DIDISBURYE 
 
 IN THE 45, 
 
 BY FLETCHI 
 AUTHOR O! -vETCII 
 
 REMINISCENCE 
 LEGENDS OF Dli RY."
 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 m
 
 1>

 
 Didisburye in the '45.
 
 ill 
 
 X 
 
 W o 
 
 CQ at 
 
 2
 
 DlDISBURYE 
 
 IN THE '45. 
 
 FLETCHER MOSS, 
 
 THE OLD PARSONAGE, DIDSBURY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 'SKETCHES, REMINISCENCES, AND LEGENDS OF DIDSBURY. 
 
 ICUtb 3llustratton0. 
 
 MANCHESTER : 
 
 CORNISH, ST. ANN'S SQUARE. 
 
 1891.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. SAINT'S DAY 
 
 THE WAKES. COCKING AT Y E COCK 
 
 UNDER WHICH KING ? 
 
 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR 
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE 
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. THE MARTYR'S CROWN 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 THE PRESS CRITICISMS OF DIDSBURY 
 
 12 
 
 29 
 53 
 73 
 86 
 
 99 
 123 
 
 135
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 DlDISBURYE IN 1745 
 
 BRADSHAW HALL 
 
 GAME COCK 
 
 MOSSELEY MONUMENT 
 
 TEMPLE BAR, WITH THE MARTYR'S HEADS 
 
 GRANDMOTHER AND GRANDDAUGHTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 - Frontispiece 
 4 
 
 43 
 72 
 
 116
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 " Love thou thy land with love 
 Far brought from out the storied past." 
 
 OVE thou thy land : the land in our case being 
 that bit of old England called Didsbury, and the 
 storied past being that small speck on the ocean 
 of the eternity that is past, the end of the year 
 called 1745. 
 
 The interest aroused in the history of Didsbury by the Legends 
 and Reminiscences already published has encouraged me to write 
 more on the same subject, and as it was a surprise and pleasure 
 to me to find when collecting those legends how many of them 
 related to the year 1745 (the fatal '45 as it has been called), I 
 have hunted up anything I could find referring to that period ; and 
 as at this lapse of time it is difficult, if not impossible, to know 
 what is true and what is not true, I have embodied the details in 
 
 a narrative which will to some extent show the manners and customs 
 B
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 of the period, and of which, though the subsidiary parts are imaginative, 
 the main details are historical and strictly true. 
 
 The frontispiece of this book a drawing of the Church and 
 surrounding old houses is an attempt to depict them according to the 
 old descriptions, all that is left of that period being part of the tower. 
 The ornaments now on the tower were erected about 1804, and the 
 clock was added many years after that date. 
 
 The parish of Didsbury in 1745 included all the township of 
 Heaton up to Stockport the market town, also Reddish, Levenshulme, 
 Ladybarn, Fallowfield, a part of Moss Side, a small part of Longsight, 
 Burnage, Withington, and Didsbury. Barlow Moor and Heaton Mersey 
 were not separate townships ; they are simply the names of modern 
 districts. 
 
 The spelling of the name has altered so often that it was very 
 doubtful which was the correct spelling at any time previous to the 
 last hundred years. 
 
 Since writing the historical sketches of Didsbury, I have found the 
 following mention of the place. It is dated from the reign of Philip 
 and Mary: Thomas Cholleton, chyrchreeve of y e chapell of Dyddes- 
 burye, sworne and examyned, deposeth and sayeth y l there y s ij lytcll 
 bells specyfied in y c said sedule yett remayning at y e said chapell, w ch 
 were seased to th' use of our late souraigne lorde Kynge Edwarde y e 
 vi th by auctorytie of y c said form cornyss. This shows that about 1555 
 the official form of spelling was Dyddesburye. By another official 
 mention of the name we learn that it was Diddesbury in 1650. The 
 registers of the Church spell it Didisburie in 1599. Then it is Didis-
 
 INTRODUCTOR Y. 
 
 burye, Didisburie, or Didsburie for some time, according to the fancy of 
 the writer. Our hurrying life may perhaps cause us to contract the 
 name still further and call it Bids. Of the various forms used about 
 1745, I think Didisburye is the most picturesque; and here I should 
 like to mention some rampant criticism of my suggested derivation of 
 the word, for it is very amusing. I have been gravely informed that the 
 word Didsbury is derived from a great battle having been fought by 
 some Saxon Dukes on Duke's hillock, and that after the battle they 
 Did Bury the dead there and made the hillock, " and the brooks ran red 
 with the blood of the slain." The fact of the title Duke not being a 
 Saxon title is a minor matter to our village critics ; but the idea of 
 Didsbury being derived from the fact that they Did bury them is 
 sublime in its simplicity. 
 
 There is an error in my work on Didsbury, in the description of the 
 old part of the Church. The oldest stone-work is at the south-west 
 (not north-west) corner near to the tower. 
 
 I have been sorry to find the churchwardens' accounts for the year 
 1745 are missing. They were safe not very long since, but a warden or 
 sidesman has had the old documents away from the Church for months, 
 and now that I particularly wished for the wardens' accounts for the '45 
 they are not to be found. 
 
 There are very few houses now standing in the parish that were 
 standing in 1745. The middle part of the old Parsonage would be 
 one of these exceptions, and the old part of Lawnhurst, that is even 
 now being taken down. Several of the farmhouses and cottages 
 are of older date, and though, as usually happens, the farmsteads
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 change the least, the old-fashioned thatched roofs are so much 
 more expensive, now that labour is dear and there is a value in 
 straw, that even the old buildings have in some cases modern roofs 
 of slate. 
 
 The oldest houses (a few of which remain in the neighbourhood) 
 were made by rearing up two roughly-shaped trunks of trees with 
 their ends on the ground about twelve feet apart, and their tops 
 joined, thereby forming the gable end ; something like a gothic arch. 
 Then the wooden framework was completed, being generally composed 
 of oaken beams pegged together, and the spaces were filled in by 
 wattle and daub, that is, wicker-work and clay, or, in later years, by 
 bricks, the whole being well thatched. In many respects thatch is the best 
 roof a house can have, for it is warm in winter, and cool in summer, 
 but it is now expensive and old-fashioned. The floors were then of 
 mud, or of bricks, and the windows were very small, the poorer houses 
 being without glass altogether. 
 
 The names of the people in the imaginary dialogues are the names 
 of families who were living in the parish of Didsbury in 1745, and as 
 some of their descendants are still living in the neighbourhood, I 
 hope they will not be aggrieved at anything I have written, for I 
 merely wish to describe the place and men as I conceive them 
 to have been. 
 
 The only criticism at all adverse to my book on Didsbury that is 
 worth noticing is to the effect that it is rather hard on certain persons, 
 and rather too much of a family history. As this book may be liable to 
 the same complaint, I will merely ask how can it be otherwise? If
 
 Pa
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 anyone writes history, is he to write the truth or to write "smooth 
 things" only? In my former book, acting under legal advice, I 
 suppressed several facts very disparaging to dignitaries of the parish. 
 But if too much is suppressed the book would be emasculated and 
 not true. Also, if there are facts in the history of Didsbury relating to 
 myself or to my family, it is simply recording the history to relate them, 
 and it would not have been complete in many cases without them. 
 The amount of people who have been interested in the pedigree of 
 the Fletchers is surprising. People I had known for years, and others 
 I had never heard of, have asked me for further particulars. If Fletcher 
 was not the name of the enquirer, it had been the maiden name of 
 his mother, or of his wife, or of his mother-in-law. One old friend 
 claimed relationship because his grandmother had been a Chorlton, 
 and he had noticed the record of a marriage between a John Fletcher 
 and a Joane Chorleton. I said to him, " But that marriage was about 
 1600, and your grandmother could not have been living then." "Oh," 
 said he, "that does not matter, it's only a bit further back." There 
 is no lack of poor relations for a many of us, and poverty is no crime, 
 though it is sometimes inconvenient. An unsavoury Irish woman 
 calling herself Mrs. Smith, and whose thirst was not for knowledge 
 only, called and claimed relationship ; but a line had to be drawn 
 somewhere, and the old advertisement ending with the phrase, " No 
 Irish need apply," suggested where a stand might be made. It may 
 interest some of the pedigree hunters to know that the earliest 
 authentic record of the name of ffletcher that I can find in the district 
 is of the date 1386. In the Raines MSS. there is a copy of a deed, as
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 follows: "J le ffletcher capell ded Ric fil Rob le Hunt omnia burg 
 tenem in Manchester, &c. 9 Ric. II." The translation being, "John 
 the fletcher (or arrower), priest, gave to Richard the son of Robert 
 the Hunt all that burgage or house or tenement in Manchester, &c. 
 Witnessed by Ralph de Radclif, John de Ashton, Richard de Holland, 
 Hugh de Moston, Richard de Redish." As the gentleman was a priest, 
 he should not have left any descendants; but as I have signed the name 
 of John Fletcher many many thousands of times, after a lapse of five 
 hundred years and in the same town, it is interesting to me to republish 
 the small document, and doubtless will be so to others of the name 
 of Fletcher. 
 
 The long connection of our family with the corn and provision 
 trades will enable me to give some original information about the food 
 of the people in former times. The food was generally such as no 
 ordinary working man would eat to-day. It mainly consisted of barley 
 bread or oatcake, with skim-dick cheese or reisty bacon as a treat. 
 Wheaten bread was only for the richer folk, and in wet seasons they 
 had to go without it, for the simple reason that in a wet harvest or cold 
 wet summer the wheat in our district does not ripen, and the flour made 
 from it will not make bread. The bread is simply sticky dough that will 
 not rise, and the crumb of a loaf shrinks up into a lump and rattles about 
 inside the crust, like a corpse does in a coffin, the old women used to 
 say. This I have known several times in my lifetime, the two worst 
 years being 1860 and 1879. If similar wet harvests and wet summers 
 had occurred a hundred years since, there would have been a grievous 
 famine, and the poor would have had to eat bread made of acorns or
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 even beech mast mixed with their oatmeal. Cattle and pigs were never 
 fit to kill excepting in the autumn, for they were "bags of bones" in the 
 spring, gradually fattening with a favourable summer, and at the 
 approach of winter all were killed that were not reserved for breeding. 
 As salt was scarce and dear they were not all salted, but were hung 
 in the smoke and dried, and some of this hung beef was like 
 mahogany. If a cow or calf was killed to save its life in the 
 spring or summer, the family or neighbours would live on it till it 
 was finished. 
 
 As another bit of family history relates to this important matter of 
 the food for the people, I may here mention that about the beginning 
 of this century my grandfather Fletcher had a shop and warehouse at 
 New Cross, Manchester, where on one Saturday afternoon they scaled 
 out (that is, they weighed in retail quantities on the scales) forty loads of 
 barley meal that was bought for food by poor people. It was in the 
 cellars of this warehouse that he hid his children, my mother being the 
 youngest of them, when the place was besieged during bread riots or on 
 the day of Peterloo. 
 
 I now have a sales book from there, showing the prices of flour and 
 other things for some years. About 1812 was the dearest time. Flour 
 was then 6 to 7 per sack, oatmeal nearly the same, bread fourteen 
 pence the loaf, and probably such bread as no one would eat nowadays. 
 Who would eat barley meal now, or even oatmeal? and yet oatmeal 
 was largely sold in the trade thirty years since. The "yallow male" or 
 Indian corn meal came into use for a time at the Irish famine, and was 
 used during the high prices of the Crimean war time; but, excepting in
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 workhouses, there is very little oatmeal, or Indy meal, or " yallovv male," 
 as the Irish call it, used now, and in the workhouse the two meals have 
 to be mixed or the inmates object. 
 
 I might also explain that the word ale formerly meant the 
 beverage produced mainly from good malted barley ; it was stronger, 
 richer, and better in every way than the beer, which was the inferior 
 quality, thinner and sourer, such as would cause the ordinary Man- 
 chester police sergeant of the present day to lose a stone in weight 
 in a week. The good old nut-brown ale was the special drink of the 
 Tories ; the swipey beer, or whistle bally vengeance, as it was 
 technically termed, was supposed to be good enough for the Whigs ; 
 in wet seasons it was often thin and tart, inasmuch as it was some- 
 times used as a remedy for worms, the afflicted patient being told, 
 "If thou willt only tak enoo of it, if it doesn't kill th' worms it 
 will kill thee." 
 
 The consumption of ale at the village festivals was enormous, 
 though it is probable the consumption of intoxicating liquor on the 
 whole was not so great then as it is now, for spirits were seldom taken. 
 The labourer or working man worked for longer hours and for less 
 wages than he does now; the wages were also given to him at fewer 
 times; therefore he very seldom had any money, and he seldom had 
 any time to go on the spree. When the opportunity carne, as at The 
 Wakes, The Harvest Home, Christmas, or other feasts, then he often 
 drank deep; but experience has shown that the more modern fashion of 
 continual soaking on small nips is infinitely more injurious than the 
 older fashion of a good burst at intervals. The harvest home was
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 formerly the next great annual festival to the wakes. It was a feast 
 given by the gentry or farmers to their servants at the end of the 
 harvest. The feast consisted of a good meat supper with ale, and songs 
 afterwards. Roast goose and stuffing, with plenty of beef, were the chief 
 dishes. In our time, when the harvest festival consists of a tea in the 
 schoolroom, with tickets at so much per head, and a sermon in church 
 with the inevitable collection, the British workman sighs for the time he 
 has known or heard of, when he had plenty of goose and plenty of beef, 
 with nut-brown ale brought in to the tune of 
 
 Nimble Ned comes dancing in 
 With a jug of ale so brown and prim; 
 Come fill your glasses to the brim, 
 To welcome Harvest Home, Home, Home, 
 To welcome Harvest Home. 
 
 Life was not all beer and skittles for the men in those days. Their 
 clothes mainly consisted of leather breeches and a smock frock, with a 
 strong pair of boots. Shirts and stockings were not common ; collars 
 and ties were unknown ; even caps or hats were not always worn by the 
 farm labourers. Their clothes were sometimes put on and never taken 
 off until they began to tumble in pieces. I have known a man in 
 Didsbury working in a coarse ragged shirt, who told me "he should 
 ne'er tak it off as long as it would howd togither." A good pair of 
 leather breeches were really supposed to pass from father to son as an 
 heirloom. The test of a good pair was to try if they would stand 
 upright of themselves when nobody was in them ; if they would do so 
 they were good, strong stuff, and likely to last for a many years. My 
 father remembered a 'prentice lad coming to his father, whose fond
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 mother had provided htm with such a pair, and they were the means of 
 a "vast of fun" in a game that is unknown in these days, that is, for the 
 boys to set the breeches upright and then jump into them without 
 touching them with the hands. It was probably a pair of these stiff 
 leather breeches that the Windsor boy was wearing when George III. 
 asked him if he did not know he was the king. " Yes," said the boy. 
 " Then why don't you go on your knees, and you might kiss the king's 
 hand (or his foot)?" said the king. " Because I'd spoil my breeches," 
 said the boy. In those days they liked their breeches as they liked 
 their slices of beef when I went to school, " some that wouldn't bend." 
 There is no doubt that a groom or gardener in the present day is better 
 dressed and better fed than a yeoman or gentleman was in the days of 
 our great grandfathers, that is, in the middle of last century. The 
 dress had to be strong and also well cared for, or the servants 
 would have been naked, for the men living in the house only got 
 5 a year wages, the women servants only the half of that amount, 
 and the boys or girls received nothing excepting perhaps some 
 clothes. 
 
 In concluding this preface, I wish the reader to understand that 
 any obsolete or archaic word or idiom is written down as I have 
 heard it spoken, the spelling being phonetic. Also that I have 
 purposely abstained from consulting any glossary, or giving any 
 explanation of the meaning of words, and therefore the words are 
 given with as much of their original native meaning as they can have. 
 For the information of anyone studying the dialect, I had better 
 mention that Didsbury is on the border of Cheshire, and I consider
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 the dialect to be more appertaining to Cheshire than to Lancashire. 
 At the beginning of my former work on the legends, &c., of the place, 
 I advanced as a probable theory that the original Saxon settlers of 
 Deddesbur'h came from Eddisbury, the great Saxon settlement in 
 Cheshire. The market town and the court town for the district was 
 always Stockport, not Manchester, and the dialect of the natives has 
 always seemed to me a Cheshire " talk."
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 SAINT OSWALD'S DAY, ANNO DOMINI 1745. AT THAT ANTIENT INNE 
 KNOWN BY Y E SYGNE OF Y E COCK IN DlDISBURYE. 
 
 A quart of ale is a dish for a king. Autolycus. 
 
 I me a quart o' ale, if yo pleasen, missus, and a mon 
 to threeup wi." 
 
 " Yo may soon have the ale ; and as for a mon 
 to threeup wi, there's old John Rudd yonder, coming 
 across th' shooting butts, he'll threeup wi ye till 
 th' cows come up." 
 
 "He wunna threeup sense; some folk talken such rubbitch and such 
 a lot on it ; gi me a mon whose disscourse is instructive-like, not one o' 
 them who talken an talken an talken, so as other folk canna get a word 
 in edgeways ; they'd moyther a growing tree wi their talk." 
 
 "Well, there's the old moudywarp man in th' kitchen. I hear tell 
 that last time clerk Wood paid him for the moudywarps he'd fetcht, he 
 marked some wi a pin and thrut em on th' esshole unbeknownst to old
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 13 
 
 Tippetymew, and the force old beggar fetcht em off again and tried to 
 get pay twice over for the same moudywarps, but he got cotcht."* 
 
 " Well, well, there's roguery in aw trades but oursen." 
 
 "There's a voyager just coming in; he favvers a black Jesuit more 
 than owt else. Will he suit you ?" 
 
 " Happen he will. Let's see what he's after." 
 
 The above interesting conversation between Mistress Twyford, the 
 hostess of the " Cock," and her customer, was here interrupted by the 
 sudden entry of the church cleaner, Betty Gaskill, who was a prolific 
 woman with a large appetite and a continual thirst. 
 
 " Lorjus me!"-f- she exclaimed, " what d'ye think? When we was 
 clearing th' ould rushes from th' church there came a skinny black- 
 looking chap, who flops down on his knees up at th' top end of the 
 church by the communion table, and stays there prayin and crossin 
 hissel, and doesn't tak a bit o' notice o' any on us. We got Wood's 
 lads to get some brick ends to pelt him wi when he came out, but, 
 somehow they were fair gloppent, as if he'd bin a frightenin or a 
 boggut. Here comes th' ould ." 
 
 " Can I have a little food and rest here awhile?" said the stranger. 
 
 "Aye, you can have such as the house provides, and welcome," 
 said the hostess, "and there's a very worthy man here, a horse-leech 
 by profession, who's just been aksin for some one to hold him in 
 
 *In olden times the clerks paid for all moles, sparrows, &c., &c., that were supposed to 
 be vermin, and were brought to him killed. About this time, in a neighbouring parish, one 
 thousand three hundred and twenty moles were paid for in one year, 11. 
 
 t" Lorjus me," or "Lorjus mercy," was an old-fashioned exclamation, being a con- 
 traction of " Lord Jesus, have mercy on me."
 
 I 4 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 disscoorse. What would you like in the way of food ? That that's 
 handiest is oaten cake and cheese. Of course there's other things 
 pig's head, black puddings, and the like, but the cheese is made i' th' 
 parish,* and there's no better i' aw Cheshire, for a bit o' the parish is in 
 Cheshire, yo may know, and th' best cheese i' th' world comes fro there, 
 that nice blue mould ; and as for th' ale, I brews it myself, and, though 
 I says it as shouldn't, there's " 
 
 "Aye, she does," put in the old horse-leech; "she brews just the same 
 measures o' mawt whether she fills hafe a dozen hogsheads or as many 
 kilderkins. Aw the empties a got to be filled, chus how mony there is." 
 
 " Ne'er heed him, he must be joking." 
 
 " The cheese and oaten cake are abundance for me," said the 
 stranger, "and if you will let me have some of your best ale, also, 
 perhaps this gentleman will join me." 
 
 "Aye, that will I, and welcome. I'll tak another quart, and thank 
 ye; one canner properly tell from th' first quart what it's like, and 
 missus dunna swilker it. Here's my respects." 
 
 "To whom have I the honour of speaking?" said the stranger. 
 
 " Oh, my name's ffletcher, George ffletcher, but they caw me Dicky 
 for short, cos there's so mony on us. There's old George, o' th' Wood- 
 house, him as is lately dead, and there's his son George, and there's me 
 and a young George from the Fould who's living in Manchester, and 
 there's others, and heaps o' Johns and Toms; we're a rare breed for 
 breeding, though they're mostly wenches that's come lately." 
 
 * There is now a large stone in the garden of the old parsonage that was formerly used as 
 a cheese press in Didsbury.
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 15 
 
 "Then the George ffletcher, of Heaton Wood, who was church- 
 warden, is dead, is he?" 
 
 " Well, they buried him on spec a year or two sin ; he lies i' th' middle 
 ally near th' chancel. You've bin i' th' Church, may be ; it's cleaning 
 day to-day, when they cleans for aw the year and puts fresh rushes 
 down." 
 
 "Yes, this is the anniversary of the martyrdom of the blessed 
 Saint Oswald. His fame has spread to many lands, and the scene of 
 his martyrdom by the heathen is only a few miles from here." 
 
 "I know nowt about blessed saints or martyrs; we caw it th' rush 
 cart neet." 
 
 " Then, how do you keep the festival, my friend ?" 
 
 " Oh, we've plenty o' ale, an currant chuck, an tripe, an aw sorts o' 
 cakes, an th' vestry's called, an the cess is cessed, and the new rushes 
 fetcht, an folk come fro aw the country side an meeten their friends an 
 relatives next Sunday, that's Wakes Sunday, and they stayen two or 
 three days for the wakes; an there'll be shows, an races, an bull baiting, 
 an cockfeghting, an aw manner o' things. There'll be the best main o' 
 cocks as ever yo see; sixteen cocks a side against Stoppurt an Cheddle 
 to be fought out as long as there's any cocks left, a Welsh main some 
 folk ca it. I should like to take the shine out o them Cheddle chaps, 
 for they're the swaggeringstest set as ever I see. We'n gotten some 
 rare birds; shanner yo stop an see it?" 
 
 " I would rather see the people and their customs. Perhaps you 
 can tell me something about them." 
 
 "Well, there's th' parson yonder, Parson Twyford, he's akin to her
 
 1 6 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 as keeps this house; he lives o'er yon, just across the cockpit at th' back 
 o' the inn; 'then the church is t'other side his garden. Aw these places 
 lie handy like, close together, so as they can aw help one another yo 
 know. Th' parson's son has just wed th' steward's daughter.* Then 
 they can keep th' living in the family. Catch them for not knowing 
 which side their bread's buttered. Mony a man has been hanged for 
 less schaming than they'n done. That's the steward o'er the green, 
 yonder; he's as force as an owd dog fox. Just watch the crafty owd 
 devil going about them booths and shows ; he'll get aw as he can ; 
 he will have what's reet, an as much more as he can get. Sir John 
 Eland's his lord now, but he's a spreeing chap as never meddles 
 with nothin' so long as he's some money to be goin on wi. There's a 
 deal o' folk comin across the green now, an there'll be a sight more 
 before neet. Vender's Tom Syddall, him as his feyther's head wur 
 gibbeted on th' cross in Manchester Market Place." 
 
 A sudden gleam lit up the pale ascetic face of the stranger, and 
 though he strove to conceal any further emotion, the old horse-leech 
 had noticed him, but continued his tale: 
 
 " There's a namesake of mine with him, young George ffletcher, his 
 brother-in-law, and Mester Dawson, a friend of the Broome's, and a 
 young Moss, from Manchester, and two of Dr. Deacon's lads. But I'm 
 gettin dry, and I notice, mester, although yo letten me talk, thou tell'st 
 me nowt thysel. Who may you be ?" 
 
 " Oh, I'm nothing. Nobody knows me. I like to hear you tell 
 
 * July 25, 1745, married by license,. the Rev. William Twyford and Miss Molly Broome, 
 both of Didsbury.
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 17 
 
 about these honest country folk, and if you are getting tired perhaps 
 you'll let me call for some more ale." 
 
 " Well, I don't mind if I have another quart, thank ye. I mak no 
 count of a man as cannot take his hafe dozen quarts without stirring 
 from his stool, not that I hold wi teeming it down your throat wi'out 
 swallowing, as some folk do. I always swallows mine fairly; and then 
 at wakes times we reckon to get a good skinfull of home brewed. It 
 makes us happy like happy down to the tips of our toes, my old aunt 
 used to caw it; and then a bit o' tripe or cowheel an some of their 
 cakes goes down well wi it too. Did yo ever taste any of em? They 
 baken above two thousand manchets agen th' wakes ; they are rayther 
 toothsome. Aye, missus, bring us some o' your manchets, only don't 
 bring too many, for I could go on eating them till th' cows come up.* 
 Aye, but good cooking's a great blessing," and the old man shook his 
 head slowly and thoughtfully. 
 
 " Bring too many, indeed," growled out a labouring man named 
 Prod, one of the numerous families of Blomeleys. " I'd fain see any un 
 bring too mony for me. If they was welly clemmed on black barley 
 bread aw the year round, they'd ate till they were welly brossen when 
 they'd gotten th' chance. I'll wager I'd eat a cawf at a sittin, and not 
 be stawed then, danged if a would."f 
 
 "Some folk are never right, neither full nor fastin; they'd eat as 
 much as would stuff a sofa," said the hostess, as she brought the cakes. 
 
