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<h2> THE STORY OF PRINCE CHARLES EDWARD STUART </h2>
<p>The royal families of Europe are widely known, yet not all of them are
equally renowned. Thus, the house of Romanoff, although comparatively
young, stands out to the mind with a sort of barbaric power, more vividly
than the Austrian house of Hapsburg, which is the oldest reigning family
in Europe, tracing its beginnings backward until they are lost in the Dark
Ages. The Hohenzollerns of Prussia are comparatively modern, so far as
concerns their royalty. The offshoots of the Bourbons carry on a very
proud tradition in the person of the King of Spain, although France, which
has been ruled by so many members of the family, will probably never again
behold a Bourbon king. The deposed Braganzas bear a name which is ancient,
but which has a somewhat tinsel sound.</p>
<p>The Bonapartes, of course, are merely parvenus, and they have had the good
taste to pretend to no antiquity of birth. The first Napoleon, dining at a
table full of monarchs, when he heard one of them deferentially alluding
to the Bonaparte family as being very old and noble, exclaimed:</p>
<p>"Pish! My nobility dates from the day of Marengo!"</p>
<p>And the third Napoleon, in announcing his coming marriage with Mlle. de
Montijo, used the very word "parvenu" in speaking of himself and of his
family. His frankness won the hearts of the French people and helped to
reconcile them to a marriage in which the bride was barely noble.</p>
<p>In English history there are two great names to conjure by, at least to
the imaginative. One is Plantagenet, which seems to contain within itself
the very essence of all that is patrician, magnificent, and royal. It
calls to memory at once the lion-hearted Richard, whose short reign was
replete with romance in England and France and Austria and the Holy Land.</p>
<p>But perhaps a name of greater influence is that which links the royal
family of Britain today with the traditions of the past, and which summons
up legend and story and great deeds of history. This is the name of
Stuart, about which a whole volume might be written to recall its
suggestions and its reminiscences.</p>
<p>The first Stuart (then Stewart) of whom anything is known got his name
from the title of "Steward of Scotland," which remained in the family for
generations, until the sixth of the line, by marriage with Princess
Marjory Bruce, acquired the Scottish crown. That was in the early years of
the fourteenth century; and finally, after the death of Elizabeth of
England, her rival's son, James VI. of Scotland and I. of England, united
under one crown two kingdoms that had so long been at almost constant war.</p>
<p>It is almost characteristic of the Scot that, having small territory,
little wealth, and a seat among his peers that is almost ostentatiously
humble, he should bit by bit absorb the possessions of all the rest and
become their master. Surely, the proud Tudors, whose line ended with
Elizabeth, must have despised the "Stewards," whose kingdom was small and
bleak and cold, and who could not control their own vassals.</p>
<p>One can imagine also, with Sir Walter Scott, the haughty nobles of the
English court sneering covertly at the awkward, shambling James, pedant
and bookworm. Nevertheless, his diplomacy was almost as good as that of
Elizabeth herself; and, though he did some foolish things, he was very far
from being a fool.</p>
<p>In his appearance James was not unlike Abraham Lincoln—an unkingly
figure; and yet, like Lincoln, when occasion required it he could rise to
the dignity which makes one feel the presence of a king. He was the only
Stuart who lacked anything in form or feature or external grace. His son,
Charles I., was perhaps one of the worst rulers that England has ever had;
yet his uprightness of life, his melancholy yet handsome face, his
graceful bearing, and the strong religious element in his character,
together with the fact that he was put to death after being treacherously
surrendered to his enemies—all these have combined to make almost a
saint of him. There are Englishmen to-day who speak of him as "the martyr
king," and who, on certain days of the year, say prayers that beg the
Lord's forgiveness because of Charles's execution.</p>
<p>The members of the so-called League of the White Rose, founded to
perpetuate English allegiance to the direct line of Stuarts, do many
things that are quite absurd. They refuse to pray for the present King of
England and profess to think that the Princess Mary of Bavaria is the true
ruler of Great Britain. All this represents that trace of sentiment which
lingers among the English to-day. They feel that the Stuarts were the last
kings of England to rule by the grace of God rather than by the grace of
Parliament. As a matter of fact, the present reigning family in England is
glad to derive its ancient strain of royal blood through a Stuart—descended
on the distaff side from James I., and winding its way through Hanover.</p>
<p>This sentiment for the Stuarts is a thing entirely apart from reason and
belongs to the realm of poetry and romance; yet so strong is it that it
has shown itself in the most inconsistent fashion. For instance, Sir
Walter Scott was a devoted adherent of the house of Hanover. When George
IV. visited Edinburgh, Scott was completely carried away by his loyal
enthusiasm. He could not see that the man before him was a drunkard and
braggart. He viewed him as an incarnation of all the noble traits that
ought to hedge about a king. He snatched up a wine-glass from which George
had just been drinking and carried it away to be an object of reverence
for ever after. Nevertheless, in his heart, and often in his speech, Scott
seemed to be a high Tory, and even a Jacobite.</p>
