become the chivalric
Surrey. Whatever were the fact, during the existence of Anne, the
payment of a dowry to Mary of Modena, the favourable understanding
between her son, as he grew up to man's estate, and the English Court,
the small reward offered for his apprehension, the conniving at the
daily enlistment of men in his service, and the indulgence shown to
those who openly spoke and preached against the Revolution, were certain
indications and ample proofs that had the Queen's life been prolonged,
some effectual steps would have been taken to efface from her memory the
recollection of her early failure of duty to King James, and to satisfy
the reproaches of her narrow, though conscientious mind. That such was
the fact, the declaration or manifesto of the Chevalier, dated from
Plombieres, August 2, 1714, and printed in French, English, and Latin,
attests; and the assertion was confirmed by a letter from the Duke of
Lorrain to the English Government. This favourable disposition on the
part of Anne proves that she gave no credence to the report of the
supposititious birth of the Prince; although, in her youthful days, and
when irritated against her step-mother, she had entered into the Court
gossip on that subject, with all the eagerness of a weak and credulous
mind.

Nourished in secret by these hopes, the Jacobites in England constituted
a far more important party than our historians are generally willing to
allow. The famous work entitled, "English Advice to the Freeholders of
Great Britain," supposed to be written by Bishop Atterbury, was
extensively circulated throughout the country: it tended to promote an
opposition cry of "the Church in danger!" by insinuating that the Whigs
projected the abolition of Episcopacy. It was received with great
enthusiasm; and was responded to with fervour by the University of
Oxford, which was inflamed with a zeal for the restoration of the
Stuarts; and which displayed much of the same ardour, and held forth the
same arguments that had stimulated that seat of learning in the days of
Charles the First. To these sentiments, the foreign birth, the foreign
language, and, above all, the foreign principles of the King added
considerable disgust: nor can it be a matter of surprise that such
should be the case. It appears, nevertheless, extraordinary that the
opposition to so strange an engrafting of a foreign ruler should not
have been received with greater public manifestations of dislike