Chapter IV: Athelstan's Great Victory at Brunanburh, A.d. 937., (2)

"Two of them in particular, _Weardune and Wendune_, I have never seen noticed by any modern writer, yet _Weardune appears to me the most important name_, if Brunanburh be excepted, and EVEN THIS IS NOT MORE SO. As to Wendune it is evidently a mistake in the transcribing for Werdune, the Anglo-Saxon _r_ being merely _n_, with a long bottom stroke on the left."

Mr. Weddle finds a Warden Hill, about two miles from the farm-house in "Chollerford field," in the neighbourhood of Brunton. This he considers as very conclusive evidence in favour of the locality being the Brunanburh of which we are in search. If such be the case, the existence of Wearden, or Worden, in the immediate neighbourhood of Brunhill, Bamber, and Brunedge, must unquestionably be more so, and especially when taken in connection with the large amount of corroborative evidence with which it is surrounded. The term Weardune is sometimes written Weondune, which, after the correction of the _n_, as suggested by Mr. Weddle, is Weorden. The ancient seat of the Faringtons, of Leyland and Farington, is variously written Werden, Worden, and Wearden, and it is pronounced by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood Wearden at the present day. It must have been a place of some importance in the time of the Roman occupation. Many coins, and a heavy gold[37] signet ring, bearing the letters S P Q R, have been found there. The place is situated near the great Roman highway, and, if Anlaf's troops covered the "pass of the Ribble" near Brunhull, Brunburh and Brunedge, Wearden is precisely the neighbourhood where Athelstan's forces, coming from the south, would encamp in front of them. Dr. Kuerden, upwards of two centuries ago, describes the northern boundary of the township of Euxton-burgh as the "Werden broke." Mr. Baines states that there is in Leyland churchyard "a stone of the 14th century, covering all that remains of the Weardens of Golden Hill." It is highly probable that the present Cuerden is itself a corruption of Wearden. The prefix Cuer is found in Cuerden, Cuerdale (where the great hoard was found), and Cuerdley near Prescot, and in no other part of England. The names in the locality, as I have previously said, are not recorded in the Domesday survey, but the Norman-French generally represented the English sound _w_ by _gu_. Philologists regard the consonants _c_, _q_, _ch_, and _g_, as "identical" or "convertible," consequently, if I assume the initial _C_ in Cuerden to be equivalent to _G_, we have a Norman-French method of writing Wearden. That _cu_ was used to represent the sound of our _w_, is demonstrated by a reference to the survey itself, for in the Domesday record, Fishwick, now a portion of the borough of Preston, and situated on the opposite bank of the Ribble to Cuerdale, is actually written Fiscuic. Leland, too, in his Itinerary, spells the river Cocker indifferently with the initials C, G, and K. The district in the parish of Leyland, anciently styled _Cunnolvesmores_, is sometimes found written _Gunoldsmores_.

Simeon of Durham says the battle was fought near Weondune, or _Ethrunanwerch_, or Brunnan byrge. I have never seen any attempt to identify this Ethrunanwerch with any modern locality in any part of the country. There is no such name to be found now, nor anything suggestive of it, in a gazetteer of England and Wales, and I therefore presume that it has either entirely disappeared or become so altered as to be unrecognizable. Consequently, if I fail in an attempt to identify it, not much injury will result therefrom. The termination _werch_ presents no difficulty. It is evidently _worth_, as in Saddleworth, Shuttleworth, etc., and could easily give place to some other suffix indicating residence or occupation, or even locality. The prefix Ethrunan is more difficult to deal with, and I should perhaps not have attempted its solution, if I had not seen on a map the name Rother applied to one of the head waters which, uniting near Stockport, form the Mersey. This stream is generally called the Etherow.[38] This is the nearest approach to Ethrunan that I have been able to meet with. If _rother_, by a kind of metathesis, is an equivalent to _ether_, perhaps I can detect two distinct remains of the word Ethrunanwerch, in the neighbourhood of Wearden. On the ordnance map we have, about a mile from Werden Hall, Rotherham Top, and a stream, recently diverted for the purpose of the Liverpool water supply, named the Roddlesworth. This word implies a place on the bank of a stream, and as the _d_ and _th_ are phonetic equivalents, it may be read Rothelsworth or Ethrunlesworth; indeed, Mr. Baines expressly says, "Withnall, or Withnell, also a part of the lordship of Gunoldsmores, containing Rothelsworth, a name derived from Roddlesworth, or Mouldenwater, a rapid stream." On the one-inch to the mile ordnance map there is a name which preserves the form of the first part of the word without the transposition, or metathesis, to which I have referred. Not far from Worden Hall is a small hamlet named "Ethrington." The fact that these names exist in the neighbourhood strengthens the probability that the etymology is not altogether fanciful, and consequently lends support to the presumption that the locality suggested may be the true site of Athelstan's great victory.