<p>There are precedents for this. The Empress Eugenie used often to say with
a laugh that she was the only true royalist at the imperial court of
France. That was well enough for her in her days of flightiness and
frivolity. No one, however, accused Queen Victoria of being frivolous, and
she was not supposed to have a strong sense of humor. None the less, after
listening to the skirling of the bagpipes and to the romantic ballads
which were sung in Scotland she is said to have remarked with a sort of
sigh:</p>
<p>"Whenever I hear those ballads I feel that England belongs really to the
Stuarts!"</p>
<p>Before Queen Victoria was born, when all the sons of George III. were
childless, the Duke of Kent was urged to marry, so that he might have a
family to continue the succession. In resenting the suggestion he said
many things, and among them this was the most striking:</p>
<p>"Why don't you call the Stuarts back to England? They couldn't possibly
make a worse mess of it than our fellows have!"</p>
<p>But he yielded to persuasion and married. From this marriage came
Victoria, who had the sacred drop of Stuart blood which gave England to
the Hanoverians; and she was to redeem the blunders and tyrannies of both
houses.</p>
<p>The fascination of the Stuarts, which has been carried overseas to America
and the British dominions, probably began with the striking history of
Mary Queen of Scots. Her brilliancy and boldness and beauty, and
especially the pathos of her end, have made us see only her intense
womanliness, which in her own day was the first thing that any one
observed in her. So, too, with Charles I., romantic figure and knightly
gentleman. One regrets his death upon the scaffold, even though his
execution was necessary to the growth of freedom.</p>
<p>Many people are no less fascinated by Charles II., that very different
type, with his gaiety, his good-fellowship, and his easy-going ways. It is
not surprising that his people, most of whom never saw him, were very fond
of him, and did not know that he was selfish, a loose liver, and almost a
vassal of the king of France.</p>
<p>So it is not strange that the Stuarts, with all their arts and graces,
were very hard to displace. James II., with the aid of the French, fought
hard before the British troops in Ireland broke the backs of both his
armies and sent him into exile. Again in 1715—an episode perpetuated
in Thackeray's dramatic story of Henry Esmond—came the son of James
to take advantage of the vacancy caused by the death of Queen Anne. But it
is perhaps to this claimant's son, the last of the militant Stuarts, that
more chivalrous feeling has been given than to any other.</p>
<p>To his followers he was the Young Chevalier, the true Prince of Wales; to
his enemies, the Whigs and the Hanoverians, he was "the Pretender." One of
the most romantic chapters of history is the one which tells of that last
brilliant dash which he made upon the coast of Scotland, landing with but
a few attendants and rejecting the support of a French army.</p>
<p>"It is not with foreigners," he said, "but with my own loyal subjects,
that I wish to regain the kingdom for my father."</p>
<p>It was a daring deed, and the spectacular side of it has been often
commemorated, especially in Sir Walter Scott's Waverley. There we see the
gallant prince moving through a sort of military panorama. Most of the
British troops were absent in Flanders, and the few regiments that could
be mustered to meet him were appalled by the ferocity and reckless courage
of the Highlanders, who leaped down like wildcats from their hills and
flung themselves with dirk and sword upon the British cannon.</p>
<p>We see Sir John Cope retiring at Falkirk, and the astonishing victory of
Prestonpans, where disciplined British troops fled in dismay through the
morning mist, leaving artillery and supplies behind them. It is Scott
again who shows us the prince, master of Edinburgh for a time, while the
white rose of Stuart royalty held once more the ancient keep above the
Scottish capital. Then we see the Chevalier pressing southward into
England, where he hoped to raise an English army to support his own. But
his Highlanders cared nothing for England, and the English—even the
Catholic gentry—would not rise to support his cause.</p>
<p>Personally, he had every gift that could win allegiance. Handsome,
high-tempered, and brave, he could also control his fiery spirit and
listen to advice, however unpalatable it might be.</p>
<p>The time was favorable. The British troops had been defeated on the
Continent by Marshal Saxe, of whom I have already written, and by Marshal
d'Estrees. George II. was a king whom few respected. He could scarcely
speak anything but German. He grossly ill-treated his wife. It is said
that on one occasion, in a fit of temper, he actually kicked the prime
minister. Not many felt any personal loyalty to him, and he spent most of
his time away from England in his other domain of Hanover.</p>
<p>But precisely here was a reason why Englishmen were willing to put up with
him. As between him and the brilliant Stuart there would have been no
hesitation had the choice been merely one of men; but it was believed that
the return of the Stuarts meant the return of something like absolute
government, of taxation without sanction of law, and of religious
persecution. Under the Hanoverian George the English people had begun to
exercise a considerable measure of self-government. Sharp opposition in
Parliament compelled him time and again to yield; and when he was in
Hanover the English were left to work out the problem of free government.</p>
<p>Hence, although Prince Charles Edward fascinated all who met him, and
although a small army was raised for his support, still the unromantic,
