As it
began to rain, they used their red flannel petticoats as cloaks, which
the Highlanders, spying, took to be the red uniforms of soldiers, and a
panic seized them--so much so, that some who had seized some
pig-puddings and were fastening them hot on a pole, according to a local
ditty, ran out through a back door, and, jumping from a heap of manure,
fell up to the neck in a cesspool. The pillage near Ashbourne was very
great, but they could not stay, for the Duke was already at Uttoxoter
with a small force.
[Illustration: ASHBOURNE CHURCH.]
George Canning, the great orator who was born in 1770 and died when he
was Prime Minister of England in 1827, often visited Ashbourne Old Hall.
In his time the town of Ashbourne was a flourishing one; it was said to
be the only town in England that benefited by the French prisoners of
war, as there were 200 officers, including three generals, quartered
there in 1804, and it was estimated that they spent nearly L30,000 in
Ashbourne. An omnibus was then running between Ashbourne and Derby,
which out of courtesy to the French was named a "diligence," the French
equivalent for stage-coach; but the Derby diligence was soon abbreviated
to the Derby "Dilly.
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