Stuarts

INTRODUCTORY 5
chequered by gleams of sunshine, followed by the ever-deepening gloom of
imprisonment, and terminating in the darkness of death upon the scaffold.
The same may be said of her grandson, around whom tragic interest centres
beyond almost any other personage in our history. For many years before
the Civil War broke out, Charles doubtless enjoyed the delights of blameless
domestic life, of the collection of works of art, and of other pursuits congenial
to his refined tastes. To this tranquil time succeeds the stormy period of
the Rebellion, and the drama is closed at Whitehall on that memorable winter
morning of January 30, 1649. Again, the episodes of 171 5 and "the '45"
are not merely historical events of moment, but crises in the lives of all
concerned. In contrast to these days of storm and strife we have the
comparatively uneventful reign of James I. ; the period of reaction which may
be termed the dominant note of the twenty-five years of Charles II. ; the
times of William and Mary, when the foundations of constitutional liberty
were laid broad and sure ; and the Augustan age of Anne, memorable in the
peaceful annals of literature. I shall endeavour to group the principal characters
in these respective periods, and to bring the whole subject within the scope
of the divisions I have made by following chronological sequence ; thus we
shall be brought from the August morning on which Mary Stuart landed
in Scotland down to the fateful day of Culloden, when the Stuart cause was
lost for ever.