d confidentially, planning,
and for ever planning, that long-talked-of descent upon their lost
kingdom.

If his thoughts turned constantly to Britain, many hearts in that
country were thinking of him with anxious prayers and hopes. In England,
in out-of-the-way manor-houses and parsonages, old-fashioned,
high-church squires and clergymen still secretly toasted the exiled
family. But in the fifty years that had passed since the Revolution, men
had got used to peace and the blessings of a settled government.
Jacobitism in England was a sentiment, hereditary in certain Tory
families; it was not a passion to stir the hearts of the people and
engage them in civil strife. It was very different with the Scots. The
Stuarts were, after all, their old race of kings; once they were removed
and unfortunate, their tyranny was forgotten, and the old national
feeling centred round them. The pride of the people had suffered at the
Union (1707); the old Scots nobility felt that they had lost in
importance; the people resented the enforcement of new taxes. The
Presbyterians of the trading classes were Whigs; but the persecuted
Episcopalians and Catholics, with the mob of Edinburgh, were for 'the
auld Stuarts back again.' This feeling against the present Government
and attachment to the exiled family were especially strong among the
fierce and faithful people of the Highlands. Among families of
distinction, like the Camerons of Lochiel, the Oliphants of Gask, and
many others, Jacobitism formed part of the religion of gallant,
simple-minded gentlemen and of high-spirited, devoted women. In many a
sheiling and farmhouse old broadswords and muskets, well-hidden from the
keen eye of the Government soldiers, were carefully cherished against
the brave day when 'the king should have his own again.'

In 1744 that day seemed to have dawned to which Charles had all his life
been looking forward. France, at war with England, was preparing an
invasion of that country, and was glad enough to use the claims of the
Stuarts for her own purposes. A fleet was actually on the point of
starting, and Charles, in the highest spirits, was already on shipboard,
but the English admiral was alert. A storm worked havoc among the French
ships, and it suited the French Government to give up the expedition.
Desperate with disappointment, Charles proposed to his father's friend,
the exiled Lord Marischall, to sail for Scotland by himself in a
herring-boat, and was hu