 * The cows coming up, or milking time, is the most important part of the day in a dairy 
 district. 
 
 t In country places a man is considered to have a very big capacity who can eat a calf at 
 one meal ; it has been done sometimes. 
 C
 
 i8 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 " Well, well, let thi meat stop thi mouth, or thou'lt be as full as a 
 blown tick." 
 
 So Prod smole at the cakes as a donkey smiles at a cabbage. 
 
 "Do you find all these good things agree with you, my friend?" 
 said the stranger to old Dick. 
 
 " Oh aye, nought much ails me but being a bit short o' cash. Yo 
 see, I dunna believe much in doctors, cos I'm one mysel ; leastways I'm 
 a cow doctor, and that's about the same thing. When folk reckons 
 they's ill they sends for the doctor or barber nowadays, and he bleeds 
 em and happen physics em as well wi' some strong drugs, an if that 
 doesn't do they bleeds em again. Just same as I do to the horses and 
 cattle, poor things. I know it's all wrong and nearly allus kills them, 
 but then folk are n'r satisfied unless you does it, and gives em a bottle 
 and charges em well. Besides, they are fond of the blood in winter 
 time when meat's scarce; it makes rare black puddings mixed with 
 meal.* Now, you notice anyone who ne'er fashes theirsels with a 
 doctor, they are allus a deal healthier and more dosome." 
 
 "That's true," said another; "and there wouldna be so much o' 
 these rheumatics about if folk wouldna wash so much. Why I anna 
 washed, ceptin my hands and face on a Sunday, not for nigh on sixty 
 years,-}- and I'm as healthy as any on you." 
 
 "No, I don't hold wi too much washin," said old Peter Pass, the 
 
 * It was the usual custom to bleed the cattle periodically, not only to cure diseases, but 
 to keep them well, and the blood was used for black puddings. Human beings were also bled 
 by the doctors whenever they got the chance. 
 
 + There are men in Didsbury to-day who admit they have not washed all over for 
 sixty years.
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 19 
 
 blacksmith. " Some folk talken about th' dirt being grued in, but a bit 
 o' goose grease well rubbed in th' skin, specially about th' feet an joints, 
 is a deal better than aw that washin ; it makes the skin supple like." 
 
 " Well, I don't hold wi rheumatics," said old ffletcher, " but if men 
 getten wet and lie i' their wet clothes, and ne'er take em off from week 
 end to week end, and happen be wet aw that time, what mun they 
 expect ? Good plain food and plenty o' work will make anyone healthy 
 that's got reet. A bowl of porridge for breakfast, or a peil full of 
 buttermilk well stodged wi potatoes, an after that a rasher of fat bacon 
 wi a quart o' good ale on th' top, that'll beat any o' you new-fangled foreign 
 drinks for beginning th' day's work on.* Look at the childer they rear 
 nowadays on tea and slop ; there's some o'er yon, their mother reckons 
 hers a lady and drinks tea aw day, an best tea cosses a pound a pound, 
 an aw slop when done; there's no guts in it. Where are th' childer's 
 boanes or teeth ? They'n gotten none worth having ; an they wanten 
 glasses to see wi, an they go bald in no time ; they're hafe rotten." -f- 
 
 *A good old-fashioned breakfast was fat bacon and new milk, that is, milk with the 
 cream on it. The author has had it for over thirty years, during which time he has never had 
 a doctor. The reader is welcome to the recipe. 
 
 + An uncle and aunt of mine, when aged about seventy-five, were cracking nuts with 
 their teeth ; their children could with difficulty do the same, and their grandchildren were no 
 better. If the teeth of every generation deteriorate, the great-grandchildren who are now 
 babies will soon be without teeth. The deterioration has probably been caused by the increased 
 consumption of tea, for the well-to-do generally lived as follows : 
 
 Instead of our slops, 
 They had cutlets and chops, 
 
 And sack possets, and ale in stoups, tankards, and pots, 
 And they wound up the meal with rump steaks and schalots. 
 
 Cheese and ale, with cucumber and raw onions, the above old couple, now in their eightieth 
 year, were lately having for supper.
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 "Ou's a mezzled face scrannel, an her childer welly clemmed, 
 though her reckons hers a lady," growled another native. " Her feyther 
 may ha been a gentleman, happen he was, but theyse like bargains it 
 ta'es two to ma em. Now oursens are little throggles, as wick as 
 scopprells, fatter till those uns though theyse fed on nobbut buttermilk 
 an taters, an thinks well o' gettin a bit o' bacon or maybe a fish on a 
 Sunday." 
 
 " Why there was a man deed here not many weeks sin," said old 
 Peter, " and the crowner sat on him at this very inn, an th' crowner had 
 him cut open to see what he deed on, an he were chock full o' black 
 coffee suds right up to th' throoat. He'd usened to drink a deal o' 
 coffee, same as some folk do nowadays, an th' coffee suds had stuck in 
 him, an filled him up, an he deed ; he did for sure, for I seed it mysel." 
 
 "An sarve him reet, too, why couldna him stick to ale. I've no 
 patience wi them foreign devils an their new ways, they wanten to know 
 more than it's fittin anyone should know. What sayst thu, mon, thou 
 oughtst to know a thing or two, for thou'rt out i' aw weathers, an up aw 
 neet too at times." 
 
 The latter part of this speech was addressed to two more of the 
 natives who now entered, one of them having been already introduced 
 to us under the euphonious name of Tippetymew. He was clad in a 
 red and white waistcoat made from the skin of a calf, with the hairy 
 side out and the skinny side in, and with haybands wrapped round his 
 legs, skin or leather breeches, and an otter skin for cap. He was 
 accompanied by a bristle-haired terrier that was very like its master 
 in the face, though it had a stumpy tail. The other man, Jimmy
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 Hardy, alias Blue Jimmy, was a gatherer and retailer of water- 
 cress, wild hops, chamomile, pennyroyal, dandelion, tansy, rue, and 
 various herbs with more or less mysterious uses ; he was also a 
 fisherman, with "an ancient and a fish-like smell;" his walking stick 
 was a piece of a bull, and his dress was mainly composed of the skins of 
 animals, which are an excellent protection against wet or cold weather, 
 and very serviceable to primitive man.* 
 
 " Aye, th' times is very bad," said old Tippetymew ; " what wi 
 enclosing pieces o' the moor an fillin up ditches there'll be no wild 
 beasses soon ; an then th' churchwardens dunna want to pay as much 
 for what is cotcht, so ween less to cotch and less for cotchin em. I 
 never seed the like, never." 
 
 " Do the heretics that now rule your church use money from the 
 house of God for the destruction of his creatures?" asked our friend 
 the stranger. 
 
 " By th' mass, your reverence, dunna get vexed. Poor folk have 
 to be o' what religion they're orthert, an do as they're tolt We an to 
 catch moudywarps, an rotten, an urchen, an stots, an them stinkin 
 foumartSjf an otters, or onythin else. God ne'er made them things as 
 creeps about on four legs. Th' devil made them an witches an such 
 like, an we allus kills everythin as we can." 
 
 The dog had risen with pricked ears and head on one side at the 
 sound of rotten and urchen, and, after sniffing at some of the company, 
 
 * There are at the present time females who come to Didsbury church partly clothed in 
 the skins of wild beasts, sometimes with a row of tails hanging round them as worn by a 
 medicine man of the Indians, and with the skins or mangled limbs of dead birds on their heads. 
 fMoles, rats, hedgehogs, stoats, polecats, &c.
 
 22 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 he gave signs of being a freemason, scratched once or twice with his 
 hind feet in a backward direction, and then went under the bench to 
 try if there was a soft place in the floor before he lay down with one 
 eye open and the other eye shut. 
 
 " Do these men still cling to the old faith, the faith of their fore- 
 fathers?" the stranger quietly asked old Dicky; "or what is their 
 faith?" 
 
 " It's mostly Church and guts, same as the rest on us. Church and 
 State, or Church and King, it's aw one." 
 
 " But which king?" said the stranger. 
 
 " Which king? why, how many are there? If they fillen their bellies 
 it's aw one." 
 
 " But are they Tories ?" 
 
 " In course they're Tories. Church and King, or Church and guts, 
 or Tories, it's aw one. But I'm gettin dry, as dry as a kecks, and Tories 
 shouldna be dry; it's worse thing I have agen em is their fastins. I 
 canna hold wi living on fish an cabbage on Fridays, or hasty pudding* 
 on Ash Wednesdays or fast days; but they dunna do it now as much 
 as they did. A deal o' folk nowadays as calls theirsels Tories is only 
 milk and water devils. But who may yo be? Art thou that preachin 
 chap they ca' Wesley ,-f- that's goin about preachin an upsettin things ?" 
 
 * Hasty pudding was made of flour and milk only ; it caused Ash Wednesday to be 
 indeed a day of fasting and sorrow in the author's childhood. 
 
 f The parents of Wesley, who had lately begun his preachings, were strong Jacobites; he 
 himself gradually 'verted to the other side from his opposition to Popery. The Catholics and 
 High Church party generally supported the Stewarts, or in other words were Jacobites or 
 Tories.
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 23 
 
 " No, my friend ; I have not even heard of him. Who is he ? a 
 setter forth of some strange doctrine ?" 
 
 " I dunna know. Doctrine troubles me no more than doctorin. 
 There's so many sorts o' religions nowadays, honest folk have a job to 
 know which is reet. Priests used to be reckoned very much count of, 
 but th' sight o' one now has summut th' same effect on me as th' sight 
 of a tom-cat has on a tarrier dog. I mean no offence, mester, though 
 you looken a bit that way yoursen. But talkin's rayther moythersome, 
 an one's wizzen gets dry. We shall aw wanten another quart apiece 
 when th' rush cart comes and the sound of the music gets nigher and 
 nigher." 
 
 The medley of sounds outside the inn had gradually become deeper 
 and louder, and now broke into a hoarse roar of "Here she comes;" "Th' 
 rush cart's in sect;" " Th' rush cart's here;" " Look out," &c., &c. When 
 the rush cart was sighted from the green, the signal was given. The 
 new bells in the church tower clashed their loudest and merriest peal. 
 The din was deafening. The roar of hundreds of voices, the band, and 
 the bells all seemed to outvie with one another. The rush cart, or wagon 
 piled with rushes and ornamented with garlands, was drawn by the best 
 horses that could be obtained ; the horses themselves and the escort of 
 dancers and musicianers being covered with ribbons, streamers, flowers, 
 flags, &c. The last part of the journey was done at a gallop by the 
 horses and dancers, and the rush cart pulled up at the church gates. 
 Here all the people danced round it in a storm of sounds loud enough 
 to make "the rude forefathers of the hamlet" turn in their narrow 
 graves.
 
 24 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 We may read in the Scriptures that David and the singers of Israel 
 escorted the Ark of the Lord with music and dancing, and if there had 
 been any description of that music and dancing it might have been 
 found similar to that practised at Didisburye. The latter was certainly 
 primitive; it mainly consisted of the dancer, with long ribbons in his 
 hands, taking a step forward, a step backward, and one forward again, 
 as he waved his streamers, this was to the tune of rum-ti-um. The 
 next movement was a complete turn round, with the streamers waved 
 over the head, ti-riddy-iddy-um. Then several quicksteps forward, with 
 another complete turn, ti-rum-tummy-tum-tummy-tum-tum-tum. 
 Da capo. This was practised by the village children for weeks. The 
 rush cart day, August 5th, was the happiest day of the year for many 
 poor folk ; it was the one great feast or carnival. They grew up from 
 childhood knowing only the rush cart tune and the rush cart dance. 
 One generation passed them on to the next, and associated them with 
 happy memories of the days when they were young and their mothers 
 fondly watched over their childhood's steps ; or when in the bloom of 
 their youth their limbs were supple and they gloried in their strength. 
 As age crept on and activity lessened, the regrets for the days that were 
 past would increase, and many a time an old man or woman whose 
 heart was made merry would suddenly break out into the rush cart 
 dance and sing the rush cart tune. 
 
 The last few sentences merely describe what I have seen, and, 
 though they are now written in reference to one hundred and forty-six 
 years ago, they will also apply to a still earlier time, for tradition says 
 that the village festival had even then been held for more than five
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 25 
 
 hundred years. Very few, indeed, are the people in Didsbury to-day 
 who ever heard of St. Oswald. There are many who never heard of 
 the rush cart or the wakes, and yet the festival lived for more than six 
 centuries, and only in our own time has become extinct. 
 
 Let not ambition mock their homely joys, 
 
 Their useful toil, and destiny obscure ; 
 Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile 
 
 The short and simple annals of the poor. 
 
 The crowd was soon busy carrying the rushes into the Church. 
 Everyone helped, young and old, lads and lasses, all carried some 
 rushes, it was a religious and a happy duty. The Church was newly 
 swept and garnished, the old rushes having been taken away for a 
 bonfire, and the new rushes were now spread in the pews and the new 
 garlands hung over the altar, and the whole place thoroughly cleansed. 
 The old records specify that cleaning the Church meant cleaning " every 
 pew in it," the pews being of divers shapes and sizes. As the twilight 
 deepened the ghostly owls came gliding softly to and fro, and the 
 falling dew increased the scent of the rushes in the sweet evening air. 
 The summer sun set over the green meadows below the churchyard, 
 and the coloured light of the sky was reflected from the broad ditches 
 and the bends of the river as the sounds of merriment and revelry con- 
 tributed to the solemn peacefulness of a happy village festival. Our 
 friend the stranger lingered long, much interested in all he saw, but as 
 darkness deepened he went back to the inn and boldly asked to be 
 shown into the room where the Manchester men were met. After 
 many diplomatic evasions and much prevarication as to there being 
 such a room or meeting, admittance was at last obtained, and in a low
 
 26 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 dark pannelled room, crossed with heavy rough oaken beams and with 
 a plain oaken table in the centre, on which stood a large bowl of water, 
 was a goodly assemblage of men among whom the quick eyes of the 
 stranger recognised those pointed out to him by old ffletcher as coming 
 from Manchester. 
 
 After carefully shutting the door, and taking care that he did not 
 knock his head against the beams, which were less than two yards from 
 the floor, he introduced himself as follows : <: I am sent unto you with 
 tidings of great joy. The name of your village is known in Paris, and 
 in Rome, and wherever the friends of King James the Third meet 
 together. As I am a member of a family that has for centuries owned 
 lands in this parish, I have many friends in the neighbourhood, and I 
 trust and believe I am now in the midst of friends. My name before I 
 was received into religion was Alexander Barlowe, and as an humble 
 emissary of the Church it has been deputed to me to seek you out and 
 tell you that your Prince of Wales, Prince Charles Edward, sailed from 
 France in the Doutelle, escorted by the Elizabeth, on the I3th day of 
 last month, that his most Christian Majesty the King of France is 
 aiding him with ships and money, and, as several weeks have now 
 elapsed without tidings of his capture, it is almost certain that he has 
 safely effected his landing on the coast of Scotland, and has claimed 
 the kingdom for his father. Even now the fiery cross will be speeding 
 through the Highlands, and the clans will be gathering in battle array. 
 Your Prince will march southwards through Manchester, and it behoves 
 you, as good subjects of the King, to give him what aid and help lies in 
 your power. He has the blessing of His Holiness the Vicar of Christ
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 27 
 
 on earth, and with the blessing of God Almighty the Church and King 
 must prevail over their enemies. No weapon that is forged against Her 
 shall ever prosper, and the King must reign and his enemies be put in 
 subjection under his feet." 
 
 The interest of the company had gradually been growing in inten- 
 sity, and now burst forth with the wildest enthusiasm. "The King!" 
 "The King!" "The King!" echoed and re-echoed till the oaken rafters 
 of the old inn shook again with the storm of cheers that were raised and 
 toasts that were drunk to the King over the water, King James III. Even 
 in that time of revelry of the annual village feast such an outburst of 
 cheering drew the notice of the people, and the door and windows were 
 besieged by eager enquirers. The good folk of Didisburye did not care 
 much which King was on the throne so long as their pots were kept 
 a-boiling and their children's bellies filled, for was it not their primest 
 duty to attend to them. The government was something very far 
 beyond their ken, and they followed their leaders, the gentry, in simple 
 faith. The gentry were nearly all Church and King men, or, in other 
 words, High Church and Tory, and therefore in various degrees were 
 supporters of the Jacobites or adherents of the Stewarts. They usually 
 met for consultation at an inn in Didisburye, and now more drink 
 was ordered, free drink for anyone who would hold his glass over 
 the bowl of water as he drank to the health of the King. The 
 King over the water signified the King of England who was living 
 in France, and who was therefore over the water. If they had 
 openly drunk the health of King James III. the consequences might 
 have been disastrous. It was altogether more prudent not to name
 
 28 
 
 THE VILLAGE FESTIVAL. 
 
 the King or to name the Pretender, for who knew what might 
 happen 
 
 God bless the King ! I mean our Faith's Defender ; 
 God bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender. 
 But who Pretender is, or who is King, 
 God bless us all is quite another thing. 
 
 A song in those days was the accompaniment of a feast, and when 
 men had well drunk they would give vent to their feelings. Here is 
 another verse of the period with a double meaning 
 
 The illustrious House of Hanover 
 
 And Protestant Succession, 
 To them I have allegiance sworn, 
 
 While they can keep possession. 
 
 (Sotto -voce) And no longer. Chorus, gentlemen, please, 
 
 While they can keep possession.
 
 THE WAKES. COCKING AT Y E COCK. 
 
 In England, where, indeed, they are most potent in potting : your Dane, your German, 
 and your swag-bellied Hollander drink ho! are nothing to your English. lago. 
 
 ^UNNA be so lungus, yu come moythering round though 
 ween been as thrunk as dogs i' dough til we fair sweal ; 
 canna yu let us a be," said a fine upstanding lass of a 
 good brown colour, dressed in a large flowery pattern 
 gown and a poke bonnet, to a besotted maudlin youth in a smock 
 frock with buttons like cheese plates, and a neck-tie of gorgeous hues, 
 like the famous coat of Jacob. 
 
 " Coom along o' me, an I'll gie thee a fairing," said the gorby, and 
 when he laughed his face disappeared and only an immense mouth 
 was visible. 
 
 " I'd as lief stay a whome. I wudner have yu if every yair o' your 
 yed wur tagged wi goold. Yu thinken cos yu'n gotten a hundert pound 
 to your fortun yure o' some account, but yu anner." 
 
 " Ne'er heed th' cross-grained hussy, there's as good fish i' the
 
 30 THE WAKES. 
 
 waiter as there is out ; come an let's see th' bull baiting," said another 
 damsel, and she gave him a slap on the back with a hand like a 
 shoulder of mutton, and off they went arm in arm up to the elbow. 
 
 " He's a rum lookin chap, yon is ; they must a bin feart when they 
 got him," was the remark of a bystander. " Ers that fond o' him, er 
 could welly eat him." 
 
 " Aye, an er'll wish er had a hetten him, too, afore er's done wi him," 
 grumbled the girl's father. " They caren none so long as their bally's 
 filled. Here I mun scrat, an fend, an pey for aw, and meenteen aw, 
 an aw wunna do. Th' chap gets nobbut a shillin a week an his meat; 
 how can folk keep body an soul together an rear a family on yon.* 
 Wakeses arener what they usent to was when I wur a lad. Why, I've 
 heerd tell that when King Charles wur restored, an them sour-faced 
 Puritans wur shut up, that th' king paid for aw th' drink, an there was 
 gallons an gallons to be had for th' aksing. Yu met a swum in it if it 
 hadner a bin a sin to waste God's gifts by swimmin in it." 
 
 " Oh, I'd neer a wasted it, tho I'd leefer a drunk it," said another. 
 "I'd a swum in it first an drunk it arter. I've often heerd tell o' 
 swimmin in drink, an I'd like to try it for wonst afore I dee." 
 
 "An then look at th' trouble there is nowadays wi one's wife, if er 
 happens to be okkert Th' justices wunner let yu fettle em too much 
 yursen if they gi yu too much o' their lip. Whoy, we'd usent to have 
 
 * A Didsbury man once told me he got "nobbut a shilling a week an his meat, an he got 
 no meat but on a Sunday." He meant flesh meat on the Sunday. 5 a year (or two shillings a 
 week), with board, was a common wage at farm houses in recent years. My great grandmother 
 had for servants three sisters, who were with her for a many years and who saved "a deal of 
 money." The eldest of them got the highest wages, namely, three guineas a year.
 
 THE WAKES. 31 
 
 em ducked i' th' vvatter, or a bridle an gag put i' their mouths when they 
 talkened out o' their turn ; but they'n stopt all that, an now they even wan ten 
 to stoppen us a hidin of em as well ; but I told mine I'd ta her by th' scruff 
 o' the neck an jow er ed agen th' bedpost if er wudner owld er clack." 
 
 "Some on em will be allus fratchin, but I'd as leef let em keep 
 emselves to emselves, and not be too hurrysome with em." 
 
 "Aye, but some o' them gawming ill-favvert women, they arener fit 
 to be trusted out by theirsels, they arener for sure." 
 
 "Well, thee hode thy noise," broke in a large-boned horse-god- 
 mother sort of a woman who had heard the last sentence ; " thee hode 
 thy noise, for I owe thee nowt, as the man said to his bally when it 
 rumblert. I may have to carry thee whome to-neet afore thou'st done ; 
 may be thou'lt be gettin feghtin yet, an we shall see thee runnin like a 
 scawded cock, aw of a dither, and then thou'lt be very glad o' thy 
 missus to taken care on thee." Then, as the hen-pecked husband 
 traypsed off, muttering something that was lost in the torrent of his 
 wife's eloquence, she continued: "Aye, them men, it's a good job for em 
 they'n gotten us to look after em. But an yu heard what Betty Piers, 
 th' wise woman at Castle Mill, has brought on young Allcock; aye, but 
 it's woful work. Anner yu heard ; ay, well, well. Yu known, young 
 Jerry Allcock wanted Dolly Whitelegg, an her feyther wouldner let her 
 have him ; an Betty's a bit akin to the Whiteleggs, an it was thought 
 they'd paid her to frighten them off being wed, for Betty tould young 
 Allcock, says she: ' If thou wed her, thou'lt not bed her.' And he said 
 to Dolly, ' Necr heed her, her's nobbut an ould witch,' and he got 
 Dolly off to Stoppurt, and they got wed, and they went to ould John
 
 32 THE WAKES. 
 
 Lingard's, o' the Ragged Mop an Rollin Pin, an when they was ridin 
 whome, just at Brinksway Bongs, wur th' watter crosses the road, his 
 horse stumblt an pitcht him on his ed, an he knockt his neck out an 
 wur jed afore they could stop him. So he'd wedded her, but he hadner 
 bedded her, just as ould Bet had said. Isner it awfu'?" 
 
 "Well, who'd a thot it, but they du some wonderfu things, that's 
 certain, though if haife one hears about em's true, as to turnin into cats, 
 an hares, an such like, the less honest folk has to do wi' em the better." 
 
 "Aye, but they do good sometimes. There's ould Bailey, of 
 Gatley, had a son who was laumt wi a bad hip, an he took him to ould 
 Betty, an she passed him through a young ash tree that she'd split up, 
 an she said aw manner o' wonderfu things o'er him, an then er bund up 
 th' ash plant, an as it grew up he grew up, an he got well agen." 
 
 "Well, when my Uncle Elijah had his daughters Rachel and 
 Rebecca badly, he took em to John o' th' Hill at Hale Barns, him as 
 makes coffins for far an near, for he's got second sight an can raise th' 
 devil if he likes ; an he said they wud ner dee, an they didn't, for 
 they'n living yet ; but when old Margery Pownall deed, he told her 
 mester when he was measuring her for her coffin that he'd measure him 
 for hissen at the same time, so as to save him coming again, an th' old chap 
 wur that feart that he took to his bed and deed straight off, an they wur 
 buryt thegither. They do say he makes coffins for folks unbeknownst 
 to them, so as they'll be handy like if they dee in a hurry." 
 
 "Then such like folk ought to be burnt alive or ducked in th' 
 watter till they are drownded," said an unbeliever, who had been 
 listening to the women's gossip.
 
 THE WAKES. 33 
 
 " Oh, husht, man, or by the mass yo dunna know what may happen 
 to you," and most of the women broke into a sweat of clammy terror at 
 the thought of what might happen if the wizards or the wise women 
 heard such profanity and were to revenge themselves by bewitching 
 them. 
 
 " I've another bit o' news as has happened since last Wakes time 
 to tell you ; dun you know they'n laid th' Gatley shouter at last, they 
 an for sure. Th' Gatley shouter, you know, was a spectre or boggut 
 that shouted at folk from among the tombs in Northen churchyard, and 
 along th' Carr Lane to Gatley. Mony folk and childer specially were 
 plaguey feart on him, so much so that they daresner go that way after 
 dark, and this new parson at Northen has played the hangment with 
 the ghoses ; he's laid em all over th' countryside, but he couldner lay th' 
 Gatley shouter. However, it's gotten done at last, and I'll tell thee how. 
 There was once a man of the name of Barrow at Cross Acre, an he were 
 very fond o' money, a regular ould skinflint ; he'd have fleyed two fleas 
 for one hide, an he griped an screwed ony road to get hold of ony 
 money, an he stuck to all as he could get. Well, at last he deed, an ould 
 Nick soon got him, an he warmt him, he did rarely, for he mit be heard 
 moaning, ' Milk short o' measure, butter short o' weight, oh, dear, oh, 
 dear;' then he'd cry out as old Scrat fettled him up a bit. Well, he 
 couldner rest in his grave in Northen churchyard, but mit be heard 
 moaning and crying all th' way to Gatley and back, and folk were 
 plaguey feart ; so th' parson got everyone as could read with their 
 bibles, and them as couldn't read but knew their prayers were to keep 
 
 on praying as hard as ever they could pray, an one neet at full moon 
 D
 
 34 THE WAKES. 
 
 they spread emselves aw over th' countryside from Northen to Gatley, 
 and they kept drawing nigher in a circle, so as th' shouter couldn't pass 
 them, an at last they'd gotten him in a corner of th' churchyard by the 
 lane side and th' rectory garden, where there's a yew tree, an there they 
 pinned him in ; an th' parson whips out a bit of chalk and draws a holy 
 circle round th' place, and all th' folk join hands and read their bibles 
 out loud as hard as they can read, an t'others gabble desperately at their 
 prayers, an th' parson sings an shouts an hops about an bangs th' book, 
 an th' poor devil moans and groans, an jabbers an chunners, but they 
 fair bet him, an smothert him wi prayer, an th' devil was druv out o' 
 him, an now he let's him abide, an th' Gatley shouter's fairly laid." 
 