I have said that there are several places in Lancashire, even, which answer to Brunan or Brun. The following are amongst the number: On the Wyre, near the commencement of the Roman agger or "_Danes' Pad_," as it is locally termed, which led from the Portus Setantiorum of Ptolemy to York, is a place named Bourne, written in the Domesday survey Brune. Bourne Hall is situated upon a "dune" or hill, which commands a relatively recently blocked up channel of the Wyre. Therefore Brunnandune or Brunford would strictly apply to it. Bryning-with-Kellamergh, near _Warton_, in the parish of Kirkham, is described in a charter of the reign of John, as Brichscrach _Brun_ and Kelmers_burgh_. In the time of Henry III. it is described as Brininge. Not far from Rochdale is a spot named "Kildanes," near Bamford. The site is not much more than two miles from a place named Burnedge or Brunedge. There is a Burnage between Manchester and Stockport. Burnley is situated on the river Burn, generally, however, called the Brun. This demonstrates how utterly impossible it is to identify the locality by the name Brunanburh. The Manchester, Rochdale, and Burnley sites are too far from the seashore. The fine old poem, describing the battle, says emphatically--"There were made flee the Northman's chieftain, By need constrained, To the ship's prow, With a little band. The bark drove afloat--The king departed--On the fallow flood his life he preserved." And, again, the poem says--"The Northmen departed In their nailed barks; Bloody relic of darts; On roaring ocean, O'er the deep water, DUBLIN to seek; Again Ireland shamed in mind." And further--"West Saxons onwards Throughout the day, In numerous bands, Pursued the footsteps of the loathed nations." I therefore contend that, in this particular, as well as those already disposed of, the "pass of the Ribble" answers to the locality of the struggle, as described by contemporary authority. Where this topographical feature is wanting, I hold it to be fatal. The ships of Anlaf might be attending the army in the estuaries of the Ribble or Wyre, and to them the defeated and routed forces would, of course, repair with headlong speed, after crossing the fords, the defence of which they had so gallantly, if unsuccessfully, attempted. During this hasty retreat, I contend it is highly probable the great Cuerdale hoard was deposited, and, owing to death, or other disaster, the precise locality could not be determined in after times, although the tradition of its deposition remained. There is plenty of analagous evidence in support of such a conjecture, to some of which I have already referred. In the seventh volume of "Collectania Antiqua," Mr. Charles Roach Smith, referring to the then recent discovery near the Roman station, "Procolitia," near the great Roman Wall, of an enormous mass (15,000) of Roman coins, weighing about 400 pounds, says he regards the hoard as part of the money set apart for the payment of the troops occupying the adjoining castrum, which, _owing to some sudden panic in the reign of Gratian_, was concealed in the well or fountain dedicated to a local divinity, Conesstina. The Saxon Chronicle, as well as Ethelwerd, as I have already stated, refer to the burying of treasure under similar circumstances. The former says--"This year (A.D. 418) the Romans collected all the treasures that were in Britain, and some they hid in the earth, so that no one has since been able to find them, and some they carried with them into Gaul."

