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.
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.’
HIGHGATE TO LONDON.