On one side a deeply-recessed bay-window lures you to enjoy the quietude, and dream the hours away in the luxurious ease it offers. Delightful is the prospect from this window; in front are seen the smooth shaven lawns and terraces, with their richly-coloured parterres, and the water flashing in the bright sunlight; and, beyond, the natural landscape with its wooded slopes and the brown heathy wastes that shut out the view of the more distant hills.
But the time is passing rapidly, and we must not loiter, so we follow our conductress up flights of stairs, along galleries and corridors, and through interminable suites of rooms, where we have to look to our footing, the polished oak parquetrie being perilous to walk upon. The grand staircase, which leads to a corridor above, resting on six Corinthian columns, is of oak, with a handsome ceiling adorned with pendants and armorial ensigns of the family. It is hung with pictures, two of them being by Sir William Beechy, and representing George IV. and his brother the Duke of York. Facing us as we ascend the first flight is an interesting portrait, a full length, of John Watson, the famous keeper,—an ancient servitor, who died in 1753, at the age of 104 years. It bears this inscription:—
Io Watson, who in the 26th year of his age, Anno 1674, commenced keeper of Lime Park; in wch service he continued 70 years, and Anno 1750, in the 102nd year of his age. He hunted a Buck, a chase near Six hours, at wch Hunting one gentleman was present whose Ancesters he had hunted with for four Generations before, he being the fifth Generation he had hunted with.
Watson, who was grandfather of the celebrated Rev. John Watson, M.A., F.S.A., rector of Stockport, and author of "Memorials of the Earls of Warren and Surrey," lies buried at Disley, where, in the middle aisle of the church, is a tombstone with an inscription to his memory. Concerning this ancient worthy we have the following obituary notice:—
Mr. Joseph Watson died in the 105th year of his age, and was buried at Disley in Cheshire, the 3rd of June, 1753. He was born at Mossley Common, in the parish of Leigh, in Lancashire, and married his Wife from Eccles, near Manchester, in the same County. They lived a Happy Couple 72 years. She died in the 94th year of her age. He was Park Keeper to the late Peter Legh, Esqre., of Lyme and his Father 64 years. He drove and shewed the Red Deer to most of the Nobility and Gentry in that Part of the Kingdom to the Surprise and Satisfaction of them and all others that saw that Performance, as he could command them at his Pleasure the same as if they had been common Horned Cattle. In the reign of Queen Anne Sqr. Legh was in company with some Gentlemen at Macclesfield, in Cheshire, amongst which was Sir Roger Moston then one of the Members of Parliament for the same County. For their merry Conversation Sqr. Legh said his Keeper should drive 12 Brace of Stags to the Forest of Windsor a Present to the Queen. Sir Roger, thinking it impracticable, proposed a Wager of £500 that neither his Keeper nor no other Person could drive 12 Brace of Red Deer from Lyme Park to Windsor Forest on any account whatever. Sqr. Legh accepted the Wager and immediately sent for his Keeper, who directly came to his Master, who told him he must directly prepare to drive 12 Brace of Stags to Windsor Forest upon a Wager. He gave his Master for answer, that upon any Wager or upon his Command he would drive him 12 Brace of Stags to Windsor Forest or to any other part of the Kingdom when he pleased to direct, upon forfeiture of his Life and Fortune. He was a man of Low Stature, not Bulky, fresh complexion, and pleasant countenance. He believed he had drunk a Gallon of Malt Liquor a Day, one Day with another, for 60 years; he drank plentifully the latter part of his Life, but no more than was agreeable to his Constitution and a comfort to himself. He was of a mild Temper, engaging Company, and fine Behaviour, and allowed to be the Best Keeper in England, in his Time. In the 103rd year of his age he was at the Hunting and Killing a Buck with the Honble George Warren, in his Park at Pointon, whose activity gave pleasure and Surprize to all Spectators then present. Sir George was the 5th Generation of the Warren Family he had performed that Diversion with in Pointon Park.
As we pass along the corridor our attention is arrested by two marble busts, one of the massive head and rugged features of the late Thomas Legh, the famous traveller, and the other that of his second wife, Maud Lowther. We are next ushered into the long gallery, a noble chamber one hundred and twenty feet in length and twenty-eight feet wide, fronting the east, and exhibiting the architectural characteristics of the Elizabethan era—one of those long narrow galleries that are frequently met with in mansions of that period, and, like the one at Haddon, used as a ballroom and on occasions of special festivity. The walls are of dark oak, elaborately ornamented, the panels being wrought in intersecting arches and relieved at intervals with flat pilasters; in the centre a huge fireplace reaches from floor to ceiling, it is handsomely carved and bears the arms of Queen Elizabeth with the lion and dragon as supporters, an evidence that it dates from that sovereign's reign. On one side we noticed an antiquated spinet that has been doubtless played upon by many a fair daughter of the house of Lyme. A few portraits adorn the walls, among them one of the Lady Margaret Gerard, wife of Sir Peter Legh, holding in her arms her great-grandchild, Anne Legh, who afterwards married Richard Bold, of Bold. The picture bears the following inscription, apparently added at a later date:—"Sir Piers' lady ætatis suæ 90, A.D. 1595," and underneath the child—"ætatis suæ anno primo after marryed to Bold;" there is also a portrait of the Rev. John Dod, the decalogist, and another of the unfortunate divine Dr. John Hewitt, a son of Thomas Hewitt, of Eccles, who was chaplain to Charles I., and who for his loyalty to Charles II. was beheaded on Tower Hill, June 8th, 1658; here, too, are portraits after the style of Holbein, one of the warlike Henry IV., and another of Bluff King Hal, the first Defender of the Faith.