Athelstan's connection with Preston and its neighbourhood, at the head of his army, is attested by stronger evidence than mere tradition. In the year 930 he granted the whole of the hundred of Amounderness to the cathedral church at York. He is said to have "_purchased_" the territory with his own money, a somewhat remarkable financial operation for a conquering king in the tenth century, in Anglo-Saxon and Pagan Danish times. But perhaps a previous grant to the church at Ripon influenced him in this matter.

In the early part of the seventeenth century lived one William Elston, who, in a MS. entitled, "Mundana Mutabilia, or Ethelestophylax," now in the Harleian collection in the British Museum, placed upon record the following interesting particulars relative to this monarch--"It was once told me by Mr. Alexander Elston, who was uncle to my father and sonne to Ralph Elston, my great grandfather, that the said Ralph Elston had a deede or a copy of a deede in the Saxon tongue, wherein it did appear that king _Ethelstan lying in camp in this county upon occacon of warres_, gave the land of Ethelston vnto one to whom himself was Belsyre." (godfather).

The township of Elston, in the parish of Preston, formerly written Ethelstan, is situated on the north bank of the Ribble a little above Cuerdale and Red Scar.

To the south of Brindle and the east of Worden, near Whittle Springs, is a large tumulus, and the hill side on which it is situated has the appearance of having been, at some time, disturbed by human agency. A Roman vicinal way, from Wigan to Blackburn, or Mellor, where it joins the main highway from Manchester to Ribchester, passes near it. Remains of this road were discovered near Adlington not many years ago. Another ancient road, probably of similar origin, leaves the main Roman military way from Warrington to Lancaster at Bamberbridge, and running in the direction of Manchester, crosses this in its neighbourhood. This tumulus is named "Pickering Castle;" which has an important significance. Tumuli are often termed "castles." We have the "Castle Hill" near Newton-in-Mackerfield, and the "Castle Hill" at Penwortham, near Preston. The tumulus near to "Whittle Springs" is very similar to these in appearance, and may, on excavation, prove to be a sepulchral mound. Pickering, according to the method of interpretation adopted by John Mitchell Kemble, in his "Saxons in England," should indicate the "Mark" of a sept or clan bearing that name, like the Faringas as at Farington, Billingas as at Billington, and many others. But there is not the slightest reference by any writer of such a name ever holding property in the neighbourhood, and Mr. Kemble places the Pickering, in Yorkshire, only among the probable instances, as he had never met with any account of a Saxon family or mark answering to it. As the letters _P_ and _V_ are interchangeable sounds, "vikingring" has been suggested as the original form of the word. Dr. Smith, in his annotations to Marsh's "Lectures on the English Languages," speaks of the "Danes being led by the vikings, the younger sons of their royal houses." As the old poem says--"Five kings lay on the battle-stead. Youthful kings By swords in slumber laid. So seven eke Of Anlaf's earls, Of the army countless." This interpretation seems not improbable; yet it may be no more than an accidental coincidence rather than a legitimate derivation. As _P_ and _B_ are equally interchangeable consonants, I am inclined to think that "Bickering Castle" may have been the original name of the tumulus. _Bicra_, in the modern Welsh, means to fight, from whence our word _bickering_. In this case, _ing_ meaning field, the interpretation would be the "Castle of the Battle-Field." There is some good analogy in support of this view. Mr. Thos. Baines, in his "Lancashire and Cheshire: Past and Present," says--"The _Peck_forton Hills extend from Beeston Castle to the Dee. On one of them _Bicker_ton Hill, 500 feet high, is a strong camp with a double line of earthworks. One front overlooks the plain of Cheshire. The earthwork is called the "Maiden Castle." Not far from Bickerton Hill is Bickley, where, according to Ormerod, certain brass tablets were recently discovered, recording a grant of the freedom of the city of Rome to certain troops serving in Britain in the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98-117, some of whom may have been stationed in the neighbourhood where the tablets were found. We have in Lancashire the township of Bickerstaffe, and an adjoining wood named Bickershaw. Bickerstaffe was anciently written Bicker_stat_ and Bykyr_stath_. Stadt, stad, or stead means a station or settlement. Thus we have battle-wood and battle-stead. We have seen that the old poem says--"Five kings lay on the _battle-stead_, youthful kings, by swords in slumber laid." Besides, we find Bicker and Bickering in Lincolnshire, and Bickerton in both Northumberland and the East Riding of Yorkshire. Whatever this may be worth, it is most desirable that this tumulus should be dug into, for remains might, and probably would, be found which could throw additional light upon the subject of the present investigation.

