A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



High Tories and Jacobites of Manchester, headed as already stated by clergy 

 of the Collegiate church,'" and of Jacobite Lancashire generally, began 

 again. At Manchester several young men of the town enlisted with Mr. 

 Francis Towneley (a nephew of Mr. Towneley of Towneley) as captains in a 

 force known as the Manchester Regiment, of which Mr. Francis Towneley 

 was subsequently appointed colonel. This band of volunteers joined the 

 Prince and offered him their services when he entered Manchester on 29 

 November, 1745, and they accompanied him, though with gradually sinking 

 hearts, on his further march towards Derby. At Manchester James III was 

 again proclaimed and illuminations in honour of the prince were ordered and con- 

 trived, though it isdifScult to see how they could have been refused in a town 

 occupied by an army of about 5,000 Highlanders. On the prince's return in ten 

 days' time many of the Manchester men deserted ; the rest went on and were 

 left to garrison Carlisle, where they were shortly invested and compelled to 

 surrender by the duke of Cumberland. The officers of the so-called Manchester 

 Regiment were sent to London for trial and a number of them were executed. 

 The heads of some were sent to Manchester and placed on view there. 



Much subsequent pamphlet agitation followed upon the loss of reputa- 

 tion the town was said to have suffered by reason of participation in this 

 Jacobite rising. A series of letters was published in the Chester Courant of 

 that day,"' vindicating the town from what was considered the 'malicious 

 tho' baffled attempt of a schismatical Cabal to distress and defame it.'"' The 

 writer denies the reports of Jacobite mobs worshipping, or wishing to remove 

 the heads of those who had been executed for their share in the rebellion ; 

 or concerning the 'vast increase of Papists and Non-Jurors.' He ascribes 

 these reports to the rage and calumny of ' wrong-headed Whigs and furious 

 fanatics.' The writer goes on to show that ' King George has as many hearty 

 friends and as many stedfast enemies in Manchester as in any other town in 

 Britain.''" Again he repeats that the town is 'well affected to his Majesty,' 

 though ' it does not square with the party views of some folk to have this 

 opinion prevail.' 



In one account published of the prince's entry into Manchester it is 

 noted ' how he was convinced that the inhabitants almost unwisely showed 

 they abhorred him,' and for its honour the writer pleads with his readers to 

 remember how loyally it behaved when his Majesty's forces arrived in pursuit 

 of the rebels."' The sum total of evidence appears to favour the hypothesis 

 that the town was actually exploited by a Jacobite faction, and was repre- 

 sented to the prince as enthusiastic for his cause, whereas, if not openly hostile 

 it was certainly supremely indifferent. The doctrines of the Whig and 

 Presbyterian party were in ascendancy in the Lancashire towns, whose 

 population was increasing at an enormous rate, and the people at large felt 

 they had a stake in the maintenance of the Protestant succession. 



The accession of King George III in 1760 and his coronation in Sep- 

 tember, 1 76 1, was for these reasons enthusiastically celebrated at Manchester."* 



■" The town, not being a borough, had no organization, so that the fellow, and chaplain, of the church 

 had a greater prominence and influence than they would have had in a corporate town 

 1 746 ; republished as Manchester Vindicated (Chester 1 749) 



'" %ItI Vik ,- ri""'^- P- 3^- r J" ^'^'^- P- 73. quoting The Chester Courant, ,0 Dec. , 746 

 privatel/rnS^str" '^ ~"^ '^ ^^'"^ ^'^^ ''' '"' '" »"''' "' Manchester,'.. Sept. \]t 



246 



