1715 Battle of Preston: A chronology of events during the Jacobite uprising – Part 3

NEWSFLASH: November 5 12 noon Jacobites enter Kendal.

Map

On 5 November the army marched for Kendal, “a town of very good trade.” About noon six quarter-masters arrived and about 2 o’clock Brigadier Mackintosh rode in and was lodged at Alderman Lowry’s house in Highgate. Later came the army through a pouring rain so that “no swords were drawn or colours displayed, only six highland bagpipes played them in.” At the Cauld-stean they proclaimed James III, at the close of which, it is said, a Highlander thrust a halbert at a Quaker for not taking off his hat.

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The earl of Derwentwater and his suite were lodged at Mr. Fletcher’s inn, the sign of the White Lion; five other lords were accommodated at Mayor Thomas Rowlandson’s inn, at the sign of the King’s Arms; while General Forster lodged at Alderman Simpson’s house in the same street. The General was a godson of Mrs. Bellingham who also “tabled in Mr. Simpson’s house,” and the story goes how that she met him on the stairs and gave him two or three sound boxes on the ear and called him a rebel and a popish tool, the which rebuff, it is said, “he took patiently.”

The innkeepers and tanners were compelled to pay over a sum of £80 due as Excise to the Crown and at 6 o’clock the Mayor was taken into custody for not telling where the Militia arms were concealed. Nor did the rebels have greater success when they broke into the parish church expecting to find the arms there. It should be said, however, that they took no valuables from the church neither did they throughout the Rising maltreat any women or take what they were not willing to pay for.

We are indebted to Aidan Turner-Bishop of the Preston Historical Society, for his assistance in providing the timeline of events during the 1715 uprising and battle.