70 
‘‘ Halstead Cote Nook.” Situated on the borders of a solitary 
moor, the Jacobite leaders chose this lonely spot for the rendez- 
vous a short time previous to the rebellion of 1745. The rising 
of 1715 had proved disastrous to many of the old nobility who 
flocked to the standard of the Royal Stuart. Some had to fly 
the country, while others expiated their devotion to this unlucky 
family on the scaffold. The Earl of Derwentwater, Lord Ken- 
mure, and a host of others suffered at the hands of the execu- 
tioner. The gallows at Garstang, Preston, Liverpool, Lancaster 
and Tyburn, were employed in the execution of men of lower 
degree. Two men from the neighbourhood of Burnley were 
among the lot. Stephen Sagar from Dineley was hanged at Wigan 
on the eleventh of February, 1716. The other name I have 
forgotten. In the beginning of 1745 the hopes of the Stuarts again 
rose in the ascendant. Great numbers of the old Roman Catholic 
gentry looked anxiously forward to the landing of their darling 
prince. Francis Towneley, a brave and chivalrous young gentle- 
man, had been a long time a resident in France, and a frequent 
visitor to the mimic court held at St. Germains, where the head 
of the House of Stuart resided. Strongly attached to the religion 
of his ancestors he entered into the enterprise with all the 
ardour of youthful enthusiasm, and secretly collecting a number 
of men, principally tenants on the Towneley and other Roman 
Catholic gentlemen’s estates, they frequently met in the lonely 
cot at Halstead Cote Nook for the purpose of drilling and pre- 
paring for the coming struggle. At length the time arrived. 
The news that the Prince had landed spread lke wildfire among 
his confederates in Lancashire. With 200 men Towneley joined 
the standard of his prince at Manchester, amid the ringing of 
the church bells and the martial tones of the bagpipes playing, 
“The king shall have his own again.” I shall not dwell upon 
the disastrous undertaking which ended in the wholesale butchery 
on Culloden Moor, and the hanging, drawing, and quartering on 
Kennington Common. 
Mr. Wilkinson afterwards informed the audience that he 
had heard the story of secret drilling at Halstead’s Cote from 
the lips of his grandfather, who was born in 1766. He had it 
from his father, who was one of the company who regularly 
assembled at that spot to prepare for the rising in favour of the 
Pretender. 
THE STOCKS AT WORSTHORNE, 
This ancient relic of Saxon times stood in full working order 
in the centre of Worsthorne up to a recent period, a terror to 
those incorrigible gamblers and drunkards who chanced to cross 
the path of the village constable or churchwarden for the time 
being. I remember three being sat in ‘‘doleful dumps” in the 