 Here is another bit of old-fashioned clack : 
 
 "Well, Meary, and how's Tummus?" 
 
 "Jed, thank ye." 
 
 " Lor a mercy, when did he dee?" 
 
 " Well, if he'd lived till to-morrow he'd a bin jed a fortnit." 
 
 " You dunna say ! Well, well, life's uncertain ; we are here to-day 
 and gone yesterday. What did he dee of?" 
 
 " He deed of a Toosday. You known he'd supped sorrow wi' a 
 spoon, and at last it pleased the Lord to take him, and now he's gone to 
 a better country. It's very sad, but we mun aw go sometime, for there 
 isn't a man in England will live for ever ; an they say as we'll be 
 happier there, though I'd as lief stop here for mysen." 
 
 " But yu anner said what carriet him off." 
 
 Oh, he'd bin ailing some time ; he wur moonstruck or he'd bin 
 witched ; he wur that lousy he wur welly smothert wi fleck, like them
 
 THE WAKES. 35 
 
 Irishmen that comes at harvest tide. He'd bin to Stoppurt for a load o' 
 muck some years sin, an he wur market fresh and laid on top o' th' muck 
 i' th' cart fast asleep, an th' horse an cart an him wur out i' th' lone aw 
 neet, an th' moon shone on him and he wur moonstruck. They mostly 
 go lousy when they are like yon, an he wur covert wi em, big uns wi 
 stripes on their backs like rodey bacon, rodey backed uns I caws em ; 
 they fair swarmt. An then he wur bothert wi lawyers an constables, 
 an they are wur than fleck. He'd a neighbour, but I'll not mention no 
 names, who'd bin takin a bit of his dole an trespassin on him, an it wur 
 very aggeravatin ; so he seed 'torney Broome, an 'torney Broome aksed 
 for a guinea fore he'd do annythin; so he says to Broome, says he, 
 " I anner money to spare, but I'll have the law o' yon ould skinflint as 
 far as a guinea '11 go, but no farther, so yu mun get what yu can off him 
 for th' guinea," and he tells him his tale. Then 'torney Broome tells 
 him that "mony a man had gotten hanged on th' gibbet for less than yon 
 had done, but he'd fettle him ;" so he pocketed th' guinea and sent him 
 law, but he neer heard no more about it, an couldna do. Th' lawyers 
 will have holt, an th' parsons are ner much better ; they tell us now th' 
 law makes us bury i' woollen shrouds, an guineas an fees are ner so 
 easily gotten nowadays by poor folk, or gentlemen poor folk either for 
 the matter o' that. My old fayther used to say if you sue a beggar 
 you'd catch a louse, an he wur reet. Guineas take a deal o' scrattin for, 
 an it's no use being hurrysome, we'n aw to wait till th' watter comes, 
 we have for sure. It's very hard on lone folk, an things is moythersome. 
 Now, a drop o' mulled ale wi a bit o' nutmeg grated on it would be 
 comfortin like, would ner it?"
 
 36 THE WAKES. 
 
 "Well, I don't mind if I do, bein as it's wakes time. I'm rayther partial 
 to toast an swig, an happen we may get a bit o' toasted cheese too." 
 
 The above interesting conversations, and sundry others of similar 
 type, are supposed to have taken place on the ale bench of the inn or on 
 the village green of Didisburye, where the wakes were in full swing. The 
 lanes, the roadsides, and the adjoining fields were covered with booths, 
 tents, shows, carts tilted up, travelling vans, gipsy encampments, &c. 
 The horse races were held on the Sandlands, the foot races on the High 
 Street, and the prison bars and other similar games down Stenner Lane, 
 in the Withy Ley. The booths and vans contained various curiosities, 
 such as living skeleton's, two-headed girls, fat women, hairy dwarfs, &c. 
 A giant, described as being like Goliath of Gath, ten feet high, with a 
 weaver's beam for the shaft of his spear, was in one caravan. If some 
 local Thomas a Didymus, being hard of belief, asked how the giant 
 could stand up when the van was not ten feet high, he would be told to 
 pay his money and walk up, and he would find the giant lying down 
 inside; how could they have the vans made so high they would not go 
 under the trees. Country lads trying which could eat the most treacle 
 dumpling had a rare treat. Ducking in a tub of water for apples with 
 their hands tied behind them was rather washy amusement, with not 
 much substance in it. There was more solidity in having a good drink 
 of buttermilk, and then swallowing a small new potato, and listening 
 for the splash of the potato in the buttermilk. Bull-baiting and bear- 
 baiting were called merry disports, and were very fashionable. 
 
 The bull was tethered to a very strongly fastened ring in the green, 
 near where the present lamp is now (it is probable some of the strong
 
 THE WAKES. 37 
 
 timbers are still in the ground), then dogs were set on it. If a dog 
 could pin the bull by the nose and hold on, he was a good one, but 
 even then he might get tossed in the air, whereupon the spectators would 
 try to catch the dog and save its fall.* The whole sport was rather 
 unfair to the bull, but if he got loose he could soon mend matters. 
 
 The bear-baiting is best described in the following account of the 
 manner in which certain English princesses were diverted after hearing 
 mass: "The princesses were highly diverted with the baiting of bears, 
 tempered with other merry disports. The bears were fastened behind, 
 and worried with great English mastiffs, but not without risque to the 
 dogs. It was a sport very pleasant to see the bear with his pink eyes 
 learing after his enemies, ... by what shift with biting, with 
 clawing, with roaring, with tossing, with stumbling, he would work and 
 wind himself from them, and, when he was loose, to shake his ears 
 twice or thrice, with the blood and the slaver hanging about his 
 physiognomy." Very nice amusement for young ladies after hearing 
 mass. But we loathe such brutality; let ours be 
 
 The joy that soldiers feel, 
 When meeting foemen worthy of their steel. 
 
 Neither King nor Parliament can make two cocks fight unless 
 the cocks wish to fight; they like it just as Christians and Christian 
 nations are sometimes fond of a bit of fighting, and for hundreds of 
 years cock-fighting was one of the commonest and most popular sports 
 
 * It is only a few years since a man died at Northen who had a good dog tossed in this 
 manner and caught, but it died, whereupon he broke out into weeping, and declared he would 
 sooner have lost his wife.
 
 38 THE WAKES. 
 
 in England. At Didisburye, as an old man expressed it, "there was 
 nowt else; all as some folk cairt for wur cocking." (He had probably 
 forgotten for the moment the drinking.) "The Cock" was one of the 
 most popular signs for a village inn, and its brazen effigy was generally 
 exalted above the highest pinnacles of the churches. 
 
 At the village wakes men might be seen coming from all parts with 
 bags in their hands, each bag holding a cock. Other men were carefully 
 weighing the cocks, and noting down their weights in ounces. The old 
 cockers were most particular as to the artificial spurs and the straps for 
 fastening them securely to the legs of the cocks, the " heeling " being a 
 very important matter, for if the spurs got loose or bent in the fight 
 they could not then be altered, and the cock was at a great disadvan- 
 tage. Others were in corners, letting the cocks have a preliminary 
 sparring match on loose straw. These cocks had boxing gloves over 
 their spurs and feet, and were dumped down on the straw opposite to 
 one another, and snatched up again before any injury could be ,done. 
 This improved their science, and developed their wind and agility. 
 Others were feeding their cocks with mysterious compounds, such as 
 horehound and ginger; some had secret mixtures that were supposed 
 to be of inestimable value, almost good enough to make a dead cock 
 crow. As a rule, the cocks lived far better than their owners, and were 
 surfeited with good food; for in those days to live like a fighting cock 
 was synonymous with everything that was extravagant in good living. 
 To be "as drunk as a lord" was the height of some people's ambition, 
 while others would prefer to " live like a fighting cock." 
 
 A main of cocks between two counties or parishes caused intense
 
 THE WAKES. 39 
 
 enthusiasm, and here was Lancashire against Cheshire, or, as the 
 natives expressed it, Didisburye agen Stoppurt an Cheddle. This was 
 the culminating point of the fun of the fair of the spree of the whole 
 year. Here was all the country side with his wife a shouting, roaring 
 crowd. Here were Sir John Bland of the Hough, Tattons of Wythen- 
 shawe, Blomeleys by the dozen from all over the parish, Chorletons 
 from the old hall, Chorletons from Grundy Hill, ffletchers from the 
 Wood House, ffletchers from the Yeld House, ffletchers from the old 
 fold, Rudds from the Broad Oak, Rudds from the Lum, Langfords 
 from Withington, Garnetts from the Moor-side, Worsleys from the 
 Moss-side, Smiths from the Boat, Hudsons from top o' th bank, 
 Gooldens from the Pars fold, Byrches from the Tythe barn, Byrches 
 from Rushulme, Syddalls from Slate, Barlowes, Booths, Bayleys, 
 Brookes, Bancrofts, Boardmans, and Brundretts. Here were repre- 
 sented the old local families of Hoult, Hough, Henshaw, Heggen- 
 botham, Hesketh, Hampson, Cash, Chetham, Dean, Gresty, Gaskill, 
 Goodyear, Linney, Mosseley, Thorniley, Rogers, Rydings, Worthington, 
 Wrenshawe, Wood, &c. The clerk Woods, as hereditary clerks of the 
 parish, naturally acted as clerks at the cockpit. They kept the accounts 
 and managed the business of the meeting, while the parson took the 
 dignified position of referee.* 
 
 The yard of the Cock Inn, especially about the cockpit, was 
 
 * There are men living now who have been with parsons to cockfights, and within the 
 last thirty years an old man named Charley Jones, who used to teach boxing, told me that in 
 his youth he had fought a prize fight on Lindow Common, and the parson at Mobberley had 
 been the referee.
 
 40 THE WAKES. 
 
 crowded with a pushing struggling mob of cockers from all parts. "Men 
 fra Rachdale, fra Yarkshire," even from Cumberland and the Lake 
 country. Staffordshire and Shropshire sent their representatives. All 
 were intent and eager upon the merits of their respective fancies, and all 
 shouted and yelled in the dialect of the district from whence they came. 
 Here were men with faces like foxes, like rats, like owls, like hawks, or 
 like ravens. The very dogs with their masters looked in some cases to 
 be the superior animal of the two. They also went in and out, up and 
 down, making new friends, and talking of auld lang syne in their doggy 
 way. On all sides resounded the war cry, the shrill clarion, of the 
 crowing cocks ; for most of them their last hour was at hand, for the 
 main to-day has to be fought out to the bitter end. 
 
 In the usual mode of cock fighting each cock fought once, and the 
 event was decided by the majority of wins ; but in a Welsh main, or 
 one to be fought outright, the survivors of each side were pitted against 
 one another again and again, until all the cocks of one side were dead 
 or disabled. This latter mode was obviously more bloody and extreme, 
 but it suited the fiercer and more determined spirits among the men. 
 Some cocks would be found that after winning their first battle in good 
 style would lose their pluck, go stiff on their joints, and refuse to fight 
 again. Others would keep game to the death, and fight on as required 
 and as long as there was life in them. All sorts and all colours were 
 allowed, but the weights were restricted to between three pounds six 
 ounces and four pounds eight ounces. The cocks were matched against 
 others of similar weights on the opposite side. If any were of extreme 
 weights they had to be kept in reserve. After many and various
 
 THE WAKES. 41 
 
 smaller fights and fencings the great main of the day came on for 
 decision. Sixteen cocks a side, to be " foughten out betwixt Stopput 
 an Cheddle agen Didisburye." At last they get to work, amid breath- 
 less excitement. The first cock for Didisburye is a yellow pile called 
 Bonnie Prince Charlie. The piles are the showiest and perhaps the 
 handsomest of game fowls, the cocks having cream-coloured bodies 
 with dark red saddles on the back and golden yellow legs. Bonnie 
 Prince Charlie looked every inch a king, but he was more for show 
 than work, for, after several quick springs at one another, with feints 
 or blows, the rapier-like spur of his adversary pierced his brain, and 
 Bonnie Prince Charlie lay dead. Another and another of the gorgeous 
 piles shared the same fate, and the Didisburye men waxed wroth as they 
 thought the battle was going against them, and they said hard words of 
 their Tory neighbours, who fancied light-coloured cocks, as they sported 
 the white cockade of the Stewarts. Then comes a Stopput cock who 
 won't fight ; he objects upon principle, and runs round the pit. 
 "Aye, mester, yon cock wunner feght; screw his neck." 
 " Mak him into soup, with a honyon or two, an a bit o' parsley." 
 Amid a chorus of howls and taunts the cock's neck was screwed 
 and another produced. Gingers, mealys, duns, brassy-blacks, and 
 duckwings oppose one another, but the battle goes sore against Didis- 
 burye, and after the first round has been fought out it is found that ten 
 battles have been lost, and there are only six winners left for the next 
 round to oppose the ten on the Cheshire side. 
 
 " We mun keep us peckers up," says an old cocker, whose eyes are 
 like the eyes of hawks, and whose jaws shut together like the jaws of
 
 42 THE WAKES. 
 
 a rat trap. " Oursen are aw black reds that are left ; happen we'll win 
 yet. There's time for a quart apiece. We mun keep th' cocks' feet 
 warm, they canner feght wi cold feet ; and dunner let em get stiff, 
 there'll be some skreiking next round, see if there isner." 
 
 After a short interval for refreshments, the next round is begun, six 
 cocks on one side (one of them having had an easy win), ten cocks on 
 the other side, four of them having to be kept in reserve. This time the 
 fighting is different ; many of the cocks have not the same agility they 
 had before ; they have gone stiff, some have been wounded, some have 
 lost blood, and some have lost pluck, which is worse. The black red 
 cocks of South Lancashire are always noted for their staying powers; 
 they are also rather heavier than the birchin, greys, duckwings, or lighter 
 coloured cocks, and weight tells more as the fighting is at closer 
 quarters, and the lighter ones are knocked out. Round the second: 
 first cock for Cheddle funks and squorks, which, being translated from 
 the language of the vernacular, means he is afraid, and shouts out with 
 a peculiar hoarse frightened cry. His opponent makes a dash at him, 
 as he turns to fly, and just strikes him with the spur where his tail joins 
 on to his back. Well-bred cocks, like well-bred men, do not present a 
 certain part of the body to either friend or foe. With two more 
 Cheshire cocks it is all up but shouting, and their opponents, who win 
 so easily, are warmed and flushed with victory, and, therefore, in rare 
 fettle to tackle the reserves. 
 
 The end of round the second shows every cock has fought twice, a 
 few of them three times, and there are five left on each side out of the 
 original sixteen on each side.
 
 THE WAKES. 43 
 
 Now the odds are even again and the excitement increases ; the 
 crowd gets denser round the cockpit ; there is always most thrutching 
 where there's least room. Men swear at one another, call one another 
 condemned beggars, or something similar, use cursory and sanguinary 
 language, and from words very soon get to blows. Fighting is 
 contagious ; it rouses the fierce passions of the men, and makes them 
 
 A DESCENDANT OF THE GLADIATORS. 
 Sketched by the Author from life ; the breed having been in his family for at least a hundred years. 
 
 wish to fight as well as their cocks, and fight they do on the smallest 
 provocation. There is just time for another quart a piece, and then the 
 climax to the great struggle, the fighting it out to the death. There are 
 five cocks left in on each side, but how many will stand up for the third, 
 fourth, or fifth time in one day, with bloody spur and beak, face to face 
 with death if they do, they are game indeed. They are all good cocks 
 now, that have won at least twice, and they will be reserved for breeding
 
 44 THE WAKES. 
 
 if they survive ; they can run if they like, there's no compulsion, but none 
 do so. Spur wounds and bruises, with stiffening joints and loss of blood, 
 have not cooled their pluck. They are game indeed, but the fighting is 
 slower and more dogged ; there is not the lightning-like thrust of the 
 rapier spur at the adversary's head ; there is not the same quick springing 
 in the air, aiding the spur with all the power of the wing. The clever 
 dodging and quick rallies are slower ; there is more standing and 
 hammering at one another's heads with the beak ; sometimes a bird is 
 clearly thrown on the ground with its adversary on its back. The spur 
 may be plunged in the adversary's body and entangled there. Eyesight 
 is going and heads are swelling, the cocks are getting blind and peck at 
 anything or nothing, but still they fight on, until in some cases they 
 cannot stand or see ; they can only peck at random. The end may not 
 be yet, for the other cocks may be like them, but the scene becomes 
 revolting, and we may take it for granted that they die game and that 
 Didisburye must win, as the lighter Cheshire cocks are being gradually 
 knocked out of time. 
 
 Now arises another commotion in the innyard, drawing the atten- 
 tion of the spectators even from the all-absorbing cockpit. Who or what 
 in the name of fortune is this ? Here is a big burly man on horseback, 
 with the corpse of another man thrown across the saddle in front of 
 him. 
 
 " Here's old Isaac Wood I've found drownded in the ford ; will 
 some of you take him ?" said the rider. 
 
 " Tak him yo sen," said one. 
 
 " What'st fot im ere for?" said another.
 
 THE WAKES. 45 
 
 " Tak im where you fun him, we dunner wanten him here." 
 
 "What'st tu stopping th' cock feght for, mon? We wanten no 
 dead uns here, there's dead uns enoo." 
 
 " Take him, or I'll swot him down," roars out the rider. 
 
 " We shanner ; ta im off wi thee." 
 
 " Then here goes, I'll swot him, and if th' crowner wants me he 
 knows where to find me," said the rider, as he "swot" the corpse down, 
 and with a heavy thud it fell on the ground.* 
 
 The crowd gathered round the fallen body, making various remarks 
 and conjectures about it, until at last it became evident it must be put 
 somewhere; but there was the difficulty, the inn was full. The law has 
 
 * About the time of which I write, my great grandfather, Thomas Moss, of Meece, when 
 riding through a ford, found the body of an old friend of his named Isaac Peter Wood. He got 
 the body over the pommel of his saddle and rode off with it, but no one would take the body 
 from him, and no one, not even Wood's relations, would have anything to do with it. Men 
 were quickly hanged in those days, and often on bare suspicion, so the affair might have become 
 serious. There was also the difficulty of carrying the body of a big man in wet clothes, and he 
 carried it for over three miles. The horse would certainly not like the strange burden. In 
 that predicament he rode into an inn yard, where they also refused to take the corpse ; but an 
 inn yard is the proper place for dead bodies found in country districts, and there he said, " If 
 you don't take him, I'll swot him down," and as no one would take him he swot him and left 
 him. The expression of " swot him down " helped the incident to be long remembered in the 
 families of the two men ; and as my grandfather, the son of one of them, reared twelve children, 
 nearly all of whom lived to old age, none of them, men or women, being under five feet six in 
 height, and they in their turn reared sixty-five children, the next generation being in hundreds, 
 and a descendant of the other man had twenty-three children with one wife, their respective 
 families became very numerous. The father of the twenty-three children I have seen ; he then 
 weighed three hundred and sixty pounds, and the drinking of half a dozen quarts of ale, as 
 mentioned in the preceding chapter, would have been a pleasant evening's entertainment for 
 him. He was once asked to have his weight taken by the owner of a weighing mncliine at a fair, 
 but the machine could only weigh up to three hundredweight, and that not being sufficient, the 
 machine was in jeopardy, and the owner of it glad to be without such a customer.
 
 46 THE WAKES. 
 
 always held that unclaimed dead bodies should be taken to the nearest 
 inn to await an inquest, and many a body has been taken to the 
 Cock Inn for that purpose, but it was wakes time, and there was no 
 room in the inn. 
 
 " Put it in th' stable," says one. 
 
 " It's full, and so's th' shippon." 
 
 " Well, then, put it in the pigsty." 
 
 " Oh, by th' mass, th' pigs would eat it." 
 
 " Well, we shall aw live till we dee, unless th' pigs eat us." 
 
 " Rear him up i' th' coal hole ; he'll fear th' boggarts, an th' rats 
 wunner get him theer." 
 
 " Oh, cover it up any weer ; it '11 have to do till th' crowner comes 
 and has th' quest; happen he'll be coming to the wakes, and then we 
 may have some more wakes on his account." 
 
 Then the women set about covering the body, meanwhile making 
 many and various remarks. 
 
 " I hear tell they are going to build another inn on th' moor where 
 th' cross roads is, and ca it The Nimrod ; it will be nigh to the poor- 
 house and handy like for burying th' bodies of them as does away wi 
 theirselves, for they have to be buryt at cross roads, and it's a lonesome 
 cross, that is, where Treacle Lane and th' moor lane crosses th' High 
 Street; an we get a sight o' bodies to bury here as gets washed down 
 from Stopput i' flood time." 
 
 "There were a man did away with hissel a bit sin, for he'd bin 
 crossed i' love, and a valentine from his svveetut were found on him, 
 it ran
 
 THE WAKES. 47 
 
 Thy head's like a whim whum, 
 Thy heart's like a drum ; 
 I've got another sweetheart 
 An thee mun stay a whum. 
 
 After that he felt so lonesome like that he made away with hissel, and 
 there er were singing 
 
 The blacksmith's won my heart 
 
 By striking grimly ; 
 He made the sparks to fly 
 
 All up the chimbley. 
 
 Well, well, a little mirt's worth a jel o' sorrow. When our Sam got 
 taken, we just told the bees he'd gone hence, and they'd gotten a new 
 master, and we gave em summut to drink, and put crape on the hives, 
 and then got on with us work as usual. It's ill crying o'er spilt milk. 
 There's no use fretting." 
 
 The country folk who crowded together in the old parishes at wakes 
 times were bent on having a spree, and neither dead bodies nor anything 
 else could stop them for long. Besides the cockfighting, bull-baiting, 
 and other '' merry disports," there was a pig to be run for, which was to 
 be the property of anyone who could catch and hold it by its greasy 
 tail. There was also a leg of mutton on the top of the Maypole, which 
 was greased for the occasion, anyone swarming the pole and reaching 
 the mutton being at liberty to keep it. 
 
 These latter were innocent amusements, but the chief fun of the fair 
 was in the ale and the fighting. There is no doubt whatever that our 
 forefathers (whether Saxon or Norman, or whatever we be), who saw 
 little of the world and who had little or no education, and few of the 
 advantages now enjoyed by their descendants, derived their pleasures
 
 4 8 THE WAKES. 
 
 mainly from the animal pleasures of love and war, with the addition of a 
 pleasure the " inferior " animals do not share or appreciate the pleasure 
 of intoxicating drink. If they were merry and sang songs, they must 
 have ale. If they were "coortin" or keeping company, they wanted ale. 
 If the drink begat jealousy or quarrelling, there would be more ale "to 
 make it up again," more quarrelling and wrangling again, and again 
 more ale. Something to make drunk come, not too quickly but to be 
 getting forrader aw neet, until at last the heavy sleep of dead drunk 
 gradually stole over them and in oblivion there was rest. 
 
 Give them great meals of beef and beer, 
 They will eat like wolves and fight like devils. 
 
 Many of the men loved fighting for fighting's sake, just as the 
 cocks did; the crowd and the sports made the longing for a fight 
 contagious, and the drink excited them more. Theirs was not the wish 
 for a row such as an Irishman likes, who says, wherever you see a head 
 hit at it; but the wish for a fair stand-up fight with fists, between man 
 and man and fair does. The fights were not often very exhaustive, the 
 chief injuries being received from the ground, and some men being 
 sooner satisfied than others. We have heard of the man's excuse to his 
 wife that it was too early to go home for he hadnor foughten yet. 
 "Then get on wi yer feghtin," said his better half; "some folk talken and 
 talken but they wunner worken." An old man told me " his fayther had 
 once foughten nine fayts i' one day upon Duke's Hillock, at wakes 
 time of coorse; he had brokken a small booan i' his leg at last wi tumblin, 
 but still he thresht his man. Yu see he wur a big little un ; he stript 
 well, he wur nobbut five foot eight barfoot, but then he weighed thirteen
 
 THE WAKES. 49 
 
 stone an wur hard. He didner live long though, for he used hissel so 
 badly ; yu see he were allus faytin, or drinkin, or fishin he got his livin 
 by fishin. There were some salmon i' th' Mersey i' them days ; I mind him 
 gettin one eighteen pound weight at Parker's weir. Well, he used to get 
 wet, an he wur wet for days together, an he neer changed his clothes 
 happen he'd none to change an he slept out i' th' ditch backin, so he 
 usened hissel badly as I say, and he didner last long. He wur nobbut 
 seventy-seven when he deed, an I'm a wicker chap at eighty -seven than 
 he wur at seventy-seven, for I've been workin aw neet keepin the fires 
 aleet where they're mendin th' road on th' Moor Lane. It isner every 
 one as earns their living when they're turn't eighty-seven, but then I 
 ne'er goes from home or bothers wi doctors or such like." 
 
