At this juncture the third English army was just setting out from London and had reached Finchley Common. London was thoroughly alarmed: shops were closed, the banks experienced an uneasy time, and more than one of King George’s ministers anxiously debated the problem of whether it were safest to declare for the Stuarts, or to remain loyal to the House of Hanover. King George himself, according to popular rumour, had made every preparation for leaving the country in haste, if it were found necessary. Above all, the French were expected to attempt a landing. All these terrors and doubts resulted in a panic on a day long after remembered as “Black Friday.” Prince Charles came very near success. He had five thousand men at Derby, and although his ragged Highlanders were looked upon with contempt by the English people, and although his cause by no means met with the popular support he had anticipated, the people, if indeed they did not help him, at any rate did not very actively oppose. Scottish sentiment had, in a manner truly remarkable, survived the fact that the Prince was a Roman Catholic, and that he was quite ignorant, at the time of his landing, of Scottish costume and manners; but the English people looked with disfavour upon one who was almost as much a foreigner as George the Second himself. They loved neither the Hanoverians nor the Stuarts, and were heartily tired of both their houses, whose ambitions were for ever hindering honest men in their business and their pleasures. Had Prince Charles made haste to advance beyond Derby, he would have been running grave risks, but, with two hostile forces already near him, the position could scarce have been more dangerous; while it was busily rumoured that either the courage or the loyalty, or perhaps both, of the King’s army on Finchley Common were in doubt; and that on the appearance of the invaders they would promptly lay down their arms. Prince Charles, to do him justice, was eager to advance. To retreat, even for a while, would be, he clearly saw, to strike dismay into his supporters, and to weaken his cause. Already his outposts were six miles south of Derby, holding the approaches to Swarkestone Bridge. He was for risking everything. “Rather than go back,” he said, “I would wish to be twenty feet underground.” But the faint-hearts were numerous around him. Not among the clansmen, but amid the leaders did prudence—to call it no worse name—show itself; and prudence prevailed. After heated councils of war, the outposts were withdrawn, and on December 5th the retreat from Derby began.