common-sense Englishmen felt that things were better than in the days gone
by, and most of them refused to take up arms for the cause which
sentimentally they favored. Therefore, although the Chevalier stirred all
England and sent a thrill through the officers of state in London, his
soldiers gradually deserted, and the Scots insisted on returning to their
own country. Although the Stuart troops reached a point as far south as
Derby, they were soon pushed backward into Scotland, pursued by an army of
about nine thousand men under the Duke of Cumberland, son of George II.</p>
<p>Cumberland was no soldier; he had been soundly beaten by the French on the
famous field of Fontenoy. Yet he had firmness and a sort of overmastering
brutality, which, with disciplined troops and abundant artillery, were
sufficient to win a victory over the untrained Highlanders.</p>
<p>When the battle came five thousand of these mountaineers went roaring
along the English lines, with the Chevalier himself at their head. For a
moment there was surprise. The Duke of Cumberland had been drinking so
heavily that he could give no verbal orders. One of his officers, however,
is said to have come to him in his tent, where he was trying to play
cards.</p>
<p>"What disposition shall we make of the prisoners?" asked the officer.</p>
<p>The duke tried to reply, but his utterance was very thick.</p>
<p>"No quarter!" he was believed to say.</p>
<p>The officer objected and begged that such an order as that should be given
in writing. The duke rolled over and seized a sheaf of playing-cards.
Pulling one out, he scrawled the necessary order, and that was taken to
the commanders in the field.</p>
<p>The Highlanders could not stand the cannon fire, and the English won. Then
the fury of the common soldiery broke loose upon the country.</p>
<p>There was a reign of fantastic and fiendish brutality. One provost of the
town was violently kicked for a mild remonstrance about the destruction of
the Episcopalian meeting-house; another was condemned to clean out dirty
stables. Men and women were whipped and tortured on slight suspicion or to
extract information. Cumberland frankly professed his contempt and hatred
of the people among whom he found himself, but he savagely punished
robberies committed by private soldiers for their own profit.</p>
<p>"Mild measures will not do," he wrote to Newcastle.</p>
<p>When leaving the North in July, he said:</p>
<p>"All the good we have done is but a little blood-letting, which has only
weakened the madness, but not at all cured it; and I tremble to fear that
this vile spot may still be the ruin of this island and of our family."</p>
<p>Such was the famous battle of Culloden, fought in 1746, and putting a
final end to the hopes of all the Stuarts. As to Cumberland's order for
"No quarter," if any apology can be made for such brutality, it must be
found in the fact that the Highland chiefs had on their side agreed to
spare no captured enemy.</p>
<p>The battle has also left a name commonly given to the nine of diamonds,
which is called "the curse of Scotland," because it is said that on that
card Cumberland wrote his bloodthirsty order.</p>
<p>Such, in brief, was the story of Prince Charlie's gallant attempt to
restore the kingdom of his ancestors. Even when defeated, he would not at
once leave Scotland. A French squadron appeared off the coast near
Edinburgh. It had been sent to bring him troops and a large supply of
money, but he turned his back upon it and made his way into the Highlands
on foot, closely pursued by English soldiers and Lowland spies.</p>
<p>This part of his career is in reality the most romantic of all. He was
hunted closely, almost as by hounds. For weeks he had only such sleep as
he could snatch during short periods of safety, and there were times when
his pursuers came within an inch of capturing him. But never in his life
were his spirits so high.</p>
<p>It was a sort of life that he had never seen before, climbing the mighty
rocks, and listening to the thunder of the cataracts, among which he often
slept, with only one faithful follower to guard him. The story of his
escape is almost incredible, but he laughed and drank and rolled upon the
grass when he was free from care. He hobnobbed with the most
suspicious-looking caterans, with whom he drank the smoky brew of the
North, and lived as he might on fish and onions and bacon and wild fowl,
with an appetite such as he had never known at the luxurious court of
Versailles or St.-Germain.</p>
<p>After the battle of Culloden the prince would have been captured had not a
Scottish girl named Flora Macdonald met him, caused him to be dressed in
the clothes of her waiting-maid, and thus got him off to the Isle of Skye.</p>
<p>There for a time it was impossible to follow him; and there the two lived
almost alone together. Such a proximity could not fail to stir the
romantic feeling of one who was both a youth and a prince. On the other
hand, no thought of love-making seems to have entered Flora's mind. If,
however, we read Campbell's narrative very closely we can see that Prince
Charles made every advance consistent with a delicate remembrance of her
sex and services.</p>
<p>It seems to have been his thought that if she cared for him, then the two
might well love; and he gave her every chance to show him favor. The youth
of twenty-five and the girl of twenty-four roamed together in the long,
tufted grass or lay in the sunshine and looked out over the sea. The
prince would rest his head in her lap, and she would tumble his golden
hair with her slender fingers and sometimes clip off tresses which she
preserved to give to friends of hers as love-locks. But to the last he was
either too high or too low for her, according to her own modest thought.