 When two noted performers like The Magpie and The Crow were 
 going to have a bout, the interest of the neighbours was very great, 
 and the farmers who were sworn in as constables, showed their partiality 
 even more openly than it is shown by their successors, the constables of 
 to-day. Farmer and constable Cookson, being brought to stop a fight, 
 is reported to Jiave exclaimed, " Why, it's our Phil on th' top ; lay on 
 him, Phil, hide him well now thou'st gotten him down," &c., &c. If 
 the difference in size between two men was an obstacle to a fair fight, 
 the result would be a war of words at a safe distance from one another, 
 the little one keeping out of the way while the big one shouted at him : 
 "You wizzen-faced, seven-month cawf, if I get you by th' scuft o' 
 th' neck I'll not leave a whole boan i' th' hide. Thou'lt be like a lump 
 of dough that wunner rise; thou are nobbut a young magpie, aw jabber 
 and "
 
 50 THE WAKES. 
 
 "Shut up, you big lout; I might a bin as big as you if I'd had as 
 mony faythers," replies the little one, as he dodges off amid the crowd, 
 though for the rest of the day he keeps his eye on the big lout, as he goes 
 powlering round. 
 
 Perhaps the reader is tired of the fighting, and would like to hear 
 what the singing is like. Inside the inn the singing is mixed and 
 various, political and sentimental : 
 
 Wha wad na fecht for Charlie, 
 
 For Charlie is my darling, the gay Chevalier. 
 
 Or 
 
 Ower the water to Charlie, 
 
 Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, 
 
 And live or die wi Charlie. 
 
 The political songs of the day, like the toasts, caused more strife, 
 not of words only, but of blows. Here a man would hold his mug of 
 drink aloft, saying, " Here's to the Devil, the Pope, and the Pretender, 
 
 and may they all rot in ," when his mug would be knocked from his 
 
 hand and he sent reeling by someone who expressed his preference for 
 going to hell with the Pope and the Pretender, rather than to the other 
 place with Dutch William and German George. 
 
 " None of your politics," says one ; " let's have a song wi some fun 
 
 in it." 
 
 (Sings) He wore a pig tail, oh see how it cocks. 
 
 " Will that do, or ' Gaby Glum'?" 
 
 My name is Gaby Glum, 
 
 I'm just turned one and twenty; 
 My face, I think, by gum, 
 
 Will get me sweethearts plenty.
 
 THE WAKES. 51 
 
 " Oh, that's too slow, and too long ; give us one wi some weft in it, 
 with a good rousing chorus." 
 
 " Here goes," says another 
 
 Cock up your beaver. 
 Hay, Johnnie, lad, cock up your beaver. 
 
 " No, no, let's have 'Jolly good ale.'" 
 
 Back and belly go bare, go bare, 
 
 Let hand and foot grow cold ; 
 In ale we'll drown our every care, 
 
 In jolly good ale and old. 
 
 Chorus, lads Jolly good ale, let's have it. 
 
 Here's a sentimental one, sung slowly, with a high-pitched quaver- 
 ing voice, by a love-sick damsel 
 
 Mark yonder turtle dove, 
 
 He sits on yonder tree; 
 He sits, and he sings 
 
 To his favourite she. 
 
 The "tree" and the "she" are long drawn tremulous notes, the former 
 high, the latter low. The effect is rather melancholy, and though some 
 of the weaker vessels like to weep, the wakes is scarcely a time for 
 weeping, and the song does not meet with general approval. 
 
 "I'd liefer have old Sally Garner's song than yon," says one; "if we 
 mun have a love song, let's have old Sally" 
 
 When my appronstring was low, 
 My love followt me through frost and snow ; 
 But when my appronstring was high, 
 My love look'd in but passed by.
 
 52 THE WAKES. 
 
 "Oh, be hanged to your sentiment, let's have a gradely un wi 
 chorus" 
 
 Here's a curse on rich folk all, 
 Who rob and grind the poor, 
 And may they get what they desarve 
 In hell for evermoor. 
 
 "Now then art thu goin to be noising theer aw neet thoult sing an sup 
 an sing and sup until thou'rt singing on th' flure an Ise ave to tay thee 
 whome i' a wheelbarrow then thoult be feart o' boggarts an faytin wi thi 
 own shadow or aw of a crill wi a bonny belly wartch i' th morn an I'll 
 have th' childer to tend an bakin to do an washin to do an smoothin to 
 do an nobbut one pair o' ands to do it wi an thoult be assin about aw 
 day sayin thi yed's badly or thi belly wartches an thou'lt be wantin a 
 drop o' summut hot or some lumber but I'll have thi whome sooner 
 or I'll sweat. Now then get up thi great idle tooad, whatever would 
 happen you men if you hadner us poor women to mind ye and tend ye 
 th' Lord Awmeety only knows. Heh ! Men is stoopid."
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 Under which king, Bezonian ? speak, or die. Pistol. 
 
 HE autumn of 1745 came and went with nothing of 
 importance to chronicle. Harvests come and go and 
 farmers grumble, just as they always did and always 
 will do. The harvests come and go, but there is no 
 harvest for us, says the man who does not farm. 
 The harvests come and go, but we can make nowt 
 out on em, says the farmer. "If th' crop's a good 
 one, we get nowt for it ; if it's a bad one, we have nowt of it." Still the 
 fruits of the earth were gathered in due season, for the autumn was fine 
 and warm. The Lammas plums, the slobber- chop, toad -back, and 
 brown-beurre pears, the golden pippin, Keswick, and Smith apples, with 
 damsons, Oxnoble and bloody-Roger potatoes, were safely stowed away. 
 The natives went on increasing and multiplying, toiling, rejoicing, sor- 
 rowing, then as now. There were no railways, no coaches, no news-
 
 54 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 papers, no cabs, no police, no telegraphs, no matches, no drains, no gas. 
 Did anyone want a light for the long winter's night, they must get a 
 rush and use it as a rushlight or candle, after prodigious labour with a 
 flint and steel to strike a spark, or get some mutton fat and a wick and 
 make their own candle. To have " three lights burning while never a 
 plow was going " was a sure sign of extravagance, and thought to be a 
 probable precursor of ruin. The only post-chaise in Manchester was at the 
 Jacobite house, the Swan. News of the outside world came very slowly, 
 for the roads were very bad, and a deal of the country was impassable 
 in winter. The tax-gatherer came ; death and taxes are always with 
 us; among the changes and chances of life they are ever present, and 
 there is no escape from them. 
 
 Mutterings of the coming storm with wild rumours about Prince 
 Charlie reached Didisburye at times. One week there would be certain 
 information that the Prince was taken prisoner or killed and his followers 
 dispersed. The next week would bring the news that he was every- 
 where received with the wildest enthusiasm, and it was even whispered 
 with bated breath that George's army had retreated. In a few more 
 days these reports would be contradicted, and conflicting accounts were 
 received more frequently. As time went on there could be no doubt 
 the Prince was advancing with a large body of Highlanders ; and 
 English Jacobites were now looking with eagerness to his coming as to 
 the coming of the Messiah. The majority of the English were not 
 surprised at his success in Scotland (among the savages, as some of 
 them termed it), but would he ever dare to enter England and engage 
 all the armies of a strongly seated king and government. If he did,
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 55 
 
 well and good, they would abide the issue of events. There were 
 politicians on each side, and there were a many neutrals who simply 
 wished to farm their fields and mind their business without bothering 
 with politics. A short summary of the history of the Stewart kings 
 will help many readers to a better understanding of the dispute about 
 the rights of succession to the throne of England. 
 
 The Stewarts, or Stuarts, for the name is spelt either way (I have 
 adopted the older fashion as used by Sir Walter Scott), were descended 
 from the Lord High Stewards of Scotland. According to the custom 
 of those days they took for surname the name of Steward or Stewart 
 (as the word steward is pronounced even now by country people). The 
 sixth of the line, Walter, had married Marjory, the daughter of Robert 
 Bruce, the king, and their offspring succeeded to the throne on the 
 extinction of the male line of Bruce. The two first were named Robert, 
 then came those named James. James I. was murdered. James II. 
 was killed by a cannon bursting. James III. was murdered. James IV. 
 fell on Flodden's fatal field. James V. died of a broken heart. His 
 daughter, the celebrated Mary Queen of Scots, as is well known, was 
 beheaded. She, when very young, had married for her second husband 
 her kinsman Henry Stewart Lord Darnley, who was still younger, and 
 she literally blew up her husband and then married the man who did 
 the murder for her. The child of Darnley and Mary succeeded to the 
 throne of Scotland as James VI., and on the death of Elizabeth he 
 succeeded to the English throne as James I. 
 
 He was the most fortunate and prosperous of his race, yet he and 
 his parliament were nearly being all blown up together on one celebrated
 
 56 UNDER WHICH KING 1 ? 
 
 fifth of November. He earned the title of "the wisest fool in 
 Christendom." His son, Charles I., succeeded him, and was beheaded 
 at Whitehall. His misgovernment and faithlessness had undoubtedly 
 caused what Carlyle termed the armed appeal of Puritanism to the 
 Invisible God of Heaven, and the establishment of the Commonwealth, 
 the most remarkable period in English history. It was then shown to 
 an astonished world that kings did not rule by divine right, and that if 
 their rule was anything but right, their heads might be cut off by due 
 process of law. A salutary lesson for the kings that were to come after. 
 Charles II. succeeded his father after long years of exile and 
 privation. He endeavoured to make up for lost time, and with his 
 mistresses he laid the foundation of several of our ducal houses. This 
 was the merry monarch, one of the worst of the English kings. His 
 brother, James II., succeeded him, but he took warning by his father's 
 fate, and fled from the country as the increasing opposition to the 
 Catholics led to the revolution of 1688, when William of Orange, the 
 son-in-law of James, was invited to be King of England. The Stewarts 
 were all more or less openly supporters of the Roman Catholic faith. 
 James II. and his son were avowed Catholics, and the opposition to the 
 religion increased the opposition to them. James's daughter, Mary, had 
 married a Protestant, William of Orange, or Dutch William, and when 
 lie got the power he showed small mercy to Catholics. They had to pay 
 double taxes upon everything, were not allowed in any public office, and 
 were under all sorts of absurd restrictions, such as they were not allowed 
 to keep a horse worth more than $, for fear they might be using it for 
 mischief. After them followed Queen Anne, another daughter of
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 57 
 
 James II., and at her death the Whig Government offered the crown to 
 George, the Elector of Hanover, who was son of a daughter of the 
 daughter of James I., who had married the King of Bohemia, and who 
 was not a Catholic. The best account of the advent of His Most 
 Gracious Majesty King George I. is by Thackeray. He describes the 
 King's elderly favourites, Mesdames Kielmansegge and Schulenburg, 
 created respectively Countess of Darlington and Duchess of Kendal. 
 The duchess was tall and lean of stature, and hence was irreverently 
 nicknamed the Maypole. The Countess was a large-sized, noble woman, 
 and this elevated personage was denominated the Elephant. He then 
 describes the advent of the party as follows : 
 
 " I protest it is a wonderful satirical picture. Here we are, 
 all on our knees. Here is the Archbishop of Canterbury prostrating 
 himself to the head of his Church, with Kielmansegge and Schulenburg 
 with their ruddled cheeks grinning behind the defender of the faith. 
 Here is my Lord Duke of Marlborough, kneeling, too ; the greatest 
 warrior of all times ; he who betrayed King William, betrayed King 
 James, betrayed Queen Anne, betrayed England to the French, the 
 Elector to the Pretender, the Pretender to the Elector. And here are 
 my Lords Oxford and Bolingbroke, &c. . . . Yonder keen old 
 schemer knows the value of their loyalty. Loyalty he must think as 
 applied to me, it is absurd. There are fifty nearer heirs to the throne 
 than I am. You fine Whig gentlemen take me for your own sake, not 
 for mine. You Tories hate me ; you archbishop, smirking on your 
 knees and prating about heaven, you know I don't care a fig for your 
 Thirty-nine Articles, and can't understand a word of your stupid
 
 58 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 sermons. You, my Lord Duke of Marlborough, you would sell me 
 or anyone else if you found your advantage in it. Come, my good 
 Melusina ; come, my honest Sophia ; let us go into my private room 
 and have some oysters and some Rhine wine, and some pipes after- 
 wards. Let us make the best of our situation ; let us take what we 
 can get, and leave these bawling, brawling, lying English to shout, and 
 fight, and cheat in their own way." 
 
 The German women plundered, the German secretaries plundered, 
 the German cooks and intendants plundered. "Take what you can 
 get," was the old monarch's maxim. He took our loyalty for what it 
 was worth, and laid hands on what money he could. 
 
 George I. being dead, the Prime Minister rode in haste and knelt 
 down in his jack-boots to George the son as he told him the great news. 
 "Dat is one big lie," roared out his sacred majesty King George II. 
 He it was who was de facto King of England at the date of this story. 
 The king de jure, the lineal heir of the king and the rightful sovereign 
 of England, was James III., the son of James II., sometimes called the 
 Old Pretender. The Prince of Wales, sometimes called the Young Pre- 
 tender, being his son Charles Edward, who made the gallant attempt in 
 1745 to regain the kingdom for his father. 
 
 Thackeray's description of George II. is not more flattering than 
 was his description of George I. ; he writes of him as " a choleric little 
 sovereign, who shook his fist in his courtiers' faces, kicked his coat and 
 wig about in his rages, and sometimes kissed the maids of honour. 
 When he was in England, his portrait was placed in the large armchair 
 in the assembly room at Hanover, for the nobility to bow to the arm-
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 59 
 
 chair and the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up, and 
 they spoke under their voices before the august picture. . . . When 
 the poor queen, one of the best of women, was on her deathbed 
 she bade him marry again, and the old king blubbered out, ' Non, non, 
 j'aurai des maitresses.' The grotesque horror of the details surpasses 
 all satire, the dreadful humour of the scene is more terrible than the 
 fiercest irony. When poor Queen Caroline was resting in her coffin, 
 dapper little George, with his red face and his white eyebrows and 
 goggle eyes, at sixty years of age is dressed up like a Turk and dancing 
 with Lady Yarmouth, alias Madame Walmoden. This Lady Yarmouth 
 (the most religious and gracious king's favourite) sold a bishopric to a 
 clergyman for 5,000 (that is, she bet him .5,000 that he would be 
 made a bishop, and he lost and paid her). The new-made bishop said 
 the earth was not good enough for the sacred and religious king, the 
 only place was heaven." 
 
 In the high society of that day cards were everything, and of course 
 the king must not lose. If he did lose, something must be wrong. How 
 it reminds us of a great trial about baccarat that has lately interested 
 England. Books were not then considered fit articles for drawing-rooms. 
 " Books! Prithee, don't talk to me about books," said old Sarah, Duchess 
 of Marlborough ; " the only books I care for are men and cards." The 
 German invasion in high places, as above described by Thackeray, is 
 reproduced even in our own day ; at least we are tempted to think so 
 when we read of Princes of Schleswig-Holstein, Teck, Battenberg, Saxe 
 Weimar, &c., holding high positions in the Court and the Army. 
 
 German merchants are pushing aside our merchants in Manchester.
 
 60 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 German clerks are underselling and overworking our English clerks. 
 They will do more drudgery for less money and live at less expense. 
 German waiters swarm in all the hotels. They will come for no wages 
 and in unlimited quantities. They get better food than sour krout, and 
 they save money out of perquisites. They also learn the language, and 
 then say they can speak English and American. There is an office in 
 London, with branches all over Germany, where hotel proprietors can 
 be supplied with a hundred or more of these little German waiters at 
 almost any time. They are probably the refuse of the German army, 
 seven-months men, who can carry nothing much heavier than a napkin 
 or a tip, but who are good enough to send to England to work for their 
 board and perquisites. The next invasion from the East will probably 
 be of Russian Jews ; then the Celestials may have their turn. 
 
 An extraordinary invasion of England that occurred about the time 
 of which I write was that of the common brown rat. Charles Waterton, 
 the great naturalist, of Walton Hall, who died a few years since, and 
 who was an uncompromising and extreme Jacobite even in our day, 
 always maintained that the common rat (or Hanoverian rat, as he termed 
 it) came to England for the first time in the identical ship with George 
 the Elector of Hanover and his mistresses when George came to be 
 crowned King of England. It is certain the common rat was not known 
 in England before that time or thereabouts, and since then it has exter- 
 minated the old-fashioned English black rat. 
 
 The dissensions of the times caused another remarkable event in 
 our history, that is the first publication of our National Anthem. The 
 original of it was probably an anthem sung in the Catholic Chapel of
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 61 
 
 James II., the music having been composed by a Dr. Bull, organist to 
 James I., the words being : 
 
 O Deus optime ! 
 Salvum nunc facito 
 
 Regem nostrum ; 
 Sit Iseta victoria, 
 Comes et gloria, 
 Salvum jam facito, 
 
 Tu Dominum. 
 
 Exurgat Dominus ; 
 Rebelles dissipat 
 
 Et reprimat; 
 Dolos confundito ; 
 Frandes depellito ; 
 In te sit sita spes; 
 
 O salva nos. 
 
 On September 28th, 1745, it was sung at Drury Lane, with 
 harmonies and accompaniments by Dr. Arne, and was made "a loyal 
 song" of two verses only, the words being : 
 
 God save our Lord the King, 
 Long live our noble King, 
 
 God save the King. 
 Send him victorious, 
 Happy and glorious, 
 Long to reign over us, 
 
 God save the King. 
 
 O Lord our God, arise, 
 Scatter his enemies, 
 
 And make them fall ! 
 Confound their politicks, 
 Frustrate their knavish tricks, 
 On him our hopes are fixed, 
 
 O save us all. 
 
 The celebrated verse of Dr. Byrom was probably a parody of it: 
 
 God bless the King, I mean the Faith's defender ; 
 God bless (no harm in blessing) the Pretender ; 
 But who Pretender is, or who is King, 
 God bless us all, that's quite another thing. 
 
 The news of Prince Charles's sailing from France, as already made 
 known to his adherents in Didisburye, was gradually confirmed with 
 fuller particulars. As he was nearing the shore of Scotland an eagle 
 hovered round the ship a happy omen to the Prince, who landed at 
 Moidart on July 25th, and set up his standard of red silk with a white 
 centre inscribed "Tandem Triumphans" at Glenfinnan, at the head of
 
 62 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 Loch Shiel, on August ipth. Here a monument has since been erected, 
 with inscriptions in English, in Gaelic, and in Latin : 
 
 ON THE SPOT WHERE 
 
 PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD 
 
 FIRST RAISED HIS STANDARD, 
 
 ON THE IQTH OF AUGUST, 1745, 
 
 WHEN HE MADE THE DARING AND ROMANTIC ATTEMPT 
 
 TO RECOVER A THRONE LOST BY THE IMPRUDENCE OF HIS 
 
 ANCESTORS, 
 
 THIS COLUMN WAS ERECTED BY 
 ALEXANDER MACDONALD, ESQ., OF GLENALADALE, 
 
 TO COMMEMORATE THE GENEROUS ZEAL, 
 
 THE UNDAUNTED BRAVERY, AND THE INVIOLABLE FIDELITY 
 
 OF HIS FOREFATHERS, AND THE REST OF THOSE 
 
 WHO FOUGHT AND BLED IN THAT 
 ARDUOUS AND UNFORTUNATE ENTERPRISE. 
 
 The standard was unfurled by the Marquis of Tullibardine in 
 the presence of Cameron of Lochiel with eight hundred of his clan, 
 Macdonald of Keppoch, Mc.Leod, and other lesser chieftains, Glengarry 
 joining soon after with three hundred of his clan. The Government 
 had arrested the Duke of Perth in his own house when at dinner, but 
 under pretence of changing his clothes he gave them the slip, and 
 galloped off on an old pony that was grazing near the castle with only a 
 halter on its head. He also joined the Prince, was his bosom friend, 
 and was made lieutenant-general. John Murray, of Broughton, acted as 
 secretary. Lord George Murray, brother to the Duke of Atholl, and 
 the ancestor of the present duke, was the most capable soldier in the 
 company. They marched for Edinburgh and arrived there on
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 63 
 
 September i/th; opposition seemed to vanish, and he was everywhere 
 received with enthusiasm. The Prince had hitherto marched on foot 
 with his army, but at Edinburgh he was advised to mount a horse to 
 enter the ancient capital city of his forefathers. Lord Mahon wrote 
 that as the Prince rode through Edinburgh streets in triumph his boots 
 were dimmed with the kisses and tears of the people. The Duke of 
 Perth was on the right hand of his charger, with Lord Elcho on the left 
 hand, as he rode into Holyrood, the palace of his ancestors. Here 
 he held levees, and won the hearts of all, the ladies especially, for he 
 was a handsome man, like most of his race, light-hearted, gay, and 
 romantic. But there was no time to dally, for General Cope was only 
 just outside Edinburgh, and the castle had not been surrendered. On 
 the ipth they came up with General Cope's army at Preston Pans, 
 protected by an almost impassable morass. They lay down all night 
 on the open ground, the Prince sleeping on pea-stalks, and attacked in 
 the early morning. Some one had shown a path over the morass, and 
 in a thick mist the Highlanders attacked with irresistible fury, and 
 almost annihilated the English army. Sir John Cope, attended by very 
 few of his men, fled to Dunbar to announce his own defeat. The ballad- 
 mongers soon made verses on him : 
 
 When Johnnie Cope to Dunbar came, 
 They speered at him " Where's a' your men ?" 
 
 " The deil confound me gin I ken 
 For I left them a' this morning." 
 
 Some of the Highlanders had never before seen horses in battle ; they 
 expected the horses themselves to fight, so they killed all they could.
 
 64 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 One of them having caught a horse after the battle, exchanged it for a 
 pistol. There were many things in the booty they could not under- 
 stand; chocolate was called Johnny Cope's salve. A Highlander who 
 got a valuable watch soon sold it for a trifle, saying " he was glad to be 
 rid of her, for she lived no time after he caught her." She evidently 
 wanted winding up. 
 
 At the inn at Tranent, near the battlefield, the Prince dined with 
 the Duke of Perth and another officer, when the hostess cautiously hid 
 all her pewter and things she fancied valuable, leaving them only a 
 butcher's knife and two common spoons to feed themselves with. The 
 orderly books left in the camp of Cope's army gave instructions for the 
 sure way to demolish the Highlanders, that was to shoot them dead 
 when they were close to, reciting as follows : " if the fire is given at a 
 distance you probably will be broke, for you never get time to load a 
 second cartridge, and if you give way you may give yourselves for 
 dead, for they being without a firelock or any load, no man with his 
 arms, &c., can escape them, and they give no quarters, but if you will 
 but observe the above directions they are the most despicable enemy 
 that are." That is, they are despicable, if you wait until they are close 
 to you, and then shoot them dead. 
 
 The Prince and his army returned to Edinburgh ; here the ministers 
 of religion were in great perplexity as to which King they were to pray 
 for. The most prudent way, of course, was to name no names, but pray 
 for the King. One man, a Presbyterian, evidently wished to serve both 
 God and Mammon, or, as it might vulgarly be termed, "to hedge a bit." 
 He prayed for King George, and then said: "As to this young person
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 65 
 
 who has come among us seeking an earthly crown, do Thou in Thy 
 merciful favour give him a heavenly one." The Prince stayed in 
 Edinburgh till the end of October, the French King sent money and 
 arms, and McPherson, of Cluny, with other chiefs joined him. Then 
 they marched southwards for England, on what would have been called 
 in olden times the raid of Derby. On November igth they reached 
 Carlisle; here, at Rose Castle, Mr. Dacre's wife was being confined as the 
 advanced guard of the Highlanders under Captain Macdonald arrived. 
 An old servant said to the Captain that any tumult would probably 
 cause the deaths of both mother and daughter, for they were in a critical 
 state, and they were just going to christen the child. Macdonald took 
 off his white cockade and bade them christen her with that in her cap, 
 saying it would protect her if any of their stragglers came. This was 
 done, and Rosemary Dacre, afterwards Lady Clerk, religiously treasured 
 the white cockade through a long life. 
 
 No sooner had the army entered England than religious differences 
 began to show themselves. The Duke of Perth was a Catholic, and 
 the Protestants thought they were slighted, and demanded that Lord 
 George Murray, the real fighting head of the army, should have more 
 power. The Prince was courteous to all, though he was a strong 
 believer in the divine right and absolute power of kings. Affairs were 
 amicably arranged and the march southwards resumed. At Penrith 
 they halted to fight General Wade, who was then an old man, slow and 
 irresolute. He retreated on account of a heavy snowstorm, and the 
 punsters said he could not wade through the snow. They reached 
 Preston on the 26th. Lord Murray marched part of the army through 
 F
 
 66 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 Preston without halting, as the superstitions of the Highlanders made 
 them look upon it as an unlucky place, and a bar to their further 
 progress. 
 
