Stuarts

CHAPTER XVI
THE YOUNG CHEVALIER
Where hae ye been a' the day,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie?
Saw ye him that's far away,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ?
On his head a bonnet blue,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie ;
Tartan plaid and Highland trews,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie.— Jacobite Song.
HARLES Edward Louis Philip Casimir Stuart was born in
Rome on the last day of December 1720, and died in the
same city on January 31, 1788. With the blood of Mary
Stuart of Scotland, Charles I. of England, and John Sobieski
of Poland in his veins, the career of their descendant might reasonably
be expected to be somewhat out of the common, if heredity count for
anything ; nor were such expectations disappointed, but their fulfilment
took a form disastrous to all concerned. It cannot be doubted that many
of Charles Edward's misfortunes were due to his education. Jesuit priests,
Protestant tutors, and Jacobite soldiers all had a hand in it, and the result
was faulty and defective, as might have been foreseen. On the other hand,
his physical training was excellent, and we find him at the siege of Gaeta
under the Duke of Liria when only fourteen years old. Blanchet's portrait
of him as a youth in armour may represent him at about this time. He
spoke French and Italian well at an early age, and he had a taste for
music and fine arts, being, indeed, by no means deficient in ability. But, as
was the case with his forefathers, he was brought up in extreme notions of
the divine right of kings, and particularly of the Stuart house, which led to
disaster and to downfall, just as it did with his ancestors. The Old