Stuarts

CHAPTER XV
THE CHEVALIER ST. GEORGE
N the i oth of June, 1688, was born "the most unfortunate of
Princes, destined to seventy-seven years of exile and wandering,
of vain projects, of honours more galling than insults, and of
hopes such as make the heart sick." The circumstances attending
his birth, and the suspicions excited thereby, have been alluded to in a previous
chapter, and we have seen the heir to the English throne taken, a child in
arms, across the Thames in the dead of a tempestuous winter's night, and
then across the Channel to find a shelter in a foreign land.
In looking upon the careers of the last three Stuarts who wielded any
real influence upon the history of their time, that is to say upon James II.,
the Old Chevalier, and Prince Charles Edward, the son of James II.
suffers by force of contrast, and is perforce relegated to a second place in
our interest, if not in our sympathies. It was not his lot to mount the
throne of his ancestors, only to quit it after a brief pursuit of that mistaken
policy into which bigotry and blindness led his father ; nor was it his fate
to be an object of passionate political loyalty, and the hero of the marvellous,
well-nigh incredible, adventures which make the earlier years of his son,
Prince Charles Edward, read like a chapter of romance.
It has been said of the Old Chevalier that he remained obscure because
he had no distinctive character. Probably full justice has not been done to
him. This is clearly the opinion of Mr. Andrew Lang, who says of the
melancholy James III. "he had a keen sense of honour, undeniable dignity,
and Christian stoicism."
If the son of James and Mary of Modena had not force of character
adequately to fulfil the expectations of his parents and adherents, it cannot be
said that the failures of his career were due to want of pains taken with his
rearing. When he was eight years of age a list of elaborate rules was drawn