lonel Townley, had
been conveyed to London, and tried for high treason, in July 1746.
Some were reprieved and pardoned; others were executed, with all the
horrid accompaniments prescribed by the law. The heads of Townley and
one Captain Fletcher were placed upon Temple Bar. The heads of seven
others, having been preserved in spirits, were at that time
ornamenting posterns and public thoroughfares in Manchester, Preston,
Wigan, and Carlisle, to the great comfort of the loyal and
well-disposed, and the grievous terror of the little children who
passed in and out thereat. Others, the noble leaders of this short and
ill-acted tragedy for the benefit of the selfish and bigoted Stuarts,
suffered death; while others escaped, amongst whom was the titular
Earl of Derwentwater, supposed to have been conveyed secretly aboard
ship for Scotland.

In these rebellions, it may generally be said, that in the county of
Lancaster, Catholics as well as Protestants displayed a firm
attachment to the reigning family. Instances of defection were very
rare; and, when they occurred, might be imputed to some peculiarity in
the situation of the delinquents rather than to party or religious
feelings. The romantic attempt of the young Chevalier, as displayed in
this rebellion, had in it something imposing to ardent and
enthusiastic minds; and those who embraced his cause south of the
Tweed were principally young men of warm temperament, whose
imaginations were dazzled by the chivalrous character of the
enterprise.[17]

About the close of day, the towers of "proud Preston" were seen rising
above the broad sweep of the river below Penwortham Bridge. The
situation chosen by our ancestors for the erection of "_Priest's
Town_"--so called because the majority of its inhabitants in former
times were ecclesiastics--evinces the discriminating eye of a priest,
and shows that, whether the religious orders selected a site for an
abbey or for a city, they were equally felicitous in their choice.
Placed at a convenient distance from the sea, upon the elevated banks
of one of the finest rivers in England, with a mild climate and a dry
soil, and commanding a rich assemblage of picturesque views, in one of
the most interesting portions of Ribblesdale, the spirit of St Wilfred
himself, to whom the parish church is dedicated, and who was the most
accomplished ecclesiastic of his age, must have animated the mind that
fixed upon this spot.[18]

Grimes, adjusting h