Bonnie Prince Charlie : a Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden eBook

The Duke of Cumberland, supposing that the prince’s army were on their march either to give him battle or to make their way into Wales, where the Jacobite party were extremely strong, pushed forward with his main body to Stone.  Lord George Murray, however, having gained his object, turned sharp off to the left, and after a long march arrived at Ashborne, where the prince, with the other division of the army, had marched direct.  The next afternoon they arrived at Derby, having thus altogether evaded the Duke of Cumberland, and being nearly three days’ march nearer London than was his army.

The prince that night was in high spirits at the fact that he was now within a hundred and thirty miles of London, and that neither Wade’s nor Cumberland’s forces interposed between him and the capital.  But his delight was by no means shared by his followers, and early next morning he was waited upon by Lord George Murray and all the commanders of battalions and squadrons, and a council being held, they laid before the prince their earnest and unanimous opinion that an immediate retreat to Scotland was necessary.

They had marched, they said, so far on the promise either of an English rising or a French descent upon England.  Neither had yet occurred.  Their five thousand fighting men were insufficient to give battle to even one of the three armies that surrounded them —­ scarcely adequate, indeed, to take possession of London were there no army at Finchley to protect it.  Even did they gain London, how could they hold it against the united armies of Wade and Cumberland?  Defeat so far from home would mean destruction, and not a man would ever regain Scotland.

In vain the prince replied to their arguments, in vain expostulated, and even implored them to yield to his wishes.  After several hours of stormy debate the council broke up without having arrived at any decision.  The prince at one time thought of calling upon the soldiers to follow him without regard to their officers; for the Highlanders, reluctant as they had been to march into England, were now burning for a fight, and were longing for nothing so much as to meet one or other of the hostile armies opposed to them.  The prince’s private advisers, however, Sheridan and Secretary Murray, urged him to yield to the opinion of his officers, since they were sure that the clansmen would never fight well if they knew that their chiefs were unanimously opposed to their giving battle.  Accordingly the prince, heartbroken at the destruction of his hopes, agreed to yield to the wishes of his officers, and at a council in the evening gave his formal consent to a retreat.

CHAPTER XVII:  A Baffled Plot.