Continuing our tour of inspection, we are led from corridor to corridor and from room to room, pausing now and then, as a relief from the examination of the treasures within, to look upon the glad world without, where the sun is shining brightly on the green sward and the lush pastures. Then we are hurried on through tapestried chambers and state bedrooms with grotesquely-carved four-posters shadowed with a huge pomp of stiff brocade. In one of them we are shown the bed used by Mary Queen of Scots on the occasion of her visit to Lyme, with its original hangings of crimson silk, now, alas, much tarnished and dilapidated, and, if we are so disposed, we may refresh our memories with the tragic story of Hero and Leander as in part pourtrayed on the faded tapestry that adorns the walls of this and the adjoining dressing-room. There are other chambers on this floor that deserve inspection—the state bedroom, the mahogany, the velvet, and the yellow bedrooms, with their corresponding dressing-rooms, all hung with portraits more or less interesting. Then we pass to an oaken-panelled chamber called the Knight's Room, and to the stone parlour—two apartments that have remained untouched since Elizabeth's time—and so to the gallery which extends on the upper floor round the quadrangle, the walls of which are adorned with casts from the Phigalian marbles—antique friezes, representing the contest between the Centaurs and Lapithæ, and the Greeks and Amazons, which formerly ornamented the Cella of the Temple of Apollo Epicurus at Phigalia in Arcadia, and the originals of which are now in the British Museum, having been brought to England by the late Thomas Legh. Another chamber is pointed out which is said to be the oldest in the building, and on that account is called King John's Room, though we should be much inclined to doubt the fact of its having been in existence in that monarch's reign; then we are ushered into another apartment named after the Black Prince, which is also known as the Ghost Room, for Lyme, like every other old mansion of respectability, has its ghost story, as the talented author of "Lays and Legends of Cheshire," who, besides being laureate of Lyme, can claim kindred with its ancient lords, can tell us; and we are asked to believe that a secret passage leads from it to the "Cage," a mile away, though we cannot learn that anyone within the recollection of that respectable personage, the oldest inhabitant, has ever explored it, but such means of exit we are assured were necessary in the turbulent times when this part of the hall was built. Having completed our perambulation, we ascended to the gallery at the top of the house, from whence we can survey the country that lies spread like a rich panorama at our feet, looking more than usually fair and brilliant as the mellow sunlight brings out every inequality and brightens every object with its magical radiance. But we may not loiter, for there are yet other things to interest us, and so, having seen all that is usually shown to visitors, we take leave of our courteous attendant and wend our way across the park in a south-easterly direction and then mount the hill, on the summit of which is an ancient memorial that has long exercised the ingenuity of antiquaries to discover its age and purpose—the Bowstones, as it is called—two upright pillars, much worn with age, springing from a double-socketed base. They are believed to have been of Saxon or Danish origin, though some authorities incline to the opinion that they are of later date and were intended as boundary stones.
Half a mile westward of the Bowstones is a conical hill to which the name of "the Knight's Low" has been given, from a tradition that has floated down through long centuries of time that it was the burial place of one of the earlier lords of Lyme. The shaping power of the imagination has supplied the minor accessories of the story, and the dependents of the family delight to relate how that at midnight a muffled sound, as of a distant funeral peal, is often borne on the wind, and that at this time a shadowy procession of mourners may be seen wending its way towards the Knight's Low, bearing a coffin and pall, and followed by a lady arrayed in white and apparently in deep distress. To add to the mystery there is a tale that the shadowy form of the old knight's wife—the lady "draped in white and silver sheen"—issues forth at midnight from a field adjoining a stream that runs through the park, commonly known as "The Field of the White Lady," or "the Lady's Grave," and flits silently across the grass in the direction of the Knight's Low. Mr. Leigh has made the tradition the theme of one of his legendary ballads, "Sir Percy Legh," though to suit the purposes of his story he has dealt rather unceremoniously with history and dates, things the votaries of the Muses do not always stand much in awe of—
At length our progress is ended. While the westering sun and the lengthening shadows remind us that evening is rapidly drawing on, we retrace our steps, passing by the north front of the hall, along the grassy slopes where the deer are crouching and the kine are ruminating at will, past Lyme Cage, through the gates by which we originally entered, and along the quiet tree-shaded road to Disley, and in a few minutes find ourselves in the cosy parlour of the "Ram's Head," with the mind laden with the lore of ancient days, and impressed with a succession of pictures of endless suites of rooms stored with carvings of cunning device, curious enamels, and cabinets of costly workmanship; with tapestry, pictures, and a wealth of natural and artistic treasures such as few, if any, of the "stately homes" of Cheshire can equal and none surpass.
