ed 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.

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.

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.

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.

"It is not with foreigners," he said, "but with my own loyal subjects,
that I wish to regain the kingdom for my father."

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.

We see Sir John Cope retiring at Falkirk, and the astonishing victory of
Prestonpans, where disciplined Brit