There was perhaps some fear in the court of Charles II. now at the Hague, that the Earl of Derby might yield to the proposals made to him by Parliament for surrender. At any rate in January, 1650, he was made a Knight of the Garter, an honour which he had expected in the previous reign. Of the four Knights elected at this time the Duke of Hamilton, Marquis of Newcastle, the Marquis of Montrose, and the Earl of Derby, only Newcastle lived to be installed. The letter of appointment to the Earl of Derby makes special reference to his defence of the Isle of Man; and in the following June Sir Marmaduke Langdale and Sir Lewis Dives were despatched to the Island to urge the importance of preserving it. There had been plans made in the Spring of 1650 for a royalist rising in England, and the Earl of Derby had been named as General in Lancashire; and when Charles II. had a prospect of regaining power, his advisers realised that the Earl of Derby could give substantial assistance in any attempt on the North of England.[217] It was in June, 1650, that Charles landed at Speymouth in Scotland, took the Covenant, and six months later was crowned King. To anticipate the inevitable invasion of England Cromwell crossed the border and signally defeated Leslie at Dunbar (Sept. 3rd, 1650). After his victory all the South of Scotland submitted to the English. The following summer Cromwell again took the field; Lambert turned the Scots' position by a flank march through Fife, and Leslie, realising that Scotland was lost, staked all on the desperate venture of an invasion of England. Perhaps it did not seem so desperate as it was. They were convinced, as the Jacobites were convinced half a century later, that the country would rise in force out of affection for the House of Stewart; and there was certainly more reason for the expectation in 1651 than in 1715. For the majority of Englishmen after all favoured monarchy, and the prospect of a military despotism alarmed most people. The tyranny of Charles I. was being forgotten, and his tragic death had to a large extent effaced the memory of his incompetence and duplicity. But still more powerful than this feeling was the desire for peace and quietness. The country would probably have accepted Charles II. in 1651 as in 1660, if it could have done so peaceably. Perhaps a majority of the nation, certainly a majority of the inhabitants of Lancashire would have already preferred the restoration of the King to the rule of Cromwell but they were not so anxious for his restoration that they would support it by force of arms. And the old Parliamentarian leaders in Lancashire, estranged as they were from Cromwell, had no more sympathy with their old royalist enemies who now emerged from their retirement in the Isle of Man to welcome Charles' march.[218]