We have not attempted in our notice of this old historic mansion to speak of every room, to notice every object of interest, and many details have been purposely omitted. In recounting the fortunes of the former lords we have endeavoured to call up visions of the past—to arrest momentarily the hand of Time, which is fast drawing the curtain of oblivion over bygone scenes, and, though our task has been but imperfectly performed, at least we may hope to have contributed something towards a better knowledge and appreciation of "Lyme Hall and the Leghs."
"JEMMY DAWSON" AND THE FATAL '45.
Who that has read Harrison Ainsworth's story of the "Manchester Rebels" can fail to remember the vivid picture he has drawn of the ferment into which the whilom Puritan town was thrown when, on the morning of the 28th November, 1745, a recruiting sergeant, with a drummer boy and a Scotch lassie, crossed the old Salford bridge into Manchester, passed along Cateaton Street and the Millgate, to the Market Cross, and after proclaiming "King James the Third," began beating up for recruits for "The yellow-haired Laddie," who on the following day joined them with the main body of the rebel clans; of the rejoicings and festivities, the illuminations and the fireworks; of the enthusiasm of the Jacobite ladies, who sat up all night at Mr. Byrom's at the Cross making white cockades, and the joyous excitement of John Byrom's gossiping daughter, "Beppy" Byrom, who, as she confesses, got completely "fuddled" with drinking the Prince's health in champagne after having had the honour of kissing his hand; when the orange plumes paled before the blaze of tartan in which female Manchester had arrayed itself, and Colonel Townley laboured with unwearying zeal in mustering and enrolling a Manchester regiment, and Parson Coppock and the irrepressible Tom Syddall exhorted their fellow townsmen in the name of their God to enlist in the service of their rightful sovereign. And who that has read Shenstone's pathetic ballad, "Jemmy Dawson," that tale
but has "heaved a sigh" at the touching episode connected with Lancashire's share in the rebellion which it records?
But for Mickle's wonderfully woven web of truth and fiction,
and the sorrows of Amy Robsart would never have excited special interest; and had not Shenstone, with the same marvellous gift of nature, commemorated in imperishable verse the sad fate of the plighted fair one of Captain Dawson, our interest and our sympathy with the victim of that revolting tragedy might never have been awakened, and the name even of the amiable and unfortunate subject of the stanzas have become forgotten.
But who, it may be asked, was "Jemmy Dawson," where was his abode, and what was the name of the hapless maid whose fortunes were so sadly linked with his own? Mr. Robert Chambers, in his History of the Rebellion of '45, says:
James Dawson, the son of a Gentleman of Lancashire, was attached to a young Lady of good family and fortune, when some youthful excesses induced him to run away from College and join the insurgents. Had he obtained the Royal Mercy or been acquitted, the day of his enlargement was to have been that of his marriage. When it was ascertained that he was to suffer death, the inconsolable young lady determined to witness the execution, and she accordingly followed the sledges in a hackney-coach, accompanied by a Gentleman nearly related to her and one female friend. She got near enough to see all the dreadful preparations without betraying any extravagant emotions; she also succeeded in restraining her feelings during the progress of the bloody tragedy; but when all was over, and the shouts of the multitude rang in her ears, she drew her head back again into the coach and crying, "My dear! I follow thee—I follow thee! Sweet Jesus receive both our souls together!" fell upon the neck of her companion and expired in the very moment she was speaking.
The information thus given is of the scantiest nature, and, meagre as it is, it is inaccurate in some details. Of the family of "Jemmy Dawson" unfortunately but few particulars can be gleaned, but the little we know is sufficiently interesting to make us long to know more. Of the lady to whom he was betrothed we know absolutely nothing, and her name even has never been satisfactorily established. In the "Legends of Lancashire" (p. 159) it is stated, though on what authority does not appear, that her name was Katherine Norton, that she was an orphan, and that her parents had been of illustrious rank. "She had travelled," it is said, "with a maiden aunt, and as they were residing for a few weeks in the vicinity of Cambridge, she had met with young Dawson, and thus commenced an ardent attachment between them."
The Dawsons, who were a family of some note in Manchester, came originally from Yorkshire, where, at Barnsley, towards the close of the seventeenth century, was residing James Dawson, who is described as a trader, a phrase that had a different significance a couple of centuries ago than it has now, a trader then being equal in social status to the merchant or manufacturer of the present day. The trader of Barnsley in due time took to himself a wife in the person of Jane Wolstenholme, of Hopwood, near Middleton, and to this worthy couple was born on the 5th March, 1695-6, a son and heir, William Dawson, who, after he had attained to man's estate, settled in Manchester, where he practised as an apothecary, and was known to his neighbours as Dr. Dawson. He was successful in his profession, and eventually became the owner of a considerable real estate, including a house at Barnsley, which he had probably inherited from his father, and another called "The Cottage," in Manchester; the latter a dwelling-house with gardens and pleasure grounds attached, occupying the site of the present Concert Hall—then a pleasant suburb of the town, to which we shall have occasion hereafter more particularly to refer. Dr. Dawson appears also to have had in the later years of his life a town residence near the top of the present King Street, a fashionable quarter, where some of the clergy of the "old church" had located themselves, and which was then known as St. James's Square, a name that was abandoned when the Hanoverian sovereigns had finally asserted their prerogative against the claims of the Jacobite Pretender; the two squares—St. James's and St. Ann's—being memorials of a conflict which is now but a matter of history.
