Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie painted by John Pettie.
This was the Prince’s finest hour. He was within two hundred miles of London and determined to press on to Derby. On 1 December his army left Manchester. On the far bank of the river Mersey, Charles was met by a small party of Cheshire Jacobites. They were accompanied by a Mrs. Skyring, a loyal supporter who was nearly 90 years old. As a child she had been held up in her mother’s arms to view the arrival of Charles II on English soil. Her family had strong Jacobite sympathies, and her father had fought as a Cavalier. After the expulsion of the Stuarts and the arrival of the Hanoverian dynasty she had laid aside half her income to send it to the exiled Royal family, concealing only her name. She had now sold all her plate and jewels and gave the money she got for them to the Prince. She kissed his hand saying: ‘Lord now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.’
Moray McLaren, Bonnie Prince Charlie (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972), 95-6.
Short Stories on Honor, Chivalry, and the World of Nobility—no. 523