In the yard of Brindle Parish Church, beneath the chancel window, is an ancient stone coffin, with a circular hollow for the head of the corpse. Nothing further is known respecting it, beyond that it was dug up somewhere in the neighbourhood, and had been removed to its present position with a view to its preservation.

In 1867 I examined the Ancient British burial mound and its contents, then recently discovered in the park land attached to Whitehall, and contiguous to that of Low Hill House, the residence of Mr. Ellis Shorrock, at Over Darwen, and contributed a paper respecting it to the Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Historic Society. In that paper I say--"I heard that there is a tradition, yet implicitly relied on, which speaks of a battle fought in the olden time somewhere in the neighbourhood of Tockholes in the Roddlesworth valley, and stories that remains, including those of horses, have been found, which are believed to confirm it. Respecting this I may have something to say in a future paper." What I have to say is this: that if a severe struggle took place near the tumulus to which I have referred, the routed army, following the Roman vicinal way to Ribchester, would pass by the locality, which is not far distant. This adds another link in the chain of evidence by which I have sought to demonstrate that the _most probable_ site of Athelstan's great victory at Brunanburh is that which I have indicated near the famous "pass of the Ribble," to the south of Preston, and that the great Cuerdale hoard of treasure was buried on the bank of the stream, during the disastrous retreat of the routed confederate armies.

In the appendix to the "History of Preston and its Environs," published in 1857, after discussing Mr. Weddle's objections to a Lancashire site, I concluded with the following words--"These reasons, in conjunction with those advanced in the second chapter of this work, induce the author to prefer the locality, in the present state of the evidence, as the _most probable_ site of the 'battle of the Brun.'"

Although the evidence advanced in its favour on the present occasion is considerably in excess of that previously obtainable, I still merely reassert my previous conviction, without dogmatism, that, on weighing the whole of the evidence yet adduced, I am justified in maintaining that the site I name is the _most probable_ which has yet been suggested; indeed, there is very little reliable evidence in favour of any other. But, in conclusion, I again reiterate what I wrote twenty-five years ago, when dealing with the Roman topography of the county, that "no permanent settlement of so difficult a question ought to be insisted upon, until every means of investigation and all the resources of logical inference have been fairly exhausted."

I have already said that the neighbourhood of Preston and "the pass of the Ribble," as might have been expected from its topographical position, and consequent strategical importance, has been the scene of many known conflicts. Robert Bruce, in 1323, burned the town, but ventured no further southward. Holinshed says he "entered into England, by Carlisle, kept on his way through Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancaster, to Preston, which town he burnt, as he had done others in the counties he had passed through, and, after three weeks and three days, he returned into Scotland without engaging."

Dr. Kuerden, writing shortly before the guild of 1682, laments the destruction of documentary evidence relating to this famous Preston festival during the turmoil of civil war. After enumerating the dates of those still preserved, in his day, in the Corporation records, he says--"These are such as doth appeare within the Records and Gild Books, that yet remain extant and in being, though some I conceive to be omitted, as one Gild in Henry 6th dayes occasion'd, as I conceive, in those distractions and civil wars betwixt the Houses of Lancaster and York; another Gild Merchant omitted to be kept in K. H. 8th dayes, occasioned, as may be thought, by the Revolutions at that time in Church affayres; the next that are wanting may be through the loss of Records in K. Edw. 3rd dayes [_sic._] wheras the Scottish army burnt the Burrough of Preston to the very ground." Kuerden is in error with reference to the king's reign in which this disaster occurred; Bruce's foray took place in the reign of Edward II.