William Dawson, the apothecary, married for his first wife Elizabeth, one of the daughters of Mr. Richard Allen, a gentleman residing at Redivales, near Bury, the representative of a family of somewhat more than local fame, claiming descent from the stock of the same name seated at Rossal, in Lancashire, of which house was the well known Cardinal Allen, the apologist of Sir William Stanley's perfidy and treason in surrendering Deventer to the King of Spain, and a branch of which was located in Salford, their home being the quaint old black and white gabled building still standing in Greengate, and for many years past occupied as a tavern, and bearing the sign of the "Bull's Head." This match brought the young apothecary in close alliance with some of the best families in the neighbourhood. Mrs. Dawson's aunt, Dorothy Allen, had married the wealthy draper of Kersall, and she was, therefore, own cousin to his sons, Edward Byrom the younger, and John Byrom, the amiable and gifted poet and strong, though prudent, partisan of the Jacobite cause. Her great-grandmother was the wife of the Rev. Isaac Allen, Rector of Prestwich, a staunch Churchman and Royalist, who, for refusing to take the Covenant, was turned out of his living during the Cromwellian period, but reinstated shortly after the Restoration in 1660.
The children of William Dawson, by his first wife, Elizabeth Allen, were James, the hero of Shenstone's ballad, of whom anon; William, who was educated for the law and entered at Lincoln's Inn, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sarah. In 1737, the year in which his eldest son entered at the university, Mr. Dawson had the misfortune to lose his wife, her death occurring on the 3rd of May, at the age of forty-one. Some time afterwards he married for his second wife Mary, the eldest daughter of William Greenwood, of Liversage Hall, previously of Middlewood Hall, near Barnsley, and the widow of Joseph Greenwood, of Leeds; but by this lady, who survived him nearly twenty years, and died January 25, 1782, he had no children.
James Dawson, the eldest son, the rebel captain, who was born about the year 1717, would, in all probability, receive his early education at the Grammar School of his native town, where Thomas Coppock, the pseudo Bishop of Carlisle, was also a pupil. In 1737, being then twenty years of age, he proceeded to Cambridge, where, on the 21st October, he was admitted to St. John's College, the register describing him as:—
Jocobus Dawson, Lancastriensis filius natu major Gulielmi Dawson pharmacopolæ Mancunii natus et literis institutus apud Salford in eodem Comitatu sub Magistro Clayton, admissus pensionarius minor Tutore et fide Jussore Magistro Wrigley, Oct. 21, 1737, anno Ætatis 20mo.
The "Magistro Clayton" referred to was doubtless the Rev. John Clayton, of the Sacred Trinity Church in Salford, an ardent Jacobite, who preached in the church and prayed openly in the street in Salford for Charles Edward at the time of his visit to Manchester, and whose appearance in the pulpit of St. Ann's in the interval between the death of one rector and the appointment of another caused so much dissatisfaction to the Hanoverian worshippers that, as Miss Byrom in her diary tells us, some of them "went out of church because he preached." The story related by Chambers and others that young Dawson had been induced to run away from his college, fearing that he might be expelled on account of some youthful excesses, and that after leaving Cambridge he joined the ranks of the young Pretender, does not appear to rest on any reliable foundation. There is extant a letter written by the Registrar of the University of Cambridge, dated 24th October, 1833, which states that "the only document concerning him in the University Records is his signature on matriculation, which took place on the 17th of December, 1737, when he was matriculated as a pensioner. He wrote a bold hand. He never took a degree, nor does he appear to have been subjected to any punishment for irregularity in the University Court held by the Vice-chancellor."
A century had wrought a mighty change in the political sentiments of the people of Manchester. When the great struggle between Charles the First and his Parliament began, led by the eloquence of Warden Heyricke, they took sides against the King, but they quickly changed their opinions, and when Charles's son, the "Merry Monarch," was restored to the crown they were jubilant, and in the exuberance of their joy caused the conduit to flow with wine and the gutters to swell with strong beer. The sons of those men held by the political opinions of their fathers, and were, for the most part, ardent supporters of the hereditary claims of the House of Stuart. There were two factions in the town—Whigs and Tories, or Hanoverians and Jacobites as they were more commonly called, the latter being by far the more numerous and influential. They met at their respective taverns—the Hanoverians at the "Angel" in the Market Street Lane, and the Jacobites at "John Shaw's" and the "Bull's Head" in the Market Place—drank punch, a beverage for which they seem to have had a special partiality, and toasted the King, and denounced the Pretender with a mental reservation as to
Thirty years previously the town had been stirred to its inmost depths by the claims the first Pretender had advanced. Many of the sympathisers of '15 were still alive, and the old spirit of strife, though it might have slumbered, was still strong. James Dawson's kinsman, Dr. Byrom, who was then in the heyday of his popularity, was warmly attached to the cause of the exiled Stuarts, and was accounted the laureate of the party; his Jacobitism was, however, under the control of a cautious possessor, and in proclaiming his political faith he was sufficiently prudent to avoid imperilling either his personal or his family interests. He nevertheless exercised a marvellous influence over his fellow townsmen, and largely helped to fan the flame of disaffection. A wit, a scholar, and a poet, his playful epigrams and clever jeux d'esprit caused his society to be sought after by both parties, and linked him in close intimacy, if not, indeed, in close friendship, with men whose political creeds were at variance with his own. Byrom's versatile powers and refined and courteous demeanour acted as a charm, and enabled him, if not to turn Hanoverians into Jacobites, at least to bias their practice and take the sting out of their Whiggism.
