers attended service and partaken of the Sacrament, and had then resorted to the cutlers to have their swords sharpened. This meant business. We may imagine the sigh of relief with which these warriors heard of the wholly unexpected retreat of the Highlanders, and that there was not, after all, to be a Battle of Derby.

Industry, and not war, makes up the history of the town, together with the usual amusement of religious persecution that colours the old annals of all places. It was at Derby in 1650 that the Society of Friends first came by the name of “Quakers,” when George Fox was brought as a sectary before Mr. Justice Bennet. “He was,” says Fox, “the first who called us quakers, because I bid them tremble at the word of the Lord.”

SILK AND CHINA