But, however the public prints might revile, and the polite society at St. James's ridicule, and misunderstand the Highlanders, the General whose lot it was to conquer the unfortunate Jacobites knew well of what materials their forces were composed. The Duke of Cumberland, at the battle of Fontenoy, had been so much pleased with the conduct of the famous Black Watch, that he had offered them any favour which they chose to ask, or which he could grant, to mark his approbation. The answer to this proof of approbation was worthy of those valiant auxiliaries, who are described by the French as "Highland furies, who rushed in upon us with more fury than ever did a sea driven by a tempest." The Highlanders replied, after thanking the Royal Duke for his courtesy, "that no favour he could bestow on them would gratify them so much as to pardon a soldier of their regiment, who lay under a sentence of court martial, by which he was decreed to incur a heavy corporal punishment; the infliction of which would," they said, "bring dishonour on themselves, their friends, and their country." The request was granted. It was, nevertheless, the countrymen of these Highlanders, men as heroic as true, as nice in their sense of honour as the Black Watch, upon whom the Duke wreaked the utmost of his vengeance after Culloden, whom he hunted with bloodhounds,—whose honest hearts he broke by every possible indignity, though their gallant spirits could never be subdued.
As the army advanced, a great multitude assembled to gaze upon the singular spectacle. The very arms borne by the Highlanders were objects of curiosity and surprise, no less than of alarm, to the populace, who stood by the way-side expressing their good-will to the expedition, but who, when asked to join the insurgents, declined, saying, "they did not understand fighting."[98] The formidable weapons with which the Highlanders contrived to make themselves terrible to their enemies, consisted of a broad-sword, girded on the left side, and a dirk or short thick dagger on the right, used only when the combat was so close as to render the broadsword useless. In ancient times, these fierce warriors brandished a small short-handled hatchet or axe, for the purpose of a close fight. A gun, a pair of pistols, and a target, completed their armour, except when ammunition failed, when they substituted for the gun, the lochaber axe; this was a species of long lance, or pike, with a formidable weapon at the end of it, adapted either for cutting or stabbing. The lochaber axe had fallen into disuse since the introduction of the musket; but a rude, yet ready substitute had been found for it, by fixing scythes at the end of a pole, with which the Highlanders resisted the attacks of cavalry. Such had been their arms in the early part of the Insurrection of 1745, and such they continued until, at the battles of Falkirk and Preston Pans, they had collected muskets from the slain on the battle-field. In addition to these weapons, the gentlemen sometimes wore suits of armour and coats of mail; in which, indeed, some of the principal Jacobites have been depicted; but, with these, the common men never incumbered themselves, both on account of the expense, and of the weight, which was ill-adapted to their long marches and steep hills.[99]
A distinguishing mark which the Highland Clans generally adopted, was the badge. This was frequently a piece of evergreen, worn on the bonnet, and placed, during the insurrection of 1745, beside the white cockade. When Lord Lovat's men assembled near the Aird, they wore, according to the evidence given on the State Trials, sprigs of yew in their bonnets.[100] These badges, although generally considered to have been peculiar to the clans, were, observes a modern writer,[101] "like armorial bearings, common to all countries in the middle ages; and shared by the Highlanders among the general distinctions of chivalry, were only peculiar to them when disused by others." Thus, the broom worn by Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count D'Anjou;—and the raspberry by Francis the First of France, were only discontinued as an ornament to the head when transferred to the habit, or housings; but the Highland Clans, tenacious of their customs, wore the plant not only upon their caps, but placed them on the head of the Clan standard. The white cockade was now regarded as the peculiar badge of the party; yet it seems not, at all events among the Clan Fraser, to have superseded the evergreen. Some few traces are left, in the present day, to certify, nevertheless, that they were worn during the contest of 1745. "Lord Hardwicke's Act, and continual emigration," remarks John Sobieski Stuart, "have extirpated the memory of these distinctions once as familiar as the names of those who bore them; and all of whom I have been able to collect any evidence are, the Macdonalds, the Macphersons, the Grants, the Frasers, the Stuarts, and the Campbells." "The memory of most," mournfully remarks the same writer, "has now perished among the people; but, within a recent period, various lists have been composed—some by zealous enthusiasts, who preferred substitution to loss, and some by the purveyors of the carpet Highlanders, who once a-year illuminate the splendour of a ball-room with the untarnished broadswords and silken hose, never dimmed in the mist of a hill, or sullied in the dew of the heather."[102]
The Macdonalds, until a very short period before the rebellion of 1715, were known by the heather bow. "Let every man," said one of their chiefs of old, looking round on a field of blooming heather, "put over his head that which is under his feet." The destined sufferers of Glenco were marked by their "having a fair busk of heather, well spread and displayed over the head of a staff." The Clan Macgregor wore the fir; and the Clan Grant assumed a similar badge; whilst the badge of the Frasers is said to have been supplied for ages by a yew of vast size, in Glen-dubh, at the head of Strath Fearg. The badge assigned to the Macphersons was the water lily, which abounds in the Lochs of Hamkai, upon the margin of which was the gathering place of the Clan Chattan. Some of these distinctions appear to have been used during the year 1745, as we see in the case of the Frasers, but all to have emerged into the one general distinction of the Jacobites, the white rose, first worn by David the Second, at the tournament of Windsor in 1349, when he carried the "Rose argent." This badge had been almost forgotten in Scotland, until the year 1715, when it was worn by the adherents of James Stuart, on his birthday, the tenth of June. "By the Irish Catholics," observes the Editor of the "Vestiarium Scoticum," "it is still worn on the same day; but in Scotland its memory is only retained in the ballads of '15, and '45."
