ABSTRACT
In 1745 the army of the Young Pretender overran Scotland and advanced deep into England. Modern historians differ over whether the invaders had any real chance of success.1 But the incursion was at the very least the most formidable direct challenge offered, at any time in the eighteenth century, to Hanoverian rule over the British Isles. The response to the crisis of the local and metropolitan establishment is correspondingly revealing.