 About three o'clock on Thursday afternoon, the 28th November, 
 Manchester was taken by a sergeant of the Prince's army with his girl 
 and his drummer. Sergeant Dickson, an officer's servant, had had leave 
 to go on in advance ; he caused some commotion in the town, but he 
 kept anyone off with his blunderbuss, and got to the Bull's Head 
 unmolested, and began to enlist recruits. Next day the main army 
 arrived, marching into the square just as the first rector of St. Ann's, 
 the Rev. Joseph Hoole, was being buried. Some of the officers waited 
 quietly and bareheaded by the grave side until the ceremony was ended. 
 The Prince arrived about two o'clock ; he was dressed in light Scotch 
 plaid, with blue sash and silver lace, a gray wig, blue bonnet with J. R. 
 and a white rose on it. He was taken to Mr. Dickenson's house in 
 Market Stead Lane, since known as The Palace. The Duke of Atholl 
 went to Mr. Marsden's ; the Duke of Perth to Mr. Gartside's ; the 
 chief officers going to the Bull's Head and the Spread Eagle inns. 
 The head quarters were at the former inn, and here enlisting was going 
 on rapidly with one of the Deacons as secretary, and the Manchester 
 Regiment was being formed. It was under the command of Colonel 
 Townley, a member of a good old Tory and Catholic family in 
 Lancashire, the other officers being Captains Blood, Gad, Sanderson, 
 Dawson, Moss, and Fletcher ; Lieutenants, three sons of Dr. Deacon, 
 Beswick, Furnival, Chadwick, Holker, Taylor, Hunter, Betts, Weilding, 
 and Maddox ; Adjutant Syddall ; and Chaplain Coppock, who
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 67 
 
 paraded the streets in canonicals, with a drummer, preaching the 
 holy cause. 
 
 Colonel Townley was rather addicted to strong language, and the 
 celebrated Dr. Byrom, who was then living in Hanging Ditch, and 
 probably the head of the Jacobite party in Manchester, addressed to him 
 the following lines : 
 
 Soldier, so tender of thy Prince's fame, 
 
 Why so profuse of a superior name ? 
 For the King's sake the brunt of battles bear, 
 
 But for the King of kings' sake Do not swear. 
 
 Dr. Deacon, the minister of the true British Catholic Church and 
 the head of the Non-jurors, was also a staunch Jacobite. He lived in 
 Fennel Street, and gave his three sons to the cause. Many of the leading 
 merchants were also favourable to the Prince. The Rev. Mr. Clayton, 
 the chaplain, fell on his knees in the street and asked for the Prince's 
 blessing. Sir Oswald Mosley, of Ancoats, had entertained the Prince 
 the year before and was believed to be secretly supporting him, though 
 as an old man he did nothing openly and was away from Manchester 
 at the time. Mr. Waller, the boroughreeve, or chief magistrate, sat 
 behind a silken curtain stretched across the room of audience, for he was 
 not going to compromise himself any more than he could help. The 
 militia were disbanded and sent home just before the Highlanders 
 arrived. "Well contrived," Miss Byrom wrote in her journal. The 
 constables found themselves under new masters, and were rather 
 perplexed, as the following extracts from a constable's diary will 
 show :
 
 68 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 " November 29th, about four o'clock, James III. proclaimed King at 
 the Cross. An officer said to the Constable giving out Billetts, ' God 
 dame you, sir, none of your Billetts shall pass ; we will quarter ourselves.' 
 When I came to the Bull's Head, the Colonel said, ' Dam you, sir, we 
 have been waiting for you ; send for the Churchwardens or go yourself, 
 &c.' We were sent for to an officer that commanded the Trane 
 (Artillery train) to the Spread Eagle in the Hanging Ditch, where we 
 went. We had orders to press one hundred and eighty horses with 
 carriages for the Trane. The officer sent the landlord for the High 
 Constable or his Debuty; would not let me go. Threatened to fire his 
 house and put him under military execution, for all his orders must be 
 obeyed. Sunday, December 1st, sent for to the Bull's Head. The 
 Major demanded a horse and man to take him over Barlow ford. I told 
 him I would send the Debuty. 'God dame you, sir, sit down; you shall 
 not go until the horse and man is in the yard.' The Major said he 
 must be one that did know that ford and Chedel ford. An officer 
 said 'Dam it, what's that to us ; he shall go over first.'" The head 
 constables of Manchester at that time evidently had not the same self- 
 importance and self-assertiveness they have acquired "since they are 
 chosen more for good looks than for sense, or their self-importance and 
 courage had soon evaporated. The majority of the people seem to have 
 been in a state of indecision as to the respective kings, and merely 
 wished to be left alone. It is recorded there was only one post-chaise 
 kept in Manchester then, and London newspapers came three times 
 a week, therefore authentic news filtered through the people very 
 slowly.
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 69 
 
 On the 3Oth November, St. Andrew's Day, the Scottish chiefs appear 
 to have had service of their own at the old church. After the service 
 there was a partial review, each officer having a plaid waistcoat and 
 white cockade, with sword and pistols. The newly-formed Man- 
 chester Regiment was reviewed in the most suggestive spot that 
 could be found, the old churchyard. The flag was inscribed on 
 one side with the words Liberty and Property, on the other side 
 Church and King. 
 
 The magic letters P.C. appeared everywhere, for anyone could use 
 them, as they stood for Pin Cushion, Prince Charles, Protestant Church, 
 etc. Here are some extracts from the journal of Beppy, Dr. Byrom's 
 daughter Elizabeth: "An officer came to us at Cross (Hyde's Cross) 
 and gave us the manifesto. Every house was illuminated. I dressed 
 me up in my white (Jacobite colour) gown; went to Mr. Fletcher's; saw 
 the P. get on horseback ; a noble sight it was, I would not have missed 
 it for a deal ; his horse had stood an hour in the court without stirring, 
 and as soon as he gat on he began a dancing and capering as if he was 
 proud of his burden, and when he rid out of the court he was received 
 with as much joy and shouting almost as if he had been king without 
 dispute. . . . Prayed for the King and Prince of Wales, but named 
 no names. . . . Went to Mr. Fletcher's ; stayed there till the P. was 
 at supper, then the officer introduced us ; stayed awhile and went into 
 the great parlour where the officers dining, were nearly fuddled with 
 drinking the P.'s health ; kissed his hand ; then to Mr. Fletcher's, and 
 went home." She also relates how a Highlander went to visit a relative 
 (probably some friend of the elder Syddall) at Slate Hall, Levenshulme;
 
 70 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 it was a risky journey for the man by himself; he kept his drawn sword 
 in his hand. 
 
 The same night Mr. Gartside, who owned the Spread Eagle, in the 
 Ditch, and at whose private house the Duke of Perth was lodging, gave 
 a supper, or dinner as it now would be called, to a many of the officers 
 of the Prince's army. The head quarters of the artillery and cavalry 
 were at this inn, where many of the officers were staying, and this 
 supper, with its attendant revelry, would probably be the most remark- 
 able gathering in the inn's long history. 
 
 Night sank at last over Manchester a long, anxious, sleepless 
 night to many; a more anxious night was probably never passed in 
 Manchester, not even in the wars of the Parliamentarians and Royalists. 
 It must be remembered that an army was quartered in the town, an 
 army of six or seven thousand men, composed of widely different races 
 and creeds, some of whom were simply savages from the mountains, only 
 partially clothed, speaking a foreign language, and owning no law but 
 the will of their chiefs. They were utter strangers even to the civilisation 
 of those days; it was said they were cannibals, and the usual false and 
 malicious reports circulated about others were circulated about them, 
 readily receiving credence, because the men talked "gibberish," and 
 generally had neither caps nor trousers, nor boots, nor money. 
 
 Cameron, of Lochiel, was surprised by a woman falling on her knees 
 to him and clasping his legs as he entered her house, begging of him 
 to spare her children. She had been told the children would be 
 killed and eaten, so she had hidden them in the cupboard, and then took 
 the double precaution of begging for mercy as the Highland chief
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 71 
 
 entered the house. The hatred and horror the extreme fanatics on either 
 side had for one another was very great, and no rumour was too horrible 
 for belief with them. The High Church and the Low Church, the Tory 
 and the Whig, were much further apart than they are now. Any 
 accidental quarrel might have kindled a terrible conflagration. The 
 Church and King men, of course, took the side of the Prince, for any 
 believer in the divine right of kings must acknowledge the Stewarts to 
 have been the rightful kings, and, therefore, the Georges (aided by the 
 Whigs) were usurpers. The Church had an elastic meaning. It might 
 mean the Church of Rome, the Catholic Church, or the Church of 
 England. (It being a weak point if the head of the Church of England, 
 i.e., the King, could obtain his position by force or fraud.) Generally 
 the Church and King men were Roman Catholics, or what are even now 
 called High Churchmen, and the success of the Stewarts or Jacobites 
 was considered to be the success and return to power of the High 
 Church party, if not of the Roman Catholics. 
 
 This was the weak point of the cause, for thousands who would 
 admit James III. to be the rightful King of England, dreaded the 
 return to power of the priests. Experience has proved that government 
 by or through priests is the worst form of government known, excepting 
 perhaps the government by young women, and the practical sense of the 
 English seemed to consider the foreign king as a lesser evil than the 
 influence of the priests and women. 
 
 Providentially all passed off quietly; the wild Highlanders were 
 infinitely better behaved than they were reputed to be, though some of 
 the virtues most in esteem with them would have been called vices by
 
 72 
 
 UNDER WHICH KING? 
 
 the more civilised part of the community, for they would have dirked a 
 man with no more thought or remorse than they would have dirked a 
 calf, if their chief had bidden them do so. A Highlander, who was 
 insulted or wronged, would have stood on little ceremony with his 
 opponent, who would probably have soon felt under his fifth rib the 
 swift thrust of the skene dhu. 
 
 OLD MONUMENT IN DIDISBURYE CHURCH TO SIR NICHOLAS MOSSELEV, KNT., 
 LORD MAYOR OF LONDON, AND HIS WYFFES AND CHILDREN.
 
 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
 
 They sell the pasture now to buy the horse. Henry V. 
 
 UNDAY, ist December, 1745. The most memorable 
 day in the annals of Didisburye since the sad 
 time, one hundred and forty years before, when, 
 sweltering under an autumnal sun, the pestilence 
 was stalking through the land, and the villagers 
 were being heaped together in one common grave. 
 The parish registers of September, 1605, give the burials 
 at Diddesburye, " ex pestilentia." About a dozen of the 
 clan of the Blomeleys, a still born infante, whose mother 
 was infected, and some others were buried within a few 
 days. The quaint writing and the fast fading ink on the well-worn 
 sheepskin are now almost illegible. Ex pestilentia, eodem die, eodem 
 morbe, eodem sepulchre [From the pestilence, the same day, the same 
 disease, the same grave], is the short and simple record of a sad and 
 long-buried past. 
 
 Long before the dawn broke on the short winter's day of December
 
 74 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
 
 1st, the tramp of armed men was heard as they marched through 
 Didisburye down the High Street and the Miln gate. Over the village 
 green towards the old mill, and through the marshes, their guides took 
 them to the ford of the Mersey, by Gatley. The unwonted sounds 
 disturbed both man and bird, and beast. The sentinel of the wild geese 
 feeding in the marshes gave the warning kank, the note of alarm, and 
 instantly every long neck was stretched for flight as the gaggle of geese 
 on strong pinions flew towards the sea. The fox whisked his brush as 
 he slunk rapidly and silently away. The timid hares fled across the 
 bogs in all directions, sitting upright with cocked ears meditating on the 
 unusual noise, and frightening one another. The heron slowly flapped 
 his huge wings as he sought a quieter fishing ground ; and the loud 
 quack, quack, quack of the startled wild duck gave the alarm to others 
 as on quickly whirring pinions she fled to the river or the distant 
 marshes. The otter silently sank under the water, with only eyes and 
 nostrils exposed, observing all that passed, and diving below without a 
 ripple when he deemed the danger too near. Fifty-five men were 
 guided down to and through the Gatley ford ; the water came breast 
 high, the current was strong, and the bottom was stoney. The 
 passage of the river, and the roads to it across the marshes, and up 
 the Watery lane on the Cheshire side, were passable for men with 
 poles or for horses, but hazardous for vehicles, especially for cannon. 
 The men turned to the left, up stream; they may have tried 
 the old boat place at Broad Oak; they went to Cheadle, and 
 returned by the Cheadle boat. Meanwhile two hundred men had 
 gone through Stretford to repair the bridge over the old Roman street
 
 DIDISBURYR'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 75 
 
 ford; others were trying Barlow ford, and others reconnoitring Stock- 
 ford (or Stockport as it is now spelt). At the last-named town the 
 bridges were broken down, for the regiment of Liverpool blues had 
 lately been holding the town for King George. Under the circum- 
 stances the Prince's army undoubtedly took the best course, and that 
 was to build a bridge over the Mersey between Didisburye and Cheadle, 
 where they were more secure from attack during the passage of the 
 river than they were in the town of Stockport, and where they were 
 also on the best road for London. Altringham and Northwich are out 
 of the direct route, and the way from Stockport to Buxton or Maccles- 
 field is over a hilly country that might have become impassable any 
 day, as the time was winter, and there were then no roads in the 
 modern meaning of the term. The route from Manchester I think 
 would be by London Road towards Longsight, turning to the right at 
 Rushford, with Rushhulme on the right hand (there was no Oxford 
 Road then), and along Slade Lane and Burnage Lane to Boulton Wood 
 and Didisburye. This also would certainly be the best route in every 
 sense: it was past Slate Hall, the Syddalls' place, and by parts of 
 Heaton and Heaton Wood (then owned by the ffletchers), and a district 
 where the friends of the Prince were known to be influential. Some 
 little evidence showing this to have been the route is also produced by 
 the well-known entry in the church registers, December roth, 1745 : "A 
 poor man buried at Dids ; found dead at Heaton w n y e rebels past." 
 Burnage Lane being the boundary of Heaton for about two miles, 
 anyone found dead in the lane or to the left of the line of march would 
 have been found in Heaton.
 
 76 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
 
 The Prince's army having reached Didisburye, again did the best 
 thing they could do in building a bridge over the narrow part of the 
 river at Cheadle boat. Until then, there had been no bridge over the 
 Mersey between Stockport and Stretford, and there was none on any 
 other site for over a hundred years, although this, the Highlanders' 
 bridge,'was rebuilt four times. The first bridge fell in 1756 ; the second, 
 a wooden one, was washed away about the end of the last century ; the 
 third, a stone one, was taken down in 1860 ; and the fourth is still stand- 
 ing. The site for this bridge and for the old ferry boat was probably 
 chosen as the extent of low-lying land on both sides of it is less than at 
 any other place. The dangers and difficulties of getting cannon and 
 baggage waggons down the swampy lane to Gatley ford and up the 
 Watery lane would be almost as great as and of longer continuance than 
 the crossing of the ford itself, and the depth of water in the Mersey 
 fluctuates so rapidly that a sudden storm might have made the river 
 totally impassable, or even have swept away anything that was crossing 
 as the spate came down. 
 
 Orders were finally given for the bridge to be built, and the work 
 was rapidly done. The farmers' men with their horses and carts were 
 requisitioned from all round the country, and they were compelled to 
 work in a manner very different to their usual slow and plodding toil. 
 The tall poplar trees that grew so large and so thickly in the swampy 
 ground were felled or dragged across the river, and on them were laid 
 other trees with boughs and planks across, the interstices being filled 
 with sods and clay, &c. A strong serviceable bridge would soon be 
 made when the big poplars were got into position on the opposite banks.
 
 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 77 
 
 Various are the traditions concerning the building of this bridge 
 that have survived among the old families in the district, the most 
 important fact to them being that in many cases the horses were never 
 seen again ; in still more numerous cases men had their boots begged, 
 borrowed, or stolen, for the petticoat men had come barefoot from the 
 Highlands, and were getting footsore. The shoes of the lowland Scotch 
 were being worn out, and yet they did not like shoon made from treen 
 as they described the wooden clogs of Lancashire. On the whole the 
 plunder was very little, and in some cases valuables were left behind, for, 
 years afterwards, a bag of money was found buried near this bridge that 
 was supposed to have been hidden temporarily by someone who was 
 engaged in its construction. Not many years since a bayonet belonging 
 to this time was found in the case of an old-fashioned cottage clock, and 
 the short sword of a Highlander was long preserved at a farmhouse. I 
 lately tried to get this sword, but all my informant could learn was that 
 it had been used for chopping turnips, and was now lost. Chopping 
 turnips instead of the heads of hereticks, "to what vile uses do we come?" 
 The owner of this sword had been shot from behind a hedge in Ringway. 
 He was probably one of the two hundred who had gone towards 
 Altringham, by Stretford, then turning to the left for Wilmslow, and 
 was murdered by someone who flayed him and kept his skin, in a similar 
 spirit to that of the Duke of Cumberland, who regarded a Highlander 
 as ^ wolf. 
 
 Dim memories and legends of the building of the bridge, and the 
 passage of the Highlanders, have been handed down from sire to son in 
 many an old farmhouse in the district. Of all occupations farming is
 
 7 8 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
 
 the one that changes least, and where men are born and bred on the 
 same spot for generations, and till the same fields that their fathers 
 tilled, their hereditary occupation and their training causes them to 
 notice, and have in remembrance, what their fathers have told them 
 as to anything remarkable in the seasons that are past the floods, the 
 frost, or the drought, and their effect upon the crops, or any eventful 
 deed that has been done in the district. 
 
 But let not everyone imagine that he can soon get to know from a 
 farmer all that the farmer knows, or some little bird may chance to hear 
 a dialogue something like the following : 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Chawbacon, I hear your great grandfather was on this 
 farm when the rebels came ; can you tell me anything of the old times ?" 
 
 Mr. Chawbacon thinks to himself: "Here's another o' them Man- 
 chester cotton devils coming to moyther me and teach me farmin an get 
 what he can out o' me. Noa, I dunna know much ; times was a vast 
 deal betteren than they are now for farmers. Why, my grandfayther 
 sold his wheat at a ginny a bushel, an we canna get moren a ginny a 
 looud now, an ten strike to th' acre beside. Them was times, them wos." 
 
 " But about the rebels and the Highlanders, what do you know of 
 them ?" 
 
 " I know nowt about em 'ceptin we lost th' horses ; whether they 
 was rebels or King's men, we lost, that's aw as I knows. I ne'er bothers 
 my head about rebels; it tayes one aw one's time to scrattle th' rent 
 together." 
 
 " It seems to me you farmers are not energetic enough, if you'll 
 excuse me saying so. You want more stock, and more poultry, and
 
 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 79 
 
 better butter. Now a knowledge of chemistry would teach you what 
 manures to use. Geology, also, is neglected, and entomology and 
 botany; very few farmers can tell even the names of all the insects and 
 grasses on their farms. And bookkeeping ; do you keep books 
 at all?" 
 
 "Oh, aye; ween a big family bible, with pictures, and a Pilgrim's 
 Progress, and Harvey's Meditations in the Tombs. Th' women folk reads 
 em on Sunday nights, but I goes to sleep. Ween no time to read 
 gradely, things is too bad." 
 
 " But you should exert yourself, my good friend." 
 
 " Xert be damned ; you fine town folk would talk a toad to death 
 wi your jaw-breaking words and your book larnin, and yet you couldner 
 grope a hen nor skin a rabbit, nor tell grass from seeds nor stirks from 
 steers. If my head could ache you'd make it; but I wunner jow my 
 breens wi such. You towns folk are as ignorant as dirt," and, uncon- 
 sciously quoting Shakespeare as Shakespeare probably quoted some 
 farmer of his day, the old man hobbles off with a rheumatic hip 
 as he gazes towards the far fields where he goes to "look the 
 things." 
 
 The citizen thanks God he is not like the old fossil of a farmer, and 
 looks forward to the time when, having made enough money (an uncer- 
 tain and receding time), he can buy land of his own and show the poor 
 farmers how to farm. The dialogue is ended, however, though the 
 desired information has not been obtained, and it is probable the farmer 
 goes to his home, after his meditations in the fields at eventide, to a 
 sound sleep and healthy rest, justified rather than the other.
 
 80 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
 
 Thirty or forty years since any old native of Didsbury, speaking of 
 the open space in front of the inns where the large gas lamp and the 
 cab stand now are, would have called it the Duke's Hillock. If asked 
 where the Duke's Hillock was, he would have replied on the High 
 Street, or the high road, where the last bit of the green was, near to the 
 alehouses. If a youth of inquiring mind had asked for more particulars 
 as to who was the Duke and what had become of the hillock, all he 
 could learn was that the old native could not just bethink him of the 
 name of the Duke, though he had heard it, and as to the hillock it 
 must have been " wore down." Hillock, of course, means a little hill or 
 mound of earth. When I first heard the tale I always associated it 
 with the hill in the Stenner; but that was only irritating to the old men, 
 who said one was Stenner Broo, the other was Duke's Hillock on the 
 green. So the old name was fast dying out, as the old natives died out 
 and others arose who were strangers in the land ; they altered the 
 names, and cared nothing for history or old associations. It is difficult 
 to know why they altered them, for the old names were as cheap as the 
 new ones. Parts of the green were enclosed, and the footpaths were 
 stopped, for the land was becoming more valuable, and recreation 
 grounds would add to the rates ; but respect for old names is an 
 innocent amusement that costs nothing, and is disregarded only by the 
 very ignorant. No history that I could find mentions the Duke's 
 Hillock, though Didsbury is mentioned in connection with the '45. 
 There were several dukes in both armies who may have been at Dids- 
 bury about that time. On the whole I think it most probable that the 
 legend relates to the Duke of Perth, who, as a general in the Prince's
 
 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 81 
 
 army, would most probably halt at Didsbury while the bridge was 
 being completed. And tradition, again, says that officers of the army 
 addressed the people both here and at Cheadle. The day being Sunday, 
 some of these addresses were from the pulpits of the churches ; and as 
 the greater part of the army had to wait some hours for the bridge to 
 be completed, it is almost certain they would wait or halt on the large 
 open space of the green, which was then twenty times larger than it is 
 now (extending over the shooting butts field and the bowling green), 
 and there their commander's standard would be raised on some hillock, 
 and the general, perhaps the Duke of Perth, addressed the army and 
 the people. 
 
 It was towards three o'clock before the bridge was ready for the 
 passage of the artillery and baggage waggons. The route from Didis- 
 burye green to the Cheadle boat, where the bridge was made, would be 
 by the path that went in a south-easterly direction from the church to 
 the ferry boat, and by Dark Lane, that is the old lane that went from 
 Milngate to the road near to the bridge (this lane has been stolen from 
 the public by the landowners, and so far I have not been able to get 
 anyone to help me to prevent the theft). The cavalry crossed the river 
 by the fords, for Miss Byrom mentions Lord Elcho's division as passing 
 Baguley Old Hall, so he probably crossed by Northen ford or Barlow 
 ford. There were other troops under Lord Balmerino, Lord Kilmarnock, 
 and Lord Pitsligo. The Prince himself crossed on foot higher up the 
 river nearer to Stockport, wading through the water, which reached to 
 his middle, he being a tall man. Awaiting his crossing of the Mersey 
 were some of the Cheshire gentry, and here took place the following
 
 82 DIDISBURY&S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
 
 incident as given by Lord Mahon in his history, his informant being 
 Lord Keith: "Amongst those welcoming the Prince was Mrs. Skyring, 
 a lady in extreme old age. As a child she had been lifted up in her 
 mother's arms to view the happy landing, at Dover, of Charles the 
 Second (1660). Her father, an old cavalier, had afterwards to undergo, 
 not merely neglect, but oppression, from that thankless monarch; still, 
 however, he and his wife continued devoted to the Royal cause, and 
 their daughter grew up as devoted as they. After the expulsion of the 
 Stuarts, all her thoughts, her hopes, her prayers, were directed to another 
 Restoration. Ever afterwards she had with rigid punctuality laid aside 
 one-half of her yearly income to remit for the exiled family abroad, 
 concealing only the name of the giver, which she said was of no impor- 
 tance to them, and might give them pain if they remembered the unkind 
 treatment she had formerly received. She had now parted with her jewels, 
 her plate, and every little article of value she possessed ; the price of 
 which, in a purse, she laid at the feet of Prince Charles, while, straining 
 her dim eyes to gaze on his features, and pressing his hand to her 
 shrivelled lips, she exclaimed, with affectionate rapture, in the words 
 of Simeon, 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace!' 
 It is added that she did not survive the shock, when, a few 
 days afterwards, she was told of the retreat. Such was the old spirit of 
 loyalty in England. Such were the characters which history is proud to 
 record, and fiction loves to imitate." Lord Mahon quotes some more 
 instances of self-devotion to the Stewarts by English men and women, 
 and adds: "But in that year the most common feeling throughout 
 England was indifference. As Charles advanced from Manchester he
 
 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 83 
 
 found the people very little inclined to assist him, and displaying no 
 fellow feeling with the 'wild petticoat men,' as they called the High- 
 landers. On the other hand, they showed an equal unconcern to the 
 interests of the reigning family, and looked coolly on the struggle as they 
 might upon a game, forgetting that they themselves formed the stakes 
 of the players." He admits that a Protestant government was prefer- 
 able, and yet laments " How greatly have we now improved upon 
 those unphilosophical times! How far more judicious to value kings 
 and governments, like other articles, only according to their cheapness 
 or convenience ! How much safer always to acknowledge the reigning 
 sovereign as the rightful one !" 
 
 Everyone has heard of Flora Macdonald, yet few have heard of 
 poor old Mrs. Skyring, though her faith and devotion were as strong 
 and sublime as any recorded in history. When we read of such sacrifices 
 in our own land and lineage, in our own parish and 'mid our own 
 people, they are, indeed, brought nearer home to us. Among other 
 instances of devotion may be mentioned the local one of Mrs. Townley, 
 who was aunt to Ormerod, the historian. He saw her " grasping as an 
 amulet or holy thing a crown piece of James the Second which she 
 never loosed, and she died grasping it. The impression was worn from 
 the coin, and a hardened furrow in the palm of her hand was cut deeply 
 into by the nails of the curved fingers." 
 
 What a scene there must have been on this eventful Sunday in the 
 old church of Didisburye. Women had flocked for safety with their 
 children to the church as to a place of sanctuary; the regular service 
 was suspended; war's wild alarms were ringing and echoing outside.
 