Brought within the range of his seductive influence, we can scarcely wonder that Byrom's relative, young Dawson, then fresh from college, impressionable, impulsive, and enthusiastic, should have imbibed his Jacobite principles. The time was one of political excitement. England was in a state of agitation, and the rumours which had reached Manchester of the successful rising in the North sufficed to stir the fire of youthful enthusiasm and inspire devotion to the Pretender's cause. The young Chevalier was in the field at the head of the Highland clans; France had promised substantial support, not because France had any particular liking for the Stuarts, but because she was not unwilling to pay off some old scores by finding occupation for her traditional foe; Sir John Cope had been beaten at Prestonpans, and the victorious Charles Edward was then at Carlisle on his way south. Francis Townley, a scion of an old Lancashire family, who had figured at the Court of Louis XV. and seen service and earned distinction abroad, was entrusted with a colonel's commission from the French King; the commission authorised him to raise forces on behalf of the Prince, and with that object he repaired to Manchester, the reputed stronghold of the Jacobite party, to beat up for recruits; the town was excited, the bolder spirits were jubilant and eager in their desire to don the white cockade, some money was raised and more was promised but never paid, and what is known to history as the "Manchester Regiment" was enrolled. In that regiment James Dawson was honoured with a captaincy; what that captaincy cost him we shall hereafter see.
Saturday, the 29th of November, 1745, was an eventful day for Manchester, and one the townsmen had cause long to remember, for it was that on which the young Chevalier, Prince Charles Edward, made his appearance, after having taken Lancaster, Preston, and Wigan, on his progress from the North. About ten o'clock in the morning the main body of his army entered the town; regiment after regiment, with their glittering firelocks, their tartan sashes, and gay and picturesque dresses, marched over the Old Bridge and into St. Ann's-square, then lately built, where they halted. It was an inauspicious moment, for at the precise time the remains of the first rector of St. Ann's, the Rev. Joseph Hoole, were being committed to the grave. As the men entered the square, the warlike notes of the bagpipes were instantly hushed, and, with instinctive reverence for the dead, the officers drew near the churchyard, unbonneted, and joined devoutly in the service while the coffin was being lowered to its final resting-place. It was an ominous incident, and seemed premonitory of the fate that was shortly to overtake so many of those assembled. As the historian of St Ann's observes:—"White cockade and black scarf were at one in the presence of death. Many a white cockade was laid low ere a month was gone."
Scarcely was the mournful scene ended than Prince Charles himself, dressed in Highland garb—the Stuart plaid belted with a blue sash, and wearing a light wig with a blue bonnet, in which was fixed a white rose, entered the town amid the applauding acclamations of the people. As he passed through Salford on his way, Parson Clayton, then one of the chaplains of the Collegiate Church, and previously young Dawson's instructor at the Grammar School, dropped on his knees, and in fervent tones prayed that the enterprise might be successful, and that the divine blessing would rest upon the Prince's head. Colonel Townley had made previous arrangements for his reception, and on his arrival he was conducted to his quarters at the house of Mr. Dickenson,[66] a residence in Market Street Lane, thenceforward dignified with the name of "The Palace," a name still perpetuated in Palace Buildings, which mark the site. The head-quarters of the officers were fixed at the "Bull's Head," in the Market Place, then the principal inn in the town, and Lord George Murray, the Prince's secretary, stationed himself at the Dog Inn, in Deansgate, for the purpose of distributing the French King's commissions to officers who were willing to purchase. In the course of the day "His Majesty King James the Third" was proclaimed at the Market Cross, poor James Waller, of Ridgefield, a loyal subject of the House of Brunswick, who was content with monarchy as it stood, being compelled to pocket his political principles, and become the medium of communication between Prince and people, by conveying the demands of the rebel army to his fellow-townsmen for the payment of all the money they had collected for the taxes; and in the evening bonfires were lit, the streets were illuminated, drums beat, pipes played, and the bells rang loud peals from the Old Church steeple in honour of the event. No pains were spared to fan the flame of enthusiasm. Receptions were held by the Prince, and Jacobite sympathisers of both sexes, wearing tartan favours, thronged the house of Mr. Dickenson, anxious to be presented and to have the honour of kissing the Prince's hand. Recruiting, meanwhile, was carried on with energy; the Manchester Regiment was enrolled, and by the Chevalier's orders Colonel Francis Townley, who had joined the forces at Preston, was nominated commander; Thomas Coppock, the son of a Manchester tailor, residing in the Old Millgate, and a quondam companion of James Dawson, who had lately graduated at Brasenose, Oxford, where he had been an exhibitioner from Hugh Oldham's Grammar School, was appointed chaplain; Tom Syddall, the son of a peruke-maker, who had been hanged and his head fixed on the Market Cross for the share he had in destroying the Cross Street meeting-house in 1715, and who, from the hour he had seen his father's exposed and insulted countenance, had conceived an implacable hatred for Dissenters, Whigs, and all the Hanoverian race, was made adjutant; and James Dawson was one of the first to be enrolled as captain.
