To modern censorious minds the picture formed by this gay figure suffers in the letters he wrote. They were written, let it be said, in the loftiest sentiments, but the spelling of them was abominable. When every one—among those who were sufficiently accomplished to write at all—spelled according to personal predilection, this mattered little or nothing; but in these days, when every Board School boy can at least spell simple words, it seems shocking, and tarnishes romance with a smear of vulgarity, to read Prince Charlie’s references to “muney” and “munishuns.” When he draws his “sord,” we laugh, instead of being thrilled, and when he writes of his father as “gems,” we with difficulty understand that he means “James.” [Illustration: SWARKESTONE BRIDGE.] This is no place to follow his advance step by step. He gained a complete victory at Prestonpans on September 21st and, the way then cleared, he should have pressed forward. But a lack of sufficient recruits, and, much more certainly, the wish to pose and dazzle Edinburgh, as the victor in this first conflict, led the Prince to delay. Had he made a dash into England on the morrow of Prestonpans, his cousin, King George, would in all likelihood have been overthrown. But he wasted precious time, and only left Edinburgh on October 31st, for the advance upon England, He was at Carlisle on November 9th. The opposition there was feeble, and he took the city and passed on. Meanwhile, large forces were moving up from the south to meet him and his Highlanders. Marshal Wade was in Staffordshire with an army, and the Duke of Cumberland was advancing with another. King George in person was proposing to leave London with a third. Many of these troops had been landed from the scene of war with the French in Flanders, in the interval of inaction after Prestonpans. Prince Charles decided to give battle to Wade in Staffordshire, and advanced through Lancaster and Manchester, to Stockport. News then arrived of the presence of the Duke of Cumberland with his army divided between Lichfield, Coventry, Stafford, and Newcastle-under-Lyme, and the ingenious ruse was contrived of detaching a small column of Highlanders to Congleton, while the main body of the Prince’s force slipped quietly by the English army, on the road to Derby. It was a master-stroke of manœuvring and was entirely successful. The Duke of Cumberland, thus cleverly deceived, hurried up his forces on the evening of December 2nd, going north, while the invaders pushed south, and were installed at Derby on the 4th, where they were rejoined by the detached column. [Sidenote: _IN THE BALANCE_]