The next taste of warlike times was in 1715, which was like to be a very serious time for Preston; for in the Jacobite rebellion that made this year memorable, the townsfolk figured more than a thought too prominently as well-wishers to the cause. English rebels, as well as Scotch, made this incursion from Scotland something new in the moving annals of such things. In olden times the Scots had come from the north as enemies; now the Old Pretender, “James the Seventh of Scotland and Third of England,” was proclaimed at the market-cross with every mark of approval, and the hospitality of the townsfolk and the smiles of the young ladies were extended to those who, it was thought, were presently to upset “the Elector” in London. [Sidenote: _THE REBELLION OF 1715_] This kindly reception wrought disaster to the rebels. They had reached Preston on November 9th, but, instead of marching onward and fighting, idled away the precious days in feasting and flirting: and, as it proved, these hospitable burgesses and pretty girls formed what military strategists might call a “containing force” really helpful to the Royal armies hurrying up to meet the rebels, who were caught in Preston town, as neatly as possible. The invaders had numbered two thousand, but it is typical of the mismanagement of this ill-fated rebellion that ever since October 6th, when the Northumbrian Jacobites had assembled at Rothbury, their counsels had been divided. Later, when they had joined forces with a body of Scottish rebels, and had marched along the Borders, and so down into Lancashire, there was little authority and no discipline. The Scots wanted to fight in Scotland, and the English, for their part, declined to conduct the revolt there. So, grumbling and dissatisfied, they came south, under the leadership of Forster of Etherston, elected “General,” but a person of no native capacity or acquired military knowledge, and simply one of the famous, long-descended Northumbrian Forsters; famed less on account of their merits than that they had existed in Northumberland so long, and owned so many of its acres. Disheartened by the feebleness of the invasion, five hundred of the insurgents left, and marched away home again. The remaining fifteen hundred were reinforced at Preston by the Roman Catholic gentry of Lancashire, their servants and tenantry, to the number of twelve hundred, but they appear to have been an embarrassment rather than of use.