Coppock, dressed in full canonicals, accompanied a drummer through the town, exhorting the people to take up arms in the Stuart cause, and his efforts were ably seconded by Dr. Deacon,[67] the minister of a non-juring congregation assembling in Fennel Street, whose three sons, on the advice of the father, and with his prayers and blessings, were among the earliest to obtain commissions; but the number recruited through their efforts fell far short of their expectations, not more than three hundred men being added to the strength of the rebel army, and of those comparatively few were resident in the town. The people were noisy and enthusiastic enough, but they were not sufficiently ardent to risk their lives and property in the chivalrous defence of the antiquated doctrine of the divine right of kings. The reason may not be far to seek. Manchester men had thriven upon their manufacture of fustians and dimities, and become a comparatively wealthy community—they had something to lose; their interests were bound up with more peaceful pursuits; insurrection and civil war do not generally conduce to the prosperity of trade, and hence they had little fondness for fighting.
The day which followed the Prince's arrival was a great day for the Jacobites. It was Sunday, and St. Andrew's day withal. The bells rang out from the old church tower; the streets were filled with Highland soldiers; Colonel Townley's Manchester Regiment mustered in the churchyard, the men in their blue and white cockades gathering round their flag, which bore on one side the inscription "Church and Country," and on the other "Liberty and Property." Never did the ancient fane itself present a brighter or more animated appearance; the nave was crowded with armed men, whose gaily-coloured attire and glittering claymores, targets, and other accoutrements produced a striking effect. The townspeople occupied the side aisles, and such a display of tartan had never before been witnessed; everybody wore Stuart favours, and the ladies were ablaze with tartan ribbons, shaws, and furbelows. The Prince occupied the warden's seat in the choir, his retinue being accommodated in the stalls close by. Warden Peploe, a staunch Whig, but lacking the spirit of his father, who, thirty years before, when the insurgents occupied Preston, had stood before the Pretender's soldiery and prayed for King George and the House of Brunswick,[68] had consulted his safety by withdrawing from the town. Young Parson Coppock, the chaplain of the Manchester Regiment, supplied his place, and preached from the text, "The Lord is King; the earth may be glad thereof" (Psalm xcvii., v. 1); and from the same pulpit whence, a century before, Warden Heyricke, on his "drum ecclesiastic," had stirred the hearts of the Manchester people by his trumpet-tongued sermons, and roused them into active resistance to the Stuart King and the "Papistical malignants" who had gained possession of him, was now only heard a mild oration larded with flattering eulogies of his Popish descendant.
When the service was concluded, the Manchester Regiment was inspected by the Prince, and on the following day, with the rest of the rebel army, they set forward on their march southwards, advancing in two divisions by different routes towards Macclesfield, which had been fixed as the limit of the first day's march. At Cheadle Ford, where the bridge now bestrides the Mersey, a temporary bridge, formed of the trunks and branches of poplar trees, was constructed for the horse and artillery to pass over, and here the Prince, with two regiments, crossed, buoyant with hope and full of energy. On reaching the opposite bank he was welcomed by a number of the Cheshire gentry, who had come out to meet him; with them was the venerable Mrs. Skyring, of whom Lord Mahon relates the following affecting story ("Forty-Five," p. 84):—"As a child, she had been lifted up in her mother's arms to view the happy landing at Dover of Charles the Second. 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 importance 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 she possessed, the price of which she laid in a purse 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, '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. The ancient lady, who is represented as somewhat irreverently employing the sacred words of the Nunc Dimittis, may be a pretty object to contemplate through the haze of a century or more, but the story Lord Mahon so pathetically relates is of doubtful origin, and should be received with caution.
