oung Chevalier" by neutrals, "Prince of Wales" and "Prince Regent" by
his partisans, "Prince Edouard" by the French, "Ned" by his intimates,
as we read in letters of Oliphant of Gask, and "Prince Charlie" by later
generations, was born at Rome, December 31, 1720. His father was James
VIII., of Scotland, and III. of England, according to the Legitimist
theory; his foes called him "The Pretender," partly on the strength of
the old fable about the warming-pan, so useful to the Whigs. No sane
person now doubts the genuineness of James' descent from James II., but
the nickname of Pretender still sticks, though Boswell tells us that
George III. particularly disliked an appellation which "may be
parliamentary, but is not gentlemanly." James III., or the Chevalier de
St. George, was taken up by Louis XIV. on the death of James II., in
France. He is said to have displayed courage in several battles in
Flanders, but his attempt to assert his rights in 1715 was a melancholy
failure. James showed melancholy and want of confidence; he soon left
Scotland for the Continent, and the best that can be said for his
conduct is that he endeavored to compensate the peasants whose houses
were destroyed in the military operations of "the Fifteen." Unable to
reside in France, he retired to Rome, a pensioner of the Pope, and
entertained with royal honors. In 1719 he married Clementina Sobieski, a
granddaughter of the famous John Sobieski, who delivered Europe from the
Turks. Their eldest son, Prince Charles, appears to have inherited the
spirit and daring of his Polish ancestors, which animated him throughout
his youth, and were extinguished less by Culloden than by the treatment
which he received from the French court, by his imprisonment in
Vincennes in 1748, and by the unrelenting animosity of the English
Government, which made him a homeless exile living mysteriously in
hiding on the Continent. Heart-broken by these misfortunes and by other
disappointments, Charles developed an unreasoning and sullen obstinacy,
which alienated his adherents, while the habit of heavy drinking,
learned in his Highland distresses, ruined his head and heart, and
converted the most gallant, gay, and promising of princes into a brutal
dipsomaniac.

[Illustration: Prince Charles Stuart.]

The education of Charles was casual and interrupted. Now he was in the
hands of Protestants, now of Catholic governors and tutors, as the
advice of English adherents, or the wish