hrough Blair
Athol on Perth, entered Edinburgh in triumph, and proclaimed "James the
Eighth" at the Town Cross; and two thousand English troops who marched
against him under Sir John Cope were broken and cut to pieces on the
21st of September by a single charge of the clansmen at Prestonpans.
Victory at once doubled the forces of the conqueror. The Prince was now
at the head of six thousand men; but all were still Highlanders, for the
people of the Lowlands held aloof from his standard, and it was with the
utmost difficulty that he could induce them to follow him to the south.
His tact and energy however at last conquered every obstacle, and after
skilfully evading an army gathered at Newcastle he marched through
Lancashire, and pushed on the 4th of December as far as Derby. But here
all hope of success came to an end. Hardly a man had risen in his
support as he passed through the districts where Jacobitism boasted of
its strength. The people flocked to see his march as if to see a show.
Catholics and Tories abounded in Lancashire, but only a single squire
took up arms. Manchester was looked on as the most Jacobite of English
towns, but all the aid it gave was an illumination and two thousand
pounds. From Carlisle to Derby he had been joined by hardly two hundred
men. The policy of Walpole had in fact secured England for the House of
Hanover. The long peace, the prosperity of the country, and the clemency
of the Government, had done their work. The recent admission of Tories
into the administration had severed the Tory party finally from the mere
Jacobites. Jacobitism as a fighting force was dead, and even Charles
Edward saw that it was hopeless to conquer England with five thousand
Highlanders.

[Sidenote: Conquest of the Highlands.]

He soon learned too that forces of double his own strength were closing
on either side of him, while a third army under the king and Lord Stair
covered London. Scotland itself, now that the Highlanders were away,
quietly renewed in all the districts of the Lowlands its allegiance to
the House of Hanover. Even in the Highlands the Macleods rose in arms
for King George, while the Gordons refused to stir, though roused by a
small French force which landed at Montrose. To advance further south
was impossible, and Charles fell rapidly back on Glasgow; but the
reinforcements which he found there raised his army to nine thousand
men, and on the 23rd January 1746 he boldly attacked an English ar