He was a royal prince, the heir to a throne, or else he was a boy with
whom she might play quite fancy-free. A lover he could not be—so
pure and beautiful was her thought of him.</p>
<p>These were perhaps the most delightful days of all his life, as they were
a beautiful memory in hers. In time he returned to France and resumed his
place amid the intrigues that surrounded that other Stuart prince who
styled himself James III., and still kept up the appearance of a king in
exile. As he watched the artifice and the plotting of these make-believe
courtiers he may well have thought of his innocent companion of the
Highland wilds.</p>
<p>As for Flora, she was arrested and imprisoned for five months on English
vessels of war. After her release she was married, in 1750; and she and
her husband sailed for the American colonies just before the Revolution.
In that war Macdonald became a British officer and served against his
adopted countrymen. Perhaps because of this reason Flora returned alone to
Scotland, where she died at the age of sixty-eight.</p>
<p>The royal prince who would have given her his easy love lived a life of
far less dignity in the years that followed his return to France. There
was no more hope of recovering the English throne. For him there were left
only the idle and licentious diversions of such a court as that in which
his father lived.</p>
<p>At the death of James III., even this court was disintegrated, and Prince
Charles led a roving life under the title of Earl of Albany. In his
wanderings he met Louise Marie, the daughter of a German prince, Gustavus
Adolphus of Stolberg. She was only nineteen years of age when she first
felt the fascination that he still possessed; but it was an unhappy
marriage for the girl when she discovered that her husband was a confirmed
drunkard.</p>
<p>Not long after, in fact, she found her life with him so utterly
intolerable that she persuaded the Pope to allow her a formal separation.
The pontiff intrusted her to her husband's brother, Cardinal York, who
placed her in a convent and presently removed her to his own residence in
Rome.</p>
<p>Here begins another romance. She was often visited by Vittorio Alfieri,
the great Italian poet and dramatist. Alfieri was a man of wealth. In
early years he divided his time into alternate periods during which he
either studied hard in civil and canonical law, or was a constant
attendant upon the race-course, or rushed aimlessly all over Europe
without any object except to wear out the post-horses which he used in
relays over hundreds of miles of road. His life, indeed, was eccentric
almost to insanity; but when he had met the beautiful and lonely Countess
of Albany there came over him a striking change. She influenced him for
all that was good, and he used to say that he owed her all that was best
in his dramatic works.</p>
<p>Sixteen years after her marriage her royal husband died, a worn-out,
bloated wreck of one who had been as a youth a model of knightliness and
manhood. During his final years he had fallen to utter destitution, and
there was either a touch of half contempt or a feeling of remote kinship
in the act of George III., who bestowed upon the prince an annual pension
of four thousand pounds. It showed most plainly that England was now
consolidated under Hanoverian rule.</p>
<p>When Cardinal York died, in 1807, there was no Stuart left in the male
line; and the countess was the last to bear the royal Scottish name of
Albany.</p>
<p>After the prince's death his widow is said to have been married to
Alfieri, and for the rest of her life she lived in Florence, though
Alfieri died nearly twenty-one years before her.</p>
<p>Here we have seen a part of the romance which attaches itself to the name
of Stuart—in the chivalrous young prince, leading his Highlanders
against the bayonets of the British, lolling idly among the Hebrides, or
fallen, at the last, to be a drunkard and the husband of an unwilling
consort, who in her turn loved a famous poet. But it is this Stuart, after
all, of whom we think when we hear the bagpipes skirling "Over the Water
to Charlie" or "Wha'll be King but Charlie?"</p>
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