Not Much Further.

While Charles was for taking the army further into England, against the wishes of his leading generals, news arrived at Carlisle that Edinburgh was once again in the hands of Hanoverian supporters, of which there were many in the city. Elcho tells that " the Justice Clerk, Lords of the Session and the Sheriffs of the Lothians had returned back to Edinburgh attended by a great number of other gentlemen. They had reassumed the government of the town and had ordered the 1000 men formally agreed upon to be levied and put under the command of the Commander in Chief in Scotland." Glasgow had raised their militia under the command of the Earls of Home and Glencairn ; Stirling, Paisley and Dumfries had raised their militias and General Campbell had returned to Inveraray to raise the Argyllshire militia. If Charles left a vacuum of control behind him in Scotland, there were many who would fill the void, just as before. No sooner had the Jacobite army left Carlisie, than the previous council was reinstated. The Jacobite army was not large, and could not satisfactorily garrison the towns which fell to them. The army pushed on south through Penrith and Kendal, towns which were for sure not Jacobite in allegiance. They cooperated in order to save themselves and their towns. On 23 November, "Lancaster made out that they intended to hold the town, upon which Lord Elcho wrote to the Mayor informing him that part of the army would be there next day and told him if there was no resistance made, no harm would be done to the town." (Elcho's memoirs). The next day (24 November) Lord George Murray and the Atholl Brigade marched into Lancaster. On the 25th the Prince and the rest of the army arrived at Lancaster, where proclamations and manifestos were read as per usual, "but the people testified no joy and seemed all against the cause." While in Lancashire, Lord George Murray contacted an acquaintance "who procured him two spies whom he dispatched, the one into Yorkshire, the other into Staffordshire" to get intelligence about the strength and location of the Hanoverian forces. They returned to say that "Marshal Wade had marched his army straight south on the London Road to Doncaster, and that there were rumours of his marching across the country to Lancashire : the other spy said that Sir John Ligonier was forming an army around Lichfield and Coventry to consist of 10,000 men, and that the Duke of Cumberland was expected every day to take the command of it." (Elcho's memoirs). 27 November the Prince marched all the way to Derby on foot at the head of a column with his guards dressed in Lowland clothes to assuage the locals' fears. The Chevalier de Johnstone relates this amusing account of when he and his regiment were encamped outside Manchester. On the evening before the Battle of Prestonpans, Johnstone applied to the Prince to raise a company which was granted, and that it be attached to the regiment of the Duke of Perth. There was in his company a sergeant named Dickson whom Johnstone had enlisted from the prisoners taken at Prestonpans, actually a young Scotsman "brave and intrepid as a lion, and much attached to my interests." (Ch. John). He told the Chevalier that on their jouney south he did not manage to recruit one single person for the Prince's army, whereas the other sergeants were much more successful. Dickson was very disappointed with the situation. Dickson asked permission of the Chevalier to go ahead of the army to Manchester, a large city of 40,000 inhabitants, to recruit men for the Prince's army. The Chevalier told Dickson his proposition was foolhardy and dangerous and would only see him taken and hanged. Dickson was ordered back to his company. With the confidence that the Chevalier had in his sergeant, he had, some time ago, given him a horse to carry his portmanteau behind him, so that it was always with the Chevalier. That evening Dickson had entered the Chevalier's lodgings and removed the portmanteau and a blunderbuss. The Chevalier was furious with his sergeant's rash behaviour, but on 28 November on his arrival in Manchester with the army, Dickson presented himself before the Chevalier with around 180 men, whom he had enrolled with the company of the Chevalier de Johnstone, a remarkable feat. It seems that the citizens of Manchester realised that the Jacobite army was a good way off, and a large crowd began to close in on our recruiting sergeant who only managed to save himself by presenting the loaded blunderbuss at them. The situation was finally resolved when hundreds of Jacobite supporters came to Dickson's assistance and dispersed the baying crowd. The Chevalier was delighted that here in Manchester, his sergeant was able to recruit 180 able bodied men for the the Prince's army. Together with other English recruits, they would be known as the Manchester Regiment. The Chavalier says that "this adventure of Dickson's occasioned a good deal of pleasantry, by the City of Manchester finding itself ludicrously taken by one sergeant,one drum and one girl."