On reaching Macclesfield the two divisions of the Prince's army were united, and the Manchester men were drawn up in the churchyard, when arms were distributed to those who had not previously received them. The rebel forces met with little encouragement in the town, and the next day, after having searched Adlington Hall and some other houses of note in the neighbourhood, and taken what arms they could find, they continued their march by way of Congleton and Leek to Derby, which town was reached on December 4th, having, incredible as it may appear, met with little or no opposition on the way. Of the subsequent movements of the Manchester Regiment we need not say much; the record of its doings is part of the country's history. Some who joined may have been led by a love of adventure, but others were influenced by higher considerations. Sincere and enthusiastic in their support of the exiled dynasty, they were willing to forfeit their lives for their Prince, and the forfeit, as we shall see, was rigorously enacted. Their progress was as disastrous as it was brief. Hearing, while at Derby, that the Duke of Cumberland, with an army of veterans, was in the neighbourhood, and distrusting the skill of their own officers, they beat a retreat northwards, carrying with them whatever in the way of booty they could lay their hands on. On the 9th December the advanced guard reached Manchester, where, instead of meeting with the welcome they had received ten short days before, they were assailed by a shower of stones from the mob; the regiment raised by Captain Townley was broken up, and many of the men dispersed, but Captain Dawson, with Coppock, Syddall, the three Deacons, and several other of the more resolute supporters of the Prince, determined upon sharing his fortunes, and pushed on with him to Carlisle, hotly pursued by the Duke of Cumberland. In opposition to the advice of Lord George Murray, it was determined that a garrison should be left in the border city. There was at the time a gloomy anticipation of the fate awaiting those who should remain, yet none hesitated to make the almost certain sacrifice; Colonel Townley volunteered for the desperate service, and was accordingly made governor of the city; with him were Captain Dawson, Adjutant Syddall, the Deacons, Coppock, who had been dubbed Bishop of Carlisle, and the remnant of the Manchester Regiment, one hundred and twenty strong, with two hundred and seventy of the Highlanders and Lowland Scots, and a handful of French officers and privates. Soon after the Prince's departure the Duke of Cumberland, with Marshal Wade, appeared before the city, and summoned the garrison to surrender; after a brief resistance they were obliged to yield on the hard conditions that, instead of being put to the sword, they should be reserved for the King's pleasure. Coppock, after being imprisoned for some time, was executed at Gallows Green, Harrowby, about a mile south of Carlisle, meeting his death, as did his companions in arms, with firmness to the last, and expressing his belief in the justice of the cause he had embraced. The other officers, twenty in number, were conveyed in waggons under a strong guard to London. Great efforts had been made to inflame the minds of the populace against them by representing them all as Papists, who, if they had succeeded, would have roasted the Duke of Cumberland to death, burned the bishops, and destroyed all heretics—men, women, and children; and on their arrival in the Metropolis they were led in a sort of triumph through the streets, where the greatest indignation was offered them by the excited throng. As they had served under commissions from the French King, they expected to have been treated as ordinary prisoners of war, and that they would be regularly exchanged. Their fate, however, was far otherwise. Imprisoned first in the cells of Newgate, and afterwards in the New Prison in Southwark, they passed thence to the scaffold. The head of Syddall was sent to Manchester and fixed on a spike in front of the Exchange, near where that of his father had been fixed thirty years before. Captain Thomas Deacon was treated in like manner, and it is recorded of his father, the nonjuring divine, that he never afterwards passed the spot where the mutilated head of his son had been exposed without reverently raising his hat as a token of respect. A local poet has embalmed the memory of these Manchester martyrs in the following quaint lines:—
It is with the fate of Captain Dawson, however, that we are more immediately concerned. It had been determined that the full vengeance of the law should fall upon the unfortunate victims belonging to the Manchester Regiment, and those who were in Newgate were, after a lapse of six months, ordered to prepare for trial previous to their removal to the prison of Southwark. Dawson, as previously stated, had while at Cambridge been betrothed to a young lady, a Miss Katherine Norton, it is said. She appears to have engaged all his thoughts, and it is stated that during his confinement he employed himself in writing verses on his unhappy fate.
The trials commenced on the 16th July, 1746, in the Courthouse at St. Margaret's Hill, before the High Commissioners appointed for the purpose. Townley, the colonel of the regiment, was the first arraigned. His behaviour during the trial was firm and undaunted, and when sentence of death was pronounced he was not in the least discomposed, nor did his countenance undergo any change of colour. The trials lasted three days, and the whole of the prisoners arraigned were found guilty. James Dawson was indicted for high treason (committed 18th November, 1745, five days before the taking of Carlisle by the rebels), and accused by witnesses for the prosecution of "having appeared as captain, at review, at Macclesfield;" "beaten up for volunteers at Derby;" "been at the head of company, at Penrith and other places;" "and also been one of the rebel garrison taken at Carlisle on the 30th December, 1745." He, like the others, was found guilty and sentenced to death, which was ordered to take place at Kennington on the 30th July, along with eight other officers of the Manchester Regiment. In the interval between his condemnation and his execution he employed himself in preparing a written declaration of the motives and sentiments which had influenced him in joining the standard of the Pretender, a copy of which, as made and signed by himself, we give herewith:—
Blessed are they that suffer Persecution for Righteousness sake, for theirs is ye kingdom of Heaven.—Mat. ye 5 and 10.
Friends, Brethren, and Countrymen,
I am come to this place (and it's with cheerfulness and resignation I say it) to lay down my Life in defence of my King, and in support of the liberties and properties of you his natural-born subjects, and blessed be the will of God, who (unworthy as I am) has deign'd to look upon me as no unfit Instrument of executing his Divine Pleasure. I am now on the very last scene of life, and shall in a very few minutes launch into 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 3rd is my only true, lawful, and indisputable Sovereign; that the present Possessor of this Crown and Kingdom is a usurper; that my taking up arms against him was so far from being a crime that it was my indispensible and bounden duty; if I had ten thousand lives, I ought sooner to devote them all to his and my Country's service than to see Right overpowered by Oppression, or Rebellion prevailing over Justice.