In the "History of Preston and its Environs," p. 50, I say--"A tradition still remains that Roman Ribchester was destroyed by an earthquake; another that it was reduced to ashes in the early part of the fourteenth century, during the great inroad of the Scots under Bruce. Both are highly improbable. Had Roman Ribchester remained a place of any importance till the period referred to, it could scarcely have failed to have attracted the notice of some of the elder chroniclers or topographers. True, the _Saxon village_ may have shared the fate of Preston, in the celebrated foray of our northern neighbours, and hence the tradition! An earthquake in England, of sufficient magnitude to bury a Roman 'city,' (to use the elder Whitaker's emphatic style,) '_must_' have found some one to record it. Other facts, however, demonstrate that this tradition can have no better foundation than the vague conjecture of ignorant peasants; who, on first discovering remains of ancient buildings beneath the soil, naturally attributed their subterranean location to the action of some earthquake, in that mysterious period usually denominated the 'olden time.'" In Leland's day, the remains of the Roman temple dedicated to Minerva were believed to have been connected with Jewish religious rites and ceremonies, from the simple fact that they knew of no other non-Christian sect with whom to associate them.

At the commencement of the campaign in 1643 between Charles I. and the Parliament, General Fairfax, from his head quarters at Manchester, ordered an attack upon Preston, then garrisoned by the king's troops. The town was at that time fortified by "inner and outer walls of brick," no vestige of which now remains, although it was recently not very difficult to trace their site. The command was entrusted to General Sir John Seaton. Captain Booth led the attack, and scaled the outer wall. The garrison defended the inner wall with great valour, "with push of pike," until Sir John Seaton, having stormed the defences on the eastern side, entered the town by Church-street, when they were overpowered, and the Parliamentary army obtained complete possession of the town, but not before the mayor, Adam Morte, and his son, had fallen in the conflict.

Colonel Rosworm, the celebrated Parliamentary engineer, afterwards refortified the town. Shortly afterwards Major-General Seaton and Colonel Ashton marched from Preston, with the view to relieve Lancaster, then besieged by the Earl of Derby. The earl drew off his troops on their approach, and falling suddenly on Preston, in its then defenceless state, stormed the works in three places. After an hour's severe fighting the place surrendered. Lord Derby secured the magazine, and destroyed the military works, fearing the place might again fall into the enemy's hands.

In August, 1664, a smart little struggle took place at Ribble Bridge, which Colonel Shuttleworth thus describes in his dispatch--"Right Honourable,--Upon Thursday last, marching with three of my troops upon Blackburn towards Preston, where the ennemie lay, I met eleven of their colours at Ribble Bridge, within a mile of Preston, whereupon, after a sharp fight, we took the Lord Ogleby, a Scotch Lord, Colonel Ennis, one other colonel slaine, one major wounded, and divers officers and soldiers to the number of forty in all taken, besides eight or nine slaine, with the losse of twelve men taken prisoners, which afterwards were released by Sir John Meldrum upon his coming to Preston the night following, from whence the enemy fled."

Four years afterwards, Cromwell achieved his great victory over the Duke of Hamilton and the Marquis of Langdale. Reference has been made, in the previous chapter, to the rapid march of the Parliamentary forces from Skipton, by Clitheroe, to Stonyhurst, where they encamped on the evening of August 16th, 1648. Some difference respecting the then famous "Covenant" prevented Langdale's forces from combining heartily with those of the Duke. His English troops were encamped on Ribbleton Moor, to the east of Preston. Hamilton's Scotch forces were widely scattered. Some of his advanced horse lay at Wigan; his main army occupied Preston, while his rear, under Monro, were in the neighbourhood of Garstang. Short work was made, notwithstanding the great numerical superiority, with such discipline and divided councils, by a soldier of Cromwell's calibre. In the words of Thomas Carlyle, he "dashed in upon him, cut him in two, drove him north _and_ south, into as miserable ruin as his worst enemy could wish." "The bridge of Ribble" was fiercely contested. When the Parliamentary troops, with "push of pike" (Cromwell's equivalent for the modern phrase "at the point of the bayonet"), at length prevailed, the duke's army retreated over the Darwen, which joins the Ribble in the immediate neighbourhood. Night put an end to the conflict. Before daylight the Royalist army decamped, but was hotly pursued, through Chorley, Wigan, and Warrington, into the midland counties, and rapidly destroyed. The Duke of Hamilton was taken prisoner at Uttoxeter, and a similar fate befel Langdale at Nottingham.[39]

