of
Hanover with Prussia for a headship of North Germany found expression in
the bitter hostility of George the Second to Frederick; and it was in
accord with George that Carteret had lent himself to the vengeance of
Austria on her most dangerous opponent. But the bulk of the Whigs
remained true to the policy of Walpole, while the entry of the Patriots
into the ministry had been on the condition that English interests
should be preferred to Hanoverian. It was to pave the way to an
accommodation with Frederick and a close of the war that the Pelhams
forced Carteret to resign. But it was long before the new system could
be brought to play, for the main attention of the new ministry had to be
given to the war in Flanders, where Marshal Saxe had established the
superiority of the French army by his defeat of the Duke of Cumberland.
Advancing to the relief of Tournay with a force of English, Hanoverians,
and Dutch--for Holland, however reluctantly, had at last been dragged
into the war, though by English subsidies--the Duke on the 31st of May
1745 found the French covered by a line of fortified villages and
redoubts with but a single narrow gap near the hamlet of Fontenoy. Into
this gap, however, the English troops, formed in a dense column,
doggedly thrust themselves in spite of a terrible fire; but at the
moment when the day seemed won the French guns, rapidly concentrated in
their front, tore the column in pieces and drove it back in a slow and
orderly retreat. The blow was followed up in June by a victory of
Frederick at Hohenfriedburg which drove the Austrians from Silesia, and
by the landing of a Stuart on the coast of Scotland at the close of
July.

[Sidenote: Charles Edward Stuart.]

The war with France had at once revived the hopes of the Jacobites; and
as early as 1744 Charles Edward, the grandson of James the Second, was
placed by the French Government at the head of a formidable armament.
But his plan of a descent on Scotland was defeated by a storm which
wrecked his fleet, and by the march of the French troops which had
sailed in it to the war in Flanders. In 1745 however the young
adventurer again embarked with but seven friends in a small vessel and
landed on a little island of the Hebrides. For three weeks he stood
almost alone; but on the 29th of August the clans rallied to his
standard in Glenfinnan, and Charles found himself at the head of fifteen
hundred men. His force swelled to an army as he marched t