Following the death of Queen Anne there were riots in a number of English cities when the accession of George I was declared and the ‘15’ erupted in Scotland, led by John Erskine, 11th Earl of Mar, known derisively as ‘Bobbing John’. Erskine had been Secretary of State for Scotland in Anne’s government and although he supported the Hanoverian succession George I dismissed him, with the result that he left London and had become a fervent Jacobite by the time he arrived back in Scotland. Raising the Stuart Standard on the Braes of Mar on 6 September, he collected an army from the West and Central Highlands but his indecision led him to dither around Inverness and Perth until October. Word of support from Jacobites along the border and in the north of England led him to send an army of about two thousand southwards, under Mackintosh of Borlum, an old soldier. The southern support was said to include a troop of fifty armed men already raised in Manchester and a general insurrection of twenty thousand men in Lancashire on the appearance of the Jacobite army.

In the Borders, Mackintosh was joined by Viscount Kenmure, the Earl of Nithsdale and a small force of English Jacobites under Thomas Forster, M.P for Northumberland and the Earl of Derwentwater. Forster was given command as the only Protestant among the Jacobite leaders, a recommendation which was overshadowed by his inabilities as a military commander and his habit of taking to his bed when the pressures of command became too much to cope with. Forster who insisted in marching on Liverpool, claiming that the whole of Lancashire would greet them. On the march a number of the Highlanders and Borderers returned home, reducing the army by around 500. Shadowed by the local militia the army moved toward Preston.

On 7th November, the Jacobite army marched into Lancaster with bagpipes playing and drums beating, colours flying and swords drawn, and occupying the town, proclaimed James III king at the market place. Five of the local Catholic gentry and two townsmen joined the Jacobites ‘the Gentleman soldiers dressed and trimmed themselves up in their best cloathes, for to drink a dish of tea with the laydys of this town. The laydys also here appeared in their best riging and had their tea tables richly furnished for to entertain their new suitors’. This pleasant interlude over, the army assembled on Wednesday 9th and marched south, having acquired 6 small cannon from a ship moored at Lancaster.

Preston was a prosperous town with houses fronting the main streets, each house with a long, narrow ‘burgage plots’ behind it, bounded by hedges and ditches and walls, containing barns, outbuilding, gardens and orchards. Here and there narrow alleys (weinds or ginnels) separated blocks of houses. The modern street pattern of the city centre has changed little since the 18th century. Fishergate and Church Street are still spacious and still form the main spine of the city, with the parish church occupying its ancient site, although the present building dates largely from the 1850s. The market place still functions daily, and Friargate leads off from it undulating uphill to the site of the windmills and town moor.

On 9-10 November 1715 the Jacobite Army around 1,700 strong marched into Preston without opposition, two troops of dragoons who were stationed in the town withdrawing before them. James VIII was proclaimed king in the Market Place, troops were billeted on the townspeople and because ‘the Ladys in this town, Preston, are so beautiful and so richly attired, that the Gentlemen soldiers from Wednesday to Saturday minded nothing but courting and ffeasting’. More local gentry and their supporters joined the Jacobite forces or sent assistance. A severe disappointment was that most of the English supporters were Catholic, the High Churchmen and ‘tavern Tories’ staying at home

On the 12th news was brought that Government forces under General Wills were advancing from the south and the main streets of the town were barricaded and some trenches dug reinforced by the town bars, which could be used to close off the main roads by stringing chains across them. The barricades were manned and many of houses of the town occupied by troops to create a strong defensive position. Reserves were grouped in the churchyard and Market Place, ready to move to bolster the defence at any threatened point.

The first assault was launched against the east barrier on Church St, around three hundred men taking part. Shooting from cellars and windows the Highlanders of the Jacobite army poured musket fire into the attacking redcoats. They were supported by two of the ships guns brought from Lancaster which were commanded by a sailor, reputed to have been drunk. The first cannon shots seriously wounded one of the town’s chimneys but following rounds of ‘small shot’ (probably grape shot) caused casualties among the attackers. The pitched battle over the barricades resulted in the Hanoverians being repulsed with heavy losses

The only Government infantry unit engaged in the fierce fighting was Preston’s, unit which would become the 26th Foot, better known as the Cameronians so Preston was an exact reversal of Dunkeld in 1688.

