efore rumors of anything like an accredited kind came to the Court of
St. James. The Highlands and islands of Scotland were then so far
removed from the great world of government that it had taken something
like half a year on one occasion before the dwellers in the stormy
Shetlands had learned that their sovereign, King William the Third, was
dead and buried; and in the years that had elapsed since William of
Orange passed away the means of communication between London and the
far north were little if at all better. Charles had actually raised
his standard and rallied clan after clan around him before the
Government in London could seriously believe that a Stuart in arms was
in the island. There were other and minor elements of success, too, to
be noted in the great game that the Stuart prince {210} was playing.
The Ministry was unpopular: the head of that Ministry was the imbecile
Duke of Newcastle, perhaps the most contemptible statesman who has ever
made high office ridiculous. The King was away in Hanover. England
was in the toils of a foreign war, and her prestige had lately suffered
heavily from the sudden defeat at Fontenoy. There were very few troops
in England to employ against an invasion, and the Scottish
commander-in-chief, Sir John Cope, whose name lives in unenviable fame
in the burden of many a Jacobite ballad, was as incapable a
well-meaning general as ever was called upon to face a great unexpected
emergency. It must be admitted that all these were excellent points in
the prince's favor, and that they counted for much in the conduct of
the campaign.

From the first, young Charles Stuart might well have come to regard
himself as the favorite of fortune. The history of the Forty-five
divides itself into two distinct parts: the first a triumphant record
of brilliant victories, and the picture of a young prince marching
through conquest after conquest to a crown; the second part prefaced by
a disastrous resolution, leading to overwhelming defeat, and ending in
ignominious flight and the extinction of the last Stuart hope. From
the moment when the Stuart standard fluttered its folds of white and
crimson on the Highland wind it seemed as if the Stuart luck had
turned. Charles might well conceive himself happy. Upon his sword sat
laurel victory. Smooth success was strewn before his feet. The
blundering and bewildered Cope actually allowed Charles and his army to
get past him. Cope was neither a