This victory is celebrated as one of Cromwell's greatest military achievements, by Milton, in his famous sonnet:--

TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL.

Cromwell, our chief of men, who, through a cloud
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way has plough'd,
And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies and his work pursued,
WHILE DARWEN STREAM WITH BLOOD OF SCOTS IMBUED,
And Dunbar field resound thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than War; new foes arise
Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains:
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

The number of the troops engaged in this short but brilliant campaign is stated variously by different authorities. There is an entry in the records of the Corporation of Preston which says "Decimo Septimo die Augustie, 1648, 24 Car,--That Henry Blundell, gent., being mayor of this town of Preston, the daie and yeare aforesaid, Oliver Cromwell, lieutenant-general of the forces of the Parliament of England, with an army of about 10,000 at the most, (whereof 1500 were Lancashire men, under the command of Colonel Ralph Assheton, of Middleton), fought a battail in and about Preston aforesaid, and over-threw Duke Hamilton, general of the Scots, consisting of about 26,000, and of English, Sir Marmaduke Langdale and his forces, joined with the Scots, about 4,000; took all their ammunition, about 3,000 prisoners, killed many with very small losse to the parliament army; and in their pursuit towards Lancaster, Wigan, Warrington, and divers other places in Cheshire, Staffordshire, and Nottinghamshire, took the said Duke and Langdale, with many Scottish earls and lords, and about 10,000 prisoners more, all being taken [or] slayne, few escaping, and all their treasure and plunder taken. This performed in less than one week."

Captain Hodgson notices the plundering propensities of the enemy, but, as we have seen in the previous chapter, he entertained no higher an opinion of his Lancashire allies, with respect to their "looting" proclivities. His estimate of the numbers of the army of the Parliament is somewhat less than that in the Corporation record. He says--"The Scots marched towards Kendal, we towards Rippon; where Oliver met us with horse and foot. We were then betwixt eight and nine thousand; a fine smart army, and fit for action. We marched up to Skipton; and the forlorn of the enemy's horse was come to Gargrave, and took some men away, and made others pay what money they pleased; having made havock in the country, it seems intending never to come there again."

Cromwell, in his despatch "to the Honourable William Lenthall, Esquire, Speaker of the House of Commons," dated "Warrington, 20th August, 1648," of course attributes all the honour and glory to the Almighty, yet, modestly enough, he claims some credit as due to the Parliamentary army, if it rested merely upon the disparity in the number of the combatants. He says--"Thus you have a Narrative of the particulars of the success which God hath given you; which I could hardly at this time have done, considering the multiplicity of business, but truly, when I was once engaged in it, I could hardly tell how to say less, there being so much of God in it; and I am not willing to say more, lest there should seem to be any of man. Only give me leave to add one word, showing the disparity of forces on both sides, that you may see, and all the world acknowledge, the great hand of God in this business. The Scots army could not be less than twelve thousand effective foot, well armed, and five thousand horse; Langdale not less than two thousand five hundred foot, and fifteen hundred horse; in all Twenty-one-Thousand: and truly very few of their foot but were as well armed if not better than yours, and at divers disputes did fight two or three hours before they would quit their ground. Yours were about two thousand five hundred horse and dragoons of your old Army; about four thousand foot of your old Army; also about sixteen hundred Lancashire foot, and about five hundred Lancashire horse; in all about Eight thousand Six hundred. You see by computation about two thousand of the Enemy slain; betwixt eight and nine thousand prisoners; besides what are lurking in hedges and private places, which the County daily bring in or destroy."

