The command of the siege of Carlisle had been
given to the Duke of Perth, and Lord George Murray, the older and abler
general, resented the slight. He sent in his resignation of the command
of the forces, but with proud magnanimity offered to serve as a
volunteer. Charles accepted the resignation, but the idea of losing the
one general of any experience they had, created consternation among the
chiefs. The crisis would have become serious but for the generous good
sense and modesty of the Duke of Perth, who sent in his resignation also
to the Prince. A more ominous fact was that they had been almost a week
in England and no one had declared for them. Charles refused to let
anything damp his hopefulness. Lancashire was the stronghold of
Jacobitism. Once in Lancashire, gentlemen and their following would
flock to join him.

The road between Carlisle and Preston lies over bare, stony heights, an
inhospitable country in the short, bleak days and long nights of
November. Charles shared every hardship with his soldiers. He had a
carriage but he never used it, and it was chiefly occupied by Lord
Pitsligo. With his target on his shoulder he marched alongside of the
soldiers, keeping up with their rapid pace, and talking to them in his
scanty Gaelic. He seldom dined, had one good meal at night, lay down
with his clothes on, and was up again at four next morning. No wonder
that the Highlanders were proud of 'a Prince who could eat a dry crust,
sleep on pease-straw, dine in four minutes, and win a battle in five.'
Once going over Shap Fell he was so overcome by drowsiness and cold that
he had to keep hold of one of the Ogilvies by the shoulderbelt and
walked some miles half asleep. Another time the sole of his boot was
quite worn out, and at the next village he got the blacksmith to nail a
thin iron plate to the boot. 'I think you are the first that ever shod
the son of a king,' he said, laughing as he paid the man.

Still entire silence on the part of the English Jacobites. The people in
the villages and towns through which they passed looked on the uncouth
strangers with ill-concealed aversion and fear. Once going to his
quarters in some small town the 'gentle Locheil' found that the good
woman of the house had hidden her children in a cupboard, having heard
that the Highlanders were cannibals and ate children!

The town of Preston was a place of ill omen to the superstitious
Highlanders. There, thirty years before, their cou