Darwen

See Dertmouth. Cromwell 7. “Not the Derwent in Derby shire, as some commentators have imagined, but the Darwen in Lancashire, which falls into the Ribble near Preston. It was in that neighborhood, and over the ground traversed by the Ribble and its tributaries, that Cromwell fought his famous three days’ battle of Preston, Aug. 17-19, 1648, in which he utterly routed the Scottish invading The stream, and a bridge Army under the Duke of Hamilton. over it where there was hard fighting, are mentioned in Cromwell’s own letter of Aug. 20, 1648, to Speaker Lenthall, describing the battle; and Mr. Carlyle, in a note to that letter, has given a list of the various tributaries to the Ribble, the Darwen included, in illustration of the range of the battle. As the Darwen is not ordinary maps of Lancashire, commentators have denied the existence of such a Lancashire stream, and supposed that Milton meant the Ribble, but forgot its name and put that marked in of the Derby shire it Derwent instead. Here again one sees that unsafe to doubt Milton’s accuracy.” is Poems 3. 291.) (Ma on, Milton’s The Darwen is shown on the map preceding the Seven and Twentieth Song of Drayton’s Polyol hi on, and he puts in the mouth of the River Ribble the words: whereat my going downe, Cleere Darwen on along me to the Sea doth drive. 1. 115