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 o