The Muses, who, as Burns has remarked, are all Jacobites, have celebrated this badge in these terms:—
"O' a' the days are in the year,
The tenth o' June I lo' maist dear,
When our white roses a' appear,
For the sake o' Jamie the Rover."[103]
The Highland host, after marching through Preston, to the sounds of the bagpipes, which played "The King shall have his own again," took the road through Wigan, towards Manchester. The Prince was informed that the English troops had broken down the bridge at Warrington; and that circumstance, which decided him to go through Wigan, somewhat encouraged his naturally sanguine temper, as it showed fear on the part of the enemy. During this march, the kind-hearted young man went on foot, except occasionally, when we find notice of his riding a fine horse in the public prints of the day. He usually, however, gave up his carriage to the venerable Lord Pitsligo, and marched at the head of one of the columns. He never took dinner, but ate a hearty supper; and then, throwing himself upon a bed, slept until four in the morning, when he arose, to prosecute the fatigues of another day, fatigues which youth, a sound constitution, and, above all, a great degree of mental energy, enabled him to endure.
Wigan, which the Chevalier's forces now approached, had been, in the time of Queen Elizabeth, agitated by religious differences; and the Queen's Commission for promoting the ordinances of the Reformed Church had been there met with a vigorous resistance. During the civil wars, this town, both from its vicinity to Latham House, and from its attachment to Charles the First, took a distinguished part, and obtained the characteristic designation of the "faithful and loyal town of Wigan." After the insurrection of 1715, the oaths of supremacy and allegiance to the reigning family had been, in vain, strongly urged upon the inhabitants of Lancashire, and a large mass of landed estates were, in consequence, put in jeopardy; although it does not appear that the owners were dispossessed of their estates, or that any other use was made of the register taken of all the landed properties in the county, except to assist the magistrates in the suppression of the insurrection in the north. Nevertheless, the expectation which Charles might naturally entertain of a general rising in Lancashire was not realized. "Nothing," observes Mr. Maxwell, "looked like a general concurrence until he came to Manchester."[104] This was remarkable, for Manchester had been the head-quarters of many of the Parliamentary party in Lancashire during the civil wars; whilst Preston and Wigan had both been royalist boroughs. But a singular alteration had taken place in the people of Manchester, who had changed from Roundheads to Jacobites.[105]
During the whole of the preceding march the Highland army had levied the public revenue with great accuracy; but no extortion, nor any attempts at plunder, had disgraced their cause, nor reflected on Lord George Murray as their General.[106]
At Manchester, the first organized force raised in England for the Chevalier joined Charles Edward. It was a regiment of two hundred men, commanded by Colonel Townley, a gentleman who had been in the French service; and was called the Manchester Regiment. It was composed of young men of the most reputable families in the town, of several substantial farmers and tradesmen, and of about one hundred common men. The accession of this troop gave great encouragement to the Prince; yet there were still many who thought very badly of the enterprise, and the advice afterwards given by Lord George Murray at Derby, to retreat, was also whispered at Manchester, Lord George being resolved to retreat, should there be no insurrection in England, nor landing from France. "At Manchester, one of his friends told Lord George," relates Maxwell, "that he thought they had entered far enough into England, since neither of these events had happened." To this Lord George replied that they might make a farther trial, and proceed to Derby; where, if there should be no greater encouragement to go on, he should propose a retreat to the Prince.[107]