 84 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
 
 Roman Catholic priests with the Prince's army have been accused of 
 prematurely claiming their churches again, and in the midst of the 
 throng there may have reappeared the tall figure of Barlowe, the Jesuit, 
 calling upon officers and men to come to the church and ask a blessing 
 on their work. To the people he would say: "These are good soldiers 
 of the Church who will never harm you, who will help and befriend you, 
 and who merely wish to set the rightful king upon the throne again. I 
 would that all of you were such as they, for it is written, ' Let him that 
 hath no sword sell his garment and buy one.' Heed not the idle 
 clamour of those who seek to frighten you by old wives' fables from the 
 straight path of right and justice. 'Whatsoever thou findest for thy 
 hand to do, do it with thy might.' Emulate the deeds of the blessed 
 warrior and martyr, King Oswald, your patron saint, who fell near here 
 when in warfare against the heathen. You, also, may fall in warfare, if 
 not against the heathen, against a foreign usurper who has unjustly 
 seized upon the sacred office of King of England, and who now calls 
 himself the Anointed of the Lord. If you do fall, you fall as soldiers 
 of the church militant upon earth and as martyrs in the cause of justice. 
 We know that some of the proudest families of England bow the knee to 
 the German usurper. They are apostates from the faith of their fathers 
 they are traitors, alike to their country and to their God. We are united 
 in striving for the King to have his own again. In that we are agreed, 
 and though my faith is not the faith of the legalised schism of the 
 present day, yet these old walls were consecrated by us. Here your 
 forefathers and my forefathers sleep their last long sleep here, in this 
 church, which in their life they loved, and where in their death they lie.
 
 DIDISBURYE'S GLIMPSE OF WAR. 
 
 Here they were brought for their baptism ; here they knelt in prayer ; 
 here they were wed; and here they lie. By these consecrated walls 
 around us and by the sacred dust below us, by all that men hold most 
 holy upon earth, I charge you, Captain Fletcher, and you, men of 
 Didisburye, who are soldiers in his company, I exhort you, I plead with 
 you, that you rest not, slacken not, falter not, until, until ' thou hast the 
 victory won, or won the martyr's crown.'" 
 
 HEREOpjTHEBO 
 
 DVOFWlllLJRMBMJ 
 
 ROFTOFD1D5B\M 
 flaOIUMVNGERTOl 
 XMfllUWHICH 
 DEPHRTEDTHIS 
 LIFETHEJDRIQF 
 SEPTEMBER 
 
 16 '
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 
 
 There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
 
 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. 
 
 Omitted, all the voyage of their life 
 
 Is bound in shallows and in miseries. Brutus. 
 
 l* * 
 
 V* -__^,' 
 
 HE names of two spots in Didsbury convey 
 some reference to the events of the '45, but 
 the traditions respecting them are so vague 
 as to be scarcely worth noting, excepting for 
 the fact that there would undoubtedly be 
 some truth in the origin of the traditions. 
 The places are Scotchcroft and Kingston; 
 they adjoin one another and the old village green. There was a Duke 
 of Kingston in the army of the Duke of Cumberland, and a part of this 
 army, the regiment of Liverpool Blues, retreated from Stockport after 
 destroying Lancashire Bridge. According to one of my old informants, 
 the Duke of Cumberland marched through Sharston (that is, on the route 
 from Liverpool to Stockport), where he " pressed " (that is, compelled to 
 enlist) a big young man, called Podmore, who was ploughing in a field
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 87 
 
 at the lane end near Sharston. This man was taken, nearly naked as 
 he was, as was the custom in those days when working; he proved 
 a valuable recruit, for he fought at Culloden, was wounded twice, was 
 shot through the mouth in Flanders and left for dead; went through 
 many wars in many countries, and finally died at Styal, aged 95. He 
 was six feet four inches in height, and there may still be people living 
 who remember him. Another soldier of this regiment lies buried in 
 Cheadle churchyard ; but of him I cannot learn anything excepting there 
 is recorded in the parish registers of burials, "December 4th, 1745. W. 
 Livesley, a soldier in the regiment of Liverpool Blues." It is possible 
 this man was killed in some affray on this first of December, for it is 
 evident he was a soldier when he met his death, though history relates 
 nothing more concerning him. The vague tradition respecting Scotch- 
 croft and Kingston, as previously referred to, simply states that the 
 Scotch or Prince's army was at Scotchcroft while the English or 
 Hanoverian army under the Duke of Kingston was at Kingston, but the 
 armies separated without injuring one another. It may have been that 
 the vanguard of the one came up to the rearguard of the other, but if it 
 had been anything of greater importance some of the histories would 
 have recorded the fact. There were some pits called The Famous Pits, 
 behind the old toll bar at Parr's Wood. I never could find the origin of 
 the name " Famous," but I should judge it to have been from something 
 that occurred about this time, as the pits were exactly on the route of 
 the army. 
 
 The Manchester Regiment arrived at Wilmslow on the night of the 
 first of December, and at Congleton the night after. One division of the
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 
 
 army went through Macclesfield; here Ray, who wrote "a compleat 
 history of the Rebellion" (having a deal to say about those lousy rebels, 
 who he described as being like the ancient Goths, bold and daring, and 
 inured to hardships), had to retreat from the Angel Inn in a hurry, 
 leaving his "instruments of death, pistols, stock-lock and barrel of 
 polished steel inlaid with silver, and Andrew Ferrara sword," behind him. 
 The landlord of the inn was taken prisoner as a boy was stabbed in the 
 tumult. The Duke of Cumberland had barely time to retreat from 
 Congleton with his ten thousand men. At the Red Lion, Talk-o'-th'- 
 Hill, that is part way between Congleton and Newcastle, Lord Elcho 
 took prisoner Captain Vere, or Weir, of the rearguard of the Duke's 
 army, who was suspected of being a spy, and who narrowly escaped 
 hanging. The Duke of Cumberland now retreated to Stone Town-field, 
 leaving most of his baggage at Newcastle, while Lord George Murray, 
 turning more to the left, by a forced march, got to Ashbourne, where he 
 joined with the other division of the Prince's army that had gone 
 through Macclesfield, and together they marched for Derby, where they 
 arrived the next day, December the fifth. 
 
 By these skilful marches and manoeuvres the Prince had now got 
 past both the Hanoverian armies, and was within one hundred and 
 twenty-seven miles of London ; his outposts were at Swarkston Bridge, 
 six miles further on the road. The way to the capital was open, 
 powerful friends were there expecting him, and everything seemed as 
 favourable as it was possible to be. The Prince was considering whether 
 he should enter London on horseback or on foot, whether he should 
 wear the English or the Highland dress, and in the midst of his joyful
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 89 
 
 anticipations the doom of his race seemed to overshadow him. So far 
 it had seemed as if " Heaven herself had made all opposition to fall 
 before him," but here at Derby his bosom friend the Duke of Perth read 
 in the St. James's Evening Post that the French troops were counter- 
 manded and that a strong English fleet was guarding the Channel, and 
 also that his brother, Lord Drummond, a general in the French army, 
 had landed with reinforcements at Montrose. A council of war was 
 held, and against the wishes of the Prince it was decided to retreat 
 Lord George Murray, the real head of the army, had been dissatisfied 
 with the help they had received in England, and he thought it madness 
 to advance still further with only six or seven thousand men and five 
 hundred cavalry, with Wade's army in the rear and the Duke of 
 Cumberland's on the right flank. There were the guards and some 
 other regiments at London, but the loyalty of these regiments could 
 not be implicitly trusted, for one of them, the celebrated Black Watch 
 regiment, was composed of Highlanders who were known to have three 
 hundred relations in the Prince's army, and symptoms of rebellion had 
 already appeared. It seems probable now that the Prince would have 
 had better fortune, though he would have had more risk, if he had 
 followed his luck and gone on. It was known that the Duke of Norfolk, 
 Sir Watkin Wynn, Lord Barrymore, and most of the Roman Catholic 
 nobility and gentry were anxious for the success of the Stewarts. The 
 head of the Government, the Duke of Newcastle, was said to be " at his 
 scanty wits' soon reached end," trembling and hesitating as to which 
 king he should serve. The sensation in London on black Friday, the 
 sixth of December, when the news of the Prince's arrival at Derby
 
 90 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 
 
 became generally known, was intense. The Bank of England was 
 paying its customers in sixpences so as to gain time and keep its 
 money; business was suspended, and men generally " held their breath 
 for a time." The news had been first brought to an "Assembly" party of 
 the nobility and gentry, and they, like the company at the celebrated 
 ball on the eve of Waterloo, melted away. If the Prince had continued 
 his advance from Derby with the same rapidity that he had hitherto 
 marched, he would undoubtedly have surprised the great city. The 
 Duke of Richmond, who commanded the cavalry of the Duke of 
 Cumberland's army, wrote a letter from Lichfield in the early morning 
 of the fifth of December, saying he was then setting out for Coventry 
 and Northampton, but quite despairing of doing anything to check the 
 Prince's advance. A camp was being formed (on paper) at Finchley, 
 but it was also asserted that King George had ordered his most precious 
 effects on board his yachts, and they were to be ready to sail at a 
 minute's warning. The confusion and terror in London could scarce be 
 credited. Lord Mahon sums up the case as follows : " I believe, then, 
 that had Charles marched onward from Derby he would have gained 
 the British throne ; but I am far from thinking he would long have held 
 it. Bred up in arbitrary principles, and professing the Romanist religion, 
 he might soon have been tempted to assail a people jealous of their 
 freedom and a Church tenacious of her rights. . . . The English 
 would have expected a much better government than King George's, 
 and they would have a worse." There would have been " a necessity 
 for a new revolution." 
 
 It is little use speculating on what might have been. . The resolve
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 91 
 
 to retreat was kept secret, but it was acted upon, and for some distance 
 the Highlanders, who always marched in the early morning before 
 daylight, thought they were advancing. Their grief and indignation 
 was intense when they found they were retreating, and they made loud 
 lamentations as they marched. They had been sharpening their 
 weapons and taking the sacrament during their day's rest at Derby, 
 looking forward to and longing for the fray. Now all was changed ; 
 discipline was relaxed, their Prince rode dejectedly behind them, in- 
 stead of marching on foot at their head ; some of the country people 
 began to take liberties with them, and that led to acts of outrage and 
 reprisals. The glamour of success was gone, and the charm was broken, 
 as soon as steps were being retraced. The Prince never recovered his 
 spirits until he was over the border again, and his conduct to Lord 
 George Murray, who was mainly responsible for the retreat, was very 
 harsh. Lord George had promised to bring up the rear, the place of 
 danger and difficulty, and right well did he accomplish his difficult 
 task. Of the Prince's army that left Scotland it was computed that 
 all but forty men returned thither. From Edinburgh to Derby and 
 from Derby to Glasgow they marched five hundred and eighty-two 
 miles in fifty-six days (including days on which they halted), and 
 the Prince's major domo during that time never took off his clothes 
 but on the one night in Manchester. If some modern Xenophon 
 ever writes another Anabasis ', here is the theme for another Glorious 
 Retreat of the Ten Thousand, here in our own land, and perhaps 
 he will eulogise Lord George Murray for the great feat that he did 
 so well.
 
 92 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 
 
 Lord Elcho wrote in his Memoirs that when he was leaving Derby, 
 being in command of the Prince's Life Guards, a Mr. Morgan, an 
 Englishman, came up to Mr. Vaughan, one of their officers, and, after 
 saluting, said, "Dam me, Vaughan, they are going to Scotland." Mr. 
 Vaughan replied, " Wherever they go I will go with them." Upon which 
 Mr. Morgan said, with an oath, " I had rather be hanged in England 
 than go to Scotland to starve." So he stayed in England and was 
 hanged, and the other went to Scotland and was starved, though ulti- 
 mately he escaped to the continent. 
 
 Mutiny and desertion became more frequent in all ranks as soon as 
 the dangers increased. Ensign Maddox, of the Manchester Regiment, 
 was contemplating desertion at Derby, saying that he could not get 
 paid, when Captain Fletcher pulled out a handful of gold, which he gave 
 to him, thereby privately compensating him for the arrears of his pay. 
 Maddox was the Judas who afterwards betrayed them, or, in other 
 words, he turned "king's" evidence at their trial. 
 
 The retreat was through Leek, Macclesfield, and Stockport. At 
 Cheadle, in Staffordshire, Ray said they took "a rebel spy, whom they 
 hanged on a gibbet, at Macclesfield, when an Apothecary went to the 
 Centinel to buy the body for 43. 6d. ; the Dragoon thinking it a good 
 price, he gave the skin to a tanner to dress, but the Hide was of so holy 
 a nature that it would not tan nor lye under water by any weight, so 
 that after much labour lost this Holy Hide had to be buried. This 
 person having had a Holy Resolution to murther the King and Royal 
 family with all other Hereticks." At a village, near Stockport, a High- 
 lander was shot, whereupon his comrades fired the houses. On the 9 th
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 93 
 
 they were back in Manchester; in Hanging Ditch some of the Whig 
 mob "slutched" them, but ran away from further mischief. On the io th 
 the Prince imposed a fine of 5,000 upon the citizens of Manchester, 
 and one of the hostages, who was seized as security for the money, was 
 James Bayley, a merchant, living in St. Ann's Square where the Man- 
 chester and Salford Bank now stands. Mr. Bayley, or his son of the 
 same name, had the old house, formerly standing at Groombridge, 
 Withington ; it was a curious looking house, with a flat top and 
 double bay windows, and with a sunk fence to the road. It was 
 pulled down about twenty years since. The Rev. James Bayley 
 married a Miss Broome, of Didsbury; her name is inscribed on a 
 chalice given to Didsbury church in 1813. 2,500 were raised, 
 and the Prince's army evacuated Manchester. When leaving Salford 
 they were shot at by a fanatic, which nearly led to the town being 
 fired. Some young English volunteer was murdered barbarously by 
 a woman and her son ; and some zealot tried to shoot the Prince 
 near Wigan, but mistook his person. In any of these cases if the 
 offender was caught, and taken to the Prince, he was always released ; 
 the Prince's clemency, although he was so dejected, was remarkable. 
 Miss Byrom noted in her Journal that "the 10 th was the shortest 
 day, though it seemed to her to be the longest. Mr. Jer Bower 
 says he shall remember it as long as he lives." "Dec 1 ** 17 th ," she notes, 
 "Smoothing (ironing) all day. Old Mrs. Syddal's goods were prized 
 (appraised) by dragoons, and mighty gruff they were. 18 th . Fast day, 
 service both ends of the day. Janx 3 rd 1746. Effigy of the Prince at the 
 Angel (the inn for the Whigs). Mr. Dukinfield, a Justice, got a gun and
 
 94 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 
 
 shot at it, then wrung it by the nose, and his wife and daughter slapt it 
 in the face and so on until they were tired and drunk, for the Presbyterians 
 were at the Angel and gave the mob drink ; then they hung it to the sign 
 post, quartered it, and threw it into the fire; some one threw a piece of 
 it into the drink, which put them in a violent passion." There is no 
 doubt with whom Beppy Byrom's sympathies lay, and while she was 
 noting down the fast day in Manchester, very different work was being 
 done at Clifton between Shap and Penrith. Here some cavalry had 
 got between Lord George with the rearguard and the Prince. The 
 Glengarry men charged and dispersed them, taking several prisoners, 
 amongst them being a footman of the Duke of Cumberland's, who 
 said his master was close at hand with four thousand cavalry. 
 Lord George sent Colonel Roy Stewart with the man to the Prince, 
 at Penrith, asking for reinforcements. The Prince dismissed the 
 footman, and sent back merely the MacPhersons and the Appian 
 regiment. 
 
 The Duke of Cumberland's whole force of cavalry were now in close 
 pursuit of Lord George, and a regiment of dragoons was despatched to 
 cut off his retreat over Clifton Bridge. As darkness came on, with the 
 moon shining at intervals, the attack was made, and then the High- 
 landers turned at bay. Lord George Murray raised his warcry of 
 "Claymore," the order for attacking with the sword, and rushed bare- 
 headed into the fray. With uncontrollable fury the Highlanders charged 
 at close quarters for a hand-grip fight. Colonel Honeywood, the 
 commander of the English, was killed almost immediately; a highly- 
 ornamented sword of honour that he had with him being taken, and long
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 95 
 
 kept as a precious heirloom by McPherson of Cluny. The cavalry were 
 routed and fled, the men protesting their horses were more frightened 
 than they were at the swords and cries of the Highlanders. Lord George 
 urgently sent for more reinforcements, as he hoped to have taken 
 prisoner the Duke with the bulk of his officers; but the Prince was 
 doubtful of the event, or, as some thought, jealous of his General, and did 
 nothing but order Lord George to follow after him in his retreat to 
 Carlisle. 
 
 In this affray it was computed Cluny lost twelve men, while a 
 hundred dragoons were killed. The registers of Clifton Church mention 
 ten dragoons being buried at once; many bodies were said to have been 
 thrown into Clifton mill dam. Some Highlanders were straggling and 
 taken prisoners ; they were sold as slaves in America ; and a man 
 named Ogden, from Manchester, was cut over the head, and died in 
 Lancaster gaol. 
 
 Thus ended what was probably the last bit of real warfare upon 
 English soil. The Duke again kept his distance, and the Prince's army 
 retreated into Carlisle. On the next day, December the 2Oth, the 
 Prince's birthday, the Scotch army crossed the border, leaving the 
 Manchester Regiment and also two hundred and seventy- four men, 
 mostly Irish, under four French officers, as a garrison in Carlisle. This 
 was a great blunder. Lord George Murray, the brain of the army, 
 strongly advised that all the regiments should keep together, and that 
 the fortifications of Carlisle should be blown up and destroyed. The 
 Prince certainly seems to have been indifferent to the fate of the others. 
 His high notions as to the divine right of kings and the duty of
 
 96 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 
 
 subjects may have led him astray, as they so often led all his race 
 astray, and the result was that his army was considerably weakened, 
 and the remnant left behind was sacrificed. 
 
 The Highlanders themselves forded the Esk in grand style. 
 Cavalry stretched across the river above the ford with the horses facing 
 down stream, and cavalry stretched across the river below the ford with 
 the horses facing up stream. This was done to weaken the force of the 
 current and to catch anyone who might be washed away. The men 
 waded through the river holding one another by the shoulders and 
 neck, and keeping in line. Some were not tall enough to keep their 
 heads out of the water, and had to swim or be dragged across. It was 
 computed that at one time there were two thousand Highlanders in the 
 water, and that all got safely across, for, although some drifted down 
 stream, they were seized by the hair and kept afloat until they were in 
 shallow water, the Prince himself rescuing several of them. As the 
 various clans "gained the Scottish strand" the bagpipes struck up 
 lively tunes, and the men danced reels to dry and warm themselves. 
 The remainder of their eventful history is beyond the scope of this 
 book, though we may consider the fate of the men from our own 
 district. 
 
 No sooner had the Prince's army crossed the border than the 
 Duke of Cumberland invested the mouldering walls of Carlisle. He 
 unexpectedly got some cannon from Whitehaven, and the case for 
 the besieged city was then hopeless. Foes without and dissensions 
 within, with a prospect of famine, were more than enough to make the 
 commandant and the citizens wish to capitulate. Colonel Townley flew
 
 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 97 
 
 into a violent passion when capitulation was spoken of, saying " it were 
 better to die by the sword than fall into the hands of those damned 
 Hanoverians." Adjutant Syddall was also strongly in favour of fighting 
 to the last and dying where they stood, or in cutting their way out. 
 The commandant of the city and fortress did not recognise their 
 authority, and, being doubtless assured of the safety of himself and 
 the citizens, he agreed to terms of surrender, and on the thirtieth of 
 December the gates were opened and the besieged laid down their 
 arms. About four hundred men with sixteen cannon, that had been 
 part of the Prince's army, were included in the general surrender, the 
 terms of which were in writing, so that there might be no mistake on 
 either side and that they might be referred to and adhered to. These 
 terms were signed by the Duke of Richmond on behalf of the Duke 
 of Cumberland, and they were, " The garrison shall not be put to the 
 sword, but reserved for the King's pleasure." How the promise was 
 kept to the chief officers, when the sword or knife ripped them up and 
 quartered them, and what was the King's pleasure, shall be told in 
 the next and concluding chapter. His Royal Highness the Duke of 
 Cumberland well earned the title of "bloody butcher" that was bestowed 
 on the noble and royal duke for his barbarities after Culloden. School- 
 boys know how the nine of diamonds acquired the name of the curse of 
 Scotland. The devotion and fidelity with which for five months the 
 Highlanders kept their Prince, when the blood-money of 30,000 was 
 on his head, and when he was "hunted like a partridge in the mountains," 
 having neither meat, nor sleep, nor shelter for days together, have long 
 
 been the admiration of the people and one of the wonders of history. 
 H
 
 98 THE TURN OF THE TIDE. 
 
 The inscription on the sword of an officer who surrendered at Carlisle 
 was literally fulfilled 
 
 With this good sword thy cause I will maintain, . 
 And for thy sake, O James, will breathe each vein. 
 
 The ghastly heads that were left to bleach and waste over the gates 
 of Carlisle were commemorated in the Scottish maiden's lament : 
 
 His bright lang hair in yellow hanks 
 
 Waved o'er his cheeks sae sweet and ruddie, 
 
 But now they wave o'er Carlisle yetts 
 In dripping ringlets, clotting bloodie.
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 CROWN. 
 
 THE MARTYR'S 
 
 Oh ! Had I serv'd my God with half the zeal 
 I serv'd my King. Wolsey. 
 
 jHE officers of the Manchester Regiment, when surrendering 
 to " the King's pleasure " on the assurance " they were not 
 to be put to the sword," probably expected the King's 
 pleasure would be the pleasure of an English gentleman. 
 They found it to be the pleasure of a German ogre. It 
 would be much too flattering to write of it as the pleasure 
 of a brute, for, excepting the tribes of cats and weasels, 
 there are few brutes that take pleasure in suffering, or in 
 needless cruelty. I have known a rat (a Hanoverian rat, 
 as the common rats were called) kill twenty-six chickens in a night, and 
 store them away, but that might have been a justifiable laying-up of a 
 store of food against a time of scarcity. It is said that hyaenas dig into 
 graves and devour the bodies therein, but that also is simply one of 
 their ways of obtaining their food. The brutes do not as a rule exercise
 
 ioo THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 unnecessary cruelty ; they are far exceeded in brutality by the revolting 
 revenge that was taken on the officers of the Manchester Regiment by 
 the ogre King, when he had his pleasure on them. 
 
 His Most Sacred and August Majesty, King George II., the 
 Defender of the Faith, and the Head of the Church, was sullen, 
 grasping, and revengeful by nature, and his German mistresses would 
 not improve him, for they, being the latest additions to the proud 
 aristocracy of England, would naturally be very jealous of anything 
 that might tend to sending them and their King back to their poor 
 relations in Hanover. Consequently the German's pleasure took the 
 following peculiar form. 
 
 Immediately upon the surrender the garrison of Carlisle were 
 imprisoned in the Cathedral, from whence they were sent to London 
 under a strong guard. The officers were put on horses with their legs 
 tied under the horses' bellies, and their arms were pinioned, the horses 
 being tied together by their tails and heads. The position of the officers 
 when riding in this manner would be simply one of torture and much more 
 fatiguing than walking, though it was according to the King's pleasure. 
 The men were on foot, pinioned and tied together by ropes, being also 
 tied to mounted dragoons, and in this manner they set out from 
 Carlisle on January 2oth, in the midst of winter, for the long march 
 to London. The fatigue and exposure were likely to kill all but the 
 hardest and toughest, and fortunate indeed were those who died on the 
 way. Dr. Deacon's second son soon died. The trial of the survivors 
 began on July i6th, 1746, and lasted three days. They were adjudged 
 and sentenced " to be severally hanged by the neck, not till they were
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 101 
 
 dead, but cut down alive, then their bowels to be taken out and burnt 
 before their faces, their heads to be severed from their bodies, and their 
 bodies to be severally divided into four quarters and these to be at the 
 King's disposal." Captains Moss* and Holker, of Manchester, had 
 escaped from Newgate prison. Captain Moss had made a hole in the 
 wall and got out. He then returned for Holker, who was a stouter 
 man, and for whom they had to enlarge the hole. The two were 
 hidden for six weeks by a woman who kept a greengrocer's stall. 
 Eventually they got off to France, where at Rouen Holker worked 
 a cotton mill, and, like other Manchester spinners, made a large 
 fortune. The friends of Captain Fletcher, who was the sole 
 support of his widowed mother, made great intercessions for him 
 and begged of him to turn King's evidence and save his life, but, 
 "great as was his affection for his mother, whom he constantly 
 bewailed as being the unhappy cause of her grief," he manfully refused 
 the ignoble offer. The man whom he had paid out of his own pocket 
 at Derby, Ensign Maddox, turned King's evidence and incriminated his 
 comrades. The bloody sentence of the King's pleasure was carried out 
 on nine of the officers on July 3Oth. They were dragged on three 
 hurdles from the gaol at Southwark to Kennington Common, where a 
 gallows had been erected and large fires kindled that crackled and 
 blazed round the doomed men, all being strongly guarded by a circle of 
 
 *In 1723, John Moss, of Manchester, also John Warren, of Poynton, Humphrey 
 Trafford, of Trafford, and William Hulme are appointed executors under the will of Anthony 
 Barlow, of Barlow, Esq., two of whose sons had been attainted of high treason. Thomas Moss 
 was executor and trustee of the Broomes.
 