I die, my dear Friends, in the fellowship and communion of the Church of England, and in perfect love and charity with all men. I humbly ask pardon of all those whom I have in any shape, or in any manner, either 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. Maddock,[69] who has not only sworn away mine but several other innocent persons' lives (an unchristian-like return for relieving and supporting him when destitute of almost every necessary of life); but this I mention not to upbraid him, God forbid I should. No, my dear Countrymen, I only beg that this, his fatal unhappy delusion, may be a lively and instructive warning both to you and posterity, never to add cruelty to injustice, or to injure your Benefactors only for having partaken of their benefits. And I likewise here solemnly declare that I sincerely forgive the ... [illegible] of the Counsel, the partiality of my Judges, and the misguided zeal of my Jury.—"Lay not, O God, my blood to their charge, neither let this my murder rise up against them. Forgive them, Oh! my Father, for they not know what they do."
And now, Oh! my God and merciful Father, having thus addressed the Throne of Grace for mine Enemies, let me now supplicate thy mercy for my poor unworthy self. I now with humility prostrate myself before thee, and beseech thee of thine infinite goodness, to 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, Oh, my sweet Saviour; Oh! let not the transgressions of my youth, or the faults which I have been betrayed into, either through fear, forgetfulness, or surprise, be alleged against me at the Great Day of Judgment. Let that precious blood which was spilt at thy most bitter death on the Cross be a sweet-smelling sacrifice to turn away thy wrath from thy servant, who is not only now persecuted, but going to die for truth and righteousness' sake. In proportion to the humility of my desires, and the purity of my intention, heighten, Oh, Christ, my reward hereafter. Into thy hands I commend my soul; vouchsafe to save all those whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood, and make me to be remembered with thy Saints in glory everlasting. Amen.
If we could close the narrative of Manchester's share in the dynastic contest of '45 without reference to the afflicting details of the barbarities the victors deemed it necessary to perpetrate we should not have necessarily to excite the indignation of our readers against atrocities for the commission of which neither passion nor party zeal can furnish even the shadow of an excuse. The 30th of July was the day on which Captain Dawson and the four officers of the Manchester Regiment were to be subjected to the hideous penalties the law had awarded for their active partisanship of the exiled Stuarts—a day not less of shame than of triumph to the ruling powers, and one constituting in itself a very black page in the annals of the country. On that day there was to be enacted a scene such as England had happily not witnessed for thirty years or more. When the Manchester men surrendered at Carlisle they were told that they would be reserved for the King's pleasure—their fate is a dismal memorial of his tender mercies. Indifferent to the dishonour he was bringing upon the nation, and unmindful of the odium that must attach to his name, the Elector of Hanover looked upon rebellion as a crime that could only be dealt with in a spirit of revenge, and by the perpetration of cruelties so exceptionally revolting that they could not be repeated without greater danger to the throne than the insurrectionary feeling they were intended to crush. On the morning of the day named the whole of the condemned men were bound on three hurdles, and in this ignominious manner dragged from the new gaol at Southwark to the place of execution on Kennington Common, escorted by a strong party of soldiers. A gallows had been previously erected, and near it were the hideous adjuncts of all executions for treason—a pile of faggots and a block on which was laid the executioner's knife. On their arrival the victims were unbound and transferred from the hurdles to a cart placed under the "fatal tree," and at the same time the fire was lit, the faggots blazing up and crackling, before the doomed men's eyes. Having spent some time in their devotions, they severally delivered the declarations which they had written to the sheriff, the cart was withdrawn, and they were launched into eternity, all dying calm and composed. At the end of five minutes after suspension—before life was extinct, and while the body was yet quivering—Captain Townley was cut down, stripped, and placed on the block, when the hangman with his cleaver severed his head from the body, and then took out his heart and bowels and cast them into the fire. Captain Dawson underwent the same barbarous treatment; the others in succession shared his fate; and when the heart of the last was thrown into the fire the grim finisher of the law exclaimed, "God save King George!" the assembled crowd answering with a loud shout.
Connected with this melancholy exhibition an incident is recorded that has a more enduring interest even than the catastrophe itself. Among the spectators of the tragic scene was the plighted fair one of Captain Dawson. When all hope of the royal clemency was at an end the inconsolable young lady, impelled by frenzy and despair, determined upon following her betrothed to the place of execution and witnessing the dreadful spectacle that was to be enacted. Accompanied by a relative she, with heroic fortitude, followed the sledges in a hackney coach, beheld the preparations that were being made, watched her lover mount the gallows, and saw his lifeless body cut down and placed upon the block to be mutilated, without betraying any extravagant emotion, but when the executioner flung his victim's heart into the flames the sight was more than human nature could sustain. Withdrawing her gaze, she leaned back in the carriage, breathed his name, and was no more. Shenstone has made the incident the theme of a ballad which has alike immortalised its hero and its author. The following version, which differs slightly from some of the printed copies, is from Percy's "Reliques":—