Following the bloody repulse of the direct assault, troops were sent to fire the houses and barns east of the Church Street barricade. Fortunately for the defenders and the townsfolk of Preston the wind was against the attackers and failed to drive the flames into the town. However, Government troops, possibly aided by drifting smoke from the burning buildings concealing some of their movements, managed to infiltrate one of the alleys or weinds which led along the backs and between some of the properties and stormed Patten House which stood on the north side of Church Street and commanded the east end of Church Street and the barricade there.

As dusk fell, the attackers, attempted to bypass the northwest barricade on Friargate by an attack down a back lane. The Jacobites unleashed a hail of fire which ‘killed the Captain and about one hundred and forty of his men’ and beat off the attack. Houses beyond the barricades here were also set alight although whether as a result of this action or earlier is uncertain.

With nightfall, blazing buildings and the long, red muzzle flashes of musket fire illuminated the town. General Wills ordered his men to set lighted candles in the windows of any buildings captured by Government troops so that progress could be seen. To confuse the enemy, the Jacobites responded by illuminating all the windows they could and some of the townsfolk, misinterpreting an order to extinguish the lights lit still more candles, to the amusement of both sides but doing harm to neither. As the night drew on the fighting around the barricades petered out although sporadic shots were fired through the night. Both armies’ front line troops spent the night snatching what sleep they could in their positions although Forster retired to bed.

On the following morning Wills was reinforced by another 2,500 men enabling him to surround the town and block off all means of escape. The Jacobites, trapped in the town, were left with the choice of fighting their way out or surrendering, having no provision for a long siege. Derwentwater and Mackintosh were for fighting, having inflicted heavy casualties on the attackers the day before and still being in possession of most of their strongpoints but Forster overruled them to the dismay of the ordinary soldiers who were well aware of the fate that might await them. Furious with Forster ‘had he appeared in the street, he would certainly have been cut to pieces’ and an attempt to shoot him in his chamber was made by Mr Murray. Murray actually fired a pistol at Forster but a Mr Patten knocked up the barrel of the weapon and Forster survived. Patten was later to turn King’s Evidence and to write an eyewitness account of the Rebellion.

On the 14th the Jacobite army therefore laid down their arms in the market place, the senior officers, to spare their feelings, proffered their surrenders more privately in the inn where they had been billeted.

Sherriffmuir was fought on the same Sunday and any hopes the Jacobites may have had of success were thwarted. The proclaimed but uncrowned James VIII landed at Peterhead in December but departed soon afterwards to spend the rest of his life (he died in 1766) in exile.

Aftermath
The prisoners were confined in the church and fed on bread and water for a month, at the expense of the townspeople. Some were transferred to Lancaster Castle and some taken to Liverpool and tried. Around fifty died in prison. In December, four officers were shot and local volunteers were hanged at Preston, Garstang, Wigan Lancaster, Manchester and Liverpool

The Earl of Derwentwater and Viscount Kenmure went to the block on Tower Hill on February 24th. A further six had been condemned but were not executed; The Earl of Nithsdale and the Earl of Wintoun escaped from the Tower of London and Forster and Mackintosh from Newgate Prison. Many local families suffered exile and confiscation of their estates although others were more fortunate and in some cases extremely lucky to escape with their lives and fortunes intact. The most lucky may have been Richard Towneley of Towneley Hall, Burnley who was acquitted despite an eye witness having seen him ‘with a cockade in his hat… with twelve or fourteen men with him, all with cockades, swords, pistols, and guns, on Sunday morning, marching amongst the said rebels to oppose the kings forces’. Must have been a packed jury.

So ended the ‘15’ and the Jacobites of Lancashire had to wait another 30 years before another chance arose to support their cause – but that’s another story.

Peter McCrone
Ensign, Loudoun's Regt.