urn. He was at the head
of at least 6000 men; but the ranks were being gradually thinned by the
desertion of Highlanders, whose traditions had led them to consider war
merely as a raid and an immediate return with plunder. Having passed
through Kelso, on the 9th of November he laid siege to Carlisle, which
capitulated in a week. Manchester received the prince with a warm
welcome and with 150 recruits under Francis Towneley. On the 4th of
December he had reached Derby and was within ten days' march of London,
where the inhabitants were terror-struck and a commercial panic
immediately ensued. Two armies under English leadership were now in the
field against him, one under Marshal Wade, whom he had evaded by
entering England by the west, and the other under William, duke of
Cumberland, who had returned from the continent. London was not to be
supposed helpless in such an emergency; Manchester, Glasgow and
Dumfries, rid of his presence, had risen against him, and Charles
paused. There was division among his advisers and desertion among his
men, and on the 6th of December he reluctantly was forced to begin his
retreat northward. Closely pursued by Cumberland, he marched by way of
Carlisle across the border, and at last stopped to invest Stirling
Castle. At Falkirk, on the 17th of January 1746, he defeated General
Hawley, who had marched from Edinburgh to intercept his retreat. A
fortnight later, however, Charles raised the siege of Stirling, and
after a weary though successful march rested his troops at Inverness.
Having taken Forts George and Augustus, and after varying success
against the supporters of the government in the north, he at last
prepared to face the duke of Cumberland, who had passed the early spring
at Aberdeen. On the 8th of April the duke marched thence to meet
Charles, whose little army, exhausted with a futile night march,
half-starving, and broken by desertion, was completely worsted at
Culloden on the 16th of April 1746.

This decisive and cruel defeat sealed the fate of Charles Edward and the
house of Stuart. Accompanied by the faithful Ned Burke and a few other
followers, Charles at last gained the wild western coast. Hunted hither
and thither, he wandered on foot or cruised restlessly in open boats
among the many barren isles of the Scottish shore, enduring the greatest
hardships with marvellous courage and cheerfulness. Charles, upon whose
head a reward L30,000 had a year before been set, was thus f