Notwithstanding the great social and political importance of this victory, and the renown of the general by whom it was achieved, whose very name is yet associated in the minds of some with every odious moral feature, and, in the judgment of others, with the highest English statesmanship, unselfish patriotism, and sincere religious conviction, the amount of legendary story which it has left behind is singularly limited. I have heard of several localities in Lancashire, and some neighbouring counties, where tradition records that Oliver Cromwell once visited the district and slept in some specified house or mansion, although there exists not the slightest reliable evidence that Oliver was ever in the neighbourhood. This, in some instances, I fancy, may be accounted for by the fact that Cromwell's name has become a typical or generic one, and has done duty for nearly a couple of centuries with the public generally, for every commander, either generals or subordinate officers, belonging to the Parliamentary armies.

One tradition, however, was well-known in my youthful days. The mound planted with trees on "Walton Flats" was always regarded as "the grave of the Scotch warriors." The place was rather a solitary one at night, and some superstitious fear was often confessed by others than children, when passing it after nightfall. It was in this mound, in 1855, whilst looking for remains of the said "Scotch warriors," that I came upon evidences of Roman occupation. Faith in the legend was attested when one of the workmen informed me that he had found in the mound a halfpenny with the figure of a Scotchman in the place of Britannia, on the reverse. I found it to be a Roman second brass coin, the military costume of a soldier suggesting to the labourer a kilted Highlander. Although at various times relics of the fight have been picked up, they are now extremely rare. The flood waters of the Ribble have occasionally dislodged human bones, including skulls, from the banks, and these are almost universally, if somewhat vaguely, associated with "Scotch warriors," but without any definite notion as to the period or cause of their presence in the neighbourhood. I remember, many years ago, suggesting to a very old man employed on a rope-walk near the south bank of the river, that, as a number of English, including some Lancashire men, were slain in the great battle in 1648, it was possible a portion of the bones might belong to them. He did not deny the _possibility_; but simply remarked that he had never heard the remains attributed to any but the aforesaid "Scotch warriors;" and he was evidently, from his point of view, too "patriotic" to entertain, himself, the slightest doubt on the subject.

A Protestant minister of Annandale, a Mr. Patten, who accompanied the Stuart army, and published a "History of the Rebellion" in 1715, condemns the Jacobite leaders for not defending the "Pass of the Ribble." The approach to the old bridge down the steep incline from Preston was by a lane, which was, he says, "very deep indeed." This lane was situated about midway between the present road and the hollow, yet visible, by which the Roman road passed to the north. He adds--"This is that famous lane at the end of which Oliver Cromwell met with a stout resistance from the King's forces, who from the height rolled down upon him and his men (when they had entered the lane) huge large millstones; and if Oliver himself had not forced his horse to jump into a quicksand, he had luckily ended his days there." Commenting on this passage in the "History of Preston," I say--"Notwithstanding Mr. Patten's political conversion _afterwards_, and his horror of the 'licentious freedom' of those who 'cry up the old doctrines of passive obedience, and give hints and arguments to prove hereditary right,' he appears to have retained all the antipathy of a Stuart partizan to the memory of Oliver Cromwell. Yet the loyalty of 1648 became rebellion in 1715, when Mr. Patten's head was in danger. Such is the mutation of human dogmatism."

Cromwell, in a letter to the Solicitor-General, "his worthy friend, Oliver St. John, Esquire," shortly after the battle, relates an incident which illustrates one of the phases of religious thought amongst our Puritan ancestors, and which is by no means extinct at the present time. He says--"I am informed from good hands, that a poor godly man died in Preston, the day before the fight; and being sick, near the hour of his death, he desired the woman that cooked to him, to fetch him a handful of grass. She did so; and when he received it, he asked, whether it would wither or not, now it was cut? The woman said 'yea.' He replied, 'So should this Army of the Scots do, and come to nothing, so soon as ours did but appear,' or words to this effect, and so immediately died."