 102 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 soldiers. Here the officers were hanged, drawn, and quartered ; that is 
 to say, they were hanged until they were nearly dead ; then they were 
 cut "down and ripped up, their heart and bowels being taken out and 
 burnt before their faces ; then their heads were cut off, and they were cut 
 into quarters for the King's disposal. The Colonel was the first to be 
 " turned off" after they had been kept waiting half an hour enjoying the 
 prospect. He was hanging about five minutes and was then cut down 
 and stript. As life was not extinct his head was severed with a cleaver, 
 then his giblets, i.e., heart and liver, were taken out with the bowels and 
 thrown into the fire, the executioner and guards religiously exclaiming, 
 " God save King George." 
 
 His Religious and Gracious Majesty had pleasure in such bar- 
 barities, but ordinary mortals had various degrees of compassion or 
 abhorrence. As the smell of burnt flesh diffused itself over the crowd 
 some went home sick at heart and wanted not their dinner on that day. 
 Some would mock, and others cry out to the executioner not to bowel 
 them before they were dead ; but the executioner had to obey the King's 
 pleasure, besides having twenty guineas and the clothes of the victims 
 for his trouble. 
 
 The names of the officers of the Manchester Regiment, who thus 
 suffered martyrdom, were : Colonel Francis Townley, Captain George 
 Fletcher, Captain James Dawson, Captain Thomas Theodorus Deacon, 
 Volunteer David Morgan (a barrister), Adjutant Thomas Syddall, 
 Lieutenant Thomas Chadwick, Captain John Berwick, and Captain 
 Andrew Blood. The first and last were Roman Catholics. They were 
 not all connected with Manchester, though most of them were, and they
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 103 
 
 wrote "papers" called "The Last Dying Speech and Confession," which 
 were given to the Sheriff, or thrown among the crowd. They all main- 
 tained the justice of their cause, and some referred to the broken 
 promise made to them when they surrendered at Carlisle, and to the 
 King's pleasure. The following are extracts from the papers of those 
 men who had some connections with Didisburye : 
 
 "A Copy of the Paper delivered by Mr. George Fletcher to the 
 Sheriff of Surry, at the Place of Execution, on Wednesday, July 30, 1746. 
 
 "By the Permission of the Almighty, and the Power of an usurped 
 Government, I am brought to this Place, in confident Hopes (thro' the 
 Merits of my dear Saviour) that it is the Ladder by which I shall ascend 
 to the Mansions of Eternal Bliss. 
 
 "My Religion is that of the Church of England, as it stood in its 
 Purity, before the People were taught to pray for Curses upon their 
 Country, and to invoke Heaven in Prejudice of that King and Family 
 which alone can save this Guilty Land. Of this Church I die a sincere, 
 tho' an unworthy, Member; and from this Church I learnt the true 
 Principles of Loyalty and Justice. 
 
 "I am so well assured that the Cause for which I suffer is Divine, 
 that I rejoice in what I have done, and could wish to live for no better 
 Purpose than to be Instrumental in Restoring my Lawful Sovereign, 
 King James the Third, to the Throne of these Realms; which, as it is 
 his undoubted Right, so it is the Duty of every Englishman to hazard 
 his Life in procuring it for him. 
 
 "To aim at any Description of the Royal Leader, the Prince of 
 Wales, under whose Banner I heartily enlisted, would be an Injustice,
 
 104 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 because the Subject ./s too sublime for those of a much better 
 Capacity than falls to my share; but the Idea I have of his Greatness 
 and Goodness forces me to say of him, that he only wants to be known, 
 in order to put an End to this wicked USURPATION ; which, if not put 
 an End to, will soon determine in the absolute Ruin of poor Old 
 England. 
 
 " It is to God's Mercy I owe my Principles of Religious Loyalty, for 
 which I praise and adore his holy and ever blessed Name; but how can 
 I express my Thankfulness for the Abundance of his Grace bestowed 
 upon me, when I rejected the Offer of Life upon wicked Terms when I 
 was a Prisoner in Newgate! There it was proposed to me (by Mr. 
 Carrington, one of the Elector of Hanover's Messengers) to save my Life 
 by turning Evidence against my dear Fellow-Prisoners; but by the 
 Blessing of God, I abhorred the Thoughts of involving myself in the 
 Guilt of shedding innocent Blood, and preferring the Honour of the 
 Gallows to Life basely obtained, I rejected the Tempter with an honest 
 Scorn. This has been imputed to me as a Fault by my MURDERERS, 
 and is an Ingredient in that Malice which pursues me to the End of 
 Life; but in this they have done me a Kindness they little intended, and 
 preferred me to a Death, which, I verily believe, will be happier in its 
 Consequences, than any that might have overtaken me in the Course of 
 Nature: Blessed be the Eternal God for his gracious Goodness towards 
 me, for without his divine Assistance I must have given Way to so great 
 a Temptation. 
 
 "I heartily forgive all my Enemies for the Persecutions I have 
 undergone, and which will now be at an End ; for, I trust in Heaven, I
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 105 
 
 shall soon be compleat in Joy: And I pray God that my Blood may not 
 rise in Judgment either against the Government by whose sham Autho- 
 rity I was tried, the Jury that gave their Verdict against me, (when there 
 was the fairest Opportunity to acquit me, if they had been indued with 
 the least Shadow of Humanity) or the pretended Court who pronounced 
 
 the BLOODY SENTENCE. 
 
 "And I earnestly pray the Father of Mercies that he will be 
 pleased to open the Eyes of all Englishmen that they might see the 
 Blessings designed them by that Attempt in which I thank God I had 
 a Share; for if they knew their own Interest, I and my honest Fellow- 
 Sufferers should not be brought here to die for doing our Duty. But I 
 hope there are still some virtuous People remaining unpersecuted to 
 intercede with Heaven to save a Bleeding Country. 
 
 " Such I desire the Prayers of for my departing Soul, beseeching 
 Heaven to accept my Sufferings as an Atonement for all my Sins, 
 thro' the Merits and Intercession of Jesus Christ, our Saviour and 
 
 Redeemer. Amen. 
 
 "GEORGE FLETCHER." 
 "Wednesday, July 30, 1746." 
 
 Syddall wrote a much longer paper, of which the following are 
 extracts : 
 " Friends, Brethren, and Countrymen ! 
 
 " Since I am brought here to be made a Sacrifice for doing the 
 Duty of a Christian and an Englishman, it may be expected I should 
 give some Account of myself and the Cause for which I suffer. This 
 Expectation I will gladly indulge : and I wish the whole Kingdom
 
 io6 THE KING^S PLEASURE. 
 
 might be inform'd of all that I now say, at the Hour of Death, when 
 there is the least Reason to doubt my Sincerity. 
 
 " I most humbly and heartily offer up my Praises and Thanks- 
 giving to Almighty God, that He hath been pleased, of his great 
 Goodness, to give me Grace to follow the pious Example of my Father, 
 who, induring Hardships like a good soldier of Jesus Christ, was 
 Martyr'd under the Government of the late USURPER, in the year 1715, 
 for his Loyal Zeal in the Cause of his Lawful King. . . . Neither was 
 I tempted to enter into the Army commanded by the Prince of Wales 
 by any ambitious or self interested views. I was easy in my circum- 
 stances, and wanted no addition of Riches to increase my Happiness. 
 My desires were limited within reasonable Bounds; and what I thought 
 I had Occasion for (I bless God) I was able to procure : and to make 
 my Joy as full as in this World ought to be wish'd, I was bless'd with 
 an excellent, faithful, religious, loving Wife and five Children, the 
 tender objects of our Care and Affection. In this Situation I was 
 void of Ambition, and thankful to God for his Gracious Disposal 
 of me. 
 
 " My motive for serving in the Prince's Army was the Duty I owe 
 to God, the King, and the Country, in endeavouring the Restoration of 
 King James the Third and the Royal Family, which I am persuaded is 
 the only human Means by which this Nation can ever become great and 
 happy. . . . The young Prince is too Great and Good to stoop to a 
 Falsity, or to impose upon any People a Prince bless'd with all the 
 Qualities which can adorn a Throne, and who may challenge his 
 Keenest Enemies to impute to him any vice which can Blacken his
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 107 
 
 Character, whom to serve is a Duty and a Pleasure, and to Die for an 
 Honour. ... If I might presume to say that the Gallant good 
 Prince hath any Fault, it would be that of an ill-tim'd Humanity : for if 
 he had been so Just to Himself and the Righteous Cause wherein he 
 was ingaged, as to have made Examples of some of those who betray'd 
 him, in all human Probability, he had succeeded in his Glorious Under- 
 taking, and been reserv'd for a Fate to which His unequalled Virtues 
 justly intitle him. 
 
 " I solemnly declare, in the Presence of Heaven (where I hope 
 shortly to be), that Mr. Samuel Maddox perjured himself at the Trials. 
 To this sin of Perjury he hath also added the odious Crime of 
 Ingratitude, for to my own Knowledge he was kept from Starving by me 
 and the very People against whom he has falsely sworn, while in Prison, 
 when nobody else would assist him. 
 
 " I forgive all who had any Hand in the scandalous Surrender of 
 Carlisle. ... I also forgive the pretended Duke of Cumberland for 
 his dishonourable and unsoldierly proceeding in putting Us to Death, 
 in Violation of the Laws of Nations, after a Written Capitulation to the 
 contrary, and after the Garrison upon the Faith of that Capitulation 
 had surrendered the Place, and faithfully performed all the conditions 
 required of them. 
 
 " I pray God to forgive and turn the Hearts of the Bishops and 
 the Clergy, who, prostituting the Duty of their Holy Profession, have 
 departed from their Function as Messengers of Peace, and scandalously 
 employed themselves in their Pulpits to abuse the best Prince, ingaged 
 in the most Righteous Cause in the World. The credulous deluded
 
 io8 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 mob, who have been thus set on by their Teachers, I also pray 
 God to forgive, for the barbarous insults I received from them when in 
 Chains ; Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do ! 
 
 "As I have before given Thanks to Almighty God, for the Example 
 of my Honest Father ; so I beseech Him, that the same Christian 
 Suffering Spirit may ever be in all my dear Children ; praying that they 
 may have the Grace to tread the same dangerous Steps which have led 
 me to this Place; and may also have the Courage and Constancy to 
 endure to the End, and despise Human Power, when it stands opposed 
 to Duty. 
 
 " I pray God of His great mercy and Goodness, that He would be 
 pleased to pour down the choicest of His Blessings upon the Sacred 
 Head of His Majesty King James the Third and his Royal Sons, and 
 for the sake of Justice and the Love which Nature and Duty prompt me 
 to bear my Native Country to restore them soon to their Lawful, 
 Natural, and Undoubted Rights. 
 
 " It would be an unspeakable satisfaction to me if my manner of 
 Dying or anything I now say would contribute to the removing those 
 unhappy and unreasonable Prejudices with which too many of my 
 countrymen are misled. Danger of Popery, and Fear of French Power, 
 are the idle Pretences that wicked and ill designing men make use of to 
 misguide and stir up the Passions of unwary tho' perhaps honest People. 
 But, if Englishmen would seriously reflect, that those who keep the most 
 Noise about Popery, are remarkably void of any Religion at all, and 
 dissolute in their Morals ; that Atheism, Infidelity, Profaneness, and 
 Debauchery, are openly avowed and practised, even within the walls of
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 109 
 
 that very Court, whence they derive all their fancied Civil and Religious 
 Liberties, if they would reflect when they talk of French Influence that 
 they seek Protection from a German Usurper: if they would reflect that 
 I and my Fellow Sufferers are now Murder'd in order to weaken the 
 Cause of Loyal Virtue, &c. ... It would be uncharitable, and 
 misbecoming a dying man, to wish even his most inveterate Enemies to 
 continue in such a situation, and I therefore pray God to deliver all 
 Englishmen therefrom. 
 
 " If, my dear Countrymen, you have any Regard to your own Hap- 
 piness, which, in Charity, I have endeavour'd to point out in my dying 
 Moments ; let me beseech you, in the name of God to restore your Liege 
 Sovereign, and with Him the glorious Advantages of an excellent 
 Constitution under a Lawful Government. This is every Man's Duty to 
 Aim at : And if your honest attempts should fail, remember, it is a great 
 blessing to Die for the Cause of Virtue; and that an Almighty Power 
 can and will reward such as suffer for Righteousness Sake. 
 
 " To that God, infinite in his Goodness, and eternal in His Providence, 
 I commend my Soul; imploring His Forgiveness of all my Sins; and 
 hoping for a speedy Translation to eternal Joy, through the Merits and 
 Sufferings of Jesus Christ. Amen ! Amen ! Amen ! 
 
 "Tno. SYDDALL." 
 
 Dawson wrote : " Blessed are they which are persecuted for 
 Righteousness' Sake: for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 "Friends, Brethren, and Countrymen, ... I am now on the 
 very last scene of Life, and shall in a very few Minutes launch into
 
 HO THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 Eternity. I therefore solemnly declare, as I shall answer it at the Awful 
 and Impartial Tribunal before which I must shortly appear, that I firmly 
 believe, and in my Conscience am persuaded, that James the Third is 
 my only true, lawful, and indisputable Sovereign; that the present 
 Possessor of his Crown and Kingdom is an Intruder and Usurper; that 
 my taking up Arms against Him is so far from being a Crime that it is 
 my indispensible and bounden Duty, and that if I had ten thousand 
 thousand lives, I ought sooner to devote them all to my King and 
 Country's service than to see Right overpowered by Oppression or 
 Rebellion prevailing o'er Justice. 
 
 " I die, my dear friends, in the Fellowship and Communion of the 
 Church of England and in perfect Peace and Chanty with all men. I 
 humbly ask Pardon of all those whom I have in any shape or in any 
 manner injured, affronted, or offended, as I do from the bottom of my 
 Heart forgive all my Enemies, Persecutors and Slanderers, and in an 
 especial manner Mr. Maddox, who has not only sworn away mine but 
 several other innocent persons' lives a very unchristianlike Return for 
 relieving and supporting him when destitute of almost every Necessary 
 of Life. I sincerely and unfeignedly forgive the Fetches of the Counsel, 
 the Partiality of the Judges, and the misguided Zeal of the Jury. Lay 
 not, O God, my Blood to their charge, neither let this my Murder ever 
 rise up in Judgment against them. Forgive them, my Father, for they 
 know not what they do. 
 
 " And now, O my God and merciful Father, let me supplicate Thy 
 Mercy for my poor unworthy Self. I now, with all Humility, prostrate 
 myself before Thee, and beseech Thee, of Thy infinite Goodness, to
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. in 
 
 deign to forgive me all my Sins, Negligences, and Ignorances ; excuse 
 the Frailties and Infirmities of my Nature, and- pardon every Levity, 
 Excess, and Indecency which I have committed against Thy divine 
 Majesty. Plead Thou my Cause, O my sweet Saviour, and let not the 
 Transgressions of my Youth or the Faults which I have been betrayed 
 into either thro' Fear, Forgetfulness, or Surprize ever be alledged against 
 me at the Great Day of Judgment. . . . Into Thy Hands I com- 
 mend my Soul; make me to be numbered with Thy Saints in Glory 
 everlasting. Amen. 
 
 " JAMES DAWSON." 
 
 The connection of James Dawson with Didisburye is very slight. 
 We only know that he was the brother of Mrs. Broome,* of Didisburye, 
 and the son of a Manchester man. He was of St. John's College, Cam- 
 bridge, and his case is far more widely known than that of any of his 
 fellow sufferers through Shenstone's pathetic ballad of " Jemmy Dawson," 
 from which I extract the following verses : 
 
 Young Dawson was a gallant boy, 
 
 A brighter never trod the plain ; 
 And well he lov'd one charming maid, 
 
 And dearly was he lov'd again. 
 
 One tender maid, she loved him dear, 
 
 Of gentle blood the damsel came ; 
 And faultless was her beauteous form, 
 
 And spotless was her virgin fame. 
 
 * Many years afterwards Miss Broome married the Rev. James Bayley, grandson of the 
 James Bayley the hostage, who raised the money levied by the Prince on Manchester.
 
 112 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 But curse on Party's hateful strife, 
 That led the favour'd youth astray; 
 
 The day the rebel clans appeared, 
 Oh, had he never seen that day ! 
 
 How pale was then his true love's cheek, 
 When Jemmy's sentence reach'd her ear ; 
 
 For never yet did Alpine snows 
 So pale or yet so chill appear. 
 
 She follow'd him, prepar'd to view 
 
 The terrible behests of law ; 
 And the last scene of Jemmy's woes, 
 
 With calm and steadfast eye she saw. 
 
 Distort'd was that blooming face, 
 Which she had fondly loved so long ; 
 
 And stifled was that tuneful breath 
 Which in her praise had sweetly sung. 
 
 And sever'd was that beauteous neck 
 
 Round which her arms had fondly clos'd ; 
 
 And mangled was that beauteous breast 
 On which her love-sick head repos'd. 
 
 Amid those unrelenting flames, 
 She bore his constant heart to see; 
 
 But when 'twas moulder'd into dust, 
 "Yet, yet," she cried, " I follow thee. 
 
 My death, my death alone can show 
 The pure, the lasting love I bore. 
 
 Accept, O Heaven ! of woes like ours, 
 And let us, let us weep no more." 
 
 The dismal scene was o'er and past, 
 The lovers' mournful hearse retir'd ; 
 
 The maid drew back her languid head 
 And, sighing forth his name, expir'd,
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 113 
 
 I cannot find the lady's name, although there are several accounts 
 of her hiring a carriage and being as near to the last bloody mangling of 
 her lover as she could be. The shock killed her. Her last words, when 
 his heart was thrown into the fire, were said to have been: "My dear, I 
 follow thee I follow thee. Sweet Jesus, receive our souls together." 
 It was said they were to have been married on the day on which he was 
 executed, or murdered, either term being used by the opposing political 
 parties. Dr. Deacon's third son also saw the last of his brother, another 
 brother having died on the way from Carlisle. The head of Thomas 
 Theodorus Deacon was stuck up on the Manchester Exchange with the 
 head of Syddall, and as most Manchester men are aware, old Dr. 
 Deacon stood bareheaded gazing on the ghastly remains of his son. 
 The tyrant did as he pleased, and English dragoons were set to guard 
 the heads, but they could not stop the Tories reverentially saluting "the 
 martyrs" as they passed; and it was even said that Mrs. Syddall brought 
 her son to gaze on his father's head, as his father had gazed on his 
 father's head, when it was gibbeted in Manchester thirty years before, 
 and that when the next rising should take place there would be another 
 Tom Syddall ready. Fortunately there was no more political blood- 
 shedding in Manchester for seventy-three years, and in the meantime 
 the ill-fated Stewart race died out. The handsome, gay, and gallant 
 Prince Charles Edward, who, like Charles I., Mary Queen of Scots, and 
 others of his ancestors, had fascinated so many in his youth, was over- 
 come with adversity, and he gradually sank lower in his age, leaving no 
 legitimate son to succeed him. Voltaire, the free-thinking Frenchman, 
 said: "If anything could justify those who believe in an unavoidable 
 I
 
 114 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 fatality, it would be the series of misfortunes which, for the space of 
 three hundred years, have befallen the house of Stuart." A Dr. King 
 has also told how in after years some Jacobites tried hard to persuade 
 the Prince to leave his mistress and to make another attempt to regain 
 the crown, when one of them named McNamara said, "What has your 
 family done, sir, thus to draw down the vengeance of Heaven on every 
 branch of it through so many ages ?" 
 
 The families of Syddall and Fletcher were certainly connected with 
 the old parish of Didisburye as it was in 1745. The Syddalls owned 
 (and I believe the family still own) Slate or Slade Hall, the old black 
 and white house near Rushford, where the Slate lane or Burnage lane 
 joins the Manchester and Stockport road. Heaton with Levenshulme 
 and Reddish district was not detached from Didsbury until 1765, and in 
 the registers of Didsbury Church I was pleased to find what I have no 
 doubt is the entry of the marriage of this Thomas Syddall. It is as 
 follows: "Oct., 1730. Thomas Siddall and Maria Fletcher de Burnage 
 and paroch. Mancun. conj. matri per License. Rog. Bolton, surr." 
 
 We know from Syddall's paper that he left a faithful loving wife 
 and five children, the tender objects of their care and affection, for he 
 prayed God to give to these children the same courage and constancy 
 to endure to the end, and to despise human power when it stands 
 opposed to duty. It is probable the other sufferers left no children. 
 George Fletcher was not married ; he lived with his mother, and his 
 father had long been dead. I think it is most probable he was 
 brother to Mrs. Syddall ; she is described above as of Burnage, thereby 
 implying that her father was dead. George Fletcher's father must have
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 115 
 
 left him fairly wealthy, and I believe he was one of the family who lived 
 at The Old Fold, on the border of Heaton and Burnage. The Fletchers 
 had owned a deal of land in Heaton and Heaton Wood, being that part 
 now called Heaton Mersey, adjoining Didsbury and Burnage. The 
 older branch of the family had lived at The Wood House until 
 another George Fletcher built Longfield, where he lies buried in 
 the garden. 
 
 The lands have long since been alienated, and the old thatched 
 black and white houses of The Old Fold and The Wood House have 
 been destroyed. There is an entry of baptism in the Church registers 
 which may or may not be that of Captain George Fletcher ; it certainly 
 corresponds to his age. It appears to have been written by an almos 
 illiterate man and interpolated among the adjoining entries. It is dated 
 1720, "Gorge, son of Gorge Flecher, Heatton." As there were un- 
 doubtedly several George Fletchers living about that time, I looked up 
 the entries for a preceding generation, and found that in fifteen con- 
 secutive years there were nine or ten Fletchers who brought between 
 twenty and thirty children to be christened, and five of these children 
 were called George. It was therefore hopeless to disentangle the 
 various entries, but another still older entry, having some slight con- 
 nection with the present subject, is worth recording. In 1575, George 
 Siddall is married to Margaret ffletcher. It is strange how the name 
 George as a family name of the Fletchers has died out in this century. 
 It may be because one George was called a rebel and another George 
 devised the estates from the family, and therefore the name as a family 
 name was not continued.
 
 Il6 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 To gratify the pleasure of His Most Sacred Majesty the King, the 
 heads of the officers were preserved in spirits and publicly exhibited, 
 the chief ones being reserved for the chief cities. The heads of Colonel 
 Townley and Captain Fletcher had the honour of being reserved for 
 Temple Bar, where in an adjoining shop an enterprising optician made 
 a fortune by allowing his customers the use. of a telescope for so much 
 per peep at the bloody bleaching heads. The family of Colonel Townley 
 are said to have stolen his head one stormy night and to have kept it 
 ever since. Some accounts say that Captain Dawson's head also was 
 stuck up in London. Syddall's and Deacon's were on the Manchester Ex- 
 change. Altogether there were about eighty gibbeted about the country, 
 including Captain Bradshaw, a Manchester man, who had not stayed in 
 Carlisle but had been taken after Culloden ; and also including the Rev. 
 Thomas Coppock, the Chaplain of the regiment. This reverend gentle- 
 man had actually played the Jacobite song or hymn, "The King shall 
 have his own again," on the organ in Carlisle Cathedral, when a prisoner 
 in the sacred edifice, so it was plain that he was past praying for; there 
 was no hope for him. He" was tried when in his gown and cassock, 
 bowelled, and gibbeted in Carlisle. Well might one of the sufferers 
 complain : " For the sake of doing what I thought in my Conscience I 
 ought to do, I am brought here to the Slaughter. . . . Gracious 
 God, deliver all Englishmen from this Hanoverian clemency. Here is 
 an end to the Rage and Malice of my enemies, which I thank God can 
 go no further. Here all their Power ceases." 
 
 Sir Walter Scott has written history and fiction about the men who 
 were " out in the forty-five." Some of them he knew personally ; and he
 
 U UUUUUUUUUUU1IUUUUUJUIJU-JJIJUULIJ 
 
 with ihe heAds of Colonel Too>nJey 
 sorcebody's Jeg- <g> 
 Fron) A prjnl" of
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 117 
 
 recites that, even in his day, and in the best society of Edinburgh, it was 
 considered very bad manners to speak of rebels, or of the Pretender. 
 Men might speak of the King, but as long as the King was not named, 
 they might mean either party, and the company quietly ignored the 
 phrase or interpreted it according to their own inclinations. One old 
 gentleman in Perthshire spoke of the King as the K, even as late as the 
 latter days of George III. The old King heard of it; he was then near 
 to his dotage, a decent, stupid, respectable old man. He commissioned 
 the member for Perthshire to carry his compliments to the steady Jaco- 
 bite "that is, not the compliments of the King of England, but those of 
 the Elector of Hanover, and tell him how much I respect him for the 
 steadiness of his principles." 
 
 Sir Walter himself must have been a Jacobite by nature. His fond- 
 ness for the old families, and his reverence for the past, with its varied 
 associations, seem to have struggled with prudence and policy, and as in 
 his day the long struggle was over, he sided with those who had won 
 and were reigning. There is no doubt it paid him to do so, but what a 
 mistake it seems now when all are past and gone; for, in his own words, 
 "The Jacobite enthusiasm of 1745 afforded a theme perhaps the finest 
 that could be selected for fictitious composition founded upon real 
 incident." Fancy the great Scott, the Wizard of the North, almost 
 worshipping His Sacred Majesty King George IV., even after that 
 August Head of the Church had been warned off Newmarket Heath, as 
 not being good enough to associate with racing men. History relates 
 how Sir Walter treasured the glass out of which his Gracious Sovereign 
 had been drinking (although he had drunk out of a good many glasses
 
 ii8 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 in his time), that he put the glass in his pocket, and then sat upon it and 
 broke it. A very proper ending. 
 
