Battle of Prestonpans 1745

VICTORY AT PRESTONPANS
and snow. Moving slowly and laboriously, they were unable to
gain the initiative from the tough, fit and ingenious Jacobites.
In such a way the Highland Army was able to dodge
between the forces of Field Marshal Wade, Cope’s successor,
stranded east of the snowy Pennines, and those of the newlyarrived
Duke of Cumberland, freezing and miserable in the
West Midlands.
On 4 December the Jacobites reached Derby, just 120 miles
or six day’s march from London, which was now in
consternation. The spirits among the Scots rank and file and
great regimental officers were as high as ever, but the same did
not hold true in the Jacobite headquarters.
Derby and the Return to Scotland
Prince Charles depended ultimately on the goodwill of a group
of the most influential grandees and clan chiefs, and these in
turn were inclined to take their lead from Lord George
Murray who remains one of the most controversial figures of
the ’45. He was an extraordinarily able man and the author of
many brilliant initiatives. He was at the same time moody,
vindictive and headstrong to the point of irresponsibility.
Prince Charles was almost certainly wrong when he came to
believe that Lord George was a traitor but there was something
about the man which undeniably attracted suspicion.
Lord George was now arguing that it was madness for the
Jacobites to continue. There were the armies of Wade and
Cumberland behind them, and he wrongly feared that a third
army was lurking in front. At the same time English
sympathisers had failed to declare themselves en masse and
there was no sign of the promised French invasion.
The doubters carried the day in crucial meetings on 5
December, and on the next day baffled officers and men of the
Highland Army were ordered to turn their noses to the north.
Historians have debated the rights and wrongs of the
decision at Derby, but it is relevant to this analysis that the
Jacobite forces had neither been outmanoeuvred nor
outfought, and that the spell of Prestonpans was as potent as
ever. The confidence of the Scots was upheld by a creditable
rearguard action at Clifton on 18 December, which kept the
pursuing Duke of Cumberland off their backs and enabled
them to cross the Esk on the 20th and leave England
unscathed.
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