Thomas Carlyle's old Puritan blood is up, as he contemplates the possibility of some adverse critic citing this story as evidence of Cromwell's intellectual weakness, or, at least, of his proneness to superstition. He almost fiercely exclaims--"Does the reader look with any intelligence into that poor old prophetic, symbolic, Death-bed scene at Preston? Any intelligence of Prophecy and Symbol, in general; of the symbolic Man-child _Mahershalal-hashbaz_ at Jerusalem, or the handful of Cut Grass at Preston--of the opening Portals of Eternity, and what departing gleams there are in the Soul of the pure and the just? Mahershalal-hashbaz ('Hasten-to-the-spoil,' so called), and the bundle of Cut Grass are grown somewhat strange to us! Read; and having sneered duly,--consider."

In August, 1651, Colonel Lilburne defeated the Earl of Derby at Wigan-lane, in which engagement the gallant Major-general Sir Thomas Tildesley fell. On the day previous to the battle, a skirmish took place between the Royalists and the Parliamentary troops at the "pass of the Ribble." In his letter to Cromwell, Lilburne says--"The next day, in the afternoone, I having not foot with me, a party of the Enemies Horse fell smartly amongst us where our Horses were grazing, and for some space put us pretty hard to it; but at last it pleased the Lord to strengthen us so as that we put them to flight, and pursued them to _Ribble-bridge_, (this was something like our business at _Mussleburgh_), and kild and tooke about 30 prisoners, most Officers and Gentlemen, with the loss of two men that dyed next morning; but severall wounded, and divers of our good Horses killed."

ANNO DOMINI 1715. "Time's whirligig" hath brought about strange changes. A "Restoration" and a "Glorious Revolution" have passed across the stage. The faithful followers of the dethroned Stuarts, the "royalists" of the last century, have been transformed into the "rebels" of this. The partizans of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, styled the "Elder Pretender," after a successful march from Scotland, arrived at Preston, and took possession of the town.

The "Chevalier" was proclaimed king. Brigadier Macintosh was anxious to defend the "pass" at Ribble-bridge, but, as the previous fortifications of the town had been destroyed, it was determined instead to barricade the entrance to the principal streets. The town was besieged for two days by Generals Wills and Carpenter. After a brave defence, notwithstanding the incompetency of "General" Forster, the partizans of the Stuart were compelled to surrender at discretion.[40]

In 1745, Prince Charles Edward, or the "Young Pretender," as he was styled, marched from Scotland on his way to Derby, through Preston; and again, a little more expeditiously on his return therefrom.

Mr. Robert Chambers says--"The clansmen had a superstitious dread, in consequence of the misfortunes of their party at Preston, in 1715, that they would never get beyond this town; to dispel the illusion, Lord George Murray crossed the Ribble, and quartered a number of men on the other side." A single repulse could scarcely justify such foreboding. The name of the Ribble had evidently become associated with previous disasters, as well as with the relatively recent surrender of the Scotch and English forces under Forster, Derwentwater, and Macintosh in 1715.

Considering the many exquisite poetical effusions which the misfortunes of the Stuarts added to Scottish literature, it is surprising that nothing, but some of the veriest doggrels in relation thereto, can be met with on the southern side of the border. "Brigadier Macintosh's Farewell to the Highlands" is beneath criticism, and "Long Preston Peggy to Proud Preston went" is not much better. In May, 1847, a story appeared in "New Tales of the Borders and the British Isles." It is introduced by the first stanza of the ballad. The scene is laid at Walton-le-dale and Preston, 1815. It is a sad jumble of fact and fiction. It confounds with one another events in the campaigns of 1715 and 1745, and illustrates, to some extent, the confusion of history and artistic fiction discussed in the preceding pages of this work. Peggy, who, in her old age, after a somewhat profuse indulgence in ardent spirits, had still some remains of a handsome face and fine person, frequently sung the song of which she was the heroine, five and twenty years after the occurrence of the events which gave rise to it.[41]