 The student of history cannot help admitting that the Stewarts 
 were the rightful Kings of England according to the statutes 01 
 the realm, the law of primogeniture, and the divine right of kings. 
 The Electors of Hanover received the crown because the majority 
 of the people of England wished them to have it, and thought that 
 under them they would have more freedom and toleration. The 
 kings from Hanover took all they could get, but they only got 
 the crown by the will of the people, and if the day comes when 
 the majority of the people of Great Britain say they are tired of 
 kings, and they will have no more of them, the descendants of 
 these Georges will only be relinquishing what was given to their 
 ancestors. They will not have any right to compensation for vested 
 interests or right divine, when those who gave and elected cease to give 
 or to re-elect. 
 
 If a student of history simply strives to learn from the teachings of 
 history, to learn from the past what is likely to be the best for the 
 present, and for the future, he may learn some lessons and arrive at some 
 conclusions that would have shocked him, and have appeared impossible 
 at one time. For instance, a young man, brought up in the strictest, 
 straitest sect of the Tories, taught to look upon all Radicals or Dissenters 
 as something to be shunned and avoided, finds that the Radicals and 
 Chartists of his youth are classed with the High Church Tories of 
 previous times, and all alike are designated "rebels." The same term 
 being used for the old Tory and the new Radical, for they are both
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 119 
 
 antagonistic to the government, although they are opposed one to 
 another.* 
 
 The young Tory referred to may then be thrown into the society of 
 Radicals and Chartists by the exigencies of business, and by the stern 
 necessity of making his living. He may then find, as I have found, 
 more Chartists than one who had suffered long terms of imprisonment 
 for their advocacy of advanced views, and yet were considered by those 
 who knew them best to be very decent, respectable men. It is a great 
 advance in the education of a Tory to be convinced that a Radical may 
 be what is termed a " really decent chap," after all. The extremes are 
 meeting. Twenty to thirty years ago, in Manchester and the neighbour- 
 hood, there were several old Chartists who had been imprisoned and 
 suffered in various ways for their opinions, who, as old men, were keeping 
 provision shops, and were prosperous and respected. In the back 
 parlours behind their shops they were "rebels" still, but age had made 
 them more cautious, and the times were more tolerant. Then what 
 about those other "rebels," our great grandfathers, the men who were 
 "out in the forty-five;" were they wrong or right? Must we say with 
 Shakespeare, 
 
 A plague upon both your houses, 
 or 
 
 Master, go on, and I will follow thee, 
 To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty. 
 
 * A typical Irishman landing in America, when solicited for his vole, asked if there was a 
 government; on hearing there was one, he replied at once, "Then I'm agen it." The poor 
 Irishman had not studied history, but he had been governed by the priests, aided by the police.
 
 120 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 The cynical jingling rhyme may arise in the memory : 
 
 Treason cannot prosper. 
 
 Would you know the reason ? 
 For, if it should prosper, 
 
 It would not be treason. 
 
 These men, our kinsmen and neighbours, did they worthily suffer for 
 their misdeeds, or did they win the martyr's crown ? Their love and 
 their hate have long since perished. They must have drained the cup 
 of bitterness to the very dregs. They left their mother, or their children, 
 or their lover, when in the prime of their life and in the vigour of their 
 days, when every moment of mere living was a joy. They went with 
 firm, strong step to the torture, the torture that was to end only with 
 death, because they did what in their conscience they thought they 
 ought to do. They prayed that others should endure to the end as they 
 had done, and despise human power when it stands opposed to duty. 
 They forgave their enemies, and they thanked God that "here their 
 power ceases." To the everlasting shame and disgrace of George II., let 
 it be known that this was his pleasure on officers and gentlemen who 
 had surrendered to his officers, on the written promise that their lives 
 should be spared and " they reserved for the King's pleasure." 
 
 As a tale that has been told, this rambling record of Didisburye in 
 the '45 must draw to an end. The time may seem very very long ago, 
 and yet there are links that bind it to the present. There were men and 
 women living then who have told their tales to men and women who are 
 living now. Some of those who were young then, and witnesses of these 
 things, have told them to some who are living now, although one
 
 (3ranOmotber, 
 
 WHO WAS BORN IN 1729, IS REMEMBERED BY
 
 t>er <5ranDDaugbter, 
 
 WHO is NOW (DECEMBER, 1891) LIVING AT DIDSBCRV. 
 
 'A calm old age, serene and bright, 
 And lovely as a summer night."
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 121 
 
 hundred and forty-six years have passed away. This year, since 
 beginning this work, I have followed to his grave in the old chapel yard 
 at Blackley an old man, aged ninety, who had often been told by his 
 grandfather of what he had seen of the Highlanders in the '45. Here 
 are the pictures of an old lady and her granddaughter, who in our own 
 home and neighbourhood may be said to connect the present with the 
 past. The grandmother, Nancy Fletcher, who at Bradshaw Hall, 
 Cheadle, brought up a numerous family, was born in 1729, and she 
 is remembered by her granddaughter, who, thank God, is living still, 
 in 1891, with eye undimmed and natural force unabated. My great 
 grandfather, John Fletcher, was the husband of Nancy and the cousin 
 of Captain George. These are links that bind the present generation to 
 those who witnessed some of the deeds in the '45 : may they long remain 
 unsevered. How immeasurably greater is the freedom of the people 
 now than it was then may be judged by the fact that men who con- 
 scientiously believed they were doing their duty to their country, to their 
 King, and to their God, might be butchered with horrible barbarity, after 
 due process by law, and might vainly ask not to be bowelled before they 
 were dead. 
 
 When our great grandfathers saw the bleeding heads of their kins- 
 folk and friends, held up as traitors and rebels to be baited by the 
 rabble's curse, and they had known their kinsmen to be honourable 
 gentlemen, what account could they give to their children and grand- 
 children of the good old times when they were young? With what 
 prudent and evasive answers an old man would meet the persistent 
 enquiries of youth. The son might ask the sire:
 
 122 
 
 THE KING'S PLEASURE. 
 
 " But what did they cut them up for, fayther ?" 
 
 " Because it was the King's pleasure, my boy." 
 
 " Then what's the use o' Kings, fayther ?" 
 
 " Why, lad, Kings are to rule over us and take the taxes, of course." 
 
 " But who wants em to rule over us an take th' taxes ?" 
 
 " Be quiet, lad, and let the Kings a be." 
 
 " I'm not touching th' King, fayther. But what's the good of 'em ?" 
 
 " Husht, lad, or happen they'll bowel thee."
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 /KeliK*t* * : - _^_' ' ' '' ^-jfcgjfrgfe^f 
 
 CAVING almost finished the MS. of this work, I 
 called upon an old woman whom I had not yet 
 
 ~ 
 
 \/ 
 
 called upon, and who I was told might probably 
 give me some additional information. The result 
 
 was so surprising, that, instead of making sundry 
 additions to that already written, I thought it 
 better to give the old lady's legends in an 
 appendix, and as nearly as I could recollect them in her own words. 
 
 " I dare say I can tell you as much about Didsbury as most of folk, 
 for I were born at the farm again the church, where Highbank now 
 stands, an our family have lived in th' parish for above three hundert 
 years that they could trace. They did ner always live in one house, 
 mind ; part o' th' time they lived at th' Goosecroft, that's where they call 
 Barlow Moor now; they came from Birch, near Manchester, at first. 
 They were always queer folk, th' Birches were, rayther too fond o' 
 fightin, and yet they were mostly scholars, and if onything partikler 
 happent i' th' parish they'd a written it down on a bit o' sheepskin and
 
 I2 4 APPENDIX. 
 
 a kept it; and in time them bits o' sheepskin filled an oaken chest there 
 was, an if you'd seen them they was the best history o' Didsbury that 
 ever was written. 
 
 "'Did I ever see them?' did you say? I'm like as if I could see 
 them now; but keep quiet, Mr. Moss, an I'll tell you all about them, 
 though they are all gone now. Some on em went back to th' times 
 when Didsbury Church was made of wood and belonged to the Roman 
 Catholics. When th' Reeformation was, we turned our religion same as 
 the rest o' folk turned theirs, but we allus kept Church and King men, 
 an we're for Church and King yet ; they'd a shed the last drop o' blood 
 for Church and King. There never was but one Radical in th' family, 
 an he fought for Oliver Cromwell ; his name was Thomas. Yea, there 
 was my Uncle John, he was a Leveller; he was on the hustings with 
 Hunt, at Peterloo; you've heard of that happen. Some o' th' Birches* 
 fought for Charles, an when Cromwell's men came to Didsbury Church, 
 ours helped to beat them back ; not that there was much in it 
 to fight for, but Didsbury folk was always for Church and 
 King. 
 
 "Did we spell our name with a j? Some folk spelt it Burche ; for 
 grandfather said that was the name of a man, but Birch was the name of 
 a tree. They spell it any way now, it matters nothing nowadays how 
 we spell it ; they was better off then, and had lands of their own ; 
 
 * There appears to have been several Colonels Birch in the Parliamentarian army. 
 Colonel John Birch, from Herefordshire or Bristol, buried at Weobley, was a member of the 
 Lancashire family. The Birches had acquired the Birch Hall estate about the middle of the 
 thirteenth century.
 
 APPENDIX. 125 
 
 there's fields in Didsbury to-day called after us, but they're gone 
 from us. 
 
 " Can I tell you anything about the Highlanders in '45 ? Yes, I can 
 tell you many things if I've time. My grandfather was a lad then; he'd 
 used to take us childer on his knee and tell us things as happent, but 
 when he spoke of th' rebels and beheading them, my heart failed me, 
 and I couldn't bide to hear. I was only th' younger end of em. I wish 
 you could a heard th' old folks. Grandfather's been dead sixty years or 
 more, fully that; he were eighty-five, and two yards high, an as straight 
 as a stick when he died ; he lies close to your garden by th' lane side. 
 Some of his sons were taller than him, one of em was in th' Life Guards, 
 but they are all gone now. If he wasn't sure of the date of anything, 
 he'd say to us, 'Thee go and fetch that bit o' sheepskin out o' th' box," 
 and read that, it '11 tell thi.' Some on em were very old and faded, and 
 hard to read; th' writing was different in them days. His father was 
 driving his cows at th' end o' Dark Lane and Birch fields when the 
 Highlanders came up, and they took th' boots off his feet ; but they was 
 only clogs he'd made hissen, made o' wood, with a bit o' leather, so they 
 wouldner have em, but threw them in th' river, an they went floatin 
 down th' stream. They took all th' horses i' th' country; they couldn't 
 take his, cos they was cows he had; he had no horses, they weren't 
 so common then. Which way did they come? Why, they come 
 along the old road, and he were near the back way to Parr's 
 Wood." 
 
 I had never before heard or seen of any road in Didsbury being 
 called the old road, but the reader who is acquainted with the district
 
 126 APPENDIX. 
 
 may see it is exactly the route I had given in the fourth chapter as 
 being taken by the Prince's army. 
 
 "The old road was called the old road by the old folks cos it used 
 to be the old road to Manchester afore their time; it went by Boulton 
 Wood and Slate, an what I called th' back way to Parr's Wood is by 
 Dark Lane, it's now th' front way; things awter so. Th' Highlanders 
 were very well behaved on th' whole, though there was a fight at Scotch- 
 croft, for bones an things have often been found there when they've 
 been ploughing. Kingston isn't an old name; it was Bethell's flats in 
 my time. 
 
 "Did I ever hear of George Fletcher's head being stuck up in 
 London ? Of course I did ; but I tell you my heart used to fail me at 
 hearing o' them things. I remember old George Fletcher, that was 
 called after his uncle George, who was beheaded ; he was living when I 
 was a girl, and grandfather used to say he was a bit proud, cos when 
 common folk got hanged, Fletchers got beheaded, showing they was 
 better than common folk.* He was only a littlish chap, but he thought 
 rather much o' hissel. Then there was another man had his head taen 
 off i' that affair. He lies i' th' church yard wi his head fastened to his 
 body with a broad black ribbon round his neck. His name was 
 Seymour, his head was cut off at Lancaster, or somewhere up north 
 (perhaps Carlisle); but he was akin to us, and they brought him here, 
 and buryet him at night, for they darednet do it openly. He lies near 
 
 * During some centuries of England's history the victims of State-Trials were allowed the 
 privilege of being beheaded if they were of "gentle blood," otherwise they were hanged. 
 Therefore the old lady's remark bore strong internal evidence as to the truth of her story.
 
 APPENDIX. 127 
 
 th' sun dial where Phillips, of Bank top, made their vault after; he wasn't 
 a Didsbury man, but he lies there I tell you, for he was akin to us, and 
 was put in one of our graves. He was great uncle on the mother's side 
 to my Aunt Nanny; her name was Hannah, and she'd married her 
 cousin Birch, of Ardwick, and her aunt left her Seymour's picture, but 
 she gave it away to some ladies in Manchester who wanted it badly; 
 and our folk saw him in his coffin with th' broad black ribbon round his 
 neck holding his head on." 
 
 Here was another surprise for me. I had never heard of this man 
 either in history, "tradition, legend, tune, or song," and yet the old lady's 
 tale was too precise in its details not to be true; even the man's name 
 savoured of Church and King. 
 
 "Which side did your people take then, missus?" 
 
 "They was always for Church and King." 
 
 "But in those days it was the Church and King men that were 
 called rebels ?" 
 
 "I cannot say how that may be, I think we kept quiet that time; 
 but we was always for Church and King." They took extreme 
 measures to keep Seymour quiet, I thought, and as nothing further 
 seemed to be known about him, I asked about the Duke's 
 Hillock. 
 
 "Do I know how th' Duke's Hillock came by its name; aye, cos 
 there were two Dukes buried there in th' time of th' rebellion. There's 
 bin more rebellions than one, I don't know which rebellion ; but there 
 was two Dukes I've always heard." 
 
 Here again the old lady's tale agrees with what I had written,
 
 128 APPENDIX. 
 
 excepting as to the burial of the Dukes, and history would almost 
 certainly have mentioned the burial of two Dukes if it had ever taken 
 place. The Dukes of Perth and Atholl were almost undoubtedly at 
 Didsbury in 1745 with the Prince's army; and they, and the greater 
 part of the army, must have rested on or about the village green, while 
 the first rough bridge of poplar trees was being made. The date of the 
 fall of this bridge I had found from the church registers ; but the date 
 of the fall of the next wooden bridge I had never been able to learn ; a 
 tradition said it fell in a flood time, just as old Mary Astle, of Gatley, 
 was crossing in a higgler's cart Now, at last, I get the desired informa- 
 tion by learning when the third bridge was built. 
 
 "Cheddle first stone bridge was built in 1777. How do I know? I 
 know very well, cos my uncle William, and old Sammy Gaskill the last 
 parish clerk, was both born i' the same year, three sevens, and they 
 allus said it was the same year as the first stone bridge (stone, mind you) 
 to Cheddle was built, that was 1777 ; and the man that built it was 
 killed by the scaffolding falling on him as they took it down ; his 
 name wur Chandley; there's black Chandleys and red Chandleys at 
 Cheddle still." 
 
 I had heard the red Chandleys were builders even now, and I re- 
 membered the last clerk of Didsbury as an old man, and making a small 
 mental calculation I found the old lady was about right as to the time 
 of his birth. Like most of the old Didsbury folk who never bothered 
 with doctors or change of air, Sam Gaskill, the last clerk, lived to be 
 long past the fourscore years, for I remember him and others much 
 older than he was, regularly going to the Holy Well for the water for
 
 APPENDIX. 129 
 
 their households. As in patriarchal and primitive times the villagers 
 went to the well or spring at eventide and tarried and talked while the 
 water flowed. It mattered nought to them that the water flowed from 
 the churchyard, from the burial-place of their forefathers; they had 
 always been healthy as their forefathers had been healthy, and they 
 wanted no other water and would have no other; that always bubbled 
 up fresh and sparkling in summer or winter, in drought or frost, and 
 never failed. Only this week I noticed a gravestone over four of 
 the natives, and their average age was eighty-seven. One of them was 
 one hundred and one, and an adjoining stone recorded ninety-seven. 
 Then I asked the old lady if she was "owt akin" to the John Gaskill 
 who was buried at Didsbury after being shut up in Gibraltar for twenty- 
 four years, having gone through the memorable siege of red-hot ball 
 notoriety under General Elliott. She replied, " I don't know ; th' Gaskills 
 were ner very warlike ; they were ill-tempered enoo, they were that, but 
 they would ner fight. I can tell you a true ghost story about Didsbury 
 that it isn't everyone knows, for th' house is haunted yet if the folks only 
 knew that lives in it. That's the Swivel House; oh, not the one you 
 mean; there may have been two houses called th' Swivel House. 
 Swivels were machines, handlooms for making tapes an such like, and 
 once upon a time there was an old man called Sam Dean lived there, 
 who kept a lot o' swivels. He was thought to be very rich, for he was 
 an old bachelor, but when he died th' money was missin, an a fine hand- 
 some lady, in old-fashioned dress, used to come again in the night time 
 an 'walk' an frighten folk. Miss Nanny Broome lived there a bit, but 
 no one would stop with her cos o' th' house being haunted. Then Mrs. 
 J
 
 130 APPENDIX. 
 
 Markland came a rich lady. That chair that you are sitting on 
 was her mother's, so it's an old one. My mother was housekeeper for 
 her, an there were two menservants slept in th' house, but they were 
 feart, an my mother said it were nothing but their silly fancies ; an Mrs. 
 Markland said, ' Margaret, you may have anyone to sleep with you you 
 like,' but she would ner. However, one morning in June, when it's 
 mostly light aw neet, mother heard someone coming upstairs in wooden- 
 heeled shoes, as the ladies used to wear, an then a silken gown rustled, an 
 a fine lady, in a rich green brocade with lace, came an stood by th' bedside, 
 although the door was fastened. Mother sat up quite calm, an they looked 
 at one another a bit, an neither spoke. Then the lady for she was a 
 handsome lady, and richly dressed, according to a fashion that was old 
 then, for mother could have told you everything she had on and what 
 was in her hair then the lady beckoned to her and glided backwards 
 through the door, fast as it was, and kept on slowly beckoning, so." Then 
 the old lady showed me how the ghost beckoned and glided backwards, 
 and an awesome sensation seemed to come over us, as of times long since 
 gone by. It had gradually become quite dark. "Round about the 
 tempest thundered," for the weather was very wild and wet in the end 
 of August, 1891. I had been sitting for nearly two hours in wet clothes 
 in a lonesome house with an old woman, six cats, and a stuffed parrot. 
 My two dogs had been left outside on the doorstep, and they were 
 getting impatient ; they were probably anxious to know if anything 
 was wrong, as the smell of cats would be rather strong to them, and 
 make them suspicious. As they whined and scratched at the door the 
 cats became uneasy; their eyes glistened in the flickering fire-light as
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 they blinked and gibbered at one another. I looked to see if there was 
 a birch broom lying handy, and at the chimney to see if there was 
 space for a broomstick held slantwise to pass up or down, and then I 
 wondered what would be the effect of a Paternoster said either back- 
 wards or forwards. A High Cockalorum seemed not unlikely, but 
 overcoming such gruesome thoughts I asked if there were any ghosts 
 nearer to nowadays. Well, it had been said that house where we were 
 sitting was haunted, and threshing had been heard i 1 th' night time i' th' 
 barn, but she had seen nothing, and the threshing in the barn was 
 probably a dim survival of the legend of Hob the hobgoblin. The 
 man that was murdered near to in Dark Lane some folk said used 
 to walk; but then folk didner go that way now, since them at Parr's 
 Wood closed the road, but she'd gone that road scores o' times, both 
 walking and in a cart, but now she had to go round, an it made it much 
 longer. 
 
 Here the old lady's folk-lore ended, for it seemed uncanny to 
 be talking of witches and fairies as the fire burnt low and the storm 
 got worse. Lights are not much used by those who rise at five 
 and go to bed betimes ; so, having spent a very pleasant evening, 
 I went forth into the storm, to grope my way across the fields in 
 as dark and wild a night as our English harvests almost ever knew. 
 In keeping with the time, a veritable screech owl screeched its hoarse 
 good night, as, stumbling along, I mused over many things. The old 
 parchments, where were they? If any were in existence, I must ferret 
 them out; but the chance of recovering any was small indeed. Does the 
 reader remember that when Carlyle had written his "Letters of Oliver
 
 132 APPENDIX. 
 
 Cromwell" he had ransacked everywhere and everything to find any trace 
 of genuine information about his great hero, and when the work was 
 published there came to him one day, from an unknown correspondent, 
 a Copy of thirty-five letters of Oliver's, with notices of other old docu- 
 ments as kept by Sam Squire, Cornet and Auditor of the Ironsides. The 
 letters Carlyle stated to have been of indubitable authenticity, the original 
 autographs to have been worth hundreds of pounds; the Journal of an 
 Ironside he prized as probably the most curious document in the Archives 
 of England, not to be estimated in tens of thousands, and yet the unknown 
 correspondent, with closed lips, with sacrificial eyes, and terrible hand 
 and mood, sternly consumed them all with fire, saying, " Much evil here 
 lies buried." He and his kindred had lived under the shadow of a 
 Cathedral city for three hundred years ; some had been Roundheads, 
 some had been Royalists, and he knew what Oliver Cromwell was in the 
 minds of the men and night birds that dwelt there, and how they might 
 blaze up into fierce contentions; therefore he did not wish even his name 
 to be mentioned, but to let the old sorrows and animosities be buried 
 in kindly oblivion. 
 
 I also thought what a treasure the old documents about Didsbury, 
 that I now heard of for the first time, might be. There was a Colonel 
 Birch rated to the relief of the poor at Didsbury in 1655 ; he was probably 
 Colonel Thomas Birch of the Parliamentarian army, and of the same 
 family as the old lady to whom I had been talking. An endless vista of 
 local historical discoveries seemed to unfold itself, but it was only as a 
 dream. The bits of old sheepskin are all lost, and yet I had heard the 
 contents of some of them, and the one relating to Seymour in his coffin,
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 '33 
 
 with the black ribbon round his neck holding his head on, and his burial 
 at Didisburye in the '45, is to me undoubtedly true. 
 
 How strange it is that this old gentlewoman should be earning her 
 daily bread for herself and a decrepit husband by the sweat of her brow, 
 rising at five in the morning, winter and summer, walking two miles 
 to her work, and having done so for over sixty years, and yet her con- 
 versation is more intellectual than a deal of the empty babble and chatter 
 that society conventionally calls conversation. Family pride and the 
 pride of long descent have helped her in life's long struggle. The 
 scientific philosopher would say it was a case of atavism. The old 
 farmer would say, " th' breed '11 tell." 
 
 WELYETH 
 IOBIM5HEL
 
 MANCHESTER : 
 
 EXAMINER PRINTING WORKS, 
 PALL MALL.
 
 REVIEWS OF "DIDSBURY" BY THE MANCHESTER PRESS. 
 
 " DIDSBURY: SKETCHES, REMINISCENCES, AND LEGENDS OF," 
 
 By the same Author. 
 
 The Manchester Guardian says : " There are few places whose history will not be found 
 interesting, if only you are lucky enough to meet with someone who knows all about them 
 and is willing to impart his knowledge. These qualifications Mr. Moss undoubtedly possesses 
 as regards Didsbury. ... If there be such a thing as the genius of the place, he is 
 probably better entitled than anyone else to be considered its incarnation. . . . The book 
 is, moreover, full of salt touches of homely and sometimes rather pungent humour expressed 
 in racy vernacular. We rather like the flavouring. " 
 
 The Courier says : " In a pleasant, gossiping volume Mr. Fletcher Moss not only records 
 his personal recollections of the Didsbury of former days, but has summoned to his aid some of 
 the older inhabitants, and gathered from them a mass of legendary lore now fast fading from 
 their memories, with local incidents, scraps of family history, . . . many interesting par- 
 ticulars respecting the church, with extracts from the registers, copies of the more notable 
 inscriptions, remarks on the origin of the names, &c. . . . The work is pleasant, chatty, 
 and entertaining, and cannot fail to be interesting to Lancashire men generally, and to the 
 people of Didsbury in particular." 
 
 The Examiner says : "Men of some reading and taste, living in a small country town or 
 village, could hardly better employ their leisure time than in collecting and recording the 
 history and traditions of the neighbourhood. To the men who make these records our most 
 hearty thanks are the smallest guerdon we can offer, and Mr. Moss should receive them without 
 stint. He has written of one of Lancashire's oldest villages a most pleasant book, free from 
 personal bias, free from wilful misstatement, and free from tediousness." 
 
 The City News says: "One of the rarest of literary productions is a readable local 
 history, and Mr. Fletcher Moss may fairly be congratulated upon having made an addition to 
 the number. More delightful he could not possibly have been, nor could he have produced 
 anything more racy or more genuinely characteristic in the description of the old-fashioned 
 natives. Mr. Moss is a representative of one of the oldest families in the village, being able to 
 trace back his ancestry on his mother's side as residents in the place for at least three hundred 
 and thirty years. . . . It is this personal touch, this penetrating feeling, that he belongs 
 in no common measure to the place about which he writes, that gives unity and enthusiasm to 
 Mr. Moss's little book. For the rest, whilst the record is delightfully chatty, and free, and 
 unconventional, there is no lack of the solid information which goes to the making of a trust- 
 worthy history. . . . He brightens his narrative with abundance of anecdotes, particularly 
 the odd sayings of the ancient natives. Almost every page tempts to a quotation. . . . We 
 take leave of a charming book with reluctance. The accomplished and delightful writer Dr. 
 Jessop will find in Mr. Fletcher Moss a literary worker after his own heart, and higher praise 
 we could not give."
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 Form L9-Series 444